Vista Hanging At Least 5 Times A Day

[PG]

I have posted in some detail on this issue here last week
<Message-ID: [email protected]>

I actually have more information now.

1. As I probably described last week, the eventual or creeping system hang
begins with one application going non-responsive. Activating another
application window, either by task bar or by direct clicking, makes that
application nonresponsive. Then clicking on another application makes
that nonresponse. Often clicking on the Start menu makes it appear and
then lock, or sometimes it does not appear at all.

2. The multi-application (system?) hang (all showing "not responding")
does never involves a total freeze on things.

a) The network interrupt (?) continues to work: when in IE that is
connected to a video stream with a Flash/WMP plugin, while the video may
freeze, the audio continues to play and for a long time.

b) The mouse input interrupt continues to work. The mouse pointer can be
moved. A click will have no effect, but the cursor moves.

This is not due to failing hardware or screwed system software: Windows
Memory Diagnostic has been done quite a few times in the last months and
reports the RAM is good. chkdsk /r has likewise been done several times
and reports clean since the last time two or months ago it found some
screwed indexes. Moreover, the hard disk manufacturer's own disk test
tools are showing pass/green (Seagate Tools for Windows and DOS), although
the disks probably have 13,000 +/- 1500 hours of use (that applies to the
notebook as well). SFC /scannow finds only one unrepairable, non-critical
file ('azroleui.dll.mui'); this file has been effed up for months, well
before the frequent system hangs. Registry cleaners (Reg First Aid Plat
and Crap Cleaner) have been used. I recently Defragglered the drives; it
had not been done in 5-6 months, and yes, Windows defragger had been
turned off. The cooling system fan/heat sink was changed a couple of
months ago; and Everest Ultimate has been reliable in reporting both CPU
and disk drives' temperatures, with a dramatic average temp decrease after
cooling fan/sink replacement. Temperature is not a problem. Driver
software has been updated, upgraded, and re-installed for just about every
device (video, wireless and ethernet adapter, sound, keyboard "quick
keys", multi-mem card reader). You name the diagnostic tool and test, and
just about every orifice has been checked on this Vista.

In the past, I would not see Vista hang at all even 1 time in a month.
And now it happens at least 5 times a day. It always requires the power
button being pressed to restart.

Why it is doing this is still a mystery. What have I not considered or
done?

 

[milt]

I have posted in some detail on this issue here last week
<Message-ID: [email protected]>

I actually have more information now.

Registry cleaners (Reg First Aid Plat and Crap Cleaner) have been used.

Well, that could be part of your problem right there. Registry Cleaners
are a BAD idea!

 

[Kevin John Panzke]

vista is an even worse idea

and you are a nut case. just fyi. just fyi.

 

[PG]

Well, that could be part of your problem right there. Registry Cleaners
are a BAD idea!

I am fully aware that registry cleaners are to be approached with caution,
but I want to say this:

1. Registry cleaners are typically a last resort, a condition quite often
reached with Windows operating systems that have been in use for several
months, although with each new major version (9x [4]-->XP [5]-->Vista
[6]-->"VistaSP3" [7]), Microsoft is getting better at creating more stable
systems. In the post I cited in this thread, I note that my original
Vista installation lasted 28 months without requiring a clean install,
although it had gone through moments where it needed startup repairs. The
only reason I did a clean install is not because the system had become
completely unusable, but because I had reasonable suspicion to believe
that a foreign law enforcement authority in a corrupt, lawless country---
who had taken possession of this laptop for what they said was part of an
investigation!---had possibly installed keylogger software, and I was
taking no chance that they had. With XP, many people were advising a
clean install as a matter of routine if XP had been in use for 12 months
or so!! I think we all know what clean installs involve, with at least a
couple of days of constant update cycles to bring the system to its usable
secure level, and then there is application re-installation. Keeping
whole partition backups might work half the time (Acronis True Home 2009
once proved a nightmare to me!) and thus rescue a person, but more often
than not, a person is looking at a clean install (recovery disk use) and 2
weeks of time to get the system back to the wanted state.

2. Registry First Aid (Platinum) has been endorsed by Steve Bass, formerly
of PC World but writes his own column now, and he generally has a
respectable reputation among Windows lovers. Crap Cleaner, I believe,
takes a minimal approach in getting rid of registry dross left behind by
uninstalled or half-installed programs. All these programs give the user
the chance to save the old hive just in case, and RFAP also does a System
Restore, which is a not-always-reliable Microsoft product itself.

The real shame here is that Microsoft detects its own system is damaged
yet reports to the user that it is unable to repair the system and really
leaves the user to his own abilities to figure out how to repair the
system. I refer to the file 'azroleui.dll.mui' which remains unrepaired.
I have gone to considerable efforts to rename the corrupted file---always
'access is denied'---and in safe mode too. Would any other operating
system makers be happy with such a situation??

 

[pg]

How's your input voltage? Take out any surge protection.

That is interesting. Firstly, I reside in a country where the A/C line
voltage can never be considered reliable. If the power supply does not do
good voltage regulation, it is quite possible that one is looking at a
dead computer.

As it is, I am using HP's 90W, 100-240 A/C in, 18.5 V out adapter. The
flimsy connecter to the plug has been repaired by a reliable technician.
He peeled the wires, re-soldered them to the coaxial plug/connecter, the
used several windings of electrical tape. I don't (or can't?) have a
constant monitor to the D/C in to the PC. The flimsiness of A/C adapters
and their jacks of notebook makers has been a constant complaint.

But your subject has now made me think of another thing I have heard
about: the laptop battery.

My battery, according to Ubuntu Linux, which I occasionally use, reported
about 1-2 months ago was at 11% of its original capacity, and Ubuntu
warned me that it should be replaced.

Yes, it is the 2.5 year old original. I only keep it in the machine for
the 5-10 minutes of power it has in case the A/C gets cut off. I also
have that flimsy jack.

Of course its life has been reduced considerably because of the heating
cycles that affect it.

What is worse is that I hear that keeping old batteries in the PC while
the A/C is on causes the A/C adapter to heat up and use power abnormally.

I have been wanting to instead buy a portable UPS that keeps the power
constant in an interruption and keeps the heat away from the unit.
Perhaps buying a new battery---not always easy in this part of the
world---will fix the problem. I might do this.

 

[Nil]

1. Registry cleaners are typically a last resort, a condition
quite often reached with Windows operating systems that have been
in use for several months,
!?!?!

With XP, many people were advising a clean install as a
matter of routine if XP had been in use for 12 months or so!!

!?!?!?!?!

Having used Windows since it was first introduced, I have only had to
reinstall the operating system a few times, and each time it was
because of a catastrophic hardware failure or when I replaced the
entire system. I have NEVER done it as a matter or routine. My current
main system has been running XP since 2006, and before that my Windows
2000 system went its entire 6 or 8 year life with its original install.
My Vista system has been running like a champ since 2007.

There is absolutely no reason anyone should expect to routinely
reinstall the operating system every few months unless they don't know
how to maintain it or they allow the system to be compromised.

 

[pg]

!?!?!?!?!

Having used Windows since it was first introduced, I have only had to
reinstall the operating system a few times, and each time it was
because of a catastrophic hardware failure or when I replaced the
entire system. I have NEVER done it as a matter or routine. My current
main system has been running XP since 2006, and before that my Windows
2000 system went its entire 6 or 8 year life with its original install.
My Vista system has been running like a champ since 2007.

There is absolutely no reason anyone should expect to routinely
reinstall the operating system every few months unless they don't know
how to maintain it or they allow the system to be compromised.

I have been using my laptop for 13,000 +/- 1500 hours out a possible
22,800 hours for a 2.5 year period. The Vista system is almost always
connected to the Internet, and yes, I do use many 3rd party applications,
always with some security application installed (now Kaspersky Internet
Security 2010).

And then I do imagine that there are computer users who are the equivalent
of the old lady who STILL has the first car she ever bought in 1967 and
who uses the car about 3000 miles a year.

The fact is, if you have a system which you really use and one which is
always connected to the Internet whenever it is on, and you go beyond
buying Microsoft software---that is, you just don't use it for Office
apps---you are going to have problems creep in, as System Stability is
really an afterthought---or way down on the list at least---at Microsoft.
It has gone from regular Processor Halt Blue Screens of the Windows
version 4.x era (Win9x) to apparently eliminating BSODs in the XP era and
the switch to NT-based architecture.

The System File Checker is not widely advertised to the user, is it? And
perhaps you would like to explain to me on the occasion when a user (who
knows more than where the power button is) learns about it and uses it,
why SFC reports an unrepairable condition and basically says, "Hey buddy,
check some difficult-to-find log and open it to see what the problem is,
and good luck trying to fix the system by the way even when you learn
which files are screwed." Is that something an OS maker can be proud
of???? Is that giving System Stability a high priority??? That it can
detect when its system files don't pass a hash check, but really do
nothing about them???

Windows systems work rather smoothly on a fresh installation and on a new
computer. But once the machine hardware starts to show signs of wear, or
a system file on an isolated system gets a corrupt bit, the user loses
hours and hours of productive time wrestling with trying to figure out
what is wrong with system software or hardware when the designer of the
system could have included routines or software that
validates/controls/checks function. But we live in a world where the
programmer writes code that gets the system running, but never bothers to
include the lines of code that do runtime error-checking, and so the
system/app hangs and if the user is lucky, perhaps a "throw" command was
given on a line of code and the user is told in an alert, "Hey, there's an
error, altought I can't tell you where it is, because I did not take the
time to write proper code."

The next time Microsoft wants to take credit for how many productive hours
it gave the world (it surely does), will it also take the blame for how
many hours users needlessly spent trying to figure out why its system
fails in a completely untrackable way?

 

[Nil]

The fact is, if you have a system which you really use and one
which is always connected to the Internet whenever it is on, and
you go beyond buying Microsoft software---that is, you just don't
use it for Office apps---you are going to have problems creep in,
as System Stability is really an afterthought---or way down on the
list at least---at Microsoft.

That may be your sad experience, but it is NOT a fact. I, and the
systems I take care of, are proof of that.

 

[pg]

That may be your sad experience, but it is NOT a fact. I, and the
systems I take care of, are proof of that.

I am not trying to discount your experience. I know there are the very
rare exceptions to the rule, as in your case...systems well-protected and
isolated from the wild, from the real world, the real world where operating
systems are often used and challenged. I suppose you might errantly
dismiss users of such systems as amateurs, "rookies", newbies, whatever.
As for myself, I have done and do quite a bit of programming (on Unix, not
Windows), and am doing lots of web development (scripted HTML documents,
both client- and server-side). I leave it to others to decide if I am
knowledgeable to the point of being smarter than a 5th grader.

 

[Nil]

I am not trying to discount your experience. I know there are the
very rare exceptions to the rule, as in your case...systems
well-protected and isolated from the wild, from the real world,
the real world where operating systems are often used and
challenged.

My system is used daily for every kind of task available. It is in
constant contact with "the real world". So are most of the many systems
I help maintain (I am a network administrator.) There is nothing
inherent in Windows that requires the operating system to be
reinstalled every few months as you claim. The only common reason to do
so is if there is a catastrophic hardware failure or the user allows
the system to become compromised.

If that is your experience, you are doing something wrong and
destructive to the system. IOW, the problem is you, not Windows.

 

[pg]

My system is used daily for every kind of task available. It is in
constant contact with "the real world". So are most of the many systems
I help maintain (I am a network administrator.) There is nothing
inherent in Windows that requires the operating system to be
reinstalled every few months as you claim.

Actually, I did not claim that the system needs to be installed "every few
months." I said that there are people who believe that XP systems degrade
in performance such that they advise a clean install rather than trying to
waste hours with repair utilities that are ultimately futile. There are
people in this part of the world who don't cringe at all in beginning a
clean install even when they probably do not have to...but
malware/trojans/viruses run rampant in the part of the world where I am
residing. I have had many people tell me that on average they clean-
install XP once a year...the reason for the "every 12 months" statement.

I have already attested to the relatively good stability of Vista in that
it does not get so corrupted that it is unable to get past the startup
screen. I said in this thread and another that my original Vista
installation lasted (from Aug 2007 to Dec 2009) and was only clean-
installed because some law enforcement authority in a corrupt country
confiscated it for some investigation, and many advised me to do the clean
install because they said there was a real possibility that a keylogger
had been installed. Nonetheless, that original Vista installation had
degraded in performance although very few applications were installed or
even used. Still, as much as many awful things have been said by
countless tens to hundreds of thousands, I was quite impressed, relatively
speaking. Whereas others were quick to disable UAC, I never did, because
I truly took seriously the fact that Microsoft urged people to use UAC,
and it is just another layer to prevent some non-human user from trying to
do something to compromise the kernel or a service.

The only common reason to do
so is if there is a catastrophic hardware failure or the user allows
the system to become compromised.

Of course disk drives go out and either a whole partition backup or clean
install has to be done. But in my experience, there is a greater
probability of having to do a major (startup) repair or clean install of
Windows than there is the chance of the disk drive going belly up.

If that is your experience, you are doing something wrong and
destructive to the system. IOW, the problem is you, not Windows.

Now what would I be doing wrong? Using Windows, in or out of the wild?

I just love it how apologists always find a way to claim that, "Hey
there's nothing wrong with our system, and it must be the user." (And
they say that knowing that the system has a built-in "update" system to
repair TYPICALLY SYSTEM SECURITY problems on a virtually daily basis!!!)
Of course, you and I are not able to compare our usage of the instrument
and system just so we can find out you manage to keep Windows working. If
you run/manage IT at a company small or large, I can already guess how you
have disabled to system in many ways for the employees who use computer
systems: 1. USB drivers disabled to prevent personal flash drives from
mounting. 2. All web site visits locked to an approved list of hostnames
3. All email attachments removed from business-only email, and all file
transfers or any attachments emailed/transferred to IT, who then pass on
the approved attachment/file to the employee. 4. and the list goes on.
If I could and did use a regime like that, I'd guarantee too that business
productivity/timeliness/efficiency was halved all in order to have the
Fort Knox of IT security.

 

[pg]

microsoft.public.windows.vista.general:


By the way, is "Nil" short for Nilgun or Nilufer? (Oylese, merhaba)

Or is it short for "nothing" or "big zero"? (no insult intended)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

microsoft.public.windows.vista.general:

I am fully aware that registry cleaners are to be approached with caution,

My view is even stronger than that. They should not be used.

but I want to say this:

1. Registry cleaners are typically a last resort,

OK, I suppose that if I were ready to do a clean reinstallation of
Windows, I wouldn't be against trying a registry cleaner in that
situation. I wouldn't expect it to help me, but it couldn't make the
situation worse than it already was.

I note that my original
Vista installation lasted 28 months without requiring a clean install,

With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to reinstall
Windows (Vista or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG
3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista,
and now Windows 7, each for the period of time before the next version
came out, and each on two or more machines here. I never reinstalled
any of them, and I have never had anything more than an occasional
minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost
any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and
reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them. It gets you off the
phone quickly, it almost always works, and it doesn't require them to
do any real troubleshooting (a skill that most of them obviously don't
possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your
programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and application
updates, you have to locate and install all the needed drivers for
your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all your apps to work
the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may
have trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs?
Can you find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data
backups to restore? Do you even remember all the customizations and
tweaks you may have installed to make everything work the way you
like? Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and far
between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only after all
other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have failed.

although it had gone through moments where it needed startup repairs. The
only reason I did a clean install is not because the system had become
completely unusable, but because I had reasonable suspicion to believe
that a foreign law enforcement authority in a corrupt, lawless country---
who had taken possession of this laptop for what they said was part of an
investigation!---had possibly installed keylogger software, and I was
taking no chance that they had.

Yes! That's an excellent reason for doing what you did. I would have
done the same.

With XP, many people were advising a
clean install as a matter of routine if XP had been in use for 12 months
or so!!

Yes, not just with XP, but with every version of Windows, there are
some people who give such advice--some say every 12 months, other say
even more often. But in my view, that's *terrible* advice.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That may be your sad experience, but it is NOT a fact. I, and the
systems I take care of, are proof of that.

Ditto. I completely agree with you!

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

How's your input voltage? Take out any surge protection.

You are kidding, right?

 

[Billns]

My view is even stronger than that. They should not be used.




OK, I suppose that if I were ready to do a clean reinstallation of
Windows, I wouldn't be against trying a registry cleaner in that
situation. I wouldn't expect it to help me, but it couldn't make the
situation worse than it already was.






With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to reinstall
Windows (Vista or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG
3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista,
and now Windows 7, each for the period of time before the next version
came out, and each on two or more machines here. I never reinstalled
any of them, and I have never had anything more than an occasional
minor problem.

It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost
any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and
reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them. It gets you off the
phone quickly, it almost always works, and it doesn't require them to
do any real troubleshooting (a skill that most of them obviously don't
possess in any great degree).

But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your
programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and application
updates, you have to locate and install all the needed drivers for
your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all your apps to work
the way you're comfortable with.

Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may
have trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs?
Can you find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data
backups to restore? Do you even remember all the customizations and
tweaks you may have installed to make everything work the way you
like? Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and far
between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only after all
other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have failed.





Yes! That's an excellent reason for doing what you did. I would have
done the same.





Yes, not just with XP, but with every version of Windows, there are
some people who give such advice--some say every 12 months, other say
even more often. But in my view, that's *terrible* advice.

Agree with you, Ken.

I've been using PC's since 1983 and have only had to do a clean install
a couple times due to hardware problems. Of course the first MS-DOS
computer only had two floppy drives, so you could say I did a clean
install every time I started the computer... Initially I had to type in
the date and time at each start.

Who said those were the good old days? Machine, monochrome monitor, and
dot matrix printer set me back over $3k.

Bill

 

[Frank Drew Leyda]

Registry cleaners (Reg First Aid Plat and Crap Cleaner) have been used.

Well, that could be part of your problem right there. Registry Cleaners
are a BAD idea!

**************************************************
Crap Cleaner is OK.
I do not know about Reg First Aid Plat.