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Blog

September 11

No Screensaver?

Now why in the world would a USB wireless mouse keep your screen saver on Windows Vista RC1 from starting up? Good question, I wish I had a good answer for you. Here's the story so far,

Having installed the Windows Vista RC1 as a clean install on my HP Pavilion zv6000 I proceeded to load various software packages to take it on a test run. During these installs, and accompanying wait times, I noticed that my screen saver would not kick in. Now bear in mind that I did not install any 3rd party screen saver software and that I was simply using the selections that come with Vista. After doing a little research I found that some folks were having the same issue with the Media Center Edition and it was traced back to wireless keyboards and mice. Ok, what the heck, I'll unplug mine too. Bingo, the screen saver kicked in. So why was this happening? While I still haven't tracked down the entire solution yet, I do have my wireless mouse and screen saver working together. This all came about during my attempt to install Microsoft Intellipoint software onto Vista. It seems that Intellipoint 5.5 is not compatible with my version of the OS, even if I try to run it in Windows XP compatibility mode. (Aren't these both Microsoft products?) So I then tried forcing the system to install the drivers. In my efforts to play with this I tried using the builtin Intellimouse drivers that come with Vista. Well, it didn't like those and while they installed, they wouldn't start. Hello driver rollback. I rolled back to the HID compliant drivers the system was using for my mouse and tried another choice. Same effect, driver installs but won't start, only now I can't rollback either so I have the system do an auto update but the HID won't start now ether. However, the mouse is working so I continue on. You guessed it, the screen saver works now too.

So, something between the HID driver and the screen saver is keeping the screen saver from starting up, but I don't know what that issue may be. If you should come across the answer, please be kind enough to drop a note here and let us know.

1:58 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

September 06

welcome Vista RC1

So, I took the plunge and installed Windows Vista RC1 onto my laptop to give it a go around the block. I was needing to redo the system anyway, and RC1 had just been released, so why not. Here was my chance to put a 64bit OS onto my 64bit hardware, (the system had arrived from HP running 32bit Windows XP and I hadn't wanted to mess with it until now). The install went quite well actually and didn't take all that long. I had played around with some of the earlier Vista's as Virtual Machines and those installs took an eternity. Once the install was done it was time to start seeing what this OS could do, or couldn't do as the case may be.

For starters, there was no sound. The install had detected my ATI video just fine, as well as the builtin ethernet and wireless, but not the sound card. I went searching for drivers and found several posts that lead me in the right direction. Ah, but now we hit a snag with Vista 64 bit. This release will not allow you to install unsigned drivers and unlike previous versions, that security can not be disabled. I then tried to install my Creative Audigy2 zs notebook card. After all, Creative had drivers for Vista beta2 available on their support website. You guessed it, these puppies are apparently unsigned as well and so would not work either. Ok, so maybe I can do without sound for a bit, how about a few apps? Well, I'm happy to say that Office 2007 beta installs just fine on this build. Virtal Server 2005 also works, with a little tweak I'll talk about in another post. What about VMware? You guessed it, wouldn't install.

Things were not looking good at this point as it seemed I had a really cool typewriter on my hands. After a little digging around and a few posts on some boards, it was suggested to roll back to the 32bit version as that seemed to have better support for hardware and saftware. So, here I am, once again running a 32bit OS on my 64bit hardware. I will say that the 32bit version installed just as easily as the 64bit, but this time I had sound along with my video, my network adapters worked and so did my bluetooth. (Oh yeah, the 64bit version had issues with my bluetooth as well.) The apps seem to install fine as well, and I am happily up and running both Virtual Server and VMWare 5.5. It is now time to start loading a few more utilities and see what happens from here. Here's to happy testing.

August 09

Coming Soon

We will soon start adding news and information here that we hope will help you, the IT worker or computer enthusiast to better understand and use the tools and technologies that we have at our disposal today. Check back to see how the site develops and let us know if there is a topic that you particularly need help with and we'll see if we can't post a tip to guide you on your way.

5:54 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it