Posts Tagged ‘Windows Vista’
I’ve received quite a few requests from some unfortunate users that are stuck with a certain language version of Windows Vista because they bought their computer from a different country, or simply are not English-native and have a very difficult time using the computer. Well, I’ve finally found a solution for you guys!
MUI (Multilingual User Interface) is the name of the technology Microsoft uses to change the interface language of Windows Visat. If you’ve been wanting to change your Windows Vista into a different language, you need to install an “MUI Pack.”
If you have Windows Vista Ultimate, an MUI Pack can easily be downloaded from Windows Update and then installed immediately. If you don’t… then you need to
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1) Make sure you have SP1 installed:
Click here to read on how to check if you already have it installed
If you don’t have it installed then,
Click here to read about how to install it
2) Download an MUI Pack:
Click here to visit the site with all the MUI packs.
Make sure you download the correct language packs. There are specific language packs for those who have SP1, and for those who don’t.
3) Create a System Restore Point
Please refer to this post for info on how to work with System Restore points.
4) Download the Windows Vista MUI User Interface Hacker v3
Click here to Download the Software
So that’s what the program looks like. You should use Method 1 to install your language pack. The Wizard is very straight-forward, but should you run into any problems, just click on Help at the top, and it will walk you through the entire process.
Please only use this workaround if you are stuck with a version of Windows that you do not understand. If you need to switch display language MUIs for any other purposes, it is recommended that you purchase a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate =)
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1 or MSBA 2.1 is a must-have utility for those concerned with the safety of their computer. It’s a great tool for those with networks or small businesses, because it also allows you to scan for vulnerabilities across the computers on your network. Basically what it does is detect common security misconfigurations, missing security updates, and any options that have been set that may be of interest, which I will explain later on.
Once you download the program, it is actually really straight-forward and easy to use
But if you would like to learn about how to scan other computers in your network or how to access the security report generated, feel free to continue reading!
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Evaluating a Security Report:
The Security Report is very detailed and effective in presenting information. Let’s take a look at how to use the information to imrpove your computer’s security. The program even tells you how to fix the problems so it shouldn’t be very difficult. Below I will just list my interpretation of the issues listed:
User Accounts (Admin / Guest):
Do not overlook this detail, and make sure you are aware of the number of Admin accounts on your computer. If there are more than you know about, this may suggest somebody is accessing your computer without you knowing it. As for the Guest account, you may disable it if you are the only one using the computer. I leave it enabled so my family members can use my computer when I’m not there without accessing my files.
Automatic Updates:
If you want to be protected from the latest risks, this should be enabled. However, I do not have this enabled because I have had issues with my Sound Card and Video Card when installing the drivers recommended through Windows Update. Also, Vista insists their drivers are newer even though I am using beta video card drivers. To prevent them from automatically installing their drivers over mine, I leave automatic installation disabled and just respond immediately when I see the bubble in the right corner alerting me to update. I don’t suggest enabling auto-install if you’ve had driver issues with your hardware.
Windows Firewall:
If Windows Firewall is not enabled on all connections, click on “How to Correct This.” If the problem still persists, go to your Firewall settings, click on the Advanced Tab, and ensure all connections are checked.
As for the other categories, they are pretty straight forward. If you have any questions feel free to ask me in the forum.
How to Scan a Network of Computers:
First you need to determine the “Domain Name” or the IP Range you want to scan. If you’re a network administrator, you should already know the this type of information or have your own method of doing this, so you won’t need to read the rest of the guide.
If you do know the “Domain Name” that’s great! But if you don’t know, I’m only going to explain how to find the IP range because I’ve had a lot of problems with Windows Vista and Network Domain Names.
What’s an IP address?
In case you don’t know what an IP is, it’s an address assigned to every computer so that it can be identified.
Moving on…
First ensure that all computers are on, and logged onto their administrator account. Now before we do anything drastic, your list of IPs probably start at 192.168.1.100 and end at 192.168.1.126
First, put that in and see if it works. If it works, then you’re good to go!
If it doesn’t, you’re going to have to actually log into your router and find out.
First, open the Start Menu, type cmd in the Search bar, and press Enter. Once Command Prompt is open, type
ipconfig
Look for default gateway and write it down. Then open your internet browser, and type it in. This will take you to your router settings.
The router I’m using is a Linksys WRT54G v8. You might have a different kind of router or firmware, but the steps should be very similar.
First, look for a Status button or tab. Next, you want to click on LAN or DHCP Clients, or a button that will display all the computers connected to the network.
You should get something that looks like this:
Now you know what the IP range is. Simply take the lowest numbered IP and the largest one, and input it into the IP range boxes and you should be good to go.
Let’s spice things up this week by changing our boring old Windows Vista boot screen to a custom one.
I can assure you that this method will work with all versions of Vista, whether you have SP1 installed or not.
If you’ve customized your Vista boot screen or logo before, you’ll remember how much of a hassle it was. This time, we will use the Vista Visual Master utility to change our boot screen. Click here to download it.
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Once you have finished installing the program, make sure you Run as Administrator. (Right click Vista Visual Master and select the appropriate option.)
The program is very straight forward. Select Boot Screen in the navigation bar on the left.
Click on Browse and select for the photo you want to replace the bootscreen with. Windows will attempt to stretch your photo to fit the entire screen, so it is best to make sure that you have a photo with a resolution of at least 1024*768. If you’re looking for some good wallpaper, there are some great ones at Socwall and Deviantart.
Once you are done browsing, your picture will show up in the box. Click on generate and VVM will generate an MUI file. Click on Apply to finsh. The program will automatically make a backup of the default MUI in the following directory:
C:\Windows\System32\en-US
The en-US part may vary depending on your language and version of Windows Vista.
For future reference, the file used to display the boot screen is called winload.exe.mui
And the backup is called winload.exe.bak.vistamaster
If you want to uninstall the program after you change the boot screen, I recommend you make a copy of the backup and put it somewhere that you can remember.
And that’s it! You should see your new boot screen the next time you start your computer. I also recommend you to explore the other features of Vista Visual Master, as it has other great customization features that allow you to declutter your Windows Vista workspace.
Let’s spice things up this week by changing our boring old Windows Vista boot logo to a custom one!
First of all, you need to find the image you want to use inplace of the logo. You need to convert the picture into Bitmap (BMP) format, which you can do with your favorite image editing program or with Paint. Click here if you don’t know how to convert a picture into BMP format.
You will need two .bmp files:
One resized to 800 × 600 and the other resized to 1024 × 768, both having to be 24-bit color depth. (If your photo doesn’t conform to the 4:3 aspect ratio, you’ll need to crop it or add padding so that it does.)
Next you have to download the Vista Boot Logo Generator (click here). Once you install the program, start it, click browse for image on the left side, and locate the 800 × 600 bitmap file you just created. Then, click Browse for Image on the right side, and find the 1024 × 768 one. Select File then Save Boot Screen File As, name the file winload.exe.mui (the default) and save it to your desktop, then exit the Vista Boot Logo Generator.
The next step is to open Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ folder (if you dont use Windows Vista English US edition then select the appropriate folder inplace of en-us). Now You have to find the winload.exe.mui file in the folder and take ownership permissions of it, to do that you have to follow these steps:
1. Click on Vista Start button.
2. Locate the Command Prompt menu item (inside Accessories below All Programs).
3. Right click on Command Prompt.
4. Select “Run as Administrator”
After the Command prompt is open then you have to type in the following, (winload.exe.mui is the file name in this case)
takeown /f winload.exe.mui /d y
icacls file_name /grant administrators:F,
Now that you have ownership permissions just rename the file to winload.exe.mui.backup.
So you have now removed the original file (by renaming it), now you have to place the new file we created into the C:\Windows\System32\en-US\.
Finally the last step, open the start menu, type msconfig in the Search box, and hit Enter to open the System Configuration window. Choose the Boot tab, and from the Boot options section, switch on the No GUI boot option. Click OK and then close the System Configuration window, and we’re done!!!!
Reboot and your new startup logo should show up!
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This is something everybody should take advantage of. Instead of wasting your time asking others and searching on the net, Microsoft is offering unlimited installation and compatibility support at no charge until March 18, 2009.
This is a step forward for Microsoft’s tech-support. Currently they charge an amount that I consider outrageous for operating system support, especially when they don’t offer even one or two free support sessions for their customers spending hundreds of dollars on Vista. Anyway, if you haven’t updated to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 yet, you should definitely do so right away.
What to do if you cannot update to or install Windows Vista Service Pack 1
List of the most notable changes made by Windows Vista Service Pack 1
English is not the only input language for Windows Vista. Not to be confused with the Windows MUI (Multilingual User Interface) which transforms the entire operating system into the language of your choice and is only available for Windows Vista Ultimate.
To enable keyboards for other languages, open the Start Menu
and type Regional into the Search bar. You should get a habit of using the Search bar in the Start Menu since you can virtually access any part of your computer with it. Normally, this would be found in the Control Panel.
Read the rest of this entry »
According to the Microsoft support website, there are 8 causes for Service Pack 1 update problems. Don’t be disappointed. You’ll be able to find the 8 possible causes here as well as the solutions for each one. The causes are numbered in order from least complicated to most complicated. Also don’t forget that the Windows Update isn’t the only place you can download the Service Pack, although you will be downloading a 450MB standalone rather than a 65MB update. The download links are below.
Update: Seems like Microsoft is offering free support for SP1. https://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&x=8&y=7&prid=11274&gprid=500921
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The MOST common cause for SP1 not showing up as an update is because your updates list is old.
- Open Windows Update (You can do this by opening the Start Menu and typing Windows Update in the search bar)
- Click “Check for Updates” in the sidebar
Then give the Update Manager a minute or two to refresh its contents. Once its finished, Service Pack should be available as an update.
As you can probably see, there are MANY causes for Service Pack 1 becoming unattainable. If you’re doing this solely because you cannot find it, I suggest that you only try up to Step 4 (Step 5 if you don’t mind the amount of work). After that you may choose to download the standalones:
Download Windows Service Pack 1 Standalone (32-bit based systems) 435MB
Download Windows Service Pack 1 Standalone (64-bit based systems) 727MB
Now for the other causes…
Table of Contents:
1) You’re using the wrong language pack
2) You’ve already installed SP1 before
3) You see a bunch of updates but no Service Pack update
4) You’ve tried step 3 but there are no important updates
5) You’ve previously or recently encountered Windows Update errors
6) A hardware or device driver caused problems after installing Windows Vista Service Pack 1
7) You used vLite to accidentally remove something you weren’t supposed to
1) The language pack you are using does not support Windows Vista
Windows Vista SP1 currently supports only one of the five following language packs:
- English
- French
- Spanish
- Japanese
- German
If you’re not using one of these language packs, it’s possible for you to switch to these language packs. I’m not too sure whether the service pack will still be in effect if you switch back to the unsupported language - I doubt it will. You can switch by going to Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Settings. Get to the third tab that says Keyboard and Languages, and choose one of the support languages in the drop down Menu.
If you don’t have one of these language packs, you’ll have to wait until Microsoft makes a second release later in 2008.
2) You already have a version of Windows Vista SP1 installed
How do you check? Simply press Start, right click Computer, and choose Properties. Look under Windows Edition.
If you don’t have any mention of Service Pack under Windows Edition, then you don’t have the Service Pack. If you do, then make sure that it is the final release of SP1, and not an RTM or Beta. If it is, you’ll have to uninstall it first.
Uninstalling previous versions of Service Pack 1:
To do this, open your Start Menu and type in Windows Update. Click on Installed Updates in the bottom left corner. Then look for the Service Pack under M.
Right click it and choose Uninstall. It will take some time but after you Uninstall, open Windows Update. Make sure to click Check for Updates and you should be able to install the Service Pack.
3) You see one or more updates when you run Windows Update, but there is no sign of the service pack
If this is the case, you will have to install all the updates indicated as “Important.” Check these updates, download them and install them. Once that is complete, the Service Pack update should be listed. Make sure to press Check for Updates to refresh the Updates list.
4) There are no updates listed as Important
Press “Check for Updates” in the sidebar and wait for a minute for Windows Update to refresh update its list of updates.
5) Window Service Pack Blocker Tool is blocking the delivery of Windows Vistas SP1 from Windows Update
When Windows Update fails to update properly, it blocks the user from updating and installing service packs. CheckSUR will fix these problems. If you are or have encountered numerous update errors in the past, you should follow these instructions to fix the problem. If you think this may be, simply download this file
CheckSUR Registry Fix
You then need to open it as administrator. You can do this by right clicking and choosing Run as Administrator. When you run it, it will make two registry changes that allow your computer to run CheckSUR. Once applied, you will need to download CheckSUR from the Microsoft website:
Download CheckSUR for 32-bit Windows Vista
Download CheckSUR for 64-bit Windows Vista
When you’re done downloading the file, install and run CheckSUR.
6) A hardware or device driver caused problems when attempting to install SP1
In order to ensure a smooth update, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 won’t be made available to you if you use one of the drivers listed below. What you need to do is to make sure that you update these drivers to their latest versions. My first recommendation would be to just run Windows Update to ensure you’ve updated all your drivers from there. If the problem still persists, you’ll need a way of finding out if you are using these conflicting drivers. First, open the Start menu and type in system information then push enter. Once you push enter, you’ll be able to view the driver information of your components by selecting the appropriate category in the sidebar. For this example, I’ll use audio.
I’m using hdaudio.sys so I’m OK since it is not a conflicting driver. Use this window to check for any drivers that may match the ones indicated below.
Audio drivers
Realtek AC’97
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For x86-based computers: Alcxwdm.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier |
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For x64-based computers: Alcwdm64.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier |
SigmaTel
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For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier |
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For x64-based computers: Sthda64.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier |
SigmaTel
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For x86-based computers: Stwrt.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier |
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For x64-based computers: Stwrt64.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier |
Creative Audigy
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For x86-based and x64-based computers: Ctaud2k.sys - version 6.0.1.1242 or earlier |
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For x86-based computers: P17.sys – all versions (This was originally a Windows XP-based driver.) |
Conexant HD Audio
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For x86-based computers: Chdart.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier |
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For x64-based computers: Chdart64.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier |
Biometric (Fingerprint) Sensors
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AuthenTec Fingerprint Sensor with the Atswpdrv.sys driver file – version 7.7.1.7 or earlier |
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UPEK Fingerprint Sensor with the Tcusb.sys driver file – version 1.9.2.99 or earlier |
Display drivers
Intel Display
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For x86-based computers: Igdkmd32.sys – versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403 |
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For x64-based computers: Igdkmd64.sys – versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403 |
Other drivers
Texas Instruments Smart Card Controller with the GTIPCI21.sys driver file – version 1.0.1.19 or earlier
Sierra Wireless AirCard 580 with the Watcher.exe application – version 3.4.0.9 or earlier (This application is located in the AirCard 580 Program Files folder.)
Symantec software driver for Symantec Endpoint Protection and for Symantec Network Access Control clients
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For x86-based computers: Wgx.sys – versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier |
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For x64-based computers: Wgx64.sys – versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier |
Note Apparently Symantec is aware of this problem and is working on it. Visit this link for more information on how to configure your software to receive the latest updates. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index.jsp
Once you are done checking, it’s time to update those drivers. Open Start Menu and type Device Manager, then press Enter. Once at the device manager, open up the appropriate device tree, right click the device, and choose Update Driver software.
Sometimes this does not always work. So you’ll have to manually update the driver by visiting the vendor or manufacturer’s website and updating it from there.
7) You’ve used vLite and accidentally removed the required components for a Service Pack Upgrade
Vlite seems to have a full section dedicated to this problem here.
Hopefully you’ve been able to get Service Pack 1 by now. You can check out this article for a list of the most important changes made with SP1, or a full list by Microsoft here.
Check your Windows Updates guys, because the long awaited Service Pack 1 for Vista has finally been released.
So how do I get it?
- Open the Start Menu and type windows update, then push enter
- Click Check for Updates in the Sidebar
- The Windows Service Pack 1 update should be available
Still don’t see it?
Microsoft said they wouldn’t release it via Windows Update via April, but a lot of users have found it available as an update. If you can’t find it, here are the links for the Standalone Service Packs:
Download Windows Service Pack 1 Standalone (32-bit based systems)
Download Windows Service Pack 1 Standalone (64-bit based systems)
Some of the most notable changes are:
- Less UAC prompts in specific scenarios
- Improved third-party support for software and hardware
- WGA tweaked to prevent two popular activation bypass methods
- Support for DirectX 10.1
- File transfers no longer hang and take forever
- Better responsiveness in resuming, shutting down, and sleep (hibernation)
- Some “sleep” problems fixed (Many were unable to put their computer to sleep)
Quoted from the Microsoft website, before you install SP1:
If you install Windows Vista and then install SP1 without first activating Windows Vista, you might not be able to uninstall the service pack. Either activate Windows Vista before you install SP1 or activate SP1 before you attempt to uninstall the service pack.
Another quote for after installing SP1:
The Windows Vista SP1 install process clears the user-specific data that is used by Windows to optimize performance, which may make the system feel less responsive immediately after install. As the customer uses their SP1 PC, the system will be retrained over the course of a few hours or days and will return to the previous level of responsiveness.
Read the rest of this entry »
VistaRewired was created for the purpose of solving the headaches of Windows Vista users as well as educate them on the operating system, so they can use it to their full potential.
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Computer Help:
Due to the lack of free time that I have, I can no longer keep up with the help requests I receive. Your best bet is to use the forums where you can get your response quicker. Not only that, you will receive help from others as well.
Contact me:
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