Tier 2 support rep, please!

Date: February 15, 2007
Time: at 11:34 pm
Posted in: in microsoft, software, windows
Comments: Comments (0)

Staying on topic with my previous two posts about my upgrade to Windows Vista, I’m still very happy I made the upgrade and absolutely loving Vista. However, with that said, I have one persisting problem.

Randomly throughout the day while I’m browsing the internet I suddenly cannot connect anymore. Sounds like a typical connection problem, right? Think again. What’s even more strange about this issue is that only my browser connectivity cuts out. I always have mIRC open with an active connection to various networks. I always have Trillian open with several chat windows open. I have Thunderbird open which is regularly downloading any new email. Every single application outside of my browsers is able to connect perfectly fine. Yet as soon as I try to do something in a browser (whether it’s Firefox, Opera, or IE7), I have absolutely no connectivity.

But wait, it gets stranger. I can’t even connect to my router. Even worse, I can’t even connect to localhost. Yet I can do pings and tracerts in the command line to absolutely anywhere I like with no problem whatsoever.

Clearing all cache has no effect. Disabling/enabling the network card has no effect. Releasing and renewing my IP does nothing. Flushing the DNS cache does nothing. Manually editing my HOSTS file to point to a specific IP is pointless. Updating to the latest drivers doesn’t work. Heck, I can log off my user account and log back in and nothing budges.

And to top it all off on the weirdness scale, there is absolutely nothing in the Event Viewer to indicate anything strange or any error occurred at any point anywhere close to the time I lost connectivity. No failed drivers, no security restrictions, no memory allocation errors. Nothing.

I don’t consider myself to an MCSE or anything, but I’ll be honest and say I know a heck of a lot and I know how to fix most any issue that comes up. But this one has me completely and utterly stumped.

So I decided to buckle down and call Microsoft. So after going through 30 minutes of verifying that my version of Vista Ultimate had actually been activated, I’m put on with a tech support rep who had a hard time firstly understanding what the problem was, and secondly understanding that I probably knew a infinite amount more than her about Windows. But I decided to play along for the time being.

But after she asked me to uninstall the Google Toolbar from IE7 and use a proxy server, I put my foot down and said clearly that Internet Explorer is not the problem! I mean, come on? The first thing I said to this rep when I got on the phone was it wasn’t local to Internet Explorer. It happens with any browser and anytime I try to access something via the HTTP protocol. Apparently that flies over her head.

I also indicated very clearly the only way I had found to temporarily resolve the problem was to reboot the computer. Yet she instructs me to reboot into Safe Mode after I put my foot down and corrected her about the toolbar/proxy. At that point, I gave up and asked to be moved to a Tier 2 rep. After a bit of trouble with that, I at least get on with someone who knows what they’re talking about.

I can at least talk to this guy in technical jargon and he trusts me when I say I’ve tried things that haven’t worked.
So he gave me a slightly modified driver to try … which unfortunately required me to reboot.

I honestly don’t think it’ll work. So basically, at this point I’m just waiting for the issue to pop its head up again.

Lesson learned: ask for a Tier 2 rep right off the bat.

Windows Vista - One week after installation

Date: February 9, 2007
Time: at 1:14 am
Posted in: in intel, microsoft, software, windows
Comments: Comments (1)

Just under a week ago I upgraded my laptop (running Windows XP MCE 2005) to Windows Vista Ultimate. You can read more about this in my previous post: (here).

As I indicated in my previous post, I was outright impressed with the quality job that Windows Vista did when it upgraded my system. In the past, Windows upgrades were almost a taboo in the computing world. Windows 98 to XP? Forget it. Not happening. However, with Vista, this is completely changed around. It’s now a pleasure to upgrade.

Of course, it hasn’t come without its downfalls. For one, my printer drivers aren’t working properly since HP has yet to release Vista compatible drivers for their printer line (at least my models). My antivirus software (CA Antivirus 2007) supposedly works on Vista with a minor patch. This isn’t the case. I discovered that whenever my computer was idling and CA attempted to update, the system would entirely lock up, requiring a hard reboot. From CA’s website, another patch won’t be around until the end of March. I can’t wait that long. I’ve since switched to Windows Live OneCare. On a side note, I must say that when I was BETA testing OneCare, I wasn’t impressed. Since the release, I’m very impressed with its quality, and most of all, how it works in the background without so much as making a peep.

I also was enlightened to the fact that Intel’s 945GM chipset drivers for Vista weren’t as compatible as Intel claimed they were. However, that was readily fixed with another patch. And at this point, I’ve not seen any glitches pop up.

All in all, the only issues I’ve experienced have been with third-party applications causing problems (like VLC media player switching the interface back to Vista Basic every time a video is played). Vista in itself is ridiculously stable. And in the rare event of an error, it’s readily able to recover completely.

I’m thoroughly enjoying my experience on Vista. I hope you make the decision to upgrade soon. It really does, as the ad campaign says, make you “wow!”

I took the plunge - Windows Vista

Date: February 3, 2007
Time: at 12:03 am
Posted in: in microsoft, software, windows
Comments: Comments (0)

I had downloaded the BETA of Windows Vista when it became available publicly and used it on both my desktop and laptop through a dual-boot scenario. This really got me used to the new changes in Vista so I feel very comfortable with it.

However, on my laptop, I have Intel’s 945GM onboard graphics card, which in the beta, and serious problems with Vista’s Aero Glass style (transparency, flip 3D, etc). Any of the new graphical things in Vista also were quite sluggish. This is why I originally didn’t plan on buying Vista until I replaced my desktop.

Just last night, I did a bit of research and discovered that Intel released a new driver for their 945 series graphics chipsets which support Vista to the smallest iota, including the Vista premium features (Aero Glass). So today, I took the plunge and purchased Vista Ultimate and upgraded my laptop’s XP MCE 2005 to Vista Ultimate.

In the past, you dared not upgrade a Windows installation if you didn’t want to have to deal with a ton of compatibility issues afterwards. I had reports of how smoothly Vista’s upgrade is compared to previous Windows versions, though when I was using the BETA, I did a clean installation and not an upgrade. I hadn’t experienced it firsthand until earlier today.

I must say with great enthusiasm that Vista’s upgrade procedure was absolutely flawless. Every file, ever folder, every setting, everything was perfectly preserved. My email, my music, my photos, my recently viewed/opened files, my playlists, heck, even my browser’s cache was preserved in the upgrade from IE6 on my XP installation to IE7 on Vista. Not one thing has gone missing. Not one application has given errors. Not one incompatible driver. I am thoroughly impressed with Vista’s upgrade procedure.

I also must point out that significant improvements have been made since the BETA in terms of speed, reliability, aesthetics, and ease of use. Vista is truly almost twice as fast as my XP installation on the same hardware. Vista can actually take advantage of my dual-core processor with 2GB of RAM, unlike XP. File searching is incredible and fast. Application launches are even faster. Boot time was almost cut in half, and I’m not exaggerating.

Vista’s new style is gorgeous. It has wonderful Aesthetics. 3d animations and hardware acceleration features execute with absolutely zero lag. Media Center is vastly improved over MCE 2005, and it runs flawlessly.

Vista is absolutely wonderful. Period. Kudos to Microsoft for getting away from their stereotypical bug-filled, unstable, and unusable operating system. Vista is amazing. I’ll leave it at that.