John Breakwell's dashboard

John Breakwell replied on November 11, 2009 11:55 to the problem "problem with xbox" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi William,

You have several options.

1 There may be something slightly wrong with the disk which doesn'r show up on all consoles due to minor manufacturing differences between the DVD drives in them. Try a replacement disk from the retailer.

2 The DVD drive may be faulty. Try a handful of other games. If you think it is the drive then contact Xbox support for a repair.

3 Try installing the game to the hard disk (assuming you have one). I have heard from others where disks wouldn't play but they would install to, and play from, the hard disk. After that the disk is just needed in the drive for ownership checking.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on November 05, 2009 13:52 to the question "The time is right to dump IE6!" in Microsoft Corporation:

HI Dorsborne,

the support situation is summarised on the IE Blog:

IE7, IE6 and The Windows Lifecycle

"IE6SP1 will continue to be supported until the OS it ships with expires."

From the Microsoft Support Lifecycle homepage, extended support for the remaining affected operating systems will end as follows:

- Windows 2000 (13/Jul/2010)
- Windows XP (08/Apr/2014)

Bear in mind, though, that lack of support has no impact on the right of someone to use Internet Explorer 6 as long as they want.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on October 29, 2009 17:16 to the question "From 32-bit to 64-bit, installer won't open from desktop." in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi,

That sounds like a corrupt download.
Might be worth downloading it again.
Where did you download it from, MSDN?

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on October 25, 2009 12:08 to the problem "No up one level button in windows explorer" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi,

that button was removed a few years ago in Windows Vista. You can, though, use the "Alt + UP arrow" combination to do the same thing.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on October 17, 2009 19:31 to the question "How can I fix a low system idle process? It's running at about 0 to 90%" in Microsoft Corporation:

HI Ceotammyjo,
Hopefully you've had a read of the links I mentioned in an earlier post:

"System Idle Process" Explained

Why Is The System Idle Process Hogging All The Resources?

Let's try approaching this from a different angle. In my car there is a little light that comes on when my fuel tank is down to 15 % full. The light is indicating the absence of fuel. It is not, though, the cause of the absence of fuel.
Similarly, if the System Idle process shows a high number, this indicates the absence of any other processes asking to use the CPU. It is not, though, preventing those processes from using the CPU.

Ignore the Idle Process numbers - they are only there to make the Task Manager column CPU usage column add up to 100%.

If your system seems unresponsive and System Idle is high, this shows you that the CPU is under-used and not the cause of your problems. There are a number of other causes - for example,, does the hard disk light flash a lot when the system is unresponsive? If so, it could be the drive needs defragmenting. Or disk activity could indicate the machine is running low on physical RAM (which means more use fo the pagefile and results in increased disk activity). There are many possible causes for poor performance and a lot of resources on the Internet to help you fix them.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on September 04, 2009 09:14 to the question "Is Microsoft still developing this app? Memory problem!" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Greg,
Microsoft Recite was launched in February as a Technology Preview so what you see should not be regarded as the finished product. From the Recite blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/recite):

"What’s a Technology Preview?
By launching Microsoft Recite as a technology preview, we’re offering you an early look at this new technology. We encourage you to download Recite, use it anywhere and anytime, and tell us what you think! We want to hear what you like and don’t like about it, improvements you’d like to see, and questions you have. Get in touch with us by clicking the ‘Feedback’ button on our web site, http://recite.microsoft.com. We look forward to hearing from you."

Cheers
John Breakwell

John Breakwell replied on August 28, 2009 18:10 to the question "my xbox 360 is about 1 year old and it just stopped working and flashing red around the button why" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Larry,

The cause depends on the number of flashing red lights:

• 
  Four lights on the Ring of Light on the front of your Xbox 360 console flash red - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906652



• Three of the lights on the Ring of Light on the front of your Xbox 360 console flash red - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907534



• Two lights on the Ring of Light on the front of your Xbox 360 console flash red - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907533



• One of the lights on the Ring of Light on the front of your Xbox 360 console flashes red and you do not receive an error code or error message - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907535

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell marked one of Nathan Massey's replies in Microsoft Corporation as useful. Nathan Massey replied to the problem "Could one on the employee's from Microsoft please add a logo/picture for the XBOX 360 and XBOX Live! products on GS?".

John Breakwell replied on July 30, 2009 10:17 to the problem "why isn't microsoft fexing this xbox live problem???" in Microsoft Corporation:

As Xbox Live is not supported in Saudi Arabia, you won't have access to all the features, such as downloading content. The Xbox 360 only launched there in April 2007 so hopefully it is just a matter of time before the service becomes available but I haven't seen any public announcements on the subject.

Downloadable content is available in countries where the owner has made it available, not just the US. There is content that is available only to US customers. Similarly there is content where the opposite applies - a recent example is the downloadable trial of a cricket sports game available to European and Australian customers.

You ask why Xbox Live operates in this way. The main reason is to allow content providers to market their products in the way the want to. An additional benefit is that local laws and regulations can be abided by.

On the back of the game case there should be a block of text headed "Xbox Live System Requirements" that details the availability of the Xbox Live service.

Full country list for Xbox Live Support is here:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/countr...

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on July 29, 2009 13:07 to the problem "why isn't microsoft fexing this xbox live problem???" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi A.R.

I assume you are using a gamertag that you set up when you were in the U.S. This means you will be able to see the U.S. marketplace but not be able to download content from there. The marketplace you view is based on the country setting within the gamertag/WLID.

What you are experiencing is a restriction in place to support the contract between Microsoft and the content provider. Providers have multiple contracts, one for each region/country they wish their product to be available to. The marletplace you are using will check your physical location to determine if you can download the content or not.

To download content to your console you will need to use a gamertag that is created for the country you are in. You should then be able to purchase DLC you want from your local marketplace (assuming the content provider has a contract for that region). As the console will now have a license for that content, it will be available to your U.S. Gamertag.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on July 28, 2009 13:41 to the question "How do I get stability in Outlook 2007" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Kris,

I've been lugging my PST files around with me from machine to machine since Outlook started using them. I've created a few replacements recently (with the new file format that doesn't have the 2GB file size limit) when the old ones grew to big. I'm now using 12GB of PSTs, the largest of which is 4GB and four are 1-2GB. Can't recall ever having any problems with file integrity over the years with different OSes. Currently I'm running on Windows 2003 so admittedly not like-for-like.

Are you having to rebuild the OST file or the PST file, or both?

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on July 20, 2009 13:04 to the problem "Could one on the employee's from Microsoft please add a logo/picture for the XBOX 360 and XBOX Live! products on GS?" in Microsoft Corporation:

Fixed.

John Breakwell replied on July 08, 2009 22:37 to the question "How can I fix a low system idle process? It's running at about 0 to 90%" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Omar,

The feature you describe does not exist.
Anti-virus applications are the only software that can stop viruses from running.
If a machine is infected with a virus then the virus code is running just like any legitimate program or application. The operating system cannot distinguish between applications that are supposed to be there and those that are not.
The System Idle process does not cause a system to slow down.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on July 05, 2009 20:10 to the question "Silverlight on my Mac" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi

Are you running Mac OS 10.4.8+?
Silverlight v2 won't install on PowerPCs.

The Silverlight Deployment Guide (http://download.microsoft.com/downloa...)
has a section called "Silverlight installation and uninstallation" but I'm not sure if it helps for a Mac.

This blog talks about running a DMG:
http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archi...

And then I found this step-by-step:
How to Install Microsoft Silverlight on a Macintosh
http://filmgo.net/HelpCenter/Silverli...

Hope that helps.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on July 05, 2009 18:52 to the problem "Window vista is too slow booting up" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi,

Did the machine come with Vista or is it one you upgraded from Windows XP? If the latter then does it meet the hardware requirements for Windows Vista?

A good indicator of the performance you can expect is to look at "Control Panel\Performance Information and Tools". Have a look to see if one of the subscores is very low.

If you think the machine should be up to the job then there may be some software applications installed that are slowing the machine down. To check this out, bring up "System Information" (msinfo32.exe) and look at 'Startup Programs'. You can run this from the start menu (accessories, system tools, system information).

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on July 05, 2009 18:42 to the question "AStiDog Application???????" in Microsoft Corporation:

Using Bing, I see one reference on the Internet for AStiDog.exe:

WaitingDog.

Does that mean anything to you?
If not, find the AStiDog.exe file and look at it's properties in Explorer. The details tab may give you some indication of the vendor.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on June 28, 2009 20:05 to the question "How can I fix a low system idle process? It's running at about 0 to 90%" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Donald,

This statement IS false:
"So computer speed is definitely caused by the low system idle process."

Here are a few links that are worth a read:

"System Idle Process" Explained

Why Is The System Idle Process Hogging All The Resources?

If you are only seeing a few other processes with 1-4% each then you need to make sure you select "show processes from all users" (or similar) in Task Manager.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on June 28, 2009 00:06 to the question "How can I fix a low system idle process? It's running at about 0 to 90%" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Donald, you are looking at the wrong process. The System Idle Process just shows the amount of time your system is idle - doing nothing. If this % is lower than usual, just look to see which other process is busy.
You may need to "show processes from all users".
Once you have found it, you may need to search the Internet to find out what the program is for and if you need to take any action.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)

John Breakwell replied on June 14, 2009 19:58 to the question "Disappointed Mom" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi Diane,

You should be able to get this through outlets like eBay and Amazon although you may have to wait for a copy to become available.

Cheers
John Breakwell

John Breakwell replied on June 03, 2009 00:10 to the question "Gamertag stolen" in Microsoft Corporation:

Hi,

The only people that can help you are at Xbox Support.
If you look at the support website (http://www.xbox.com/support/contact), you should find a telephone number appropriate for your location.

Cheers
John Breakwell (MSFT)