If you use Vista, you’ve run into this problem. Vista seems to think that every folder contains music, because the “Artists”, “Album”, “#”, “Genre” and “Rating” columns are always visible. Look at my example above. This is after resetting all of the file type settings, etc… and Vista still thinks that a directory containing two MDB (Access databases) and a ZIP file warrant showing media columns. Ugh.

Please, Microsoft, fix this for SP1. The fact that it isn’t fixed already via a hotfix speaks volumes about how slow you react to even the smallest of bugs.

I’m sorry I rant so much, but these things are really upsetting me lately. Maybe you can relate to some of the topics?

Dell – A friend of mine, Nicole, brought me her Dell laptop to take a look at, since it will no longer boot. I figure it’s a bad hard drive.. the signs point to that, so I order a drive and stick it in, preparing to reinstall Windows. System can’t find the drive.. or wait, it can, oh wait.. it can’t. It randomly just doesn’t see the hard drive. I check online, and find that the world pretty much agrees that the Dell Inspiron 5150 is the crappiest model of laptop to ever roam this earth, plagued with engineering flaws that cause chips to crack, the CPU to overheat (2), and power plugs to short out. This led to Dell getting a class-action lawsuit brought against them, and them losing. As part of the settlement, they must pay for repairs up until Sept. 30th, 2007.

Now, Nicole’s already had the motherboard replaced by a tech once before, sent the laptop in for repair, had yet another motherboard replacement, a power adapter replacement, etc… and it’s still not working right. I had her speak to Dell again and get another motherboard. They say they can’t send one at first, citing some policy that once a motherboard’s been sent out, they can’t send out another (what?!) but the tech eventually agrees to send one out. They receive it the next day, and I examine it. The “new” board is actually refurbished from 2005 and looks terrible. I decide to swap it out anyway, and what do you know? It doesn’t work.

I’ve heard that some people have had luck e-mailing the “Customer Advocate” team at Dell (Customer_Advocate@Dell.com) and I did e-mail them six days ago, but haven’t heard a peep. I’m e-mailing them back tonight and asking for them to at least respond. I’m seriously doubting they’ll bother responding back.

Microsoft/Windows Vista – I had to completely re-install Vista two days ago, because SQL Management Studio stopped connecting to servers. Just straight up would not connect to any server anymore. Just gave me a generic fatal network error message. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cleaning out the registry, deleting files, etc… just couldn’t get it to work. And seeing as SQL Management Studio is pretty much a requirement to do my job, I had to reinstall everything to get it working again. Ugh.

Then, I decided to upgrade my laptop’s hard drive and memory, since I had skimped on it before, but now that I use it for work, I need it to be much faster. Bought a 100 gig 7200 RPM laptop hard drive and two gigabytes of RAM. Put the new hard drive in, and Vista says it’s now deactivated. What?!

Maybe you know that I’ve had problems with Vista’s lame activation in the past. How about the time I put in a soundcard? Or the time I reinstalled Vista (after having it installed for months beforehand?) Now I get it for installing a hard drive. Of course I have to call, read off a number to a guy in India, and then he reads me back another code, and I’m activated again. What a waste of my time.. and there was really no reason to get “deactivated” in the first place.

Microsoft/XBox 360 – My XBox 360 recently started getting the red rings of death. It wasn’t so bad at first, but then it got ridiculous, locking up like 20 minutes into a DVD, etc… so I decided to send it in. The first call, I spent about an hour waiting and talking to a tech, leading me through troubleshooting steps (which obviously aren’t going to fix the red rings problem.) Of course I get disconnected in the middle of this, so I give up for that night and try again a short while later. This time, the tech tells me that their computer systems are down, and I need to call back in 30 minutes. Ok.. so I do call back, and the automated voice prompts tell me that I can just do a service request online. Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?

So I file a request, they send me a little box to package up my XBox 360, and I send it back (to somewhere in Texas.) You can check the status of your repair via their http://service.xbox.com/ site.. at first it said my unit had not yet been received, then it changed to received.. and now it says “No Repair”, and that my warranty is invalid. Obviously I freaked a little, and snooped around online for “no pending repair”. Looks like this means they swapped it out for a refurbished console. Okay, that makes sense, but why should the service status be so misleading? Why can’t it say “swapped out” or “replaced” or “replacement shipped”? Instead, I have no way of even knowing if the accepted my repair, shipped it, etc.. talk about lame.

I guess I’ll wait a few more days and see if an XBox 360 comes to my door via UPS. If not, I’ll have to call and deal with a guy in India.. (gee doesn’t that sound familiar?)

Nissan – I love my car. No really, I do. The navigation system needs work, but other than that, gravy. Except I keep having a problem where my driver’s seat has it’s leather “unhooked” from the seat itself, near where the seat touches the center console. I attribute it to me being a bigger guy, but still, it shouldn’t be coming undone. I’ve had Nissan fix this twice now, and it still keeps popping off. So I e-mailed corporate and they e-mailed me back days later, asking for my mileage and where I last had it serviced. I send them back the information, and they say a “specialist” will be in touch with me by the following business day. It’s been two days, and nothing. I’m not that upset yet, but when you say following business day, you probably should mean it.

But even if they do contact me.. say, tomorrow.. what is this “specialist” going to do for me? Just tell me to bring it in to get fixed? It obviously keeps happening.. it seems like an engineering problem to me. I don’t sit in my car funny, aka slamming your butt onto the seat as you jump in. And I always try to be “centered” in my seat, so I just don’t get it.

Anyways, I’m sorry for such a long rant. But maybe you can relate to some of these. I don’t think I’m expecting too much from these companies, and it just goes to show how little they care for their customers in general.

The Windows desktop may stop updating correctly after a Windows Vista-based computer has been running for an extended period of time: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932406

I started having this problem a LOT lately. Not quite sure why. I’m installing this hotfix, maybe it’ll do the trick. I’m sharing the info. in case it helps others out..

With the ongoing BioShock saga…

On a whim, I stopped using my onboard RealTek 7.1 HD audio device, and put my Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeMusic back into my machine. I really hate Creative, and have had nothing but problems with their Vista drivers, but figured I might as well give this a shot. Setup the drivers, setup the new Creative ALchemy (to give EAX support under Vista), and fired up BioShock. Wow. 5.1 audio actually works, and sounds pretty decent.

I’m guessing that 2K Games never extensively tested the game with onboard audio devices. This doesn’t make much sense, seeing as over 50% of the users out there use onboard sound for their games. At least according to the last Valve hardware survey. And it also doesn’t make sense to me that every other game I often play (Counter Strike: Source, Oblivion, Command and Conquer 3, etc.) works fine in 5.1 mode with my onboard controller.

I’ve written before how I believe Creative/etc. are a dying breed, with their custom audio APIs and effects layers. This just proves my point a bit more.

Since I can now semi-play the game, I’ll give it a go and write my review a bit later on.

Update: After disabling my onboard sound card, and installing the X-Fi, Vista once again is forcing me to re-activate. What the f—k? I’m getting so tired of this crap.

From a post by 2k Elizabeth, a person who works for 2k Games:

hey guys,

first, let me say this. you DO NOT NEED TO USE THE INTERNET EVERY TIME YOU PLAY THIS GAME. it is only the first time.

second, you can uninstall and reinstall this game, and if, by chance, you have 2 computers you want to simultaneously play this game on, you also can do that.

if by some chance you are reinstalling this game without uninstalling it first, a lot, there is a chance you may have to call securom and get a key, or deactivate some older installations.

but if you upgrade your hardware next week, you'll still be able to play the game. if you revamp your system and need to reinstall bioshock, just uninstall it before you go through the overhaul, and then do your reinstall.

calling it "hardware fingerprinting" is a bit alarmist. we do not transmit any of your data to any companies.

really, the only people who will be concerned about any of these security measures are those who are rapidly putting bioshock on many pcs... if you use the game as you normally do, you won't notice this at all.

AWESOME!

I feel sorry for people who bought the game and don’t have an always-on internet connection. This protection means that the first time they go to play it, they’ll have to connect to the internet.

And I’ll now have to remember to uninstall the game next time I buy a new PC or rebuild my current one. And let’s hope the activation doesn’t fail randomly, because we know that never happens, especially on Windows Vista. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to call a third party (SecuROM) and plead my case. Wonderful!

And guess who doesn’t have to worry about any of these things? The people who pirated the game in the first place.

To top it off, she ends with basically saying if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. Riiight. Since when is it up to game manufacturers to determine how many PCs I can install a game on?

You win, 2k Games! Truly you have conquered all video game pirating!