Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 October 8

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October 8

Macintosh SE mouse tutorial and games

Resolved

 – –Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 04:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it was the Mac SE that had a nifty (and, now, hilarious) tutorial program that taught you how to click, double-click, click and drag, and there were some games like these incredible mazes or other games including Hebrew Towers (or so I thought it was called, but I can't find anything by that name). A penguin rings a bell also, maybe the penguin was a part of the mazes. Is there anywhere I can find information on this early software that came with these early Macs? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any answers to your question, In fact, my observation is probably a red herring. But the first thing that 'hebrew towers' made me think of was that it might be a mis-remembering of the classic "Towers of Hanoi" game that has probably been implemented on every computing platform ever. APL (talk) 03:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that's the name of it. I figured I had the name wrong, but wrote it down anyway, just in case I wasn't. Towers of Hanoi is it. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 03:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The mouse tutorial was called Mouse Basics if I remember correctly. It wasn't part of the Mac SE as such, but was included with the System 7 operating system, in particular version 7.1 (a brilliant OS FWIW). It may well have shipped before and after this, but can't really remember, it's not like I used it much :). I believe I would still have it installed on my old LC 475 - if it wasn't stored away in different part of the state I'd check... --jjron (talk) 16:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Mouse Basics, eh? That definitely rings a bell, thank you so much for your awesome memory. I can't believe it came on System 7, though, that seems almost late, but I agree, that was a beautiful OS. I'd been looking at old threads discussing antique software (threads dating back to 1999, which seems antiquated in and of itself) and hadn't come across anything yet. I will look into this further, thank you thank you! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 18:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Is this it? [1] I see no penguins or mazes in those screenshots, but this is apparently "Mouse Basics" (available free in the archive at apple.com, as a comment says). 213.122.19.23 (talk) 21:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no. It's not it because it's in color (which System 7 was in as well). However, with the name "Mouse Basics", I was able to find some threads discussing this and "Macintosh Basics", the latter which contained the mazes (I'm pretty sure). What I was looking for was for the Mac SE, on a B&W screen only. By the time my family had System 7, we were well-versed on how to use a mouse, hahaha. However, your link is very reminiscent of Mouse Basics and is like an upgraded version, even the B&W pix are a bit more "realistic" looking (those early attempts at photo-realism, perhaps). So thank you. I think I have all I need to keep hunting on the web for the mazes, which is really what I'm looking for. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 04:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

beginner

I'm a beginner to network programming. Can anyone suggest me a few good resources to start from scratch and get the hold of it, to make myself enable to develop application for windows particularly and for other operating systems too.Thanks in advance.--111.68.97.146 (talk) 06:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What language[s] do you know now, if any? Are you interested in learning some basics of networking in general or are you more focused on a specific application you have in mind? If you have a basic understanding of TCP/UDP then most modern network features already have good modules written for them so it's often easy enough to just tack on the networking module you need (and if it's low level it's probably built in as part of the standard distribution). Shadowjams (talk) 08:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Smart virus

File:SmartVirus.jpg

SmartVirus

My computer is attacked by a unique virus. I don't know what to do with that . Please help. When I visit www.google.com in my computer, some other website comes. In that website, it says 'Travel', 'Flight' etc etc. But in browser's address bar, it says www.google.com. One more thing.. This does not happen always. Sometimes, the actual google loads. Only some times that new page loads when i visit google.com. One more strange thing is that, this happens only with my broadband adsl connection. If I use my phone to connect, this strange new website does not come. Only the actual google comes if i browse using thethering my phone's connection. I also use Ad-aware anti virus. I run windows firewall. Automatic updates are on. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.84.85 (talk) 07:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.136.146 (talk) 07:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Probably more likely some other malware than virus, spyware or something. You say you have Adaware, but (not being smart) is it up to date and are you scanning with it regularly? It's also probably not the best antivirus/antimalware. For malware I'm currently using SuperAntiSpyware (I assume you also have Windows Defender installed and running already). Regardless, it's probably worth downloading something like that and running it. Be warned though that they can't fix all problems; you may end up needing a system reinstall. --jjron (talk) 16:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Some suggestions about eradicating malware have been collected at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing/Viruses. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:15, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I've seen something similar where the DNS settings in the network settings had been modified to point to a bogus DNS in Ukraine. Astronaut (talk) 17:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Since it changes depending on how you connect it's likely that Astronaut's suggestion is what is causing the problem. Ie. the settings for your DNS server is wrong. To fix try running ipconfig -release, then ipconfig -renew. Taemyr (talk) 18:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

BOOTING A COMPUTER

I could not boot my computer. When I plug it, the green light on the mother board is on. (It means the power supply to mother board is ok.) But I could not switch on it. Why? Please help me to access any trouble shooting pages. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.43.25.100 (talk) 07:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You should tell us what motherboard model you have. The last time this happened to me, it was because — oops — I had the power supply cords hooked up properly, but had forgotten to hook up the power button's cord to the motherboard. Green light on the motherboard LED, but wouldn't switch on, however much I kept hammering that disconnected power button. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:13, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a ASUS P4PE mother board.124.43.25.100 (talk) 07:32, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The manual is at this page. Prepare for slow load times. Did you take a look at the power-button-to-motherboard possibility? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

ALARM ON COMPUTER

How can I set my computer (XP version) to ring at regular interval? (In other words, how can I set alarm?). There are two types. 1.) to stop after 3 or 4 beeps. 2.) to be stopped manually. This may be a simple thing for many. But I couldn’t. Pl. help me. Thank you.124.43.25.100 (talk) 07:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The following script runs after two seconds (2000 milliseconds). Open Notepad, paste the text inside, and save it with a .js extension. (When saving, be sure that the "Save as type" drop-down box is set to "All files.") Then, double-click on the file:

var wsh = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
WScript.Sleep(2000);
wsh.run("cmd /c @echo �");
WScript.Sleep(200);
wsh.run("cmd /c @echo �");
WScript.Sleep(200);
wsh.run("cmd /c @echo �");

Now, go to Start --> Control Panel --> Scheduled Tasks and drag the file you just created into the Scheduled Tasks folder. Notice how it is now scheduled to run every day at 9 a.m. Double-click on it to change the time at which it will run.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 07:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that the characters above have been mangled by Wikipedia. If you replace the box characters above with the character in the third reply here, they will produce a beep.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 08:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You might find Windows Task Scheduler helpful, also. You can schedule an audio file to play at any time, or on a recurring schedule. Nimur (talk) 15:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a ASUS P4PE motherboard124.43.25.100 (talk) 07:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Forbid login after set amount of incorrect password entries

Is is possible in Windows 7 Ultimate, under an administrator account, to set a limit to the number of attempts you can login before it forbids it? i.e. I enter the incorrect password 3 times so it locks itself. Also, is there a way, if the above is possible, to set a time limit before you can attempt to login again? I myself entered the wrong password on my school network and after a few wrong tries locked me out for 15 minutes. Can this be done at home?Sir Stupidity (talk) 09:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This page says how to do it. (Disclaimer: I haven't tried their list of steps.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, it worked beautifully. Sir Stupidity (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

SVG Image rotation

I have created a star image and hope to get it rotating round its centre point. This has all been created in notepad++ as it's practice for a possible assignment and I don't wish to use Ink Scape or such other programs to create it.

So far I have the following code:

 <polygon id="Star" fill="#FF1493" stroke="#7D26CD" stroke-width="10" 
  points="970,695  999,781 1089,781 1017,835
  1043,921 970,870 897,921 923,835
  851,781 941,781" />

  <g id="Star">
     <animateTransform
        attributeType="XML"
        attributeName="transform"
        type="rotate"
        from="0" to="360"
        begin="0s" dur="5s"
        repeatCount="indefinite"/>
  </g>

Basically It doesn't seem to do anything at all. I am aware that the values in the from and to are incorrect but what they should be I have no idea, I am unsure if these values are stopping it from rotating or whether I have made some other error in my code.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.195.49.180.89 (talk) 12:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I've formatted your SVG example using the Mediawiki source tag, to make it easier to read. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What are you using to view the SVG? SVG animation isn't well supported in many browsers. For example, look at this SVG; for me it animates in Google Chrome, but not in Firefox. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You can't have two elements with the same id. I don't have a browser supporting SVG animation handy to test it, but I think that this is more likely to work:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <polygon id="Star" fill="#FF1493" stroke="#7D26CD" stroke-width="10" 
     points="970,695  999,781 1089,781 1017,835
     1043,921 970,870 897,921 923,835
     851,781 941,781"/>

  <animateTransform
     attributeName="transform"
     type="rotate"
     from="0" to="360"
     begin="0s" dur="5s"
     repeatCount="indefinite"
     xlink:href="#Star"/>
</svg>

or, simply,

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <polygon fill="#FF1493" stroke="#7D26CD" stroke-width="10" 
     points="970,695  999,781 1089,781 1017,835
     1043,921 970,870 897,921 923,835
     851,781 941,781">
    <animateTransform
       attributeName="transform"
       type="rotate"
       from="0" to="360"
       begin="0s" dur="5s"
       repeatCount="indefinite"/>
  </polygon>
</svg>

—Emil J. 13:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the formatting, I am using Google Chrome, I discovered FF doesn't support most of my SVG as other sections didn't work correctly. I'm also finding that the work computers wont let me view in ie but Chrome seems to be fine for everything else, I just assumed it was human error. Thanks for the link though, the source code may come in handy :)

Thanks for the code that seems to get the star moving but in a huge circle motion so much that it leaves the page. Any ideas on how to make it perform smalller 360 loops? Thanks again for your contributions, all really relevant and very quick responses :) 195.49.180.89 (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Write the polygon in a coordinate system where 0,0 is the centre of rotation, and shift the result to the desired position:

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <g transform="translate(970,820)">
    <polygon fill="#FF1493" stroke="#7D26CD" stroke-width="10"
       points="0,-125  29,-39 119,-39 47,15
       73,101 0,50 -73,101 -47,15
       -119,-39 -29,-39">
       <animateTransform
          attributeName="transform"
          type="rotate"
          from="0" to="360"
          begin="0s" dur="5s"
          repeatCount="indefinite"/>
    </polygon>
  </g>
</svg>

—Emil J. 13:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

You're a star that's perfect. Thank you so much for your help :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.49.180.89 (talk) 14:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft streets and trips 2010

Do anyone know where I can oder this software. Proplem: I need shipping to Finland. I found some companys, which have possibly to download, but every of it need credit card's number. I don't want tell it to small company. PayPal is good payment method, and credit card be suitable if company is big and famous. PayPal is however better. Aku506 (talk) 15:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is the trial version on Microsoft's web site of Streets and Trips 2010. It's a 60 day trial and you enter a product key to unlock the full version (removing the 60 day limit). Not sure yet where you purchase the product key. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Well from a quick search for 'buy streets trips', I end up at [2]. Problem being when I go there (from NZ) I get a thing telling me there's no store in my country. It shows a list which includes Suomi which takes me to their EMEA store [3] but unfortunately there's no sign they sell Streets and Trips there. Trying to buy from the US store gives a billing address which is clearly designed for a US address. Looking at the website I find [4] which gives US retail destinations. Perhaps one of them ships to Finland. I actually found [5] from my search which I was thinking may be hopeful but it says only the US.

I couldn't find Streets and Trips in the Microsoft European site. Looking at Microsoft Streets & Trips, perhaps it's because "North American region including the United States, Canada, and Mexico, such as route planning. The European version is marketed as Microsoft AutoRoute and covers all of Europe, including European Russia, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Cyprus and all of Turkey. AutoRoute in also produced in several European languages besides English."

Are you sure you want Microsoft Streets & Trips? If yes then perhaps you're planning a trip to the US, Canada or Mexico and if so it may be easier to get it while there?

Nil Einne (talk) 18:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I'm sure. I have Autoroute allready, and it's exelent. I'm going to US at April, but I need software to planning the route before it.Aku506 (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

In that case you can try the retail stores I mentioned earlier. However I can't help wondering if for licensing reasons, none of them will ship outside the US even if they normally do, i.e. Microsoft may generally only allow them to ship to the US for their software (I mean all software not just Streets and Trips) since they have different agreements outside the US with different vendors.

Anyway finding someone without such a strong connection to Microsoft who are therefore less likely to follow the rules. eBay may be one option although I would take great care to ensure you are getting genuine software if you choose that.

Surprisingly it seems Microsoft do sell Autoroute in the US. I'm not sure why MS doesn't appear to be selling Streets & Trips outside North America. You could of course try contacting them although I doubt you'd get anything useful but perhaps they'll consider selling it outside eventually if enough people do.

I presume you have no friends in the US who could help you. If you are really desperate, one option may be to try and see if you can use one of those services which give you a US address and then send on items to you.

Failing all else, some may suggest if you are definitely planning to buy the full version when you reach the US and given how hard it is to find it where you live, temporarily using a less then legit version isn't that bad a thing. One option there would be seeing how easy it is to reuse the trial (virtual machines for example). Also bearing in mind Streets and Trips 2011 would I presume be out early next year and would probably have a new 60 day trial, this may mean if you install the 2010 edition in mid December and it expires mid February, you'll have the 2011 version will then to last to mid April. However this is already fairly borderline advice so I wouldn't recommend further questions in this regard.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I found wordwide shipping from Ebay, and oder it. Thank you very much.--Aku506 (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

SecuROM DRM annoyance

I like to buy old games at charity shops. The last one was UFO: Aftershock, which I uninstalled again without playing because it uses starforce copy protection. (I then removed the drivers it had installed and reverted registry changes by hand.) Well, today I bought Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, but (reading about it before installing this time) I find it's protected with SecuROM. The list here [6] gives the version as "v-4.54.00.0027 (1.0.7.4)". What I want to know is, of course, with this particular version of SecuROM, will the game do anything unpleasant to my PC like happened with Spore, Mass Effect and Bioshock - such as requiring regular online registration (if the relevant site even still exists at this length of time), installing a rootkit, installing some background app that loads at startup, or adding its own CD drivers to my system folder like Starforce does? And if so, and I choose to tolerate it, is it something I can reliably remove when I'm tired of the game? 81.131.21.131 (talk) 16:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Arcanum was published years before the recent movement to try to reduce piracy by requiring players to be online and the like. It's fine to install. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Reassuring news. This copy is from 2003. The UFO: Aftershock CD was published only two years later, and that definitely messes with my CD drivers in undesirable ways which it doesn't undo when uninstalled, so I was worried, particularly adding in the fact that SecuROM was a name involved the Spore, Sony, and rootkits scandal(s) from a couple of years ago. 81.131.21.131 (talk) 18:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Could you allow the program to modify the drivers inside a virtual machine? That may save you the headache and let the software set up the system-modifications it desires. Unfortunately, it seems that there's limited support for such drivers in VMware, but there are other virtual machines you could try - see Comparison of platform virtual machines. Nimur (talk) 20:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

video compression

Will H.264 at 900Kbps have a better picture quality than XviD at 900Kbps? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 21:45, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

In terms of the impression of the average viewer I expect the answer is generally yes. It will likely depend on the precise case though like the content type (including resolution and frame rate), codec use for compression (I presume when you say XviD you literally mean compressed with the XviD encoder, but which encoder you are using for H.264 is unclear), settings for each codec etc. Nil Einne (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Different constructions in C++

Okay, so after the question a few days ago, I finally started learning C++. Things started making sense until I got to 'new'. Say I have a class called Vector. What is the difference between 'Vector v (2,3,4);' and 'Vector * v = new Vector (2,3,4);'? I know one is a pointer, but what difference would that make, other than how to call it later? KyuubiSeal (talk) 21:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

From the perspective of an ANSI C programmer who has only ever glared warily at C++, I would say that in the first case you are allocating the memory statically (as if you'd just defined a structure) and in the second case you are allocating it dynamically (as if you'd used malloc). It might turn out that I'm wrong about this and C++ allocates memory dynamically in both cases: sorry for making a guess, somebody else will give a better answer. I did glance at C++ classes before writing this, though, where I see that a simple class declaration is equivalent to a structure declaration, implying that 'Vector v (2,3,4)' would do the same thing if v was a structure, which I assume is static memory allocation in C++ as it is in C. 213.122.19.23 (talk) 22:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The relevant article would be new (C++), you could also see msdn, as well as the operator new.Smallman12q (talk) 23:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the phrase "defined a structure" is relevant to either case. In fact, classes don't have anything to do with this (in both cases, the constructor gets called, for example). This is all about allocation and pointers. Consider int i(18);, (equivalent to int i = 18;, by the way) and int * r = new int(81). In the first case, you're creating an int that lives locally; that 18 will go away at the end of the current scope (unless you copy it somewhere). In the second case, you're creating an int that lives on the heap. r is a locally-living value. Dereference it (in other words, use *r), and you'll see the 81. The 81 in the heap will stick around until you delete something that points to it, like the r. You can copy the r into other places, and they'll all point to the same 81.

The reason you see people allocate vectors in the heap and not integers, is that integers are small and really cheap to copy, so they just allocate them locally ("on the stack"). You don't want to copy a vector every time one function wants to hand it off to another, so they put the vector on the stack, and copy the pointer to the vector.

I hope that was somewhat clear. (I also hope it was right. It's been over a year since I last programmed in C++, which is not long enough.) Paul (Stansifer) 23:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that allocating vectors with new is any more common than allocating integers with new. There's not much reason to do it. If you pass a vector as a function argument, then you probably want the argument to be vector& or vector const& rather than vector, because the last one causes a copy of the entire vector and everything in it to be made when you call the function (and automatically destroyed when the function returns). But simply declaring vector v; as a local variable doesn't cause any inefficient copying. The object is created at the point of declaration and destroyed when v goes out of scope. It's very convenient.

The built-in std::vector in C++ has the problem that it copies all of its elements repeatedly as it grows. If you grow your vector piecemeal with push_back, and the elements are expensive to copy (e.g. it's a vector<vector<T>>), this is very inefficient. Fortunately, this is improved in the upcoming revision of the C++ standard, but it's still probably better to teach people to use a deque instead of a vector when the elements are expensive to copy. It's not a good idea to teach people to use new and delete to get around efficiency problems, because keeping track of when to delete things is a nightmare. Using a vector<vector<T>*> would solve this particular efficiency problem, but you don't want to go there. The only reason to use new and delete is when you really need that level of control over when the object is destroyed at runtime. I would recommend that beginners never use new. There's always a better way. -- BenRG (talk) 12:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, i didn't know there was a class called vector, so i got a tad confused about how collections got in here. I was writing a class to represent geometric vectors. Well, in either case, it's still the same concept. Thank you! KyuubiSeal (talk) 15:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, so it's about scope, really. Sorry for muddying the waters with the notion of static allocation; that wouldn't even have made sense in C, thinking about it, unless it was a globally defined structure. I don't usually think of local variables as dynamic, since you don't explicitly destroy them, but I guess they sort of are... OK, stopping guessing now. 213.122.19.23 (talk) 23:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Your answer was reasonably accurate. new is like malloc, and Vector is like int. -- BenRG (talk) 12:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

So the first example's data would be deleted when it goes out of scope, but the second's wouldn't? The pointer still would be deleted though, right? KyuubiSeal (talk) 00:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Correct, but that isn't the point. (The following is over-simplified to make the point easy to understand.) The main reason to use a pointer instead of static allocation is that the pointer (the actual memory address) is always the same size. Imagine I have a class "car" and I make 20 cars in an array. No big deal so far. Now, I extend "car" to a class "racecar" that has more functions and variables. In memory, it takes up more space. Now, I make an array of 20 cars, but 2 of them are actually racecars. That is allowed because a racecar is a car. But, a racecar takes up more space in memory than a car. So, static allocation of each car will reserve only enough space for a car. The racecars will get truncated and proabably won't work - or they will overwrite part of the following car. If, instead, I make an array of 20 pointers to car objects, I can make 2 of them racecars without a problem. Each pointer is the same size, no matter what it points to. When creating the racecars, I can ensure they have enough room in memory. It is no big deal because the array is limited by pointer size, not object size. You can even have one of the pointers change from a car to a racecar to a car without trouble. Overall, working with pointers makes memory management of objects much easier. When working with simple variable types (numbers, strings, etc...) pointers can be a pain. So, when I teach C++, I begin with static allocation of primary variable types and wait until we get to objects to introduce pointers - specifically when we make arrays of objects. -- kainaw™ 00:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

There's no reason to teach a C-style notion of object size (sizeof) to C++ beginners. This is not about size. Even if a racecar instance has the same low-level size as a car instance—which is certainly possible for a subclass—storing it into an array or vector of car will convert it into a car (using car's copy constructor). This is because in C++ a value of type car is an instance of the class car, not (as in Java or C#) of car or some subclass. Your sentence "That is allowed because a racecar is a car" is incorrect, and I hope you know that and aren't teaching it to beginners. It's equally incorrect to say that pointers are all the same size. There is an implicit conversion from racecar* to car*, just as there's an implicit conversion from int to double, but other than that they have nothing to do with one another. There's no guarantee that they have the same bit representation or even that sizeof(racecar*) == sizeof(car*). Also, vector<T> is a variable-sized object for all purposes that matter to a beginner, and nearly all purposes that matter to an expert. It's true that sizeof(vector<T>) yields a constant, but that constant is completely irrelevant and meaningless 99% of the time. -- BenRG (talk) 10:57, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The confusion here is that I was discussing arrays, which fall victim to object slicing and you are responding with vectors, which do not. I didn't really pay attention to the use of "vector" in the question. Sorry. -- kainaw™ 03:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Windows Vista drivers?

After reinstalling Windows Vista, I found that my computer lacks any and all drivers. I tried reinstalling it again, going through all the CDs, but no such luck. Basically, I think I need all the drivers that usually come with Windows Vista. I'm almost entirely sure that the problem is the drivers and nothing else - before reinstalling, the computer was able to recognise Wi-Fi and monitors being plugged in, and now it displays it as if I had nothing attached. Also, it tells me I cannot run the sreen-saver due to my graphics card being too old, but I have new, working video card on it that has run far newer graphics in the past. Long story short, I would like to know if I can get a set of Windows Vista basic drivers, and if I can, where I can get them. Thanks in advance. 75.86.192.214 (talk) 23:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What is the make and model of your computer?--Best Dog Ever (talk) 23:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Dell Inspirion 1525. Originally came with Vista. 75.86.192.214 (talk) 23:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Then, visit the support section of Dell's web site here and enter the service tag number (if you can find it) or just the model number. Download the drivers for video, audio, and networking (wireless and wired). Run the files that you download on the computer with the fresh install of Windows Vista.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 23:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I'll try that as soon as I can. Thanks! 75.86.192.214 (talk) 23:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Check Drivers & Downloads for Inspiron 1525 - there is a patch there marked urgent. In addition, as you are running Windows Vista, you might consider installing the Windows Vista Service Packs SP2 and SP3. Good luck, and hope you get your computer fixed. Rocketshiporion♫ 02:40, 9 October 2010 (UTC)