I’ve been doing maintenance on a few systems here and just saw a flurry of optional driver updates appear on several systems. New ATI video drivers (June 2008 release) appeared for video cards on two separate systems here. On my dedicated Media Center system I was offered an updated driver for the USB Bluetooth adapter. My HP TX2500 and ASUS R1F Tablet PCs were both offered new drivers for the integrated Realtek 8168 Ethernet adapter.

Unless a new driver fixes serious bugs or compatibility issues, it’s going to be categorized as Optional, which means you have to get the process started manually by going to Windows Update in Control Panel and clicking the Check for updates link. Here’s what you’ll see:

To see the optional updates, click View available updates (under the Install updates button).

Note that the check box to the left of the update isn’t selected. You have to manually click that box before the Install button is available. If you want to know more about what’s in the specific update, right-click the entry in the Updates list and click View details. That opens a dialog box like the one shown in the screen above.

Oh, and best of all: None of these updates required a reboot.

Earlier this week I wrote about Ben Drawbaugh’s hands-on look at the new Media Center TV Pack for Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions, formerly known by its codename, “Fiji.” (See Read all about the new Media Center TV features you can’t have, and also see Mary Jo Foley’s excellent coverage here and here.)

Today, in a post at The Green Button, Microsoft’s Ben Reed, Product Marketing Manager for Windows Media Center, confirmed most of the details in those posts, including this feature list:

The Windows Media Center TV Pack is primarily targeted at adding support for additional international broadcast standards including:

• Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting – Terrestrial (ISDB-T) Digital television standard for Japan
• Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) free-to-air satellite standards  in  Europe
• Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) digital television with  improved user experience in Europe
• ClearQAM (Unencrypted Digital Cable)in the United States
• Interactive television with integrated Broadcast Markup language (BML) in Japan and Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group (MHEG) (MHEG5) in Europe

He also confirmed that the update “does not include native support for subscription-based satellite tuners or the H.264 video standard.” The explanation is diplomatic, to say the least: “We test many features in beta releases, and optimize our feature set in the final code for the best user experience.”

So what does that mean? I wish Ben had been a little bit more forthright. My guess is that the unvarnished answer would sound something like this: We tested the crap out of the new satellite tuners and wrote code until our fingers were bleeding, and they just don’t work well enough for us to ship ’em. We’d rather take the hit for not releasing this product than put out a buggy product that makes your life miserable.

In fact, it’s hard for me to come up with any alternative scenario that makes sense. I know that Microsoft and DirecTV are dying to get satellite tuners into the market to compete with CableCARD-based products. The process should actually be easier with satellite companies, which have a single infrastructure to support, than it is for the cable industry with its thousands of local infrastructures, no two of which are alike. CableCARD devices haven’t exactly set the world on fire. Does Microsoft really need to launch a new product that doesn’t work as promised? Does Vista really need more bad reviews?

As for the decision to ship the new code only through OEMs, that sure sounds like the fallout from a design decision made early on. It’s a lot easier to test and support code on new, clean installations than it is to support thousands or even millions of unique upgrade configurations. The tendency of Media Center enthusiasts to push the envelopes of hardware, software, and codec support makes it even riskier for upgraders.

I’m willing to cut Microsoft a lot of slack in this case, although others in the Media Center community aren’t so sanguine. Chris Lanier calls Fiji a “mess” and predicts it will “go down in history as one of the worst coordinated projects to come out of Microsoft in a long time.” But I’m trying to figure out how they could possibly have done things differently. They ran a beta test program as quietly as possible, making no public promises or announcements along the way. Some features didn’t clear the quality bar, so they got cut from the final shipping product. I understand being disappointed in that result, but how do you change that without either (1) not testing at all or (2) shipping a buggy product?

I should have pointed this out earlier this week, but better late than never. The How-To Geek has an excellent post over at Lifehacker that every Windows user should read.

Mythbusting: Debunking Common Windows Performance Tweaking Myths hits just about every one of the myths you’re likely to find at various how-to sites, including several I’ve written about extensively here.

Excellent reading, and the conversation in the comments section is entertaining as well.

Is there anything more frustrating than contacting a company’s support line with a detailed problem report and having to walk through a set of canned answers that are clearly inappropriate to solving the current problem?

I’ve had that experience twice in the past week. Once with Qwest, where a support agent actually asked me to unplug the phone cord from my DSL adapter and reverse it, taking the end that had been plugged into the wall and connecting it to the modem, and vice versa. I was momentarily speechless as I tried to figure out what good this could possibly do, but the agent insisted this had to be done before she would proceed. This was after power-cycling the adapter twice and disconnecting it completely for five minutes while they “ran some tests”. I finally refused to go any further when the agent wanted me to take the modem outside (presumably with a 50-foot extension cord) and connect it to the input jack on the outside of the house. Uh, no, I won’t do that. The problem, it turned out, was a faulty card in the phone company network center at the end of our block. How do I know that? Because the supervisor I finally insisted on speaking to actually checked and discovered that no one in my neighborhood was showing an active connection. Imagine that.

(In the interests of fairness, I should note that Qwest’s support professionals for their broadband phone [VoIP] service are first-rate. Amazingly good, in fact, perhaps because they know how to listen. Qwest’s other divisions should learn from them.)

Then, today, I was downloading some music tracks from the subscription-based Rhapsody service and was suddenly disconnected from the server. Trying to log back in kept failing. After waiting 15 minutes, I contacted Rhapsody support via their web-based chat interface. The agent seemed intent on resetting my password even though it was pretty clear the problem was either on the network or at the server. (Hint: I was connected using saved credentials, and the problem started when I was suddenly disconnected.) After ten minutes of this pointlessness, the Rhapsody servers came back online, the software reconnected, and my downloads resumed. No thanks to the clueless front-line support tech.

So, what’s your worst experience ever? Any excellent service stories to tell?

Ben Drawbaugh at EngadgetHD has a short but information-rich hands-on look at the Vista Media Center TV Pack (aka “Fiji”). The new features are ideal for someone like me, with multiple CableCARD tuners and multiple over-the-air ATSC digital tuners.

Two much-anticipated features are missing, according to Ben’s report: DirecTV support and H.264 file compatibility. Here’s a partial list of what is included:

• Native support for clear QAM signals
• Less stringent DRM, which should allow you to move or copy recorded files from unprotected (non-premium) channels delivered via CableCARD
• The ability to assign and prioritize individual tuners on a per-channel basis
• Per-user favorite lists
• Access to digital subchannels
• Custom channel numbering

Only trouble is, you and I can’t get the updates, which are currently available only to beta testers in time-bombed versions that will expire this fall. [Update, thanks to Joe in the comments: Mary Jo Foley says the version handed to beta testers will not be time-bombed.] That’s when OEMs will get the new bits to include in Vista Home Premium and Ultimate systems. As far as anyone can tell, the new features will not be available as an upgrade, only with new systems. It’s highly unlikely that it will be available as a System Builder package for do-it-yourselfers, given that CableCARD support is currently available only with new systems from OEMs like Dell and HP.

From a support point of view, this decision makes a lot of sense. From an enthusiast’s point of view, it’s a colossal disappointment.

May I just politely express my displeasure with Qwest right now? Apparently I signed up for Internet access and phone service over leased tin cans connected with used fishing line. And it’s only available two hours a day. At least, that’s the conclusion I draw based on the actual service I’ve received for the past two weeks.

Details to follow after this afternoon’s outage (apparently also a new feature I signed up for without realizing it).

Every six months I go to the dentist’s office, and every time I marvel at the ancient computer that the hygienist is using for her scheduling software. The reason I notice it is because I used to have two of them myself. The other day, while looking for an old file, I ran across a Word document that contained product keys for Windows XP, one of which had been assigned to one of these computers.

Here, courtesy of Paul’s Computer Jamboree, is a picture of the ancient machine:

Marvel at these specs:

• 233MHz Pentium II processor
• 64MB ECC SDRAM memory
• 3.2GB Western Digital 23200 IDE hard disk
• 32X Toshiba XM-6202B IDE CDROM drive
• 3.5" floppy drive
• 2MB Matrox Mystique video (on board)
• Intel 21143-based 10/100 Ethernet (on board)
• Crystal 16-bit Sound (on board)

Believe it or not, those specs (including the 3.2GB hard disk) actually met the original minimum system requirements for Windows XP Professional, although an upgrade to 128MB of RAM was recommended, as was a processor running at 300 MHz.

This 1998-vintage system was probably around three years old when Windows XP was released. I would love to give one of these to the Save XP fanatics and read their review.

Or, asked another way, how much is your time worth? I just picked up a new HP consumer-grade notebook. It doesn’t come with Windows installation media. Instead, it has a recovery partition and a utility that allows you to burn the recovery media to DVD (or CD, but you’d have to be a little nuts to choose that option).

I was really surprised at how long it took to burn those disks. All in all, it was over two hours. Now, I didn’t have to sit and babysit the machine while it was doing this task, and probably spent a grand total of 10 minutes clicking buttons and swapping disks. But still, that’s too long.

For $19, I could have ordered official media, it turns out:

Given that I have multiple image-based backups and I was able to create the recovery media easily, I’m not sure I would have paid the $19 even if I had noticed this option. Would you?

If you’re a victim of AOL’s decision to shut down the Xdrive online service, you’re in luck. One of my favorite online services, Box.net, has a deal for you. Company spokesperson Kendra Ott sends along these details:

I just talked with Aaron, CEO, and we are happy to offer a 20% discount to XDrivers… feel free to pass this info along to your readers:

To redeem the offer, you must sign up through the following url:

www.box.net/ref/xdrive and use the code ‘xdrive’ – it is case sensitive and must be all lower-case.

Good people, good product.

In a new post over at ZDNet, I look at a surprising trend: an increasing number of new PCs being sold at retail have 64-bit versions of Windows Vista preinstalled. In fact, if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are correct, by this fall more than 50% of new PCs sold at retail are likely to have 64-bit editions of Vista preinstalled.

Read the rest here: Suddenly, 64-bit Windows is mainstream

When I configured a new notebook recently, I only had to ponder for a few seconds before deciding to go with Vista x64. In fact, right now I have three machines within arm’s reach running Vista x64. How about you?