Blog posts tagged "windows vista" – Posts 1..5 of 6 posts found:

And then Windows 10 Creators Update came out. Along with all kinds of improvements came the reset of all customisation to default settings (ugh!). This included resetting the MIDI output to Microsoft's default and underwhelming "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth". I found my MIDI Selector tool was no longer completely effective on Windows 10 x64 and had a minor bug as well as some slight inefficiencies. Fixed version 1.0.1 has been posted on the tools page.

Windows Vista and later no longer include the MIDI mapper that was used in earlier Windows versions to route MIDI output to the preferred device. Vista did away with this, supporting only the rather underwhelming "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth". While this is adequate for most users, it simply won't do if you have a proper MIDI synth for retro gaming or for playing MIDI files through Media Player. There exist several tools on the net that can change the default MIDI output device, but it appears there are differences in registry keys used between Windows Vista and Windows 7. The tool for one simply won't work on the other, so unless you knew which one to use, you'd still be stuck with Microsoft's softsynth.

Just recently, MPAA/RIAA sock puppets Brein managed to convince some clueless judge to order two of the largest ISPs in the Netherlands, XS4ALL and Ziggo to block (in)famous torrent website The Pirate Bay. TPB have put up a message that is shown to anyone visiting from a Dutch IP address, as shown below. XSALL and Ziggo have both announced they will appeal to a higher court, which is a good thing. I don't even use TPB myself and wouldn't really miss it, but I do care deeply about worthless assholes doing anything limiting my internet access. So, how would this work and what can I (or anyone) do to give these lying thieves the finger and circumvent these blocks if they are upheld by the higher courts?

It's been a long time coming, and now the IPv4 address pool has been exhausted. Still it doesn't seem like world is scrambling to switch over to IPv6 (it doesn't even seem like they're preparing for it, even though they ought to be ready). My provider hasn't even given any information about their plans for implementing IPv6. This makes it difficult to see if my own network or any of the stuff I make will handle IPv6. Fortunately, there are services that allow you to experiment with IPv6 by tunneling it through IPv4. SixXS is one such service, but setting up a tunnels, especially on Windows 7 (64 bit) is a bit more involved than you might think from the documentation or the 10 step guide and there's a few things that are unclear or downright missing. Here's my step-by-step walkthrough.

Windows Update is a great technology. It ensures that most Windows users are automatically kept up to date with the latest security patches for their OS. Especially now that is no longer tied to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, I'm a big fan (with one exception). Unfortunately, on rare occasions, the Windows Update client gets in a corrupted state and things get messed up in a big way. This can be difficult to diagnose or troubleshoot.