Spooky

Is it the RTM?

Which version of Vista (basic, enterprise, business, ultimate, etc...) Is it an RTM version? Have you already activated via the internet?

Read your links, that is a really stange thing. I customize my folders all the time, sometimes several times a day depending on what i'm doing and i've never encountered this. Couldn't be too wide spread though because if it was people would be posting all over the net about it. Yes, by all means let us know how it works out for you...and post a few clearn instructions also on how to solve the problem. Thanks

Yeah, I didn't think it would be a trojan or key logger really either. ffdshow...hmmm, i've heard of some odd problems with this but nothing to do with key board, and besides if it was it's sort of doesn't make sense that it would only pick explorer to do it in. Really kind of odd, just that key combination and then only in explorer, hmmmm. I don't remember any setting in explorer that affects keyboards. Did you do any reg tweaks of any sort....any changes to the registry? Try removing the keyboard in devman, reboot, and let it be re-detected. Also, try being logged in as the administrator and see if it works. Did you make any changes in gpedit.msc (there used to be, not sure if it still exists as I haven't checked, something in gpedit.msc that could be used to affect certain key combos) It's just really is odd and really doesn't seem like any sort of hardware issue, maybe software, or some quirkiness in Vista. Haven't ever heard of it happening tho.

Hmmmm...odd. Just guessing right off; If you hit the ALT key does the file, edit, view, tools, help appear in the menu bar? Did you re-map some keys some way or another in Vista or its it just a generic standard 101 key keyboard? It was working OK and then just stopped working? What changes have you made, what have you added for software, what files have you modified (if any) and what registry changes (if any) have you made? A reboot? Did you remove the keyboard from Vista in the devman and the re-boot and let it be re-detected? Any detections from anti-virus or trojan software (i've heard a couple of reports that some older key-loggers will mess with the keyboard in Vista, don't know about this myself). Does this keyboard need, or did you install or change, any software from the manufacturer? Is the keyboard supported in Vista with in-box drivers or did you need to install drivers from the manufacturer and are those drivers Visa drivers? Did you some way disable that functionality (yes there is a way to do it)? Could be lots of things.

Ahhh...OK I see now. Those files are a normal part of a windows OS, have been since the NT days when ACPI BIOS's became available and are installed when you install windows. They have changed over the years but all they do is communicate with the BIOS but they don't write anything to the BIOS so they didn't damage any 'boot sectors' in your BIOS.

The WAIK help files give syntax, examples, formats, and layouts for what you want to do. This forum contains unattend.xml files that others are using for their installs which might also give you some good examples.

How did it corrupt your BIOS? All it does is read your BIOS, it doesn't write to your BIOS.

"Vista will standard display your ZIP-files as folders" Yes, it does this because they are compressed and to do that XP and Vista both use a version of winzip API's in the zipfldr.dll that was built for those OS by the winzip people to do that, its built in. For very basic functionality, there is no difference between what XP and Vista does for the compressed folders (which are actually zip'd folders) except that a folder icon is applied with no .zip extension to what would normally appear as .zip files if the actual winzip application was installed. However, you said you didn't like that even though its what you said you wanted to do in your post and now were down to having to remove reg entries to get you to where you want to go but you haven't said anything about trying to install winzip for a solution. But...the picture you posted shows where you want to be. The solution is to simply install winzip, after you do you will see the "Vista will standard display your ZIP-files as folders" thing become just regular .zip files with a winzip icon and a .zip extension which is what you wanted to do isn't it, like you said in your post? Install WinZip and associate it with .zip files and the compressed folder icons will go away and be replaced by .zip files with a winzip icon. Or install winrar and associate with .zip files and the compressed folders icons will go away and be replaced with winrar icons. Isn't that what you said you wanted to do in your post? If you just want to change the .icon all you need to do is change the compressed folder icon. If you install winzip it will do everything for you automatically and still preserve the functionality the compressed folder (the compression) was originally intended to have. Microsoft Windows XP and Vista will standard display your ZIP-files as folders. But we don't want to use this, because we want to use for example WinZip or Winrar. We want turn off this this functionality. Do you Understand now? Can you help us?

Try putting them in the Scripts directory and make a cmdlines.cmd (or .bat?, not sure here) with your commands in it. From what I understand any .cmd in the scripts directory will be executed (some one correct me if i'm wrong, i'm going on memory here).

An interesting thing here, while the file can be in the root of the DVD and several places for that matter, if it is in the root of the DVD and you have a floppy with another file on it the Vista install will choose the one on the floppy and apply it without applying the one in the root of the DVD. I think this is because the floppy is one of the first places the install looks at and it just grabs the first file it finds and uses that. I have mine in the DVD root so its where ever the DVD goes, but i've discovered that if I want to make some changes that I can do another file and put it on a floppy and the file on the floppy will be used instead of the one in the root of the DVD. I didn't realize this until a few days ago when I left a floppy in the drive during an install, and since it was un-attended I didn't stick around to watch the install. I discovered after install completion the settings in the file at the DVD root were not applied but instead a completly different set up was applied - drove me nuts for two days trying to figure it out then I noticed the floppy in the drive, I looked at the file on the floppy and saw the settings that were actually applied during the install.

I'm not really positive of what your seeing, but the fact that reg tweaks are not applied to HKEY_CURRENT_USER might indicate that the tweaks are applied at the wrong stage in the install. I always thought the reg profile for HKEY_CURRENT_USER isn't finalized until the install finishes creating all registry entries after the user accounts are created. Mine seem to work fine, but they are not put in until after the user accounts are created and at the end of the install, then there is a re-boot. Maybe i'm not understanding what your saying here.

How about a sticky note type gadget for the sidebar that allows you to do short notes and email them right from the sidebar without starting up an email client? I remember seeing something like this on the MS gadget site but it was removed for some reason. If your gadget series gets larger maybe we could consider some sort of code repository where the source code for user created gadgets could be stored and available for sharing. It would be great to have a source for people to consult when building their own gadgets. After all...if some working code has already been developed that people can use to plug into their own designs then why re-invent the same code over and over again. Your doing a great job with these, keep it up.

You mentioned FFDSHOW codecs and xvid. Which version, and who's version did you install?

Well, they did listen, they just didn't ask everyone. Well, EITHER that OR Microsoft doesn't listen to Customers..... jaclaz

Yes, you are exactly correct. However, consider something else if moving to a DX10 vid card...the current, lets say cards made prior to 2006, that are DX9 cards and install in and work fine in Vista (for my post purposes meaning that Vista has in-box WDDM drivers for the card and detects and installs the card using those drivers initially)...what to consider is DRM. Newer DX10 cards will more likely be DRM 'compliant' (which is not really a standard, its a quasi-standard developed for and controlled by the media companies to protect media rights, its poorly conceived, the plans to implement it are poorly planned, and it seeks to violate a persons privacy and legal rights to ownership, and its being forced upon the computer industry, but thats another story). Anyway, cards made prior to 2006 have less of a chance of having DRM compliant electronics, in fact any computer electronics made prior to 2006 (sound cards for example) have less of a chance of having DRM electronics included. This is the reason why DRM is not an issue in Vista right now for using stuff a person has for the vast majority of people. But...consider that when people move to DX10 cards there will be a good chance they will be getting a card with DRM attributes, at which time all the stuff having to do with DRM will kick in for their media including games (with DRM code). Regardless of the advantages of DX10 for graphics, when DRM kicks in the advantages are going to be over-shadowed by DRM with the down sampling and all the other stuff DRM does so the media rights can be protected in compliance with this quasi-standard, yes its going to affect games too (those that have DRM code, and they will have it in the very near future, in fact some of the newer ones already do but the hardware that doesn't have DRM capability will not see any effect of DRM on graphics and video playback in games)...so consider the move to DX10 cards carefully and the DRM capabilities of DX10 cards vs. current DX9 cards that work fine in Vista. After all, for a game does it really matter if you can see a character blink their eyes several times in a game with DX10 and only a few times in a game with a DX9 card? So...if DRM will be an issue for you then consider the move to something like a DX10 video card carefully and weigh the advantages against the dis-advantages. (yes I know this is a simplistic view, anything else takes an entirely new forum) No XP will not support DX10. It's only available in Vista. Besides if you migrate to Vista and still have a DX 9 gpu then you are not using DX 10. In order to take advantage you must have a DX 10 video card. Although I've not seen yet as to how well a DX 10 cards runs on Vista, but if you really want to find out, you'll have to wait until DX 10 games comes available. Back to topic: I've got a 945p chipset and set my hard drive to RAID 0 when installing Vista, it did not asked me for RAID drivers, it finds it automatically. No drivers are needed.

I really got a kick out of reading those articles again, the ones about XP at the top are especially funny because those are the exact same articles that were posted about Vista by the same places on the net with of course a few wording changes, when you look at the idea or theme of the article. Its almost like they just copy and pasted for the new Vista articles. They are also the same complaints people are posing now about Vista, especially in relation to the article about XP being slower then Win2K.

what time zone did you select when you installed and do you have the time update service thing disabled...also...is the clock in your BIOS correct (yes i know its a strange question and seems unrelated)?

Maybe I didn't understand what you wanted to do...in context with the original post in this thread..I thought you wanted to disable '.zip folders' and you were mistaking compressed folders as .zip files. If you want the compressed folders to show as .zip files then install winzip like LLXX posted, after you associate winzip with the .zip extension they will show up as .zip files. Microsoft Windows XP and Vista will standard display your ZIP-files as folders. But we don't want to use this, because we want to use for example WinZip or Winrar. We want turn off this this functionality. Do you Understand now? Can you help us?

The plugin might not work with firefox for some reason?

Your saying you got this to work on RTM? Considering that those entries come from a .dll file that appeared around build 5231, and this .dll file did not make it into the RTM, and the entries are not in milcore.dll or other .dll/.exe files dealing with DWM, and are not called from any .dll/.exe dealing with DWM that I can find, i'm curious as to how you got them to work. You sure? it was just changed to another location, and it even works on RTM builds. In beta1-2 and rc1 Vista you had to put it under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. In RC2 and later it works only under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Same paths othervise.. EDIT: Forgot to mention, at least in RC2 when i tried it while back ago, i got only Bluescreens. Safe mode was the only way to recover (delete the reg values) as i had only single user. It might work with Older GFX drivers (NOTE: WINDOWS XP Drivers) on Nvidia, can't tell how it works with ATi drivers.

I was just going to post and ask you to go back over your services again, then i saw your post. I had incorrctly assumed that everything was running like it was supposed to for services because you didn't give any indication that stuff was disabled. Glad you got it worked out.

Its still going to show the .zip extension if winzip was installed because the files/folders were renamed by winzip to .zip. Try this, after un-installing winzip, reboot, then go back to Run and do 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll' to re-instate compressed folders reboot again. But this may not get rid of files and folders that have already been renamed by winzip and have a .zip extension, it will just not put a .zip extension on future compressed files and folders, you may need to re-name those manually. Then, after you do the above go back to Run and do 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' again this time to remove compressed folders capability. I did it but is still show it,not remove it are compresse with type zip like on winxp.I do it also is still not remove it.is still show it.

"well I have a FAT32 drive which does not show up; it's my page file and temp files disk" What do you mean by 'which does not show up' ? If it doesn't show up then its really not showing up for page file activity either, its just storage. Let me guess, i'm probably wrong.........but do you use a fixed page file size and are not using a system managed page file? If it doesn't show up then shadow copy and restore for the system may not work properly. You'll notice that restore and shadow copy applies to the whole system even though you can select individual drives to apply it to. It has problems applying what it does to drives of different formats, it wants to see only one consistant format for all drives in a system. And all the same security principals in Vista for management of NTFS is not applied to FAT32, shadow copy and restore can only work with one level of security at a time not two different levels of security at the same time. For restore points and Shadow Copy to be effective all your drives should be NTFS. Contrary to popular belief there is no real advantage to keeping your page file on a FAT32 drive when running Vista. Yes I know there are lots of arguments pro and con, but in the end, you will find better sustained performance for page file activity if the page file drive and the Vista install drive are NTFS, and let Vista manage the page file. (a lot of people are probably going to jump on what I just said with all sorts of critiques). And...if your going to use a page file on another drive in Vista make sure the page file is the only file in the partition. Shadow copy and restore are working fine for me in my systems so I know it works as designed and advertised. I'm not near my Vista machines right now, i'm at a remote location using some XP machines (wish they were Vista machines), but when I get home later i'll look at some stuff and post back.

The whole drive will be captured in the restore point. The available 'Previous Version' for folders and files other than those that make Vista work (like the C:\Windows folder for example) should show up in the Shadow Copy. Vista does this to simplify things a little and make sure everything is captured in the restore point, except it sort of splits it up some.....files and folders that make Vista run are captured in the Restore Point...files and folders that are not used to make Vista run are captured in the Shadow Copy...then both parts are sort of merged together to interact and managed by System Restore. So if you run a restore point on a drive the whole drive in essence gets captured in the restore point. Shadow copies are automatically saved as part of a restore point in System Properties. If System Protection is turned on, Vista automatically creates shadow copies of files that have been modified since the last restore point was made, which I think your doing once a day. Important part here for you I think is this where I said above; "Vista automatically creates shadow copies of files that have been modified since the last restore point was made". So this means if you ran a restore point task say for example today at 1 PM - and you run them at the same time every day, and you modify some files at 2 PM today, then the Shadow Copy files will not show up for the 'Previous Version' until tomorrow after the next 1 PM restore point task run after the files or folders were changed. You can make them show up sooner by manually creating a restore point. The Shadow Copy is not going to show a 'Previous Version' for every file or folder, just those that have changed between restore point task runs and those will not show up as Shadow Copy 'Previous Version' until after the restore point run after the file was changed. It will only show a 'Previous Version' for the folder or file that changed when you right click on that particular folder or file. So as an example; If I create a file right now, a .txt file for example, and put some information in it then save it, then I manually create a restore point and then try to see a 'Previous Version' I will not see any 'Previous Version for that .txt file because it was saved prior to the restore point run and this was the first restore point run after the file was created. However, if I now open the file and make some changes and save it again, the do another restore point run manually, when I go back to that file and look at the 'Previous Version' I will see the version of the file I first created before the first restore point in this example. Shadow Copy for folders works the same way. Remember the "modified since the last restore point was made" part from above? Thats what we are seeing in this example. Then the basic rules for using Shadow Copy become; Create file or folder - run restore point - don't see any 'Previous Version'..............then.......make changes to the file or folder - run restore point - now we see 'Previous Versions' If the drive is partitioned or you have more than one drive in the computer you will need to turn on System Protection on all the partitions and drives, for this to work properly. Actually a scaled down version of this same thing has been happening for years in the MS Office products. Did you ever have MS Word come up and ask you if you wanted to recover a previous version of a document because it thinks the current one got corrupted? This is what it was doing, Shadow Copy and restore points on a scaled down basis. Have I really confused you now? I've got a headache