Something I’ve noticed whilst using Windows Vista (which may be closely related to the issues I’ve had previously with my router) is that occasionally all access to websites will stop and all I’ll get is a “Cannot Find Server” error page immediately. I don’t know exactly what is causing it, but flushing the DNS cache seems to fix it.

To flush your system’s DNS Resolver Cache do the following:

1. Open a command prompt with administrator priveliges (Click Start, type “cmd” and right-click it then go to “Run as administrator” or press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER)
2. Click Continue on the User Account Control dialog
3. Type the following string:
   ipconfig /flushdns
   and hit enter. You should see the message “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache”
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter.

You should now be able to access websites again. This is a perfectly harmless fix to try but there are no guarantees as to whether it will fix your specific problem. However I have found it to be an adequate fix for my own issue until I can pinpoint the cause of it.

Shortly after installing Windows Vista I went on an updating spree and updated all my device drivers and firmware to their most current versions. This included updating my Netgear DG834 v2 ADSL Modem/Router to version 3.01.32.

Somehow doing this ended up stopping Windows Live Messenger 8.1 from being able to login.

A lot of searching revealed that there are some known issues between Windows Vista and certain Routers. This has something to do with the way in which Windows Vista’s new networking stack can tune itself for the best performance. You can read more about the auto-tuning feature in this column on Microsoft’s website.

The easiest and best solution I found was to downgrade my router’s firmware back to version 3.01.25. I have been running this version successfully with no network issues at all for weeks now.

You can find Netgear firmware downloads at http://kbserver.netgear.com/downloads_support.asp. Consult your router’s manual for installation instructions.

If this doesn’t work for you, you’re already using that firmware, or you have a different model router, then you can try disabling the “Autotuning” feature:

1. Click Start and type “cmd” into the Quick Search box.
2. Right-click the “cmd” item that appears and select “Run as administrator” (Or hit ctrl+shift+enter). Click “Continue” in the resulting UAC dialog and a Command Prompt window will open.
3. In this window type the following string:
   netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
   and hit enter. The prompt will return “Ok.” If successful.
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter, or by clicking the close button in the top right corner.
5. Reboot your computer.

I found that disabling auto-tuning worked great for restoring Windows Live Messenger functionality but I was still experiencing some random network issues. Try the router firmware option first if you’re able to.

If you’re using a “current model” ADSL Modem/Router then continue to keep an eye on the manufacturer’s site for an updated, Windows Vista compatible firmware version.

This small add-on for Internet Explorer published by IEForge replaces the standard “Find on Page” dialog box with a bar that appears at the bottom of the page instead similar to the one in FireFox.

It has a few extra features compared to the default find box like searching as you type and an option to highlight all occurrences of your search term on the page at the same time. The box will also turn red as you type if the term you enter doesn’t exist in the page which is nice.

The best feature of it though in my opinion is that it stays out of the way of the content of the page you’re searching on, unlike the default box that you need to drag all over the place to look behind it.

You can download it from IEForge’s site.

For some seemingly unknown reason tonight my copy of iTunes decided to start displaying the following “Saving iTunes Library” dialog whenever I quit the application.

The dialog would only be there for a few seconds but would make my PC completely unresponsive while it did its thing.

I remembered I had experienced this issue before but couldn’t find the site I’d originally found the solution on. A lot of searching later I found this thread on iLounge containing the solution — Exclude your iTunes folder from your Antivirus program’s active scanning.

I realised after this that I had just done a fresh reinstall of my antivirus program, NOD32, to fix another issue and in doing this had cleared out all my previous settings. Adding my iTunes folder to its exclusions list again worked a treat.

One of my most missed Windows XP utilities since moving to Windows Vista has been the Image Resizer PowerToy released by Microsoft a few years back. They released a whole bunch of PowerToys and this was hands-down the most useful out of them all.

This tool allowed you to select a bunch of images then just right-click on one and select resize to create smaller copies of them alongside the originals. I found this tool extremely useful when wanting to send high-quality photos I’d taken to friends over an Instant Messaging client like MSN.

Windows Vista comes with a handful of simple photo editing tools built into Windows Photo Gallery including tools to fix exposure, colour and red eye and it even comes with a tool to crop your picture, but an image resizing tool is nowhere to be found. Why they would skip such a fundamental photo editing tool I don’t know.

However, a quick search tonight has come up with an application that very closely mimics the operation of the original Microsoft PowerToy, and also adds a couple of extra features on top. The name of this application is VSO Image Resizer and it is available as a free download from their site, VSO Software.

Once installed it really does act just like the Microsoft PowerToy. Select a photo or two, right-click and select VSO Image Resizer from the context-menu then select the size you want and hit “OK”, it will create your resized images alongside the old ones.

Take a look at VSO’s website for some screenshots and more information and of course to download the application.

If you’re still using Windows XP and want the Image Resizer PowerToy you can still find it on Microsoft’s PowerToys page.

When I first updated from my old wired keyboard to a Microsoft Wireless Desktop Elite I experienced a problem where random keys would seem to “stick” and I’d get an unwanted string of repeated characters across the screen.

The problem, it turns out, was having my Key Repeat Delay set too short. Due to my impatient nature I would always turn this to the shortest setting so I wouldn’t have to wait if I wanted a string of repeated keys.
To fix the issue, open up Control Panel (Start -> Control Panel) and open the Keyboard item (Select “Classic View” in the left bar if you have trouble finding it). In the dialog that opens, select the “Speed” tab and move the Repeat Delay slider one notch closer to “Long”. Refer to the following screenshot of the dialog.

I’m really not sure of why having this set short causes keys to get “stuck”. I guess that due to the nature of wireless, some interference may distort the signal and tell the OS that the key has been held down longer than it has. Making the delay a little longer will have it wait out this corrupt signal before leaving a string of characters across the screen.

I’ve been using Windows Vista Ultimate since it was released and ever since installing there had been one small ‘glitch’ that’d been annoying me constantly. Any folder I opened in an Explorer window had a small green arrow coming out of the folder icon for it on its taskbar button. You can see what I mean in the following screenshot.

I purchased a subscription to Microsoft’s TechNet earlier in the year and so decided to make use of it and asked why this was happening in their Managed Newsgroups. Just over 12 hours later I got a solution from a user called “dean-dean”.

“What you’re seeing is normal, depending on whether or not you have the Navigation Pane open or not. If you are using the Pane, you’ll see the green-arrow icon. If you close the Pane (under Organize >Layout), and open a folder, you will see the normal folder icon (without the arrow). In other words, the default command for “no navigation pane” folders is Open, and the default command for “show navigation pane” folders is Explore, (which then uses the green arrow icon in the taskbar, just to let you know you’re Exploring, I guess). Try it both ways…”

Basically what he’s referring to is the “Folders” pane that is in the left bar underneath “Favourite Links”. This pane is collapsed by default but can be expanded by clicking on the “Folders” heading for it at the bottom of the bar. The Folders pane shows a treeview of all the folders just like in Windows XP. Having this pane open changes the icon to the one with the arrow. Closing it reverts the icon back to the normal folder icon. Strange behaviour I know but some people probably find this useful.

So thank you dean-dean, you saved me from almost reformatting just to get rid of that stupid icon.