Windows Vista Media Center is available in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions and has been upgraded significantly, including a overhaul of the user interface.

Manage or playback recorded TV, play DVD’s and now you can watch online entertainment or use your internal TV tuner card for content. Created to be an all in one interface for media content Media Center tracks your content including any music files for easy content search and playback.

Having used the Vista Media Center I like the layout and feel of the interface. Of course if using the online content it is likely it will be more easily viewable with a broadband connection. If this is a selling point feature of Vista for your particular needs you may want to contact your ISP to inquire about broadband connectivity.

Other features of Windows Media Center include:

Support for two dual-tuner cards

Native DVD/MPEG-2 support

Addition of Movies and DVD button which lists all the movies on the hard drive and DVD.

Tasks button that provides access to jobs such as setting up and configuring a media center extender device.

Any video playing is overlaid on the background of the user interface, if the UI is navigated while the video is

still playing.

Support for high-definition (HD) content, and Cable CARD support.

Windows Live One Care is a utility designed by Microsoft to scan your computer for several different issues. Live One care scans your computer for unnecessary temporary files, invalid registry entries, open ports, malware, and even checks your hard drive to see if defragmentation is necessary.

The service is free for ninety days after which time there is a required yearly fee of $49.95 to maintain a subscription. Microsoft has deployed this utility to help users maintain security and functionality of their computers.

If you decide to acquire use of this utility they do require you uninstall any third party virus or firewall applications. If you have already purchased one of these types of applications this can be problematic as you will lose the use of the paid subscription to the third party service.

Overall this utility seemed to work well. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any detailed information as to what the scan has found. When trying to review the registry entries that were flagged as errors I could not locate any detailed information on the entries and what they may relate to.

Microsoft seems to counter this by stating if you have any undesirable effects to use system restore which will reverse any registry changes. This seems to be counter productive.

Before deciding to use this service you may want to read the installation requirements document by clicking here.

Windows live One Care may be a useful utility if you do not own software that already performs these functionalities. To review more detailed information concerning this product you may visit the Windows live One Care web site by clicking here.

As we all know speech recognition is not new to the Windows OS. The main issues I have found with speech recognition is most of the time even after you have trained your computer through the step by step process it still doesn’t work that well.

I have spent hours trying to get this feature to work properly, and some times it does. Unfortunately most of the time it isn’t accurate or efficient enough to warrant it’s use. I’m sure many of you have used it as I have only to find out it’s faster just to type the information.

With the release of Vista the speech recognition software is at least supposed to be much more efficient and accurate….Like that hasn’t been said before….. right?

Well I have used this feature in Vista and I would say it works much better than previous versions. Of course it still translates inaccurate information from time to time. I actually used the software to compose this blog entry with pleasing results, as there weren’t too many edits that had to be made….Thank goodness for spell check.

For anyone who uses this feature; you will notice improvements, but there is still work to be done before we  have hands free computing.

Microsoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express can experience many issues. The problem when addressing such issues is figuring out whether the problem relates to a program problem or user database problems.

There are many programs available that can address issues internal to Outlook and Outlook Express. Be aware that most programs that are designed to fix an issue internal to the program will not address issues related to user databases.

Determining which category your issue falls under is critical when deciding what software to buy for addressing the issue. Typically (But not Always) if you experience a program error which references a particular.exe file this would be an issue internal to the program itself.

If you experience a message which relates to the message store, email messages stuck in the outbox or address book not loading then your issue is most likeley related to a user database. You can verify this by creating a new duplicate account and testing the features.

Search the Internet for information related to your issue. This may give you a better idea of what the problem relates to. Once you have an idea of what may be causing your issue then research for a program that can address the issue.

A quick note to all. Any error internal to the program that can be addressed by a “fix it” utility can generally be addressed by the user researching information on Microsoft.com. This is not necessarily true for user, message or address database errors.

If you have purchased your copy of Windows Vista you have experienced this unique Vista feature. The sidebar can be used to add different features that are easily viewable.

For me the CPU and network activity monitor are very handy. If you have not previously experienced this feature or would like to re-enable the item simply visit the control panel and select the”Windows Sidebar” icon to configure it for start up.

You can view everything from the time, network traffic, CPU usage and much more. Many software vendors are developing applications to work with the Windows sidebar. If the feature or utility you might be looking for isn’t currently available then you might give it just a little more time as I’m sure someone will develop it.

If you would like to review available “gadgets” for the windows sidebar you can simply click here.

One thing I would like to gripe about is Microsoft has seen fit to remove the GUI (graphical user interface) portion of disk defrag which lists details of the defrag process.

I don’t know about you but to me this information can be useful. Not only could review defrag details but also a progress bar which showed when the process might end. Maybe I am just a control freak.

Many operations I do require peak performance. Running these operations during the defrag process can impact performance of the other applications and effect the outcome.

I guess I will just have to start the process and walk away for hours due to the lack of information on how long the process may take. This will definitely effect my efficiency. I guess I will have to purchase a third party application so I can review details of the defrag process.

Just another instance of Microsoft thinking they know what we do and do not need.

I recently attempted installation of the Vista Home Premium operating system. I first attempted this operation to see how well it performed with the minimum system requirements. Of course it wasn’t as crisp and quick as I had hoped it would be.

After testing for quite some time I turned off all the fancy shadows and features of the operating system and of course it ran better. As I added my third party applications performance began to lag once again.

Ok… time to try the installation with the recommended requirements. Just to review what the recommended requirements are I have them listed here.

1 Ghz 32 or 64-bit processor
1 GB of system memory
40 GB hard drive with 15 GB available space
128 MB graphics memory card that supports directx 9.0

Even after updating the system configuration with the new hardware… performance did improve. Of course being a tech head I do desire the as fast as possible scenario.

After reviewing my options I decided to attempt using Windows Ready Boost to see if I could boost performance. I added a compatible USB 2.0 drive with 2 GB of capacity and configured ready boost to use the device.

After testing I would have to say I would recommend to anyone that uses Vista (which does seem to be a resource hog) and needs peak performance you may want to consider using the ready boost option. Even though you cannot monitor the ready boost device performance while installed it does appear to have benefits.

As well as the performance benefits it is as well much cheaper to add a USB drive than internal system memory. I guess Microsoft knew we might need some other option to boost performance of their new os. I’m glad they decided to add this option to the operating system.

Finally Microsoft added a feature that is much easier to use than previous utilities to help parents monitor youth activities.

Although features such as this have previously been embedded into the Windows operating system it is not until now that they have been so easy to use. If you have ever configured the Internet Explorer content adviser you know what I am talking about. Another aspect to these utilities that were previously not available are the reporting features.

Microsoft has embedded all the previously available utilities into an easy to use interface and added some new unique features.

With the release of Vista you now have the following abilities to monitor and control how your children interact with the computer and the Internet.

Web restrictions.

 You can restrict the websites that children can visit, make sure children only visit age-appropriate websites, indicate whether you want to allow file downloads, and set up which content you want the content filters to block and allow. You can also block or allow specific websites.

Time limits.

You can set time limits to control when children are allowed to log on to the computer. Time limits prevent children from logging on during the specified hours and, if they are already logged on, they will be automatically logged off. You can set different logon hours for every day of the week.

Games.

You can control access to games, choose an age rating level, choose the types of content you want to block, and decide whether you want to allow or block unrated or specific games.

Allow or block specific programs.

You can prevent children from running programs that you don’t want them to run.

Finally you don’t have to purchase a third party application to monitor and control access to content. Being a father myself I can definitely say I will be interested in learning more about how well parental controls work. I hope Microsoft continues to develope this new utility.
 

Here as of late I have been writing about some of the features of Windows Vista. This article reviews the bitlocker feature.

Although this utility is not entirely new as it was released previously with Windows 2000 and has been improved upon.

The bitlocker utility can encrypt a hard drive so that if your computer or drive has been stolen the data is less likely to be accessed by prying eyes.

Although no one is quite sure how secure this utility may be as it has not been fully tested by the rest of us. Of course Microsoft will document it as a secure feature they have done so in the past.

Once the general public gets their hands on it thats when it will really be tested. As we know with previous supposed secure features this isn’t always the case.

Just like the SAM database which is supposed to secure user accounts and passwords it as well has been fooled before with those nifty Linux boot disks…The bitlocker utility may as well fall victim of such a utility.

I do have to say kuddos to Microsoft for adding the feature because it can atleast protect your data some what and may reveal itself as a well built security utility.

If you have any experiences to share about this utility…Whether it be good, bad, or otherwise please post a comment and share your experience.

I hope you find some humor in this list.

I am by no means saying you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows Vista, but rather pointing out issues that can occur during an upgrade along with some other humerous points. Enjoy!

10. Because you want to upgrade your hardware

9. So your already purchased applications wont work

8. Because you want to have the latest and supposedly greatest

7. Because you just love to be a BETA tester

6. To take advantage of all the annoying security features

5. Because you just want to spend the weekend frustrated after the install fails

4. Because you never heard the old saying “If it isn’t broke don’t try and fix it”

3. So you can see how many new ways hackers can invade your system until Microsoft applies security updates

2. Because you just want to stimulate the economy

1. Last but not least….Because you just love headaches