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Microsoft Quietly Previews PC Advisor Repair Tool
notthatwillsmith writes "On Friday, Microsoft invited members of the Windows Feedback Program to try out a preview of a new application, the Microsoft PC Advisor. The new tool promises to 'continuously monitor your PC for problems and give you the solutions to fix them, in real time.' After testing on several Vista machines with a variety of problems, Maximum PC has written a full report on the Microsoft PC Advisor. The short version? Like every other 'PC Repair' tool they've tested, the new apps signal-to-noise ratio is quite bad, and it misses the obvious and important problems, like out-of-date videocard drivers."
I remember something similar, in that it messed my video card driver up.
There have been very few times that MS Update has gotten the video card drivers right.
where exactly does the review say that?
the author's major complaints against the tool seem to be:
it sounds like the author's evaluation that this program offers non-fixes for non-problems seems like a pretty accurate one. he does give the program benefit of the doubt and states:
i think they were just expecting what MS tried to promise--a program that would actually help troubleshoot computer problems. but in the end, Microsoft's PC Advisor Repair Tool suffers the same problem as other PC repair programs--they don't work.
With IE being embedded into several applications(Intuit's come to mind) a bunch of users to whom this tool is aimed at might think _wrongly_ that they don't use IE. Better fix it... Kinda hard for the tool to guess if a perf problem is due to a third party app calling a part of the os in embedded mode is causing a slowness of the app...
I believe Windows Update will recommend more "compatible" drivers than the ones you currently have. That could mean for your specific product (Linksys Wireless G WUSB54G v4) versus generic chipset drivers (RALINK whatever), or it could mean "newer," or it could mean a number of other tricky things.
But, only if the drivers are in its database. It will regularly push old nVidia drivers, for example, even if you have newer ones installed. It will push hard disk and RAID controller drivers, with disastrous results. I do laptop repair at a college I attend, and Windows Update pushed a driver update that blue-screened the machine on boot. Even in safe mode. Even in VGA mode. On an XP machine, no less.
But, it can be smart, too. It always seems to recommend newer printer drivers, even if the printer isn't installed at the time. If a device is reporting an error (or even if you disable your network card!), it'll push a driver in an attempt to solve your problem.
In my limited experience on this planet, I've found it wise to avoid installing disk controller drivers of all stripes (no pun intended) and video driver updates from Windows Update. Ditto for most drivers - get newer versions directly from creative or realtek or intel or whoever. At Microsoft's best, the results are the same - more commonly, you get an old driver, or a blue-screen on boot.
DATABASE WOW WOW
A harddisk developing bad sectors is a harddisk that is dying and should be replaced ASAP. You make backups, but do you do backup verification? Because if you don't, the files backed up could be corrupt and a corrupt backup is pretty much as bad as no backup at all.
Replace that disk....