Windows Vista Ultimate Update Issues Resolved

I was setting up a Phenom 9850 Quad Core with Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit when the Windows Update stopped working.  I had tried Google searches and the various Microsoft FixIts to no avail.  Then, I said a little prayer to ask God to help me find the answer.  I literally thought of a new idea while in the shower!  I thought the only thing different in how I setup this computer from scratch was that I installed Internet Explorer 9 (circa 2011) early on. I was wondering if IE9 was causing the issues as Vista was from 2007 and maybe the early installation of  IE9 caused the issues.  I tried uninstalling IE9 and then trying the Windows Update - still failed.  I tried using System Restore to restore it back to an earlier time (November 21) and trying Windows Update and it still failed (I think I didn't uninstall IE9 on this try).  Then I decided to System Restore it back to early on from November 20th.  Upon the reboot, I noticed IE9 was still there (very early in the Vista installation process when I was setting up this computer).  I uninstalled IE9 from this earlier version of System Restore and ran Windows Update again.  Bingo!  It is back to normal again!

This computer will be given to an elementary school which will run Xibo Digital Signage on a  single TV.  Using Open Source will save them several thousand dollars in software costs.  The Gigabyte mainboard on this computer has VGA, HDMI/DVI, so it is already dual head and can work well for digital signage.  The downside with HDMI is you can send the HD signal over CAT5 cabling only about 100 feet max.  This is much shorter than the 300 m for VGA.  Unfortunately VGA is being phased out (many TVs don't have a VGA connector anymore).  VGA was great for digital signage!

I had originally given the school my Pentium 4 2.80 GHz (which barely worked with Xibo).  I was asked if I had a computer for a senior this past week, so I decided to get the Pentium 4 back from the school to give to the senior (I had to uninstall XAMPP and the Xibo stuff from it).  This led me to get rid of my last Windows Vista machine - a quad core Phenom 9850 running Vista Ultimate.  I'm now left with one laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium, 1 desktop running Windows 7 Pro, one laptop running Windows 8.1 Pro and two desktops running Windows 8.1 Pro. I'm now 'out of stock' of surplus computers!

Windows 8.1 upgrade glitch

I upgraded three computers from Windows 8 Pro to Windows 8.1 Pro yesterday.  It was kind of a pain because it must be done from the Windows App Store, so I had to sign in to each computer with a Microsoft account (Hotmail) and download the 3.8 Gig file to each computer.  The Lenovo Core i7 laptop took the longest (about 3 hours), but the two desktops took about 2 hours (including download time).

However, one computer developed a problem with its USB ports today and I didn't have a working mouse.  It was the Core i5 with an Asus board.  The USB ports on the computer were not working at all.  So, I didn't have a mouse and couldn't do much.  Then I thought about plugging in a PS/2 mouse so that I could see what the problem was.  After I had a functioning PS/2 mouse, I found the problem with the USB extensible host interface:

I removed the problem device and it reinstalled itself properly.  Now my USB ports work again!  Not a good experience though.