XtraSimplicity

So I bought an ASUS K42JR VX047X 14″ laptop from OnlineComputer a few weeks ago, and noticed that it came with a lot of pre-installed bloat-ware.. So naturally, I formatted and reinstalled windows completely.

This made it quicker, at first, but then introduced a new problem – the computer would take an exceptionally long time to boot, in excess of two to three minutes. It would also lock up randomly after logging in, and every few hours or so, even if the computer was idle. I also noticed that when watching videos, the video would freeze constantly, causing it to become unwatchable.

I reinstalled windows four times to no avail, before having a look under Event Viewer in Windows 7 (start > run > eventvwr.msc),  noticing that the computer had failed on an application called iaStor every few hours, around the time where the computer would lock up.

So I searched google, and found that sometimes the iaStor drivers (Intel Chipset AHCI storage device driver) install incorrectly, causing the computer to hang on boot and at random. I also managed to find a quick fix that works wonders.

This fix works on ANY computer that is experiencing slow boot or random lock ups caused by the iaStor driver, so long as the computer is running an Intel chipset.

The fix:

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
   
3. Type regedit
   
4. Click okay
   
5. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor
   (See below for instructions regarding how to navigate through the registry)
   
6. Rename Parameters to Parameters.old
   
7. Restart the computer
   

How to navigate through the Registry

Warning: Make sure that you understand what you are doing when working within the registry, as deleting or modifying something could easily cause your computer to fail to start.

1. Along the side of the registry editor window, you’ll see a folder tree.
2. Double click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder to view the contents of that folder (referred to as a ‘key’)
   



3. Repeat this until you get to the Parameters key (folder) under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor key (directory).

So, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium to my BenQ Joybook Lite U101B netbook, in the hopes that I could then install the German language pack and everything would work well.. Seems plausible, right? Well, little did I know, Microsoft decided to only include such support in the Ultimate and Enterprise versions of 7 & Vista.

So, I did some googling and was able to find a small application that will allow you to easily install language packs to Home Premium, Starter, Basic and Business editions of 7 and Vista.

Vistalizator, downloadable from here or here (local mirror), allows you to download any Windows language pack, directly from Microsoft’s servers, and apply them to your computer, independent as to which Windows 7 or Vista operating system edition you are using.

Vistalizator’s Main Application Window.

Selecting a Windows Language Pack file(s), using Vistalizator’s “Add languages” button.

After a restart, the computer automatically started in my desired Language (German).

So, needless to say, this application worked perfectly – however, there is only one problem.. You must use Vistalizator to change all settings regarding Display languages, as Windows’ control panel does not have anywhere to change display languages.

After quite a bit of searching, I came across this:

http://wiki.winehq.org/winetricks

Thus, I have archived it here.

Getting winetricks

The script is maintained and hosted by DanKegel at http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks. Right-click on that link and use ‘save as’ to save a fresh copy. Or you can get it from the commandline with the command:

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

Also, some winetricks “packages” require the cabextract tool to be installed. The cabextract tool is for extracting Microsoft cabinet files, also called .CAB files. Linux users can usually get it via their distribution’s package management system, or visit http://www.cabextract.org.uk/ to download.

Using winetricks

Once you’ve obtained winetricks you can run it simply by typing sh winetricks at the console. If ran without parameters a winetricks displays a GUI with a list of available packages. If you know the name of the package(s) you wish to install, you can append the name(s) to the winetricks command line and it will immediately start the installation process. For example,

sh winetricks corefonts vcrun6

will install both the corefonts and vcrun6 packages.

Options

This script can help you prepare your system for Windows applications
that mistakenly assume all users' systems have all the needed
redistributable runtime libraries or fonts.
Some options require the Linux 'cabextract' program.

Options:
 -q         quiet.  You must have already agreed to the EULAs.
 -v         verbose
 -V         display Version
Packages:
 art2kmin      MS Access 2000 runtime.  License required!
 colorprofile  Standard RGB color profile
 comctl32      MS common controls 5.80
 comctl32.ocx  MS comctl32.ocx and mscomctl.ocx, comctl32 wrappers for VB6
 controlpad    MS ActiveX Control Pad
 corefonts     MS Arial, Courier, Times fonts
 dcom98        MS DCOM, override the Wine implementation
 dirac0.8      the obsolete Dirac 0.8 directshow filter
 directx9      MS DirectX 9 user redistributable
 divx          divx video codec
 dotnet11      MS .NET 1.1 (requires Windows license)
 dotnet20      MS .NET 2.0 (requires Windows license)
 ffdshow       ffdshow video codecs
 flash         Adobe Flash Player ActiveX and firefox plugins
 fm20          MS Forms 2.0 Object Library
 fontfix       Fix bad fonts which cause crash in some apps (e.g. .net).
 gdiplus       MS gdiplus.dll (from powerpoint viewer)
 gecko         The HTML rendering Engine (Mozilla)
 icodecs       Intel Codecs (Indeo)
 jet40         MS Jet 4.0 Service Pack 8
 liberation    Red Hat Liberation fonts (Sans, Serif, Mono)
 mdac25        MS MDAC 2.5: Microsoft ODBC drivers, etc.
 mdac27        MS MDAC 2.7
 mdac28        MS MDAC 2.8
 mfc40         MS mfc40 (Microsoft Foundation Classes from Visual C++ 4)
 mfc42         MS mfc42 (see vcrun6 below)
 mono20        mono-2.0.1
 msi2          MS Installer 2.0
 mshflxgd      MS Hierarchical Flex Grid Control
 msls31        MS Line Services 3.1 (needed by native riched?)
 msmask        MS Masked Edit Control
 msscript      MS Script Control
 msxml3        MS XML version 3
 msxml4        MS XML version 4
 msxml6        MS XML version 6
 ogg           ogg filters/codecs: flac, theora, speex, vorbis, schroedinger
 ole2          MS 16 bit OLE
 pdh           MS pdh.dll (Performance Data Helper)
 quicktime72   Apple Quicktime 7.2
 riched20      MS riched20 and riched32
 riched30      MS riched30
 tahoma        MS Tahoma font (not part of corefonts)
 urlmon        MS urlmon.dll
 vb3run        MS Visual Basic 3 runtime
 vb4run        MS Visual Basic 4 runtime
 vb5run        MS Visual Basic 5 runtime
 vb6run        MS Visual Basic 6 runtime
 vcrun6        MS Visual C++ 6 sp4 libraries (mfc42, msvcp60, msvcrt)
 vcrun2003     MS Visual C++ 2003 libraries (mfc71,msvcp71,msvcr71)
 vcrun2005     MS Visual C++ 2005 libraries (mfc80,msvcp80,msvcr80)
 vcrun2005sp1  MS Visual C++ 2005 sp1 libraries
 vcrun2008     MS Visual C++ 2008 libraries (mfc90,msvcp90,msvcr90)
 vjrun20       MS Visual J# 2.0 libraries (requires dotnet20)
 wininet       MS wininet.dll (requires Windows license)
 wmp9          MS Windows Media Player 9 (requires Windows license)
 wmp10         MS Windows Media Player 10 (requires Windows license)
 wsh56         MS Windows Scripting Host 5.6
 wsh56js       MS Windows scripting 5.6, jscript only, no cscript
 wsh56vb       MS Windows scripting 5.6, vbscript only, no cscript
 xvid          xvid video codec
Apps:
 autohotkey    Autohotkey (open source gui scripting language)
 firefox3      Firefox Version 3
 ie6           Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
 kde           KDE for Windows installer
 mpc           Media Player Classic
 vlc           VLC media player
Pseudopackages:
 allfonts      All listed fonts (corefonts, tahoma, liberation)
 allcodecs     All listed codecs (xvid, ffdshow, icodecs)
 fakeie6       Set registry to claim IE6sp1 is installed
 native_mdac   Override odbc32 and odbccp32
 native_oleaut32 Override oleaut32
 nt40          Set windows version to nt40
 win98         Set windows version to Windows 98
 win2k         Set windows version to Windows 2000
 winxp         Set windows version to Windows XP
 vista         Set windows version to Windows Vista
 winver=       Set windows version to default (winxp)
 volnum        Rename drive_c to harddiskvolume0 (needed by some installers)
 
Tip: Winetricks knows about the WINEPREFIX environment variable.  This is useful for using winetricks on other prefixes  For example,

env WINEPREFIX=~/.winetest winetricks mfc40

installs the mfc40 package for the ~/.winetest prefix.