This error can be easily fixed by unregistering and re-registering some of the dll files and important system files for Media Center. So if you ever encounter such an error message, you can perform the following steps:

Click on Start and type cmd in the search box and hit enter.

If you have Windows XP Media center, click on Start and Run, type cmd and click on OK.

It will open Command prompt. In command prompts we will need to execute following commands in the same order as I am writing below:

regsvr32.exe atl.dll

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehSched /unregServer

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehSched /service

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehRecvr /unregServer

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehRecvr /service

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehRec.exe /unregServer

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehRec.exe /regserver

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehmsas.exe /unregServer

C:\WINDOWS\eHome\ehmsas.exe /regserver

In command prompt, type one line at a time from the above and hit enter. If the command is executed you will receive a message whether it succeeded or failed.

Restart Media center once all the commands are executed and it will work fine.

Whenever you install a new piece of software on your program, Vista  highlights the new program in the Start menu. All new entries are highlighted in the menu using a dark yellow bar as shown in the image.

In itself this is a nice reminder to the user, so you remember what is installed and make sure to use the new software. Once you have executed the newly installed software, the highlighting disappears.

If you have a lot of programs installed, it is easy to overlook a new program in the start menu if it is not clearly visible so in this scenario, the highlighting is beneficial.

But what if you do not want Vista to highlight newly installed programs in the Start menu? Come on, you just installed the software, so why would you need reminding, right? Maybe if some software was installed that was not supposed to be installed, the highlighting will help you identify that program, so you can uninstall the unwanted program. But this should be an exception rather than the rule.

Furthermore, there have been reports that having this highlighting feature ON slows down your PC. So chances are, removing it will speed up your PC tremendously.

You can remove this feature via the Start menu itself in Vista but you can also, but it is also possible to make this change via the Windows registry. Make sure to make a backup of the registry before you make any changes to it, as the Windows registry is a very critical part of Windows Vista, and if things go wrong you want to be able to restore the previous configuration.

So to disable the automatic highlighting of newly installed programs in Windows Vista, follow these steps:

1) Start the Windows Registry Editor by typing “regedit” in the Start -> Search box and press Enter . Click on continue if you see user Account Control dialogue box.

2) In the Windows Registry Editor, locate the key called:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

This can be done by clicking on the + sign near each item as mentioned above and select Advanced key

3) In the right-hand pane, look for the value called “Start_NotifyNewApps”.

4) If the value does not exist, then right click on the right pane and select New and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value. Then type “Start_NotifyNewApps” (without the quote) as the name of the new DWORD Value, and press Enter.

5) Right-click the “Start_NotifyNewApps”, and in the popup menu select Modify…

6) Change the Value data to a zero (0), and click OK.

7) Now close the Registry Editor.

After rebooting, Vista will no longer highlight newly installed programs in the Start menu. Be aware that this is a user level setting, so if you want to disable highlighting for another user, log in as the other user and repeat these steps.

If you want to revert back to the original setting, use the same steps, but change the value to one (1) instead of zero (0).

Here is the trick to do it:

Open the command prompt by clicking on Start and typing cmd and hit enter.

In command window type the name of teh screen saver followed by a space and /p65552

For example to run the ribbons screen saver do the following:

In command window type ribbons.scr /p65552

Note: The space between ribbons.scr and /p65552

A coupe of other scren saver that can be run are:

aurora.scr /p65552

bubbles.scr /p65552

Photoscreensaver.scr /p65552

ssbranded.scr /p65552

Here is a video I created to show how the screen saver appears for a better understanding:

Pondering over the Internet I found that the switch p65552 helps in running the screen saver in full preview mode without being affected by mouse movement or keyboard keys. Like the small preview window in screen saver settings, where the screen saver does not get affected whatever you do.

If you have found any such cool hidden feature, please share your experience.

1. Log on to your computer as an administrator. Click on Start, go to Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Power Options.
2. Click on Change plan settings for the currently active plan.
3. Click on Change advanced power settings link.

Enable Not Available Advanced Settings in Power Options

4. Click on Change settings that are not currently available link. Give permission to continue when User Account Control dialog pops up.
5. In the “Power Options” dialog box’s “Advanced Settings” tab for the active power plan, expand Additional settings.
6. Expand Request a password on wakeup.
7. Change the value to No for “Request a password on wakeup” by selecting a new option from drop down menu for both On battery and Plugged in.

8. Click OK button.

Click on the image for a bigger version of it. If you have captured any such instance of Vista’s behavior, post t n comments.

Note: Infact the complete data was later copied in around 30 minutes time.

Microsoft is working with the software and a hardware vendor to help them deliver and to improve compatibility, reliability, and performance of the system. I think this would be the continuous improvement towards the Windows Vista by providing constant updates. The hardware and software partners of Microsoft directly provide these updates. You can also update the same directly from the Microsoft update site. Please note that updates to the Windows are also delivered directly to some affected customers and preinstalled by the PC manufactures.

Keeping in mind, to all the previously released updates, Service pack 2 contains lots of changes, which is focused on addressing reliability and performance issues; it may also support new types of hardware. As per Microsoft Service Pack 2 will also help and make easier for IT administrator to deploy and manage large installations of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

- You need to have Service Pack 1 installed on your Windows Vista computer.
- The second requirement is that, you need to have “Servicing Stack” update; an additional component handles installation and removal of software updates, language packs, and optional windows features. This update is necessary to install and uninstall the service pack successfully. It also improves the performance and reliability of the service pack installations. For your information, it is a standalone update package and offered as a separate package on Windows update.

Let’s talk about the Improvements:
We have seen that there are lots of application that is not compatible with Windows Vista. Microsoft has used and shared their customer’s information to the software vendor partner to improve the performance; in the other hand it’s also respecting their personal information. By release of Windows Vista SP2 and other application compatibility updates, it is noted to work more applications flawlessly for the end users.

Windows Search 4.0 which helps to search and preview documents, e-mail messages, music files, photos and other relevant items on the computer. In the other hand search engine Windows Search 4.0 is also used by Microsoft Office application. Now after the release of Windows Vista SP2 updates it will improves Windows Media Center (WMC) in Content protection for TV.

In Windows Vista Service Pack 2, Microsoft has included the ability to detect an incompatible driver and block service pack installation or notify users of any potential loss of functionality. What I know is, it also provides better error management and explanatory error message where possible with secure installation experience.

Other new feature and improvements added in Windows Vista Service Pack 2:
- Windows Vista Service pack 2 has most recent specification of Bluetooth Technology, it has Bluetooth 2.1 feature.
- SP2 has ability to record data on Blu-Ray media.
- Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.
- Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

Finally good thing is that Service Pack 2 includes a Service Pack Clean-up tool (Compcln.exe) which helps restore the hard disk space by permanently deleting the previous versions of the files (RTM and SP1) that are being serviced by SP2. The Pack Clean up tool can also be run offline while creating slipstream images to reduce the size of the image.

Microsoft is planning to ship Windows Vista Service Pack 2 for general public in the first half of 2009. So it seems SP3 and SP4 will soon be released and if you are lucky (or unlucky) you will get that in the same 2009. Microsoft might be plannng to release maximum number of servce pack for Vista. In my opinion, rather than utilizing resources for releasing service pack for Vista, Microsoft should devote time for Windows 7 to compensate the demerit of Vista.

One of my friend faced a similar issue by which he was exhausted with all steps to get rid off a couple of unknown dll files (which does not have any reference in google too). The malware name is still unknown (let’s call that as CRAP) but some of the symptoms he has noticed. Over to Sunieet’s experience with the malware.

 I always thought I am capable to delete any kind of virus/malware with much ease as that is the one thing I enjoy most. But this malware gave a me a tough competition and I was about to break my mettle. 

Till now I am not sure about the name of the malware as I have googled a no of time but did not find anything. After getting my laptop virus infected!! it generated urqQiJYP.dll & ssqQgFWM.dll files in C:\WINNT\System32 folder. I was able to delete ssqQgFWM.dll file by rebooting the laptop in Safe mode with Command Prompt but the main suspicious file “urqQiJYP.dll” was not deletable and was creating a couple of other dlls like acwzvo.dll, rqRBTKA.dll, jqtpskxy.dll, ssqQkJde.dll, qjemve.dll, nnnkLfef.dll in C:\WINNT\System32 folder.

This specific piece of malware has been written in such a way that not a single Antivirus application like Norton, AVG, McAfee, Trend Micro were able to detect it and fix it. It will automatically show a lot of pop ups related to porn sites as soon as the infected PC/laptop is connected to Internet. I had also tried to use Hijack This considered as the most popular application to play with Virus and Malware,  but in this case I was not able to open this application. Tried some other tools like Hijack Pro, Pview, Tlist, Kill.exe but no success. 

About the Dlls, most of the valid DLLs will have proper description and company name. But these DLLs do not have any description, company name but have some suspiciously strange names.  In order to make sure that this DLL is indeed a malware, we can double click the DLL name and check the strings within the DLLs. See if there are some suspicious strings within the DLL. Strings like worm, password, or name of some suspicious website are indicating that it is indeed a malware.

Finally guess what, yes I was able to delete the crap from my lappy. And here is how I won in the battle?

You need the following two tools:

> Sysinternals Process Explorer

> FreeCommander (A Replacement for File explorer)

Steps to remove the CRAP:

- Install & Run FreeCommander so that we can browse and delete files.

- Start Process Explorer and search for the dll file. You may find the dll files are running inside no of processes like Explorer.exe, Winlogon.exe. 
 

- Now we will kill Explorer.exe, winlogon.exe and smss.exe

- We are killing Explorer because most of the time explorer.exe is infected so as a precautionary measure we are killing it.

- Now its time to kill winlogon.exe, if the process is running with it. First we have to kill Smss.exe, because this process monitors winlogon.exe and will shutdown the machine if it finds that winlogon is not running.
After killing Smss.exe, you can safely kill winlogon.exe.

- After winlogon is gone and all the process ended, we can safely delete the malware.

- Press Alt+Tab key to open Free Commander and browse to that location and delete the dlls and whatever suspicious things you find.

This method can be used to delete any of the stubborn virus/malware or dll files which are not easily deletable.

This post is out of a personal experience from Sunieet who is a good friend and a brother. He used to write for the blog but due to some other commitments he is no longer able to write here.

CAUTION: Please back up your registry before editing it. Improper Windows Registry modification can corrupt the Operating System.

Increasing SATA Disk Drive Performance

You can change performance of your SATA hard disk drive by enabling Write Caching.

CAUTION: Please perform these steps if you are using an UPS because it is an increased risk for data loss/corruption if there is a power loss.

1. Click on the Start Button, enter Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.
5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

Enabling Auto-Logon in Windows Vista

1) Click Start and type ‘netplwiz’ or click that name on the Start menu
2) In the GUI window that comes up, uncheck the “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” box
3) Click ‘Apply’
4) In the new dialog box that opens type the name of the account you want to auto-logon by default (if the account is not normally passworded then it blank)
5) Click OK and Exit

Removing Tool Tips When You Mouse Over Something

1) Start > Run = “regedit”
2) Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > Advanced
3) Set “ShowInfoTip”=dword:00000000
4) Exit and Restart the computer

Removing Splash Screen in Windows Mail

1) Start > run = “regedit”
2) HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows Mail
3) set “NoSplash”=dword:00000001
4) Exit and Restart the computer

Freeing up disk space by deleting Hibernate File:

Whlie using hibernate in Windows Vista, it creates a file called hiberfil.sys. This file can grow bigger in size and you may remove it by performing these simple steps:

1) Log on as the Administrator
2) Start Command Prompt then type: powercfg -h off
3) Press Enter

Getting rid of Arrows on Shortcuts

1) Start > Run = “regedit”
2) Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > lnkfile
3) Rename ‘IsShortcut’ to ‘AriochIsShortcut’ in the right pane

4) Close regedit and Restart the computer.

Showing Administrator name on Welcome Screen

1) Start > run = “control userpasswords2″
2) Select administrator account, click reset password (input new pass) and hit “Ok”
3) Start > run = “regedit”
4) Navigaet to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows NT > CurrentVersion > Winlogon > SpecialAccounts > UserList
5) Create “DWORD (32bit) Value” with Value Name: Administrator and Value Data: 1
6) Close regedit and Restart the computer.

Don’t panic as it is not such a grave issue and there is an easy workaround to get rid off this. This issue is generally caused due to an update of monitor driver that changes the color profile in color management settings. The Photo Gallery program uses this incorrect color profile while showing the picture and we see the end result as yellowish tint while viewing the pictures.

The following steps will fix the issue in no time.

1. Right click on a blank area on desktop and select personalize.

2. Click on display settings.

3. Click on Advanced settings and then on Color management tab.

4. Again click on Color management button.

5. Select the option “use my settings for this device“.

6. Check in the list of profile to find any ICC or WCS color profiles.

7. If you find any of them, select and click on remove.

8. Click on Close OK and Ok.

Now restart the PC and try viewing the pciture in Photo gallery again.

Let me know in comments section if this fix worked for you.

Here is the tweak and explanation of the tweak to quickly shutdown your Windows Vista based PC.

For Windows XP Users:

Note: Before editing the registry, please take a back up of it. It is quite simple and can be done by clicking file > Export in registry editor menu and putting the file name of the backup and clicking on save.

- Click on Start and Type regedit in the search box and hit Enter.
- Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Control Panel >> Desktop
- Look at the right pane to locate the key WaitToKillAppTimeout, double click on it and change the value to something between 4000 and 5000. (Lesser the value more quicker will be shutdown, the value is in milliseconds).
- Click on Ok and the settings will be saved.

The key WaitToKillAppTimeout determines how long the system waits for user processes to end after the user attempts to log off or to shut down. When the time specified in this entry expires, the End Task dialog box appears, stating that the process did not respond. So now we need to do some tweak so that end task dialog box will not appear. Right? The key responsible for this is AutoEndTasks.

In registry editor Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Control Panel >> Desktop

Look for AutoEndTasks key in the right pane and double click on it. The default value will be 0, change it to 1. Click on OK. This will not display the end task dialog box.

For Vista Users:

The key WaitToKillAppTimeout is replaced by WaitToKillServiceTimeout in Vista and the location has also changed.

- In Vista navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
- In right pane, look for WaitToKillServiceTimeout and double click on it. Change the value to around 5000. Click on OK.

Test your shutdown speed now and let me know if it really become quicker.