After six months, the Xbox One is freezing constantly, and often not starting at all.

So I've had my "day one" Xbox One for about six months, and it's freezing all the time, and often not starting at all. :(

- Freezes in the middle of games
- Freezes in the middle of Blu-Ray movies
- Controller stops responding
- Xbox Media Remote stops responding
- Even the main menu freezes

I resolve computer problems for a living, and one way to fix ANY software problem is to format the hard drive and reinstall.  That's not usually the best method, or the first to try.  Of course, on a computer there are tools that I can use to try to resolve the problem less destructively.  Also, on a computer there's the concern of data loss.

On the Xbox One, there's no real concern for data loss, since all the game saves are in the cloud, and any purchased games can be re-downloaded for free.  And on an Xbox One there's very little access to the "under the hood" software by the user (me).

So this is the fix I'm attempting this morning - I booted the Xbox One in "Safe Mode" by holding the pair & eject buttons and then hitting the power button, then I went to Settings > System and told it to restore factory defaults.  I'm now watching a green bar progress slowly across the screen.  If the system is more stable after this, then it was a software issue and all is right with the world.  However, if the Xbox One remains unstable (or really, more like "unusable") then it's a hardware problem and I'll have to ship it off to Microsoft's service center.

UPDATE: The restore process FROZE at 60% and now I'm shipping it to them.:(

I bought a new convertible notebook

I've been testing Windows 7 for a few months, but I installed it on an old machine, and that version is set to expire soon. I know I've got to get a lot more comfortable with Windows 7, and I don't want to mess with my primary work machine, which is Vista x64. I've also been eager to buy a convertible notebook. It's not that I really need another one - I already have several, but I guess call it a case of "gadget lust." So, to kill two birds with one stone, I went out and bought a new HP TouchSmart tx2-1375dx. It's got Windows 7 Professional x64, 4GB RAM, a 320GB Hard Disk, and a 2.2GHZ AMD Turion X2 with virtualization support. So far, I love it. Gadget porn to follow:

 

By the way, I posted this using Windows Live Writer.  Kinda cool.  It seems great for posting with greater control over the layout and content.

Windows 7

I just put Windows 7 Ultimate RTM on a pretty modest test machine (P4HT, 512MB RAM, Intel Graphics).

Despite the fact that it's a low-end machine, I'm very impressed.

Many of the things that were quirky about the UI (user interface) on Vista are much better. Overall, the interface seems smarter, and more user-friendly. A frequent complaint about Vista is the UAC (User Account Control) pop-ups. With Vista, even when a user is simply changing their desktop background, they're asked to authenticate/approve the change. Many UAC pop-ups require two separate approval clicks. Windows 7 gets a big plus in the user-friendliness department - UAC pop-ups are very infrequent. In fact, I haven't seen any since installing it.

One thing I hate about Vista is the Sidebar. Without exception, I turn it off immediately when setting up a client machine. When clients have it already enabled, I often simply ask them if they care about the "clock, calendar, and sample photos" that the default "sidebar" includes. 98 times out of 100 they don't, and I kill the whole thing. One less thing running can't hurt performance. I like the idea of Gadgets, but hate the fact that Vista sticks them in a window that interferes with other things. In Windows 7, the gadgets are independent - little "windows" on their own, without actual windows of course.

There are some things I'm "on the fence" about, however. A feature of Vista that I think is great is the Windows Photo Gallery. I think it gave Windows users a near equivalent to the Mac iPhoto application. Unfortunately, it's gone by default in Windows 7, but Microsoft offers "Windows Live Photo Gallery" as a replacement. It requires you to have a Windows Live (or MSN/Hotmail) account, and also requires that you login to the service to use it. I don't see the customer benefit of this change, since the program seems to work very similarly to the Vista program. If Microsoft wants to integrate Windows Live features into it, I wish they had made it an optional setting so that the user could simply use it on their local machine.

Despite my minor misgivings, seeing how well it's running on this old-ish POS, I'm likely going to put the retail Windows 7 upgrade package on at least one of my own machines.

Ford's SYNC website doesn't support IE8??

Although the Ford SYNC system is made by Microsoft, apparently the syncmyride.com website doesn't like IE8...

Despite the warning, the site appeared to work fine.

Halo Wars - I love it, but I'm disappointed

I'm not disappointed in the game. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love Halo Wars.

What disappoints me is that Ensemble Studios, the developer of the game, has apparently disbanded - shut down.

What that means is that while other games get updates to fix various issues, Halo Wars likely will not. And in this case that's a real shame, since some of the AI decisions clearly could use some tweaking. For example, if a tank can't get through a narrow area, like between a turret and a mountain, it doesn't turn around and go the other way. It just sits there waiting for the mountain to move. Similarly, if AI-controlled units aren't specifically told to target things like turrets or shield generators, they'll often target far less strategic targets, like infantry or resource generators.

Also, while games like Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, and the entire Call of Duty series have benefited from various add-ons and downloadable extras like maps, they were only able to offer such things because their developers were still alive.

Microsoft once owned the developer of the original Halo games - Bungie Studios. After Halo 3 was released, Bungie, broke away from Microsoft and became an independent company. Despite their independence, they continue to fully support Halo 3. Microsoft also owned Ensemble Studios from 2001 to 2009. It's a real shame that they couldn't just spin it off and allow it to run independently.

(5/20/2009) UPDATE: Thankfully I was wrong. There is an update and DLC for Halo Wars. Whoo hoo!! :) http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/19606/Halo-Wars-Gets-Title-Update/