One solution to this is AltMove which is a program that allows you to press the ALT key and then left click the problem window and move it up until you can see the missing buttons.

For some reason in Vista and Windows 7 localhost doesn’t work out of the box. To get it working you have to add this line to the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file:

127.0.0.1      locahost

Now the hosts file is a Windows system file so the only way Windows will allow you to edit the file is if you do it as Administrator. To do this click Start and type CMD in the search box, when Windows shows cmd.exe right-click it and click run as administrator then when the DOS box opens type:

edit c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Then add the 127.0.0.1 localhost line and save and close the file.  Then localhost should work as it did in XP.

Looking closer we found that everything in the ‘My Pictures’ folder had been moved to \users\<user>\pictures on the Vista PC during the copy. Reading up it became clear that with Vista Microsoft change the location of many of the application data and user data folders and to minimise application compatibility due to this Vista uses junction points which are hidden redirects to the new folders. That way applications can look for the old folder that XP would use and be transparently redirected to the new location.

One of these junction points for example points \documents and settings\<user>\application data to \users\<user>\appdata

So care has to be taken when copying files and folders as they don’t always end up where you’d expect them to be. Another problem is that some junction points are cyclic – we found this out by trying to copy the whole system drive of a Vista PC onto a backup disk using nothing but Robocopy. It got to the ‘Application Data’ junction point and just got into a loop copy it over and over again into itself resulting in the destination drive having and endless Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\…. path!

The problem can be avoided by using the /XJD switch when using Robocopy.

Reception on some channels was sometimes a little flaky but then for the last week the video has been pretty much frozen and jittering on all channels but the audio was fine.

At first we thought it might be weather conditions or transmitter changes so re-tuned the channels but still had problems. I then remembered someone had install updated ATI Radeon X1650 drivers and the catalyst control panel.

Although these drivers seemed newer than Vista’s own uninstalling the drivers and catalyst control center and reverting back to Vista’s native drivers restored perfect TV playback in Media Center.

To get these programs to run at startup you need to use task scheduler to run them at logon rather than starting them through the registry or startup folder.

The scheduled task you create must be set to run with highest privilege, it should run under your user account and should run when you log in.

By default Windows Vista will only synchronize with a time server once every seven days. If your PC’s clock is not so good at keeping the time or you just want to increase the accuracy of your Windows time you can decrease this update interval by editing a registry setting:

• Open up the Start Menu in Windows Vista
• In the ‘Start Search’ box type Regedit and press Enter
• If you received the Windows UAC ‘Windows needs your permission to continue’ prompt click Continue
• In regedit navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\w32time\
  TimeProviders\NtpClient
• In the right pane, right click on SpecialPollInterval and click Modify
• Select Decimal instead of Hexadecimal.
• Type in how often you want it to update in seconds and click OK.  - Do not change the interval to any value less than 14400 seconds (4 hours) or your computer’s IP address might be blocked by the time server.
• Close regedit

Windows has a nasty habit sometimes of downloading and installing automatic updates and then prompting you to restart the PC. You then are given the option to postpone the restart, which is fine if you’re actually at your PC, but if you’re not then Windows just decides to do it anyway and you just might not have wanted your server or PC to reboot exactly when it did!

Solution:

You can prevent Windows Automatic Updates from rebooting your machine by editing a group policy setting.

1. Click on START then RUN
2. Type gpedit.msc
3. Expand Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update
4. Double-click “No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations”
5. Select “Enabled”, then click OK and close the Group Policy configuration program.

Windows should now never automatically reboot after an automatic update.