What to do when Vista computer is unstable?

If your Vista Machine is running slow or very unstable or any hardware issues or mismatched driver issues, Don’t gripe like some silly wannabe bloggers or "page hit" longing magazine editors or self proclaimed Geeks. Instead take some productive steps to find out why it is happening?

STEP 1:

When exactly moment your Vista machine experiencing issues, run "Perfmon /report" in Start search box.  It collects the performance data for 60 seconds and fetch Hardware details.

It gives nice report with detailed information.

Expand all the sections (e.g., Hardware configuration, CPU, Network) and look through to see any RED (error) information. If you find any, start your investigation from there.

STEP 2:

Run "Problems Reports and Solutions" program to see if you can find solutions from Microsoft (documented using error collection from customer machines).  This program collects the hardware and software crash information, hung programs issues ,etc.,

Click Start Orb button and type "Problems Reports" in Search bar. Select the search result item "Problem Reports and Solutions". Explore the options here and you may find a documented solution already here. If you click on "Check for new solutions", the program will download (from Microsoft) new information for your collection problems on your computer.

If you are running on a old hardware, you are allowed to gripe till you afford to buy a latest computer.

If you are trying to use unsupported devices in Vista intentionally, Enlighten yourself at https://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/Default.aspx or at Vendor’s web site.

Keywords: Vista Hardware issues, Vista Crashing, Vista Slow, Vista Unstable

Icons on the Desktop, you can make it large

You are the desktop decorator, Huh! You have plenty of ICONs sitting everywhere on your desktop. That’s the way you like it. Nothing wrong with it. I am a clean freak. I keep my desktop with no ICONs, not even Recycle bin.

With vista, you can display the ICONs in large size in two clicks. Here the few ICONs show up normally.

Now Right click on your desktop, Select View menu ==> Large Icons. That’s it. Check how your ICONs looks now.

You can also go back to your old XP icons view with Classic Icons option. But, Do you really want to go back?

1by1 – the Directory player. Very small sized MP3 player software

Here is the software I really really like. 1by1. It’s really really small foot print and plays MP3 files from your directories.

I compared with 1by1 and Windows Media Player for occupied memory.

Windows Media Player: 21 MB
1by1: 8 MB

I am Impressed. Plus I like the following features in this small foot print.

– Gap less play
– Cross fading
– Audio Enhancer
– Portable (one single EXE file, just move it wherever you want or to any computer…OR simply from your USB drive)

  Download it right here: 1by1 – the Directory Player

Details..Details..Details pane in File Explorer in Vista

Have you noticed the "Detail Pane" in file explorer in Vista. It looks like this.

It shows the relative file information according to the file just like details view. I started to like this idea now. When I am in ICON view mode (which I am usually in all folders), when I click on the file icon the details pane on the bottom shows the information about the file.

Now here is tip. You can change the size of the details pane. Just right click on the blank space in the detail pane and select the size Menu. You have option to change "small", "medium" and "Large".

The above picture is small detail pane. The medium one looks like this.

The large detail pane looks like this.

Notice that more information about the file is displayed in the details pane.

Don’t like the detail pane, you can hide it easily by right clicking on the blank space in the details pane and select "Hide Details Pane".

It’s nice to know every nook and corner is customizable in Vista.  

What’s the actual executable for the process running on your Vista computer?

When you suspect there is a virus or spyware, you check the "Windows Task Manager" to scan through the processes. Say you found an unknown process running on your computer, say abcxyz.exe, what do you do? Usually you search for the executable on your hard disk to see what it is located.

Search no more in Vista. Windows Task Manager in Vista is already showing up some description for the process. Well! if it is spyware, you don’t see any description there.

On Processes tab, Just click View menu and select "Select Columns…" option. Check "Image Path Name" and "Command Line" check box and click OK to close. You will see the location of the process right there in your task manager (processes tab).  It looks like this: (click on image for bigger size)