These are three items that are currently broken in my installation of Windows Vista Ultimate. There does not seem to be a way to fix these issues so I am at the mercy of Microsoft eventually fixing this. Some day… hopefully.

These are all issues specific to my machine. I am not saying that these are universal Vista problems. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not.

• Windows Help Files

Yes, help files on my computer are broken for all functions of Windows Vista, including Internet Explorer 7, the games that come with Vista, and everything else that’s included with the new operating system. This is what I see any time that I attempt to view a help file:



Apparently Internet Explorer 7 is used for displaying help files in Vista, and the Vista O/S seems to think that my computer’s root drive is an Internet website where those help files are located. Or something.

• Internet Explorer 7’s “Protected Mode” - FIXED

Speaking of IE7, the so-called “Protected Mode” is permanently stuck to Off in Internet Explorer 7. Take a look at this screen shot:



You’ll notice that the “Protected Mode” is enabled in the options but that the status is still “Off” in the status bar. I’ve toggled this, shutting the browser down between toggles. It does no good, nothing will get this turned back on. I’ve tried.

This feature worked at first and I don’t have a clue how it became broken. I never tinkered with this option. Heck, I only used IE7 on Microsoft’s websites, unless you count hitting Mozilla.org to download FireFox. Anyway, so much for this hyped new security feature, eh?

EDIT: I discovered what turned off Protected Mode IE7 in Vista. The “Protected Mode” option is apparently tied directly to the ever so annoying UAC, or “User Access Control”. If this annoyed you (as it will every person on the planet) and you turned it off as a result then the “Protected Mode” in Internet Explorer 7 is disabled. Why? You’ll have to ask the boneheads at Microsoft that question.

• SlideShow

Windows SlideShow is supposed to be a really neat new feature that allows you to play a slide show of your images. Any time that you view an image you can hit this big center button:



…to start the slide show. Theoretically.

Unfortunately it’s really easy to break. You see, there are different styles of slide shows. I selected the “Album” style to see what it would look like. That’s all that was required to break it. As a result I now get only a blank, black screen any time that I activate Windows SlideShow. This black screen stays for a seemingly fixed amount of time, meaning that I can’t close it myself, I have to wait for it to go away on its own.

Maybe I could fix this if only I could change the style to something other than “Album”, but there is no user interface so there is no way to change it. Pressing keys and mouse buttons produces no results. I even searched through the Windows registry in an attempt to find the option, but couldn’t find an obvious setting for it.

A helpful fellow on the Microsoft news groups pointed me to a solution. If anyone else is seeing a black screen using Windows Slide Show they should go here for the fix.

Aren’t broken things wonderful?

~Steph