I uninstalled my antivirus software before upgrading my Vista machine to the Windows 7 beta, but I forgot the antispyware software. That was a mistake because after the upgrade finished and it booted into Windows for the first time it decided to promptly do a reboot with a blue screen of death(BOD). The BOD flashed on the screen so fast that I couldn’t read it, but I was was able to boot into safe mode. This lead me to believe it was the antispyware, since that would be the only other program that was loading other than the OS.
The antispyware program is SuperAntiSpyware (SAS), which I really like, but won’t be using on Win7 until they get it working with it. What I did to fix the reboot loop, since I couldn’t see the error with the naked eye, was to use my digital camera to video the boot and then pause the video to read the error message. Here is a picture using the new Win7 snip tool after I fixed the problem and was able to use Win7.
You will notice the file SASKUTIL.SYS in the snippet. That is the file that was causing the OS to dump and with a little look up in safe mode I found it in the SuperAntiSpyware folder. This program does not uninstall in Safe mode, so what I did was move the SuperAntiSpyware folder into a different temp folder on the hard drive and reboot. Once I got it rebooted and the OS didn’t dump, I was able to move the folder back, install RevoUnistall and remove it completely. RevoUnistaller goes into the registry and finds leftover chunks of a program, I highly reccomend it.Everything seems to working fine now, but I will report more on my adventures into Win7.
I came across a computer recently, that when booting would choke just after the POST test with the error “Unmountable Boot Volume”. As always a quick search of Google came up with more than one solution, but the one that was the easiest and was the one I actually trusted was from Microsoft. Most errors that happen after POST when Windows is starting it’s loading of drivers are caused by a corrupt file system, a corrupt Master Boot Record or a corrupt registry.
This error just happens to be a corrupt file system, which with most of these errors can be fixed using the Windows Recovery Console. All you need is a Windows install disk, or the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows which I consider the best all purpose Windows Live CD. Once you get to the Recovery Console you run “Chkdsk /r” without the quotes. Walk away, go do something else because this isn’t going to finish anytime soon. When it does finish you should be able to reboot your system.
Ed Bott writes a great FAQ about Vista SP1. Check it out.
I’ve been working with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for several months now, in beta releases and, for the last two weeks, in the final released code. I’ve put together this post to answer some questions I’m frequently asked about this long-awaited update.
I’ve noticed a lot of people using Outlook Express on service calls recently. One client was having a problem with deleting emails. They would click delete to get rid of an email, but it wouldn’t delete. It would stay in their inbox and was still able to be read. My first thought was something wasn’t right with the deleted items folder. Here is how I fixed it.
Below is a good YouTube video about whether Microsoft ripped off Apple in making Vista. It’s hilarious, sarcastic and could be taken to be very true. While I’m a Windows/Microsoft user 99% of the time, I’ve got to agree that Vista smacks of OS X in just about every way, except UAC that is.
I have 1 system with Vista on it, 2 with XP SP2, 1 with OS X Tiger, one oldie iMac with OS 9.2.2 and 1 with Ubuntu 7.04. At work we have no Vista systems and we won’t switch until sometime in 2008 at the earliest. After testing Vista since beta 1 I’ve not seen anything that makes me want to upgrade any system at work or for a client in my consulting for the price Microsoft is asking for Vista.
Everything that Vista can do, I can do with XP with either free programs or with other applications, which combined cost less than Vista Home or Premium. So why upgrade? Stay tuned for an installment in the near future in which I will show you just that. “How to make your Windows XP do what Vista does.”
Windows XP
Stumble It!
