Fix — Tag

Jul
31
2007

Vista gets reliability and performance patch - appears to fix most annoyances

12:55am · Tech · · · · ·
0

Neowin, NVNews have reported that a new patch has been sent out to testers fixing many, very annoying performance and reliability issues in Vista. Included in the fixes are the problems that drove me back to XP:

938979 Vista Performance and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the performance and responsiveness for some scenarios and improves reliability of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:

* Improves performance in resuming back to the desktop from the Photo and Windows Energy screensaver.
* Resolves an issue where some secured web pages using advanced security technologies may not get displayed in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.
* Resolves an issue where a shared printer may not get installed if the printer is connected to a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 system and User Access Control is disabled on the Vista client.
* Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.
* Improves the performance in calculating the ‘estimated time remaining’ when copying/moving large files.
* Improves performance in bringing up Login Screen after resuming from Hibernate.
* Resolves an issue where synchronization of offline files to a server can get corrupted.
* Resolves a compatibility issue with RAW images created by Canon EOS 1D/1DS Digital SLR Camera which can lead to data loss. This only affects RAW images created by these two specific camera models.
* Resolves an issue where a computer can lose its default Gateway address when resuming from sleep mode.
* Improves the performance when copying or moving entire directories containing large amounts of data or files.
* Improves the performance of Vista’s Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.

938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack
This update resolves a number of individual issues which may be affecting some computers running Windows Vista. These issues have been reported by customers using the Error Reporting service, product support, or other means. Installing this update will improve the reliability and hardware compatibility of Windows Vista in a variety of scenarios. Some examples of the improvements contained in this update are:

* Improved reliability and compatibility of Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
* Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
* Increased compatibility with many video drivers.
* Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.
* Improved quality of playback for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.
* Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.
* Improved Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
* Improved the reliability of Windows Calendar in Vista.
* Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.
* Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
* Increased reliability and performance of Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Some minor annoyances that I had (such as the no sound when going into hibernation while something is making a noise) aren’t in that list, but still, this is very promising from Microsoft. See the link for the downloads.

Will it send me back to Vista? No, not yet. I’ll wait until SP1 thankyouverymuch. I’ve had my pre-SP1 fun - that’s for sure.

Speaking of computers, it seems mine is playing up tonight, but I think it has something to do with the powerboard I’m using, or even the power supply (need to get that replaced soon anyhow). I dunno though, there were times when not even the graphics card BIOS would start…

Sep
21
2006

Windows Vista and The GIMP

12:11am · Tech · · · ·
55

If you are like me, a poor student who can’t afford really expensive graphics packages such as Photoshop and CorelDRAW, you’ll probably use The GIMP to do your drawing.

If you are also like me, and use Windows Vista, you may have noticed a little problem. It hangs when it is querying Fonts. When you force it to close, Windows Error Reporting gives you a report back saying that a Microsoft analyst looked at the problem and it was an “Unknown Error.”

gimp.JPG

Well, don’t fret. In fact, just hold up a tick. For some reason, GIMP takes a long time in querying fonts in Vista. It’ll eventually continue on in its normal fashion. Next time you load it up, the fonts will be cached, so it won’t take as long next time.