Tag: Support
February 08, 2010 by
Jason
Microsoft has made available for download new resources associated with the underlining graphics technology in its Windows operating system, including the latest version of the operating system. Windows 7 brought to the table DirectX 11, a technology which was also backported to Windows Vista SP2 via the Platform Update for Windows Vista. No less than three downloads were made available at the end of the past week by the Redmond company: the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, the DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010), and DirectX Software Development Kit.
All three DirectX resources have been updated for the first time in 2010. “The Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime provides updates to 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX — the core Windows technology that drives high-speed multimedia and games on the PC,” Microsoft stated. DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010) is “the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, and English,” the company added.
The core of the DirectX February 2010 update is without a doubt the software development kit Microsoft is offering developers to streamline the building of DirectX compliant applications. The SDK package contains tools, utilities, samples, documentation, as well as the runtime debug files for 64-bit (x64) and (32-bit) x86 Windows. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | No Comments »
January 31, 2010 by
Jason Mobile phone users that own a Maemo-based handset from Nokia have now yet another reason to rejoice, as the final version of Firefox for their handsets has just emerged on the web. Following a long line of beta and release candidate flavors, now Firefox for Maemo 1.0 is here for them, providing an experience similar in many respects to the one that the desktop iteration of Firefox can deliver.
One of the main feature of the web browser is that it comes around with support for add-ons, something that no other solution offers to users. The add-ons enable any Maemo-based device owner to customize the browser via the over 40 add-ons that are already available for download on Mozilla’s website. Among them, we can count popular solutions like AdBlock Plus, URL Fixer, TwitterBar, language translators, or geo guides. The Add-ons Manager allows for an easy installation of such solutions, and Mozilla recommends for the YouTube Enabler add-on be installed.
The features that Firefox for mobile comes with to Maemo-based phones should be already familiar in a way to those who use the browser on their desktop computers:
Read More»
Posted in Firefox, Internet | No Comments »
January 28, 2010 by
Jason By all accounts, thanks to the boot performance of Windows 7, customers should be using the operating system in a matter of seconds since they fire up their computers. However, Microsoft itself has documented scenarios in which the startup of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is unexpectedly slow. According to the Redmond-based company, at fault is the dpi display setting of the monitor.
“Consider the following scenario: you have a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. This computer is connected to a high resolution monitor. On this computer, the default dpi display setting is set to a value other than 96 dpi. In this scenario, the computer has an unexpectedly slow startup time,” Microsoft explained.
The software giant does not specify what “unexpectedly slow startup times” actually mean. Microsoft only noted that the dpi display setting is the cause of slow boot times, and that the problem is persistent. “This issue may occur when the default dpi display setting in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 is set to a value other than 96 dpi for a high resolution monitor. In this scenario, the computer has an unexpectedly slow startup time after a change is made to the default dpi display setting. Then, the computer has an unexpectedly slow startup time every other time that the computer is started,” the company said. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
January 12, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft has informed users of the latest iteration of its Windows client that they might come across issues when running VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) applications on their computers. According to the Redmond company, audio playback and capture applications can hang when used in combination with Windows 7. The software giant revealed that applications performing audio playback and audio capture simultaneously were typically VoIP software. Windows 7 customers running VoIP solutions can often experience hands, Microsoft stated.
“WaveOut API on Windows 7 sometimes fails to process audio samples correctly when response of your audio device is slow,” the company explained. “There is a problem on how WaveOut API handles audio playback requests and audio capture requests submitted by your application.”
While the software giant has confirmed the issue and even identified the source of the problem, an update is not yet available to resolve the issue. At the same time, Microsoft is most likely not to release an update, but to allow affected customers to resolve the problems by applying a hotfix, rather than serving a refresh to all Windows 7 users. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
January 12, 2010 by
Jason
Windows 7 RTM can eat up some of the desktop shortcuts created by end users, Microsoft explained. Customers running the latest iteration of the Windows client have reported that in certain scenarios shortcuts that they placed on the desktop disappeared altogether. According to the Redmond company, this is expected, by design, behavior in Windows 7. At fault is the System Maintenance troubleshooter that will delete all shortcuts from the desktop as long as they are considered broken.
“The System Maintenance troubleshooter performs a weekly maintenance of the operating system. The System Maintenance troubleshooter either fixes problems automatically or reports problems through Action Center. When there are more than four broken shortcuts on the desktop, the System Maintenance troubleshooter automatically removes all broken shortcuts from the desktop,” Microsoft stated.
According to the software giant, the System Maintenance troubleshooter has a certain limit that triggers it to delete broken shortcuts. Microsoft informs that keeping the number of broken shortcuts on the desktop to no more than four ensures that they won’t be touched. But place five broken shortcuts on the Windows 7 desktop and they will be deleted. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
January 05, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft has made a fix available for an issue affecting Windows 7 customers that also use fingerprint biometric device and applications leveraging the Windows Biometric Framework. According to the Redmond company, in certain scenarios, namely on restart or when putting the Windows 7 machine to sleep or in hibernation, users can come across a stop error message. “This problem occurs because requests on the pipe to the device are not cleaned up or are canceled,” the software giant stated.
The Redmond company failed to mention the fingerprint biometric devices and the WBF apps that fail to play nice with Windows 7. However, the software giant has already taken the necessary measures to help customers deal with eventual problems.
A hotfix can be grabbed from Microsoft Support, and is available not just for customers running the latest iteration of Windows client, but also for those with Windows Server 2008 R2. However, as is the general care for hotfix releases, the company underlines that only users affected by the problem described below should download and deploy the hotfix.
“Consider the following scenario: You have a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. You connect a fingerprint biometric device to this computer. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
December 28, 2009 by
Jason It might look and feel like Windows XP, it might sport a similar graphical user interface and even be able to run XP software, but fact is that an operating system developed by Rain Forest Wind Guangdong Computer Technology Co., Ltd. is anything else but Windows Vista’s predecessor. Ylmf OS is designed as a Windows XP clone based on version 9.10 of the Ubuntu distribution of the Linux open source operating system.
The makers of Ylmf OS revealed that the Windows XP’s GUI was adopted in an effort to allow users of Microsoft’s proprietary platform to immediately start running Ubuntu Linux without needing to adapt to a new operating system.
An obvious downside to Ylmf OS is the fact that the release is Chinese only, at least at this point in time. Available for download localized exclusively in Chinese, Ylmf OS is bound to serve only users living in China and speaking the local language. No indications were offered by the team behind the project of future releases or support for additional languages. According to third-party reports, the people building Ylmf OS are in fact a group of Chinese pirates that were previously distributing a pirated copy of Windows XP, and which were tackled by the local authorities and Microsoft. Read More»
Posted in Linux, Windows XP | No Comments »
November 27, 2009 by
Jason For the development process of Windows 7, Microsoft has worked closely with hardware manufacturers in order to ensure seamless compatibility and support for the latest iteration of the Windows client. This strategy has put Windows 7 light years away from Windows Vista in terms of incompatibility issues, but still, there are exceptions “designed” to confirm the rule. According to Microsoft, there are users that experienced failures when upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 because of an Intel storage driver.
The Redmond company noted that the upgrade process would fail with the following error message: “\$windows.~bt\windows\system32\drivers\iastor.sys. Status: 0xc0000359. Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing or corrupt.” The machine would subsequently be rolled back to Vista. At fault for the error message and failed upgrades are incorrect versions of the iastor that are referenced during the move to Windows 7.
Microsoft hasn’t produced an update or a hotfix designed to resolve this particular issue. Users affected by this specific problem will have to manually resolve it in order to be able to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Fortunately enough, the Redmond company did detail the necessary steps in KB 2008373. You will be able to find them included bellow. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7, Windows Vista | No Comments »
November 24, 2009 by
Jason
There’s no disputing over the fact that Windows 7 brings a consistent overhaul of the graphical user interface that has become synonymous with the Windows operating system. One critical aspect of the Windows 7 GUI redesign is the revamping of the Taskbar, which is now affectionately referred to in some circles as the Superbar. Microsoft aimed to deliver a more user-friendly design, less crowded, less redundant. In this regard, the Superbar comes with an evolved mechanism to deal with pinned items and opened programs, new functionality such as Thumbnail Previews and JumpList, with an upgraded Notifications Area, and without Quick Launch.
Now in all fairness, the Superbar has inherited all the functionality of the Quick Launch area. In this sense, users can now pin program icons right to the Taskbar, essentially making Quick Launch useless. However, there will always be users that enjoy a tad of redundancy. Especially for these types of customers, Microsoft has documented the steps necessary to bring back Quick Launch for the Windows 7 Taskbar.
Customers must understand that the disappearance of the Quick launch area from Windows 7 is default behavior and a part of the Windows GUI evolution. As far as I’m concerned, customers should first off all give the Superbar a chance, as they will notice they have no reasons at all to miss Quick Launch. But if the new Windows 7 Taskbar simply doesn’t cut it for them, then they will be able to bring back Quick Launch even in Windows 7 RTM, following the steps outlined below, courtesy of Microsoft. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
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