Vista Corner: WMP 11, Any Time Upgrade And Readyboost

Along with the changes, labels and links on my list of things to do around here I can also add [or really subtract] these stories that have been sitting on my USB drive for weeks.

WMP 11: There is a nifty little problem with Media Player 11 with some High Def audio devices. Namely WMP will eat memory or lose handles on files. Not cool you say? I agree since I do have one of these more advanced cards. The link below has a link to the hotfix or some steps for a work around. Be weary of the instructions though. The last step says to look for an "Enhancements" tab. I found the control actually under the "Advanced" tab instead. As usual your mileage may vary.

http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/kmkenney/archive/2007/05/24/workaround-for-kb-933245-lsm-exe-handle-leak.aspx

Any Time Upgrade: We had a lot of questions on this in our Vista trainings. That awesome stie that is the Windows Super Site has a wonderful description of the process needed to complete the upgrade from one version of Vista to another.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ff_anytime_upgrade.asp

Readyboost: One of the new features of Vista is Readyboost. This process allows you to use a USB Thumdrive as virtual memory. The idea is that the drive will give you a boost to your overall performance. I have to say on laptop systems this does actually help... a bit. But on desktops you would be hard pressed to notice a real difference. I am sure as Front Side Bus speeds get faster and USB drives match that speed things will be vastly improved. But for now check out this article with benchmark tests on how the technology performs.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131742/article.html

Tip: If you have disabled Auto Play in Vista you can get to the options for Readyboost by going to Computer>the USB drive>Properties>Readyboost tab. From there you can also adjust your size of the Readyboost file. Just remember that this is a physical file that sits on your drive. It can be seen in Windows XP but not used in XP. And if you gave up a big part of your drive for Readyboost you will have to delete the Readyboost file to get that space back. In most cases Vista remembers the hardware signature of your USB drive and it will put the Readyboost file back without asking. I found this out the hard way when I was swapping files from XP to Vista systems.