14 DAY TRIAL // The commercial availability of Windows Vista has brought to the center stage an array of issues affecting the operating system. After five years, five million testers and six of the best billions of dollars Bill Gates has ever spent, Vista's estimated 50 million lines of code are plagued with problems. While support and compatibility are at the top of the list, the operating system's performances are also coming into focus.
And because of performance issues, Microsoft is advising Windows Vista users on an issue related to poor video playback associated with the interference of a tooltip with the video playback area. Microsoft's solution? Believe it or not, Microsoft's workaround is to tell Windows Vista users not to move the mouse.
If you run Windows Vista on a hardware configuration that does not support the Aero theme, or simply the Home Basic edition of the operating system, you qualify for throwing your mouse out the window. You will experience poor video playback performance if you move the mouse over controls such as Play, Pause, Fast forward, rewind etc. This action will generate a tooltip, and the playback's quality will be reduced visibly, including lost frames.
"After the tooltip disappears, video playback resumes as expected. The poor video playback performance may be more severe on computers that have slower CPU hardware. To work around this behavior, do not move the mouse pointer over any area of the video playback program while you watch a video. By not moving the mouse pointer over this area, you prevent a tooltip from appearing," advises Microsoft.
In fact, let's take it a step forward. Unplug the mouse altogether. Unplug the keyboard while you are at it. Just turn off the computer and stare at your Windows Vista package... such a pretty box...