Microsoft recently (At the end of February) released a patch to fix issues with one of the Windows Vista installation software features.

When installed the patch (ID number 937287 which is still available for download) causes some systems to continually reboot themselves in an un-ending loop.

Of course who would have ever thought that Microsoft wouldn’t get it right? Microsoft stated the problem seems to only affect “a small number” of the more than 100 million Vista users. In my opinion thats still to many (especially if you are one of the affected users).

Do not threat though! Microsoft is offering assistance with this issue. Of course the contact information isn’t posted on the front page of the main web site so I figured I would offer it here for anyone who may need it.

Please if you know anyone affected by this issue pass the following information to them. Microsoft is offering assistance at the following toll free number 866/727-2338.

Just another reason to wait on installing those wonderful Microsoft updates.

You may or may not have read my previous article over Vista sp1, but as a quick refresher I will outline a few entries.

The below portion is pulled from my previous post on the Sp1 subject. I just wanted to keep this information fresh in your mind if you are thinking of downloading Sp1 before other people have had a chance to feel the pinch (Beta testing). 

The word on the street (and in other articles) is the fact that Windows xp is faster at more operations than Vista sp1. According to Principled Technologies Inc. (Whom performed the testing at the request of Microsoft) Windows xp is faster than Vista sp1 at 61% of the operations grouped in a consumer test suite and in 46% of the operations in the business-oriented in a head-to-head competition on duplicate computers.

Aside from the performance factors another issue to consider is Microsofts’ service pack track record. Once again any admins will understand where I am coming from. It is not often Microsoft puts an extensive service pack out that doesn’t cuase issues with compatability.

Let it ride for a while! What I mean is you should allow others to install it first: then watch the forums for issues that have been discovered by other people after implementing Sp1. I can gurantee you feel a whole lot better knowing you weren’t effected. I’m not saying that you should never install Sp1, I am just saying you should wait a while. As with many service packs and patches provided by Microsoft they are there to plug holes that intruders may use to gain access to your computer.

If I could I would wait, unfortunately I have to endure the pain to find out if there are any compatability issues that need to be reported to clients. Thank goodness for my test bed of computers.

  Microsoft is currently addressing newly discovered holes in the security of their Vista and xp operating systems. Most importantly a security vulnerability in Windows Vista and XP that could expose a computer to an early-season bite while you are connected to the Internet.

How it works is a hacker can broadcast rogue TCP/IP packets to any range of IP addresses. The rogue packets have the ability to circumvent Windows’ security and hijack a computer turning that computer into part of a Bot net. Bot nets are designed for spamming as well as launching self replicating worms and even worse ICMP attacks which can shut down servers.

Currently there have been no attacks using this vulnerability. Microsoft scrambled to make available a patch to secure this hole and it is currently available using the link below. The patch may already be applied to your system if automatic updates are turned on.

Click Here for The Microsoft Security Patch

I recently experienced an issue with QuickTime playing sound in my self created movies. I reviewed all the data concerning my videos to see if I could identify something unique about the videos or the player. After a few hours I noticed all of the movies that did not have sound were encoded with the Qualcomm Purevoice codec.

I researched intensely on QuickTimes website with no luck. I even spent fourty minutes on the phone with a QuickTime support technician only to have him tell me I would have to go and find a copy of the codec (which is no longer supported by the company) and install it. He stated specifically that it was not an issue with QuickTime. Despite me arguing about the fact that it worked previously he would not be swayed.

I decided to search deeper. In reviewing the QuickTime application logs I noticed I had received an upgrade recently. Shazaaaam! Maybe I had a direction to go with. Now I just had to figure out what my previous version was.

I discovered that my previous version of QuickTime was 7.1.6 so of course I went on an intensive search to find an installer. Once I located and installed the older version of QuickTime and after restarting of course; I once again had sound in my videos.

After curing my issue I contacted Apple again. I used my ticket number to contact the same technician and told him I had discovered the issue. As I explained to him that apparently either the codec or the ability of QuickTime to understand this codec had been removed from the QuickTime version 7.3 that I had installed. I told him if he would like I would be more than happy to tell him a work around for it, that I was sure with all of the forum questions on this same issue he would probably make many Apple customers happy.

This part just floored me, believe it or not I was told if I would like to go post it in there forums I could. What a crock (I thought) he wasn’t willing to help out his own customers by posting the information in a TID. It took me a few seconds to calm down (which I did), I told him why would I volunteer my time for a job that he is supposed to do? So I calmly explained that I’m sure this information would generate traffic on a website so I would just put it on one of our company websites.

Of course none of this even phased him. Apple is always talking about how there market share is increasing, maybe with all that new money they can hire some courteous technicians who actually desire to do their job by helping people.

Bottom line if you have any videos that do not play sound after upgrading your version of QuickTime, you might check to see what codec was used for the audio. If the audio was encoded with the Qualcomm Pure voice codec then a simple work around is to install QuickTime version 7.1.6.

I am unsure if the new 7.4 versions have a fix for this issue, but from the response I got from Apples’ technician it wasn’t like they were going to change anything. With this in mind I have not tried the latest versions to see if the codec is played in them. I use this codec all the time for older training videos and I am unwilling to change from a version which I know works to a version that may not.