I plan to live forever. So far, so good.

When you have a computer with a recent model CPU, chances are it’s a dual-core (or quad-core) CPU. Both Intel & AMD have been producing dual core CPU’s for a few years now. By default, Windows Vista will only use a single core during boot-up. And you can easily change how many cores are used on boot from the System Configuration utility:

1. In Vista’s Start Search type msconfig & hit the [Enter] key on your keyboard

2. Once System Configuration has started, select the Boot tab

3. Select the No GUI option (this removes the loading screen – it will just give you a static screen instead)

4. Now click on the Advanced Options dialog, check the “Number of processors” check box, and choose 2 (or 4 if you have quad-core) for the number of processors

5. Click OK twice

Now try and check if you notice any differences. Although, in my case, I think the real “speed-up” only comes from the NO-GUI option, which in itself is designed to be less of a performance hog than it might seem.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it plans to slash prices for retail copies of Windows Vista up to almost 50% for certain editions in poorer countries, in order to boost sales that one analyst said have failed to meet expectations. But many customers, especially those in wealthier countries such as the U.S. or Europe, may only see additional discounts as small as 3 percent (or none at all) depending on which of Vista’s four consumer versions they are interested in.

Another excerpt from the article on computerworld.com:

Swenson says one reason retail Vista sales are weaker than XP’s is because of the many years — five — between its release and XP’s. By contrast, XP was released only one year after Windows 2000 and ME. That meant that consumers who bought a new PC with 2000 or ME would have been more likely to upgrade it with XP. Not so for consumers who bought a new XP PC three or four years ago; machines of such comparatively advanced age are unlikely to have been upgraded to Vista’s requirements.

Finally! I’ve had this annoying problem the past few days, where my Windows Vista machine would just misbehave when it came to my internet connection – and since I found the solution, I decided to share it. The thing is, all of a sudden, I would start getting “Page not found” errors in my browser, even though the connection was up and all the hosts responded to ping. I started digging for answers, and I found out that this issue was related to the TCP/IP stack Winsock settings, which may get corrupted, causing errors and problems with Internet connectivity.

Corrupt Winsock or Windows sockets configuration can be due to a lot of reasons (such as installation of a networking software, or due to virus, trojan or malware infection, or sometime even due to disinfection of spyware by security software). I did install quite a few networking tools lately, while trying out some security audit solutions – so that might have been it.

Anyhow, when Winsock corrupts, the networking errors that you may face include unable to surf the Internet with “Page cannot be displayed” error message in the browser, even though the DSL/ADSL/cable Internet connection is connected. Apparently sometimes, Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service is terminated as well.

To repair and reset the Windows Vista Winsock Catalog:

1. Click on Start button.
2. Type Cmd in the Start Search text box.
3. Press Ctrl-Shift-Enter keyboard shortcut to run Command Prompt as Administrator. Allow elevation request.
4. Type netsh winsock reset in the Command Prompt shell, and then press the Enter key.
5. Restart the computer.

What netsh winsock reset command does are it resets Winsock Catalog to a clean state or default configuration. It removes all Winsock LSP (Layered Service Providers) previously installed, including the potential malfunctioned LSP that causes loss of network packets transmission failure. So all previously-installed LSPs must be reinstalled. This command does not affect Winsock Name Space Provider entries.

Note: To check which LSPs installed on your Vista system, you can use netsh winsock show catalog command (in an elevated command prompt).