If Microsoft thought it had problems with Vista, entirely new problems have cropped up in Windows Home Server.  At least Vista doesn’t go around corrupting and deleting files, as Windows Home Server has been shown to do.

Before I go on, this will only work with manufacturer installed Vista installations.  If your laptop is from HP and HP installed Vista then that is what is considered an “OEM activation.”  When performing a clean install it is possible to backup your OEM activation and will prevent you from having to call Microsoft for a new key.

Those of you that have installed the RC1 (Release Candidate 1) of Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) may have noticed that some areas are fixed, entirely new things are broken and some things just remain the same, like the slow file transfer issues over a network which is still present.

Apple makes some nice accessories for its line of MacBooks, Mac Pros, MacBook Pros and iMacs.  Wouldn’t it be nice if those accessories worked with your PC, you might be surprised to learn that most of them do, even if you can’t follow the included installation instructions.

Before I get started, Happy Holidays everyone, stay safe.  Now then, Vista ships with just about every new computer but users of said computer are not well protected from viruses or malware out of the box.  If that’s what you’re after you will have to go with Linux or Mac OSX.

Those of you with Vista know that there can be boot problems after you have cloned your existing installation to a faster or larger hard drive (it works best when its both).  And, sometimes after cloning, there can be activation issues as well which I have encountered in the past.

It’s almost Christmas and the last thing you need is to be struck by a virus-containing greeting email or ecard.  If you don’t have anti-virus or haven’t bothered to renew that subscription then it’s time to plug that gaping hole, today with any number of free anti-virus solutions on the market.  I’m going to introduce you to one you may not have heard of before.

These days, desktops and laptops from just about every manufacturer under the sun will ship with several bloatware titles like unwanted media or security applications.  Toshiba seems to place a bit of importance on the applications (useful or not) that ship with its computers, so important that technical support blamed the owner of one laptop for the malfunction that occurred.

No, that title is not backwards, Windows Vista and XP combined had far fewer flaws than Mac OSX did in 2007.  However, that is not necessarily a measure of how secure the operating system is.

Every technology site is full of information regarding Vista SP1, even our own.  But, not everyone is happy with the way it performs, for some, entirely new problems have cropped up after installation.

There are reasons for and against installing Vista SP1 public beta (although it is in RC1 stage) but here is one good reason in the “for” category.  Vista SP1 RC has the ability to install many patches without restarting.

You have a laptop with Vista, great but you are disappointed with the battery life, next to buying a more expensive higher capacity battery there is a utility out there that claims to provide up to “70% more useful” live out of the battery while away from electrical outlets.

There are some cases where Windows just doesn’t like the program you are trying to install or get rid of and occasionally the installer/uninstaller hangs.  At this point you can try restarting or you may have to power off manually.  The problem arises when you get back to Windows, it will no longer let you install/repair or uninstall the program you were working with.  This is fixable.

There are many many articles around at the moment talking about how the Office 2007 Service Pack 1 has automatically installed for a lot of people.  Microsoft had said previously that Office 2007 SP1 would not automatically install and instead be an option.

So you read our posts all about the download and installation of Vista SP1 public beta and among the changes it performs to Vista is adding a nice watermark in the right corner of the screen that proudly advertises “Evaluation Copy, Vista Build 6001.”  If you’re annoyed by it, there is a relatively easy fix for it.