After the previous BSOD in Vista, I logged in to Vista interactively as an administrator (I usually run as a standard user), and I was greeted with a dialog informing me about a “serious error” or the like. I chose to check for updates to the problem. What came back was more than I expected, but not really all that helpful for my particular situation.

Problem caused by ATI Graphics Driver

This problem was caused by ATI Graphics Driver.

This program was created by ATI Technologies, Inc.. ATI Technologies, Inc. does not currently have a solution for the problem that you reported.

Recommendation

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The following troubleshooting steps might prevent the problem from recurring.

Download and install an updated version of ATI Graphics Driver from one of the following locations:
Microsoft Update
ATI Technologies, Inc.

If an updated driver is not available for ATI Graphics Driver, check with your computer manufacturer.

If you are running the latest version of ATI Graphics Driver, contact ATI Technologies, Inc. for your support options.

Additional information

If this problem continues to occur after installing the latest product updates, we recommend you get assistance and troubleshooting information directly from ATI Technologies, Inc..

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I am running the latest driver, and ATI has discontinued the Radeon 9600 Pro. Not a big deal, as the problem has only happened twice. Of course, I would rather that it not happen at all…

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Since I've published article "PXE, aka Pre-Execution Environment - Part 1" I've got a lot of emails with the same question - 'Where is a Part 2?". So, here it is.

I know many Network Administrators who work with Acronis products and i also sometime work with those good products. This week i did a project for one of my clients in Seattle, WA. The main idea was to deploy an Acronis image on new servers and configure those servers according to system requirements. So, again, those servers came without floppy drive and CD/DVD :) and as all of you know, to restore Acronis image on a new machine we have to use Bootable Rescue Media, aka Bootable CD with Acronis on it. Yes, I know, that Acronis provides a products with PXE integrated, but i don't have it :) and I've used my own PXE server.

The first step I did was create Bootable Rescue Media. Then I took 2 files, kernel.dat and ramdisk.dat from Acronis's directory and put them into C:\PXEServer\TFTPRoot\Boot directory. Well, now was the time to make a small changes to our "default" file (default file located in C:\PXEServer\TFTPRoot\Boot\pxelinux.cfg\ directory). After all those changes my "default" file now looks as follow:

The next steps were pretty simple ;), Boot, Select Acronis from the menu, Select Image for recovery and.....

Thanks to time PXE saved me I was able to spend some time in very beautiful city Seattle.


Relaited Articles
PXE, aka Pre-Execution Environment - Part 1

Do you know that you can make your computer shutdown faster in about one second? Super Fast Shutdown is an amazing utitility to make it for you. It is a utility that will make your computer shutdown or restart faster instantly…Yes! I mean your computer shutdown/restart in about one second! So far I have no problem with this utility but I could not say this utility has no problem. I just wanted to share my experience using this utility and in my opinion, Super Fast Shutdown is absolutely fantastic. For those who wish to try this utility, you can follow these steps:

1. Download Super Fast Shutdown from www.xp-smoker.com

2. Extract the files and double click on the setup file to install Super Fast Shutdown on your computer.

3. After you finish install the utility, you can click on the Super Fast Reboot or Super Fast Shutdown when you wish to shutdown or restart your computer and you will notice that how fast your computer shutdown/restart.

www.xp-smoker.com:
Warning: Superfast Shutdown is extremely powerful! Use at your own risk! Although it has never been reported, regular usage could possibly cause disk corruption.

The Mactopia website is finally changing. It only took them a year or two. The lifeless gray page dating almost 3 years old, reminiscent of Microsoft’s older table-based templates, is being replaced with a slick white-on-black contemporary design in the coming weeks as part of the Office for Mac 2008 release in January. A slide from an internal sales training presentation shows a near-final mockup of what the site will look like.

Can’t deny the inspiration from the Expression and Microsoft Design sites.