A number of people are reporting that they are having problems in their Windows Vista SP2 installation and the reason for this could be vLite, which is a software used to customize the installation of Windows Vista. The error message seen is

“Service Pack installation cannot continue
One or more system components that the service pack requires are missing.”

This software was used to ensure that users get to remove unwanted features of Windows Vista to allow installation and better performance on limited hardware resources of the computer.

To resolve this problem, re-install Windows Vista SP1 as suggested by Microsoft – Ms Support.

It’s been over a month since the Lauren & Giampaolo campaign struck a nerve on most Americans where the cheaper computer system is the better choice for you and for your family. You might not be cool enough for a MAC, but definitely you are good enough for your family’s welfare especially in today’s landscape where the global crisis is affecting everyone on the this planet.

In an excerpt:

Under Steve Jobs, Apple has almost always sought to position the Mac as an antiestablishment high-end computer, a computer for those who “think different” and get excited by their computers. Price is not a consideration for those willing to think different.

The only thing the PC industry is excited about right now are Netbooks, which they fail to mention are eroding their margins even more than they have already been eroded after decades of price wars. And now Microsoft is once again driving the price message, training consumers to expect ever lower prices from their computer salesperson.

Apple, meanwhile, with the best margins in the personal computer industry and two highly profitable consumer electronics products funding its growth, has now had its marketing message of the last two years–Macs are better than PCs–amplified by its rival’s message–PCs are cheaper than Macs.

In Tom Krazit’s last paragraph, he writes that the world needs Kias while the world wants BMWs which further cements that MACs are an aspirational product. I do not agree that MACs are an aspirational product because my aspiration is a $ 6,000 USD dollar Alienware laptop that would pop my eyeballs everytime I use it. Ok, $ 6,000 dollars is a high aspiration.

Go ahead and read the article here.

The Windows Vista menu is configured to display after 400 milliseconds, while it isn’t slow, some people prefer to remove this to improve faster loading times.

Following are the steps to remove the delay and make menus load faster:

1. Click on Start Menu

2. Type “regedit” on the Vista search box

3. Run the registry with administrator rights

4. Navigate to the following registry location — HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

5. Double click on the “MenuShowDelay” entry

6. On the “MenuShowDelay” screen, change the “400″ value on “Value data:” text box to “0″. See image below:

7. Check and feel your 400 millisecond faster loading time.

If you want to quickly stop background processes to speed up your computer, the following steps would quickly help you do it.

1. Pop the run command

2. Type MsConfig and run as adminstrator

3. The screen above shows up, and click on Services

4. Disable what you want click Cancel

Have you ever wondered how come there is an application icon in your taskbar and could not turn it off from the Task Manager?

If you cannot delete the application from the task manager because of its unavailability, you can turn it off from the Services module.

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I like the task scheduler at times especially when I need Vista to perform a task at a specified time.

As described by Windows:

The Task Scheduler MMC snap-in helps you schedule automated tasks that perform actions at a specific time or when a certain event occurs. It maintains a library of all scheduled tasks, providing an organized view of the tasks and a convenient point of access for managing them. From within the library, you can run, disable, modify, and delete tasks. The Task Scheduler user interface (UI) is an MMC snap-in that replaces the Scheduled Tasks Explorer extension in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000. For more information about starting or accessing the Task Scheduler UI, see Start Task Scheduler.

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BitLocker drive encryption helps prevent unauthorized access to your files. This ensure that other users logged in to your system regardless of their access rights should not be able to read or use your protected files.

Bitlocker Overview (from help)

Unlike Encrypting File System (EFS), which enables you to encrypt individual files, BitLocker encrypts the entire system drive, including the Windows system files necessary for startup and logon. You can log on and work with your files normally, but BitLocker can help block hackers from accessing the system files they rely on to discover your password, or access your hard disk by removing it from your computer and installing it in a different computer. BitLocker can only help protect files that are stored on the drive that Windows is installed on. If you store files on other drives, you can help protect those files with EFS. For more information, see What is Encrypting File System (EFS)?

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Prerequisite

1. Logged-in as administrator
2. Unallocated empty space on a hard disk,
3. Or free space within an extended partition on the hard disk

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In case you have accidentally removed your administrative privileges, you can use the hidden administrator account in Windows Vista by following the steps below:

1. Search and run the command prompt as administrator
2. Type “net users administrator /active:yes”
3. Log-off and you can now login as an administrator with no password
4. Add administrative rights to you account
5. Disable the hidden administrator account by typing the following in the command prompt: “net users administrator /active:no”

If you have already applied Windows Vista SP1 the command “mstsc /console” would not work when trying to connect to a console session using RPD Client as Vista SP1 has changed the “/console” command to “/admin”.

This is a little change but I do not see the rationale with it. Anyways, happy “/admining….”