crash posts

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Beta, Windows x64

Installers and updates crashing in Windows 7? Here's your fix.

by Lee Mathews Jan 20th 2009

Despite all the shouting about Windows 7 being good enough to run as an every day OS, here's another reminder that there's still work to be done.

Many users are reporting crashes during install operations, including Windows Update. Rafael Rivera of Within Windows has found the issue arises from a problem with the Software Quality Management Client. How ironic.

The problem only seems to occur when machine throttling is enabled in the registry and when the Customer Experience Improvement Program is running.

If you've experienced this problem, Microsoft has a workaround. Open regedit, navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions and delete anything other than the default value.

If you don't see the MachineThrottling value, run gpedit.msc and click Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Internet Communication Management > Internet Communication Settings and double click Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. Tick enable and click on OK.

Don't forget to submit your bugs via the Send Feedback tool. If you're excited about the Windows 7 beta you've been using, you may as well take a few seconds now and then to help improve it!

[ via NeoWin ]

Tags: bug, crash, msi, windows-7, windows-installer, workaround

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Time-Wasters

Keep vehicle traffic flowing (or not) in Crash - Time Waster

by Lee Mathews Jan 20th 2009

When I was working in downtown Cleveland 12 years ago, I remember this amazing traffic cop that used to dance in the middle of the rush hour craziness to direct the vehicles. The guy sure made traffic management seem like a lot of fun.

Fortunately for all of us, anyone that wants to give it a go can do it by playing Crash rather than throwing on a bright orange vest, grabbing a whistle, and busting a move in the middle of a four-way stop.

It's a simple concept: click on a car to speed it up, click again to slow it down. Time everything just right and avoid causing collisions, and you'll score points when cars make it safely across the screen.

When a crash car appears, things change a little. They're free game, so don't hesitate forcing another vehicle to plow into it at full speed. You'll actually lose points if they make it across unscathed.

One more thing: keep your eye on the turns signals.

Tags: cars, crash, time-waster, traffic

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Application Manager restarts crashed Windows apps

by Brad Linder Oct 9th 2008

Application Manager is a tiny Windows utility that monitors your running processes and compares it with a user-configured list of applications. If Application Manager notices that one of the apps you specify is not running, it will relaunch that program. In other words, it will restart any program that crashes.

Say you want to make sure that your instant messenger or desktop Twitter application is always running so you don't miss any important messages. This program can check every thirty seconds, every two minutes, or whenever you specify to see if it's running and if it's been accidentally closed, Application Manager will relaunch it.

This utility could also come in handy if you're running a web server, or if you tend to leave your computer on overnight to download files from BitTorrent.

[vie Lifehacker and Life Rocks 2.0]

Tags: application-manager, crash

Filed under: Internet, Troubleshooting

Sitemeter bug takes down thousands of web sites (for Internet Explorer users)

by Brad Linder Aug 2nd 2008

Thousands of web sites are currently inaccessible to Internet Explorer 5.5, 6, and 7 users thanks to a new Sitemeter bug. Sitemeter is a free web analytics service used by many popular blogs and web sites including Lifehacker, Gizmodo, and Consumerist. They all appear to be affected as of this morning. It's worth noting that the bug only affects Internet Explorer users. The web sites load just fine in Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

It's likely that the bug is due to tracking code changes Sitemeter has been rolling out. Visitors to web sites using the code who are using IE will see the page start to load, and then get an error message. When you click OK to make the error message go away, the entire site goes with it. Nice.

If your site has been affected it looks like you have two options. You can either remove the code altogether until Sitemeter gets its act together, or you can try modifying your code by using the plain HTML version instead of the Javascript version. If you take the latter route, your counter won't show up thanks to another bug, but at least it will continue tracking visits to your site.

Thanks Darren Paul!

Update: It looks like the bug has been fixed.

Tags: bug, crash, outage, sitemeter, web-analytics

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

29% of Windows Vista crashes caused by NVIDIA drivers

by Brad Linder Mar 28th 2008

If you were an early adopter of Windows Vista, there's a pretty good chance you became familiar with one of Vista's coolest new features: an automatic crash reporting utility that will recommend solutions if and when they become available. Or to put it another way, if you tried running Windows Vista on many machines, there was a good chance your computer crashed. A lot. Even if the manufacturer had slapped a shiny new label proclaiming the computer to be "Vista Capable."

There's a class action suit working its way through the courts to determine whether Microsoft changed the definition of "capable" to help Intel sell ~~computers~~ chips. But some of the documents released in the case (PDF link) are interesting in their own right. For example, Microsoft has a chart that lists identified causes of Windows Vista crashes during an unspecified period in 2007.

The folks at Ars Technica took it upon themselves to convert that data into the pretty chart you see above. The number one culprit graphics chip maker NVIDIA, a company that had a difficult time updating its graphics drivers for the new operating system. Next up is Microsoft itself, and really there's no good excuse for that, is there?

Tags: crash, drivers, nvidia, vista

Filed under: News, Windows, How-Tos

Top 12 ways to overcome PC disaster

by Ryan Carter May 25th 2007

PC World has put together a round-up of ideas to save you from the worst things that could happen to you. These end-game scenarios include:

These are some of the most frequent problems that an IT technician will be asked to deal with, but if you don't happen to have an IT person to beg and offer your life-savings, PC World has put together articles for each issue that may arise to help you out of your predicament.

You may want to bookmark these articles, or print them out and store them in a firesafe, just so when your PC takes a nose-dive, you'll have something to fall back on. There are a few gems that are not so common knowledge for your triumph over the untimely death of man's "new best friend" (that's the computer if you haven't had enough coffee yet today). Good luck, you're going to need it.

Tags: crash, disaster, fix, pc world, PcWorld, repair

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Open Source

Firefox 2.0 alpha 2 released

by David Chartier May 13th 2006

Mozilla has released a 2nd alpha version of Firefox 2.0. As usual, this release is not recommended for any kind of serious use, but if you're salivating at some of the new version's features, check out what has been incorporated in this 2nd development milestone:

Links default to opening in new tabs, not new windows
Close buttons now appear on every tab, and the close behavior is slightly different
Inline spell checking in text boxes (Works well, though apparently not on all sites yet)
Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
Search suggestions now appear in the search box auto-complete for Google and Yahoo!
New search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines
Improved support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
New microsummaries feature for bookmarks (Really interesting new feature)
New Add-Ons manager improves the user interface for managing extensions and themes
Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions
New search service that supports Sherlock and OpenSearch engines
Support for SVG text using svg:textPath

A mouthful, I know. I typed this post using this development version (Bon Echo, as they call it) on Mac OS X and I have to say, it's nice so far. Of course, none of my extensions were compatible, and I highly recommend backing up your Firefox app support folder before testing this, no matter what OS you're using. When I tried the last Bon Echo development version, it rendered my support folder incompatible with the latest stable release of Firefox. Just another one of those hazards of playing with dev editions.

If you want more details of this release, check out its download page and Mozilla's release notes.

[via diggdot.us]

Tags: 2.0, alpha, Bon Echo, BonEcho, bookmarks, crash, features, Firefox, Firefox 2.0, Firefox2.0, microsummaries, Mozilla, release, restore, spell check, SpellCheck, SVG, tabs

Filed under: Business, Text, Windows, Office, How-Tos

Recover Word docs after a crash

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Apr 18th 2006

Yes, there is a recovery feature in Office. No, it doesn't always work. Does anything? Luckily, Annoyances Central has a fix for recovering a Word doc after a crash. In particular this answers the question: what if my file is wonked? A bad enough crash can make reopening the doc crash Word over and over. So the idea is to fix the file, and reopen it. They have several ways to find the remnants of your Great American Novel. Ultimately, you may need to just drop into Notepad, opener of all that is unopenable. Yes, you lose all the formatting, but did you really need bold and italics to tell your tale? I didn't think so.

Tags: crash, o'reilly, word

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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