nightthief

When I fist installed Vista, the indexing service began indexing my drives and files. The process took a few hours and ran in the background, providing me with somewhat sluggish performance while it was going on. Once that indexing was complete, however, Vista only indexes files as I add or change them - making it service completely unoticable. In exchange for putting up with it for a little bit of time, I now have instantaneous virtually searches across over a half a terabyte of data, much of it within compressed archives. Quite frankly, performing a single search across my entire system would have taken almostas long as the indexing service took, and would have made my use of the computer unbearable until it was done. The tradeoff of giving up some resources at the beginning for unlimited, instantaneous searches which annot only be saved, but which automatically track new additions and changes to my files is more than worth it., Strange... I am running Photoshop CS2 and Outlook 2007 without the slightest problem. Some gaming problems do exist - and most of those are caused by poor quality graphics drivers from nVidia and ATI. (Although, to be fair, ATI's sem to be somewhat better than their competitor's are.) Very few gaming problems are a result of Vista itself, with the notable exception of incompatability with the Creative Lab's proprietary EAX sound system which some earlier games relied upon. (Using Creative Lab's ALchemy project will fix many of those, even on non-Creative cards - although the latter is not documented.) Well, there you have it... Without knowing nada about how Vista works, you took it upon yourself to tinker under the hood to "tweak and turn things off." And then you wonder why your performance was poor and incompatability was introduced. How could you even make that claim when you never even attempted to use Vista as a 'normal end user'?

You can download the hotfix from http://hotfix.xable.net/download/index.php?dir= It is found in the Language Neutral -> Windows Vista section. Grab the version for your Vista installation (x86 or x64) and sav it to disc. To launch the hotfix, you can double-click on it. (If the MSU extension is not yet assigned or is assigned incorrectly, you can specify the app to open it with using Open With... and clicking on browse. The correct app to use is located in your Windows\System32 folder and is called WUSA.EXE.)

My own rig: 4.8 - CPU (AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester) 5.4 - RAM (2GB DDR-500 Abit Vitesta 2x1GB 3-3-3-6) 5.9 - Graphics (HIS Radeon x1650-XT ICE Turbo) 5.6 - Gaming Graphics (HIS Radeon x1650-XT ICE Turbo) 5.6 - Hard Drive (2xSeagate 320GB SATA-II 7800RPM)

Go to http://www.linkskey.com/detail.php?Product...ctName=LKW-G553 and download the v1.10 driver. Extract the package and inside of it, you will find a Drivers folder inside of which is an XP folder. This folder and it's contents is the only part of the package you will need. Bring up Device Manager and use it to roll-back the driver you currently have installed. If you installed the driver from the CD through an installer program, go to 'programs and features (formerly known as add/remove programs) and uninstall the old driver. After completing this step, reboot the computerfr and cancel any requesters that come up about found new hardware. After the reboot is complete, open device manager and then manually update the driver using the version in the drivers/XP/ folder of the pakage you downloaded earlier. These drivers will, hopefully, get your card working at optimum capability. Do not, under any circumstances, install the utility which comes with that driver. It will not function correctly under Vista. Instead, you will have to bring up the Network nd Sharing Center of Vista and then manually define new connection. Here you will need to set your network properties (encryption type, key, etc.) In some cases, this will not be enough to enable the key, so after defining the new connection bring up it's properties page. Here you can fully define the key, et al. After defining the key, bring up the Power Options dialog within Control Panel. Click on the option to change advanced settings, expand the section on wireless options, and select maximum prformance. This will prevent Vista from cutting the devices power or broadcast strength. Make certain you make this same change for all three power modes (balanced, high performance, power saver) and then click on OK.

I have been using Vista since it's Alpha stage. While early versions of the OS wee defiitely buggy and unstable, the same is not true of the retail release. Vista, as it stands today, is more mature and stable than Windows XP SP2 ever was. If you are experiencing instability, the only reasons I can postulate are that you are using unstable device drivers (nVidia's graphics drivers are among the worst as they are not fully developed yet) or you are running older utilities which are incompatable with Vista. If you performed an upgrade install of Vista over your XP installation, you likely brought over a number of less than reliable drivers and older utilities - which will make the system unstable. If you perform a clean install of VIsta and install only reliable drivers written for Vista, your system will be as rock solid as Ubuntu is.

Right-click on the taskbar ans select Properties. (Alternatively, Start->Control Panel->Taskbar and Start Menu Properties). Click on the Start Menu tab. Put a checkmark into the box for Store and Display a List of Recently Opened Programs. Click on OK. Note that enabling Run History for the run dialog also enables it for the Start Menu. As a result, you will not only see your history of commands in the Run Dialog, but the left side of your Start Menu will maintain links to recently opened programs.

The capacity of all hard drives are measured by the manufacturers using true SI (metric) nomenclature. In this system, there are 1000 unitsd in a kilo, 1000 kilo in a mega, 1000 mega in a giga, and so forth. Computers, however, are not based onthe base-10 arithmetic the SI system is. As such, the binary approximations are 1024 units in a kilo, 1024 kilo in a mega, 1024 mega in a giga, and so forth. The net result of this discrepancy in systems is that anything counted in SI units will always be larger than if it were counted in computer units. For example, a 200GB hard drive is actually 200,000,000,000 bytes in size. In computer terms, this is 200,000,000,000/1024 = 195,312,500 kilobytes which is 195,312,500/1024 = 190,734 megabytes which is 190,734/1024 = 186 gigabyes. While it appears that 14 gigabytes dissappeared, nothing is actually is missing. Understanding that factor, if you find you cannot account for some of the space used on your hard-drive, realize there are hidden system files and folders which you, the user, normally cannot access. Among these are the Recycler and System Volume Information folders. (The former is where anything you delete is stored until you empty the Recycle Bin and the latter is where Windows keeps its files necessary for System Restore. Since these folders can get quite large over time, it is advisable that you empty the recycle bin and restrict the amount of space Windows is given for the Ysstem Restore function.

1> The constant questions requesting authorization for certain tasks are a feature known User Account Control. This feature is intended to act as a last line of defense against malware infections. Effectively, it does not allow any actions which can actually change the system configuration without your express approval. This includes registry modifications, launching of system configuration tools, and creating, renaming, and deleting files located in the Windows or Program files folders. As you have discovered, it is quite annoying, especially when you are installing things or trying to install the computer. You have three options to deal with UAC: you can put up with it,, you can turn it off permanently, or you can turn it off while you are installing & configuring the syystem and then turn it back on once you are done so it can act as a safeguard four your OS. Of the three, I recommend the last. In order to change the setting, click on the Start Orb then in the Search box at the bottom type secpol.msc and press enter. When asked for confirmation, give it and the Security Policies Eeditor will load. In the right hand column, expand Local Policies and then click on security. In the right-hand column, scroll all the way to the bottom. The third item from the bottom should read something like "Always run Administrators in Admin Approval Mode. Right-click on this and select Properties. Select enable to turn UAC on and disable to turn it off. Close the Security Policy Editor and reboot the computer for the changes to take effect. 2> Icons on the desktop which you do not want can simply be deleted. Programs running at the bottom right corner of the screen (taskbar notification area), must be independently configured not to run if you do not want them. Right-click on the offending tray icon, look for something that says properties, and then find an option for Start with Windows or Start when I login (or something similiar) and uncheck it. After applying the changes, the program will not launch when you next start your computer. 3> You cannot make Vista look and operate like XP. It is not XP. Give the OS a chance and try to learn it's new ways of doing things... If you do, you will find, as I did, that Vista's methods are far more capable and easy than XP's were. For example, rather than having to hunt through the start menu for a program, you can simply start typing it's name while the Start panel is displayed... Vista will find the program for you. 4> In Internet Explorer, the reason the window closed is because IE has a built-in popup blocker. While you can turn it off if you wish (Simply click on Tools at the right to find the controls), a better choice is to add the site you want popups to work on to the Exceptions List for the popup blocker (accessed through the same Tools menu). Alternatively, you can temporarily override the popup blocker on any link you click if you press and hold the ctrl and shift keys while you click on the link. 5> As for where you can learn it, there are a variety of books aimed at beginners with the Vista OS. However, I say experience is the best teacher. In addition, if you chck some of the threads about tips, tweaks, and customizing both here and elsewhere, you can learn a great deal.

Under Windows XP, the default configuration given to all newly created user accounts is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\Default User (where C: is your installation drive). While this folder and it's subfolders is normally hidden, youcan display them by selecting Display Hidden files and unchecking Hide Protected Operating System Files in the Windows Explorer Files and Settings Options dialog. In this folder you can easily alter the Start Menu, Favorites, Documents, and Desktop contents which new user accounts will have. You can also alter the Registry settings in this account by loading the Registry Hive stored in this folder into Regedit. Whatever changes you make in the Default User profile directory will be applied to any new user account you create. It will not, howeer, be applied to accounts which already exist - necessitatng that you make your changes in them as well.

Try using the drivers you will find listed for the Logitech Quickcam Orbit found on this page: (link). While this driver does not specify that it works with your specifc Quickcam model, I found it installed and worked perfectly with my much older QUickcam Express model which Logitech claims is nonfunctional under Vista.

Vista stores it's System restore data in a Super-Hidden System Folder on the root of each drive. In order to protect the dta it backs-up into that folder, Vista has a default permission on it which give access only to the System Account (the one used by the OS, itself). As a result, you - as a regular user or even an administrator - cannot read it's contents or use file properties to determine how big it is. This is why you see a difference in the amount of space allocated to all the files and folders on your hard-drive and the amount of space used across the entire disc. While this may seem undesirable, realize that System Restore, under Vista, provides a numbe of benefits. Among these are the ability to "rollback" your operating system to the way it was at an earlier date, in order to recover from damage caused by virii, bad program installs, or poor drivers. for those who are using Vista Business or Ultimate, the backed-up data also provides the ability for users to "rollback" any document on the computer to a version which existed on a prior date. (Since this function s not available in Vista Home editions, users of those editions will not see the "Previous Versions" tab within a properties dialog box. If you don't wish to use the System Restore function, you can turn it off on any given drive (or the entire computer) by accessing the System dialog from Control Panel, clicking on the Advanced System Settings link and then on the System Protection tab.

Ther reason why your system no longer shows Vista is because the bootloader of Vista has been overwritten. The bootloader is always stored on the first hard drive's Master Boot Record and the first partition of the first hard drive - both of which were overwritten when you reinstalled XP. In order to correct this problem, you will need to download and install Vista Boot Pro. This tool can be installed under either (or both) of your operating systems and is designed for managing the Vista boot system. In VBP, yo will want to first click on the Bootloader button and then select the option to install/reinstall the Vista Bootloader. After this is complete, click on Manage OS Entries. Here you will need to Add a New Operating System Entry for each Windows XP and Windows Vista. After creating both entries, be certain to select the operating system you want to boot to normaly and check the box titled Set as Default. Once these changes are complete, apply the settings. You should now be able to reboot your computer and be able to select which OS you wish to use. Make certain you can boot into both OS's properly. After the repair is done, boot into Vista, install Vista Boot Pro, and then use the Backup/Restore Center option to create a backup of your boot configuration - so you will have it if you ever need to go through this again.

I have had the same issue occur. Here is how I fixed t: 1. Open Windows Explorer 2. Navigate to the directory C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore 3. Delete all files in the directory 4. Rerun the performance test