Spooky

I can't really give you an example because it depends on what you think is important and i don't know what files and folders, or types of those items, you consider important but very generally; Lets say that I have a folder with some stuff in it thats for work, lets call it 'My_Work' and its on the C: drive at C:\My_Work, if I think thats an important folder to be able to restore then i'm going to take measures to see that I can restore it.

Shadow copies are not available for files and folders that are required for Windows to work, like the system folder (the folder that Windows is installed in) and files in the system folder, which is usually C:\Windows. These are basically backed up by System Restore (you have restore scheduled i see) but not shadowed copied. For these folders you have to restore the whole created store point manually by click the buttons to do the restore. Are you trying to restore one of these folders? For others not falling into this category you can do like in my post above this one by making sure System Protection is turned on and they will be included in the next shadow copy.

Is System Protection turned on for the drive? If System Protection is not turned on, Vista can't create shadow copies. To turn on System Protection; 1. Open 'Control Panel' then 'System' 2. In the left pane, click System Protection. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. 3. Under Automatic restore points, select the check box next to the volume where you want to turn on System Protection, then click OK. The file might be an offline file. Shadow copies are not available for offline files. If your computer is on a corporate network the network administrator might have disabled shadow copies.

I just noticed in your pic, those 'folders' are not compressed folders, thats a winzip icon. That means you installed winzip at some point. You will need to un-install winzip to get rid of those ziped files/folders, the exact same you would do for any app that you didn't like or want any more. Then if you end up with the native Vista compressed folders and want to get rid of those too, do what I posted above this post. Or if you want to keep winzip installed then go into the winzip settings and un-associate winzip with .zip files (it going to complain)

Installed and works fine on my Vista Ultimate. have you guys disabled any services like the Installer service, UAC? Are you trying to install it on a beta of Vista? Which version of Office 2007 is this? Try installing it logged in as the actual Administrator.

Its the same way it was done in XP; Start - Run - type in 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' (without the ' ') and then click 'OK' Next in explorer, in Tools - Folder Options - View tab- uncheck the 'Show encrypted or compressed NTFS folders in Color' - then on the View tab at the top click the button 'Apply to all folders'. Then re-boot.

were ther actually any previous versions generated? Is this an upgrade over XP? What other services do you have disabled or are not starting?

Did you try the .xml on a floppy drive or a plugged in USB drive? Vista looks in those places for the .xml. And, if it will work for you, you can put it in the root of the install DVD...thats how I do mine and it works OK for me but others have said they couldn't get it to work. Also, it helps to burn your DVD in the original file format the Vista DVD comes in too which is UDF. Also, you might try the MSFN Vista Un-Attended Install forum also where you will find a thread that might get you started entitled Bootable Vista DVD and in that thread you will find some info on where the .xml can be located at .xml can be in several places Also, are you using winPE 2.0? PE is a good choice to do this with.

Enabling Aero will not really help your sub-score. Aero Glass really needs a vid card that supports it, the major feature of Aero Glass is that it was designed to offload the graphics work to the vid card GPU and relieve the computer CPU of that burden thus freeing up the CPU and increasing responsivness of the OS and applications. If your graphics sub-score is at 1.9 now and you don't have Aero basic or the glass theme as an option to select, or it did not install the default Aero Glass theme at Vista install, it may be most likely your vid card doesn't support Aero. Besides, Aero doesn't help increase your sub-score. After all, enabling the Aero Glass theme on un-supported vid cards may seem to work but actually the themes major feature, off loading to the GPU, isn't really going to work all that well even though it may seem like its working, and your still going to have a low sub-score. Think of it this way; Your sub-score is 1.9 right now with your computer CPU handling the graphics (because your not running Aero), what will happen to your score when Vista tries to offload the graphics to the GPU on the card that can't handle it now? There are various reg mods on the internet to enable the Aero Glass theme on unsupported vid cards but I don't know personally if they will work with the RTM, I haven't tried them, but i've heard from others who tried them and had lots of problems. I would suggest a new vid card, or if a new vid card is not an option right now, run Vista with the classic theme. I would not recommend that you force Aero to work on an un-supported card by using reg tweaks.

Here's one for you folks that have NIC's that will handle Offloading. You can look in your NIC card settings to determine if yours can handle offloading, if you see settings for TCP items offloading then your NIC probably handles offloading. The problem is, guess what...Vista doesn't set up for TCP offloading even if your NIC can handle it. Look at the below registry entry to see what I mean; [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] "DisableTaskOffload"=dword:000000ff The reg entry above represents that TCP offloading is neither on or off in Vista. This registry setting values are either 1 or 0, its a reverse logic thing here too where a 0 = On and a 1 = Off (not the normal 1 = On and 0= Off). A value of 255 (the hex ff above) means its set to neither On or Off so in effect it is not set either way, not configured, and has no effect when set to 255. Now, lets get back to your NIC for a second, if your NIC will not handle offloading then enabling this setting will not do you any good, OK - 'nuff said. This does not tell the NIC to use offloading, this tells Vista to offload to the NIC which it doesn't do a lot of times by default, so lets make our NIC's earn their keep. This setting, in some cases, can improve the performance of TCP/IP (more specifically IPV4, even though it does seem to have an effect on the overall TCP/IP transport). If your NIC can handle it and will do better then Vista's own TCP/IP handling performance (we are not speaking about the auto-tuning here), then I'd recommend you use it. This works well with most high-end, high quality, NIC's that support offloading, but give it a try, you can always change it back. Before making this change in the registry make sure to back the key up first! (There are actually two parts for this change one for TCP/IP and one for IPSEC, i'm only giving the TCP/IP part here because the majority of people don't use IPSEC and will not have the proper keys in the registry for IPSEC because its not being used. Don't worry, your not missing anything by not being able to set DisableTaskOffload in IPSEC.) Change the DisableTaskOffload setting from 255 to a 0 like shown below. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] "DisableTaskOffload"=dword:00000000 After you make the change then re-boot. Your done. Ensure that your NIC also has the proper offloading settings selected also, it will not do any good for Vista to offload TCP/IP to the NIC if the NIC settings are disabled or not set up properly. the settings on the NIC are the ones that tell the NIC to do the offloading after its handed off by Vista with the above reg tweak. (Before anyone asks, this does not increase your bandwidth or your receive window. It only improves performance of TCP/IP on NIC's that will handle it)

When you did this with Vista, was the Vista install a clean install or an upgrade over XP?

Put the reg entries in the places as I showed above using the values shown and monitor the 4226 for a couple of days. This is kind of out there a little in left field I admit, and I'm not saying this is a solution for you, but some P2P clients take advantage of the IE API's in their code and I want to check if this is the case for you, since the 4226 limit is 10, and your present setting in IE is 10 (shown as hex 0000000a in your present settings), when you exceed this you might get the 4226 if your P2P client coding takes advantage of the IE API's, not sure if uTorrent does or not. This changes it to 20 (hex 00000014).

Let me ask you a question, did you do this reg tweak? I'm not asking you to try it, i'm asking if you already did it? [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings] "MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:00000014 "MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=dword:00000014 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings] "MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:00000014 "MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=dword:00000014

I have a question. Why do you want the forum to try and sell you on upgrading to Vista? I mean, it seems you are ready to believe what you percieve as reasons for you not to upgrade even though they are not necessarly correct. From your question it seems youv'e already made up your mind to begin with, so why are you asking the forum to help you decide? I'm not being critical of your post or question, i'm just curious if your asking a legitimate question because you want some good information on which to base a suitable decision. If your question is legitimate then; "It's a huge spyware which follows every move I take" How so? Its not spyware and it doesn't follow every move you take. It simply does what every OS on the market does, see where you are at, respond to where you want to go, and take you to your destination. Every OS does this, yes even Linux, there is no GUI based OS that doesn't do this, they just may all use different methods to do it. "but why probe my PC every day?" I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you mean the indexing, its not probing anything, its simply and basically keeping track of the files on the computer so it can find them for you if you want to see or use them. It was one of the number one things that consumers wanted from a new MS OS and MS simply responded to the markets request. You can turn it off just like you can turn off any similar feature in other OS's. If you talking about Defender, its no different from any anti-virus/spyware software you might install, again, you can turn it off if you don't like it just like you can turn off any anti-virus/spyware software if you don't want to use it. If your talking about any external probes from the internet for example, it could be lots of things, thats why we have firewalls for OS's and in routers, just like for any other OS. "Also, it seems like that instead of letting me do more, this OS makes sure I do less, and supervises it." Vista does a great job of leaveraging the productivity angle in favor of the user if they use it properly. Granted, there are some things that are so totally different that they seem to be a hinderance, and I agree that there are some things that might hinder a power or advanced user initially because of a change in functionality or something being done differently in Vista that was done in more familiar ways in past windows OS, these might hinder a more advanced user until they get used to them. How does the OS make sure that you do less? How does it 'supervise' your activity? It doesn't. "Making sure that we cannot copy HD content or even DVD content and I can just go on and on" Not sure how you came to this conclusion. Vista doesn't do anything of the sort. I can copy HD and DVD content just fine. At the core there is some DRM stuff, but once you install the right software it doesn't affect anything you do, just like any past windows OS. I'm not aware of any OS that prohibits you from copying HD or DVD content that you legitimately own or produce. You can go on and on....why? Like any product on the market, be it a new car - new clothes - food - anything at all, even an operating system, or any software you get, its you that makes the decision. You determine if its right for you, if its what you want. I don't remember anyone twisting my arm and forcing me to use Vista, and i'm pretty sure no one is going to twist your arm either to force you to use Vista. Even if I did not use a windows OS like Vista, I know there are other OS's that would be available to me. Every OS has its good points and its bad points, Vista is not necessarly better or worse then any of them, its just different like everyone of them is different and the choice is up to you.

@kityo "ID - 7031 The Application Layer Gateway Service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 120000 milliseconds: Restart the service. ID - 34001 The ICS_IPV6 failed to configure IPv6 stack." This tells me that something is messed up, the Vista install for the IP stack is not working right and an application didn't install correctly. Have you turned any services off or tried to remove IPv6, or made any changes to the OS files? Its possible its just beta activity also. @Tassadaru; Try this, create a shortcut to uTorrent on the desktop. Then right click on the shortcut, choose properties choose the General tab then click the Advanced button and check the 'Run as administrator' block, Apply and OK out. See if that helps.

I was just about out of ideas for you then I thought i'd try to duplicate a bunch of connections as I imagined you might have, I've got three different P2P programs running for different reasons, I added uTorrent also and started d/l a bunch of torrent stuff. I've had these running almost constantly for the last week. And on top of this I'm browsing the net with several tabs running, checking email, FTP'ing some stuff, I don't have one 4226 items in my error logs and haven't had one since I installed Vista about a month ago when I got my RTM from MS, and this machine has been running 24 hours a day every day since install. (although things are a little slow bandwidth wise because all the bandwidth is being eaten up by the constant FTP and P2P activity.) The temp fix @ me is that I restart uTorrent and the connections problem fixes-itself in 1-5 minutes. If there was a way to make uTorrent restart itself whenever it encounters that error, (An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions), would be the optimal temporary fix. Or make Windows restart the program using a batch file with tskill and restarting. Dunno, any ideas?

One of the things I've found very helpful to me in the past was the simple ability to print a list of a directory contents or have a file with a list of a directory contents I could email somewhere if I needed to. I guess I should really use the word 'Folders' instead of 'Directory' but old habits die hard. Yes, there are some newer initiates to the computer world that haven't ever heard the word 'Directory' in relation to a computer file system before. I found this out yesterday on another forum when I was trying to help someone out with a problem. I used the word 'Directory' several times in relation to helping the person straighten out a bad install of an application without giving it a thought. The person posted back and said "What is a Directory?" Anyway....Guess what windows hasn't had and still doesn't have in Vista, thats right, a simple 'Print Directory Contents' type capability. Yes, I know there are utilities that you can install that will add this for you in the form of a shell extension, and I know there are about a dozen different way to do this, but personally I like doing it this way, and besides I wanted something everyone could use with out problems and without out having to install anything. I tried several different utilities, extensions, registry entries, all of which worked (except for a few of the extensions), and I decided that none of them, for me, were satisfactory in Vista due to various reasons, mostly having to do with the security features of Vista but also some things having to do with the .xps default file format in Vista. Anyway, back to simplicity..I decided on the below as the best and simplest choice for my little addition to the right click context menu for a folder. Use the below reg entries and you can add this too if its something your interested in. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Directory List] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Directory List\command] @=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\ 00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,63,00,6d,00,\ 64,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,2f,00,63,00,20,00,64,00,69,00,72,00,20,\ 00,2f,00,73,00,20,00,22,00,25,00,31,00,22,00,20,00,3e,00,20,00,64,00,69,00,\ 72,00,5f,00,6c,00,69,00,73,00,74,00,2e,00,74,00,78,00,74,00,20,00,26,00,20,\ 00,6e,00,6f,00,74,00,65,00,70,00,61,00,64,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,\ 64,00,69,00,72,00,5f,00,6c,00,69,00,73,00,74,00,2e,00,74,00,78,00,74,00,20,\ 00,26,00,20,00,64,00,65,00,6c,00,20,00,64,00,69,00,72,00,5f,00,6c,00,69,00,\ 73,00,74,00,2e,00,74,00,78,00,74,00,00,00 This adds a 'Directory List' right context menu command to any folder you right click on. The value created in the '\command' key is a REG_EXPAND_SZ value (which is why it appears in hex when you export the key). The hex values actually represent this registry command line: %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe /c dir /s "%1" > dir_list.txt & notepad.exe dir_list.txt & del dir_list.txt How this works is, if you right click on any Folder in Vista, in explorer and in other places too, you will see the 'Directory List' command, click on it and two things will happen...a command prompt window will open up and a text file called 'dir_list.txt' will appear in notepad with a list of files and sub directories (and the sub directory contents also). You can save this file to somewhere or if you want to go ahead and print it. If you close the file then it's gone, nothing is left behind as this entry will also delete the file if you don't save it to somewhere before closing it. The command prompt window will stay open until you close the command prompt window its self or close the file, close the command prompt window its self does not close the .txt file, but closing the .txt file will close the command prompt window also. (This is actually an old NT4 registry hack modified a little for Vista by using a REG_EXPAND_SZ value instead of the default REG_SZ value. Using it as a REG_SZ value causes an error in Vista on some systems. And yes, there is a way to keep the command prompt window from showing and to save the file in a certain directory automatically but i'm saving things like that as part of something for the MSFN main page Vista Tweaks and Tips section that i'll start posting some stuff in soon.)

Sounds like hibernation to me.

Nice job on the gadgets BTW, there is an IP gadget thing on the MS site (or at least there was towards the end of the beta, haven't looked in a while) that does this without the PHP script.

Vista comes with a task manager. Is he asking for a gadget to access the task manager from the sidebar? I just do a desktop shortcut myself. How about a Task Manager Gadget...Ive seen manny Run Command Gadgets that can Run Programs but how about one that can both Run and Kill them (also Log off and the other cool stuff taskmgr does) So Vista doesn't come with its own taskmanager and you have to make one yourself?

Sounds like something is not set properly in the power profile. Did you save the changes to the power profile? Look in the advanced power settings at the profile your using, you will find lots of things there you can set.

"OK... So do you think I should actually use my 1GB Flash Drive?" Yes, if you really want to use and see if ReadyBoost will do you any good you need to at least give it a chance by meeting the specs. See next answer. "1. Then, for a 512MB RAM, why do we need more - 1GB?" Because the minimum spec for ReadyBoost is a minimum of at least twice your installed RAM for reliable and helpful service. By using less then the minimum spec'd amount you actually place an added burden on your hard drive and system and can decrease its performance. "2. Is there any program which will reinstall the flash drive driver so it will act like RAM? Wishful thought..." Nothing comes to mind right now, I've always just added physical RAM. I'm sure someone has tried to come up with something. But why would you want to do that?. More RAM is the solution. OK... So do you think I should actually use my 1GB Flash Drive? Also, I know that readyboost does not add memory. 2 Questions, since that was brought up: 1. Then, for a 512MB RAM, why do we need more - 1GB? 2. Is there any program which will reinstall the flash drive driver so it will act like RAM? Wishful thought...

One day while using Vista you think to your self that it seems to not be as fast or as snappy all of a sudden as it was when you access other drives in the machine. Not really slow, but not as snappy as it was a little while ago. Take a look in one place first before you get all rash and think you need to d/l some other utility or something or go posting on numerous forums "Help me please". Open up explorer and right click on the drive, choose 'Properties' then click on the 'Security' tab. Take a good look at the 'Groups or User names' part of the tab. Do you see; 1. An account listed there called 'Unknown' with some long number to the right of it and there is a tiny red question mark on the little pic (the one with the two people) to the left side? (You have to look close for the red question mark) 2. Do you see the red question mark from #1 above with nothing to the right of the pic (just a blank space)? 3. Do you see the red question mark from #1 above but just see the long number to the right without the word 'Unknown'? If you do see any of 1 - 3 above then those are not valid accounts. You have one of four most common problems that cause this, A: You got an update from windows update that did not install correctly or failed...B: You installed some software where the installer portion was not 100% compatable with Vista....C: You have some virus/trojan/or spyware that got installed....D: The Trusted Installer service hiccuped or failed in some way (you didn't turn it off did you?). Each of these may cause this problem if something goes wrong. Vista doesn't always tell you when something went wrong or wasn't compatable, it may have installed and be working fine and this is just a left over from the install that Vista thinks is still active for some reason because the installer in the application had a few issues. Item C: and D: are the least likely causes (if your anti-virus/trojan/spyware detection didn't say any thing, and if it was D: then the error should show up in Event Viewer logs.) Leaving the invalid account in place will slow performance. You can remove these without harm. To do so, on the 'Security' tab click the 'Edit' button, then highlight the invalid account and click the 'Remove' button, then click the 'Apply' button. Vista will start applying the security settings (removing the permissions of the invalid account) on all the files on the drive, may take a little while for this to complete. This causes a decrease in performance it seems because the account is arguing with Vista over who has what rights to what and the account is really a phantom account and doesn't exist but Vista sort of recognizes the account because it thinks the failed install or the 'bad' install is still in progress. A failed Vista update is the most likely candidate. Repeat for each drive in your computer that has any of 1-3 above. Reboot the machine after you compete this and check the security tab again of each drive, if the accounts are gone your good to go, if they come back then you need to dig deeper and find out whats causing the problem, but for the most part they should stay gone - until what ever caused them occurs again. If you see an actual valid account with the red question mark, don't delete that account as that one probably actually has a different issue that the above will not solve, but thats another post for some other day.

No, not faked completly, the 14 second part was time compressed to show a faster start up time of 14 seconds. I could understand maybe a 10 - 20% improvement in start up time, but from 75 seconds to 14 seconds, 50% or more improvement in startup time? No, I don't think so, not with ReadyBoost. If that were true then,compartively, anyone who can start up in a 30 second time frame for example could have a 5 second startup time just by using ReadyBoost. OK, show of hands...who here has a 5 second startup time for a Vista machine by using ReadyBoost? Hmmmm...OK, thought so , ReadyBoost just doesn't work that way. (There is one other way this could have been done, if the person somehow managed to get Vista to actually install on a very large Flash drive (they do exist, i've see ones that are 60GB), or in a very large memory cache, it would be possible. the video specifically implies, however, that its a machine and ReadyBoost was used.) If you have 512 MB of RAM installed in the laptop then your ReadyBoost device (your SanDisk 256MB device) is too small. It needs to be at least 1GB. Thats a starting point to discover why your not seeing any benefit from ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost is not adding memory, its not memory, its only a cache for things like small I/O operations to relieve the hard drive from those things. Are you thinking that you had 512MB in the laptop and then you were adding 256MB more of memory? Your not suppose to stop the ReadyBoost service if your trying to use ReadyBoost. It leads to corruption of the ReadyBoost.sfcache file. You need to, in the ReadyBoost device properties, check the "Do not use this device". Your confusing the heck out of Vista. The activity your describing is normal activity for the conditions you describe. BTW, just so there is no confusion, I'm not saying ReadyBoost will work fine for everyone, I'm just saying that if you meet the requirements ReadyBoost might be of some help to you.

"It takes a long time to simply load the stuff on my flash drive - so it won't help during startup. In fact, it seems to make it worse as not only the system has to load, but the readyboost cache needs to be built up at the same time" I'm not sure I understand what your saying here. Here are my experiences in testing ReadyBoost as i think they relate to your post; 1. ReadyBoost isn't supposed to really help with startup persay...even though it does to some extent, its actually designed to start helping after the system starts up and any benefit from it for start up is just a side benefit (even tho MS advertises it differently). The first place Vista looks at for start up is the hard drive, and then ReadyBoost helps handle the smallish I/O stuff taking the strain off the hard drive and system a little by putting those smaller I/O's somewhere (your ReadyBoost device, written to and from the cache file on the device), so I guess you could say that it helps with start up but it doesn't really kick in until after start up. ReadyBoost just doesn't jump in on every small I/O that comes along either. If your ReadyBoost device is enabled then there is no cache to build up, when you enable the device to be a ReadyBoost device the cache is automatically built in the size specified on the ReadyBoost tab, the cache file is called ReadyBoost.sfcache. (yes, i'm aware of the video on the net that shows a computer with a 75 second start up without ReadyBoost and then a 14 second startup with ReadyBoost - its not real, the 'with ReadyBoost' part is time compressed. If it were real then the system has some really big memory problems that need to be addressed. If it were real it would indicate that the whole OS was being cached just about on the ReadyBoost device or in memory, a 50% or better decrease in loading time? hmmm...Ok.) 2. Your ReadyBoost device should be on Automatic start and not Delayed and on 512 MB systems should be twice to three times the size of your installed RAM (MS recommendation) at a minimum. I tried some USB devices for ReadyBoost on some 512MB systems, the USB devices were 1GB (twice the installed RAM), I've found, however, that on 512 systems while a 1GB USB device worked well that ReadyBoost was a whole lot better and helped out a lot more when I switched to a 2GB USB device. The ReadyBoost device should not be used for anything else except ready boost and should not have any other files on it except for the cache file ReadyBoost puts on it. Even though ReadyBoost devices work better with Fat32 at smaller sizes, there is really no difference between Fat32 and NTFS for ReadyBoost operation. The ReadyBoost.sfcache file size has a max limit of 4GB (it's a FAT32 limit for max file size i think). What size is your ReadyBoost device? From what you said it sounds like it may not be big enough. (no, thats not what she said either ) Remember, ReadyBoost is not a solution, its a temporary measure, contrary to what all the hype would have one think. The solution is more ram in the system.