many vista general problems

[UFO]

hello,

i have a vista home premium 32bit on a laptop, which randomly gets problems:
1.sometimes , the theme becomes from black to gray , yet the themes service
seems to work (on the services window) . when restarting the service, it
becomes black again.
2.sometimes , the language toolbar becomes floating instead of staying on
the system tray . sometimes it just disappears, and sometimes it cannot
switch to my second language.
3.from some reason, some programs that ran before cannot run anymore . an
example of such a program would be crystal player (free/pro edition) .
4.sometimes IE8 freezes and doesn't even allow me to close the frozen tab.
5.sometimes, the WIFI connection disconnects, and then it keeps failing
re-connecting till i do an OS-restart.

since i have all of those problems, i wish to know if i can fix them, or
maybe if i can re-install the OS (or just the SP) itself so that it might fix
them.

the laptop is HP Compaq presario F700US.everything is updated ,original,and
legal. sadly , the computer didn't have the OEM disk of vista. instead, HP
told me they have it inside a hidden partition (D) . however, i wish to know
if re-installing the OS would delete some important documents and other stuff
that I've had over time.

please help me.

btw, i still do not get notified by email by this forum, even though i check
to notify me.

 

[UFO]

oh, and also forgot this problem:
6.most of the time, when doing a right clicking on any file (even on items
on the start menu) , it takes a really long time to see the context menu.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

hello,

i have a vista home premium 32bit on a laptop, which randomly gets problems:
1.sometimes , the theme becomes from black to gray , yet the themes service
seems to work (on the services window) . when restarting the service, it
becomes black again.
2.sometimes , the language toolbar becomes floating instead of staying on
the system tray . sometimes it just disappears, and sometimes it cannot
switch to my second language.
3.from some reason, some programs that ran before cannot run anymore . an
example of such a program would be crystal player (free/pro edition) .
4.sometimes IE8 freezes and doesn't even allow me to close the frozen tab.
5.sometimes, the WIFI connection disconnects, and then it keeps failing
re-connecting till i do an OS-restart.

since i have all of those problems, i wish to know if i can fix them, or
maybe if i can re-install the OS (or just the SP) itself so that it might fix
them.

the laptop is HP Compaq presario F700US.everything is updated ,original,and
legal. sadly , the computer didn't have the OEM disk of vista. instead, HP
told me they have it inside a hidden partition (D) . however, i wish to know
if re-installing the OS would delete some important documents and other stuff
that I've had over time.

please help me.

btw, i still do not get notified by email by this forum, even though i check
to notify me.

To answer one very important question: yes, using the recovery partition
(D will delete all of the work you have done. All of your data files,
documents, and installed software will be gone.

If you decide do that, you should first download and install a program such
as Macrium backup free edition and use it to make an image of your whole C:
drive on an external hard drive. Also, make a bootable CD of that program
so you can use it to update your system. However, if you have malware, as
Dave-UK suggests, you would not want to restore that image, since you would
also restore the malware.

The above is a last resort, obviously. You should definitely do the backup
anyway, since you might be seeing the beginnings of hardware failure, but
Dave-UK's suggestion of using malware bytes software is a good place to
start.

BTW, if you can see the D: partition, I would not consider it to be
hidden...

 

[UFO]

you guys, nobody told me here of a possible solution other than re-installing
vista, which according to what you wrote, will remove entire data.



when will the new service pack come to vista? maybe it will make things
better and fix some things on the way...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

you guys, nobody told me here of a possible solution other than re-installing
vista, which according to what you wrote, will remove entire data.

Reinstalling Vista from the recovery partition will remove all data. A
repair install from a Vista DVD will not.

Of course, you would always be advised to back up everything before doing
either operation. In fact, you would always be advised to back up
frequently in the absence of any problems: you just never know...

when will the new service pack come to vista? maybe it will make things
better and fix some things on the way...

Only Microsoft can answer your question. But since you might even have
hardware problems, a service pack wouldn't help.

 

[UFO]

how can i get a vista dvd? even convincing HP to send me a recovery disk was
too hard (had to speak for a long time till they send me it) .
what HP gives is quite a stupid solution - why would i ever want to have the
HD space wasted for an installation of vista? why not just give me the
opportunity to only install vista from scratch without any of their "special"
softwares ... they told me it's a common thing these days for laptops. is it
really true? are all laptops have pre-installed OS with so much stuff on it,
without even giving you the OEM version of the OS ?

 

[barefoot_boy]

You need to BUY a Vista DVD ( retail : Upgrade or Full Product ) if you wish
to have the bare Operating System without any 3rd party crap .

I have been thru this with Toshiba Europe.. No DVD, just a partition with
the vista homepremium image which can be rstored via a Bios hotkey. It
installs skype,google desktop,google chrome, games,toshiba utilities and
what not..

the restored vista needs 6 minutes to only boot becuase of all the crap in
autostart. This machine has 4Gigs of Ram and a Dualprocessor over 2 Ghz. Its
ridiculous. Vista should fly on these specs.

So after arguing with toshiba like you with HP I decided to buy a used Vista
Business package ( genuine retail is complete with key and disc , hologramed
disc from Microsoft , no oem brandings ! ) and voila :

Machine works fine and performing fast as expected. I avoided all the
Toshiba tools and downloaded only the drivers. HP will have a similar
support portal to download drivers.

Its really a shame these days- you pay hundreds of euros/dollars and not get
a DVD with it.

I have seen this customer "service" now with Acer and Toshiba where they
force you to have all the crap with the OS.

Only a Samsung Laptop one year ago had a full Vista DVD included.

S.

 

[xfile]

[...]they told me it's a common thing these days for laptops. is it
really true? are all laptops have pre-installed OS with so much stuff on
it,
without even giving you the OEM version of the OS ?

It's true that it's a common thing but some (e.g. Dell) still provide OS
installation media (not the same as factory restore disc), or at least, give
customers a chance to request. The following link is for illustration
purpose only:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/document?docid=331556

Good luck.

 

[UFO]

can't i just talk to HP (or Compaq) and they send me a proper installation
disk of vista? the computer is supposed to be with an original license
anyway, no (it has the sticker on the bottom side of it, which has the serial
key of vista) ?

 

[Chuck]

can't i just talk to HP (or Compaq) and they send me a proper installation
disk of vista? the computer is supposed to be with an original license
anyway, no (it has the sticker on the bottom side of it, which has the serial
key of vista) ?

You can. however, you can also expect to pay for the disk set.
HP ain't what it used to be. (We (at my past employer), bought a lot of
expensive instrumentation from HP, to the point that the HP salesmen
would just about do anything to keep us happy. Since they split HP up,
and the HP name is no longer used for the lab equipment, things have
changed. I'd likely look on the HP website to see if win 7 drivers are
available, and think about changing to it. Since you did not mention
what problems you are having, I have no idea what might be needed to
cure them.

 

[UFO]

i decided to use the disk of HP and backup the data from the previous
installation.
i found out that many of the problems are gone.
i also removed a lot of things that they installed there and that i do not
need.
in addition, i think that the graphics drive update that MS offers do not
work well with the laptop, since i noticed that if i use it, many programs
are showing in a weird way.