bluescreens

Windows Explorer not responding means exactly that - Explorer is hung or hanging. Typical reasons are any add-ins to Explorer (add-ins being lots of things, but a quick place to start is anything related to the objects on the menu when you right-click a file in Explorer). Can you reproduce this problem at will? The second bit would be worth googling a bit to see what else might be related to it.

Xbox is fast because all games can be targeted and optimized for exactly that hardware, and because games written for it can guarantee certain things - certain performance, certain timings, and certain hardware being always available. It can also talk directly to the hardware, without having to go through a full DirectX library and significant other abstractions that are in Windows. I have a tough time with any claim of "games written just for Vista being 30% faster" -- there's no magic library that makes it 30% faster, nor an optimization or link that would be required in XP and not in Vista that would make things that much faster. That's a _huge_ jump in modern terms!

Curious - what would one use a ramdisk for? I remember using it on the Amiga, but nowadays....what would one do with it?

To bad this has gone off topic. The 'random yahoo' you are refering to is me. I am the sole creator of the Vista Codec Package and with the input of MSFN users (not you of course) this package is the best that there is available for Vista users. If you bothered to click the link above, it would just take to the HomePage of the package which just happens to exist right here on the MSFN forums. shark This has nothing to do with specifics of your work. This has to do with my belief that allowing third parties to do unknown and potentially not-good things to your computer is a bad thing. If one needs codecs, I suggest that one get them from the originator of the codec. This is essentially the same as stating that one should always get Microsoft updates from only Microsoft - to me it's common sense. Don't install stuff if you don't know exactly where it came from and unless you can ensure the source is trusted. If you've built that with your users, more power to you and them.

How do you watch an XviD encoded file? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. How do you watch an DivX encoded file? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. How do you watch an mkv file? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. How do you watch an h264 encoded file? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. How do you watch an MP4 file? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. How do you listen to a file with AAC audio encoding? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. How do you listen to a file with FLAC audio encoding? Microsoft doesnt make a codec for this. This list can go on till my keyboard wears out.... EDIT: after rereading the initial posters query, I see that he/she isnt even trying to play a file, just open MediaCenter. That is definately an odd issue and not related to codecs. But to say not to install anything but Microsoft codecs is to crawl in a hole and miss out on 98% of the currently available media. shark I'm focused on fixing the issue, not playing with codecs. Installing codec "packs" from some random yahoo is typically seen as a bad idea. Some people may disagree about that; no worries. In any case, installing codecs won't fix his issue, so the suggestion was a good one.

Don't install any non-Microsoft codecs! You have another problem, and adding third-party codec packs isn't a good idea in the first place, and is a bad idea for this particular problem. I'd suggest removing anything that may impact MCE to see if you've installed something that is causing the problem. Removing any codecs would be a good start. What happens in safe mode?

GPMC has a built in facility to distribute registry settings, so why not just use that?

Of course I'm currently using the Microsoft WDDM drivers. But I'd much prefer the better speed and features of the ATI driver.... hence the question.

Looks like hardware to me - no driver is pointed to as the culprit. Set the machine up for a kernel dump and let's see if you can get any more.

ATI 9600 in Gateway M505X notebook (It's a Centrino 1.4 setup with 768M) Built-in Vista WDDM drivers work ... OK... no issues at all, just that I prefer ATI drivers So... Upgraded to Cat 7.1 and/or Cat 7.2 and same thing happens: 1. Reboot after install 2. Blue VISTA logo shows while booting up 3. LCD on laptop is then completely blank Attaching VGA monitor to VGA port on laptop permits VGA monitor to work - I can log in and all anything I want, but I can't extend my desktop to the LCD monitor on the Gateway, and I can't reboot and have (just) the LCD monitor work (without the VGA monitor attached). It's as if the LCD monitor is totally dead when ATI's Cat 7.1/7.2 drivers are installed. Going into Device Mgr. and reverting to the previous drivers (MS WDDM drivers) causes everything to work normally again. Any ideas?

Have you opened the crashdump in a debugger to see what the debugger thinks the problem is? The crashdump should be c:\windows\minidump*.dmp --- compress it, then attach it to a post here and I can look at it if you like.

Here's the article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...Ben-us%3B896358 If step #1 works, the above is the culprit. If it does the same thing, it's probably not this.

1. If you put the .CHM file on your desktop and 2x click on it, does anything different happen? 2. If you change your MSIE local / intranet security settings to be essentially wide-open (low security), does anything different happen? 3. Are all of your MSIE security zones set to the default levels? 4. Is your computer or "home" (127.0.0.1) listed in any of the lists in any of the security zones?

Which update? Link? Where do you think the help file is? Locally. C:\WINDOWS\Help or the files are stored in the Program's folder. C:\Program Files\Program\helpfile.chm. Gilbert, make sure you have your Windows XP Installation CD in your CD/DVD drive for the following: Download and run Dial-A-Fix (check everything off) and click "Go". Then click the Hammer icon, highlight "Reinstall Help and Support service" and click Go again. See if that helps. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...n/ms00-037.mspx -- I can't find the XP edition of that fix, but that's the gist of it. http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/top10faqs2.htm has someone's guide with another common problem.

1. I suggest using the -bmsd option to build the mass storage section 2. I suggest, just before the final Sysprep reboot (ie just before you Ghost the drive, and immediately before running Sysprep, but before you shut down that last time) that you change the IBM's IDE drivers from whatever they are now to "Standard PCI IDE Controller" or somesuch in Device Manager. 3. I suggest you keep the OEMPNPDRIVERSPATH= statement in there, and ensure you have the appropriate INFs and drivers for all of your chipsets Net result will be you'll boot up with 'compatibility' IDE drivers, and Sysprep will PnP the right ones to your machine as appropriate.

New security in a recent SP2 update. When I've run across this, copying the helpfile to a local disk has fixed the problem. You can also lower your MSIE security settings for one of the zones (intranet, perhaps?) and, IIRC, that fixes it too. I just copied the file I wanted to read to a local disk...

I have what I believe is a working BOOT .wim file that successfully asks me what image I want to deploy once it's booted. Naturally, I don't have any images to choose from yet. I have what I believe is a working CAPTURE .wim file that successfully talks me though selecting my C: drive and then connecting to my WDS server. After I select my imagegroup, the FINISH button is never unghosted, and so I cannot click it. I assume the filename (in the top part of the window) doesn't need to be filled out - that's there if I wanted to store my .wim locally - I don't - I want to connect to my WDS server, upload the .wim or captured data there, and then boot from my boot.wim file and deploy my captured image. Help!? Why is the FINISH word ghosted? Why can't I continue? I know I've sysprepped the drive correctly (Vista RTM with a few MS updates) since it lets me pick that drive to capture (if I didn't sysprep the Vista RTM Enterprise install first, I wouldn't be able to select that volume....)..... what else must I check?

Post your sysprep.inf file and give me an idea of your directory layout where your drivers are located.

See the OP's previous post to find out why he doesn't want to do that.

Use regular Windows Update for that....microsoft manages it for you.... much easier and simpler.

Make sure you read the readme with the chipset drivers - you need to use the ... oh, I think it's /A switch, then go thru the install using that switch, and it will put the chipset drivers into c:\program files\intel or somesuch; you can grab them from there and put them into your sysprep source. This will give you more files than if you simply uncompress the Dell chipset archive. Bear in mind there are many chipset drivers - you basically need all of them. ICH4, ICH5, ICH6-8, etc...

What's your objective? To make something your workplace or corporation can use? Then use the Microsoft Windows XP SP2 deployment tools. Microsoft will support it; they won't support nLite. To make something for home and/or casual use? Then use nLite - it's easy, fast, and reliable too, and with the RyanVM plugins, dead simple to keep current with patches. The 'answer file' is where nLite is asking you all of those options (for your serial # and all that) - that's your answer file, but obviously it's not the same as the Microsoft method. I believe you can also tell it to run a .bat file when it's all done, for even more flexibility. Perhaps if you defined what you wanted, you'd get better answers.

AFAIK, this doesn't matter. Hotfixes usually contain all necessary files. The update mechanism guards newer files from being overwritten by older ones. Officially you should always run qchain.exe after installing multiple hotfixes without rebooting every time, but I've never found this necessary. Correct. QChain hasn't been necessary for perhaps 2 years worth of hotfixes (ie most released post 2004 or so). The update mechanism is now built into the hotfix itself. Installing in order isn't required. Just integrate the servicepack you want into your source install, then integrate all the hotfixes. Or don't bother and get a WSUS server.

Ryan's update packs make it a breeze. He makes it very, very simple. Google a bit for it, grab them, integrate them (and the other stuff he's got on the page) and you're all set.

As the previous poster said, see if you can get one driver that supports all of the various soundmax devices. The other alternative is to (in XPSP2's Device Manager) go to the (bad) Soundmax device, figure out the PnP ID for the device, and then, while looking at the _wrong_ soundmax.inf INF file in the soundmax directory you don't want to use on that machine, do a find for that PnP number, and remove that line from the INF file. You'd, obviously, do this with the source files on your RIS source or your Sysprep source. Once this was done, that INF wouldn't then know how to PnP that hardware, so it wouldn't be identified using that driver, so the problem would go away.