I got minor Windows problems

Hi Bill,

I think I've identified your problem. It's right here: "I am running Windows ME."

Seriously, have you checked the Microsoft support knowledge base page for this specific problem:

MSBBN: "Iphlpapi.dll Cannot Start" Error Message When You Try to Install Broadband

I don't know if yours is a broadband issue, but the kb article specifically mentions Windows 98/ME.

Steve

Bill,

Windows ME was very probably the worst of any of the versions, at least until some of the features in Vista.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/5143

Greg

Greg -

I read through the Gutmann paper linked to on your thread above. Some of the Vista stuff is just scary. It makes me want to stay as far away as possible.

Steve,

It scares and angers many of us.

PC World just ran some software comparison tests on Vista versus XP, and the only case where Vista performed better was with dual core processors doing multitasking: It showed a sizable improvement. But, on everything else, single core or dual core processors, it did worse, and in some cases much worse. Granted, the video card makers have to refine their drivers, but drivers cannot make up for the necessity to perform extra processing. None of the DRM crap that Vista is loaded down with was asked for by consumers: just the opposite.

But when has a monopoly ever placed consumers first? Their first responsibility should be to the people who purchase their product, not the media industry. They have turned everything on its head, and removed value from us in a number of ways.

Greg

MS has always been a leader in the computer industry.

New techniques like getting paying customers to do all their product testing will ensure that their cost are kept down and that the customers are always ready to grasp at any patch that Microsoft may have to fix the problem with their soft ware.

BlueAussieBoy,

"MS has always been a leader in the computer industry."

In sales only. They have never, ever been a leader in anything else, with the lone possible exception of the original MS-DOS, which everyone around at the time knows they ported it over to 16 bits from the 8 bit CPM software of the day. It even still retained most of the CPM limitations like 8 character filenames.

Their software is seldom the best, or the worst, being typically middle of the pack. The problem is that they have a market share of OS software that far exceeds any definition of a monopoly, by virtue of being at the right place at the right time to leverage off of MS-DOS. They mimicked Apple's MacIntosh (which Apple created by expanding on work done at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) with the first version of Windows. This was a massive flop because the IBM compatible computers of the day were inadequate for the task, but they stuck with it, and by the time the 80386 came along (the first CPU that could shift between programs on the fly), they were ready with Windows 3.0 and that took off. I give them credit for that, because quitters they are not. Windows at that time ran on top of MS-DOS. This relationship to IBM, with MS-DOS gave them a leg up on everyone else, and they were never ones to not use whatever leverage they had (which I can't criticize them for in those days).

But that leverage has increased to completely controlling much of the market place, either directly or indirectly, and killing off, crippling, or copying anything worthwhile in terms of market share or being a potential threat. MS Office suite wasn't as good as the competition of the day overall, but controlling the operating system market enabled them to push it to its present almost complete dominance.

They are not evil. But monopolies act in evil ways to protect their dominance and they are no exception. Vista is now the crowning achievement of the "We know best what's good for you, and won't let you do anything we don't think you should" mentality of a monopoly run amok.

If you can think of one useful (to consumers) innovation they have made, that they didn't take from someone else, I would like to hear it. (Their may in fact be a very few, but I can't think of any.)

Compatibility is a good thing, but that would happen anyway because the market demands it, just as it has happened in so many other industries, except that when it is by consensus, it is loose enough to still allow for things that are not fully compatible, but better, and this is a good thing also.

Spend some time reading the links in the thread I posted the link to and you decide what they are about.

Greg

I agree with nearlt everything you say - I've a rake of Macs to compare it with, and spent 2 days looking at the Vista launch presentations, hoping to see something that Apple have not yet done (and better, too).

The only thing was the capability of Vista to store Word, etc files in sections, so that - in their example - an image could be replaced without opening the file.

A wonderful idea....NOT - any replacement image would have to be exactly the same size, and need the same cropping...its bad enough trying to replace an image when you can see what you are doing!

I wonder how long it wil be before MS emulate this:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/timemachine.html

leopard timemachine...cool...with hundreds of gigabytes of storage available for so little nowadays, it's about time someone made a good running backup to solve one of our worst problems, ourselves.

vista, vista, vista...I've purchased EVERY major version of windows since the dawn of time but the whole philosophy behind vista has pushed me overboard and I'm now sailing with linux. I'm sure there will always be the odd thing that I look over my shoulder at but I have an extremely hard time forking over $500 CAD for a copy of the Ultimate edition, anything less that what it's supposed to be is a waste. Why do they bother with so many versions? It'll make updates even more difficult for them to keep up with and administration will become a nightmare as people come for help about something that works differently on a different version (this is the part I want to distance myself from...I'm "that guy" at work everyone comes to with their questions and problems about their home computers)

I think the only way that windows can possibly continue to dominate in the long term is to make their software AFFORDABLE. $500 for windows? $800 for Office? This really offsets the falling cost of technology to the point that a fully setup computer will still cost thousands of dollars...kinda sounds like we've gone back in time a decade or so. Tech DROPS in price...who gives them the right to push it back up? I understand they've "worked for years one <yada yada> but a system that works well and is affordable will sell a lot more than something at twice or thrice the price. Honestly...I can't imagine upgrading my computer AND forking out the dough required to run vista. Period.

I've a P4 duo, and heard that there is a way to get Mac OSX running on it.....

Word 2004 is so bad that it crashes OSX when just trying to paste text and pictures from the web. It will paste text alone, but no mixed content. I have used Word on a Mac since 1985 and quit at word 5.1a because the updates just kept getting worse.

OSX has its own office software bundled, which can read and write to the various Word formats, or install Open Office - it can do the same, including PPT (and it's free)

I use WordPerfect, and PerfectOffice for all my own stuff. Its not free, but reasonably priced and I much prefer it to Word, which I only have for complete compatibility with my clients. WordPerfect will open and write to Word documents, but it is much more flexible, and does many things very simply, that are very difficult, or impossible in Word. Therefore some inconsistencies in formatting can arise when outputting to Word. It also of course works seamlessly with all the other Corel products.

http://www.corel.com/

They don't have a version for the Mac though.

Greg

Does all this make you wonder sometimes if Bill himself is a closet Mac or Linux user? Or perhaps his recent retirement - just before Vista was released - was prompted by the heat he knows is coming. More than ever, Microsoft inspires visions of The Titanic.

And its products? The Iceberg.

-e

...of the original MS-DOS...

Which they bought, not even created... only later shared distribution with IBM, for a while, that is until IBM came up with OS2 Warp, shared it back and later called Windows 95...

I still remember that Win95 setup with an "Ignore" button to the right side of the registration number requirement rectangle...

God have mercy, what a comparison to today's piracy hunt

...New techniques like getting paying customers to do all their product testing will ensure This seem so true...

This seem so true, besides, in hindsight it looks as if their favourite programming technique is patching.

...Some of the Vista stuff is just scary...

Call me archaic moron, but for the last ten years I made it a habit to always run atleast one version behind, and stay happy.

I currently run Win-2k, that is, ever since 2003. It is so stable and predictable, I'm thinking of laying-off XP altogether, because it's not controllable enough, and it decides to much on it's own.

I keep however, one XP HDD in a tray (I work with pull-out trays), for apps which will only run on XP.

Try following this link from Google... If you haven't already.

Fixing the iphlpapi error. (Error 48) Click here to download IPHLPAPI.DLL (right click the text on the left and save ... Back up your current copy of IPHLPAPI.DLL and copy the new version to the ...
www.ascentive.com/support/new/dll_iphlpapi.phtml - 29k - Cached - Similar pages

Hi Vermin,
Thanks for getting us back on topic. We ran a bit astray there

Sciesis2 confesses: "I am running Windows ME on an HP computer."

-----

Yes, but must you run ME? Have you absolutely no other choice?

Rather than bother at all with ME, why not just replace it with something better? The Good News is that when you consider "something better" means "something better than ME," your choices are nearly limitless. Anything is better than choking your CPU with ME - including other versions of Windows.

-e

Thanks for the info guys, but I did not need questions on "WHY I am using ME" etc. Answer is because that is the OS which came with the machine. I learned along time ago that if your machine uses Windows 3.3 + DOS whatever, You should not upgrade it to Windows85 or 89 or whatever. That would be like trying to run the original windows on my original 8088. (actually it required 80286 to even run) It causes more grief than I choose to deal with.

In any case, it seems that most Windows books are meant for Windows users... Not engineers. So what the heck does ********.DLL do? Any advice??

*.dll, is what they call a Dynamic link library item.

It, and *.vxd items, are machine-code optimised General Function runtimes, added members to the system's function-library such as API and MFC (in former windows' versions).

These are added to the system's libraries upon installation, usually when a new app needs some original routines, not initially found on the system's.

These will be run when called by an encapsulated "script", (wrongly) called "a program" and (wrongly) extended *.exe, whatever sense all that would make, in understanding, why oh why are PC's getting slower and slower, with evidently faster and (x10,000) faster electronics - - -

- - - Could someome tell me why ?

Hi Sciesis2, it is a networking driver.

Microsoft's answer: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823256

And more info at:

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/dlllibrary/iphlpapi/

GM...

Much thanks for the info. That explains why that DLL does not cause more problems. That machine is not networked... nor is it even connected to the Internet. I may go ahead and load a patch for it (mentioned further up above) just to get rid of the error. I hope in the near future to network that machine with this machine (and the high speed internet) so I will definitely need it there.

Bill