Thanks to Microsoft wanting to add more security and features to Windows Vista with SP1 some gamers have to suffer with the random issues that come along with it. I recently built a brand new computer (2days ago) and had an issue running one of my Favorite online games City of Heros/City of Villains with Ventrilo.

Issue: For some reason Ventrilo was not picking up my PTT key while in game but if I minimized the game it would work just fine..

Fix: Right click the Ventrilo shortcut and select run as Administrator and then click allow. This should solve the issue for many games with this issue.

Why: City of Heros runs as Administrator due to the continuous access to the Program Files folder. A work around for this is to install City of Heros to C:\ rather then C:\Program Files\ or to a non OS harddrive but that work-around didnt work for me some reason. So because Vista has such an annoying security feature called UAC. When City of Heros or other random games (that run as Administrator) are the active window aka your playing the game, UAC blocks other programs from hooking your mouse and keyboard events. So running Ventrilo as Administrator allows it to hook events when your in game because its running as the same user. Oddly enough it still works as normal when your not in game as well (example: Surfing the internet)

So in my line of work I have found myself needing Service manuals from time to time for the various HP LaserJet Printers and they are generally hard to find from time to time depending where I am at. So I have started collecting Service Manuals as I find them. So here is the Service Manuals for HP’s LaserJet 2100/2200/2300/2400 Printers.

LaserJet 2100
LaserJet 2200
LaserJet 2300
LaserJet 2400

This has been tested on AIM version 6.5.7.20 im sure it works with newer versions as well..

Remove Ads from top of buddy list
First open up strings.xml with Notepad or your favorite text editor
Default location is in "C:\Program Files\AIM6\services\imApp\ver6_5_7_20\resources\en-US"
Find
<string name="bl.adHeight">90</string>
<string name="bl.adWidth">120</string>
<string name="bl.adUrlFormat">http://www.aim.com/redirects/inclient/AIM_UAC_v2.adp?magic=%s&width=%s&height=%s&sn=%s</string>
Replace with
<string name="bl.adHeight">0</string>
<string name="bl.adWidth">0</string>
<string name="bl.adUrlFormat">http://</string>

Remove the 4 buttons on the bottom of buddy list
First open up strings.xml with Notepad or your favorite text editor
Default location is in "C:\Program Files\AIM6\services\imApp\ver6_5_7_20\resources\en-US"
Find
<string name="imApp.showRadioModule">1</string>
<string name="imApp.showMobileModule">1</string>
<string name="imApp.showTalkModule">1</string>
<string name="imApp.showSearchModule">1</string>
Replace with
<string name="imApp.showRadioModule">0</string>
<string name="imApp.showMobileModule">0</string>
<string name="imApp.showTalkModule">0</string>
<string name="imApp.showSearchModule">0</string>

The other day I had a client that was having printer issues.. He was running Windows Vista 32bit and using a HP DeskJest 5550 Series printer. He could print from Microsoft Office Applications just fine.. But when he tried to print from like Notepad or IE7 (Internet Explorer 7) he would have issues.. The Icon would appear like it normaly would showing it was printing something but when we checked the Q he had no prints pending..

After about an hour of researching and looking over HP’s website I found my answers. HP has made a statement that more or less any printer released before Vista came out New drivers would not be made. Vista comes preloaded with drivers to run the printers, but after researching it seams those drivers are in an Beta almost Alpha status because they are so bugged. So basically if you want to print and you have Vista.. Buy a new printer.

Well I found a work around to get the 5000 series and seams like most of the older printers by HP with simular design working properly on Vista.. All you have to do is add a printer manually set the driver to HP DeskJet 990c and then set the port to the one your printer is plugged into usually like USB001 or something along those lines and it should work just fine. Did this with both a 5550 and 5600 printers and they worked flawlessly..