Spooky

well of course you did, and of course you can. But his issue is that he got screwed by the place that put in his new MB and installed a pirated copy of XP for him, and I assume that he didn't know about it until after it happened, and now he seems to want to do it the right way. Eventually, no matter what hacks and cracks are out there, MS is going to kill any pirated copies. Heck, all they have to do is put any killer code in any update what so ever for any MS product, or even in products from any of their software partners. Remeber the root kit thing from Sony a little while back? People didn't know about that for a long time, think about how easy it would be for MS to introduce some code in a game from a MS partner somewhere. Or how about the media guide in Windows Media Center (WMC) that will download when your connected unless you specifically tell it not to in the media center settings? Or how about that privacy thing in WMC that you have to check to use the guide but also sends information to MS also? A lot of people don't realize that the default search in Vista is thru MS, and they send information to you each time you use it. How about the phishing filter in IE, all they have to do is turn on a validation check when the phishing filter does its thing and they can kill your OS that way. Its only a matter of time, and if they can't get them all this time they will learn from their ways and know more for the next version of windows. Yes I did a upgrade to Vista from a less then legal XP with no problems.

Yes, go to the link I posted above, but instead this time disable the other account and then set up the auto logon for the Administrator. Or...disable the other account and show the admin account on the log in screen and log in manually. The auto-logon is set for the second regular user. isn't there a way to prevent from the auto-logon to activate so I could logon as the admin?

"how can I login as the Administrator?" After you activate the Administrator account, do this: How to enable auto log on Or if you don't want to auto logon the admin, you can log in as the admin in a few different ways: 1. At the log in screen when Vista starts 2. You can 'Switch User' from another account (the other account still stays logged in) 3. You can log out the current users and log back in as the administrator. OK, let's complicate thing a little. I have set the default user to be a regular user, & activated the Administrator Account. now I have auto-logon for the regular user. how can I login as the Administrator?

If this is the first time you tried to activate, possibly because it doesn't see a KMS anywhere during your attempts to activate so it stops the service because it thinks your not really on a network. The enterprise version requires a KMS activation (or some sort of MAK, and failing those a phone call to MS). Do you have a connection to a KMS? Are you on a corporate LAN or a private home LAN (which I assume you are), and if on a private LAN (your home network) where is your KMS? It still checks OK to your local Internet Acces Point possibly because it thinks it needs to give you the opportunity to connect to a KMS somewhere for activation via the internet because it can't find a KMS on a LAN network. Another possible cause - see that 'insufficient recources' thing? And then the slow activity? What changes have you made? What else do you have starting up? Something is eating resources possibly. Also, how long have you been running the enterprise version without activation? (reduced functionality mode kicked in?) Of course I could be wrong too, i'm just looking at it in a very general way.

The very first account you set up on Vista install is in the Administrators group automatically. If you open up the Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Local Users and Groups - you will be bale to enable the Administrator account to show on the login screen, don't forget to set a password for it once you enable it. Then if you want to auto-login to the Administrator account (not recommended) look in the Vista Tweaks and Tips section where I posted how to do an auto-login. No, there isn't a way to have the actual Administrator account as the only account you create on install, except maybe in an unattended install sceinario. You can name your install login account as Administrator but its not the actual Administrator account. After the install is complete what you can do is after you enable the Administrator account outlined above is log into the Administrator account and then remove the first account. Now, all this being said, I think in the unattended forum there was something about how to create only an Administrator account upon install with an unattended install, but I haven't looked and just remember seeing something related to the Administrator account there but i'm not sure.

Sure, I use the WAIK all the time, only used the BDD a few times tho but i'll be using it more come the middle of February. What you could do is do your install, sysprep your install, then produce your own install.wim and replace the one on the install DVD with your own. "Maybe there is a deault BCD enty on the install that could be modified so the install would boot to the right place the first time." You mean into the install directory you want it to boot into? Its always going to boot to the C:\ drive because any drive Vista is installed on becomes the C drive for it. "....so I would think it would mess up multiple partition booting as well." Vista doesn't care about other protecting other partitions, it only seeks protection for the partition its on. This makes sense too (in a fuzzy way) because one of the things Vista seeks to achieve is stability and code integrity, so it only makes sense that it seeks to only protect the area in which it lives. It would cut this project short if Vista got into other system folders. I am surprised it would restrict its damage to the same drive letter though, so I would think it would mess up multiple partition booting as well. I will try that again. I have multiple working windows installs and the other installs can see my Vista hives. Unfortunately, when I try to edit those hives I have run into trouble getting a search and replace utility to work on them. I can't do them all by hand. On a related note, have you ever used the WAIK or BDD? I would think that if you modify the WIM entry and %systemroot% references in the Vista install, you would be almost there. Maybe there is a deault BCD enty on the install that could be modified so the install would boot to the right place the first time.

I just thought of one more thing you can try. In your connection settings uncheck 'Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver' and 'Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder' (you can also un-check IPv6 but i don't think IPv6 is a problem)

I think your going to have problems. But...OK then. I did the same thing during the beta and everything seemed fine for a while then some subtle changes started to occur leading to major crashes in the other OS's on the partition, the short version is that Vista wants to own the partition and its not really happy unless it does and each time you boot into Vista on the same partition with other OS's its going to want to control the partition and eventually its going to leave its mark. Your right, it doesn't over-write non-system folders but Vista does detect older versions of similar files like .dll's and wants to replace them with Vista versions. BTW, I wouldn't put a lot of faith in that article right now, I spotted at least two major incorrect assumption that was made where it says "What is really interesting is what happens if a program like this then tries to write to the Registry: Nothing!" and "The only problem is, the values haven’t been written to the Registry", thats not exactly correct, a program like that can write to the registry. A good example is the program DVDSanta v4, this writes to the registry and causes conflicts with the Vista DVDMaker making Vista think that DEP needs to block DVD Maker from starting up and this can only happen if DVDSanta actually wrote to the registry, thankfully DVDSanta has a decent un-install routine that also removes the conflicting registry entries and lets DVD Maker return to normal operation. If your really intent on editing the actual registry you can do the actual hives and merge your changes thru a reg file from a WinPE 2.0 command prompt after booting on the WinPE 2.0 CD.

Export your existing DWM key, the one you show below. Then delete the DWM key, hit F5 to refresh the registry, then browse to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows] and make sure there is no DWM subkey (sometimes Vista migrates keys to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE]. If the DWM key does exist then delete it too. Then re-start. If you wern't able to run glass as it was set up by Vista without putting those keys in the registry then you should come back up in your original state of not being able to run Aero Glass and some default theme will be loaded. There may be some sort of detection activity, but Vista should (if your system is healthy) re-create the keys it needs in this case.

a modified tcpip.sys? You didn't say anything before about actually using a modified tcpip.sys? What modified tcpip.sys?

Are any services stopping when this happens? (look in event viewer) Do you have any services disabled, or have you blocked any services in the firewall? The guy with the speed problem really didn't have a completly different problem, it was actually part of the same problem thats been related just a different cause and not as extensive as yours. If your bandwidth suffers greatly because of ISP interaction in relation to P2P applications, when the bandwidth gets low enough it will mimic the loss of a connection. You say two minutes? When this happens are you able to renew your IP address?

Are you using one of the ISP's on this list: ISP's known to interfer with Torrent and other P2P applications I don't think the problems your experiencing have anything to do with Event 4226. However, now that another has come forward reporting the exact same problems, and you have something in common (uTorrent), and considering that uTorrent in their own forums reports that some ISP's will cause problems for torrent clients, if might be worth a look. Also, its possible that your clients are not properly configured, thats worth a look too. Have a look here Good Settings and here NAT Problems You might also get some information in the uTorrent Speed Problems forum at: uTorrent Speed Problems And...just a thought, what version of Java are you running (Sun Java?)? For some reason, some versions of Java interfer with network/internet connections. Another thing too, for the firewall, make sure your torrent clients have a rule in the firewall for both TCP and UDP, also make sure your Java version also has a rule for both TCP and UDP, do this for both inbound and outbound. Also, heres an interesting post that seems to go along with what your reporting, kind of: Good speed at the beginning then slow down My own opinion is that there are not any torrent clients that work fully with Vista. Yeah, I know the people who make these things always say 'It works with Vista', well it might be true to a certain extent. But...the issue is, was it actually made/coded with Vista in mind and does it actually fully work with Vista in all aspects, just not on the surface for some basic functionality. Just because something seems to operate in Vista doesn't always mean it actually works in Vista. There is a big difference between 'operating in Vista' and 'working in Vista'.

You can turn off the Vista Start menu baloon tips one of two ways, use either Gpedit.msc or the reg entry below: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ; turn off start menu baloon tips [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:00000091 "NoSMBalloonTip"=dword:00000001

First, as a friendly warning; You really don't want to do what you propose with installing Vista in the same partition as another OS. Yeah, I know you have a way to do it, yes, I know you probably can point to others who say they did it...but you really don't want to do it. Why? because at some point Vista is going to decide its the boss and take over, as in all your other OS's will not be bootable and you will loose data and information, and you will at some point start to experience problems and nightmares (for which you will be seeking help for), and your frustration level will rise, and you will be blaming Vista for the problem when in reality the problems are because Vista was installed in a configuartion that is not supported, period. Anyway... Concerning the registry changes you want to make, you can't change the protected entries...but...what you can possibly do is duplicate those entries to the user virtual registry sections and change them there.

User Account Control, or UAC for short. Yes, I know its a bad word to many, however, it really is your friend and will save your butt at some time or another. Part of the reason for the anger of some over UAC is its name, think about it, User Account Control...."CONTROL!!!! Why is MS wanting to control my computer?" In the beginning of Vista UAC was named User Account Protection (UAP), perhaps they should have left it named that way because the word 'Protection' is much more suitable then 'Control' when in reality the aim of UAC is to protect the user. Anyway, UAC is here for right now. Rumor has it that UAC will quietly go away beginning with SP1 for Vista, I don't know the accuracy of those rumors but in the mean time there are a few tips for living with UAC. There are a few different ways to disable UAC; 1. The easy solution is through Control Panel. Type "UAC" into the search bar at the top of the screen and you'll be presented with a User Accounts GUI that allows you to turn UAC on and Off. 2. At the start menu type 'msconfig' and hit enter and a System Configuration editor will start up. Click on the tools tab and scroll down to the 'Disable' and 'Enable' entries for UAC. 3. You can also disable UAC by using registry entries (outlined in the Vista Tips and Tweaks section) The above methods are a brute force approach as they just turn it on or off without offering any control over the finer aspects of UAC. Right now your probably thinking "What finer control aspects?"...Yes there are some finer control aspects for UAC, or at least there is a way to get a more control over UAC so you can keep it enabled and still live with it. There's a more subtle configuration choice that gives you some of the benefits of UAC without any of the prompting. You'll need to edit the local security policy to control this, do the following: 1. From the Start search bar type 'Local Security Policy'. 2. Accept the elevation prompt (if you get one). 3. From the snap-in select 'Security Settings' - 'Local Policy' - 'Security Options'. 4. Scroll down to the bottom, where you'll find nine different group policy settings for granular configuration of UAC. Perhaps the best choice I can suggest for you here is to select and change the setting 'User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode' from 'Prompt for consent' to 'Elevate without prompting'. Read the explanations on the second page of the property sheet for each policy setting before changing anything. Be careful here because you can mess something up and be locked out of your own computer.

yes, I know who he is.

Event ID: 4672 - thats normal activity, no problems there Event ID: 7036 - this should be have started then stopped within a few minutes or so but yours ran for a little bit longer. Doesn't mean theres a problem, but check your connection settings/LAN settings and make sure nothing is checked there. Are you on a home network? Event ID: 31004: How much memory you have in this machine? Do you have shared access enabled? If you do have access sharing enabled, turn it off and see what happens. Access sharing enabled (even if your not using it) and then running some P2P programs can cause problems, can also in certain conditions make Vista think there are more connections then there really are (certain FTP and P2P clients) - don't know if your in this state tho. Also, do you have more then IE installed for a browser (firefox, mozilla, opera, etc...), if so check the services and make sure a service for those browsers is not running. Do you have a messenger client installed (MSN, etc...)? If so check to make sure its not really running (check services, etc..remember the messenger service in XP - same thing here, will run without starting up and make connections just to be ready for you when it does start.) What services have you disabled? Contrary to popular belief its not necessarly a good thing to disable services on Vista. Is your TCP/IP NetBIOS helper service running?

"It doesn't just block ONE application, it blocks ALL applications from whatever connection they're wanting to attempt, and leaves the applications already connected alone." Hmmmm, something isn't right here. If there is not already a rule to block something the Vista firewall doesn't block anything new until it sees a threat. If the Vista firewall is actually blocking all new connections then your problem is not with the 4226 event because the firewall blocking something doesn't have a thing to do with the 4226 event. And your not experiencing lock-ups either, even though thats what it looks like to you. I didn't realize what you were seeing until now, in your post, when you said "It doesn't just block ONE application, it blocks ALL applications ..." I'm just now seeing the context. I saw a very similar problem with someone else about two weeks after Vista went RTM and after your last post I remembered it. Are you sure your using an RTM version of Vista, thats properly licensed, actually from Microsoft? And...your not using any sort of KMS. If your running a legitimate properly licensed version actually from MS and not using any sort of KMS then something is seriously screwed up with your install, i'd suggest a re-install. Another thought also,,,,are you sure your bandwidth is OK? have you checked your connection and made sure your actually getting the bandwidth from your ISP to support your connections? I's also take another look at that Scientific Atlanta cable modem too, someone else said that only DSL modems act as routers, thats not exactly true, Scientific Atlanta and Motorola cable modems will both act as routers its just that the capability to physically access the router portion is not there.

The shortcut arrows in Vista are actually overlaid icons. You can get rid of them using a couple of different methods, one of which concerns removing, renaming, or changing the value of the more traditional 'IsShortcut' key (outlined elsewhere in the Vista Tricks and Tips section). However, there is a slight problem with changing the 'IsShortcut' key, since Vista relies heavly on links if you change this key some items that rely on links may fail to start up. So we need another method. Using the reg entery below gets rid of the shortcut arrow overlay. Actually what this reg entry does is substitute the shortcut arrow overlay for a transparent overlay which is exactly what TweakUI from MS did in the past. So...here it is for ya... Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons] "29"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\shell32.dll,52" For the correctness of it all the registry entry path should actually be shown as "29"="%SystemRoot%\System32\shell32.dll,52" The 'Shell Icons' key doesn't normally exist in Vista. This reg entry creates the key, and puts the '29' REG_SZ entry in the key and gives the REG_SZ '29' a value of "C:\\Windows\\System32\\shell32.dll,52" which points it to a transparent icon (icon #52) in the shell32.dll file. This reg entry gets rid of the shortcut arrow and at the same time doesn't break our links like the 'IsShortcut' key method might do in Vista. BTW, the above reg entry points to a 16x16 w/16 colors transparent icon in the shell32.dll file. If your running your desktop with the highest setting (32) you might need a transparent icon to match. And in case your interested that hsortvut arrow is in imageres.dll and not in shell32.dll as it once was.

"Description: Windows Firewall was unable to notify the user that it blocked an application from accepting incoming connections on the network." Specifically: "Windows Firewall was unable to notify" Did you disable UAC and defender? Both of these need to be on to receive notifications from the firewall. I don't know what to say, but I saw something in my logs today looking like this: Log Name: Security Source: Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing Date: 12/25/2006 4:00:05 PM Event ID: 5032 Task Category: Other System Events Level: Information Keywords: Audit Failure User: N/A Computer: DarkMind Description: Windows Firewall was unable to notify the user that it blocked an application from accepting incoming connections on the network. Error Code: 2 Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing" Guid="{54849625-5478-4994-a5ba-3e3b0328c30d}" /> <EventID>5032</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>0</Level> <Task>12292</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x8010000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2006-12-25T14:00:05.847Z" /> <EventRecordID>898</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="612" ThreadID="3380" /> <Channel>Security</Channel> <Computer>DarkMind</Computer> <Security /> </System> <EventData> <Data Name="ErrorCode">2</Data> </EventData> </Event> What to do? What is happening?

This same thing was posted over at NeoWin, and I posted the same responses at My Response #1 and at My Response #2 After reading that whole thing, and it was interesting too, its not true. The clue is in the section "Denial-of-Service via Driver Revocation" where he specifically states; "Once a weakness is found in a particular driver or device, that driver will have its signature revoked by Microsoft, which means that it will cease to function (details on this are a bit vague here, presumably some minimum functionality like generic 640x480 VGA support will still be available in order for the system to boot). ....... but I've heard mention of multimillion dollar fines and embargoes on further shipment of devices alongside the driver revocation mentioned above." This is not true and is not based upon any scientific testing or fact what so ever. The author also tries to qualify this, by adding a standard 'give the benefit of the doubt' statement of '...details are sketchy...' and '...details on this are a bit vague here...' and then tries to raise apprehension levels to re-enforce belief by adding a standard dooms day sceinario that appeals to the personal context by stating "...but I've heard mention of multimillion dollar fines and embargoes on further shipment of devices alongside the driver revocation mentioned above....". The author also ignores the fact that un-signed drivers can be used in Vista also (yes they can, i know it for a fact cause i'm using some un-signed drivers) and devices continue to function just fine if the driver is written correctly, heck, one can even produce unsigned drivers for Vista by using the new SDK (and WDDK) from MS. The author indicated statements by ATI and others that may be taken totally out of context to re-enforce the authors views and attempt to add credibility to the writing. By including these statements by reputable companies the author implies that what is in the article is true and implies a certain personal relationship with, and insider information from, these companies. This article does not offer one piece of verifiable proof. The author doesn't tell you several very important facts simply because they are not in line with the thrust of what he would have you believe and would undermine the credibility of his article and so called 'scientific' research. While there are some very small grains of truth in the article, these grains of truth have nothing to do with what the article is trying to say, these grains of truth mostly consist of something along the lines of 'DRM exists' well...Duh! of course it does, but these grains of truth establish a trust bond belief in what the author is saying is true. However, what makes this article totally BS is the author has played to a persons natural inclination to believe something that can personally affect them and forgotten that what he oulines is down-right illegal (disabling parts of your system and violating your legal rights to ownership). Unless our systems of laws is now decided by MS and other companies then what the article offers as proof is total BS. This whole article is carefully crafted to portray authoritative truth by simply taking advantage of human nature's natural inclination to believe by stating grains of truth then adding in authority and half truths to re-enforce that this is a scientifically auhtoritative research and thus must be the truth. Mary Poppins did the same thing with 'A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down', sugar is sweet and palatable so it must be true that the medicine will go down eaisier. The same trick is used here, the appeal to human nature that "well, this one part is true so the rest must be true also because its from an authoritative source". Its the same trick used by snake oil salesmen for centuries. I am not trying to defend Vista or MS, and I don't like the DRM thing myself, its just that when the BS meter reaches 100 its time to point out the fact that it is BS, especially when so many read this stuff and want to believe it. The point i'm making is that if anything is going to be done, it isn't going to be done because someone said so, its going to be done when the problem is defined, documented, and then proven, in a scientifically objective and credible manner. This article doesn't do any of that and only adds to the confusion and hype and plays upon the emotions of others, it actually decreases the effectivness of any effort to resolve the effect that DRM has on our rights and freedoms. Spreading pseudo-scientific/authoritative articles like this only serve to damage and not support any serious work being done. I'm all for free speech and the freedom of expression and opinion but when articles of this nature appear, and are accepted, as authoritative when they aren't it undermines the legitimate work being done to protect our digital rights and freedoms. None of the MS references used by the article do anything the article tends to portray as a dooms day sceinario of total violation of our legal rights, instead the MS references only point out that preminum content can still be used if one is legitimately licensed for it which we all already know. The MS articles simply support a way of accomodating premium content for use. I request that a moderator close this thread before this spins out of control and that MSFN take no part in assisting in spreading this.

I think its very sad indeed, not that vunlerabilities exisit in software but that there are idiots, fools, and stupid people out there that are willing to ruin a good thing for their own selfish and demented reasons. Personally, I think when they catch the people who use exploits for notorious gain and harmful reasons, who produce viruses, who produce trojans, who produce spyware for harmful reasons, should simply be taken out back and shot.

Forgot to add, there is a GUI for Robocopy available at: Robocopy GUI v 3.1.1 here

your right, its not 1980, if it was 1980 the hacker idiots wouldn't be exploiting everything they could. As it is, its the way it is because of those hacker idiots who produce the stuff that takes advantage of a generous allowance of more then the current limit.

Can I upgrade from my present state to Vista without first paying for a Gen Windows validation ? You can't. But...what you can do is go thru MS's amnesty program, explain it to them, pay a reduced cost for a XP license, and then upgrade to Vista.