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It works better for older system with less than 512MB ram than the newer ones.

PC Stats has an interesting six page review regarding Microsoft Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. ReadyBoost is supposed to allow the user to plug in a fast USB stick into their system to speed up work the OS needs to do and effectively improve the computer’s performance by storing non-essential information on the drive. The review concludes that this is not the case with current USB keys on the market. Although ReadyBoost does improve overall performance on the system, it is not enough to make a significant difference or to raise some eyebrows. It seems that on older computers with little memory (512MB), ReadyBoost can help out much more than on newer systems - probably the systems Vista would be installed on anyways. Surprisingly enough, however, ReadyBoost did make a slight mark even on video game performance and system startup time.

Click for more on Windows Vista & ReadyBoost: Does it Make a Difference? »

“With the discovery last week of the connection between Vista’s poor networking performance and audio activities, word quickly spread around the Net. No doubt this got Microsoft’s attention, and they have responded to the issue.

Click for more on Microsoft responds to Vista network performance issue »

Though much argued, I still prefer to adopt UAC in Windows Vista, so to launch an app in administrator mode, I have to right click and select “Run as administrator”.  Being a command line fan, it would be convenient to have it done through some keystrokes.

I searched and found some tool, works fine, but its a bit bulky and comes with lots of (unnecessary) features. To keep things simple, I decide to write one myself. And its done with a size of 6K.

Click for more on Sudo for Windows Vista »

Keyboard shortcut is well known and widely adopted to speed up working. And there are lots of hotkey utilities around to launch your favorite apps without a mouse move. However, you might not know that, Windows itself, can assign hotkey to an application, without any 3rd party software(thus no additional resource consumed).

Click for more on Assign hotkey to your application without additional software »

So over the passing months, the UAC prompt has gone from nice idea (as it was advised) to “not the best solution” to something that admins may actually have to find a way to work around.

The latest version of a well-reviewed third-party security policy enhancement system for Windows Vista claims to solve what its manufacturer characterizes as “not a secure solution” to a critical problem Windows historically had with administrator privileges on programs. But in the announcement of the upgrade earlier this week, a key Microsoft product manager is quoted as having acknowledged Vista’s own take on the solution was not quite enough, effectively reversing his company’s stand on User Account Control.

Click for more on Microsoft Endorses Product That Turns Off Vista UAC Nags »

Users report that the network performance drops to 1/10 of original while music is playing,regardless the player.

“Over the months since Vista’s release, there has been no doubt about the reduced level of network performance experienced compared to Windows XP. However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput. Whenever any audio is being sent to a sound card (even, several users report, while paused), network performance is instantly reduced. As soon as the audio is stopped, the throughput begins to climb to its expected speed. And changing music player wouldn’t do any help.

It’s a tough one for users — what do you pick, sound or speed? So much for multi-tasking.

Source: slashdot

JMicro controller found in 965P/P35(and maybe future X38) causes a lot problems with IDE optical drives, is there anyway to fix it?

Intel moves a big step since the release of 965P chipset, the new ICH8(R) southbridge, partnered with the it, is the first chipset to completely drop support of EIDE devices. While one could argue that the removal of PATA support is a needed step forward in technology, we firmly believe that Intel should have waited until the next generation ICH for this change. The Optical Drive market is still about 80% PATA based. While this development might spur the optical drive suppliers into offering additional SATA drives in the near future, it does not address the requirements of the current PATA installed base. Most motherboards using ICH8/ICH9 also add an additional chipset for PATA support, and the JMB361/JMB363 from JMicro are the most popular among them.

Click for more on HowTo: Fix the JMicro IDE Issue in Intel MBs »

The Chinese hacker made it again: SLIC enabled bioses for almost all Thinkpad with PM processor or higher, include but don’t limit to X31, X32, X40, X41, R40, T40, T41, T42(p), T43(p), R50, T60(p), X60(s) and the list is still increasing, just almost all the Thinkpad models made in the last 3 years.

The SLIC(Software Licensing Description Table) table in BIOS is used by OEM versions of Windows Vista for activation by Royalty OEMs in order for the end-user to not have problems with activating, called SLP 2.0, or System-Locked Preinstallation 2.0. For activation to work, clients obtained through the OEM channels that have an ACPI_SLIC table in the system BIOS are required to have a valid Windows marker in the same ACPI_SLIC table. The appearance of the Windows marker is important for volume license customers who are planning to use Windows Vista volume-licensed media to re-image or upgrade OEM through the re-imaging rights provided in their volume license agreement. Not having the appropriate BIOS marker results in the following error or errors on these systems and prevents them from activating. However, a modified BIOS with proper SLIC table can let the client PC by-pass the Vista activation process.

Click for more on Vista SLIC Ready Bios for Old Thinkpad »

The ICS is buggy in Vista and might lead to random connection drops.

When ICS service is Enabled, after a few hours (no specified time frame, might happen anytime) the connections on Vista PC running ICS would down and no more new connection can be made, while the client PC is still working.

Click for more on Fix the ICS Bug Under Vista »

Microsoft doesn’t make all their patches publicly available, get them through backdoor…

Do you ever encounter this situation: something goes wrong, and, of course, as a geek, you try to fix it yourself. So after lots of diagnoses and searching, the suspect is identified: the Windows System you are running, or more exactly, microsoft.

Click for more on Grab The Hidden Microsoft Hotfixes »