Scary Vista
Scenario:
Vista Business on a brand new Dell desktop hosting a network share of a HP 8100 USB printer.
One of the networked computers is Windows 98 and there is no 98 driver for HP 8100.
I tried the tried and true old trick of loading a Generic driver for the HP8100 and sharing it so the 98 machine would have at least basic printing abilities until it gets replaced in a few days.
Bad idea.
I ran a test print from within the Windows Vista printer wizard dialogue. The printer printed correctly but the wizard app stopped responding. The error cascaded to an open instance of Open Office and to Windows Explorer.
I shut down through Task Manager and after an extrodinarily long shutdown process, restarted the machine.
After a long wait, Vista came up in a crippled state. I could not start Control Panel, could not start System Restore (well I couldn’t find it…Why did Microsoft move everything in Vista?) , could not start Open Office. I started Task Manager but could not see anything amiss.
After another 5 minute shutdown sequence I booted to Safe Mode.
I opened the System Restore FAQ in Help which answered many questions but not “Where I can I click to start System Restore?”. One of the FAQs near the bottom of the page offered a way to start from the command line. I rolled back two days and my problem was fixed.
My advice :
DO NOT TURN OFF VISTA SYSTEM RESTORE !