More Tweaks for Vista...and XP and Win7 and Linux

My never ending search to make our PC work faster and faster lead me to this TweakHound. Aside from the normal tweaks, one can find vital info also like free software and OS feature that is not of much use. The site caters to Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Linux

Error: "xxxxxx has stopped working" in Vista

It all started when I can't access my Lenovo ThinkVantage Access Connections software. Everytime I start it, Vista will give me "Access Connections has stopped working" and doesn't show any reason why. I had called the Lenovo hotline and for more than 45mins of downloading, reinstalling and rebooting, still got the same problem. The lady support agent promise to call me back for update as she doesn't have any clue why it is so.

On my own, I tried doing Windows Update only to find out that .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 won't install. And the rest of the software updates I downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads also gave me "setup.exe has stopped working".

The .Net Framework is my only clue and after checking, it turn out that the Framework 3.0 that is part of Vista is not enabled. I might had disabled it when I was trying to "tweak" my vista. Now that I enabled it from the Windows Feature (Control Panel>Programs>Windows Feature), I was able to update .Net Framework 3.5 SP1. And best of all, the ThinkVantage Access Connections is now working.

PS: I had been searching for solution regarding Access Connections sudden "stop working" error and it seems that there are so many users having the same problem. I hope my find can help them.

Understanding Vista's ReadyBoost

I guess many heard of Vista's ReadyBoost feature, if you haven't I suggest you check out Wikipedia's entry. Yup I don't want to go into the pros and cons of it. For now, I would just like to share Windows Vista's registry on ReadyBoost which I had found here.

In summary, ReadyBoost user can tweak the registry via HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>SOFTWARE>Microsoft>Windows NT>CurrentVersion>EMDMgmt

(copied) Here are a few important parameter values:

DeviceStatus
2=ReadyBoost ENABLED
4=ReadyBoost DISABLED

CacheSize
Maximum Cache Size is 4090.

DoRetest
0=NO (box checked)
1=YES (box un-checked)

Here's the example:

CacheSizeInMB ffa (4090)
CacheStatus 1
DeviceStatus 2
DoRetestDevice 0
HasSlowRegions 0
LastTestedTime 1c74d5fcc5dca36
(128156188249279030)
PhysicalDeviceSize 1ebf (7871)
ReadSpeedKBs 12df (4831)
RecommendedCacheSizeMB ffa (4090)
USBVersion 20000 (131072)
WriteSpeedKBs daf (3503)

Note: always remember that a reboot is needed for any changes to take effect.