TO-Tech Blog

Aren’t you really really glad that you spent that extra money for Windows Vista Ultimate Edition so that you could get all these Ultimate Extras every, hmm, 12 months or so? I really really wanted these extra DreamScenes and SoundScenes (ok, that is new, but do I really care since I usually have my speakers turned off to avoid all that Windows beeping and booping). These extras became available last week (April 22) according to Windows Update. They are optional installs. So, you need to manually select them from the Vista Windows Update window.

I remembered seeing the Realtek audio driver being listed as a problem for the Windows Vista SP1 update. So, I wasn’t too surprised to see this problem. Fortunately, the Check for solutions online button actually led me to the Realtek driver page with updated Vista drivers at…

Realtek Audio Drivers page

…and the new drivers resulted in a functional audio system on my Vista box.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available. Before installing it, you might want to read more about it at…

Microsoft TechNet Windows Vista TechCenter SP1

The 32-bit version is huge weighing in at 434MB. The 64-bit version is, un, huge-er at 762MB. And, be aware that some applications, especially security related apps, might break after SP1 is installed.

Hmm…

UltimatePC.com

…Let me see if I understand this correctly. I have the Ultimate version of Windows Vista. But, I need to buy more? And, what happened to all those ultimate extras that we Ultimate Edition owners/users were supposed to get??? Here’s what I think. Take a cue from Apple and roll all the Windows editions into Ultimate Edition and charge US$129.95. One edition. All the features. One version for support staff to deal with. Think about it.

I’ve been managing my family photos on a Windows XP PC because it deals with files copying, etc.) much faster than Windows Vista on a much faster (hardware-wise) PC. However, XP decided it could start to burn a data DVD but couldn’t figure out how to finish it (I let the process go on for 20 minutes before killing the process from Task Manager). So, I copied the photos from the XP PC to the Vista PC using an external drive. I guess don’t burn data DVDs often using Vista because I noticed that it default to burning a Live File System. This may have been marginally ok when using DVD+RW discs was more common than using an external hard drive for read-write external storage, but it makes no sense now. The Life File System is horrendously slow. It would take hours to write even a gig or two. Fortunately, I clicked on the formatting options and saw and chose the Mastered option instead.

The second thing I noticed is that the slowest recording speed setting available is 6x. I generally only burn a couple of backup data DVDs a month (usually just photos). So, I have a bunch of 4x DVD+R discs I was using on my XP PC. Fortunately, I have 16x DVD+R discs too and used those instead. But, I wish a 4x option was available too.

Just a note to myself. I don’t use any of the apps on the list. But, you can never tell…

Information about programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows Vista Service Pack 1-based computer

I bought an HP PhotoSmart C6250 multifunction (print, scan, copy) printer just before the holiday season to print the annual family newsletter (multiple pages, lots of photos). The printer did the job but has been an endless source of frustration.

The first problem is that it locks up my Windows Vista PC if the printer is turned on before the PC has completed booting. This is NOT a Vista problem. It locks up right at the initial BIOS screen. This PC has worked fine with two other USB printers. So, the printer ports should be fine.

The next problem is that Windows Vista insists that I have a new printer every time I boot and reinstalls the drivers each time. This is maddening.

Vista seems to lose track of the printer every now and then and the print jobs stalls in the queue without letting me know there is a problem.

HP’s scanning software sometimes saves scanned photos to My Scans. Other times in stores it to a folder under it created under that folder (e.g., 2008-02 (Feb)). Sometimes it brings up the HP browsing software after a scan. Other times it brings up Windows Explorer.

Next, printing over the network (the C6250 is LAN enabled) from a Windows XP PC worked for a few days and then could not find the printer after that even after I manually entered the printer’s IP address.

Finally, HP updated C6250’s driver but never renamed it. Both the old driver and the one released in January 2008 are named PS_AIO_02_Network_ENU.exe. However, the two files have completed different file sizes. And, of course, the earlier one was released prior to January 2008.

The first HP printer I ever bought for myself was the HP ThinkJet released in 1984. I think I bought mine sometime in 1985. So, I’ve bought a series of HP printer for over 20 years now and have been pretty happy with them up until Vista was released, their inability to provide printers for old, and now, apparently even new printers.

So, so long HP! My next printer will probably be a Canon.