14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has informed customers of issues related to the latest iteration of the Windows client, in which Windows 7 fails to play nice with the DVD drive. According to the Redmond company, users have reported problems in which Windows 7 is incapable of recognizing the DVD drive after installation. Issues have also been brought to Microsoft’s attention regarding Windows 7 upgrades. At the same time, the problems seem to affect Windows Server 2008 R2, in addition to Windows 7.
“This problem occurs because the SATA driver (Msahci.sys) implements new power management functionality that is known as Adaptive Link Power Management (ALPM). Some optical drives do not behave correctly with ALPM enabled and may not be recognized by the computer,” Microsoft explained.
The Redmond company also provided a short list of devices that Windows 7 cannot recognize after download or after an upgrade. “The following is a list of some DVD drive models that are known to exhibit this problem: TSST TS-L633B and PLDS DS-8A3S,” Microsoft stated.
Microsoft is not offering an update for this issue, but customers affected by this specific problem can access and implement a hotfix via Microsoft Support. Alternatively, the software giant has documented a manual workaround designed to let end users manually resolve the issue. Windows 7 customers will need to manually disable the active ALPM power plans on their machines and put together a new power plan.
“To manually disable the existing ALPM power plans on the computer, at a command prompt, type the following commands and then press ENTER after each command: powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
Powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
Powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
Powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
Powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
Powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0,” Microsoft explained.
The operation of creating a new power plan is rather simple. Users need to make their way to Control Panel, Power Options, and in the Navigation pane, select Create a power plan. Customers will be able to tailor the new power plan in accordance to their preferences and even give it the label of their choice.