By default Windows update runs on a scheduled basis on Vista and Windows 7, and installs updates automatically. Although the user can change the Windows Update configuration to only check for updates, or check and download, normally letting Windows install updates automatically is a good idea.

But like any software, the Windows Update service has a few dependencies on the end-user’s computer. In Vista and Windows 7, Windows Update depends on a number of services to run, as well as a number of file locations and registry configurations.

Installing updates means that compatibility issues with existing software or running programs need to be addressed, and of course the installer service needs to work properly. Any issues with the Windows registry, or the C:\Windows\WinSxS\Manifests, or C:\Windows\Servicing\Packages locations can cause the Windows update service to fail.

Although there are different errors that can be reported when Windows Update fails to execute properly, the most common errors are:

As you can see part of the problem is that the error message are not always very helpful. In many cases, the update service simple reports the error message “Windows Update encountered an unknown error.”, which does not tell the user anything.

A possible screenshot of failed Windows Update may look like this:

Of course it is possible that not all updates fail, but only a specific update.

How to solve Windows Update Problems in Vista and Windows 7

The solution to Windows Update errors depends on the error you are getting. But a few things are common and can be checked or corrected in all cases.

Please note that for most of these steps you will need to use a user account with administrative privileges.

The first thing to check is that you have a working Internet connection. If not, Windows update cannot connect to the Microsoft update websites. This includes problems caused by proxy servers, security software and external firewalls. Microsoft recommends to turn on the Windows firewall and disable 3rd party firewalls and software accelerators in case of update problems.

Also make sure that you add the Windows update related websites to the Trusted sites on your computer. That will prevent any network traffic from these sites to be blocked. You can use the Internet Explorer to add trusted sites. Select the Tools menu -> Internet Options -> Security tab -> Trusted sites icon -> Sites button. Ad http://*update.microsoft.com, https://*update.microsoft.com, and http://download.windowsupdate.com as trusted sites.

Next, check the services that should be running. You can start the service manager by typing “services.msc” and pressing Enter at the Start menu. This will start the Microsoft Management Console.

In the services list, make sure that the Windows Update service, the Windows Modules Installer, and the Background Intelligent Transfer service are started.

Open the command prompt window as an administrator (type “cmd” in the Start menu, right-click the “cmd.exe” that shows in the list, and in the popup menu select Run as administrator), and then type SFC /SCANNOW at the command prompt, followed by Enter. This will check the Windows system files on the computer.

Apart from that, there are specific solutions to specific problems.

Error code 0×80070424 for example means a problem with the Windows update service DLL. Reregistering the DLL generally fixes the issue. So start a command prompt again, and then type:

%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\REGSVR32.EXE %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\WUAUENG.DLL /S

Press Enter and wait for the DLL registration to complete. Then try Windows Update again.

A number of Windows Update problems can also be fixed by using the Windows Update Readiness Tool. This Microsoft application can be downloaded and installed on your computer, after which it will check your computer for any known problems that can cause Windows Update to fail on Vista or Windows 7. The tool will not find and fix all causes though.

If you don’t care about maximizing your viewing area and want the menubar or status bar back, there is an easy way to customize IE9 to your liking. The application to optimize IE9 is called TweakIE9, and can be downloaded for free online.

After you download the ZIP file, extract the program and run it. The installer will check for the presence of IE9, and then show you the user interface.

There are obviously a lot of tweaks possible, some are also possible in a different way, but TweakIE9 gives you access to all kinds of settings for Internet Explorer 9 in an easy way.

Options can simply be toggled by clicking the gray pin (off) or the blue pin (on).

Also check out the option to configure the maximum number of downloads, which allows you to increase the number of parallel downloads in IE, which can help increase the download speed.

Take let the changes take effect, click the Tweak IE9 now button. The program will ask you if you want to create a system restore point, which is always a good thing if you make changes to your system configuration.

And best of all, there is a Restore IE9 button that brings everything back to the default! So no risk in playing with the settings or making a mistake.

To tun the program again, simply execute the program from the extracted ZIP again. This time the GUI will show up immediately, without the EULA and the IE9 check.

A different type of image preview is possible with an application called FastPreview. This application, when installed, allows the user to simply right-click an image file, and see a preview right there in the popup menu!

How cool is that?

Of course it is possible to configure Windows itself to show Extra Large Icons, which can allow you to see sufficient information of an image to use it for selecting pictures. But that setting will apply to all files in a folder, and also require more processing time, especially the first time you view a folder.

FastPreview shows the preview in the popup menu in the size that you want. While previewing an image, you can select the option FP ›› Info and Setttings in the popup menu (just below the preview) to change the size of the preview.

Keen on trying it out? You can download FastPreview here. FastPreview runs on Windows 7, Vista and XP,and there is a 32-bit and 64-bit version.

But one thing that can be a problem is the location of the touchpad. For easy of use, the touchpad is generally centered on the laptop, just below the keyboard. Although convenient for using it as a mouse replacement, it is not so convenient when you type a lot. During your typing, you need to make sure to not accidentally touch the touchpad surface with a finger (or your wrist), or you will risk the mouse cursor jumping. The typed text will end up in a different location in your document, or keystrokes might suddenly be send to a different application altogether!

The easy way around this is of course to use an external mouse and disable the touchpad in the Windows device manager. But if you don’t want or have an external mouse, this is not an option.

The better way to deal with this touchpad problem is to use a program called touchpad blocker. This simple little application basically disables the touchpad for short periods of time, starting when you start typing on the keyboard. As a result these accidental touches of the touchpad while typing don’t have any effect anymore!

The program is very simple to install and use. The program has a few configurable options, including an option to configure the delay between a keystroke and the re-activation of the touchpad. That way you can fine-tune the operation of touchpad blocker to your own personal taste.

Another handy option is the manual keyboard block, which can be invoked using a predefined key combination. Just select the Combination field and then press the desired key combination. The program will automatically pick up the keys pressed and record it in the configuration.

This require you to change the Windows registry, so be sure to first make a backup of the registry, so you can restore that in case anything goes wrong, or you want to revert the change.

To change the behavior:

1. Open the Registry Editor (type “regedit” in the Start search box and press Enter).
2. In the registry editor, navigate to the following key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
   If it does not exist, create it, by using the the Edit -> New -> Key menu option.
3. Now select the Edit -> New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value option.
4. Enter NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption as the name for the new entry.
5. The value assigned to the new DWORD value should be 1.
   In case the value already exists, change the value from 0 to 1.
6. Close the Registry Editor.

That is it. After the next Windows Update the Shutdown button will no longer be changed to the Install Updates and Shut Down option.

You can always still access the Install Updates and Shut Down option via the regular shutdown menu, since it will be the botton option in that menu. And if you do want the old behavior back, simply change the value from 1 to 0 again.

This registry change also applies to Vista, where the shutdown button is changed by Windows Update in the same way:

Personally I use FireFox most, since it has always been a lot faster than IE, and I did not like the minimalistic view of Chrome when it first came out. Seeing that IE9 is doing exactly the same, I keep on using FireFox. Not without problem though, since I have seen the number of crashes and automatic restarts increase with the latest updates of FireFox. I will switch over to FireFox 4 and see if that has improved upon the 3.6.xx versions.

Back to IE, where it is still up to the user to switch to new versions. IE6 as you might know is losing ground, which is good since it was a developer’s nightmare. If you want to see how many people still use IE6, check out the IE6 countdown site. But if you are keen on keeping IE6 around, there is of course also a site for that…

IE7 is also still in use and is a lot better than IE6 already, but some real changes were made by Microsoft when IE8 was introduced. Performance and security were better than earlier, partly by sandboxing each tab, and this was further improved upon in IE9, which is almost a complete new browser. IE9’s ability to use (GPU) hardware acceleration and support for HTML5 probably make it one of the best choices at the moment.

If you want to compare browsers to help you decide which browser to use, consider checking out the HTML5test, and for performance have a look at ZDNet’s browser comparison. From a future perspective, it also worth considering the support and development for the browsers. Microsoft has been developing IE for years, and is also offering more and more online services through Office Web Apps, and Live Essentials. Google has had the Google Documents services for a longer time, and has tons of things in their development pipeline all the time. The question is if FireFox, being ‘just a browser’ will be able to keep competing with these giants.

And just in case you are curious, you can already have an early look at IE10! That will be the version that is expected to be released with Windows 8, and it will further only run on Windows 7, since Microsoft has decided not to make it available for Vista.

But in Office 2007 this option is not available, so without a third party solution it is not possible to add streaming video to your PowerPoint presentation. The free PowerPoint plugin that you can use for this is from AuthorStream. You can download the plugin for PowerPoint from their website. The plugin will download as a self-installing executable (aSDesktopSetup.exe), which will install itself when executed.

After installation of the plugin, you simply start PowerPoint and click the new authorSTREAM menu. Next, click the Insert by URL button to insert the URL for the online video.

In the Insert by URL window, you can then copy + past the URL from a YouTube video. You will need to click the Preview button before the Insert in Slide button is enabled.

Clicking the Insert in Slide button will place the video object into your current slide. Like any object in PowerPoint, you can then move it around on the slide and resize it to the desired dimensions. Of course you will need to have an active Internet connection when you show your presentation, since the video is not copied to your computer, but streamed from the Internet when playing.

The authorSTREAM solution works for Office 2007 as well as Office 2010, so if you prefer you can use it in Office 2010 as well instead of the built-in functionality.

All My Movies is a multi-lingual movie organizer. What is a movie organizer at all? Briefly, it’s software which helps to organize all sorts of films – VHS (if you still use them), DVDs, Blu-rays. The software includes all necessary info about the films – the genre, release date, the full cast, the directors, etc. The major advantage with movie organizers is that there’s no need to enter any movie info manually – everything is downloaded automatically from movie Internet databases – that is rather convenient.

I loaded my favorite TV series into the program in just 20 minutes, and now I have all the details about the actors at my fingertips. And it loaded my folder with AVI movie files without a problem, even though there are different video codecs in use in them.

What else appealed to me in this software?

First of all, its ease-of-use, because everything is intuitively clear where to find functionality, how to start, how to continue and when to finish.

Secondly, the view modes available in the program. It has something for everyone – the user is welcome to choose the template, the information depicted on the movie card, etc. Besides, there are cover thumbnails and virtual shelf modes, which make it a lot nicer to work with the library.

Thirdly, sorting and grouping options are rather impressive. Users with thousands of movies in store are offered to sort and group them by various criteria – that’s makes it real easy to manage large movie collections. It’s also possible to add personal marks and colored flags and filter the collection by those. For example, you particularly like certain films, so add the mark “My favourite” and filter the collection based on it. Done! You’ll be shown only the films with this mark.

Another point to mention is the program’s directories and their potential. I really like working with them. For example, the Name directory stores full information about actors and directors from all the films in the library. Each person’s card has the photo and biographical info, as well as filmography of the actor. And there are pop-up windows containing brief info and the photo.

The software is made by Bolide Software, who have been in business since 2003. As a result they claim to have frequent program updates and strong technical support. I haven’t had the need for support, but it is good to know it is available.

I haven’t found any serious drawbacks of the software. Like any movie organizer using online databases which often make changes on the website, All My Movies sometimes faces problems with those changes, but the good news is that they adjust to those changes rather quickly.

If you have experience of using All My Movies as the movie organizer, please share your opinion in the comments! If you’d like to try it, visit their website and download a 30-day free trial.

Update July 2011:

A new version of All My Movies is now available. Version 6.5 improves the user-friendliness of the program and adds some new functions to the software. To mention a few improvements:

• More online databases with more languages supported.
• Search on media location.
• Use Bing.com to search for movie covers.
• Search for TV series.
• Some bug fixes.

For a detailed list of the changes, please visit the website. If you are a movie collector, it is certainly worth your time to evaluate the 30-day trial version.

After trying several things, including checking the BIOS settings, checking the Windows power settings and number of other configuration options, I finally just decided to open the computer and check the cables and PCI cards.

When I opened the system, I immediately saw a possible cause. Look at the picture below of the dust in the CPU fan and cooling element!

The picture was actually taken when I was half done cleaning the dust already… As you can imagine this amount of dust in the CPU fan and CPU cooling block will prevent proper air circulation and greatly limit the CPU cooling.

The result was that the CPU was overheating and the system just went on a thermal shutdown whenever it reached critical temperatures. This quite explains the seemingly random computer shutdown problems.

After cleaning the system on the inside, and putting it back together, we restarted the system. Not only did it make a lot less noise (the fan was not trying to run at maximum RPM anymore for cooling the CPU), but it never shutdown automatically after that!

So if you face similar random computer shutdowns, and your computer is either a little older or standing in a dusty environment, consider this cause. For notebooks this problem generally does not happen, as they gather less dust inside and have a little different cooling concept.

Monitor the CPU Temperature

If you want to make sure that CPU temperature problems are the cause of the random computer shutdown problem, you can try using a simple program that shows the core CPU temperature. For modern CPUs this will work fine. Real Temp from TechPowerUp is an example of such a program. Please note that for the best accuracy, it is important to calibrate the software properly.

As with any software, the BIOS software has a version and can be updated to fix bugs, improve performance or enable additional motherboard features. Not all BIOS updates are always required, so updating the bios is not required in all cases. It is best to follow the recommendations of the PC or motherboard manufacturer on the BIOS updates.

The BIOS software is not residing in regular computer memory (RAM), but is a piece of memory that is permanent, even when no power is present. Typically EEPROMS are used, which are read-only memory, but can be changed by the right steps.

Before You Update the BIOS

As you can imagine, updating the BIOS is a risky procedure. If something goes wrong, your computer might not be able to start anymore. So please be careful and take the necessary precautions.

• Make a backup of your files before you update the BIOS.
• Find out your computer brand or motherboard brand. This is required to find the manufacturer’s website for the BIOS update.
• Check your current BIOS version and then compare it with the new BIOS version on the manufacturer’s website.
• Read the change history or release notes on the newer version to determine if the BIOS update is required or useful.
  In Windows you can easily check the current BIOS version number using the msinfo32.exe program.
• Read the instructions on the manufacturer’s website on how to update the BIOS. There are procedures to update the BIOS that require a floppy boot, but there are also a lot of manufacturer’s that have Windows based BIOS update procedures.
• Make a backup of the current BIOS version. If the BIOS update software does not allow for this option, try to at least download a copy of your current BIOS from the manufacturer’s website, so you can revert back to that version if the new BIOS does not work.
• Download the new BIOS version from the manufacturer’s website. Don’t download it from anywhere else, unless you can be absolutely sure it is a reliable source!

Updating the BIOS

The process to update the BIOS is specific to the PC brand or motherboard brand. Rather than trying to cover each and every possibility here, we refer to the websites of the manufacturer’s for the BIOS update. In case your PC brand or motherboard brand is not covered, leave a comment and we’ll try to add it.

Do keep in mind that not all computer manufacturers offer BIOS updates, as they simply rely on the manufacturer of the motherboards used in their computers.

After You Update the BIOS

Once the BIOS update is complete, you need to check if everything went well and if the computer works as expected.

• In some cases the BIOS update process will automatically restart your computer, but in case it does not, manually shut down the computer. Leave it turned off for a minute and then restart.
• First see if everything boots and works normal as expected.
• If you updated your BIOS to solve a problem, check if the problem is gone or not.
• Shut down and reboot your system again, and now go into the BIOS (mostly by pressing F2 or Delete). Configure the BIOS to match the new version. This might not be required, but if the new BIOS version contains new settings, you want to make sure they are set right. If in doubt, it is best to use the Load Default Settings option.
• Depending on the BIOS update, it is possible that you need to update the system drivers for your computer. It is best to scan your system for any driver updates required after the update.