Vista : Java Glossary

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Vista logo Vista
Microsoft’s successor OS (Operating System) to Windows XP.
Advantages When Vista Won’t Boot Repair Class Action Lawsuit
Bugs Where To Find Installing Books

Advantages

The key advantages are:

Disadvantages and Bugs

Where To Find

Vista hides familiar tools in unfamiliar places. The classic view, available under additional options, makes it easier to find what you need without this guide. Here is where to look:
account control defrag your disks menu
anti-aliasing disk accessing pagefile.sys
associations disk cleanup printer sharing
certificates disk sharing program data
clean junk files off your disks DOS box command prompt QuickLaunch
clock setting drive letters ReadyBoost
colours and Fonts environment variables restore point
correct problems host/machine name run
country change icon size search indexing
desktop install a font startup programs
device manager IP configuration task bar
dial the Internet IP display transparency
dialer default .keystore version
dialer disabling lost icon recovery wallpaper
dialing rules memory test
Where Windows Vista Hides Interesting Information
Function Where To Look Notes

account control

To turn off account control (UAC (User Account Control) ):
  1. Click Start
  2. Control Panel
  3. User Accounts and Family Safety
  4. Click User Accounts
  5. Turn Account Control On Or Off
By default Windows warns you every time it runs a program not digitally signed or anything that could install or uninstall or change a setting. This can drive you nuts, since it will ask about the same program 10 times a minute.

Anti-aliasing

To turn on font smoothing (anti-aliasing)
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Performance Information and Tools
  5. Adjust Visual Effects (on left)
  6. smooth edges of screen fonts
By default anti-aliasing is on. For some fonts, Vista even supports subpixel anti-aliasing called Clear Type. With an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitor, you want ClearType subpixel anti-aliasing. To turn it on click Start ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ Appearance and Personalization ⇒ Personalization ⇒ Windows color and appearance ⇒ Open classic colour and appearance ⇒ Effects ⇒ ClearType.

Associations

  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Programs
  4. Click Default Programs
  5. Associate a file type or protocol with a program
Unlike earlier incarnations of Windows, Vista does not let you set up different associations for open, edit and print. You can just set up the open association. You might try out the Creative Element Power Tools to handle configuring all the associations and the icon.

certificates

To view digital certificates:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Network and Internet
  4. Click Internet Options
  5. Click Content
  6. Click Certificates
  7. Click Other People
    [or other category]
  8. Select certificate of interest
  9. Click View
  10. Click Details
To edit/manage digital certificates:
  1. log on as administrator
  2. At the command prompt, type:
    mmc.exe certmgr.msc
  3. Follow your nose.
Let you view or add digital certificates used for SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypted Internet links. Java code-signing certificates do not appear here. Editing certificates is not for novices. You might want to turn off OCSP revocation checking, for example.

clear event log

To get rid of old event logs that waste disk space:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click Administrative Tools
  5. Event Viewer
  6. Windows Logs
  7. right click clear log
There are several kinds of logs you can clear. You can sort by severity of the error first then scan the logs by eye to look for problems before you delete them.

clean junk files off your disks

To get rid of unnecessary orphaned temporary files:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click Administrative Tools
  5. Free up disk space
Get rid of temporary files, empty the recycle bin. Note you don’t actually click Administrative Tools. Look for Free up disk space right below it.

clock setting

To set the date and time:
  1. right click time in bottom right
  2. Adjust Date/Time. Don’t use this to adjust daylight savings. If you have the time zone configured properly the leaping forward and back should happen automatically. Using it to adjust for DST (Daylight Saving Time) will screw up your file dates which are based on invariant GMT/UTC.
  3. Internet Time
  4. Change Settings
  5. Update Now
change the Date/time format:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Clock Language and Region
  4. Region and Language Options
  5. Change the Date, Time Or Number Format
  6. Customise this format
  7. Date tab
  8. You can select the format or write in your own, e.g. yy-MM-dd.
Synchronises with Microsoft atomic clock, time.windows.com. It is quite unreliable, so I suggest replacing it with another from this list of timeservers. If that does not work, try SetClock.

colours and fonts

To configure the colours, fonts, themes and decoration:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Appearance and Personalisation
  4. Personalisation
  5. Window Colour and Appearances
  6. Open Classic Appearance
  7. Advanced
Configure colours and fonts used on various window widgets. If you find some great wallpaper, save a copy separately so you can reinstall it later. This is also true for fonts. The fonts themselves live in:
C:\Windows\fonts.

correct problems

at the command prompt:
sfc /scannow
This checks Vista files for consistency and automatically corrects some problems.

country

  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Clock, Language and Region
  4. Region and Language Options
  5. Formats
  6. Current Format
  7. Select your country
  8. Location
  9. Current Location
  10. Select your country
  11. Administrative
  12. Copy To Reserved Accounts
  13. Change System Locale
  14. Current System Locale
  15. Select your country
  16. You will be forced to reboot.
The trick is you have to set the country in four places

desktop

C:\Users\user\Desktop\ and C:\Users\Public\Desktop\ Where desktop shortcuts and folders live.

device manager

To see what hardware and device drivers are configured:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Device Manager
What devices are connected? Are there IRQ (Interrupt Request) conflicts? Where do I install new device drivers?

dial the Internet

To set up a dial-up Internet connection for the first time:
  1. Click Start
  2. Connect To
You can set up a connection to a new ISP (Internet Service Provider) or find all the existing ones.

dialer default

To configure which of several possible connections to use to access the Internet:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Network and Internet
  4. Network Sharing Center
  5. Manage Network Connection
  6. Advanced
  7. Advanced Settings
  8. Adapters and Bindings Settings
Which dial up ISP or LAN do you want to use to access the Internet? Put connections in priority order.

dialer disabling

To disable a dialer:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Network and Internet
  4. Network Sharing Center
  5. Manage Network Connection
  6. right click connection
  7. disable
You must disable all your diallers when you use the LAN, or you may find programs wanting to use them in preference to the LAN.

dialing rules

To configure the rules about how to dial the phone:
  1. Click Start
  2. Connect To
  3. Set Up a dial-up connection
Which exchanges are long distance require 1+? When do you need to dial the area code for local calls? Where are you dialling from? See my student project proposal to clean this mess up.

defrag your disks

To defrag your disks:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click Administrative Tools
  5. Defragment your hard drive
Pull files scattered over the disk into one contiguous piece. Note you don’t actually click Administrative Tools. Look for Defragment your hard drive right below it. See defraggers for better quality third party tools.

disk accessing

To access a shared disk:
  1. Click Start
  2. Network
  3. the desired computer
  4. (wait, wait wait)
  5. right click the desired disk
  6. share
Look at somebody else’s hard drive. Optionally, set up a drive letter so their drive forever after looks to be part of your machine. You won’t be able to access any network drives on a machine that is hibernating. Just looking at its drives will not bring it out of hibernation. You must walk over to the that machine and wake it up. This is also true for accessing a shared printer on a hibernating machine.

disk cleanup

To delete unnecessary files:
  1. Click Start
  2. All Programs
  3. Accessories
  4. System Tools
  5. Disk Cleanup
  6. OK
  7. More Options
  8. System Restore and Shadow Copies
  9. Clean up
This cleans up temporary files left after a crash and various bits of miscellaneous junk. It can really add up taking over the bulk of your hard disk if you don’t clean it out periodically.

disk sharing

To share your disk, or a folder with others:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click Administrative Tools
  5. Click Computer Management
  6. System Tools
  7. Shared Folders
  8. Shares
  9. Action
  10. New
  11. File Share
Share your folder or disk with others on the LAN.

DOS box command prompt

To bring up the DOS command prompt:
  1. Click Start
  2. All Programs
  3. Accessories
  4. Command Prompt
This is where you can run old DOS programs or BAT (Batch) files to automate running Windows files. If you use BAT files extensively, you probably should using tcc/TakeCommand instead.

drive letters

To change the drive letter of a disk partition, CD or DVD drive:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click Administrative Tools
  5. Create and Format hard disk partitions
  6. right click drive. Removable drives are at the very bottom. You will probably have to scroll down to see them.

You can also use

  1. Click Tools
  2. Click Map Network Drive on the directory tool bar to map a drive letter to shareable directory on a local or remote drive.
  3. To map your entire E: drive so you can also access it as J:, first click My Computer.
  4. right click E: properties
  5. sharing
  6. share this folder
  7. ok
  8. Click My Computer
  9. right click E:
  10. open
  11. tools
  12. map network drive
  13. Choose J: as the drive and type in the name // roedy/E$ as the share name where roedy is your computer’s name. Infuriatingly, you can’t simply browse to the E:\ directory.
Making your CD-reader always R:, writer always W: and DVD reader/writer always V:. Be careful reassigning disk drives. Registry references will not automatically be adjusted. You may find all programs on that drive stop working. You can’t resetter the system partition or the partition CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide on Silicon) booted from. This makes it vary hard to clone a system without help from a PowerQuest tools. Your clone has to have different drive letters, e. g. copy of the operating system seems to have its own set of drive letter mappings. However, they are fragile. If you add a drive, swap primary and secondary drives, or change the drive CMOS boots from first, it suddenly forgets its letters and reverts to a default set and very likely will become unbootable.

You can use subst X: Y:\ to define alias drive letters for existing drives, or subst X: Y:\somedir to create shortcuts to commonly used directories. However, Windows forgets your settings after every reboot. To get around that problem you need to compose a bat file to do the SUBST and install it as the login script. SUBST is quicker and does not fail when other network connections fail. See J Drive for details.

eject

Ejecting a CD/DVD (Compact Disc/Digital Video Disc) is very flaky in Vista. There are three techniques to try when it does not work:
  1. Press the eject button on the drive.
  2. Right click the drive in My Computer and select eject.
  3. Type ejectmedia V: at the command prompt.
Often Vista saves up writing to do when the disk is closed/ejected, so be patient so long as the CD/DVD is whirring. Sometimes you have to reboot to clear a stuck eject.

environment variables

To set environment variables:
  1. Click Control Panel
  2. Click System and Maintenance
  3. Click System
  4. Advanced System Setting
  5. Environment Variables
Where you do you SET XX=YYYY controls for BAT files. If in doubt, put your variables in the system section. This way they won’t get lost if the system decides to rename your user directory, which it will do if you change your computer workgroup/name. After you set you variables, start new DOS boxes to make the changes take effect. To make the changes take effect in BAT files that you trigger with the task manager, you must reboot.

format

There are three places to format:
  1. FORMAT command line utility
  2. Control panel:
    1. Click Control Panel
    2. Click System and Maintenance
    3. Click Administrative Tools
    4. Click Computer Management
    5. storage
    6. Click disk management
    You can then format partitions.
  3. Pop-up. When you insert a blank DVD a dialog box pops up.
    1. Click burn files to disc
    2. Click show formatting options
    3. click Live File System or Mastered. See the DVD entry for which to choose.
You can format hard disks, CD s, DVDs (Digital Video Discs) and floppies.

host/machine name

To change your computer’s name on the LAN :
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click System
Computer name and Workgroup for this machine. Only machines in the same workgroup see each other.

change icon size

To change the desktop icon size:
  1. Right click on an empty part of the desktop.
  2. Select view.
  3. Select Large Icons, Medium Icons or Classic Icons for small.

install a font

To install a font, usually TTF (TrueType Font) or OpenType-TTF:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Appearance and Personalisation
  4. Install or Remove a Font
  5. Click File. If you don’t see File, click Alt.
  6. Install New Font
  7. In the Add Fonts dialog box, under Drives, click the drive where the font that you want to install is located
  8. Under Folders, double-click the folder containing the fonts that you want to add
  9. Under List of fonts, click the font that you want to add
  10. click Install

IP (Internet Protocol) configuration

To manually assign a fixed IP:
  1. Click Start
  2. Network
  3. Network and Sharing Center
  4. Manage Network Connections
  5. right click connection
  6. Internet Protocol version 4
  7. Properties
Configure static or dynamic (DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) ) IP/DNS assignment. This menu item will not exist until your Ethernet card is functioning properly. Check with the device manager if you don’t see the Local Area Connection option.

IP display

To display the IP automatically assigned to your machine or manually configured:
  1. in a DOS box, type IPCONFIG.
What IP addresses in this machine using? What has DHCP given me for a DNS (Domain Name Service) server? The full name is C:\WINNT\system32\ipconfig.exe. Also shows dial up IP as well.

.keystore

C:\Users\user\.keystore Java code-signing certificates. Use keytool.exe to view the file.

lost icon recovery

To recover lost desktop icons:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Appearance and Personalization
  4. Personalization
  5. Change Desktop and Icons (in the left panel).
  6. Then make sure all the icons you want to see are clicked, e.g. restore computer, network, user and the recycle bin.
Sometimes your recycle bin, computer, network etc. system icons will mysteriously disappear from the desktop. This is how to bring them back. It is fairly easy to accidentally delete one of the crucial system icons. I keep copies in a desktop folder just in case.
  • You can recover Windows Update by creating a shortcut with:
    target: %SystemRoot%\system32\wuapp.exe
    start in: %SystemRoot%\system32
    comment: @%windir%\system32\wucltux.dll,-2
  • You can recover Program Updates by creating a shortcut with:
    target: C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\UpdateService\isuspm.exe
    start in: C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\UpdateService\
  • You can recover your C++ Visual Studio Icon with:
    target: "F:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\ IDE (Integrated Development Environment) \devenv.exe"
    start in: "F:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\ IDE \"
    comment: Launch Microsoft Visual Studio 2009
When you drag an icon on to the start menu, it always creates a shortcut to the original icon. The shortcut will stop working if you delete or move the original icon. Thus it often works best to use icons in a hidden folder as your originals, where than can remain undisturbed.

Sometimes Vista display old versions of icons. To clear its cache:

  1. Stop any browsers.
  2. At the command prompt type CD %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local
  3. type attrib -h IconCache.db
  4. type del IconCache.db
  5. Reboot
Oddly even this does not always work. I resort to renaming icons.

memory test

To change run a memory diagnostic test.
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Administrative Tools
  4. Memory Test
The menu structure is kept in the hidden directory:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu.
You can manipulate the menu by deleting *.lnk shortcut entries, or moving them around in the menu tree, by renaming them or by modifying their properties.

pagefile.sys

To change the size or placement of the paging file:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click System
  5. Advanced System Settings
  6. Click Advanced
  7. Performance
  8. Settings
  9. Click Advanced
  10. Virtual Memory
  11. Change
Set the size of your backing store, usually to 1.5 to 3 times the size of real RAM, e.g. if you had 2 GB of real RAM set it to 3000 Mb.

printer sharing

To share your printer with others:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Hardware and Sound
  4. Printers
  5. Right click the printer you want to share
  6. sharing
Share your printer with others on the LAN, or access somebody else’s printer on the LAN.
Anyone wanting to use the shared printer must have an account on the computer with the printer, or at least must know some user-id/password combination on the server to connect to the printer with.
Anyone wanting to use the printer must first click start ⇒ control panel ⇒ view network devices ⇒ right click open on the computer with the printer ⇒ right click on the printer ⇒ click connect For more detail, see the printer sharing entry.

program data

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\ (supposed to be for configuration data that would ideally follow you around from computer to computer)
or
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\
(supposed to be for configuration data that is tied to this particular computer).
or
C:\Users\user\Documents\
(pre Vista).
or
C:\Windows
(pre Win2K)
or
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\
Where programs tend to keep configuration information.

QuickLaunch

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\ Where the *.lnk files corresponding to the QuickLaunch icons are stored. The QuickLaunch icons live in the left side of the task bar at the bottom of the screen. You can launch programs with a single click.

ReadyBoost

To configure ReadyBoost:

To turn it off/on:

  1. Click Computer
  2. Select the read/write flash drive letter.
  3. Right click properties.
  4. Click ReadyBoost.
  5. Select use this drive on or off.
  6. Click Ok
  7. Reboot
To turn high performance write-caching off/on:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Click Device Manager
  5. Click disk drives
  6. Select the read/write flash drive letter:
  7. Optionally right click Update Drive Software
  8. Right click policies
  9. Click ReadyBoost
  10. Click quick removal for safety or click performance for higher speed,
  11. Click Ok
  12. Reboot
ReadyBoost is caching software to use your flash/flash drive to speed disk access.

It allows you to use up to 4 gigabytes of a flash drive for speeding up hard disk access. You use the rest of the drive (if any) for storing, transporting and backing up files.

If you select quick removal, data corruption is less likely. Nothing bad will happen if someone yanks the flash drive out of its slot with the power on.

If you select performance it turns on write caching (procrastinating writes to the disk by temporarily staging them on the flash drive). If someone yanks the flash drive out with the power on your files, including your hard disk files, will be badly corrupted. You can use CHKDSK /F to repair some of the damage, but the recovery will not be perfect. Cheapie flash drives do not support write caching. Write caching is disabled by default.

restore point

To create a restore point:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Backup and Restore Center
  5. Create a Restore Point
  6. System Protection
Keep several restore points (aka checkpoints or snapshots) since the most recent one may already have been corrupted. Restore points are not a substitute for image and file-by-file backups. It is probably a good idea to turn this on for all hard disks that have crucial system files. If you just turned on drive D:, you won’t protect changes to drive C:. The restore points will be stored in files with the unlike name of System Volume Information.

run

To run a program:
  1. Click Start
  2. All Programs
  3. Accessories
  4. Run
You can drag this entry to the desktop or to some prime real estate on the menu for more convenient access. If often use the command line, consider tcc/TakeCommand which offers many benefits.

search indexing

To tweak the search indexing:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Performance and Information Tools
  5. Adjust indexing options.
The background indexer is so annoying I turned it off by telling it not to index any drives. I am using Copernic instead. You can control which directories are indexed and which file extensions.

startup programs

To control which programs automatically run (autorun) when you start up the computer:
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click Programs
  4. Change startup programs
Not only can you turn off programs that are automatically running, you can learn a bit about them both from where they are on disk and from a database that Microsoft maintains.

You can also get at them via:

  1. Click Start
  2. Click All Programs
  3. Click Startup

The short cut files themselves are stored in: C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ and C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. You can manipulate them directly with copy/paste/delete.

task bar

To move the task bar from the side back to the bottom:
  1. Unlock the task bar by right clicking it and deselecting lock tool bar.
  2. Left click an unused part of the task bar and drag it to the bottom. It will suddenly jump to the bottom, not move smoothly as with other dragging, so it looks as if nothing is happening.
  3. Right click an empty region of the quick launch bar on the task bar just to the left of the dotted bar.
  4. Click view
  5. Select task bar icon size.

Transparency

To turn off transparent window borders
  1. Click Start
  2. Click Control Panel
  3. Click System and Maintenance
  4. Performance Information and Tools
  5. Adjust Visual Effects (on left)
  6. Uncheck enable transparent class.
By default transparent windows borders is on.

version

To find out the version and build number.
  1. At the command prompt, type winver.
The Control Panel welcome will not give you the version, just the OS variant name.

wallpaper

C:\Users\user\Pictures\.
If you use Opera, sometimes they are stored in:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Opera\OPERA\skin\
Where Vista stores desktop wallpapers, past and present. You can change the wallpaper by finding a suitably large image in your browser and right click Use image on desktop.

When Vista Won’t Boot

You can repair the Vista Boot Configuration Data in the following way:
  1. Put the Windows Vista installation disc in the CD \ DVD disc drive and then (re)start the computer. Unfortunately the fashion is to refuse to include this disc when you buy a new computer with Vista pre-installed.
  2. Press a key when you are prompted
  3. Select language, time, currency, keyboard or input method and then click Next.
  4. Click Repair your computer.
  5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
  6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box click Command Prompt
  7. Type the following:
    Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
    Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
  8. If you want to completely rebuild Boot Configuration Data, then you should issue the following command: Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd This command scans all disks for installations that are compatible with Windows Vista. Additionally, this option lets you select the installations that you want to add to the Boot Configuration Data store.
  9. If that does not work, the boot manager has been clobbered. Fixing it is quite a production. See the instructions.
  10. In computer repair mode, you can use the command line bootsect.exe utility to repair the boot sector on various partitions. It will be damaged by any XP-style boot manager, such as grub. Vista uses an incompatible style of boot manager.
    How to Use Bootsect.exe
    bootsect.exe/help | /nt52 | /nt60 } { SYS | ALL | C: }
    Option Notes
    /help display help on command line options.
    /nt52 Partition contains a bootable pre-Vista OS. Applies the master boot code that is compatible with NTLDR.
    /nt60 Partition contains a bootable Vista OS. Applies the master boot code that is compatible with BOOTMGR.
    SYS Updates the master boot code on the system partition used to boot Windows.
    C: Updates the master boot code on the C: partition (or other drive letter).
    ALL Updates the master boot code on all bootable partitions. All bootable partitions must be pre-Vista /nt52 or all Vista /nt60 for ALL to make sense.
    The catches:
    1. bootsect.exe lives on your install CD. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) installed copies of Vista don’t come with an install CD.
    2. Vista Home Premium leaves out bootsect.exe so you can’t get at in even in repair mode when your machine is bootable.

Repair

My copy of Vista lost its ability to install security updates. After several months, Microsoft finally relented and gave me the DVD used to automatically repair such problems. It does not come with the Acer OEM version of Windows. It did not work until I shut down the defragger, indexer and other resident programs. Then about 6 hours and a dozen reboots later, my machine was up to date with security updates. The repair process, which MS refers to as an upgrade, is very slow and appears repeatedly to have hung. I was patient and eventually it would come to life again. The repair, as a side effect, fixed a problem with *.html files failing to be directed to Opera as configured. The catch was it uninstalled my OEM Ethernet driver. I had to get a copy from Yukon Marvell and reinstall it. It was a Good Thing™ I had a detailed configuration list, since Vista would tell me nothing at all about the Ethernet hardware. The repair process also destroyed my Boot-It multiboot and my offline defrag. Happily, it seems to have left all the applications and my data intact, unlike the proprietary brutal Acer repair which is in actuality a revert-to-factory-state.

Vista sometimes loses its ability to install and uninstall programs. It keeps repeatedly telling you that you don’t have permission to access some obscure file. You can sometimes correct the program by re-registering the windows installer itself.

  1. Click Start and then click Command Prompt.
  2. In the DOS box, type msiexec /unreg, and then press Enter.
  3. type msiexec /regserver and then press Enter.

Installing Vista

There are two kinds of install, an upgrade which leaves your programs installed and a clean install which erases the registry, effectively uninstalling all your programs.
This is more of a bug that a gotcha. When reinstalling Vista, your old files will be placed in C:\Windows.old\. You can pick configuration information out of there to replace the default configuration files. When you are done you can delete the files in C:\Windows.old\, however, be very careful about any directories with red arrows on them. They point to your new configurations! If you delete the files in them, you will be deleting your new configuration files, causing you to have to start all over from scratch installing without a C:\Windows.old\.

Class Action Lawsuit

Microsoft, Acer and Compusmart (a retailer here in Victoria) conspired to defraud me. I bought an Acer Aspire AST180-ED380A desktop computer that allegedly included Windows Vista Home Premium. There was no DVD. There was an image of part of Vista on the disk, but it was not suitable for repairing damage to Vista, or to reinstall Vista if the hard disk should pack it in or if I should replace the disk. Microsoft, Acer and Compusmart all refused to provided the promised DVD. All three refused to sell it to me at nominal cost. Compusmart told me to buy an OS DVD for  $450.00 CAD .

Vista then developed a glitch and refused to do security updates. Acer wanted me to ship the computer at my expense to Toronto and be without it for a month or so while they reinstalled Vista. I refused. After a month or horsing around with Microsoft support trying to get it to work, they announced the only way to fix the problem was with the missing DVD. The Microsoft support person then agreed to ship me the DVD to repair this particular problem, but it would not be compatible with my activation key, so it could not be used to reinstall after a crash, only to fix this minor damage to the Vista installation.

These three have ripped off many other people besides me. If they advertise Vista is included, Vista should be included! I would like to launch a class action lawsuit against them to make them:

  1. Provide the promised DVD to all OEM Vista users.
  2. Include the DVD with all OEM shipments in future, or sell the DVD for $10.00 USD or less (enough to cover the cost of duplication and shipping).
  3. Pay punitive damages to richly reward the attorneys who take on these giants.
My damages are not big enough to justify a lawsuit on my own. I would be out a paltry $450.00 CAD if I were to cave and buy another copy of the OS, and the inconvenience of being without security updates for several months. However the collective damage their con has done to the computing community would add up to millions of dollars.

I could also try for a criminal conspiracy fraud conviction, but my experience with the authorities show that too would take much more money and energy than I have. So if you have been similarly swindled, please let me know. Perhaps when enough of us get together, something can happen to put a stop to this outrage.

Books

book cover recommend book⇒Windows Vista Annoyancesto book home
by David A. Karp 978-0-596-52762-4 paperback
publisher O’Reilly recommended
published 2007-12-14
Problems with Windows Vista and what you can do to ameliorate them.
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Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.
book cover recommend book⇒Windows Vista Secretsto book home
by Brian Livingston, Paul Thurrott 978-0-7645-7704-8 paperback
publisher Wiley 978-0-470-24200-1 hardcover
published 2007-01-10 978-0-470-12838-1 eBook
If one book can help you master Vista, this is it.
~ Fred Langa, former editor-in-chief of Byte Magazine
Australian flag abe books anz abe books.ca Canadian flag
German flag abe books.de amazon.ca Canadian flag
German flag amazon.de Chapters Indigo Canadian flag
Spanish flag amazon.es Chapters Indigo eBooks Canadian flag
Spanish flag iberlibro.com abe books.com American flag
French flag abe books.fr amazon.com American flag
French flag amazon.fr Barnes & Noble American flag
Italian flag abe books.it Nook at Barnes & Noble American flag
Italian flag amazon.it Kobo American flag
India flag junglee.com Google play American flag
UK flag abe books.co.uk O’Reilly Safari American flag
UK flag amazon.co.uk Powells American flag
UN flag other stores
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.

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