AppCrash!net: 2/11/07

Can't Hibernate? - Try This...

In trying to figure out how to get Vista to sleep, I was able to get it to Hibernate first. Usually, I'll put my laptop to sleep overnight when plugged in or if I'm going on a short trip, like to work. If I'm going on a longer trip where I won't use my laptop or don't plan on using it for a while, I'll hibernate the machine. If you're having problems with this, here is how I got it to work.

I was able to get my Dell Inspiron 9300 to Hibernate (not standby/sleep)
which is better but not perfect or how it worked in XP. Here's is what I
did. it's not for the faint of heart...it worked for me may not
for you

Hit start, type in 'command prompt', right click 'command prompt' from
the list, select run as Administrator.

type in powercfg.exe -? - this shows a bunch of commands to control the
power management from command line.

type powercfg.exe -A this shows what your computer can suppport. I
got the following:

C:\Windows\system32>powercfg.exe -A
The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby ( S3 )
Hibernate Hybrid Sleep

The following sleep states are not available on this system:
Standby (S1)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.
Standby (S2)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

BINGO. according to Vista, I can't use S1 or S2 standby - S3 is deep
sleep. The list is:

S1_supported List devices supporting light sleep.
S2_supported List devices supporting deeper sleep.
S3_supported List devices supporting deepest sleep.
S4_supported List devices supporting hibernation.

type powercfg.exe -H ON this turns on S3 sleep for me. It actually
hibernates the laptop.

Hopefully it works for you. If not, please leave feedback or post in the forum.

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Magic ALT Key

This may be obvious to some people, but it wasn't to me. Windows explorer has a great interface and puts many often used features along the top of the screen. I really do like it. I do miss the typical File menu that was in ALL previous versions of Windows.

The following screen shot shows a typical explorer window.

In order to get the old File/Edit/View.. Menu, just press the ALT key. The menu you know and love will appear.

In order to make this the default, Select Tools from the menu, Folder Options, View Tab. You'll see a screen like this:

Check off "Always Show Menus" and Apply/Ok. File/Edit/.. will now appear on all explorer menus. I guess once you get used to the new interface, you can turn this off eventually, but in the transistion from XP to Vista, I'll keep the menu around for a while.

Labels: Alt, Menus, Vista

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Nvidia Faces Potential Legal Trouble Over Vista Driver Issues

...He never once returned any of several e-mails or phone calls regarding the 2 destroyed motherboards or the over 150 times my laptop crashed because of their drivers. Hell, I had 51 driver crashes with the Nvidia drivers that shipped with Vista RTM.

I haven't had this many problems with my nVidia drivers on the released version of Vista drivers on my Dell Inspiron, hopefully it will stay that way. In the story, there are links to the class action suit if you're interested.

read more | digg story

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Can't Sleep - Try this..

Since I loaded Vista, I have not been able to get my laptop to sleep. It worked fine under XP but would immediately come back. The answer that I found is to turn off the Wake On Lan feature of the network card. Apparently, this is now turned on by default. Here are the steps that I followed to get it to work.

Right click on Network and bring up properties OR select Control Panel and then Network and Sharing Center

Select Manage Network Connections