Skipping Audio in Vista -- Solution

[zjennings]

Not sure if this is posted anywhere, but I thought I'd share my experience.

I got a new computer (Vista) with a single 750GB drive as the OS drive. I use that same drive as my SageTV data drive (I know it's recommended to separate those, but let's just ignore that for now). Recently my audio started randomly skipping when watching videos. I noted that the hard drive light was almost solid.

After tons of research and using process explorer and resource monitor, I found the offender. It was System Restore. From what I can tell, System Restore was making backup copies of all my videos.

So I disabled it. Instructions: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/

Then my hard drive calmed down and the skipping went away.

Of course, you could just tell System Restore it to ignore your videos folder. But I've never been a fan of System Restore, because if you get a virus, System Restore will copy the virus into your Restore folder (at least it did with XP).

Zach