An update from the Ultimate Extras team

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Tac-Elf — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:38:45 GMT

Heck, I do not even see the DreamScene Content Pack. Control Panel lists DreamScene as installed, but there are not entry points -- not even through "set background" under personalize settings of my desktop.

Hey Vista: Where's the "WOW" ?

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

TheBeagle — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:33:14 GMT

I cannot get the DreamScene Content Pack Favorites (released on 9/25/07) to install. Each time I get the same error message #8007000D. All the other Vista updates installed just fine. This is Vista 64 bit, and it's fully activated. Can someone help me with this problem? Thanks. TheBeagle

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Tac-Elf — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:32:07 GMT

I installed DreamScene from Windows Update, but haven't found how to get it to run. There do not appear to be any obvious entry-points. I'm running Vista Ultimate (32-bit) and thought it would be nice to try out the extras...

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

satow — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:27:27 GMT

I have install Vista Ultimate on a Fujitsu A6030 laptop. Aero runs fine and actually quite well. Dreamscape runs fine except when I close the lid of my laptop. When it goes into sleep or hibernate mode, even when it switches from screensaver mode, what happens is that Dreamscape runs, then the laptop flashes, then the screen turns black and I have to manually reload the dreamscape movie. What is interesting is that I cannot really find a place that I can post my finding or get help on this issue. All the drivers have been loaded, all the updates installed, including all Vista updates. The few that didn't install are the Hong Kong chinese and simplified chinese Language updates and the security update for .Net framework 2 ver2. Hold em poker game. Everything else works and installed. Not sure why the screen goes black then turns off dreamscape.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

pargy — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:31:41 GMT

In pevious versions of Windows optional updates that had been reviewed could be hidden so that they did not list any more (unless they were unhidden).

Why can't I hide the Ultimate Language Pack optional updates that I'm not interested in? I don't want to be told there are 16 optional updates every time I go to Windows Update, only to discover that they are the same Ultimate Language Packs that I've previoulsy reviewed and declined to install

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

gzt7d8 — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 15:38:24 GMT

I got the update for Dreamscene but it doesn't work properly on my PC. It did before, but now the scene doesn't maximize to the whole view; it's like minimized screen on my desktop. I'm disappointed, I was going to impress some friends.

Greg

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Meridian — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 07:40:59 GMT

I've discovered Vista Ultimate to be a seriously nice TabletPC OS on a machine I use for both Japanese and English (a ThinkPad x61t).

As an ultimate extra, how about something special for the growing numbers of TabletPC users? Maybe a pen-based game? Or maybe some cool productivity extras like a mind-mapping or GTD plugin for OneNote?

What I'd really love though, from a daily TabletPC usage perspective, would be a util to allow quick switching between an "on-the-road" Vista configuration with an absolute minimum of background services running, and a docked configuration with the full suit of services and eye-candy.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Xepol — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 08:21:56 GMT

AlenL -> Found the reference here:

http://windowsultimate.com/blogs/ultimateteam/archive/2007/07/02/why-does-one-of-my-videos-have-a-hot-air-balloon-icon.aspx

That's the official word on the issue.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

AlenL — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 08:09:40 GMT

Thanks for the feedback Xepol!

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Xepol — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:38:48 GMT

AlenL -> Actually, it was discussed at one point (but I'm having a little trouble finding the reference just now). This is actually a limitation of the thumbnailing system.

It runs the video for a fixed period of time and tries to find a frame that meets certain requirements for brightness to avoid the solid black thumbnails that were so common in XP. If it doesn't find anything that meets its requirements, it just uses the default icon.

Slower machines get less frames in that time frame meaning that slower machines have less of a chance to find a suitable frame. Recent hotpacks have reduced the time limit even further to improve shell responsiveness, making the limit even smaller.

Sadly, you can't seem to tune any of limits, so even scenes like the waterfall which are bright in the center but have a lot of dark fringes fail to pass muster and you still don't get a thumbnail.

I think the thumbnailing system was better when it would give a black square myself, at least it was consistant in that you only got no thumbnail when the video was corrupt. If I could change the system, I would set it so that it returns the most suitable frame, regardless of the fact that the computer thought it was a black square. Letting us fine tune the threshold might be nice too.

Nick -> I hope you get it through to them, because I don't think the current system is even remotely working. If nothing else, if you want to know what makes customers happy, you might want to talk with them.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

AlenL — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:54:27 GMT

So does anyone know if mpeg thumbnails will be available for mpeg files much like WMV files? With the latest update from Dreamscene the new files they released are MPEG and thus have default icons in the browser when you go to backgrounds. Dosn't seem as polished as seeing the cool previews of the other wmv's.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Nick White — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:13:27 GMT

Hey Xepol: I definitely hear where you're coming from and am making sure that the Extras team hears you, too. I'm doing what I can to get them to reconsider how they interact with the Windows community. Thanks for the input, and for hanging in there with us.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Xepol — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:10:39 GMT

Nick, since you are in contact with the somewhat mythical ultimates team, perhaps you could sit a few of them down and show them what a blog is (and explain the difference between "announcements" and "blog" so that they know about letting people post comments back to them instead of relying on a mysterious posting page that acts like a digital blackhole) ??

Perhaps, just perhaps, if the team was a little more active in their blogging, they would no longer be considered to be distant cousins of the unicorn, chupacabra, the lochness monster and big foot. Plus I am betting that people would feel more like work is getting done and less like a guy standing naked in all but one sock in front of a 3 card monty table after the dealer leaves for an "emergency".

If they would only INTERACT with the world a little, they could be more like the new Microsoft and appear less like the old arrogent, uncaring and abusive Microsoft.

Seriously, someone teach them to blog (with a system that allows comments) - they are gonna take a lot of flack in the short term (could have been avoided, now they'll just have to weather the storm), but it will definitely improve things in the long term (mending fences, seeming human & caring, that sorta thing).

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Slimsl — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:24:26 GMT

Sorry to be rude but :( what you guys thinking whats the target why vista dose not think about business clients, most of my hospitality related softwares are running nuts some dose not run at all. not only software why this cant be friendly with office environment do we really need this fancy stuff i know they are on demand, but try to think different what system mangers and system administrators like to see on upcoming business editions. vista business edition just the same crap.

re: An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Nick White — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:28:52 GMT

Hey omgbbq: lay it on, we can take it :)

We *do* have a team dedicated to this project, despite conjecture in the community; in fact, I spoke with them just today. They are working to get the language packs ready for release next month. We'll have to fix an issue that corrupted their installation on some systems before we'll deploy them, however.

We also have a pipeline of Extras in the works that we'll reveal soon, so stay tuned.