Fixing Windows Vista 3 - Top Troubleshooting Tools
Do you think Windows Vista is slow, crash-prone, or unreliable? Join the crowd. Over the past year, reviews of Windows Vista by mainstream media outlets, the technical press, bloggers, and ordinary users have been, for the most part, scathing.
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7.5.2008 Xbox 360 Crashing Like Mad? + Screenshots
From Xbox-Scene.com:
Jsgongwon, one of our forum members, reported that his newly bought Xbox 360 keeps crashing while playing Project Gotham Racing 3 in single player mode.
He's playing with the default settings, and apparently his Xbox crashes even before the end of the first lap. Crashes on Xbox Live and on startup occur too. He included screenshots of the crashed Xbox 360 and a video of the crash.
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23.11.2005 How to Install Vista Language Packs MUI on all versions of Vista + video tutorial
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business versions of the Microsoft licensing restrictions can only preserve a language!
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23.9.2008 The Vista Built-in Super Administrator Account Has Survived in Vista SP1
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is designed to evolve the RTM version of the latest Windows client from Microsoft, made available in November 2006 to business customers, and in January 2007 to the general consumers.
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15.2.2008 Vista SP1 Is Out, XP SP3 Old News, the Pink Edition of Vista Is In
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is now nothing more than water under the bridge, now that the service pack was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, shipping to general users on March 18.
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27.3.2008 Tell Hasta la Vista to XP - Time to Upgrade to Vista SP1
Like it or not, this is the right time not only to upgrade to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 but also to tell hasta la vista to Windows XP.
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30.6.2008 Instant Change Vista Product ID with Vista ProductID Changer
In past we have reviewed number of application to recover product key like Product Key Finder, WinGuggle, Windows product Key Finder.
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1.11.2009 Vista SP1 RC1 Flies Past Vista RTM and Windows XP SP2
Despite the fact that Microsoft has expressed its official position regarding testing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 ahead of its finalization, there is simply too much of a hunger for the service pack.
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27.12.2007 Vista SP1 Won't Resolve the 4 GB RAM Limitation of 32-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows operating systems, and Windows Vista makes no exception whatsoever to this rule, are limited in terms of the amount of system memory that can be addressed to no more than 4 GB.
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4.1.2008 Vista Loader 2.1.3 - Windows Vista Activator 2008 Support SP1 with No Boot String
Vista Loader is one of the most successful Vista activation crack available to date, second only to physical modify (hardmod) the BIOS to include SLIC table to make BIOS Vista activation-compliant.
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15.5.2008 x64 Vista SP2 JPG Rendering Performance Inferior to x86 Vista SP2's
The JPG rendering process on 64-bit flavors of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is inferior to that on the 32-bit variants of the operating system.
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10.6.2009 Microsoft to Kill the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS Windows Vista Cracks with Vista SP1
With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system.
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4.12.2007 New Vista OEM Activation Hack - Vista Boot by gkend
Thanks to Steve Jobs for this article on his blog and to our forum members to clecha, Nighthief and fitterphil120 for most of the findings. One again the “Chinese” come up with a new method to trick out the Vista Activation. We have seen Softmode and VistaLoader, however “ Vista Boot by gkend” does promise even more.
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21.5.2007 Windows Vista on Super Nintendo, As Real As Vista on PSP
We're puzzled and confused... How can a console that's at least ten times less powerful than the acclaimed PSP cope with Windows Vista's requirements?
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15.8.2007 Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1 - Office 2007 benchmarking
Enough with benchmarking the OS - let’s see if Office 2007 is any faster on Vista SP1.
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26.2.2008 Microsoft Says Vista SP1 Needs to Speak the Same Language as Vista RTM
Microsoft says that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 needs to speak the same language as the RTM version of the latest Windows client. Otherwise there's no game.
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2.4.2008 Vista SP1 to Cure the Vista RTM Wow Hangover
When Windows Vista was unleashed in January 31, 2008, Microsoft was promising performance, security, innovation, all wrapped up under an umbrella of a Wow user experience.
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11.4.2008 Vista-For-Free coupon with Vista ready PC's
Microsoft and the world's leading PC vendors have reached an agreement to promote the long-awaited Vista OS by offering PC buyers worldwide a free upgrade coupon, as a way of encouraging them to buy a Vista-capable PC as early as possible, according to market sources, citing information leaked from Taiwan-based PC makers.
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11.10.2006 Can Vista SP1 help polish Vista’s tarnished image?
Call it complaining. Call it whining. The end result is the same: Windows Vista’s image is tarnished. And it’s corroding more and more rapidly as the weeks are going on. Thanks to pacpis for this news.
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21.8.2007 Vista SP1 Features the Same Sins as Windows Vista
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 comes with the same sins as Windows Vista. The service pack is not even out the door, and is already putting users at risk.
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16.1.2008 Will Vista SP1 Go Where Vista Never Went? Even with XP SP3 and Windows 7?
Throughout 2007, it became painfully clear to Microsoft that the main competitor for Windows Vista was not Apple's Mac OS X or even the open source Linux operating system but Windows XP, and, in fact, specifically XP SP2.
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1.3.2008 New Vista AutoPatcher - Vista update toolkit Alpha
Vista Update Toolkit Alpha (Windows Vista Updates Downloader) is a FREE program which downloads updates directly from Microsoft. All files are very useful with vLite!
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26.9.2008 Vista SP1 – Microsoft Could Not Have Given Less – Vista SP2 Anyone?
Microsoft had the chance to position the first service pack for Windows Vista as a panacea for the operating system, giving the platform nothing less than a fresh start and another take at the Wow.
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3.10.2007 Vista SP1 Rolling Over for Vista SP2
Vista SP1 did not do the trick for your RTM copy of the operating system? While such a scenario is highly unlikely, Microsoft is getting closer and closer to taking Windows Vista to the next level, again.
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7.12.2008 Vista SP1: Indictment of Vista 1.0?
Microsoft’s announcement that it is preparing a Vista Service Pack 1 beta in two weeks is curious on many levels. Although Microsoft delivers improvements via service packs I can’t help but consider Vista SP1 a do-over.
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30.8.2007 Vista RTM vs. Vista SP2
We are all well aware of the limping start of Vista on the OS market. Despite the fact that its launch had been highly anticipated for a good while, contrary to all Microsoft expectations, Vista was received with great reluctance and unwillingness on the part of XP fans.
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13.12.2008 Microsoft: Vista! Vista! Vista!
Microsoft has a single generalized answer to all life's problems, but especially end user protection, and that answer is of course Windows Vista.
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14.8.2007 Windows XP SP3 Twice as Fast as Windows Vista – Leaves Vista SP1 in the Dust
Forget about Windows Vista. And forget about Windows Vista SP1. Microsoft's latest Windows client has been quite sluggish to begin with. This in both consumer adoption and in terms of the performance it delivers.
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27.11.2007 Windows Vista Wow! Forget about Vista SP1, XP SP3 and Windows 7!
That's it, forget about Windows XP Service Pack 3, about Windows 7, the next iteration of Windows and even about Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
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1.2.2008 PC buyers: 'Vista Capable' machines weren't Vista capable
How misleading was Microsoft's "Windows Vista Capable" campaign? Misleading enough for a judge to approve a federal trial.
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9.8.2007More Mysteries of the Win32 MessageBox Bug Revealed
Continued tests by BetaNews on
the form of the Win32 API
message box call discovered
two weeks ago, capable of
crashing Microsoft Windows
Vista as well as earlier
versions, indicates that while
the executable code remains a
problem, its capacity for
damage to Windows computers
may be limited to merely
crashing the system...
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03.01.2007Crash course on authoring Windows 7 Troubleshooting Packs
New to Windows 7 is the Windows Troubleshooting platform. This platform allows software developers to develop Troubleshooting Packs that automate the
troubleshooting and resolution of problems without having to resort to painful technical support queues or documentation runs. In a nut shell, a
software developer writes a bunch of PowerShell scripts to identify and resolve problems then packages them up and distributes the pack to
end-users.
At the end of this step-driven course, you will have used the Microsoft Troubleshooting Pack Builder (TSPBuilder),
written some PowerShell scripts, and learned of a way to distribute your compiled pack
(hopefully).
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12.01.2009SQM Client Causing Crashing in Windows 7
Many users have started experiencing random crashing of explorer and msiexec.exe when trying to start Windows Update or install anything that uses an
MSI based installer. This issue is bad enough that some people have even formatted because of it, only to have it come back again...
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19.01.2009Windows 7 to revolutionize PC troubleshooting
If the sound of helping family friends troubleshoot their computer problems makes you weep, then you have one more thing to look forward to in Windows
7. No, it wont help novice users find that obscure śanyť key, but Windows 7 will actually diagnose and fix many of its critical components as part of
the new śWindows Troubleshootingť functionality.
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06.11.2008Troubleshooting tool for Java offered
Sun on Tuesday announced availability of Java VisualVM, an open-source GUI tool for troubleshooting and profiling Java applications. Users can view
detailed information about Java applications while they are running on a JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Billed as an all-in-one troubleshooting tool,
VisualVM integrates several command line JDK (Java Development Kit) tools and profiling capabilities. It enhances monitoring and performance analysis,
according to Sun.
"After eight months of frantic development since VisualVM Preview 1 was released, I'm happy to announce the general
availability of JDK 6 Update 7 Java VisualVM and VisualVM 1.0," said Luis-Miguel Alventosa, a Sun senior software engineer, in a blog. Offered as
part of Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) Update 7, Java VisualVM provides a visual diagnostic tool for development and production environments. It
includes such technologies as jvmstat, which provides lightweight performance and configuration instrumentation to the HotSpot JVM, as well as Java
Management Extensions and the NetBeans profiler.
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09.07.2008Troubleshooting KMS Activation - Part 1, the client
Windows activation is simple and straightforward if you understand the components. I have had a few customers that stumbled when getting a KMS online
and in every case it has been an issue with name resolution, network connectivity, or they simply did not understand how to use the keys.
Activation is designed to help you with deployments and sustain your environment even in the event a key gets lost. KMS is the simplest
of all the activation methods because you only need to worry about putting a key in one machine. You can then deploy new machines without having to
ever worry about keys unless your device will be off the network for more than 6 months.
This is the first of a two part series
to break down KMS troubleshooting in to a process that should help identify exactly what is at fault. I don't want to mislead or instill fear to
those who are just starting out - the process is normally simple by design. However, for those who have run in to trouble, I'd like to publish a
guide that will help you isolate and correct the issue you've encountered without spinning your wheels. Part 2 will be published next week with a
focus on troubleshooting the server.
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08.10.2007An Overview of Troubleshooting Memory Issues - Part Two
In our
last
post, we looked at some common memory issues and how to troubleshoot them. Today we're going to go over excessive paging and memory
bottlenecks.
We've talked about issues with the page file in several posts - something to bear in mind is that although you want
to have enough RAM to prevent excessive paging, the aim should not be to try to prevent paging activity completely. Some page fault behavior is
inevitable - for example when a process is first initialized. Modified virtual pages in memory have to be updated on the disk eventually, so there
will be some amount of Page Writes /sec. However, when there is not enough RAM installed, there are two issues in particular that you may see - too
many page faults, and disk contention.
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29.01.2008Device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate
After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, Ive finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA -- something as small as swapping the video card
or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little
notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you cant do anything but use the web browser for half an
hour. Youll then need to reapply to Microsoft to get a new activation code.
Read full story.....
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24.10.2007IIS: Troubleshooting High CPU performance issues - Part 1
One of the types of performance problems that can occur with IIS web applications is when the process hosting the web application (in IIS6 in Worker
Process Isolation Mode it is w3wp.exe) spins up the CPU utilization of the server. Usually this is associated with end users experiencing a long
period of waiting for the web content to be displayed in their web browsers. This scenario is generally referred to as a "high CPU hang".
Troubleshooting high CPU hang problems can be done with two tools: Performance Monitor, and a debugger. We use Performance Monitor to get
a 'perfmon' log of the high cpu behavior, and we use the debugger to get a hang dump of the process that is spiking the cpu. Then we analyze the
info in the perfmon log and associate it with the info in the debug dump file. Debugging user-mode dumps is a whole topic in and of itself which I
won't cover in depth here. Instead the emphasis here is on getting the right data at the right time to actually analyse. In Part 2 of this topic
I'll go through a sample analysis of a high CPU scenario.
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07.12.2007Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering Public Content
Here is a listing of the public content currently available on the Microsoft site for Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering. Of particular note is
the new troubleshooting information which contains a listing of common error messages you may run into and some recommended troubleshooting steps you
can take before ever having to consult with a Microsoft Support Professional. Look these over and let us know what you think. There will be more
content posted in the future as we make our way towards RTM. Thanks for trying out the new and improved clustering technologies in Windows Server
2008.
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19.12.2007NVIDIA Drivers Crash Vista
Were you one of the many early Vista adopters who experienced crashing? Well don't go out and point your finger at Microsoft just yet. A recent study
has shown that nearly 30% of Vista crashes(28.8% to be exact) in 2007 were due to NVIDIA drivers. That is an estimated 479,326 systems crashed due to
the drivers.
Microsoft crashes came in second place with 17.9%. While NVIDIA's competitor; ATI, came in fourth in the single
digits with only 9.3%. This is really going go pressure Intel because they have to support the incompatible chipsets. Hopefully in the near future we
can see some improvement on the drivers compatibility.
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29.03.2008Jobs: Fix for crashing iPhone apps bug en route
Apple is apparently set to release a fix for an issue which is locking some iPhone users out of their installed third-party applications...
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21.08.2008WARNING: device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate
After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA -- something as small as swapping the video
card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with
very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half
an hour.
You'll then need to reapply to Microsoft to get a new activation code.
How can this crazy
situation occur? Read on for the sorry tale.
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23.10.2007Unofficial fix issued for Vista networking flaw
A system-crashing bug with potential malware implications has been uncovered in Vista. But a fix for the vulnerability, which revolves around flaws in
the operating system's network stack, may have to wait until the next service pack.
The TCP/IP stack buffer overflow was
discovered by security researchers at Austrian firewall firm Phion in October. Details of the flaw, which also creates a potential mechanism to inject
hostile code into vulnerable systems, were disclosed in a posting to BugTraq on Friday.
The vulnerability affects Enterprise and
Ultimate versions of Vista in both 32 and 64 bit flavours of the operating system. XP is immune. Phion has published a workaround in the absence of a
fix from Microsoft itself...
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25.11.2008Microsoft suspends auto update of Vista SP1 prerequisite
Yesterday Microsoft suspended automatic installations of
KB937287, a
servicing stack update required prior to installing Windows Vista SP1 and marked important.
Nick White made the announcement on the Windows
Vista Team Blog, in which he stated: "Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic
distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible causes." according to White, only a small amount of
customers are affected and only in unique circumstances, he also went on to say that Microsoft are working to identify possible solutions and will
make the update available again shortly after the issue has been addressed.
Microsoft has advised anyone who is affected by the issue to
use System Restore or contact 1-866-PC-Safety for help troubleshooting.
Read full story.....
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20.02.2008Fixing Windows Vista, Part 3: Top Troubleshooting Tools
Ed Bott: Do you think Windows Vista is slow, crash-prone, or unreliable? Join the crowd.
Over the past year, reviews of Windows
Vista by mainstream media outlets, the technical press, bloggers, and ordinary users have been, for the most part, scathing. And many of those bad
reviews were absolutely accurate. My co-authors and I just completed an extensive
post-Service Pack 1
revision of our book Windows Vista Inside Out. Over the past year, we installed, upgraded, and used Windows Vista on a broad
cross-section of hardware designs from nearly a dozen manufacturers. During that time, we experienced some of those same performance, reliability, and
compatibility issues ourselves. What we found was simple: With a clean install on well-supported hardware, everything worked just fine. But toss in an
incompatible application or a flaky video, storage, or network driver, and performance could suffer. Badly.
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07.05.2008How to identify a buggy device driver on Windows Vista
If your computer is acting unpredictably, locking up, and encountering blue screens of death, then youre most likely the victim of a faulty driver.
The Driver Verifier Manager (DFV) is a great tool for troubleshooting driver problems by identifying the troubling driver. Although DFV does not
actually fix the driver, it still is a really useful tool because it helps you identify the troubling driver so you can choose to delete or update the
driver.
Before you attempt to use this tool, please be sure that your are really having driver problems. The tool will prevent
your computer from starting by identifying the troubling driver. I say this only because it may be a lengthy process for you but if you are
having troubles, it will definitely be worth it.
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18.02.2008Microsoft: We can Fix that for you
Microsoft Windows operating systems like Windows XP and Windows Vista provide troubleshooting options for errors that occur in your PC and sometimes
provide a link which can have a solution for that error. But finding a proper fix has always been a difficult task for many. Sometimes we may think
why can't Microsoft fix this for me? The Fix-it teams' purpose is to help users fix their problems in a click of a button. The Microsoft KB
articles and the Windows Error Reporting are now fix-it enabled with a list of steps that can be followed to resolve the issue.
Read full story.....
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03.01.2009Something New when Uninstalling Drivers and Devices on Windows Vista
Chris Mu: Today, I'd like to share a background story about a KB article that describe a interesting behavior in Windows Vista that is different with
previous OS. Maybe it is not the most important or highest impacted issue occurs in Windows Vista, but I think it will impact some of you when you are
troubleshooting for your firendes/family... OK, let go through this issue.
This issue is about re-install network adapter in
Windows Vista and the KB article for this issue will be KB945399 and published in a few days. The issue can be reproduced in many computer models and
you will encounter it when you uninstall a network adapter device using Device Manager. Maybe you have to troubleshoot whether the network adapter
driver installed is right to troubleshoot OS network issue. Therefore, after uninstall the adapter, you may try to install another driver for the
device ... Everything works fine in Windows XP/Server 2003 and so on. However, when you try to do same action in Windows Vista, the popular OS
nowadays, you will see soon after the uninstall process completes, PnP detects the network adapter as a new device and automatically installs the
device and drivers. Instead, in Windows XP, only after you click to scan hardware change, the PnP will detect the network adapter and install the
driver.
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21.01.2008The Vista wow becomes a whisper
I wasn’t
a big fan of the “Wow” campaign around Windows Vista. But its
newest incarnation
“100
Reasons Why Everyone’s So Speechless” might be even worse.
The new site lists 100 reasons users should take a
closer look at Windows Vista. No. 1 is “It makes using your PC a breeze.” No. 100 is “Because your network is the backbone of your
business (Network Diagnostics and Troubleshooting).”
Seeing Windows Vista for the first time may leave you searching for words.
Many people just say ‘Wow.’ Here are 100 reasons why,” the site says.
When Microsoft launched Windows Vista in
January, execs knew they needed a succinct way to explain why users should upgrade to the new OS. Not a list of 50 reasons. But something that would
roll off the tongue of salesclerks and PC makers in a 30-second pitch.
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22.10.2007
