Tag: knowledge
October 14, 2009 by
Jason
Keeping Windows 7 and Windows Vista running under normal parameters takes much more work than is done in Redmond alone. Fact is that the ecosystems of software and hardware products designed to integrate with the Windows clients have to do this seamlessly, especially when dealing with solutions that hook into the core of the operating system. Driver update failures for example, can easily cripple Windows 7 and Windows Vista, causing the two platforms to no longer start.
“This problem may occur if any one of the following conditions is true: The new device or the driver causes conflicts with other drivers that are installed on the computer. A hardware-specific issue occurs. The driver that is installed is damaged,” Microsoft explained.
In case you performed a driver update for a device component of your computer and Windows 7 and Vista are acting up, then your best choice to resolve the matter is to roll back the changes. Reverting the driver update will cause the issues introduced by the refresh to go away. First you will need to boot into Windows.
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Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
September 02, 2009 by
Jason Customers testing the virtualization extensions of Windows 7, namely Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode have been experiencing performance problems in scenarios in which sharing folders are enabled. Ben Armstrong, Program manager on the core virtualization team at Microsoft, revealed that the issues reported are connected with the latest development milestone of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode, namely the Release Candidate Builds. Fortunately enough, a hotfix is already available from the software giant.
“A number of users have seen performance issues using shared folders / having shared folders enabled with Windows XP Mode on the RC release of Windows Virtual PC. This can be addressed by installing this hotfix inside the virtual machine. Please note – this hotfix is for Windows XP and is installed inside the virtual machine, not in the host operating system,” Armstrong noted.
Knowledge Base Article 972435 doesn’t mention Windows XP Mode, a Windows 7 feature, which is available as a standalone download. However, the resources designed to help customers resolve “slow performance when you try to open a redirected drive on a remote computer through a Terminal Services session” applies to Windows XP Professional. And Windows XP Mode is indeed based on a free and pre-activated copy of Windows XP that is available for Windows 7. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | 2 Comments »
To uninstall Windows 7, you must determine your specific installation scenario from the scenarios that are listed in this section, and then follow the steps for that scenario.
Scenario 1: You installed Windows 7 on a Windows-based computer
You installed a version of Windows 7 as a new installation over Windows XP, Windows Vista, or another version of Windows 7. You used the Windows 7 installation media to install Windows 7 to the same hard disk drive as the original operating system.
In this scenario, the Windows 7 installation will have created a Windows.old folder that contains your previous operating system and personal files. This Windows.old folder is in the root of the Windows partition. To revert to this previous operating system, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
971760 How to restore a Windows 7-based computer to a previous Windows installation by using the Windows.old folder.
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Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
Windows Vista Service Pack 3 gets its first hotfix from Microsoft. Yes, Service Pack 3, and yes, the error lies with Microsoft. The Redmond company is offering a hotfix designed to fix Event Viewer crashes associated with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 opening large event log files and attempting to sort log entries by a single column. But when it comes down to actually downloading the fix, the software giant offers it for the 32-bit, 64-bit and Itanium flavors of Windows Vista SP3. It is highly improbable that at this point in time Microsoft has debuted testing of Vista SP3 bits, and in this regard, the SP3 references are nothing more than an error. (via Neowin)
The Redmond company has recently wrapped up the code for Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista. The SP2 RTM bits are so “fresh” that they haven’t yet been served to Vista users, and Microsoft only pointed to the second quarter of 2009 for the availability of the second service pack for Vista, while not offering any specific deadline. The Redmond company announced that it had released Vista SP2 to manufacturing on April 28, 2009. MSDN and TechNet subscribers already got access to SP2 RTM, and the bits have even been leaked in the wild. Still, the public will only get Vista SP2 in Q2 2009. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
September 21, 2008 by
Jason
Normally, the blue screen of death contains a driver name, and some addresses; if you’re lucky, removing that driver will do the trick. But what if there is no driver name on the BSoD? And what if you don’t have all the skills to play with crashdumps and debuggers?
In this case, Autoruns comes to the rescue. This is a graphical tool that allows you to disable/enable drivers in a very easy way.
The strategy:
1. Boot into safe mode (since the system is crashing when you attempt to boot normally);
2. Start Autoruns, and switch to the Drivers tab;
3. Go through the list, and uncheck the drivers that are suspicious;
4. Close the program, restart and boot normally
The steps above will be repeated until the system is able to boot correctly.
When that happens, remember what were the last changes you applied, and try to enable some drivers back – until you figure out which one of them was causing the issue. Read More»
Posted in Computer | No Comments »
Desktops 1.0 from Sysinternals is designed to kick the flexibility of the Windows desktop up a notch. The solution to an overcrowded working space has always been simple, and Microsoft is by no means reinventing the wheel. What the Sysinternals utility will do, is allow the end users to stretch across no less than four desktops, delivering much precious real estate area. Users will subsequently be able to jump between desktops using either keyboard shortcuts or the tray icon.
“Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys,” reads the tool’s description.
Of course that Desktops 1.0 can be downloaded to the desktop and integrated with the operating system. Or it can be run remotely via Live.Sysinternals.com. The tool will integrate seamlessly with both Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3. In addition to Desktops 1.0, which went live on August 21, Microsoft has also updated AutoRuns for Windows which has now reached version 9.33. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
After days of tweaking my new Firefox 3.0, I found out that one so-called top new features of Firefox is not so pleasing Smart Location Bar or the Awesome Bar.
The Smart Location Bar is just too “smart” to an extent that it saves my viewed browsing history without my knowledge! The auto complete feature is fine with me but I would still prefer the old Firefox 2.0 way in handling my addresses. I tried to disable this “smart” option via the Option menu but there is no direct way to do it. So, I have to do it the indirect way via about:config or with a help of an extension.
OK, here is how:
Remove only bookmarks results from the list
To to this, you can just use Hide Unvisited extension to get the job done. What Hide Unvisited does is hide bookmarks that you haven’t visited from showing in the Awesome Bar. Read More»
Posted in Firefox | 2 Comments »
If you’re tired of the slow downs and errors of Internet Explorer, then maybe it’s time to try something new, perhaps safer and more efficient. It’s a free web browser called Mozilla Firefox. It’s a good idea to have more than one web browser anyway; so why not give this one a try?
Necessary Things: Computer with Internet access, Brief downloading knowledge, Access to Mozilla Firefox’s website
1. Go to the website listed below in the Resources section (http://www.mozilla.com).
2. Once there, click the large button on the screen labeled “download Firefox–free.” Then wait for the download to begin. A dialog box then appears that asks “would you like to save this file?” Click the “save file” button on the left. Read More»
Posted in Firefox, Internet | No Comments »
These days, security becomes a problem to more and more people. I am not talking about terrorism as we all know it, but you can consider this a form of terrorism too, because computer viruses are surely a tool of terror. Why do I say this? Well, the less you know about computer security, the more likely you’ll get frightened when your antivirus will detect “something,” or when your operating system will display error messages. Since knowledge is power, today I’ll provide you some valuable computer security advice, because that’s what you need, before anything else.
While most of you are probably using Windows, most of these tips apply to other operating systems, and some of them are also useful in real life situations, like interacting with people your don’t know if you can trust or not. All right, these being said, let’s see today’s 10 security tips, shall we? Read More»
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
1. System Start-up packed with too many applications (Start-up overload)
Over time, as you add more and more programs to your computer, many of these applications automatically add themselves to your Windows Start-up folder. Additionally, these applications can add themselves quietly to a hidden area of your Windows Start-up system (accessed via the MSCONFIG run command). In extreme cases your PC will appear completely frozen.
Limiting the number of applications loading themselves at start-up can speed boot times considerably and increase overall system performance. Read More»
Posted in Computer | 3 Comments »
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