Tag: windows vista

Code Purple — The Compaq/HP Booby Trap

I did a full restore, reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows Vista on a HP system. Everything went like clockwork…

Until I rebooted the machine. Then I got an error that there was a “Configuration error” and that I should call “Customer Care” with “Error Code Purple.” T that point, I could only power off the machine.

What in the world was “Error Code Purple,” I wondered. A quick search on the net revealed that this was a booby trap placed in HP and Compaq computers in which a “tattoo” or numerical signature of the motherboard and hardware configuration is created at the factory and encoded into the restore disks on a particular computer. When you re-install your system, it checks to make sure the system has not been modified. If you have modified your system, the “tattoo” generated by the checking program will be different than the original, and the system will not boot.

In order to fix this, you have to send in your computer to Compaq, or take it so some place like CompUSA or BestBuy where they will modify the “tattoo” so you can run your software on your computer again — until the next time you upgrade memory or swap a card or DVD player.

For a fee, of course.

But not all was lost as I found couple of interesting and simple solutions to bypass this issue and continue with the rest of the installation. Here is one of them for HP systems based on Vista.

When the screen comes up that tells you about the code purple, do this:

Hold shift key and press f10

Type this below in command prompt with spaces like shown

cd C:hpbinCheckDMI

press ENTER

Now, type:

dir

press ENTER

Now you will notice that there are bunch of files listed, we need to find CheckDMI.cmd and rename it as below.

ren CheckDMI.cmd CheckDMI

press ENTER

The file should now be changed. Exit out of command prompt and restart your computer. And walaa…

You’re done! Congrats…you just successfully fixed your Code Purple problem. Now you don’t have to waste half a month of shipping your computer back and forth from an HP tech shop to get it “repaired for free”

USB Selective Suspend – Turn On or Off

USB Logo

The USB selective suspend feature allows the hub driver to suspend an individual USB port without affecting the operation of the other USB ports on the hub. Selective suspension of USB devices is especially useful in portable computers, since it helps conserve battery power. Many devices, such as fingerprint readers and other kinds of biometric scanners, only require power intermittently. Suspending such devices, when the device is not in use, reduces overall power consumption. More importantly, any device that is not selectively suspended may prevent the USB host controller from disabling its transfer schedule, which resides in system memory. DMA transfers by the host controller to the scheduler can prevent the system’s processors from entering deeper sleep states, such as hibernate.

 

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off USB selective suspend to automatically power down idle USB devices in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/147369-usb-selective-suspend-turn-off.html

How to avoid installing bundleware with the help of Unchecky

Installing third-party programs isn’t the minefield it was during the good old days of Windows XP. But every now and then, some desktop apps still try to sneak annoying tool-bars and other software past you during installation.

Known as bundle-ware, the options to not install these additional programs can be easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. That’s where a utility called Unchecky can come in handy, by watching over third-party installations so that you don’t have to. It should work with most software and is well worth using when it does.

Checking in with Unchecky

Visit the Unchecky website and click the big, orange Download button on the front page. Install the program as you normally would—it should be a quick process.

 

Watch Unchecky in action