Black Screen of Death for XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Upgrades
Microsoft has warned end users that performing Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 upgrades from copies of XP SP2 and Vista RTM, respectively, that have Onekey Recovery 5.0 installed will cause the operating systems to display a black screen following reboot.
download -
comments -
9.8.2008 At the Roots of Windows Blue Screen of Death
Unfortunately for Microsoft, one of the aspects of its proprietary operating system that has grown to become associated by default with the Windows brand is the Blue Screen of Death. BSOD, for short, is the result of a critical system error that will stop the operating system dead in its tracks and lead to a reboot.
windows -
comments -
17.7.2008 Microsoft: Vista's 'Black Screen of Death' Is a Hoax
Many other news sites have just picked up the original article believing that it's legit. We have already updated our original post from last night and are posting the following to correct any disinformation out there.
windows -
comments -
12.9.2007 Windows 7 RTM Black Screen of Death after Forced Shutdown Actions
Microsoft has informed users of an issue that prevents Windows 7 from starting after the computer the OS is installed on has been forced shut down.
windows -
comments -
7.10.2009 Vista SP1 Application Compatibility Update Fixes Black Screens of Death
With the release of the gold version of Service Pack 1, but also with the maturing of the software and hardware environment orbiting around the Windows client, Windows Vista's compatibility level has continually increased.
download -
comments -
14.8.2008 From XP SP3 and Vista SP1 to Windows 7 - the Slow Death of 32-bit Windows
Moving onward from Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7, Microsoft is gearing up for the death of 32-bit versions of the Windows client. On the server-side, Window's transition to 64-bit only architectures is almost complete, with Windows Server 2008 being the last server operating system from Microsoft with support for 32-bit CPUs.
windows -
comments -
31.7.2008 Login with Live!
Microsoft today came a step closer to replacing their old .NET Passport system with the launch of the new Live.com login.
microsoft -
comments -
29.4.2006 How to login to an expired Windows
Microsoft has a neat little way to prevent software piracy of their Windows operating system.
windows -
comments -
14.12.2006 Firefox, IE vulnerable to fake login pages?
Mozilla's Firefox 2 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 are vulnerable to a flaw that could allow attackers to steal passwords.
common -
comments -
23.11.2006 Easily Login to Windows XP with No Password Administrator Account Backdoor Trick
In password-protected Windows XP Home or Professional edition system, each user logs on to his or her own user name and password to have full access to the Windows computer.
windows -
comments -
25.11.2006 PC login Now - How To Change a Windows XP Limited User Account Into a Computer Administrator
One of the place that I work at has a few hundreds of computers and it is shared by students.
windows -
comments -
12.7.2008 New Vista Screen Shots Hit the Web
ActiveWin has posted some
new Windows Vista screen shots of Build 5268, which is the "Interim OEM build," according to the site. We are still hearing that
5270 is what will be designated as the December Windows Vista Community Technology Preview (CTP) build, however.
windows -
comments -
19.12.2005 How to Change Windows Vista Boot Screen
Some of you remember how it was possible to change the boot logo screen of Windows 95/98. I'm not sure why anyone would go into the trouble of actually doing it, but it seems that it is possible to do the same for Windows Vista.
windows -
comments -
19.11.2007 High quality image Vista boot screen
Some people found a way to change that black boot screen of Windows Vista RTM to a high quality one, the one that was supposed to be in before it was cut from the final version.
download -
comments -
19.11.2006 Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates
Microsoft Windows' infamous "blue screen of death" has become synonymous with an operating system crash or freeze, but that's nothing compared with what users of pirated copies of Vista worldwide can expect from now -- a black screen of darkness.
windows -
comments -
12.9.2007 The death of Wikipedia?
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit," was a nice experiment in the "democratization" of publishing, but it didn't quite work out. Wikipedia is dead. It died the way the pure products of idealism always do, slowly and quietly and largely in secret, through the corrosive process of compromise.
common -
comments -
25.5.2006 Enable New Boot screen in Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2
Tired of the pathetic boot screen in current Vista builds? There is a new trick that will allow you to see what may be the new boot screen for Windows Vista.
windows -
comments -
12.5.2006 Death of the apps installer?
One of the great bugbears for developers is the issue of fitting their splendid new applications code to the requirements demanded by applications installers. But could this be about to disappear as a problem? According to David Greschler, co-founder and VP of corporate marketing with Softricity, the answer is a soundly political ?maybe?.
windows -
comments -
24.4.2006 Blue death on my hand :)
The Death of the Windows Desktop Operating System
The death of the Windows desktop operating system is not necessarily related to the non-Windows platform Midori developed in Redmond, or with a Rich Internet Application platform hosted in the cloud. entrustIT, a Microsoft Gold partner in the UK offered a glimpse at where the evolution of IT will inherently take the Windows client.
windows -
comments -
5.8.2008 Steve Jobs death has been greatly exaggerated
News outlet Bloomberg gave Apple fans and investors a huge scare late yesterday when it accidentally published an incomplete version of Steve Jobs obituary over its wire service.
common -
comments -
28.8.2008 Michael Jacksons death themed malware campaigns spreading
The sudden death of Michael Jackson quickly opened a window of opportunity for cybercriminals to capitalize on.
common -
comments -
26.6.2009 OneCare Death to Make Room for Free Morro Antivirus for Windows 7
A future core antimalware solution will replace Windows Live OneCare, which, considering the price of a one year subscription, has already qualified for an alternative to free security software, come mid-2009.
windows -
comments -
25.11.2008 Windows XP SP3 Brings the Death of SP2 - July 13, 2010
The advent of Windows XP Service Pack 3 has brought with it the proverbial "beginning of the end" for its predecessor, Service Pack 2.
windows -
comments -
19.5.2008 Matrix Screen Saver
Whether you're a newbie or senior software engineer, you want your screen savers to look cool, and this one fits the bill. It emulates the green Matrix code you see in the movie, with characters running vertically down the black background. You can set the resolution, the speed of the falling glyphs, and other options.
screen_savers -
comments -
SumoDance Screen Saver
Whose life can't be uplifted by the site of rows of dancing sumo wrestlers? Life's not so bad once you get to know these guys, as rows of them dance, bounce, and stomp to a goofy tune.
screen_savers -
comments -
UFO Screen Saver
Watch flying saucers zoom across a virtual cityscape. To preview the screen saver, unzip both files and put them in your c:windowssystem directory. Then go to the Control Panel, click the Display icon, and select the Screen Saver tab.
screen_savers -
comments -
Turkey Screen Saver
Adorn your desktop with some turkeys strutting across a simple black background. As the turkeys amble across the screen, they show a little knowledge of what will become of them Thanksgiving day--making for a poignant scene of innocence the moment before all is corrupted. You can choose from one to ten turkeys; the program also offers password protection.
Note that the screen saver shows the vendor's name on your desktop, and although this brash self-promotion can seem a bit annoying, it is tolerable--especially since the program is free, and because it's seasonal, you'll probably want it on your desktop for only a short time.
screen_savers -
comments -
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 for XP SP3 and Vista SP1
Microsoft has made Service Pack 1 for .NET Framework 3.5 for Windows Server 2008 available for download. Designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is now live on the Microsoft Download Center.
download -
comments -
11.8.2008 Sea Life Screen Saver
Display a variety of sea life, including jellyfish, dolphins, sand sharks, and other underwater denizens. This screen saver works best at a resolution of 800 by 600 pixels, although 640 by 480 is also supported.
screen_savers -
comments -
Apple releases iTunes 8 update to fix Vista blue screen of death
UPDATED Apple has released an updated version of iTunes 8 to correct the blue screen of death problems some users have been experiencing after
installing the software. The issue relates to a driver that conflicts with Windows Vista...
betanews.com -
13.09.2008Vista's Purple Screen of Death
We've all heard of (and, quite unfortunately, experienced) the infamous
Blue Screen of Death. Some of us who tested the earlier Windows Vista beta builds had the unique experience of trying out the
Red of Screen Death, which occurred when the bootloader
experienced an un-handled exception (we experienced more than our fair share of these during the early days of EasyBCD development!). And then
there's
Vista's Purple Screen of
Death, which few have seen.
winbeta.org -
04.12.2007How to prevent Windows Vista's green ribbon of death
David A. Karp: Don't you just love it when something is so notorious
for a particular shortcoming that a new term is invented to describe it? It happened with the Windows Blue Screen of Death. It happened with the
Spinning Beach Ball of Death in Mac OS X. And it happened with the odd-number curse, referring to every other Star Trek film.
Now
it has happened with Vista's own Green Ribbon of Death, shown below.
The green ribbon is basically a progress bar, a screen
element Microsoft has sadly gone to great pains to excise from Windows Vista. But this particular progress bar is the harbinger of death for the
active Windows Explorer window, which, unfortunately, is not uncommon in Vista.
winbeta.org -
18.02.2008Vista file copying showdown: RTM vs SP1
Long Zheng: Copying files is the Achilles heel of Windows Vista, calculating time remaining the blue screen of death equivalent. If anyone tells
you Windows Vista isnt slow at copying files, then they obviously havent downloaded any DVDrips and tried to move it onto another computer. It was
anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1 would fix this problem amongst other things.
As announced this week, the first beta
build of SP1 (6001.16659) has been released on Microsoft Connect. The initial reaction from most tester has been largely positive noting improvements
in file operations such as moving, copying and deleting files. However I havent seen anyone post any benchmarks or evidence to prove it is indeed
faster.
winbeta.org -
28.09.2007How the default Windows 7 wallpaper evolved
Gizmodo tracked down Chuck Anderson, the creator of Windows 7's box art, default wallpaper and login screen. In an exclusive overview of the
evolution of the Windows 7 wallpaper and login screen, the gadget lovers managed to secure some rare development shots of how Microsoft came to the
wallpaper that is now used worldwide. Chuck Anderson is a 20 something digital media artist living in the US. Both the login screen and wallpapers
took approximately four months, start to finish according to Gizmodo. They were achieved by a mix of pen and paper, wacom tablet and Photoshop.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
06.11.2009How to create a Blue Screen of Death
Feeling nostalgic about the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death, which used to plague desktops in the bad old days of Windows? No need to keep those
feelings locked away. This handy guide will show you how to force your PC to recreate the infamous error.
winbeta.org -
21.08.2008Blue Screen of Death Survival Guide: Every Error Explained
Picture this: Its late at night, youre sitting at your computer playing a game or working on a project when, suddenly, Windows freezes completely. All
your work is gone, and you find a blue screen full of gibberish staring back at you. Windows is dead, Jim, at least until you reboot it. You have no
choice but to sigh loudly, shake your fist at Bill Gates and angrily push the reset button. Youve just been visited by the ghost of windows crashed:
The blue screen of death.
Also known as the BSoD, the Blue Screen of Death appears when Windows crashes or locks up. Its actually
a Windows stop screen, and is designed to do two things: tell you the reason for the error, and to calm your nerves, hence the use of the color blue
(studies show it has a relaxing effect on people). Though Blue Screens are difficult to decipher, all the information you need to figure out what
caused it is right there in front of you in blue and whiteand thats where we come in. Were going to show you how to dissect the blue screen error
details, so you can fix the problem thats causing them.
winbeta.org -
01.05.2009Why installing Vista SP1 might fail via Windows Update
When you try to install Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update you can get error: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not available for installation from
Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates.
To help ensure a positive update experience, Windows Update will temporarily not
offer Windows Vista SP1 to systems that have the following device drivers. In some cases, these device drivers are problematic on Windows Vista-based
computers when you update to Windows Vista SP1. By installing updated device drivers, you will resolve the issue and enable Windows Update to offer
Windows Vista SP1.
Click read more to view a list of drivers that don't work well with Vista SP1:
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
20.03.2008Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2 - Benchmarked
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Over the past few days I posted two sets of benchmarks comparing Windows Vista RTM with Vista SP1 (first post
here, second
here). These posts generated a lot of feedback, and from reading this feedback it’s clear
that what many people are really interested in is not the performance differences between Vista RTM and Vista SP1, but between Vista SP1 and XP
SP2.
A few days ago I posted in reply to several TalkBack comments that I wouldn’t carry out these tests until XP SP3 is
released. There didn’t seem any point. That didn’t satisfy the crowds who wanted to see Vista SP1 and XP SP2 go head to head. So, to
cut a long story short, the pestering continued and I eventually gave in. So what follows are the fruits of nearly two whole days of work at the PC
Doc HQ (the test was hampered by the death of a motherboard, something which rendered hours of work obsolete).
How does Windows
Vista SP1 compare to Windows XP SP2? Read on …
winbeta.org -
15.02.2008Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates
Microsoft Windows' infamous "Blue Screen of Death" has become synonymous with an operating system crash or freeze, but that's nothing compared
with what users of pirated copies of Vista worldwide can expect from now - a black screen of darkness.
In an e-mail to a large
Windows Vista OEM distributor titled "Pirated Vista - A darkness descends!", a local Microsoft representative made it quite clear what Vista pirates
can expect to happen to their unlicenced installations.
A copy of this e-mail was obtained by Computerworld:
Good Afternoon, As of this week, Microsoft have
activated a function in Vista called 'Reduced Functionality'. This is a specific
function in Vista which effectively disables non genuine copies of Windows. Therefore, anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will
experience...
winbeta.org - 11.09.2007
Vista SP1 Offers Power Efficiency Enhancements
Most if not all the attention surrounding Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been around performance, reliability and compatibility, but you probably
didn’t know SP1 also makes short strides in terms of Vista’s power efficiency. And by short, I really do mean short because we’re
talking about improvements in the magnitude of only a couple percents. That in the context of 5 hours battery life is a mere additional 6 minutes.
Having said that, some is better than none.
The first of two improvements is in the display subsystem. Starting from SP1, the VSync in the
Desktop Window Manager (DWM), intended to give a glitch free experience, no longer runs continuously. Instead, the interrupts are disabled after a
short timeout period where no screen updates has occurred. The catch is that a screen update can be anything from a blinking cursor to a flashing
network icon, so the chances of a screen idle might be a lot less than you would imagine. The second improvement is in the audio subsystem and only
concerns those with HD Audio codecs. Whereas in the RTM, the sound card would never idle even if there was no activity, in SP1, the default idle
timeout for has been changed to 30 seconds; after the time, the OS will switch the audio device to a D3 power state, meaning the device should not
consume any energy at all.
neowin.net - 23.02.2008
Beat those bluescreen blues: what a Windows bluescreen actually means
The Windows Blue Screen of Death is hated and maligned, but it's really just trying to help. Read on to find out what it's trying to tell you.
Dan Warne recently had a cheeky dig at what
some consider to be the quintessential interactive Windows screen the blue screen of death, or BSOD.
Certainly, the unfriendly,
its all over for you vibe which every BSOD gives off has given Windows system faults a bad reputation over time. Personally, I rather like these
haiku error messages...
winbeta.org - 20.11.2007
Vista SP1 Offers Power Effiency Ehancements
Most if not all the attention surrounding Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been around performance, reliability and compatibility, but you probably
didn’t know SP1 also makes short strides in terms of Vista’s power efficiency. And by short, I really do mean short because we’re
talking about improvements in the magnitude of only a couple percents. That in the context of 5 hours battery life is a mere additional 6 minutes.
Having said that, some is better than none.
The first of two improvements is in the display subsystem. Starting from SP1, the VSync in the
Desktop Window Manager (DWM), intended to give a glitch free experience, no longer runs continuously. Instead, the interrupts are disabled after a
short timeout period where no screen updates has occurred. The catch is that a screen update can be anything from a blinking cursor to a flashing
network icon, so the chances of a screen idle might be a lot less than you would imagine. The second improvement is in the audio subsystem and only
concerns those with HD Audio codecs. Whereas in the RTM, the sound card would never idle even if there was no activity, in SP1, the default idle
timeout for has been changed to 30 seconds; after the time, the OS will switch the audio device to a D3 power state, meaning the device should not
consume any energy at all.
neowin.net - 23.02.2008
Photos: Installing Vista SP1 beta
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Earlier today I downloaded the standalone installer for Windows Vista SP1 build 6001.16659 and installed it on a few systems
to see what it was like -- and I thought you might like to take a look at it.
Don't expect huge UI changes after installing SP1
-- the changes are small and subtle. In fact, if you're not familiar with Windows Vista, you might miss the SP1 changes. I've put together an image
gallery showing some of the most significant changes.
winbeta.org - 28.09.2007
Improved startup repair tool, media throttling among Vista SP1 changes
To reassure customers that it really has been addressing consumers' concerns about Vista, Microsoft has made its change log to Windows Vista SP1
publicly available early...
betanews.com - 11.12.2007
Changes to UAC in Vista SP1: Much less than meets the eye
A video is making the rounds showing how Vista SP1 has significantly improved Vista's immensely annoying User Account Control (UAC). But there
appears to be less to the improvement than meets the eye --- hardly any changes were made to UAC in SP1, and it remains a very big Vista annoyance.
Microsoft blogger Michael Kleef has
made a video that he says illustrates how much better UAC is under SP1 than before SP1. It very nicely shows that when you create a new folder in
Program Files, you only need to go through one UAC prompt under Vista SP1, rather than four previously.
winbeta.org - 17.05.2008
Daniel Pearson: Debugging a Windows Blue Screen of Death
Daniel goes through the four key reasons why BSODs happen, how Windows allocates memory and how developers need to be careful when setting kernel mode
memory. Daniel then goes through a real-world example of a faulty device driver and how to debug and diagnose issues. Daniel also shows how to read
and write data to an application process, like Notepad using WinDbg.
winbeta.org - 17.07.2008
Windows Vista SP1 Application Non-Compatibility List
Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista is an important update for Windows Vista. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains many security, reliability, and
feature updates for Windows Vista. A program may experience a loss of functionality after you install Windows Vista SP1. However, most programs will
continue to work as expected after you install Windows Vista SP1.
This article lists programs that have been reported to
experience a loss of functionality when they are installed on a Windows Vista SP1-based computer.
winbeta.org - 19.02.2008
Enable New Boot screen in
Vista Beta 2
Tired of the pathetic boot
screen in current Vista
builds? There is a new trick
that will allow you to see
what may be the new boot
screen for Windows Vista.
This new boot screen
is still not what we have been
expecting but is a move in the
right direction compared to
the white progress bar screen
currently used.
Enable New Boot Screen:
1. Click on the
start orb and type in
"MSCONFIG" in the textbox.
2. Once the
System Configuration tool
loads, click on the Boot tab.
3. Under Boot
Options check "No GUI
Boot".
4. Hit
OK and reboot to see the new
screen
More
tweaks at source!
jcxp.net - 12.05.2006
Latest iTunes 8 update causes Vista user headaches
Some Windows users are getting the infamous "blue screen of death" after installing the iTunes 8 update, which some say tracks back to extra
software that is being installed along with the software...
betanews.com - 12.09.2008
