2nd REQUEST : A few Vista questions and issues - please help...

[Default User]

Hi,

Wow, they made some serious changes to Vista. So far I have these
questions:

I have an XP that has a shared printer, but when I try to connect to it from
Vista it crashes the spooler. How do you install a network printer, but
then redirect it to use a Vista driver instead of pulling it from the XP
system?

How do you rename a user account on a Vista Home system. When I rename it
through User Accounts it doesn't actually change the user name field, it
changes the full name only.

I've seen a bug where if you type something like "net use x: \\handheld\c$"
in a cmd.exe box, it will not display the letters properly. For example,
you type handheld, but it puts hanhheld on the screen. If you hit enter on
it, it will work and execute the command properly, it just displays it
wrong. Has anyone else seen this?

Thanks,

Alan
http://www.sadevelopment.com
Partition Boot Manager and Large Drive Tools utilities!

 

[Malke]

Hi,

Wow, they made some serious changes to Vista. So far I have these
questions:

I have an XP that has a shared printer, but when I try to connect to it from
Vista it crashes the spooler. How do you install a network printer, but
then redirect it to use a Vista driver instead of pulling it from the XP
system?

How do you rename a user account on a Vista Home system. When I rename it
through User Accounts it doesn't actually change the user name field, it
changes the full name only.

I've seen a bug where if you type something like "net use x: \\handheld\c$"
in a cmd.exe box, it will not display the letters properly. For example,
you type handheld, but it puts hanhheld on the screen. If you hit enter on
it, it will work and execute the command properly, it just displays it
wrong. Has anyone else seen this?

1. Install the printer drivers (for Vista) directly on the Vista
machine. Assuming that file/printer sharing is correctly set up the
installer will find the shared printer during the installation routine.

2. This is no different than it was on XP. You can't just change the
name of a user account and expect it to be a new account. You need to
create a new account with the desired name and then copy the original
user settings/data to the new account. You need to log into the new
account once before you can copy anything to it. The instructions for
copying a user account under XP are here:

Copy a User Account - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=811151

I Googled "copy user account Vista" and came up with this link:

http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=14369

which has some instructions that don't look very hard.

A further Googling for the same question using the
site:www.microsoft.com extension brings me to this MS page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/easytransfer.mspx

which possibly means that you might also be able to use WET to copy user
accounts in Vista.

Caveat - I haven't tried either method this so YMMV.

3. Don't know the answer to your last question since I haven't tried to
do this and I don't have a handheld device with which to do a test for you.


Malke

 

[Default User]

Hi,

Thank you for the help!

1. Install the printer drivers (for Vista) directly on the Vista machine.
Assuming that file/printer sharing is correctly set up the installer will
find the shared printer during the installation routine.

How, do you tell the printer driver to use a local port even though it isn't
connected to a local port? This would then get the driver installed. But,
when you add the shared printer how do you stop it from pulling its driver
across and using it instead?

2. This is no different than it was on XP. You can't just change the name
of a user account and expect it to be a new account. You need to create a
new account with the desired name and then copy the original user
settings/data to the new account. You need to log into the new account
once before you can copy anything to it. The instructions for copying a
user account under XP are here:

Actually in XP I would always right click the user and choose rename. This
would rename the user and a "net user" command would show the updated name.
The problem is that Vista home doesn't let you use the users and groups snap
in and so you can't rename a user using. I finally got around this by
creating the right user, logon/off that user to create the profile, logon
administrator, rename that new profile, rename the profile i want for that
user to it, taking ownership and reassigning rights for that profile to the
new user.

I have one new question - the video driver will NOT let me go to the
troubleshooting or advanced button that normally lets you drop the
performance slightly for more compatibility. I am used to using this in XP
and 2000, but it is grayed out even if I am logged on as the administrator
in Vista. The issue is resuming from sleep results in no mouse cursor on
the second display and sometimes no mosue cursor on both displays. In the
past I was able to reduce the performance so it didn't cache the mouse
cursor and that fixed issues like this. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Alan
http://www.sadevelopment.com
Partition Boot Manager and Large Drive Tools utilities!

 

[Malke]

How, do you tell the printer driver to use a local port even though it isn't
connected to a local port? This would then get the driver installed. But,
when you add the shared printer how do you stop it from pulling its driver
across and using it instead?

As I already said, install the printer drivers on Vista *first* before
you try to add the printer. Then if the installation routine doesn't
find the printer on the network (and it might) you can use the Add
Printer routine from Control Panel. If this is a network printer (not
locally connected to some other computer on the LAN), then you tell it
to use Local Port during the Add Printer routine and then New Port>TCP/IP.

Actually in XP I would always right click the user and choose rename. This
would rename the user and a "net user" command would show the updated name.

Yes, but that didn't change the actual name of the user account. So you
were doing it wrong or you only cared about cosmetic changes. You did
not change any of the files/folders under the user account with your
method. So you should do it the correct way in Vista now - create a new
user with the desired name.

I have one new question - the video driver will NOT let me go to the
troubleshooting or advanced button that normally lets you drop the
performance slightly for more compatibility. I am used to using this in XP
and 2000, but it is grayed out even if I am logged on as the administrator
in Vista. The issue is resuming from sleep results in no mouse cursor on
the second display and sometimes no mosue cursor on both displays. In the
past I was able to reduce the performance so it didn't cache the mouse
cursor and that fixed issues like this. Any ideas?

Drivers are written by the hardware mftrs. If the driver you have isn't
doing what you want, see if there is an updated driver. This has nothing
to do with XP or Win2k or Vista and everything to do with the functions
provided by the video driver - which was written by the hardware mftr.

Never get drivers from Windows Update. Get them from:

1. The device mftr.'s website; OR
2. The motherboard mftr.'s website if hardware is onboard; OR
3. The OEM's website for your specific machine if you have an OEM
computer (HP, Dell, Sony, etc.).

Read the installation instructions on the website where you get the drivers.

To find out what hardware is in your computer:

1. Read any documentation you got when you bought the computer.
2. If the computer is OEM, go to the OEM's website for your specific
model machine and look at the specs (you'll be there to get the drivers
anyway)
3. Download, install and run a free system inventory program like Belarc
Advisor. I haven't tried Belarc on Vista so YMMV.


Malke