Microsoft has just released a Knowledge Base article about the fact that Windows Vista systems using Folder Redirection are experiencing slowness’s of about 30 seconds when you do not have a connection to the network, i.e. are at home, traveling etc. The support article state that the system may be unresponsive when opening Windows Explorer and other applications. This problem has been haunting many users, including myself and it is nice to see a solution, although it should have been published a long time ago. Waiting for Service Pack 1 I strongly recommend this to anyone using Folder redirection and having laptop computers running Windows Vista.
Month: January 2008
Slipstream the “new” Windows Update components
More than half a year ago Microsoft silently released updated Windows Update components. No official notice was made about this silent release until now, when Microsoft finally published a Knowledge Base article about it, providing download links. But hey, wait! The downloads have been available since the new components were released in mid August. That is because the new Windows Update components are automatically downloaded via Windows Update, and all files that are downloaded via Windows Update are specified with download paths in WindowsUpdate.log. You can always find the download links directly in the WindowsUpdate.log (located in %WINDIR%) if you look at what the file name requested is and then adding it to the base download path.
The benefits of downloading the new Windows Update components from here is that you can integrate the CAB files directly into the Windows Vista install.wim image. Here are the links to the Windows Update Components CAB files (please note that you need to integrate/slipstream all three files for each platform):
- Windows Update Component ActiveX, x86 or x64.
- Windows Update Component Aux, x86 or x64.
- Windows Update Component Core, x86 or x64.
More information and download links for the EXE installers for Windows Vista and Windows XP can be found in the Microsoft Support KB article KB946928.
Microsoft vs Microsoftee opinions!
More than half a year ago I wrote about the Start menu in Windows, which was published as a short news article on the Swedish TechWorld web site (a part of the International Data Group). A couple of days ago I got a notice from a blog reader that I am being accused, along with 8-9 million other totally innocent people referred to as “The Swedes”, for mistaking the words coming from blogger Raymond Chen from the Old New thing blog for Microsoft’s opinion. I do apologize for not mentioning Raymond by name in the article. I should of course have done that as he is the author of the article and the blog post I am referring to. But as I understand Raymond’s point, the fact that the original article is published within Microsoft’s web pages i.e. TechNet Magazine and MSDN cannot be anything else than (in)directly approved by Microsoft and therefore be considered as “Microsoft’s opinion”.
How to disable Vista UAC for certain applications only
As a follow up to my previous posts about application compatibility this support article from Microsoft came right to my attention. It is a step-by-step guide on how to make disable User Account Control prompts for certain applications only, without turning off UAC. The guide is called How to disable the User Account Control Prompt for certain applications, do not miss it!