James Stewart

Member since: Jul 9th, 2005

James Stewart's Latest Comments

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Download Squad	5 Comments

Recent Comments:

TopDesk - Vista Program Switching in XP (Download Squad)

Mar 1st 2006 9:00PM Dave M: Please read my post again, I think you may have misunderstood my point. I didn't say TopDesk is bug free, I said that to trigger a crash with the degree of severity that your experiencing it would have to be a problem with something that touches the kernel.

The system hooks you're talking about hook into windows functionality, but they don't give you kernel access. It's possible to lock the keyboard and mouse via a bug in a system hook, but not to "crash and take the entire system down". This could happen with Win95, but not with XP.

TopDesk doesn't touch the kernel itself, but it does use DirectX, which in turn touches the kernel. If there's a buggy video driver running, it's very possible that a DirectX function that TopDesk calls could cause a crash/lockup. Again, *I'm not passing the buck here, or say that TopDesk doesn't have any bugs, I'm just trying to explain the source of the problem*. As a programmer, you'll understand that the underlying system must be stable for a program to function correctly. Asking a user to upgrade to the latest drivers ensures that TopDesk is running on the most stable base possible, and helps us narrow the search for an issue if it's not fixed by the new driver.

Please understand that this isn't about fobbing off users. All I was trying to point out is that it's been my experience that 99% of the time a full system lockup/crash is caused by a buggy video driver (or codec). If the user is running the latest drivers and still seeing the problem, then we'll gladly look into the issue for them, and do our best to resolve it. Feel free to check out our forums - we've had users experience this kind of problem before, and we still offer them the same level of support to them as anyone else.

TopDesk - Vista Program Switching in XP (Download Squad)

Mar 1st 2006 3:47AM Dave M: You should realize that when developers tell you it's probably the video driver, they're not trying to pass the buck. A full system crash/freeze can only happen if something goes wrong in the kernel, and only drivers have access to the kernel. Video drivers are notoriously buggy, and while having the latest drivers is a suggested fix, it doesn't mean that they don't still have bugs.

If you think about it, why would I tell you it's the video driver if it was something that could be fixed? If the issue was a bug in TopDesk I'd say so, because then all it takes to solve the problem is a bit of hard work, and at the end I'd have a chance at gaining another customer. Remember, not all developers are Microsoft, some actually care about their users :).

If you don't have time to work through the problem, would you be able to tell me your system specs (CPU, RAM, video card/driver, software you use, etc..) so I can investigate the issue myself?

TopDesk - Vista Program Switching in XP (Download Squad)

Feb 28th 2006 2:59AM Jason: I think I understand what you mean now. TopDesk doesn't bring up the previously used window (e.g. the next window in the z-order) first because we've found it's confusing for users (imagine the topmost window disappearing when you press Alt-Tab).

While TopDesk is a task-switching replacement, the objective of the flip mode is to work more like the Vista Flip3D feature, not Alt-Tab.

TopDesk - Vista Program Switching in XP (Download Squad)

Feb 27th 2006 11:02PM Hi, I'm from Otaku Software, the developers of TopDesk.

Jason: Thanks for mentioning TopDesk :). I don't quite understand what you mean regarding the "most recently used ordering". In flip mode TopDesk uses the z-order of the windows, which is what standard Alt-Tab switching uses.

Dave/David: 99% of the time TopDesk crashes and graphical glitches are caused by badly written video drivers, so I'd suggest installing the latest drivers for your particular cards. If you'd like to drop us a line we'd be happy to help fix the problem.

WinPLOSION and TopDesk: Exposé for Windows (Download Squad)

Jul 9th 2005 1:27AM William, you'll find that the latest version of TopDesk (1.3.3) resolves the issues you were experiencing. You can see what's changed since you last tried out the program at http://www.otakusoftware.com/topdesk/whats_new.html.