The PC Informant » Windows 7

Backups, System Restore, and System Protection in Windows 7

Vic Laurie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:00:32 +0000

System Restore in Windows 7 is considerably more useful than in Windows XP. The overall service is actually called System Protection and has been extended to include backups of personal and data files. Also, the backup feature now provides for doing a disk image. I have written several articles on the details and they can be found here:

Check out your CPU capabilities

Vic Laurie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:13:40 +0000

Steve Gibson often comes up with free little utilities that do some useful task. With the trend to 64-bit computing, you might want to see if your CPU can handle 64-bits. Another CPU feature worth checking is to see if the security feature called hardware DEP is supported. Gibson provides a free program called SecurAble that will tell you about the features supported by your CPU.

In addition to checking if your CPU is 64-bit and if it supports DEP, the program will tell you if hardware virtualization is supported. This might be of interest to prospective Windows 7 buyers who want to know if the virtual support for running Windows XP in Windows 7 is present.

Another Windows 7 power management bug

Vic Laurie — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:40:31 +0000

Here’s another problem with power management in Windows 7. This one is described at Microsoft KB979444. So far I haven’t run into it but I haven’t been using a Windows 7 system over long periods. This bug involves a computer crashing after being used for a period of time. Here is Microsoft’s description:

You have a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Occasionally, the computer crashes after it runs for some time. Additionally, you receive a Stop error message on a blue screen. The Stop error message resembles the following:

STOP: 0×0000000A (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

This issue occurs because Power Manager opens an Advanced local procedure call (ALPC) port. However, Power Manager closes another port instead of closing the ALPC port. Every time that a power request is made, a memory leak occurs. When the leaked memory usage accumulates to a certain level, the computer crashes.

There is a hotfix available but, unless the problem is seriously affecting your system, Microsoft advises waiting until more testing is done.

Windows Vista/7 power management bug

Vic Laurie — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:18:04 +0000

I personally ran into the following on a Vista laptop. I turned off the system in the usual way, putting the PC into the hybrid sleep mode. I then closed the lid. I could have just closed the lid and that would also have put the system to sleep. By both turning off the PC and closing the lid I ran into the bug described in this Microsoft post:

Consider the following scenario. You have a portable computer that runs Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008. You put the computer to sleep (S3) while the computer’s lid is open. Then, you close the lid while the computer is asleep. Later, you open the lid to wake up the computer.

In this scenario, the computer starts resuming. However, you only see a blank screen and a mouse pointer until you provide some user input. For example, this situation lasts until you press a key or click the mouse.

At first, I thought there was something wrong with my graphics card but then I remembered reading about this bug somewhere. So, if you run into this, it’s the OS and not your hardware. It seems to occur only on certain systems and not all the time. Microsoft has a hotfix for the problem but, since just hitting a key brings everything up, I wouldn’t bother with it.

Windows 7 battery dispute continues

Vic Laurie — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:37:13 +0000

Although Microsoft is firmly denying that Windows 7 is causing any battery problems (see previous post), people are still pointing fingers at Windows 7. Computerworld has a roundup of what is being said.

Microsoft denies Windows 7 battery problem

Vic Laurie — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:42:43 +0000

In a previous post, I noted that there were reports that upgrading to Windows 7 was causing some batteries to fail. Microsoft says that Windows 7 is not at fault and that bad batteries are the problem. Ars Technica has more details.

Windows 7 stability update causing problems

Vic Laurie — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:46 +0000

Last week Microsoft issued some non-security updates for Windows 7. Unfortunately, one of them seems to be causing trouble. The problem update is KB977074. The best solution for those having problems seems to be to uninstall the update. Ars Technica has more on the problem.

Are Windows 7 upgrades causing battery problems?

Vic Laurie — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:43:17 +0000

There are a lot of reports that upgrading a laptop to Windows 7 is ruining batteries. As far as I can tell from what I read, new laptops that come with Windows 7 are not involved, just older systems that have been upgraded. More details are here.

A complete compendium of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

Vic Laurie — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:01:00 +0000

The Windows Club has made available for download a free PDF file with a “complete” set of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts. I put “complete” in quotes because there may be thousands of possible keyboard shortcuts in Windows; this ebook has just over 200. In any event, this is a useful reference work. The download includes an XPS formatted document as well as a PDF. Most home PC users can just keep the PDF.

Will it work on Windows 7?

Vic Laurie — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:45:43 +0000

That’s the question you may have about your favorite program before you change to a Windows 7 system. Microsoft has been periodically publishing software compatibility lists to help you determine what will run on a new system. You can download a large Excel file in XLS format at this link. Or you can do a search on specific software at the Windows 7 Compatibility Center. This site also provides information on hardware compatibility. In addition, there is the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, which you can download and run on your present computer to check it for compatibility.

Via Gizmo’s Freeware