ChangeWP problems with Vista install

[praphan]

BTW Peter, I have the privilege of obtaining the Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter and Web (x64) from my company.

Is this version good to go?
Thanks

[PeterSt]

No !!
That's the W7 version.
(unless you want that of course). You'll need R1 (if it is called like that), or just the first W2008. I'm not sure about service packs; maybe one exists, if it's only not leading to that R2 version.

2. As far as I remember, the "... stop service" issue started after I ran on Vista. I don't think I had ever encountered this issue on W7. But the point is that this ... stop working things got right into W7 environment even without XX installed in it.

Sorry for the maybe stupid question ... but is this just similar to Vista and e.g. the Spooler service "stopped working" - hence all kind of services shutting down which actually don't harm (apart from maybe those which do harm you) ?
... not that I can do anything with the answer, but it's just so strange ...
And is this without any "tweaking" to W7 ?

Peter

[crisnee]

Hi again Praphan,

Your situation feels (not from logic just a sense) to be very similar to mine. There is however a little logic involved. Something is going on pre operating system and possibly pre almost everything, like right after the BIOS. That's how it can effect both OS's. Now what that could be, I don't know. But what seems possible (in terms of a thought experiment) is that the crashing of XX--or something else, affected some very odd little thing that happens at a very early stage of boot-up. It must be extremely early because in my case anyway I wouldn't even get an error beep, or to memory check, the computer just started and hung immediately. And the bios thing I mentioned (entering and exiting the bios and saving without making changes), what can that possibly do, and yet suddenly I could get on and everything was fine.

I say all this seemingly nonsensical stuff thinking more of my troubles than yours (but since yours "feel" very similar [they also revolve around XX, and only made their appearance after using XX, happen very early in the boot cycle, lead to blue screens and/or seemingly endless waits, not to mention that the problems you had with XX when it was working to some degree were also similar etc.) I even went through the same thoughts and updates re video card and drivers, audio drivers and searched the earth for the latest. Nothing helped, there were no apparent problems with any hardware.

By the way, if I connect that usb device I still can't boot, but I now know just to disconnect it and start over. It's also interesting that when I reboot in that situation I just have to brush the on/off button and it shuts off immediately, as if it's saying "what took you so long, clown." Usually when you shut the PC down you have to hold the button for a few seconds. Anyway, the problem was that before I'd figured out about the usb device and the anti-malware service part of Microsoft Security Essentials, things would interact (I assume) and the blue screen would show-up and I would have the same problems as you have with no clue as to what was happening. I just lucked into the BIOS cure because I was going there so often to try different settings.

With all this I'm kind of thinking out loud, and trying to give you as much info as possible. I keep going back to the thought that your computer is running into something unrecognized and is stumped in a sense. I was playing around with a different computer today, trying to find a way to convert the audio track of some DVD/DVD-As to just audio (flac or mp3) and while doing so, suddenly the DVD drive would disappear, or it would show just one file. in other words it suddenly became an unrecognized device, or partially incorrectly recognized. I'm thinking something like that happened to something on your system that screws things up when you try to re-boot and possibly also sends you to the blue screen when it interacts with something else.

So, I'd definitely try the bios thing, just to see. But if somewhere there's an unknown or unrecognized device (or your system thinks there is) that is hanging up your system.... and it's hidden. I'd try uninstalling every thing that has or should have a device driver, one at a time, or maybe better yet as many as you can at once and than reinstall one at a time.

Anyway, I wish you luck. I hope my rambling helps in some way. What a pain. Chris

[PeterSt]

Something I just very coincidentally ran into ...

First there's Nick's post here : http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1410.msg13703#msg13703
If you follow the link in there, there's a Next button in the top right corner. So I thought "what will that bring" and clicked it. This is what it brings : http://www.osronline.com/ddkx/ddtools/bootini_9b3n.htm.  An excerpt of it :

Establishes a port for EMS transmission. This statement appears in the boot loader section of the boot.ini file and applies to all boot entries on the computer.

This tells me that at least it is possible to impeed "a" setting to spread over several boots. Whether this updates all the boot.ini's or there's a general one somewhere (unlikely ?) I don't know, but if the latter, you might be stuck with it until you low-level format the disk.

And we DID apply such a command ... about DEP. (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1398.msg13494#msg13494)
Maybe that too spreads over OSes (to be born haha).

A cause or not, maybe good to keep in mind anyway.
Peter

[PeterSt]

From that same website :

Drivers developers and testers often have to add, delete, and change the parameters of boot entries to test their drivers under variable conditions. This section describes a few common scenarios and suggests strategies for configuring boot parameters in the boot.ini file and in NVRAM.

Non volatile RAM eh ... (but probably here the BIOS is referred to).

[praphan]

Hi Christ and Peter,

Thanks for your thoughts about my situation and advise.  Uhmmm... pretty technical for me but I will try to go back step by step to think about what went wrong.

One thing for sure now is that Lynx card is not  the cause of the  problem. I had it  removed from the mobo and the  stop working  thing still exists.    What a relief ! I can buy new mobo or graphic card to fix the issue , but not the Lynx card.

Tomorrow I will remove graphic card and use the onboard standard VGA to see what happen.  If it run without ... stop working.. or BSOD, then might be the graphic card driver conflict with XX.

For your information, I use 'driver sweeper' to totally clean drivers to make sure there is no left over whatsoever.

I will try to help myself as much as I can and report back soon.

Thank  you so much again.
Praphan

[praphan]

Problem with ATI HD5770 + W7 that crashes XX

Hi Christ and Peter,

Now I am ready to report back my situation. I finally have my issues fixed under W7 environment. I haven't had Vista reinstalled yet. My problem is not related to the Vista and change WP at all. But rather the compatibility problem between display driver and W7. It doesn't occur to all PC but some selected one for unknown reason and I was the unlucky one. I found this from the step recommended by you two. What had I done is quite simple but I would like to share my findings here so those who might have the same problem as mine can save time to fix it. Here you go:

1. As I mentioned in my last post, I have reinstalled W7 from scratch , then installed mobo, ATI HD 5770 , Lynx card drivers as well as flash BIOS with latest version. After rebooting, my PC went into BSOD.

2. Then I shoot back to the point where I haven't installed any drivers by using both unstallation tools under "control panel". But to make sure that these drivers were completely cleaned up, I used "driver sweeper" (freeware from Guru3D). Just a note for those who never use this sweeper, make sure that you reboot the system into fail safe mode (hit F8 right after system loading OS) then run driver sweep and check all the drivers that you want to remove then clean. In my case, I removed Lynx, ATI HD 5770 drivers.

3. As my BSOD jumps across OS, so Christ observation is right that there must be something wrong inherited in the boot.int file. How to clear this? I did a very simple dummy way. Just open the PC case, then remove battery on the mobo to reset BIOS (you can use jumper to short it as well). Note that I used to flash the BIOS. By doing this I brought mobo back to the default BIOS. This brought my PC back to the point as if I just finished installation of W7 on new hardware.

4.  Now reinstalling Lynx card driver first. Then shut down and turn on PC again. No problem. In my case, shut down =\ restart. Then instead of reinstalling the ATI display driver right away. I took time to google "ATI HD 5770 driver problem with Windows 7". Wow ! I am not alone. Tons of people having the same BSOD like me. The driver that has problem with W7 start from 10.3 to 10.9. The one that I always use is 10.9.

5. I was about to download ATI driver version 10.2 but luckily ATI just released a new 10.10 on that date. Release note implied driver conflict is resolved.

6. After installing ATI display driver version 10.10 and reboot, thanks god, system start normally. Then I went on to install all the applications that I need including XXHE. After 2 days test, the system has run smoothly and stably. A side note to user of ATI HD 5770, you should disable Catalyst AI (open CCC => Advance => Graphics => 3D => All => check "Disable Catalyst AI ).

My system is now pretty stable. Running XX , Power DVD, ripping CD and surfing the net all at the same time without problem.

My next action is to install Vista.

Peter, I have licences for both Vista Business 64bit and Windows Server 2008 64 bit. What do you recommend me to install?

Thanks,

Praphan

[PeterSt]

Who says you should ask questions to us ? We should be calling you !!
haha.
Man, good you solved it all, and what a good feeling it must give you (ok, in the end) that you did it yourself. Great.


Before I would have said go W2008 (not R2) - which I actually did, but regarding the post from Josef from today (Re: Installing Win2008 info) ... I guess Josef is right. It *will* be more stable, but only because without doing something yourself it will be. With Vista you can reach the same (well, theoretically because you'd have to know what to "kill" in order to get to the (stripped) W2008 version).

Also don't underestimate the steep price for such a server version (I never realized this so much).

Btw, regarding Vista 64 bit, take care you get SP1 at least.

Regards now,
Peter

[praphan]

Hi Peter,

I would be happy to talk to you guys if you actually call me in Bangkok !    If you guys are happened to be here in this part of the world, I am happy to host a decent super spicy Thai lunch.    You will need to bring a fire extinguisher with you haha.

I still have some slight instability though. it happened after an overnight shut down (by physically swith off the power supply as well). With the first boot, ... services stop working randomly. Easily fixed by just *shuting down* the PC and press the power button to reboot again then the system will run normally. I must shut down not restart. I am still scratching my head for this. So weird !!

Yes I have Windows Server 2008 (I can get R2 though) which is Vista based. I got it free from my company. On Vista 64bit, I also downloaded SP1 as well.

I guess I will go for the Server 2008 as it requires less work to strip it down to bare bone.

Thanks
Praphan

[crisnee]

Hi Praphan,

Glad things are working better, although I bet you're still a bit worried about the services thing and what else might happen. I would be given the unexplained nature of the problems. The shutdown vs. reboot thing sounds eerily similar to the enter BIOS but don't make changes thing; it doesn't promote relaxed computing.

From what I've read here, if you're going Win2008 you should stick with the original sp1 version if you can. Good luck.

I love hot food by the way, the Mexican green chili heat in particular.

Chris

[praphan]

Hi Chris,

The ... service stop runnning things are harmless to me now. Just a jitter.

Thanks for your guide anyway. I owed you a lunch if you are coming to BKK. I have never tried Maxican chili myself but my children did. It is no where near the Thai small green/red chili called "Prik Kee Noo". It is too hot even for me.

Cheers!
Praphan