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Flame on: Windows Vista

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Posts

  • MorskittarMorskittar Lord Warlock Engineer SeattleRegistered User regular
    edited February 2008
    bongi wrote: »
    Morskittar wrote: »
    Guys, don't turn off UAC. Seriously.
    Zeon wrote: »
    I think one of the reasons i kind of didnt like the standard UI is that it is very reminiscent of the OSX interface. I know a bunch of mac users are going to scream at me for that, but its true. I get the same feeling using a fresh install of Vista as i do when i sit down at the Mac at work. Everything is just way TOO user friendly, and its hard for me to get any actual work done on the machine. Of course, this is a personal thing, as i know there are people who love the OSX interface. Im not one, and its not for lack of exposure or trying, i just can never remember how to do things on OSX because everything seems so unintuitive to me.

    I don't really know what you mean by this. To me, Vista seems 90% similar to XP on the surface (barring the theme, whoo), and OS X is its own thing.

    I've never seen Vista remove all text from an installer and replace it with a cute, bouncing, shiny thing.
    i have no idea what mac os x phenomenon this is supposed to be referencing

    I have no idea either. I just know it took me half an hour to install Firefox on my mom's computer, because I kept dragging the installer bouncing icon to the app folder, which launched the installer instead of the app every single time; there was nothing that said "install" and only a single, shiny, Firefox icon that bounced when I clicked it (this all after the original install became mysteriously corrupt). The whole experience reminded me of the Three Seashells thing in Demolition Man.

    That said, I respect the fact that it was entirely my own ignorance and lack of experience with OS X that led to this scenario. I'm actually of the opinion it's a brilliant operating system, for nearly everyone but me.

    Morskittar on
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  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Monoxide wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    Why not disable UAC? Its annoying as fuck and if you don't download all willy nilly and run everything you come across you should be okay.

    what are you talking about? Seriously. I don't do all the "willy nilly" shit you speak of, but guess what, malware happens. I had an XP computer, did a fresh install, installed antivirus/antispyware with updated definitions off of CD, and fully patched from a CD before I plugged it into the network. It was the only computer on the network, behind a firewall, and it still got 2 peices of malware on the machine after 48 hours of just sitting there turned on, not being used for one minute after inital setup.

    Malware happens, saying that it can't happen to you is foolish. You have good net practices, but actually running things as administrator, and running an admin account is stupid when UAC is pretty much un-obtrusive after about 4 days of training.

    Except what you just explained is impossible and most competent users seem to get by just fine without significant malware infestations on XP.

    I'm not saying anyone should turn off UAC the second they get Vista, but it's not like plugging in a Windows machine to a reasonable network means it's instantly going to begin transmitting your bank details to Uganda because you disabled UAC.

    if it's impossible, then how did it happen? it's a fucking test that I ran. it had 3 peices of malware on it after 3 days, all 3 were not system destroying, one was just a tracking bot, but they were there.

    Also, you're assuming most users on the internet are competent. That is a bad assumption. People do not understand how to properly use their computers, and how to properly protect themselves. that is a fact.

    wunderbar on
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  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    wunderbar wrote: »
    Monoxide wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    Why not disable UAC? Its annoying as fuck and if you don't download all willy nilly and run everything you come across you should be okay.

    what are you talking about? Seriously. I don't do all the "willy nilly" shit you speak of, but guess what, malware happens. I had an XP computer, did a fresh install, installed antivirus/antispyware with updated definitions off of CD, and fully patched from a CD before I plugged it into the network. It was the only computer on the network, behind a firewall, and it still got 2 peices of malware on the machine after 48 hours of just sitting there turned on, not being used for one minute after inital setup.

    Malware happens, saying that it can't happen to you is foolish. You have good net practices, but actually running things as administrator, and running an admin account is stupid when UAC is pretty much un-obtrusive after about 4 days of training.

    Except what you just explained is impossible and most competent users seem to get by just fine without significant malware infestations on XP.

    I'm not saying anyone should turn off UAC the second they get Vista, but it's not like plugging in a Windows machine to a reasonable network means it's instantly going to begin transmitting your bank details to Uganda because you disabled UAC.

    if it's impossible, then how did it happen? it's a fucking test that I ran. it had 3 peices of malware on it after 3 days, all 3 were not system destroying, one was just a tracking bot, but they were there.

    Also, you're assuming most users on the internet are competent. That is a bad assumption. People do not understand how to properly use their computers, and how to properly protect themselves. that is a fact.

    It *is* impossible, especially considering the parameters you gave are accurate. If you could give the actual list of "malware" found it would be helpful. Keep in mind that most spyware scanners pad their results with things that are really innocuous (like cookies) but can *technically* count, in very strict definitions, so it allows them to find issues even on new systems.

    I would really like to see what you found.

    jonxp on
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  • stigweardstigweard Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Seriously, we have no idea of your testing methodology, the state of the media you used for the installation, the firewall, or any of it. Are we supposed to sit here in awe and believe it when many of us experience the exact opposite? It can happen to me, it can happen to anyone only follows when you are in the top of your field and used the best tools and methodologies available to you. There is no way your firewall was setup properly, and I highly doubt you used a secure local policy template before connecting to the internet. What you describe is impossible if you are setup correctly.

    stigweard on
  • FaceballMcDougalFaceballMcDougal Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Those spyware checking apps call cookies and benign files shit like "bots" and "trackers" because the more malware they can claim to find the happier the user is.

    I'm betting there are files that load on a fresh XP install that would be considered some "tracker" by Spybot or something...

    FaceballMcDougal on
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  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Yeah, I run spyware scans periodically and all they ever find is cookies.

    Which is fine, I guess, because there was once a time when we all thought cookies were evil.

    Azio on
  • smallmouthsmallmouth Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Those spyware checking apps call cookies and benign files shit like "bots" and "trackers" because the more malware they can claim to find the happier the user is.

    I'm betting there are files that load on a fresh XP install that would be considered some "tracker" by Spybot or something...

    This is why I stopped using Spybot in favor of Windows Defender.

    smallmouth on
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  • ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I just updated to Vista and it has crashed on me about 5 times, if not more. It's extremely frustrating. Has Vista always been this unstable, or did I screw it up?

    Zombiemambo on
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  • RookRook Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    I just updated to Vista and it has crashed on me about 5 times, if not more. It's extremely frustrating. Has Vista always been this unstable, or did I screw it up?

    Screwed up probably. Make sure you have the latest drivers for everything.

    Rook on
  • bongibongi regular
    edited February 2008
    Morskittar wrote: »
    bongi wrote: »
    Morskittar wrote: »
    Guys, don't turn off UAC. Seriously.
    Zeon wrote: »
    I think one of the reasons i kind of didnt like the standard UI is that it is very reminiscent of the OSX interface. I know a bunch of mac users are going to scream at me for that, but its true. I get the same feeling using a fresh install of Vista as i do when i sit down at the Mac at work. Everything is just way TOO user friendly, and its hard for me to get any actual work done on the machine. Of course, this is a personal thing, as i know there are people who love the OSX interface. Im not one, and its not for lack of exposure or trying, i just can never remember how to do things on OSX because everything seems so unintuitive to me.

    I don't really know what you mean by this. To me, Vista seems 90% similar to XP on the surface (barring the theme, whoo), and OS X is its own thing.

    I've never seen Vista remove all text from an installer and replace it with a cute, bouncing, shiny thing.
    i have no idea what mac os x phenomenon this is supposed to be referencing

    I have no idea either. I just know it took me half an hour to install Firefox on my mom's computer, because I kept dragging the installer bouncing icon to the app folder, which launched the installer instead of the app every single time; there was nothing that said "install" and only a single, shiny, Firefox icon that bounced when I clicked it (this all after the original install became mysteriously corrupt). The whole experience reminded me of the Three Seashells thing in Demolition Man.

    That said, I respect the fact that it was entirely my own ignorance and lack of experience with OS X that led to this scenario. I'm actually of the opinion it's a brilliant operating system, for nearly everyone but me.
    i still have nooooo idea what you're talking about babe

    bongi on
  • DietarySupplementDietarySupplement Still not approved by the FDA Dublin, OHRegistered User regular
    edited February 2008
    So last night, I made the leap. But before I get to my experiences, here's what I'm bringing to the table: I've been a Mac user my entire life, and my PC experience has been largely for gaming, only. So you can assume (perhaps correctly) that I know my away around hardware. My tale begins with my recent computing build. With a recent work bonus + tax time looming (refunds are awesome), I put together an SLi configuration with 2GB's of RAM, and a 3.0 Core 2 processor. I was running XP and life was, well, terrible. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why I was experiencing random crashes or screen artifacing. At first I chalked it up to SLi, which as I understand is still rather buggy. But there was a strange similarity in all the crashes, so I started digging through event logs. Long story short, one of my sticks of RAM was hella-jacked up (memtest86 hated it the same way one might hate spicy foods).

    One RMA later, I decide, "what the hell I'll go to 4GB's of RAM. What could it hurt?" After reading all about memory addressing and 32bit OS'es and the dreaded 2GB barrier, I decided that this was a perfect excuse to spend some more money and jump to Vista x64. So, hard-earned monies in hand I purchased a system builder OEM of Home Premium.

    After installing all 4GB's of RAM (and testing them all FIRST this time), I set about installing Vista. I was sort of puzzled during the install, as the DVD booted I got the nice background, and a mouse cursor... and then it sat there. For 3 minutes. Then I got the to the installer. Which was upsetting to me; I thought it would have taken right off. So that's my first question: any idea why that would be?

    So, as the install was winding down, I got a nice black screen saying Vista was getting ready to start for the first time. And then, just as slowly as it had begun, it ended in a nice BSOD. I'll save you the details, but heed my tale with care: if you have "certain hardware configurations" (Microsoft's words) and more than 2 GB of RAM, take out the extra, install Vista, install a hot fix, then put your RAM back in. It only took me 3 install attempts to get that one right. So if I have any bitching, that would be it, right there: I thought the thing about 64bit computing was the memory addressing benefits, so why have an OS that won't accept more than 2 out of the box, until you patch it? Doesn't that sound like the sort of thing you'd test? Like, a lot?

    So now that I'm up and running, I have two legitimate bitches:

    1: My sound card. I have a Creative Labs xFi card. Yes, there are WHQL or WWJD or whatever the hell it's called for x64. I have it. It works. What annoys me is that, seemingly randomly, it changes my speaker configurations back to 2.1 instead of 5.1. Furthermore, Ventrilo behaves like a total bastard as well: I can't use DirectSound for my input or output (I get nothing, and people on with me can't hear me). Also, the key clicks "come and go" when I have push-to-talk enabled (that is, I don't get the full sound, I might get the start of the effect or the end of it) but the voice communications come through fine.

    2: Video performance. Like I said, I have the correct x64 drivers for all my components, but I'm getting some flaky video performance still. For example, lets say I want to change my date or time. This prompts a UAC window, and during that it "ghosts" my desktop and any open windows. 99.9% of the time this is fine. But sometimes as it ghosts, it totally blanks my screen. Hard drive activity doesn't stop, nor does any active sound. What do you guys think, bad drivers? Just a fluke? It's happened twice, and given my previous experience with my new build I just hope it isn't anything like I was getting before (i.e. bad hardware).

    Other than that, I must say it is rather pretty to look at. After running my "Vista Experience" benchmarks I scored a 5.4 out of 5.9 (what the hell kind of scale is that, anyway?) so I guess I should be pleased. I spent the rest of the evening patching WoW and setting up Steam and installing Crysis again, so I'm anxious to see DX10. And reading through this thread has answered a lot of my questions as well.

    edit: because somehow black text got in there.

    DietarySupplement on
  • stigweardstigweard Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    1. Did you remove any parts of the driver? There are a couple that run in the background that prevent that from happening. You cannot use DirectSound directly, it is emulated only in Vista (it has a new audio architecture - it is the same reason there is no eax anymore).

    2. UAC prompts use a virtual desktop to prevent processes from clicking it themselves (stop malware kind of thing). The regular desktop is inaccessible until you click it. I'm not sure why you aren't getting the prompt, have you upadted Vista completely through windows update?

    3. I think the person in charge of the Vista Experience really, really, likes figure skating. More likely, they have reserved room for the future experience with faster hardware.

    stigweard on
  • DietarySupplementDietarySupplement Still not approved by the FDA Dublin, OHRegistered User regular
    edited February 2008
    stigweard wrote: »
    2. UAC prompts use a virtual desktop to prevent processes from clicking it themselves (stop malware kind of thing). The regular desktop is inaccessible until you click it. I'm not sure why you aren't getting the prompt, have you upadted Vista completely through windows update?

    As far as I can tell, yes. Like I said, it happens when normally a UAC prompt box would appear, but instead of ghosting my screen is blanks it out, as in no display at all. I've been reading more and more about it, and it appears there are a few more hot-fixes available for multiple-gpu builds and Vista that I doubt I have yet*. I will install those when I get home tonight.

    *Actually, that's a good question: are hotfixes normally part of Windows update? How can I tell what I have and what I don't, yet?

    **And n'thly, when's SP1 drop? Anandtech says it's "gold"...

    DietarySupplement on
  • stigweardstigweard Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    SP1 was pulled for compatibility reasons; it was supposed to be out last week. I won't get into the long of why, but yes, you very well could need to seek out a hot fix since not all are on windows update. Hot fixes that haven't been released to windows update are still in a release candidate stage and you need to search through the knowledge base to find them. Some of them will require registration before you can download them.

    stigweard on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Apparently Microsoft artificially lowered Vista's system requirements before launch so that Intel could sell chips, including the virtually useless 915 integrated graphics, through the "Vista Capable" sticker program. Some pretty damning emails have been released by a judge in a related court case.
    From: Steven Sinofsky
    Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:08 PM
    To: Steve Ballmer
    Cc: Bill Veghte, Jon DeVaan
    Subject: RE: Vista

    I think folks are working on this now and we just need time.

    Basically I think three things worked against us:
    # No one really believed we would ever ship so they didn't start the work until very late in 2006. This led to the lack of availability. For example my home multi-function printer did not have drivers until 2/2 and even pulled their 1/30 drivers and re-released them (Brother).
    # Massive change in the underpinnings for video and audio really led to a poor experience at RTM, especially with respect to Windows Media Center. This change led to incompatibilities. For example, you don't get Aero with an XP driver, but your card might not (ever) have a Vista driver.
    # A lot of change led to many Windows XP drivers not really working at all -- this is across the board for printers, scanners, wan, accessories (fingerprint readers, smartcards, tv tuners), and so on. This category is due to the fact that many of the associated applets don't run within the constraints of the security model or the new video/audio driver models. For example, OrlandoA [Microsoft executive Orlando Ayala] is not on Vista because there are no drivers for his Verizon card yet. Microsoft's own hardware was missing a lot of support (fingerprint reader, MCE extender, etc.)

    People who rely on using all the features of their hardware (like Jon's Nikon scanner) will not see availability for some time, if ever, depending on the mfg. The built-in drivers never have all the features but do work. For example, I could print with [my] Brother printer and use it as a stand-alone fax. But network setup, scanning, print to fax must come from Brother.

    The Vista Ready logo program required drivers available on 1/30. I think we had had reasonable coverage, but quality was uneven as I experienced.

    Intel has the biggest challenge. Their "945" chipset which is the baseline Vista set "barely" works right now and is very broadly used. The "915" chipset which is not Aero capable is in a huge number of laptops and was tagged as "Vista Capable" but not Vista Premium. I don't know if this was a good call. But these function but will never be great. Even a 945 set has new builds of drivers coming out constantly but hopes are on the next chipset rather than this one.

    The point Jim [Allchin, the previous Windows chief] had of declaring a Release Candidate was because he sensed people were not really working under a deadline in the ecosystem. This helped even though we knew we had more work to do on our side.

    So far I am surprised at the low call volume in PSS [Product Support Services]. I think we have a lot of new PCs which helps and the hobbyist people who bought FPP/UPG [Full Packaged Product or upgrade] just know what to do and aren't calling, but I know they are struggling.

    All of this is why we need much more clarity and focus at events like WinHEC [Windows Hardware Engineering Conference]. We need to be clearer with industry and we need to decide what we will do and do that well and 100% and not just do a little of everything which leaves the IHV [Independent Hardware Vendors] in a confused state.

    Azio on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited February 2008
    Also, if any of you guys are using an activation crack you probably shouldn't download the Windows Update that came out on the 26th. The title just says "update for Vista" but it is actually a program that runs to detect activation cracks "that interfere with usual Windows operation". If it finds one it pops up a message telling you to restart the computer so they can "repair" it, in other words make it impossible to log in until you activate.

    Azio on
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    That is freaking horrible. How did they not see that would blow up in their faces?

    Couscous on
  • MorskittarMorskittar Lord Warlock Engineer SeattleRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    bongi wrote: »
    i still have nooooo idea what you're talking about babe

    Nor would I expect you to... it was quite the odd experience on a Mac that had been acting up anyway, and half-remembered.

    I find it interesting, in that email, that hardware manufacturers supposedly didn't even start drivers until late 2006; when Vista was actually released and in the hands of Volume Licensing early adopters. It really does seem to be a "cry wolf" scenario; so many false starts and delays made hardware manufacturers understandably wary of dedicating time to producing drivers. I'd say it was probaby inevitable, and pushing it back further to allow them to finish would have created more uncertainty.

    I'm still of the opinion that Vista was always destined to be a sacrificial lamb of sorts; the first Windows product to make a major change to the driver model was bound to cause problems. Once that's all sorted out, hardware manufacturers have figured out the new model, and Vista takes the brunt of negativity, the path is cleared for a new version of Windows to run with the technology.

    Especially if that new verison grabs some of the improvements from Server 2008.

    Morskittar on
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  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    A note on the new Vista sound architecture:

    Yeah, it no longer allows direct programmatic access to the sound card. It sucks, but basically all modern computers (especially those of people that care about this stuff) can emulate it without breaking the 1% mark on the CPU scales. Sound just isn't *hard* anymore. It used to be, but it's been a long time since a sound card really brought anything to the table DSP wise that couldn't be cheaply emulated in CPU.

    The good news is that it gives you a separate volume control for each program. Click on your little speaker icon in the system tray, and when the volume control comes up, click on "mixer". I find this invaluable, especially when I need to turn a podcast way up without making myself go deaf when an e-mail comes in.

    jonxp on
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  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I have my back against the wall right now. Part of my wants to upgrade to Vista so I can finally put some more ram in my machine, but I am hearing a lot of horror stories about this OS still...

    So uhh, I guess I am best waiting for at least SP1 to smooth out?

    Jasconius on
  • MorskittarMorskittar Lord Warlock Engineer SeattleRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Jasconius wrote: »
    I have my back against the wall right now. Part of my wants to upgrade to Vista so I can finally put some more ram in my machine, but I am hearing a lot of horror stories about this OS still...

    So uhh, I guess I am best waiting for at least SP1 to smooth out?

    You haven't read the thread, have you? :D It should probably be called "Flame Off" at this point.

    If you have modern hardware, you will likely not have any issues. Most of the major SP1 changes are already rolling out through Windows update, and the rest apparently solve the two actual bugs some have found; copy times and wireless networking.

    Morskittar on
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  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    jonxp wrote: »
    A note on the new Vista sound architecture:

    Yeah, it no longer allows direct programmatic access to the sound card. It sucks, but basically all modern computers (especially those of people that care about this stuff) can emulate it without breaking the 1% mark on the CPU scales. Sound just isn't *hard* anymore. It used to be, but it's been a long time since a sound card really brought anything to the table DSP wise that couldn't be cheaply emulated in CPU.

    The good news is that it gives you a separate volume control for each program. Click on your little speaker icon in the system tray, and when the volume control comes up, click on "mixer". I find this invaluable, especially when I need to turn a podcast way up without making myself go deaf when an e-mail comes in.

    One advice regarding sound, you need drivers for certain features. I had to install the drivers for my onboard soundchip in order to enable monitoring capability for the line-in - playback through speakers (drivers supplied by windows didn't allow this unfortunately) and I am not willing to buy additional device just to switch sound input if I already have a PC running all the times besides my Xbox 360. As already said, the disadvantage of this sound architecture is that sound effects can't be handled directly by your soundcard's HW - so for older games you need the Alchemy app from creative (for example) in order to get these fancy EAX effects back (although new games have their own build in system for handling environmental effects).
    I have my back against the wall right now. Part of my wants to upgrade to Vista so I can finally put some more ram in my machine, but I am hearing a lot of horror stories about this OS still...

    So uhh, I guess I am best waiting for at least SP1 to smooth out?

    I must say, besides the incompatibility of my 780i mainboard to my Quadcore processor (which was purely HW related and every other OS refused to boot too) I hadn't any issue with Vista. The only things I had to do is to disable desktop composing for some older applications. I disabled the UAC (sp?) too, because it was driving me nuts - every time I tried changing start menu items the stupid conformation box popped up.

    Dratatoo on
  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I just have a few questions about Vistas in gereral.

    I built a new computer for gaming around the end of January and decided to put Vistas Ultimate on it and give it a shot. After playing arounf with it for a month, I like what I am using, there are some pretty nifty features on it, but I noticed a couple of things.

    First, even though I have four gigs of RAM, my computer is only showing 2814 on it. I was told by a friend that Vistas only detects up to three gigs of RAM and I thought that was weird. Is it supposed to do this and is there a way around it safely or is Microsoft gonna update this feature later?

    And second, I noticed that I seem to have a complete system crash occasionally when playing games, I read a couple of pages back it's happened to others and the problem usually lies with third party drivers. The thing is that I do not use third party drivers and I checked to see that all of my drivers are up to date. (as a side note, I just updated my graphics driver about 10 minutes ago through windows updated, so I'll check it out later).

    Lastly, is there a good place to go to learn about good ways to tweak the system? I forgot how to do a lot of things and I don't feel like fucking my settings up experimenting. I'd like to increase my gaming performance a bit, but I also do not want to sacrifice too much security. Just small things like managing my system cache and other tips.

    I apologize if most of this was covered in other pages, I just read the first few and the last few of this thread (walls of text :( ) so thanks for any help provided.

    Mild Confusion on
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  • Epyon9283Epyon9283 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    32bit versions of Windows are limited in the amount of RAM they'll see. You'll need a 64bit version to see all of your RAM.

    Epyon9283 on
  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Epyon9283 wrote: »
    32bit versions of Windows are limited in the amount of RAM they'll see. You'll need a 64bit version to see all of your RAM.


    I see, that sucks. I was afraid to get the 64 bit version cause I wasn't positive if all of my games would be compatable with it. Well, I can only hope it will be upgraded or something in the future.

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  • fogeymanfogeyman Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Epyon9283 wrote: »
    32bit versions of Windows are limited in the amount of RAM they'll see. You'll need a 64bit version to see all of your RAM.


    I see, that sucks. I was afraid to get the 64 bit version cause I wasn't positive if all of my games would be compatable with it. Well, I can only hope it will be upgraded or something in the future.
    Most games and software will work fine with it. I just switched to 64-bit Vista, and so far everything has worked.

    fogeyman on
  • MorskittarMorskittar Lord Warlock Engineer SeattleRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Epyon9283 wrote: »
    32bit versions of Windows are limited in the amount of RAM they'll see. You'll need a 64bit version to see all of your RAM.


    I see, that sucks. I was afraid to get the 64 bit version cause I wasn't positive if all of my games would be compatable with it. Well, I can only hope it will be upgraded or something in the future.

    It's not a matter of upgrading, unfortunately. It's an inherent limitation in any 32-bit operating system. The way it's built, it just can't see that much RAM, outside artificial extensions.

    I haven't found anything that doesn't work on 64-bit, other than a single ancient work application that I don't use anyway.

    Morskittar on
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  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    The only real compatibility issue between 64-bit and 32-bit is some drivers.


    And yeah, a 32-bit computer can only address a certain amount of RAM. However, keep in mind that many motherboards (despite "supporting" 64-bit processors) are limited to 2 gigs of ram by their chipsets as well.

    jonxp on
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  • RookRook Registered User regular
    edited March 2008

    And second, I noticed that I seem to have a complete system crash occasionally when playing games, I read a couple of pages back it's happened to others and the problem usually lies with third party drivers. The thing is that I do not use third party drivers and I checked to see that all of my drivers are up to date. (as a side note, I just updated my graphics driver about 10 minutes ago through windows updated, so I'll check it out later).

    Of course you use third party drivers. Anything not written by microsoft counts as third party. Your motherboard, your graphics card, your sound card etc.. Probably best to update your graphics card drivers direct from nVidia/ATI. The initial nVidia drivers released where very crashtastic so that might be a problem.
    Lastly, is there a good place to go to learn about good ways to tweak the system? I forgot how to do a lot of things and I don't feel like fucking my settings up experimenting. I'd like to increase my gaming performance a bit, but I also do not want to sacrifice too much security. Just small things like managing my system cache and other tips.

    Pretty much every "tweak" for more MEGAHURTZZZZ is likely to be bunkum. The only real tweak is to run msconfig and remove every unnecessary program from your startup, regulalry defrag your hard drives and keep your PC free of malware.

    Rook on
  • Epyon9283Epyon9283 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Morskittar wrote: »
    Epyon9283 wrote: »
    32bit versions of Windows are limited in the amount of RAM they'll see. You'll need a 64bit version to see all of your RAM.


    I see, that sucks. I was afraid to get the 64 bit version cause I wasn't positive if all of my games would be compatable with it. Well, I can only hope it will be upgraded or something in the future.

    It's not a matter of upgrading, unfortunately. It's an inherent limitation in any 32-bit operating system. The way it's built, it just can't see that much RAM, outside artificial extensions.

    I haven't found anything that doesn't work on 64-bit, other than a single ancient work application that I don't use anyway.

    Artificial extensions or not, if I enable PAE in a Linux kernel I can see more than 4GB of RAM in a machine. I have a server at work running 32bit Fedora 8. I got the PAE kernel and it sees and uses all 8GB of RAM. While each process is limited to using 2GB the situation is still better than if I needed to run 32bit Windows on it.

    Epyon9283 on
  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Ah, I assumed that third party drivers where refering to drivers that do not come from the products makers and instead came from some random site. I do however manage all my startup programs and virus/spyware scan regulaly as well as defrag.

    Mild Confusion on
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  • Professor SnugglesworthProfessor Snugglesworth Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Okay, I've received the blue screen "Page Fault in Non Paged Area" message at least three times yesterday, so I'm making it my priority to find out the cause of the problem, and isolate it.

    I searched a couple of links, and it seems like one or more programs that aren't Vista friendly might be doing this. I ran the sfc prompt from the second link, and got the message after the scan:

    Verification 100% complete.Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but w
    as unable to fix some of them.
    Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example
    C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

    The next step, in which it lists what programs are causing the errors, won't work though, so I need to find out which programs are causing this, and fix/remove them.

    Does anyone know any programs I can download to thoroughly scan Vista and list what is causing the blue screen of death?

    Professor Snugglesworth on
  • MorskittarMorskittar Lord Warlock Engineer SeattleRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Does anyone know any programs I can download to thoroughly scan Vista and list what is causing the blue screen of death?

    More than the built-in performance/reliability monitor? That should tell you exactly what caused a crash or shutdown.

    Morskittar on
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  • ThreepioThreepio New Westminster, BCRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I've got a 1680x1050 monitor. I have Tie Fighter Collector's Edition patched to run on Vista with 3D acceleration on. However, it appears on my monitor as a tiny 640x480 square. Any idea how I'd get it to fill the screen?

    Threepio on
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  • Professor SnugglesworthProfessor Snugglesworth Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Morskittar wrote: »
    Does anyone know any programs I can download to thoroughly scan Vista and list what is causing the blue screen of death?

    More than the built-in performance/reliability monitor? That should tell you exactly what caused a crash or shutdown.

    All I got from the performance monitor is "OS Stopped Working" followed by a bunch of zeros for failure detail.

    Professor Snugglesworth on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Threepio wrote: »
    I've got a 1680x1050 monitor. I have Tie Fighter Collector's Edition patched to run on Vista with 3D acceleration on. However, it appears on my monitor as a tiny 640x480 square. Any idea how I'd get it to fill the screen?
    Your monitor probably has an "aspect ratio" or "widescreen mode" setting buried in its menu system, you'll want to set that to "stretch" or "fill" or "4:3".

    Azio on
  • MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Threepio wrote: »
    I've got a 1680x1050 monitor. I have Tie Fighter Collector's Edition patched to run on Vista with 3D acceleration on. However, it appears on my monitor as a tiny 640x480 square. Any idea how I'd get it to fill the screen?


    It's your monitor scaling. Go into your video card setup and make sure you have scaling turned on. Otherwise it runs everything at its native resolution and leaves the empty pixels empty - as you are experiencing.

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  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Well. It's one or both of those two things.

    Azio on
  • midgetspymidgetspy Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    My Vista Ultimate install is about 3 months old and Explorer has started crashing repeatedly (while browsing files it crashes every few minutes at least). Is this a known issue or have I acquired another wonderful Microsoft Windows problem that's only solution is to re-install?

    midgetspy on
  • jonxpjonxp [E] PC Security Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    midgetspy wrote: »
    My Vista Ultimate install is about 3 months old and Explorer has started crashing repeatedly (while browsing files it crashes every few minutes at least). Is this a known issue or have I acquired another wonderful Microsoft Windows problem that's only solution is to re-install?

    More than likely it's due to an ill-behaved shell extension or bad codecs.

    The former can be caused by things that add entries to your context menus in Explorer (like WinRAR). The latter can be caused by installing something like KLCP and when Explorer tries to tell render a thumbnail of a video, it crashes out.

    It is rare (since XP at least) for Explorer to crash on its own volition. Keep in mind you don't have to be actively browsing files for these problems to occur either, as your taskbar and start button are also part of explorer.


    A workaround that should prevent all of explorer crashing is this: In an Explorer window, click "Organize", then "Folder and Search Options". Select "View", and check the box labeled "Launch Folder windows in Separate Process". Hit OK, or Apply, or whatever you want as long as it isn't cancel. This will cause each window to have its own process which, while consuming a bit more memory, prevents one bad call from crashing the whole thing.

    jonxp on
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