In an era in which operating system updates are delivered ‘to your door’ by Windows Update and similar online services, it’s fair to say that modern operating systems are truly ‘works in progress.’ Windows Vista is no exception.

Several recent updates are worth checking out. The first two are especially useful if you play PC games. You might have already received these updates via Windows Update, but if not, you can follow the links to install them manually:

• If you’re using two graphics cards with NVIDIA’s SLI or ATI’s CrossFire dual GPU configuration, Windows Vista might not be using the second graphics card. Fix this problem and get the 3D performance you paid for with the update discussed in Knowledge Base article 936710. You can request this update and receive a link to it via email. To learn how, see my Maximum PC blog posting Hotfixes by Email – Just What the Windows Doctor Ordered.
• 3D games based on DirectX 9 and earlier DirectX versions use a lot more virtual memory address space under Windows Vista than under Windows XP. As a result, you may experience crashes while playing your favorite games. Microsoft has updated the virtual memory manager for Windows Vista to solve this problem. See Knowledge Base article 940105 for details. To request a link to this update, see Hotfixes by Email – Just What the Windows Doctor Ordered.

Whether you’re a hardcore gamer or not, you’ll want to get your hands on the next two updates:

• Fix various performance and reliability headaches with the update discussed in Knowledge Base article 938979. The update can be downloaded directly from the article.
• Fix various compatibility headaches with the update discussed in Knowledge Base article 938194. The update can be downloaded directly from the article.

To find out if you’ve already received these updates, open the Windows Update icon in Control Panel and review your system’s update history. If you still need some of these updates, fire up your browser and get downloading!