Compatibility and requirements:

• The capacity of the removable media must be at least 256 MB (250 after formatting)
• Devices larger than 4 GB will have only 4 GB used for ReadyBoost
• The device should have an access time of 1 ms or less
• The device must be capable of 2.5 MB/s read speeds for 4 KB random reads spread uniformly across the entire device and 1.75 MB/s write speeds for 512 KB random writes spread uniformly across the device
• The device must have at least 235 MB of free space
• NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 are supported
• The initial release of ReadyBoost supports one device
• The recommended amount of flash memory to use for Windows ReadyBoost acceleration is one to three times the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed in your computer

Some spyware may create a desktop background to replace your own.  After doing this, I’ve seen the display properties tabs for modifying the screensaver and wallpaper disappear to prevent the user from getting rid of the malicious wallpaper.  To bring these tabs back, navigate to the following Registry string:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

Here, you will find the keys responsible.  They are:

NoDispBackgroundPage
NoDispAppearancePage

These will likely be set to 1.  Set them to 0 or delete them to get your tabs back. 

A client of mine recently had 2 CDRom drives that weren’t showing in My Computer. In the device manager, they showed up with exclamation points. Double-clicking them told me that the driver was installed properly but:

“Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)”

After some research, the solution I found was to remove the LowFilter and UpperFilter entries from this registry area:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Note that you may have several identical keys like this (4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318). The one you are looking for will list DVD/CD Rom Drives as the very first entry.

Reboot after making changes.

If you want the best performance possible from a certain application (i.e. your favorite game, Photoshop, or Virtual PC) you can set the compatibility mode on that application to automatically disable Vista Aero when ran and automatically re-anable it when closed.  To do this:

1. Right-click the shortcut used to access the application and select “Properties”
2. On the Compatibility tab, check the box to “Disable desktop composition” (for even more performance, you may also want to check “Disable visual themes”)
3. Click OK on the properties window.

I recently came across an issue on a client PC where i could not set a printer to be the default.  When I right-clicked the printer and chose the “Set as Default Printer” option, absolutely nothing happened.  After researching the issue, I was able to manually make the printer the default by adding the following registry key:

Name: Device
Type: Reg_SZ (String Value)
Value: “printername, winspool, portname”
Location: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\

 In my case, the Windows key didnt exist under CurrentVersion and had to be created.

In Vista, I have seen my network and sound icons disappear from the notification area quite often.  Microsoft KB article 945011 explains why and how to workaround the issue.  Unfortunately, this isnt a permanent fix and they still seem to disappear occasionally.  I have created a batch file to do the work for you so that you can run it often if need be.  Take the following text, paste it into a text file and then save it as restore_icons.bat or something similar (must end in .bat).  Run it to restore your icons.

 NOTE! This blog breaks up the first two lines at the first space.  Make sure you piece the code back together as it should be.

reg delete “HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify” /v IconStreams /f

You may receive the following error message when attempting to add a Vista PC to a Small Business Server domain using the SBS wizard (http://servername/connectcomputer):

“The Small Business Server Networking Wizard was not installed. You may not be a member of the local Administrators security group on this computer or your Local Intranet security settings may be set to High. Click Connect to the network now to try again and click Yes when prompted. If the wizard fails to install, contact the person responsible for your network.”

To resolve this issue, you probably need to update your SBS server to support that Vista PC.  The update is commonly referred to as “Ripcurl”. 

Read more at the official SBS blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2007/02/09/sbs-vista-client-update-ripcurl-now-available.aspx

Windows Vista SP1 is close to being released.  The RC is available for public release here.  Below are some guides on the number of improvements and fixes included with this SP.  There seem to be some significant performance improvements promised…

SP1 Changelog

SP1 IT Professional Guides

SP1 RC Release Notes

If you’ve lost your local Windows password in the past then you may have already found this tool.  This is a very handy boot disk to change your Windows password and should be a part of any technician’s toolkit. 

This post is a warning though….the previous versions of this tool should not be used on Vista!!!  There is a new version which supports Vista and that is the only version that should be used.  Using the previous version on a Vista machine will corrupt the filesystem and make it difficult to get your system to boot again.  Somehow, it corrupts it to the point where the Vista installation CD cant even be used to repair it.  To get my system to boot again after making this mistake I had to use an XP installation CD to run chkdsk and correct the errors. 

 Here is the link to the latest version of the Password Recovery Boot Disk:
http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

It seems to be a common problem that your Network and Volume icons may disappear from the system tray.  If this happens, it may be a quick fix by going to the properties of the taskbar and checking off each one on the Notification Area tab.  If however, these options are greyed out, then the problem may be the icon “History”.  To resolve this, delete the following keys in the registry then restart the Explorer.exe process.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify\IconStreams
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify\PastIconsStream