The last couple of days our PC has had problems whenever anything involving video or non-basic graphics were involved. I tried all the obvious things, rebooting first, re-installing the nVidia drivers, then upgrading them to a more recent version when that did nothing to help.
I finally tried cleaning the registry with a couple of different programs I usually use for such purposes. A few minor issues were discovered, though nothing appeared to be related to video. Anyway, the same problems occurred - changing resolutions, switching from DualView to single monitor use (or back again), playing videos or anything using DirectX would often as not cause the nVidia applet to unload itself from memory, and sometimes cause the explorer process to hang.
Finally, I decided to do a proper job, and downloaded a couple of utilities that clean the drivers completely off your computer. Basically you remove the video drivers via Add/Remove Programs applet in your Control Panel, cancel the add hardware requests that will pop up, reboot into safe mode, then run the cleaning utils. Reboot once more into Windows as you would normally, then install the nVidia drivers. Another reboot, and hey presto, my PC was running as it should once more. Anyway, the two (free) utils are called Driver Cleaner and NFR (Nasty File Remover). Ideally one should do the job, however I decided to play it safe, and NFR did find 4 files left behind by the DC. DC is now actually a product that is sold, however the previous free versions can easily be found by a quick Google search.

PS Not a sponsored post, just providing the links in case other readers have similar problems in the future.

There are many shopping comparison sites out there, though some tend to either be slow and clunky with the interface, or only search a limited number of online stores’ inventories, and so don’t always return the best price possible.
This afternoon, I tested out QuickShop, and was actually pleasantly surprised at the quality of the results and prices returned. I tried a few technical products (a couple of different nVidia based graphic cards), some books and then a few random searches, using names and towns to see just what was listed.
For anyone looking for great deals online, I can happily recommend the site - at the end of the day, it will only take a few seconds to try the new service out, and you could end up saving some money. As for their claim to be able to find more products, from more stores, than any other existing site, I obviously don’t have the numbers to confirm this myself, but from the searches I ran, and the quantity and quality of results turned, I think they could well be worth looking into, especially with Christmas and all the related gift buying coming up so soon.

We took our kitten home, from the in laws, today. Not yet named her, the proposals are Pippa, Socks and a word I’ve forgotten already (Karra?) that means black in Kazakh. Anyone else think of anything? It needs to be easily pronounced by Russian and English tongues, be feminine, and be shortened easily…
The last one was suggested by KZBlog owner’s wife; we met up at the Chelsea (an ‘English’ ‘pub’) again Saturday night. Had a good time, ate a little, drank a little more, and talked a lot, their prices are definitely higher than the average bar, but the selection of food is good for wimpy westerners like me, and I tend to feel a little freer talking about life over here than I would normally…

FINALLY the PC Hardware was all fitted. For the last 5 months, I’ve been waiting (we’ll get the stock next week, next week, next week, oh we had it, but sold it to someone else etc. etc.) for a Graphics Card upgrade (nVidia 7600GT>7900GT) and a replacement 320 Gig Seagate SATA hard drive; for the last week and a half, Ucon (the PC shop in question) has PROMISED to visit our flat and deliver them (to make up for the delays) . Each day, they didn’t turn up, and each day they didn’t bother to call and let us know they couldn’t make it. Sadly, this isn’t exactly unheard of, in respect of customer service levels, here in Kazakhstan. We gave up in the end, and went back to the original plan, so we took the PC to the shop and dropped the printer off to be repaired. They laughed at the amount of programs I have running (what’s the point in a well specced machine if you don’t fully utilize it’s resources), and the lights I had fitted. Had being the operative word, they took it all out, fitted the hardware, then put it all in a bag for me. Also caught the shop assistant trying to copy some of my games. 1) Don’t do it without asking, it is rude 2) Don’t be stupid, simply copying the directory the game is installed into onto their machine will not likely result in a working application, and oh yeah 3) Copyright theft is bad hmmm. Well offered to copy my installation DVDs (only for Public Domain games, obviously…), and they could have it when we came to pick up the repaired printer. Hoping that is enough motivation to see the printer back soon…
I now have just over 850 Gigabytes of storage space, so shan’t be running out anytime soon. Especially not downloading via dial up access to the internet. Irina’s mum had ADSL installed in the last week, so I’m hoping we’ll either get that or WiMax sorted soon….
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