“The registry is in use by another process, timeout expired”

For anyone else who has this problem, it’s due to background processes interfering with Steam.

There are a fair few pointless processes running when you boot into Windows 7. To fix this (and hopefully resolve the Steam issue), click run msconfig and select the services tab. Check the “Hide all Microsoft Services” button, then hit “Disable All”. This should stop any non-essential services running on startup, and should enable you to run Steam.

For more info, visit the Steam support page!

After lots of searching in forums and trying numerous suggested solutions (running the .exe in Vista/XP compatibility modes etc), I’ve found the solution that works on my PC. The issue appears to be that Stereo Mixing was disabled by default.

Here’s a link to a support page with instructions on how to fix this:

http://support.take2games.com/help/take2/take2_games/q632

Hope that is of some help to someone!

*Mumbles something about why I switched to console gaming for many years*

[Edit: I had massive issues with audio in GTA IV a while back too. Incredibly stuttery/crackly sound in game, making it completely unplayable. This fix appears to have resolved that issue too.]

Deciding on whether to stick with OSX or switch to Windows was a tricky decision. I enjoy using my MacBook. It’s well designed, nice to use, and I like OSX. I actually spent many months pondering a new Mac. I didn’t want another laptop (my MacBook is fine). Neither did I want an iMac…seems a waste of a good screen when you want to upgrade. Mac Pro’s are incredibly shiney, but they incur a bankruptcy inducing amount of Steve tax.

So, buying a Mac was out of the question. Next idea? Hackintosh! I get to use OSX, but without the shockingly inflated hardware prices. Only one problem – I have to build and maintain this myself. I need to actually understand which components are and are not compatible with OSX. Now, I’m not really that kind of geek – I have no real interest in hardware etc – I’m all about the games, the coding…

So suddenly, the ideas of both a legit Mac, and a hackintosh seemed to fall through. Time to start taking a look at Windows!

I haven’t used Windows properly for a reasonably long time – 15 months ago at my previous job at [some investment bank]. And then, that was XP. I have never used Vista, nor do I ever want to. It seemed a bit strange contemplating switching back to Windows, when I’d happily used OSX for two years. Then I started to hear reviews of Windows 7. Reviews from people who would call themselves Apple fanboys (and girls). These reviews were good…very good!  Time to ignore the hideous advertising campaign (seriously – whoever thought of those adds needs exterminating), and see if Windows 7 is good enough to drag me away from OSX.

I started looking at what I want to use my computer for, and what I’d want it to do. First and foremost, I am a gamer. I play WoW far too much, and…oh wait, no, that’s all I could seem to play on my Mac. Not only were the graphics rubbish, but the games availability was very poor. I want to be able to play the latest games, not wait forever for special Mac versions.

Next on my list of things I want to do? Games dev. I work as a flash developer by day (www.moshimonsters.com), so I need CS3, Eclipse, etc…all of which work on a Mac; all of which I’m assured run much faster on Windows. Fair enough, I thought – that’s worth a shot. And then, UDK was made available. Whilst I’m primarily an AS3 dev, I have this desire to try out more hardcore games dev. UDK is Windows only, as are lots of games dev tools. This is where the penny dropped and I decided to switch to Windows 7.

So that’s it – I’m a gamer who enjoys games dev. Windows 7 suits my needs far better than OSX, and so I have made the big switch.

Currently missing: Expose, Cmd+Space to open apps… *thinks* … wow, that list is shorter than I expected!

Currently loving: ZOMG! I has a print screen button! Oh, and this cheap, budget Dell keyboard is so much nicer to use than the horrid aluminium Apple one I used before. New PC is super speedy compared to my Mac. The UI of Windows 7 is lovely – very nicely designed and easy to use. …and that list is longer than I thought it would be!

So far, so good! Here’s hoping I still like Windows 7 once the novelty has worn off…

When I heard about the ultimate MMO gaming mouse, the Razer Naga, I simply had to get hold of one. I mean, it has 17 buttons. SEVENTEEN! What with that and the addons they’ve made for WoW, I just couldn’t resist. That’s just what my belf DK needs! Plus, I (foolishly) had been using an Apple “mighty” mouse for the last year, which has stopped scrolling and you can’t right click. Definitely time to purchase a decent gaming mouse!

So, I eagerly entered my details into play.com, and preordered this most awesome of mice…a month before it was due to be released. A little keen, perhaps, but with two weeks off work starting on the release date, this seemed like a logical thing to do! Time to sit bak and await the mouse of awesome…

…and wait…

…and wait some more…

The mouse was released on 28th October, which means by now, I should have had it for 11 days. That’s a lot of Wintergrasp action, a lot of dungeons…hell, it’s a lot of levelling my poor lvl62 rogue who’s still sat in Zangarmarsh!

So where is this illusive mouse, this awesome gadget of incredible button count? Since a couple of days after the release date, my order status on play.com has been set to “Awaiting stock”. Fine, I thought, I’ll be patient. What’s a couple of days to a gamer geek with 2 weeks off work…

I phoned play.com this morning to see what the status of this farce was. The response? “It’s not in stock. If you look at your order, you’ll see that.”. Well, thanks for that, genius. I know it’s not in stock, which is why I’m complaining to you first thing in the morning on a Sunday.

I grit my teeth, take a deep breath and calmly ask when it will be in stock. I mean, I’ve waited almost 2 weeks, what’s a few more days? “Well, it could take up to 28 days for it to come into stock…”. Wait. 28 days? I preordered a mouse at the start of October and you want me to wait until December for it? I think not.

I’ve now cancelled my play.com order as they are utterly useless. I shall not be ordering anything from them again. The super awesome mouse has now been ordered via EBuyer, who seem to have it in stock, hurrah! They’ve even confirmed it will arrive tomorrow! Double hurrah!

Now all I need is for my new PC to arrive tomorrow, and I’ll never need to leave my geek room again. Well, except to answer the door to the pizza delivery guy!

Full review of the mouse, and probably a Windows 7 one (I’ve been a Mac user for the last 2 years) will appear here soon!

Akismet has correctly marked as spam many messages and has successfully ignored those comments which are in fact valid. When comments are marked as spam, you are able to view these and either delete them, or reinstate the comment (at which point, Akismet learns from its mistakes, thus improving the accuracy over time).

I would thoroughly recommend that anyone experiencing spam issues in their Wordpress site should check that the Akismet plugin is installed and enable it immediately!

So at 2:10pm today (note – it’s a Sunday), I put in my request, and by 2:25pm it was already set up!

That’s 15 minutes on a Sunday afternoon to get my hosting package completely ready with a couple of additional databases.

I felt that deserved a quick blog post just to let people know how good this company seems to be.  It’s also nice that I got a quick confirmation email form a real human being too – nice touch that!

Here’s a link to their site…I would definitely recommend them based on this level of service so far!

I’m running Firefox 3 on Mac OS-X, and have never encountered an issue like this prior to the upgrade.  If anyone has any suggestions as to how to resolve this I’d be very grateful!

This version has 5 levels. The code has been massively re-written so the level configuration is stored in xml. This means that the game below is coded in around 200 lines!

There’s only the one level. Control the egg using the left/right cursors. You’ll need to click inside the movie to activate it…

The aim of the game is to get the egg into the basket. Be careful not to break it!

So welcome to my tech blog – this is the place where I’ll write about anything and everything tech related…more often than not, related to gaming.

Feel free to comment on any posts – would be good to see some feedback!

Cat