Defrag 002: Gov's Probs, Media Center, Dropped WiFi (Channel 9)

Microsoft tech troubleshooter extraordinaire Gov Maharaj and I help walk you through troubleshooting solutions to your tech support problems. Starting this week we have an email address setup that you can also contact us with, it is DefragShow@microsoft.com. We will still be checking comments for problems, but using the email address will let us contact you and soon we would like to pick some problems that we troubleshoot by actually getting on the problem machine. For stickier recreatable problems, try using the Problem Recorder (on Windows 7 hit Start, type "Record Steps" and hit enter) and send us the zip file.

In tonight's episode:
0:50 - Deedub - Gov's 99 problems.
5:19 - Ytterbium - Can't view PDF in IE9.
8:28 - aL - Jumplists stop working, Media Center only showing one folder, network shares slow.
10:30 - Donald Adams - Disk2VHD boot problem.
12:10 - Paul - Media Center Guide stopped updating.
13:43 - ManuV - Elaborate on file/folder locks in Windows.
16:25 - Lorenz - Sticky Windows key in terminal sessions.
17:20 - MartinMine - Sometimes most current drivers aren't on WinUpdate, why? (We're covering slow shutdowns next week, Martin)
23:14 - CTorre - Delay in domain login, Windows 7 dropping WiFi at home.
27:30 - CKurt - Live Messenger state/contacts error, Media Center not showing files.

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Charles Welcome Change

Mar 24, 2011 at 4:58 PM

Thanks for the recommendations! It could very well be a router firmware issue (I didn't think of that...). I will run the suggested tool to make sure.
C
RhymesWithOrange Ultimate Orange

Mar 24, 2011 at 7:19 PM

@Charles: Do let us know what happens...
Charles Welcome Change

Mar 24, 2011 at 7:25 PM

@RhymesWithOrange: I will Gov. Thank you!
C
Bydia Donald

Mar 24, 2011 at 10:41 PM

My question did not get answered. So I will repeat and clarify.
I did a Disk2VHD v1.62 backup of my notebook with Fix HAL option checked. The OS(WinXP) is on D:\. After bios boots, I just see a black screen.. Even in safe mode after it flashes some drivers loading. I tried to log the boot sequence but didn't see any files save to the file system. I gave up trying, but now my notebook stopped working and would like to be able to boot into the backup that I created. I suspect that some Acer specific drivers may be stopping it from continuing the boot. The above problems are within the Virtual PC environment... What can I do to get it to work in the Virtual PC environment? I do not care about restoring the old notebook it is not worth it.

Donald Adams (not sure why my avatar name changed.. can't change it to my name)
RhymesWithOrange Ultimate Orange

Mar 25, 2011 at 11:05 AM

@Bydia:
1) Disk2VHD isn't a backup solution per se... you can't go back from the VHD to the physical drive.
2) considering 1) are you trying to restore the VHD to the drive, and it is no longer booting?
3) discounting 1 and 2, are you saying that the VHD you took won't boot properly in the VPC environment?
Thanks...
CKurt while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

Mar 27, 2011 at 8:46 AM

Thx for the answering my questions! Here is my follow up.
1) I was running Windows Live Messenger 2011 but it seems like there has been an updated release and I installed that one. I have not ran into the issue up until now.
2) Not solved yet. The files are in a folder on an external hard drive. Only the files on the external harddrive are not show. (Local C drives are all shown). All files I'm looking for are .avi files which Media Center can show (I can open them up from the Videos Library and play them in Media Center). The external folders who are not shown are included in the 'Video' library on my Windows 7 PC. I've also gone trough settings in Windows Media Center and checked the folders were added to the list.
Also, I've set the sharing options to the Video Library to 'everyone - read' so I should be able to access them from any account. (Only have one account on this machine besides the guest one)
3) New: Media Center crashed when selecting the 'Movies' option in the main menu. It shows 'searching for movies' for a few seconds and then crashes. I have been trying to explore the event logs. Could you give a demo how this works? It's kind of a new thing for me.
Ytterbium

Mar 27, 2011 at 9:27 AM

Thanks guy's RTM ie9 seems to have fixed my pdf problems.
RhymesWithOrange Ultimate Orange

Mar 27, 2011 at 8:51 PM

@CKurt:
For 1 and 2 I will need to do more research...
For 3, when you open event viewer, look in the application log (under windows logs), and find the "Application Error" and right above it, the "Windows Error Reporting" and share the watson bucket ID.
martinmine I see you're a coder, I'm pretty much a coder myself

Mar 27, 2011 at 11:38 PM

Thanks for an in depth answer to my question ;D
- Martin
Charles Welcome Change

Mar 28, 2011 at 5:52 PM

I updated my firmware on my Linksys router and.... No drops yet! Could be that this was indeed the issue. Thank you, gentlemen. ( Larry, I am a bit offended that you proposed the dropping could have been due to being out of range... Remind me to pinch you next time I see you ).
C
RhymesWithOrange Ultimate Orange

Mar 29, 2011 at 10:23 AM

@Charles: Also note that there are some early b/g routers and 1st gen N routers that were slightly out of spec. If anyone actually remembers the microsoft branded router, that would be an example of a slightly out of spec router.
LarryLarsen "Lightbulb"

Mar 30, 2011 at 10:06 AM

@Charles: The dropping due to range is for others troubleshooting, not you. I know you'd never go too far, Charles.