Inside the mind of a young IT Professional
If you’ve downloaded a .chm file, but on opening it, can’t see anything, I have a solution for you 
[Photo by Josh Bancroft, via Flickr]
It’s a problem we all encounter at some point: You’ve just re-installed Windows, and now you need to download your Mainboard drivers. But which motherboard do you have again?
Instead of opening your PC case to find the Motherboard model number, check out CPU-Z
CPU-Z is a free, stand-alone application (no installer) that very quickly lets you know your system’s vital statistics (CPU, Mobo, and RAM), so that you can head off and find the drivers you need, without having to open up the PC.
This is something I come across frequently when I’m performing OS refreshes at DisplayLink. I imagine it’s a common problem in most start-ups (are we still are start-up? haha), where PCs are bought to spec on an ad-hoc basis. Often, the only way of finding out the motherboard number is by opening the case, lifting cables, and poking around the motherboard, in an attempt to find the tiny bit of writing on the PCB that tells you its model number. Hardly ideal!
When trying to install a shared network printer in Windows Vista, you get an error which states:
Windows cannot connect to the printer.
The specified print monitor is unknown.
This is a bug in Vista. If you disable the UAC, Vista is seemingly unable to add a network printer.
To fix this, you’ll need to install a “Performance and Reliability Update”, KB938979. Bizarrely, this update is listed as Optional by Windows Update, and so you may not have installed it. I shall refrain from commenting further on the lunacy of this 
If you’re installing Windows XP Service Pack 2 and it halts or hangs on you while it is allegedly “Checking Product Key”, you can fix it like so:
1) Please go into the CMD prompt (Start/Run –> cmd.exe )
2) Then type cd /d %windir%\inf and make sure we are in that
directory.3) Then type ren oem*.inf oem*.old, it will go back to the prompt
after giving you some error (Do not worry about it)4) Then type ren oem*.pnf oem*.old1, it will go back to the prompt
after giving you some error (Do not worry about it)5) Then goto start - run - type “%windir%\inf” and you will see
the files in the folder.6) Then find the file by name INFCACHE.1 and take a backup of it
to desktop (by copying it to desktop) and delete the INFCACHE.1
from c:\windows\inf.7) Close all windows and reboot the computer to safe mode and
start the installation of SP2 and it should go fine.
This solution is dotted all around the internet, but I can’t find it’s original source. If you know the source, let me know and I’ll credit it correctly.
Vista Crashes (Blue Screens) with an error message mentioning yk60×86.sys.
We’ve got a bunch of Sony Vaio VGN-SZ5MN laptops at work and a lot of them are blue screening (BSOD) as soon as you plug in the Ethernet cable. If that’s not enough of a clue (hehe), the problem is the Marvell Yukon Ethernet Controller driver.
To fix the problem, download the updated driver from the Marvell Driver page.
Or try this direct link to the Driver Installer for Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Phil is an IT Professional working at DisplayLink in Cambridge, England. He generally blogs about useful solutions that he comes across in his work/play.
