Fix Windows Vista Errors

We all know about the collaboration between Microsoft and Jerry Seinfeld, well here is the first TV commercial they have made about Vista.

You make up your own mind about this one.

It is common to experience some problems with the Windows Vista power options, so here are some common problems and remedies.

No Standby Option

Windows Vista has removed the standby option. So don’t worry about this.

No Hibernate Option

Windows Vista has a new hybrid sleep mode. If this is turned on, you may not see the hibernate option in the shut down menu. To change the hybrid sleep mode, you will need to access the advanced power settings.

Control Panel -> Systems and Maintenance -> Power Options.

When using the hibernate option, Windows Vista writes the data to a file called hiberfil.sys. It might be possible that you have run out of disk space and Vista can no longer write to this file. Check this if you believe the hibernate option should be available.

If you have Disk Cleanup running, it may have cleaned the hibernate file. If this is the case untick the “Hibernation File Cleaner” option.

Cannot Wake From Hibernation

If you cannot wake the computer from hibernation then you should make sure you have installed all of the latest Windows Vista service packs and hot fixes. This has been an issue in the past and Vista has released fixes.

Some common error codes that you might experience:

STOP 0x1000007E
STOP 0x0000009F
STOP 0×00000044

The other problem you might experience is waking too early from hibernation. This can be difficult to debug, so make sure you check out any external and USB devices attached to the computer, as they are most likely the cause. Also check any software that might be running or set on a schedule that may interfere with hibernation.

————————
Free Download – Fix WIndows Vista Errors

Previously we have discussed some of the financial and environmental benefits available with the new Vista power saving features.

Today we will discuss more about the power management features and how they work. By default the Windows Vista power managment features should be enabled, but it is worth knowing more about them, so you can implement your own power saving strategy.

The Windows Vista power features were created to reduce power consumption, but they also had the goal of making it very easy, fast and reliable to turn the computer “on” or “off”.

Previous versions of Windows had standby, hibernate and shut down. Vista has Sleep, Hybrid Sleep and Hibernation.  You can access the power management features in the following location:

Control Panel -> Systems and Maintenance -> Power Options

Power modes in Windows Vista:

Sleep: The computer enters a low power consumption mode, with programs and data in memory. Restarting from the sleep mode is very fast and should only take a couple of seconds.

Hybrid Sleep: The computer enters a low power consumption mode, with programs and data in memory but the computer also writes data to disk. So if there was a power outage, the computer can be recovered to the same state.  Restarting from hybrid sleep mode will be slower than in regular sleep mode.

Hibernate: Computer data is saved to a special file. If the computer is switched off or unplugged, all data is stored and state can be recovered.

Additionally, you can also set what happens when the power button is pressed, or when the lid is closed (for laptops). For example: you could set the computer into hibernate mode when the power button is pressed, instead of shutting down. The same also applies to closing the lid.

As mentioned earlier, the default settings in Vista are setup to conserve power, however, you can optimize these, based on whether you want to use sleep mode, hybrid sleep or hibernation.

Recently Microsoft announced that they were going to spend $300 million on a new ad campaign for Windows staring Seinfeld. Here is a brief news story on the issue;

We are very green friendly in our office here and we are always looking at better ways to conserve energy and better manage the environment. Since almost everyone has a PC, we can all help out with a few little steps.

Today we will look at some options  for Windows Vista energy conservation – Remember, by being more efficient and using less energy, this not only benefits the environment, but it also ends up costing you less.

The Windows Vista OS does feature significant changes to its power management infrastructure, functionality and default settings. All of these changes affect how Vista PCs consume energy. Here is some further info on the potential energy savings available when using Windows Vista and the changes from XP.

PC Power Consumption

Here are some numbers on PC power consumption and the type of savings that can be made by using sleep vs idle modes.

Common power usage output for Desktop PCs (watts):

Calculating power savings:

In projecing the potential savings, a PC left on constantly was compared with a PC put in sleep mode during non-use hours. The non-use hours are calculated at approximately 14 hours per day. So if we also factor in weekends, the approximate non-user hours for the year is: 6,160 hours.

To calculate the saved poser, we use (idle power – sleep power) x 6160 hours = annual savings.

In the table below you can see the savings (kWh):

Financial Benefits

As you can see above, a considerable amount of kWh hours can be saved by using the Vista power functions. To put this into a financial value see the formula below (this is assuming an average cost per kWh of $0.094):

760.14 x 0.094 = $71.45

So there is an annual saving of $71.45 for just a single PC by employing the Vista energy saving features. If this is applied to every PC using Vista, the saving is absolutely enormous, especially for large corporations.

Environmental Benefit

Obviously as more energy is consumed this adds to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the EPA, generating 1kWh of power in the USA results in 1.55 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions. So a saving of 760 kWh for a single PC results in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions of 1,178 lbs.

This is quite a significant saving and again, when implemented on every PC running Vista, there is a massive reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

So if you are using Windows Vista, start using the power saving features. Not only will you save on costs, but you will be benefitting the environment.

Here is a Windows Vista resource that I am sure you will all find very useful for getting the most out of your Vista.

What is it?

This guide will show you how to tune and improve Windows Vista. The focus is on a single PC, but it can be extended to environments where multiple performance and tuning may be required.

The Vista performance guide will cover the following performance areas:

• Making configuration changes that help a computer feel more responsive when you use it.
• Using hardware to boost the actual physical speed of a computer.
• Making configuration changes that help a computer to start faster.
• Making the computer more reliable may help increase performance.
• Monitoring performance occasionally so that you can stop problems before they get too big.

This resource was recommended by our friend Rick from the Vista Outreach team. So check it out.

Windows Vista Performance and Tuning

There has recently been increased uptake in the usage of 64bit Vista PCs. This has more than tripled in just the past 3 months alone in the US, and worldwide adoption is also growing nicely. The shift to 64bit is in both the corporate and consumer levels.

The shift to 64bit Windows Vista does have its advantages and the cheaper modern hardware allows for greater power at a fraction of what it used to cost. So we can only expect to see more and more 64bit desktops and laptops hitting the market.

The one problem currently is the lack of drivers. There are few drivers currently available to support many consumer products and devices such as: scanners, DVD/RW, bluetooth etc. So if you are thinking of changing to 64bit just be ready for some limitations. Although we do expect drivers to hit the market fairly soon as the demand is growing fast.

If you already have 64bit Vista or thinking of upgrading then try our free scan below to automatically keep up-to-date with the latest drivers.

For those of you already using 64bit, how has it been so far?

———————
Download, Update and Fix Drivers – Free Scan

For those of you that haven’t yet heard of the Mojave Experiment – it’s a pretty cool little marketing trick that Microsoft put in action a few weeks back. What Microsoft did was get a bunch of users from all different platforms, and gave them a demo of their new operating system “Mojave”.  The trick was that they were actually just demonstrating Windows Vista.

There was very positive feedback from the experiment with over 90% of the users finding it very impressive. Even though these users had heard bad things about Vista, they were impressed when they finally saw it in action.

While I also believe Windows Vista is a decent operating system, the only drawback I am still having issues with is the speed. After rolling out three new PCs last week, all with state of the art hardware, all users came back with complaints on the  performance.  I guess we will have to wait and see what lies ahead, but I personally am getting tired of doing Vista to XP rollbacks.

Microsoft is going public with the results of its operating system Pepsi Challenge. The software giant asked XP-using Vista nay-sayers in San Francisco to try out an all-new alternative to its much maligned OS: Windows Mojave.

The company invited 120 users of popular operating systems like Mac, Linux, XP and Windows 2000 who were against Vista to come and test the operating system, the coup was that the operating system they tested was actually Vista disguised as a new Operating system named Mojave.

The results have just been announced and it seems as though these same Vista users who gave the Vista operating system an average rating of 4.4 out of 10 have given the Mojave operating system an average 8.5 out of 10.

Mojave was run on a simple HP Pavilion DV 2000 with 2GB RAM, still the reviews of Mojave were favourable.

Since the release of Windows Vista there have been many reports of USB errors. Here are just some of the common Vista USB errors you may have encountered;

• Problems after you resuming a Windows Vista-based computer from sleep or from hibernation
• Error message when you try to put a Windows Vista-based computer to sleep or into hibernation
• Recording quality is poor when you use a USB microphone on a Windows Vista-based computer that has 4 GB of RAM or more
• When you connect a USB multifunction printer device to a Windows Vista-based computer, a second instance of the printer object is created, and the first instance no longer works
• The Safely Remove Hardware feature and the Windows Explorer “Eject” command do not work correctly with an Apple iPod that is connected to a Windows Vista-based computer
• A USB device takes a long time to resume from “selective suspend” mode on a Windows Vista-based computer that uses UHCI USB controllers

Microsoft has released updates to fix these USB errors but from time to time you will see other USB errors. If you do believe you have an error with one of your USB’s then you can check it out, just do the following;

• Open your control panel
• Click System
• Click device manager
• Right click on Universal Serial Bus Controllers (USB)
• Click properties
• Here it will indicate any errors you may have with your USB devices

Fix Windows Vista USB Errors – Free Download