1. Insert your Windows Vista CD into your CD-drive, then boot from the CD
2. Click on “Repair your Computer”
3. Click “Command Prompt” from the recovery choices
4. At the command prompt type C: and press enter
5. Type cd Windows and press enter
6. Type cd WinSxS and press enter
7. Type del pending.xml and press enter
8. Reboot your system
9. Your system will still display the same error for some seconds, then continue to boot correctly

But how? I’ve tried going to Uninstall Programs but it isn’t listed.

Here’s the answer.

• Click Start
• Control Panel
• Uninstall a Program
• View Installed Updates (on the left menu)
• Scroll down to the heading Microsoft Windows
• Right click the appropriate Service Pack
• Click Uninstall
• Follow any prompts
• Restart the computer when prompted to do so

Easy task to complete, but somewhat difficult to locate.

• Windows Vista Service Pack (434.5 Mb)
• Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for x64 based Systems (726.5 Mb)

If you don’t want to download and install it yourself, it will automatically be installed using Windows Update in the coming days / weeks.

Important to note. If you have installed a pre-release version of SP1 you need to uninstall it before installing Vista SP1.

To read more, please visit the Windows Vista Team Blog.

1. Open Computer or Windows Key + E
2. Drill down to the folder you wish to work with.
3. Whilst holding down the shift key, right click the folder.
4. You now have a new menu item. Open with command prompt here.
5. Click and you’re done.

Try the same on a network share and see what happens. It automatically maps a drive for you. How cool is that.

Then give this tip a try.

Open the following path:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft

Once open you will see numerous folders including a “protect” folder. Delete it.

When you have deleted the protect folder, restart Outlook. You may need to type your password(s) once more but once saved, that should be it.

If you get this error, then try this fix. Please note these instruction are only for Vista.

1. Click Start
2. Type regedit and press enter
3. Drill down to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\HTTP\shell\open\ddeexec
4. Delete the ddeexec registry key
5. Drill down to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\HTTPS\shell\open\ddeexec
6. Delete the ddeexec registry key
7. Drill down to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\shell\open\ddeexec
8. Delete the ddeexec registry key
9. Drill down to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxHTML\shell\open\ddeexec
10. Delete the ddeexec registry key
11. Close out of regedit
12. No reboot required

Now try clicking the link again in Outlook 2007. Problem should now be fixed.

I certainly hope this will be the customer experience. Whilst I haven’t personally had any issues with the “Gold” release of Vista, there are some performance aspects that I hope have been sorted in SP1. In particular file copying seems to be very slow in the Gold version. The comment from Microsoft is once SP1 has been installed on your system, copying or moving files should now be much faster, up to 50% faster. Let’s see if that holds true.

Microsoft says that 98 out of the top 100 software applications have versions that are Vista compatible. This along with support for more that 78,000 devices, which is up from 34,000 in November 2006 should make most people quite comfortable making the move to Vista.

Vista SP1 is scheduled for availability via Windows Update and the Microsoft download center around mid March 2008.