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Posts with tag Windows-Vista

How to put WoW Insider on your Windows Vista Sidebar

In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index.

About Windows Vista


Love it or hate it, eventually you'll probably end up using it. One of the neat features of Vista is the Sidebar, which is a place where you can put widgets that do different things, like tell the time, show what your EVE Online character is training, or tell you what the weather is like outside.

How to add WoW Insider to your Windows Vista's Sidebar.



1. Right click on your Sidebar and choose "Add Gadgets..."



2. This will open up the gadgets window. Double click the "Feed Headlines" gadget.
3. Close the gadgets window.



4. You'll now see the new gadget added at the top of your sidebar.



5. Open up Microsoft Internet Explorer and go to http://www.wowinsider.com/rss.xml
6. Click the "Subscribe to this feed" link.



7. A window will open up. The default settings will be fine. Click the "Subscribe" button.
8. Position your mouse over the feed gadget on your side bar and click the little wrench icon. It'll appear towards the upper right hand side of the gadget.



9. A window like the one above will slide out of the gadget, asking you what feed you want to display.
10. Choose to display "WoW Insider", and set the number of headlines to whatever you want.
11. Click the "Ok" button.



12. You're done! Left click on a feed headline to read the WoW Insider article.

The obvious report: Wrath will not require Vista

Just in case you were wondering (or if your friend used the mediocre Shadowrun FPS as proof that all games from now on will require Vista), no, we're almost sure that there's no way Wrath of the Lich King will require Windows Vista to run. In fact, even though Neth is only kind of certain in the thread, we'll make it 100%: you won't need Vista to run the next expansion.

Not only is Vista not exactly setting even high-end gamers' hearts afire, but Blizzard is traditionally about as lenient as it gets on system requirements. They did up the ante a little bit when Burning Crusade was released, and we do know that Wrath will require a little more of your computer with those shiny ice shaders (not too much more -- they may ask for more RAM or a faster than the current 800mhz processor). But as much as Microsoft would love what may again be the best selling expansion in the world to require Vista, it's just not going to happen -- Blizzard has too many subscribers here to lock a good number of them with an operating system that's not going over so well.

So ignore what your smirking friend tells you -- if you can run Burning Crusade, you'll be able to run Wrath on the same box.




Ping faster with Faster Ping

Recently members of my guild have been using a tool called Faster Ping to achieve better ping rates in game. My guild is a West Coast based guild, and attracts a lot of people from Hawaii and Australia, so they naturally have higher ping rates than those of us in the States. Faster Ping seems to be working wonders for them. It is not so much of an addon as it is a tool for Windows (though lots of people mistakingly call it an addon).

My first reaction to this was what thinking this sounded like something out of the mouth of Cliff Clavin. I mean, how can a piece of software impact something that is mainly due to physical limits? Well, after thinking about it for a bit, and reading up on what the tool does, it can.

WARNING! This paragraph will be the only one that contains technical content! Faster Ping works by removing the acknowledgement delay from TCP packets. This delay happens inside the kernel's TCP stack, and is a necessity for a lot of functions that go on inside a TCP stack. The other modification Faster Ping does is to remove delay in sending small packets (think anything less than a dozen or so bytes). These changes, at least theoretically, should not impact system stability if the Windows kernel has proper TCP/IP stack implementation. Okay, end technical content.

Continue reading Ping faster with Faster Ping

Making 2.3 install in Vista

Apparently, the new patch has been having some problems under Windows Vista. Based on the description of the symptoms, I imagine this would be the same for other patches, so many of you may know this fix already. But then, some of you may have just upgraded to Vista. Anyway, here's the problem: the patch downloads OK, but the patcher fails to run correctly. According to Growl at Gitr's blog, this is because of permissions; the "normal" user on Vista doesn't have admin permissions, and therefore can't do things like run patchers.

Fortunately, Growl has an easy solution. Just right-click the WoW icon and select "Run as administrator" (as depicted); log in and WoW will spawn the patch download, which will inherit its administrator privileges and, in turn, spin off the patcher, also running with admin privileges. Safety is good, Microsoft, but Vista might be a little too safe for its own good. Couldn't we at least have an alert asking us if we wanted to authorize the patcher?


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