Troubleshooting Vista

By Jay Dougherty May 6, 2007, 4:52 GMT

Washington - Early adopters of Windows Vista have had bragging rights for a few months now. They've been able to play with the latest and greatest operating system from Microsoft before many others have taken the leap.

But they've also had to put up with plenty of problems and annoyances. While Vista is packed with cutting-edge technology and sports a snazzy new interface, it also comes with its share of surprises that can make even veteran Windows users scratch their head in bewilderment. Here's a rundown of troubleshooting strategies for some of the more common problems that Vista owners are facing.

- Your hard drive is working overtime with Vista installed

There are several reasons why you might see your hard drive light continually flashing - and system performance slowing - after Vista is up and running. First, Vista requires more memory than XP - considerably more in some cases. Whereas you could get along with 512 MB of RAM with XP, figure on doubling that for Vista. If you don't, you may find that Vista has to swap out chunks of program code regularly to your hard drive, causing system slowdowns and frustration. Power users and gamers are finding 2 gigabytes of RAM to be a preferable minimum.

Second, Vista creates an index of your computer by default, and the initial creation of that index will cause your hard drive to flutter perhaps more than it did under XP, at least initially. Give Vista some time, and the indexing will take place less often, and without your knowing it.

- Vista takes forever to start up

A new installation of Vista should not take more than a couple of minutes to boot up on any recent-vintage PC. But some users find that Vista takes up to five minutes or more to load. If that happens to you, start with the obvious: do you have enough memory, and does your hard drive have at least 20 per cent of its capacity free?

If you have plenty of memory and hard drive space, make sure you do not have a thumb or flash drive connected to your computer while Vista is booting. If you do, remove the drive, as sometimes having an external drive of any type plugged in to your Vista computer can slow boot times considerably.

- The Aero interface doesn't work

First find out whether your computer meets the minimum system requirements to run the Windows Aero interface, which features the semi-transparent windows and other elements that wow so many users. Microsoft provides a free downloadable tool (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/ upgradeadvisor.mspx) that will test all major subsystems of your PC and give you a report on what, if anything, is lacking.

Assuming your PC is up to the task of running Vista, make sure you're using the latest Vista-compatible video drivers from the manufacturer of your graphics card. If you purchased your computer from a major manufacturer such as Dell or HP, chances are the latest video drivers will be on the support page of those companies.

As a last resort, consider uninstalling any third-party software that has not been updated to run specifically under Vista. There have been random reports of some applications causing problems with the Vista Aero interface.

- Vista constantly bugs you with security messages

New Vista users will no doubt be annoyed by one aspect of the enhanced security of Windows Vista: the operating system repeatedly asks you whether you are 'sure' that you want to change a configuration setting or install applications and drivers with which you're well acquainted. Seemingly any change to the operating system no matter how minor, such as changing the date and time is accompanied by a prompt requiring you to confirm your intention to make the change.

One way to get around this annoyance is to disable Vista's User Access Control (UAC), which determines when you're prompted and for what. Open the Control Panel, and under User Account and Family Settings, click 'Add or remove user account.' Click the appropriate user account, and then click 'Go to the main User Account page.' Under the section 'Make changes to your user account,' click 'Change security settings.' On the next screen, under the section 'Turn on User Account Control (UAC),' clear the check box next to 'Use User Account Control (UAC),' and then click OK. You'll have to reboot the computer.

- Vista can't see other XP computers on your network

Setting up a network under Vista is much easier than it was under previous versions of Windows, but problems persist for some. If your computer is having difficulty seeing other computer on a network, make sure that you're not running any third-party software - especially popular antivirus programs that have not been updated for Vista.

- Vista seems to have hidden some of your favourite features

Vista is different, and sometimes the differences seem to exist more to annoy experienced Windows users than to make things easier. Many Vista early adopters have complained, for instance, that such features as the display settings - previously accessed by right- clicking the Windows desktop and selecting Properties - are now buried in entirely different locations. In the case of display settings, they're now in a menu called Personalise.

There are countless small changes of this type that add up to one thing: relearning, regardless of how experienced you are. The basic Windows concepts remain, but expect to spend time learning to do some essential, small tasks all over again.