Dave-H

Hi again jaclaz! I had already followed the instructions on that link, in fact most of the references on the web to this sort of problem point to it! It didn't do any good unfortunately. The one puzzling thing was that adding the registry entry appeared to do absolutely nothing. It's supposed to re-initialise the cache, and then be deleted. In fact nothing happened at all when I re-booted after adding it, the cache remained exactly the same, and the registry entry was still there too! The article is for Windows XP of course, not Windows 8.1, although my research seemed to indicate that it should still work. I did find one suggestion to clear things by adding the FormatDatabase entry elsewhere, in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters, instead of HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurentVersion\NetCache. This just resulted in a rather frightening BSOD on startup saying KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE, so I swiftly backed out of that! Just to give the exact setup, the server has a drive on it called "Archive" which I have shared, under that name, on Windows 8.1 and Windows XP. I used Offline Files on the client netbook to synchronise some folders on that drive, both on 8.1 and XP on the netbook. This worked fine for many months, until this error message started happening on synchronisation on the client, but only on 8.1, not on XP. Anyway, I've now tried some more tests. I have now removed sync for all folders and files except one single file on the archive drive, which is in the root of the drive. The error message is still appearing. I have now tried sharing another drive on the server, and again synchronising just one file in the root again as on the first drive. That drive syncs with no error message. So I now have two entries in the sync partnership, both syncing just one file, one of which works and the other doesn't! This indicates to me that the problem is actually on the server, with something about the Archive drive or its contents causing the problem, but I can't for the life of me see what it could be. The sharing of the two drives is set up identically. They are both FAT32 formatted drives. Any suggestions gratefully received!

So has no-one any experience of this at all? I should now mention that both the client and server machines have Windows XP installed on them as well as Windows 8.1, and offline files works perfectly on Windows XP on the client, and it doesn't matter whether the server is on Windows XP or Windows 8.1, in both cases Windows XP on the client works fine and Windows 8.1 throws the error. I am therefore assuming that the problem is on the client machine and not on the server. I've now tried de-synchronising all the synchronised folders on the client in Windows 8.1, leaving just one file synchronised on the client, which is in the root of the shared drive on the server. I'm still getting the "parameter is incorrect" message when I synchronise.

Which is why I said "All both those updates appeared to do...."! I'm well aware that all sorts of changes could have been made behind my back. Good or bad remains to be seen. I've now been on my main machine with Windows 8.1, and only KB3022345 was offered there. No reboot was required after the update as it was on the netbook, so I guess it was KB3048043 which needed that. No popups saying "Windows 10 is Ready" on the main machine as yet!

All both those updates appeared to do (well presumably one of them) was to add a shortcut to my start menu called "Windows 10 Technical Preview". Clicking on it just opens up the Windows Update page, and checking for updates shows nothing! Goodness know what all that was about!

LOL! Well, after I posted my last message, I fired up my Windows 8.1 netbook, and a popup appeared in the top right hand corner of the desktop saying "Windows 10 is Ready"! Surely not, I thought, and when I clicked on it Windows Update opened offering two optional updates, KB3022345, and KB3048043. The former is 383 KB, the latter 612 KB, so neither of them is going to be a new operating system! I'll install them and see what happens........... I thought Windows 10 wasn't supposed to be out until much later in the year.

I must say that I'm surprised to hear that Windows 10 is likely to be another free update. They offered the update from Windows 7 to Windows 8 at very low cost, and a free update from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, but I assumed the latter was simply because Windows 8 was put out with so many things wrong with it, some of which 8.1 was an attempt to address. I never thought that the next "upgrade" would be free as well!

Does anyone here have experience with the Windows 8.1 Offline Files facility? I've been using it for quite a while to synchronise some folders on my main machine's archive drive with my netbook, and it's always worked very well until a few weeks ago. Now, although it still syncs OK, it's always showing an error after syncing. The error being thrown is that good old favourite "The parameter is Incorrect"! This is one of the most common and most annoying error messages there is IMO, as of course it gives you absolutely no clue as to what the "parameter" is that's incorrect, and in my experience there's almost always absolutely no way to find out! I have of course researched this, and the few bits of information I've found nearly all say to reset the store on the client side and basically start again. Well I did that, even going as far as you completely delete the CSC folder on the client machine, and re-did the whole sync partnership from scratch, which needless to say took hours! It worked fine for about a day and a half, and then the same error came back, with no apparent cause! As I said, it is actually syncing the files fine, and I have been monitoring the sync event log, and files are being transferred OK when they have changed or been added or removed on the server side or the client side. However, it still keeps throwing this wretched error so it always looks as if the sync has failed. The details view in the Event Log shows - - UserData - SyncFailureInfo Path \\ASHFIELDCOURT\Archive Operation Sync client copy to server ResultCode 0x80070057 Result The parameter is incorrect."ASHFIELDCOURT" is the name of my main computer, the server, and "Archive" is the name of the shared drive on that machine. Anyone any ideas, this is driving me nuts?! Cheers, Dave.

Another six optional updates this evening. All installed OK, a replacement KB3022345 did not seem to be among them!

Me too. I'm not at all worried about KB3022345, especially as it's now no longer being offered.

It looks like KB3022345 may have been pulled. Even though it didn't install, I'm no longer being offered it as an optional update. Presumably a fixed version is on its way!

It's been suggested here to manually download and install the update in your specific language. Unfortunately there is no download for different flavours of English, so that's no help to me as my system is UK English, on which it's failing, both from WU and from a manual install! I suppose I could try temporarily changing the system to US English, installing the patch, and then switching back again! What a PITA......

I installed eighteen .NET updates yesterday. No ill effects so far (touch wood!)

Goodness, I had no idea that there were so many! I only have the first two installed. Have they actually stopped offering .NET updates to POSReady machines through Windows Update? None of those were as far as I'm aware. I would have thought that there would be .NET applications running on machines with that flavour of OS.

Will those later .NET updates for Server 2003 install on XP as they are, or do they need to be modified? I only have KB2931352, KB2931365, and KB2932079 installed at the moment, and they were from modified installers.

Fair enough!

Ah, that explains it! I tried a manual search for updates and that didn't work either, so I just downloaded the installer for 4.2.1 and installed it manually. It seems fine. A bit odd to not have triggered the automatic update detection when the new version is already being offered as the current version to new users!

Thanks bphlpt for that very detailed analysis! You (and den) are absolutely right of course. My system is so complex, and has been through so many changes over the years, that there are a myriad of possible reasons why standby doesn't work in XP. It didn't even work with my previous motherboard, long before I installed Windows 8.1 and made it triple boot. It was originally dual Windows 98 and Windows 2000, and there was no standby mode available even then. Your suggested option, a new clean install, is a very good one and probably the only way of knowing for sure whether the problem is intrinsic or whether it's due to something installed and running on the system. That would be no small undertaking though, so I don't think I will do it just to perhaps, and it is only perhaps, get back a facility that I've actually lived without for many years anyway! It was just something that in a bored moment I thought I would investigate, hoping (obviously wrongly) that I would just find some magic registry tweak or something that would bring it to life. I found a couple of MS knowledge Base references relating to Windows 2000 which said that the standby modes do not work by design with multi-processor systems, or if terminal services are enabled in Windows 2000. That's almost certainly why I didn't have them on Windows 2000, but I assume those limitations didn't carry over to XP. I will continue investigating! Cheers, and thanks again, Dave.

Strange, I have Classic Shell installed on two Windows 8.1 machines, and on neither of them has it prompted me for an update. Brilliant program, one of those that's so good that you can't believe that it's actually free! It's the only thing that makes Windows 8/8.1 usable as far as I'm concerned. I'll apply the update manually.

I checked the registry entries on the XP machine I have where the power saving modes do work, but couldn't find anything conclusive that was fundamentally different from the machine where they don't work. Does anyone know exactly where the entries relevant to the power saving modes are stored?

All five of the updates offered on both my machines have installed apparently with no issues (one was for the Office 2007 compatibility pack). Interesting that there are apparently .NET updates that weren't offered. There were certainly updates for the frameworks on Windows 8.1. I'm wondering whether to seek them out and install them manually on XP or not.

The details of the cards are in my signature. The ATI X-850 is using Catalyst 10.2 on XP, the Nvidia 210 is using the GeForce 340.52 driver. Both are the most recent 32 bit XP drivers for their respective cards. I nearly always used ATI cards on my previous AGP motherboard, updating the drivers every time new ones came out. As I said, the power saving options have never worked for me on XP, even then.

Thanks, many of my references have said that the graphics driver is the number one suspect in this sort of problem. I don't see why installing an earlier version would fix it though, surely a later version is more likely to support the power saving modes than an earlier one? The situation is complicated for me as I have two physical graphics cards installed at the moment! I should say at this point that my system has been through many configuration changes over the years, and the power saving modes have never worked with any hardware or software configuration in XP, either with the present motherboard or its predecessor, regardless of what graphics card was fitted.

Hi den! I already tried powercfg /hibernate on with no result. powercfg /query gives this - Name Ashfield CourtNumerical ID 8Turn off monitor (AC) After 120 minsTurn off monitor (DC) After 5 minsTurn off hard disks (AC) NeverTurn off hard disks (DC) After 10 minsSystem standby (AC) Not SupportedSystem standby (DC) Not SupportedSystem hibernates (AC) Not SupportedSystem hibernates (DC) Not SupportedProcessor Throttle (AC) Not SupportedProcessor Throttle (DC) Not SupportedI do also have a netbook with Windows XP on it which does support all these modes, so I'm going to do some comparisons of the relevant registry entries. I can't believe that just transplanting the registry entries over will bring it to life on the first machine, but you never know!

I've seen that happen too, and it looks like Google search results in Chinese (or Japanese) characters to me. I've also for a long time seen some websites in Opera 12.02 apparently display some elements in what looks like Greek lettering, that happened even with the original versions of KernelEx. If that happens you can get rid of it by zooming the page. It only happens at certain zoom settings, unfortunately always including 100%!

Thanks guys! Actually I do have the Intel chipset drivers installed. They are the most recent I could find, version 9.4.0.1026, which is later than the link points to, which is 8.3.1.1009. I did try installing the earlier version, but it made no difference. I then decided to do something I've never actually done before, and uninstall all the system devices in Device Manager and let them re-install. As the system is actually originally an upgrade from Windows 2000 I thought that maybe there were things hanging around from that. Sadly after a lot of messing around reinstalling most of the hardware drivers after doing that, it's still exactly the same as before, no power saving modes! Device Manager does say it's an ACPI system, with the "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System" driver correctly installed, so this is all still a bit of a mystery. The system BIOS only appears to support ACPI S1 and S3 sleep modes, and you can select either or both. I have both selected. I believe that hibernate is S4 mode, so I wouldn't expect that to work necessarily (although it does on Windows 8.1) but standby is S3 I think, so that surely should be available and working.