Consider the following scenario:

• On a ThinkPad X300 computer that is running Windows Vista, you enable the Disable optical drive option on the Power Management tab.
• You leave the system idle for more than 10 minutes, and the optical disk drive turns off.
• You perform a suspend-and-resume cycle or a hibernate-and-wake cycle on the computer.

In this scenario, the computer’s optical disk drive is intermittently not displayed in My Computer or in Device Manager.

Consider the following scenario. You map a drive to a Windows XP-based computer from a Windows Vista-based computer. When you try to access the mapped drive from the Windows XP-based computer, you receive the following error message:

System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.

This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:

• Both computers are members of a workgroup.
• You do not give the Full Control shared permission to the Everyone group.
• You give the Full Control shared permission to the Administrators group.

Note: This access failure occurs regardless of the NTFS file system permissions that are assigned to the mapped drive.

In Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and in Windows Vista, Windows Internet Explorer 7 may not correctly recognize the zone to which a network resource belongs when you access the resource by using a mapped drive. Internet Explorer 7 recognizes the resource as a member of the “Internet” zone instead of as a member of one of the following zones:

• Local intranet
• Trusted sites

Therefore, when you try run a script that is on the network resource, you may receive a message that states that the file is not safe to run.

You experience this problem if a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) was used to map the network resource to a drive letter. The FQDN of a network resource takes the following form:

\\Computer.childdomain.domain.com\resource

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Vista-based computer that does not have an internal USB optical disc drive. Instead, an external USB optical disc drive is connected to the computer.
• You run an application that calls the AcquireExclusiveAccess routine in the Imapi2.dll file to exclusively use the optical disc drive on the computer.

In this scenario, you may notice that the external USB optical disc drive is removed from the Windows Vista operating system. When you reconnect the optical disc drive to the Windows Vista-based computer, the operating system does not recognize the optical disc drive. Additionally, a yellow exclamation mark (!) may appear next to the external USB optical disc drive in Device Manager. You may receive an error that resembles the following:

Error 38 (CM_PROB_DRIVER_FAILED_PRIOR_UNLOAD)

Note: The external USB optical disc drive can be displayed correctly in Device Manager after you restart the computer.

When you “hot detach” a removable hard disk device from a Windows Vista-based computer, a Warning event that resembles the following may be logged in the System log:

Event ID: 12
The device device_name disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal.

Additionally, if the disk is formatted by using the NTFS file system, a Warning event that resembles the following may be logged in the System log:

Event ID: 57
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

This problem may occur if the disk is “surprise removed.” For example, this behavior may occur if you remove the disk without using the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area to stop the disk first. This problem may occur even though the disk uses an interface that supports surprise removal, such as a universal serial bus (USB) interface or an IEEE 1394 interface.

When you insert a CD or a DVD, Windows Vista may not recognize the disc. If you double-click the disc drive in Windows Explorer after you insert the disc, you receive the following error message:

Insert disk
Please insert a disk into Drive (DriveLetter:).

This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:

• An audio device is disabled.
• Windows Media Player is already running when you insert the disc.

I was looking for something to use for a giveaway here on ITsVISTA, and figured a USB flash drive would be something viewers of any level could utilize. I looked for those that were certified to work with Vista’s ReadyBoost feature, and stumbled upon the KingMax Super Stick. You won’t believe your eyes. Keep reading →

In Windows Vista, a red “X” appears in the icon for a mapped network drive in Folders area of Windows Explorer. However, in the details pane, a green pipe appears in the icon for the same drive. Because you can successfully access the network drive, you expect the icon to appear as a green pipe in both areas.

This problem may occur if the following conditions are true:

• The network drive is mapped by using user credentials that differ from the credentials that were used to log on to Windows Vista.
• You do not select the Remember my password option when you map the network drive.
• You log off the computer. After you log on again, you double-click the network drive and then enter the credentials to reconnect to the drive.

After you restart Windows Explorer, the problem does not occur.

If you access an FTP site often, you may want to save time by ‘mapping a drive’ to it. Maximum PC Guides suggests that by using the ‘Map network drive’ function you can add a shortcut to your Computer window. Note that it does not assign a drive letter, it simply creates a shortcut with a name you choose. Keep reading →

Consider the following scenario. You connect a Toshiba Device Bay optical drive to a portable Toshiba computer that is running Windows Vista. To do this, you use a hot-swap operation, or you use a warm-swap operation. In this scenario, the drive is not recognized.

Note: In this scenario, a “hot-swap operation” means that you connect the drive while the computer is still running. A “warm-swap operation” means that you connect the drive while the computer is asleep, and then you wake the computer.