I’ve not had the chance to work on many Windows Vista machines. Most of my customers are still way behind the technology curve with their Windows XP. But, on the rare occassion I have worked with Vista, it’s almost always for the same thing.
There is/was a problem with some of the Vista updates and how they interact with early OEM installation images. Particularly Dell, HP and Compaq. Turns out when you apply said updates, the computer get stuck in the following reboot loop.
Configuring updates 3 of 3. 0% complete
It does that, goes to a screen that says shutting down and reboots. Right back to this screen. Neat.
Before I go further, you can search google all you want, but the only way to reliably fix this is to reinstall Windows Vista. Try all the other stuff if you are getting paid by the hour, but if you have other things to do, back up the users data and reinstall Windows.
But how do you kill it? That’s the easy part. After watching this happen 3 times and thinking this is the time it’s going to work when it doesn’t, then it’s time to do a system restore. System restored to a point prior to the update installation, computer reboots.
Of course, upon reboot, the updates are still there, waiting to be applied. And, if the computer is set to apply updates automatically and you don’t pay attention, they do just that. Which then causes the reboot loops again.
Rinse. Repeat.
After a few of these, voila! One Blue Screen of Death. Of course, at that point, a reload is the only option since even a system restore only repeats the process. Not only that, but the computer still doesn’t update.
From what I understand, the real best fix for this is to install Windows 7. I’ve only seen it in passing, so I’m not yet very familiar with it but hope to be fixing that shortly after 2010 starts.
This is something that I’ve been thinking about for the past few months and I finally have enough of a thought about to put words to screen. Today, I would like to discuss with you, the fine donburnside.com readership, the like button.
The Like Button is what I’m going to call the process in which, at certain sites, you mark something in such a way to signify the fact that you appreciate it. The favorite star on Flickr, the pink heart on Tumblr, or the star on Twitter. Clicking that device tells the author that you liked it while at the same time acts as a bookmark for you, within that site, for the stuff that you really like. And that’s exactly how I use it. I like things because I think they are cool and I want to be able to go back to them at a later time for whatever reason.
Did you notice that I did not include the Facebook like function in the above paragraph? It’s because I think that feature is broken.
On Facebook, clicking like only lets the author of the post know that you like it and automatically subscribes you to updates on that post (if you have those settings enabled). That’s too bad.
There are posts all the time on Facebook that I wish I could revisit for many reasons. Funny posts, cool links or videos. But when I click the like button, the only thing that happens is I get bothered with updates and comments that I’m usually not interested in.
I don’t have a solution for this but really wish I did. I would be nice to have an archive of likes on Facebook, just like the other sites.
Maybe someday.
Does this feature exist? Do you have a good system? Let us know below! Comments are back open, go nuts!
A quick reminder to all of you that the offices of DonBurnside.com Solutioneering and Tire Repair will be slowing down for this holiday season, like we like to do.
This furlough will affect the following sites:
- DonBurnside.com
- WhiteRoofRadio.com
- dbmini.us
All of us here at DonBurnside.com would like to wish you, your family, your friends, your co-workers,your neighbours, your friends of friends, your dry cleaner and dentist the happiest of [insert preferred holiday here]! If course, for those of you that, for whatever reason, do not celebrate any of the December Festivities, Happy Thursday and Friday to you and everyone that you will be spending those days with.
Normal service will resume in 2010. In the meantime, a few of us will still be posting to Twitter with some frequency and you might catch something funny, or not, over at w(t)f.
We would also like to take this time to thank you for utilizing DonBurnside.com for your solutioneering needs. Every one of us is looking forward to helping you maximize your synergy with webinars and social interaction in 2010.
Don Burnside
Lead Solutioneer
donburnside.com
As we head into the final 2 weeks of 2009 and getting ready for what is shaping up to be a much better 2010, we are all bound to see family members and friends. These people have computers and probably use you as their own personal help desk. You know what that means?
Holiday Computer Updates
Since you are going to be there anyway, now would be a great time to check the computers of your users for updates, security issues and other crazy things that they usually bug you about during the year. Here is a quick list of those things that you can do quickly to save them, and you, headaches for the new year.
Windows
- Put them on OpenDNS. You could use GoogleDNS, but I still prefer OpenDNS for the safety factor and I think, at least for me, it’s faster. Those addresses are:
- 208.67.222.222
- 208.67.220.220
- Run Windows update. If they are on XP, make sure you get Service Pack 3 and Internet Explorer v8
- Run a full adware/virus scan with Malwarebytes. It’s free, takes about 20 minutes and will remove just about anything that is bad on their systems
- Check the status of their AntiVirus. Make sure it’s still working and up-to-date. If it’s not a current version, uninstall it and install AVG Free.
- Go into Add/Remove programs. Uninstall Realplayer, MusicMatch and anything else that is no longer relevant and probably not used
- If you are feeling brave, clean up their startup. Check All Users –> Start Menu –>Start Up and delete anything there that isn’t needed.
- Continue with the startup clean up. Open the registry (Start->Run->regedit) and navigate to HKEY Local Machine ->Software ->Microsoft ->Windows ->Current Version ->Run. Delete anything there that doesn’t need to be running when the computer starts.
- You could install FireFox, Chrome or Safari. Make sure to set it as the default browser. There was a zero day problem with IE8 last week, so it’s still not safe.
- **Updated**. If you are sending a PC to the UK, make sure to hit the voltage switch on the power supply to avoid any explosions or fuse blowing.
Mac
- Restart the computer
No matter what, make this the year you really bug your users about backing up. Anymore, external hard drives are so cheap, there is no excuse. Get one and install Crash Plan (Free, Win/Mac/Linux) and set it up.
Start to finish, this should take you about an hour. It’s also going to make your users computer experience better, faster and safer. Not only that, but it will save you from those phone calls later in the year. They will be forever grateful.
This is a repost from Facebook yesterday, for those of you that might have missed it.
Good morning internet. How was your weekend? Mine was great, thanks for asking!
Last week Facebook updated their privacy settings again. I would bet that most of you just clicked through and ignored them like you usually do.
You shouldn’t have done that.
If you’ve never modified your privacy settings before, congratulations! All of your profile information is now 100% open to the public, completely searchable by sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Exciting stuff, right?
Wait? What? You don’t want your information to be public? Now would be a great time to click the settings link in the top right hand corner of your screen and choose the option called Privacy Settings. It’s going to take a few minutes and you can even preview your public profile to tune it just right. And you can change the privacy settings on your photo galleries while you are there too. Good times! Finally, when you are doing this, you can even preview your public profile so you can really fine tune the settings.
Now, before anyone gets all crazy over this, just relax. Facebook isn’t automatically indexing your information on Google or the other search sites, they are just making your information publicly available so that the search sites (among others. Google your name to see more) will be able to see your profile. It’s really not that big of a deal and definitely isn’t something that requires ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND MAKE SURE YOU REPOST THIS ON YOUR PROFILE FACEBOOK IS A BIG EVIL MONSTER GAAAAHHHHHH! Back in the shop we call that F.U.D. And nobody likes that.
Have a great week! It was nice to see you again. We should get together to do this again soon.
Don’t be a stranger.
Don
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