www.virtualacorn.co.uk/forum

YesNo
(That is, it throws up the error message described above)YesYes

Adam

OK, that's the exact opposite of what I was expecting.

I thought it was going to be OK if the machine was set to "sleep" with VRPC in a Window, but fail if VRPC was full screen. I've seen it happen this way round when machines have graphics drivers that aren't fully vista compatable.

To be honest there isn't a great deal we can do with this at the moment. It's the job of rhe OS to restore everything the way it found it - and it isn't doing it.

Until SP1 every Vista machine had this problem, so we investigated but couldn't find the fault. Then SP1 was released and most machines suddenly started "hibernating" properly. This confirmed our theory that the fault was in Vista not VRPC. However we now have 2 machines (your plus one other) with SP1, but still with the fault. It's going to be related to the memory allocation on the graphics adapter. So....

What graphics chipset is in the machine?
What driver are you using?
Is there an updated version?

And as a silly question, are you running Aero?

NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300
The NVIDIA one supplied with the computer
No
Yes

Adam

OK - out of interest does the fault go away if you disable Aero and switch to the "Basic" desktop style?

Nope

Adam

OK. I've taken a quick look at the Nividia site and the latest driver for the Geforce Go 7300 is dated June 23, 2008 - so it's quite possible that the driver you have is not the latest one. I would double check that again - or just download the driver anyway (and install it of course).

How did you find that? Could you post a link? The only info I found on the NVIDIA site was that they don't supply drivers for laptop graphics cards. My laptop manufacturer (Lenovo) has not posted any updates to the driver.

Thanks,
Adam

Sorry for the delay in replying. I've been trying to find the route I followed to find the page with the drivers on (I didn't keep a note) - but I have had no luck

So, sorry, I am starting to think I must have made a mistake and found drivers for desktop 7 series cards, rather than mobile ones.

I have only just spotted this thread so I thought it best to jump in here. I have a similar problem, Aaron has written my laptop off as "broken".

I see the error on return from hibernation or sleep if VRPC is in a Windows window, the work around is to put VRPC into full screen mode before hibernating or sleeping. SP1 made no difference to anything in respect of VRPC here.

My laptop is a Toshiba Qosmio with NVidia GeForce 8600M GT grahics, with the latest drivers.

UAC -must- be off, if it is on VRPC will get confused when writing to its own files, and the surface error becomes much more frequent. One can take a view on UAC but it is very, very wrong that VRPC forces the decision.

And there the matter rests as Aaron admits further down this topic. I do not know where "fault" lies but I rather suspect VRPC relies on a feature no longer supported by Vista, caught out by moving goal posts, with the other snag being that the developer has moved to a Mac.

Me, I am back on the Iyonix.

David, as we have previously established, on numerous occasions, your laptop is behaving in a very strange way and loads multiple keyboard drivers for devices that are not present (I suggest you refer to my numerous e-mails on the subject). We did resolve this at one point and then something happened that caused the problem to occur again.



Indeed, it didn't resolve the issue on your machine. However it did resolve it for the vast majority of users (as witnessed on the newsgroups). I explained at length (and ad-nauseum) that this was not a fault with VRPC, but a problem with Vista. The fact that SP1 fixed this for the last majority of users should go some way to demonstrating the validity of my previous explanations.





That's a very silly statement and demonstrates quite clearly that you haven't taken a blind bit of notice of what I've said to you. UAC contains a number of features, these are not independent, they are all or none, which is not an ideal situation.

The part of UAC you are refering to is the VirtualStore. In brief this is what happens. When a file is read it is loaded from the correct folder. However when written Windows intercepts the write and actually writes the updated file into a "VirtualStore". Thus the original file is not updated. So when the file is read again you get the original un-changed version, not the updated one (although in some circumstances you get the updated one - but there is no way of telling). If the VirtualStore worked correctly and files were read from it (for the partcular user) then it would be fine. As it stands the result is that you just don't know what's going to happen. You might get your new "updated" file from the VirtualStore, or you might get the original. This is ridiculous and dangerous for the user.

This can be "circumvented" by moving the VirtualAcorn HardDisc4 to the users Documents folder and updating the relevant VA config files, but this in itself can cause as many problems as it solves.

The second problem with UAC is the prompting windows that turn up all the time with their "are you sure you want to do this", "did you mean to do this, "was it you that did this" etc. These shouldn't matter, if they were handled properly. However on some machines, with some graphics drivers, they simply aren't and on the window being opened the DirectX buffers get mangled, meaning VRPC can't find the memory that was allocated to it from the graphics adapter. This causes a "cannot create back buffer" error from VirtualRPC (or something similar). If all the buffers were correctly restored after the blocking action of the warning window there would be no problem.

Again if the status of these warnings could be toggled individually (which they can't) then it would be possible to disable them, rather than having to disable the entire UAC system



This is the kind of absolute rot that gets right up my nose. I've seen you post elsewhere saying that the PC versions are no longer being developed. This is not the case, as some of the beta testers who are registered on this Forum know only too well. We made it perfectly clear that once the Mac version was released we would go back to look at improvements to the PC version. The Mac version certainly took longer than we hoped, but was given a full release in April this year. Since then there has been 1 importanrt upgrade for the Mac version released by us (to deal with a problem with LanMan and Omniclient).

Since then work has been progressing on the PC version(s) of VRPC and a number of new components are in Beta. You won't see people mention them, because I ask the testers not to. This is because we don't like to announce products/upgrades until they are ready. Once we are happy with the reports from testers then we will make a suitable announcement.

Now, lets cut to the nub of the issue. I am sorry that you have had problems with VRPC on your Vista laptop. I spent a lot of time attempting to resolve things and in the end we did get things working reasonably well. Life is too short for me to constantly correct your postings in other places, but I will not put up with your incorrect comments and general FUD here.



Then you don't need to be posting here.

True, but I have now fully resolved the keyboard driver problem and having done so VRPC is working fairly well on this laptop. The NVidia issue however remains but that can be evaded. The purpose of my post was to point out to the OP that he is not alone, getting up noses might be a bonus but that was not my intention, I actually thought I was being quite neutral.


Well thanks for that but we are agreed that UAC does need to be off.


The nub of the matter is that VRPC seemed at first sight to be such an excellent way forword given the absence of modern hardware, and I did say so publically at the time, sadly snags became apparent at which point due to perhaps excessive personal rectitude I did feel the need to issue a few "caveats". The A9home is a similar case.


Yes I do, to answer the OP's questions, "Has anyone else encountered it? Is there a solution?".

Anyway bottom lines :-

I was assured that VRPC was OK on Vista subject to the points made on the support site. In good faith I went ahead with the purchase only to find I had bought a "wrong" laptop. That is not my fault and it is not your fault either but the issue needs to be admitted.

I am still with the Iyonix because I have had one "surface" error with VRPC in full screen mode, I do not know why but it did undo such confidence I might have had in VRPC.

All I want to do is to be able to continue to use RISC OS into the future.

Thanks for telling me that the problem with drivers has been resolved. However I can't find an e-mail from you explaining the solution and I've been through our 40 odd e-mails on the subject. Can you re-send?



Indeed UAc needs to be off, for the reasons I explained. But then as you said yourself you can taken a look at our Vista information and knew that UAC needed to be disabled for VirtualRPC to work correctly on Vista.



Continually posting that we are no longer developing the PC version is not issuing "a few caveats", it's posting un-truths. As you would expect I find this upsetting. The only people who can say anything about VRPC development with any authority are myself and Graeme. What we have said was the absolute opposite to what you have been saying. We made it clear that once the Mac version was released we would go back and look at further improvements to the PC versions. Your comments about development of the PC VirtualAcorn products was a complete fabrication. That gets up my nose. You seem to think that this is in someway a "bonus", believe me, it's not.



Indeed, that's quite correct. VRPC is fine on Vista (subject to following the instructions in the Vista article - which is now supplied on the VRPC CDs). It's not our fault that your Vista install mis-behaved and that your machine was not performing correctly. You may recall that I suggested that you needed to take this issue up with Toshiba (after we had found the multiple driver problem). If you didn't pursue this then, I am sorry, but that is your fault. You cannot blame VirtualAcorn for a hardware/software fault on your machine.

Having said all this you have now admitted that VirtualRPC is actually "working fairly well" on this laptop.



With the best will in the world things can occasioanally go wrong with computers. I am always happy to investigate any problems that happen. However I can't do this unless these problems are reported to me. There is still a limit to what we can do. We can't "fix" bugs in Vista, we can certainly report them to Microsoft, which we do. A full Vista install is very complex, and even now, lomng after Vista's release it still has many bugs.



I don't see that this aim (which is the same for all of us) and your previous postings are compatable. You invented a story about future development of the PC versions, and repeated this on at least 3 occasions that I am aware of. You've posted that VirtualRPC doesn't work on Vista (even though you yourself have now admitted that it does). I don't understand why you have done these things and, to be honest, I have better things to do that try and understand. All I can ask is that in future you be more "honest" with your comments. Subject closed.

Indeed subject closed. To say I am livid at such an evasive and insulting response would a gross understatement.

I am sorry if you have taken my responses in a manner other than that which is intended.

I have now abandoned VRPC on Vista, it was nearly satisfactory but it remains vulnerable to screen instability, an underlying Windows process can force VRPC from full screen into a Windows window followed by the surface error. The bottom line is that the Iyonix is more stable. As with the A9home and its disc corruption problem, the risk might be low but I choose not to take on that risk because I know which way my luck goes. No computer is totally stable, though RISC OS is very nearly so, but this is an additional hazard. It is a marginal call but I prefer to use the system I have more confidence in.