Microsoft’s Windows Vista RC 1 is done. Now it’s up to the estimated 6 million testers to which the company is planning to release the code to determine if it really is ready for prime time. Microsoft has posted the RC 1 build, Number 5600, on its TechBeta Web sites for select technical beta testers, including TAP partners, on September 1. Microsoft is planning to broaden the beta to include up to six million
participants, total, some time next week, according to industry sources. Cnet has a video introduction to Vista RC1. Elsewhere, people are going bonkers over Vista’s… Start up sound. Major Tom to ground control?
Macs have done this for over a decade. The firmware makes an awful racket when you bootup and unless your speakers are turned down or off there’s nothing to turn it down.
Both my Macs (PPCs both) do this. Both my TiBook and my old old performa all-in-one from years and years ago.
Why now? It’s annoying no matter what platform. The only two explanations I can come up with are A) Apple fanboys love the sounds because it screams “I’m using an Apple haha” or B) Windows over saturates everything and now it’ll be heard all the time at work, airports etc. and people don’t want to hear it.
Meh, I’ll give it a week before it’s cracked or their’s an easy registry edit.
You scraped close to it in there, somewhere. The startup chime is an equivalent of the POST beep from PCs, indicating that everything seems to be working and booting will commence, but unlike that horrid beep, it also says “you’re using a powerful, well-engineered, and modern machine.” If I were Microsoft, I’d be trying to get OEMs to stick my trademark sound in the BIOS, and then charge a licensing fee for it. At any stage in software loading, it’s too late and just annoyingly unnecessary.
I do like, though, this mention of a “ready” sound. Not because I want one, but because I think it’s funny that Microsoft acknowledges their software isn’t ready when it looks like it is and this is their best plan for how to deal with that. Any other platform, if you see a login screen, you can type in it. If you see a desktop, you can click on it. I can just imagine the Mac vs. PC ad about this little gem now.
“The startup chime is an equivalent of the POST beep from PCs”
Crap. The POST beep(s) are a way to simply tell a technician what’s broken in your PC. One beep tells everything is ok.
The Startup chime is pure marketing crap.
“it also says “you’re using a powerful, well-engineered, and modern machine”
It could be a powerful and well engineered machine. But not a well engineered OS. So it should be the hardware that chimed, not the OS.
“If I were Microsoft, I’d be trying to get OEMs to stick my trademark sound in the BIOS, and then charge a licensing fee for it”
You would be loosing branding.
“At any stage in software loading, it’s too late and just annoyingly unnecessary.”
My Linux PC doesn’t chime and put dancing clips on my screen. If you don’t like the startup chime, disable it. If there’s no way to disable it, buy a Mac or install Linux.
“I do like, though, this mention of a “ready” sound”
When my machine is ready, I know because I can use it. People don’t need a chime to tell them «go ahead». There’s the common problems asociated with Windows that could make this usefull, as your computer being completely loaded with crap and taking too much time to actually boot. As Windows presents you an unusable desktop while loading applications in background, then I assume most people would really wait until they are given some kind of signal, like the chime. So you are right on this.
Crap. The POST beep(s) are a way to simply tell a technician what’s broken in your PC. One beep tells everything is ok.
And any other combination of beeps is pretty much random and probably undocumented. It’s like the POST beep because it’s a comfort sound that says everything seems to be working.
It could be a powerful and well engineered machine. But not a well engineered OS. So it should be the hardware that chimed, not the OS.
It is the hardware.
“If I were Microsoft, I’d be trying to get OEMs to stick my trademark sound in the BIOS, and then charge a licensing fee for it”
You would be loosing branding.
They’ve gotten away with worse. Just tell the OEM people won’t trust that it’s genuine Windows unless they insert the sound, which will cost them a dollar per motherboard.
My Linux PC doesn’t chime and put dancing clips on my screen. If you don’t like the startup chime, disable it. If there’s no way to disable it, buy a Mac or install Linux.
I don’t know what you imagine my situation to be exactly. I’m talking about the article, not about how miserable my life is due to the constant onslaught of MS-engineered sound effects and animations, and within the context of the article, I’m talking about how sticking the sound in software is cheap and unnecessary. Yeah, MS flair is annoying, but that’s a different discussion. I mean, did you read what I wrote, or are you just taking random clips of it as inspiration for an entirely unrelated expression of your opinion on completely different topics? That’s fine and all, but you might want to preface it with “this made me thing of something…”
And any other combination of beeps is pretty much random and probably undocumented.
Uh, no.
http://www.technick.net/public/code/cp_dpage.php?aiocp_dp=guide_bee…
This has saved my neck on a couple of occasions…
It’s like the POST beep because it’s a comfort sound that says everything seems to be working.
You haven’t done much PC repair, it seems.
And any other combination of beeps is pretty much random and probably undocumented. It’s like the POST beep because it’s a comfort sound that says everything seems to be working.
Please post when you have some experience on the subject. Motherboards have several ways of indicating hardware errors, the most common being the beep, but there’s also mobos with voice messages and others with led number codes. In most of the cases, they provide you with documentation enough to tell the difference between errors, such as no ram, no cpu cooling plugged, wrong voltage, overheating, etc…
“And any other combination of beeps is pretty much random and probably undocumented. It’s like the POST beep because it’s a comfort sound that says everything seems to be working.”
Ohh, I can pretty much tell you that my fathers PC chimes when he logs on, and his computer is infected with spyware and probably with virus too. Is slow and bloated. So there’s no guarantees that because it chimed it’s really doing well, without problems. And the POST beeps is well known for those that repaired PCs for years. No need to tell the normal user «hey, it seems that I’m missing a memory module». Even if your PC is broken, there’s possibly no way to make any other thing but beep the speaker. If your machine is not even able to beep the speaker is because is completely destroyed (or a severe motherboard malfunction).
“It is the hardware.”
Well, yes, but not by itself.
“I mean, did you read what I wrote, or are you just taking random clips of it as inspiration for an entirely unrelated expression of your opinion on completely different topics? That’s fine and all, but you might want to preface it with “this made me thing of something…”
I don’t remember by now what you wrote. I write as I reply to you with topics you have provided to me. If I went a little off topic here, sorry, but I don’t find myself fixed to talking about one and only one thing.
It’s apparently not the case any more, but older mac startup chimes DO change for bootup errors, in a predictable way. Some of them are really almost musical. Wikipedia has it under “Chimes of Death” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimes_of_Death
POST beeps go off differently if something’s SNAFU’d in your box. On Macs AFAIK they just don’t make a sound. What good are they if they can be shut off as easily as turning off your speakers?
The POST beeps are odd in my opinion anyway. They shouldn’t go off unless there is a serious hardware problem. That way when it beeps like that people know there’s something wrong.
An even more elegant solution is the D-Bracket and the D LED scheme from MSI. On their motherboards there are four LEDS, eithe on a bracket that attaches to the back of PC or one that was on the mobo itself. They flash in different patterns during POST, and if the system stops or has problems during POST those LEDs will show in a certain combo of green and red indicating the type of failure, just like the different tones and beeps that occur.
At any rate I want my computer silent until I tell it to make noise with my multimedia apps. It’s annoying to me and others for various noises to happen when I click on things, boot up etc.
The POST beeps are odd in my opinion anyway. They shouldn’t go off unless there is a serious hardware problem. That way when it beeps like that people know there’s something wrong.
The most serious problems are when the box can’t even post, and doesn’t beep at all. If it only beeped when there was a problem, “can’t post” would sound just like normal.
>> Macs have done this for over a decade. The firmware makes an awful racket when you bootup and unless your speakers are turned down or off there’s nothing to turn it down.
Both my Macs (PPCs both) do this. Both my TiBook and my old old performa all-in-one from years and years ago.
I was about to mention it, I too noticed that the iBook G4 I’ve just had for a few months (special offer, long live Intel!) has this same noisy startup sound as the ancient Apple ii, that I got somewhere for 5 guilders a few years ago.
Turning on the iBook in the university library was a noisy experience. Embarrassing too. And with the shiny Apple logo that not you the user, but everybody else around you sees, you’re already a free advertisement for Apple.
From now on, I’ll turn it on before entering the building, or keep it stand by. Which I guess was intended anyway.
Apparently, Mac users accept all that noise, because it reminds them of a long tradition of Apple hardware. But that’s where the Vista case is different: MS can’t put the noise in the firmware, and as they’re a software firm, a sound that you must hear is, in a way, either a sign of a badly configurable system, or of intended brainwashing.
Whereas the Apple firmware boot sound, a hardware feature, is like the unavailability of bright yellow MacBooks.
The latter being equally disturbing.
😉
I haven’t bought a new computer in a few years, but I would think the technology was sufficient enough to have the bios actually tell you when something’s wrong instead of beeping at you.
Hey dumbass, you didn’t put the RAM in right!
ASUS did this something like this in their motherboards years ago (about when Pentium 4 was released), and they seem to have stopped. It was annoying as hell when instead of a simple beep a woman with a terrible Chinese accent informed you that all was OK. It was useful however when you indeed had problems.
And with the shiny Apple logo that not you the user, but everybody else around you sees, you’re already a free advertisement for Apple.
Heh, don’t forget the last great Apple laptop innovation that was universally copied by PC OEMs: turning the logo upside down for the user so that those around will see it with the correct orientation. I think IBM/Lenovo is the last one left who has the logo oriented correctly for the user.
The good thing is that there’ll probably be a 30-40 miunte delay between the time you hit the power button and the time Vista’s done booting, so at least you’ll be able to be far away when the sound rings.
I don’t know if the fact that I use a Mac makes me a Mac user (I have never thought of it that way), but I don”t like the noise one bit. The solutions proposed by other posters aren’t really good. But there is this :
http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~arcana/index.en.html
that gives you total control on the volume of the startup sound.
You can actually disable the startup sound with a keycombo or an OpenFirmware command. I believe it’s even documented in an OpenBSD manual about installing on an Apple G3.
You know if you press the volume down button on the mac keyboard you can turn that sound off ??
WTH are you trolling about? Just hold down the mute-button when you startup your Mac, no sound at all.
You even made me register to post this stupid comment..
… it looks like that Jan. date will end up being it.
You mean the 30th of January
Well I may have to buy a copy of Vista for my coming mac. Heck, I will have the best of both OS’s. The geekside of me wants to explore Vista.
Of course I had to be out of DVD-Rs just when RC1 ships, and all the stores selling blank media are closed.
Ah well, looking forward to installing this and bug testing like crazy.
DVD+RW. You know, those reusable DVDs that you put pre-releases on that you can wipe off later (because no-one sane keeps alphas/betas/RC’s on DVD-R’s and archives them surely?).
Maybe someone else have had success with it, but I tried it once when out of -Rs and it led to a spectacular installer crash.
Thus I stick to DVD-Rs to avoid that happening again. 🙂
… OS enthusiasts have to be among the biggest whiners on the planet.
“…buh–it plays a stahtup sound I cain’t tuhn off! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Real human beings — you know, the ones that actually buy these products and use them everyday — simply don’t give a damn about such cr*p. If only they knew what kind of whining was going on over things that nobody cares about…
+1 for being 110% correct!
Real human beings – well some of them work in radio stations, recording studios, etc. Some of them, such as rock stars, or even producers, have nasty tempers. Some of them might just throw you and your laptop out of the window if it makes uncontrollable noises.
What you find acceptable in your own home may not be so in many working environments.
While I do prefer having a silent boot (or, as a matter of fact, a silent PC), it’s kinda cool that they hired Fripp for creating the sounds. Perhaps I am a fanboy (almost got all his discs), but I’m pretty sure he will do a great job. Who knows, perhaps I won’t mind reboots after updates.
It’s their product, so they can do whatever they want with it. Perhaps power users will complain, maybe they will lose two or three people to Linux… but I am pretty sure the generic Joe won’t care. As a matter of fact, he might like it, since it will mean that he got a Vista PC, not some “old” XP.
From the time I power up my box, until the login prompt – dead silence, just me sipping my coffee. Wouldn’t have it any other way. If I want to tolerate a stupid sound, I’ll put it there.
If I want to start my session with a particular window manager/desktop, I’ll put it there. If I want a different one tomorrow, I’ll change it as I see fit.
Who’s computer is it anyway? Who’s using the computer anyway? You’re right, it’s not about the sound, it’s about a person’s right to NOT have to deal with this nonsense should they choose otherwise.
Silly, silly Microsoft…spending all this R&D on hiring a professional musician for some lame boot tune. My god, make a competent network stack for crying out loud.
Am i the only one whos PC doesn’t beep on startup, my PC is silent until vista makes its startup sound when its ready
which just as a note to the idiot saying it takes 44 minutes, shut the heck up it takes my pc 31 seconds from power to login prompt and 11 seconds to load desktop 100% loaded and usable
5536 was an awesome build, i wonder how much they managed to shove into 5600 … since it was indeed on a seperate build branch it might have a good deal of work done ahead of 5536
…. and guess what folks, the beta testing will continue long after the product has gone ‘gold’.
Welcome to the world of Microsoft Windows.
RC1 has been released, and 90% of the posts here have to do with the start up chine; nice to see that people have their priorities right.
Screw stability, security and reliability, give us the ability to change out start up chine! <rolls eyes>
Perhaps Vista is so underwhelming that the startup sound ‘controvesy’ is the only thing to discuss. Vista is pretty underwhelming.
“Perhaps Vista is so underwhelming that the startup sound ‘controvesy’ is the only thing to discuss. Vista is pretty underwhelming.”
Are you looking at RC1? According to many reviews RC1 is actually a pretty slick system that may actually help MS reach that 900-times-proposed release date! Maybe its more likely since there nothing majorly “stuck up” (at the moment) with RC1 people just have to debate a stupid start up sound rather than security, stabilitiy, incompatbility… because MS have “appeared” (so far) to have sorted that..
Edited 2006-09-02 09:20
Yes, I was using RC1. It’s possibly the worst OS I’ve ever used out of the ones I’m well versed in (Windows 3.1-XP, Risc OS, AmigaOS, GEOS, OSX)
It has severe usability issues. The UI is for shiney effect only, and has a very large number of usability regressions. It’s more annoying than XP, there’s more popups, ballons, buttons, dialogs, links. The Control Panel reminds me of a spam blog and I’ve only just started turning over all the problems with Vista that were not there in XP.
Are you looking at Vista objectively, or just based on the fact that it’s coming, you can’t avoid it, and we all have to live with it?
Edited 2006-09-02 09:29
I don’t think you’re looking at it objectively. I think you’re predisposed to hate Vista, so you hate it. I wouldn’t be surprised if your one of those that is actively *rooting* for Vista to be bad (I was just at the slashdot thread regarding Vista RC1, where some there proudly proclaim that they’re rooting for Vista to suck/flop/fail, pathetic as that is). I don’t think one can get *objective* analysis from one that is rooting for something to be bad any more than one that is rooting for something to be good.
The various review sites I’ve read that all trashed Beta2 (so they’re not sites that just mindlessly praise Vista) are praising RC1.
Edited 2006-09-02 10:15
The various review sites I’ve read that all trashed Beta2 (so they’re not sites that just mindlessly praise Vista) are praising RC1.
True, I’ve read a few reviews by guys who are more than willing to bash Windows and Microsoft when there is a need to do so – so far, it seems that the *worse* review I’ve seen so far has been, “They’re on the right track, and hopefully they’ll keep moving forward” with the best one being “RTM THIS!”.
If you look at the Technnet site, there are *heaps* of things that still weren’t merged into RC1, but are in the 5700 builds, which hopefully will mean they’ll appear in later RC’s.
Although there was a aim for the businesses to get a hands on it by November IIRC, lets remember that Microsofts *main* focus is getting it out to OEMs to allow systems to ship by January 30 – so one shouldn’t expect RC1 to be the end of the ‘development cycle’ – you could say they’re on the home stretch, and they’re going gang busters to get it all finished.
Are you looking at RC1? According to many reviews RC1 is actually a pretty slick system that may actually help MS reach that 900-times-proposed release date! Maybe its more likely since there nothing majorly “stuck up” (at the moment) with RC1 people just have to debate a stupid start up sound rather than security, stabilitiy, incompatbility… because MS have “appeared” (so far) to have sorted that..
Agreed; and you know what is pissing these nay-sayers off, Microsoft might actually deliver on their promise! instead of improving their products, they sat around waiting for the so-called ‘demise of Microsoft’ just like people waited around waiting for the so-called ‘demise of Apple’.
I’ve had a look at all the features in RC1, Jim the leader in the email has announced that there is still more work to be done – I don’t want to sound fanboyish, but it seems that Microsoft actually has its act together, and it scares some people here.
For me, better product, means better user experience; if the Linux gurus want me to use their operating system, how about improving it to such a level that it has enough compelling things to make me switch – right now there is no commercial software support – I don’t want to run your opensource crap, give me commercial softare like Creative Suite, MYOB, an office suite that doesn’t suck royally (which OpenOffice.org currently does), major hardware support short comings, and lets not get started on the GUI experience.
Edited 2006-09-03 01:50
How about not trolling?
A novelty, I know.
If you want Creative Suite, MYOB, an Office suite that doesn’t suck royally, hardware support, and an improved GUI experience, instead of “sitting around waiting for the so-called ‘demise of Linux'”, why not ask for them/help develop them?
It’s hard to see how XP is “an improved GUI experience” relative to Linux when half the time in XP you sit around waiting for it to finish what you told it to do; given the hardware requirements for Vista (and YES, I *know* 15GB is less than 10 percent of a 400GB hard drive), it’s not likely to be any more responsive, either. No wonder PC World in the UK (aka “The Shop for Ignoramuses who thanks to the free market now have enough cash to join the PC Revolution”) (“We don’t sell RAM anymore ‘cos it slows computers down”) has adverts claiming that dual-core lets you do more than one thing at the same time.
” given the hardware requirements for Vista (and YES, I *know* 15GB is less than 10 percent of a 400GB hard drive), it’s not likely to be any more responsive”
I find it pretty responsive.
One thing that I’m really happy about is the new image backup included. I backed up my Vista partition and my Xp partition (about 40GB total) in about 5 minutes. In XP it usually takes about 20 minutes on my PC for NTbackup to do 20GB.
Now thats a time saver.
Maybe I was ‘harsh’ in my assessment of Linux, but the simple fact is, sure, I love using FreeBSD, but at the same time, I’m no stranger to its limitations, I know that there is limited hardware support, and as such I choose my hardware wisely, I also find the responsiveness incredible compared to other operating systems.
With that being said, it still doesn’t take away from the fact that people choose Windows because of the availability of applications; yes, there is the occaional ‘gem’ in the opensource world like Thunderbird, Firefox, GAIM and the likes, but the reality is, compare the commercial software which people rely on, and compare it with the opensource alternative and there really is no comparison.
If people want a reason for the lack of movement to Linux or what ever else platform, its that; that is why Apple is going gangbusters creating their own middleware line up, because they know, if they don’t fill the gap which is left because a lack of commercial software interests, they’ll never win over the customers, so they instead do it themselves.
If one were to setup a *NIX oriented company today, I certainly would not waste millions of investors money making yet another distribution claiming to be the ‘desktop OS of choice’ but instead, work on either porting commercial applications to *NIX vi licencing code or simply creating new, home grown applications from scratch by analysing what is out there, and delivering a mix of others provide and the bits people like from each.
Like I said, my original post wasn’t intended as a slam, but as a wake up call to the fanboys to the reality that is the information technology market; operating systems merely provide the ability for users to run applications; that is the purpose of purchasing a computer, to run applications and thus, make their working lives more productive; without the necessary commercial software which they rely on, they can’t be productive, and thus, will not move to the alternative platforms mentioned.
Maybe I was ‘harsh’ in my assessment of Linux, but the simple fact is, sure, I love using FreeBSD, but at the same time, I’m no stranger to its limitations, I know that there is limited hardware support, and as such I choose my hardware wisely, I also find the responsiveness incredible compared to other operating systems.
Linux can be pretty responsive, too. And there are hardware limitations, yes, but in my experience not as many as for FreeBSD.
With that being said, it still doesn’t take away from the fact that people choose Windows because of the availability of applications; yes, there is the occaional ‘gem’ in the opensource world like Thunderbird, Firefox, GAIM and the likes, but the reality is, compare the commercial software which people rely on, and compare it with the opensource alternative and there really is no comparison.
That may be true, but, like the free- and open-source software movement to people who haven’t been bitten on the ass by closed-source software, the argument can seem rather academic; for those who don’t need or want the whole smorgasbord of software that Windows provides, Linux or FreeBSD and/or MacOS (or RISC OS or…) may provide a better choice.
Lots of software is good, but if a virus gobbles your data or your work keeps getting interrupted by reboots (which, I admit, is much less of a problem in Windows than it used to be), Photoshop’s not going to be any more use than the GIMP.
Also, bear in mind that not everybody needs the features that (say) Photoshop provides but the GIMP doesn’t. “More features” does not necessarily equal “better”, especially if it also means “less stable”.
If one were to setup a *NIX oriented company today, I certainly would not waste millions of investors money making yet another distribution claiming to be the ‘desktop OS of choice’ but instead, work on either porting commercial applications to *NIX vi licencing code or simply creating new, home grown applications from scratch by analysing what is out there, and delivering a mix of others provide and the bits people like from each.
Good idea.
operating systems merely provide the ability for users to run applications; that is the purpose of purchasing a computer, to run applications and thus, make their working lives more productive; without the necessary commercial software which they rely on, they can’t be productive, and thus, will not move to the alternative platforms mentioned.
Horses for courses. The fact is, a lot of people only run Windows because they don’t know there are any alternatives. Here in the UK, where Apple’s market share isn’t as high as it is in the States, often people don’t realise that Macs run different software.
I find I’m more productive on Linux than I ever was on Windows. Seriously. To some extent this is because of familiarity with the platform – my Linux experience now far exceeds my Windows experience – and lack of games! but I find Windows just gets in my way too much. “Are you sure you want to put such-and-such in the Recycle Bin?” leaves me looking for the “Nah, just kiddin'” button.
If one were to setup a *NIX oriented company today, I certainly would not waste millions of investors money making yet another distribution claiming to be the ‘desktop OS of choice’ but instead, work on either porting commercial applications to *NIX vi licencing code or simply creating new, home grown applications from scratch by analysing what is out there, and delivering a mix of others provide and the bits people like from each.
This is what Novell is doing with F-Spot, Beagle, Banshee .
Maybe everything is or will be OK, but windows Explorer and its roots Internet Explorer will be crashable no matter what they do, no matter what patches they do, I have seen explorer crashes many times during beta testing and I have seen it regularly happening with at least 16 builds I’ve tested, and before anyone will start debugging me, yes, I have installed it on a clean HDD and new one and every testing environment I had was so sterile and maybe as advanced as MS testing environment, no crappy hardware and nothing bad.
I only remember one similar OS in which their browser let them down real bad even in their final code, and It’s called YellowTab Zeta, with their horribly crashable “Tracker”.
I don’t know what solution would I suggest to MS as whenever they debug the code more and more other new crashed surface and the vicious cicle runs again.
But, I guess if they stop depending on the explore in every instance of their programming, their software will be more stable. Open Control Panel and explorer opens, load desktop and explorer loads, open media center editon and explorer opens, open windows media player and explorer opens,…, now open unsupported codec video and explorer crash, open a network neiborhood that takes more time to discover and explorer crash, open a corrupt sound file and explorer crash, put a baddly burned DVD+R and explorer crash,…. Ohhhhh.
I have never encountered any such horror on Mac of Linuxes even though they intend to have their own annoyances.
I guess I have to accept this, the way one accepts his own retarded child; while keeping hope of a cure one day to come.
I only remember one similar OS in which their browser let them down real bad even in their final code, and It’s called YellowTab Zeta,
Which version was that?
v 1.0 final
If you’re getting crashes that often, something is wrong.
What is the latest build you’ve experienced this on?
Have you tried running the memory diagnostic?
Is your CPU overclocked?
Any 3rd-party storage drivers?
Does this only occur in Vista or also XP?
Are you running any shell extensions or applications that extend the shell (e.g., WinZip, AntiVirus, etc.)?
Are these only application crashes or has the OS itself also crashed frequently (BSOD or rebooted unexpectedly)?
Have you reported these issues to MS?
Edited 2006-09-02 11:58
it doesn’t sound like he’s doing any of this.
On the other hand, have you installed any third-party video or audio codecs like XVID, ffdshow, or Ogg?
I know that these have caused instability for XP’s explorer. It would be cool if MSFT used these applications out-of-proc as soon as they can to avoid this crashiness.
“On the other hand, have you installed any third-party video or audio codecs like XVID, ffdshow, or Ogg? ”
Yes, I have all codecs installed to allow me to watch different video formats, but this is a normal thing to be installed and MS OS components should not crash for a codec or a driver; and put this aside, I have all these codecs installed on Fedora 5 with Xine without a single problem and on mac as well without any of these problems.
By the way explorer tends to crash immidately if you open the same location that caused the previous crash to happen, while if you browse away from that location it will delay its crash. folder content that cause it to crash in most occasions are .avi files and some others mostly graphics files like .jpeg and I have scanned my folders and scanned them deeply to know that they are not viruses or infected file.
By the way explorer tends to crash immidately if you open the same location that caused the previous crash to happen, while if you browse away from that location it will delay its crash. folder content that cause it to crash in most occasions are .avi files and some others mostly graphics files like .jpeg and I have scanned my folders and scanned them deeply to know that they are not viruses or infected file.
I’ve had this occur on an older version of XP in a folder with a corrupted video file. If it’s related to a thumbnail handler (as in my case), it can be avoided by changing the folder view to one that uses icons instead of thumbnails. If it’s some other handler, it may still try to access the file even in an icon view and subsequently crash Explorer.
It would be cool if MSFT used these applications out-of-proc as soon as they can to avoid this crashiness.
Preview handlers and thumbnail providers run out-of-proc in Vista. Though thumbnail providers can optionally run in-proc. Most other things are still in-proc in the context of Explorer though.
At the expense of some memory, you can run each Explorer window in a seperate process to mitigate a crash in one window taking down the rest.
Start | Control Panel | Appearance and Themes | Folder Options | View tab | check Launch folder windows in a separate process
“What is the latest build you’ve experienced this on? ”
All windows since 2000 till now patched SP1 XP
“Have you tried running the memory diagnostic? ”
Yes memtest32 and windows memory diagnostics both reported back no errors in any of memory modules after at least 3 cycles, besides these problems are reproducable and I have found friends who complains that their desktops are gone for a while then back on and sometimes gone for good, which is a restart for explorer and failed restart respectively; you can try it from task manager(Ctrl+Shift+Esc)>Processes Tab and choose explorer.exe and hit Delete then yes. To bring it back on click File>New Task and type explorer.
“Any 3rd-party storage drivers? ”
No
“Does this only occur in Vista or also XP? ”
In both, but more with vista (till 5436 the last I’ve tested)
“Are you running any shell extensions or applications that extend the shell (e.g., WinZip, AntiVirus, etc.)? ”
Zone Alarm as an antivirus and firewall, winrar as compression software but both never gave any reportable errors from event viewer (eventvwr.exe)
“Have you reported these issues to MS? ”
Yes, and they said they fixed it on vista newer builds but the more I test the more I discover that the problem is here to stay.
Build 5436 is neither Pre-RC1 nor RC1. Please try a newer version.
windows Explorer and its roots Internet Explorer
Explorer and IE are no longer tied together in Vista (or even XP with IE7).
put a baddly burned DVD+R and explorer crash,…. Ohhhhh.
I have never encountered any such horror on Mac of Linuxes even though they intend to have their own annoyances.
Bad media (with automounting enabled) has taken out more Linux and Mac boxes than I can remember.
I am sorry it was build 5536, I confirmed it from my testing booklet.
As someone who’s been trying out beta versions of MS operating systems since the 3.x days, Vista’s beta2 was the worst beta 2 ever. To give you an idea, I always switched to the new OS whenever it hit Beta2, and with Vista I was unable to do that.
Fast forward to 5536 which I am using now, and the improvement is surprising, to say the least. Compatibility has MUCH improved, mem footprint is down, and bugs have been squashed. I will install RC1 tomorrow, but let me tell you, if the improvements continue at this rate, Vista will become an excellent replacement for XP.
(but, apart from all that, its looks still feel like yesterday’s news once you work with Xgl/compiz in all its glory, believe me).
It may be cute for some but can you imagine an entire office with over 20 computers starting up day after say. Smart move MicroDump. Not.