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	<title>GeekTieGuy &#187; Vista</title>
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	<link>http://www.geektieguy.com</link>
	<description>News and views from the geek tie guy.</description>
	<pubDate>Sat, 03 May 2008 23:07:35 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>Inside the HP TouchSmart PC software: HP SmartCenter - Part 4</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/24/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-4/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/24/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:33:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/?p=215</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is part 4 of the mini-series on the HP SmartCenter software. Hear about the team&#8217;s reaction to the Engadget leak and the launch plans at CES 2007. If you missed the first three parts, they are here, here and here.
&#8212;
One of the really unsettling events before the launch of the TouchSmart PC was that [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is part 4 of the mini-series on the HP SmartCenter software. Hear about the team&#8217;s reaction to the Engadget leak and the launch plans at CES 2007. If you missed the first three parts, they are <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/04/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-1/" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/10/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-2/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/17/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-3/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>One of the really unsettling events before the launch of the TouchSmart PC was that Engadget somehow got a hold of some pictures that had been prepared for the launch in early 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show. It was billed in the first sentence as &#8220;AMD&#8217;s sweet new rig&#8221;, which was a little bit of a slap in the face, since most of the real work fell outside of AMDs realm. I remember the team meeting when our program manager came in and told us about the &#8220;leak&#8221;. He had heard it from Microsoft just a few moments before joining the meeting. The mood in the room instantly turned. People started feeling both mad at the leaked information (and the leaker) and depressed about the potential impact this would have on our launch at CES. Microsoft especially was disappointed, since the TouchSmart PC represented a big investment on their part, carrying some of the Vista messaging. The TouchSmart PC was to be billed as one of a few &#8220;dream&#8221; PCs at CES. Having gone through an experience like that, I now always think about how the people involved must feel when I see &#8220;leaked&#8221; information about upcoming products. It&#8217;s not fun to have it happen to you.</p>
<p>On a happier note, the TouchSmart PC seemed to make quite a splash at CES. At the last minute I was asked to attend the show to help with technical support on the show floor. This was my first time attending CES and going to Las Vegas, and I quite enjoyed the experience. I ran into quite a few of the people that had worked with us on the project, and it was fun to see the crowds milling about the TouchSmart PCs at the HP and Microsoft booths. Having backstage access was a unique thing, but it involved a lot of walking around, helping the people doing demos by making sure the software was installed properly.</p>
<p>Since then, the HP TouchSmart PC has received numerous awards (including spot number seven on PC World&#8217;s list of most innovative products of 2007) and for a short while even had a fan website, the HP TouchSmart Owner&#8217;s Club.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>This is the tentative end of the series. If you&#8217;re curious about other aspects, let me know, and if I can talk about it, I&#8217;ll see if I can accommodate your curiosity.</p>
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		<title>Inside the HP TouchSmart PC software: HP SmartCenter - Part 3</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/17/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-3/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/17/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:30:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/?p=214</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome to part 3 of this mini-series. Last time around you heard a little bit about the early prototypes and how things progressed from there. This time I&#8217;ll talk a bit more about some of the functionality in HP SmartCenter and some of the things we were not able to address before having to ship.
&#8212;
The guiding [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to part 3 of this mini-series. <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/10/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-2/" target="_blank">Last time</a> around you heard a little bit about the early prototypes and how things progressed from there. This time I&#8217;ll talk a bit more about some of the functionality in HP SmartCenter and some of the things we were not able to address before having to ship.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>The guiding principles for HP SmartCenter and the other touch-optimized applications were to provide quick, &#8220;transactional&#8221; experiences, to have the applications be as intuitive as possible to use, and have them look polished and clean. HP SmartCenter was to be the &#8220;home page&#8221; for touch-based interactions with the PC. It had to easily give the user access to key Media Center experiences (TV, music, games) as well as two other touch-optimized programs HP was developing (HP SmartCalendar and HP Photosmart Touch). Finally the user had to have the ability to add access to a certain number of programs of their choice.</p>
<p>To enable some of the quick, &#8220;transactional&#8221; experiences using a touch screen, HP SmartCenter had to have large &#8220;target&#8221; areas that are easy to hit using a finger. This requirement helped making decisions about the layout of the &#8220;tiles&#8221; that the user touches to &#8220;launch&#8221; something.</p>
<p>We wanted to highlight a few of the key features of the TouchSmart suite of software. We decided that three tiles would be larger than the remaining ones, and that those three would be able to show more details from the underlying program than the smaller tiles. The calendar tile, for example, will pull three upcoming events out of the calendar program and display key information about those events right within the calendar tile. The Photosmart Touch tile will look for pictures in the My Pictures folder and display five of those in a rotation. The weather tile will display high and low temperatures expected for the day as well as the current temperature as reported by the weather service. The analog and digital clock tiles will display two additional clocks (probably configured for different time zones) in text form, in addition to the main clock, which is shown in a larger, graphical look.</p>
<p>The three user configurable tiles would be able to either start a program on the system or a web page, using Internet Explorer. We settled on only having three configurable items, since there was an overall limit in the graphical design at nine small tiles plus three large tiles, and we wanted to encourage people to stick with tiles that didn&#8217;t take you out of a touch-optimized / touch oriented environment.</p>
<p>Beyond picking a software development technology (WPF), our other challenges were the many changes in both Windows Vista and WPF as both matured. WPF introduced &#8220;breaking changes&#8221; several times in our short cycle, and we discovered numerous problems with the integration of WPF and Windows Media Center. We worked closely with Microsoft to get these addressed. But a few problems remained, one of which is that every time you start one of the programs we developed, the computer screen will go black for a few seconds. It gives you the unsettling feeling that something went wrong, but it&#8217;s actually a consequence of the interactions between certain software components that are controlling the graphics card (DirectX, WPF and Media Center). As much as we didn&#8217;t like it, we were out of time to address these problems by the time our shipping date came.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s a wrap for part 3. Next time you&#8217;ll hear about the reactions from the team when information about the TouchSmart PC was leaked to Engadget way before the actual launch event, and I&#8217;ll also talk a little about the launch at CES 2007.</p>
<p>Update (2008-04-30): Part <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/24/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-4/" target="_blank">four</a> is now posted.</p>
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		<title>Inside the HP TouchSmart PC software: HP SmartCenter - Part 2</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/10/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/10/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:12:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
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		<description><![CDATA[In the first part of this mini-series, I introduced you to the early planning stages of HP SmartCenter. This time you&#8217;ll get a little more information on the early development, including a few screenshots of prototpyes.
&#8212;
I hacked together a very simple first version of HP SmartCenter (then codenamed LaunchPad, which still is the name of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In the <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/04/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-1/" target="_blank">first part</a> of this mini-series, I introduced you to the early planning stages of HP SmartCenter. This time you&#8217;ll get a little more information on the early development, including a few screenshots of prototpyes.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>I hacked together a very simple first version of HP SmartCenter (then codenamed LaunchPad, which still is the name of the executable, incidentally) in HTML and my colleague Maguy added some rough graphical elements to give our design firm an idea of what we were looking for.</p>
<p><a title="launchpad1.png" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/launchpad1.png"></a><a title="launchpad1.png" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/launchpad1.png"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/launchpad1.thumbnail.png" alt="launchpad1.png" /><br />
My quick HTML mockup</p>
<p><a title="launchpad2.png" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/launchpad2.png"></a><a title="launchpad2.png" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/launchpad2.png"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/launchpad2.thumbnail.png" alt="launchpad2.png" /><br />
Improved graphics</p>
<p>From about February 2006 until April 2006 we then iterated with our design firm on the GUI and user experience design. Towards the end of May 2006 we took final delivery of the work from them. I was to turn their beautiful work into a living application with page navigation, drag-and-drop functionality, configuration options, and settings persistence. They had provided a solid foundation to build on, including well thought out namespaces, classes, animations and navigation design.</p>
<p>But there was still a lot of work to be done during the next three to four months. In addition to the application itself I was also responsible for delivering an installer, a supporting &#8220;touch optimization&#8221; program, and integration with our factory PC build process, including dealing with the &#8220;sealing&#8221; process that prepares the master hard drive for replication.</p>
<p>We participated in Microsoft&#8217;s early adopter program for Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Vista, which gave us access to builds of the WPF bits, with a seemingly never-ending stream of Community Technology Preview versions. Windows Vista was in a similar state of flux, and I had my hands full, wiping out and reinstalling test machines and updating my developer machine to keep up with the changes.</p>
<p>At the same time I climbed the learning curve for WPF (which <a href="http://psiman.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5BCA275B0A537D6B!639.entry">Simon Middlemiss</a> once described as more of a cliff), trying to figure out how to get the mostly fixed-content XAML pages that the design company had delivered turned into malleable components and re-configurable layouts.</p>
<p>The initial design from the outside company included two components that pull information from the web: weather and stocks. We had to drop the stocks piece for business reasons early on, and had big challenges working out the business issues for the weather feed integration. We wanted our own high-quality images to illustrate the weather conditions and had to get approval from the owner of the feed data. I thought several times that the weather feature was dead, but stubbornness overcame pessimism, and we pulled all the right people from several companies together to get our images approved within 24 hours before the final code submittal deadline. I remember pulling a work-at-home weekend to fine-tune the weather feature where I had to stop working because I was hit with the flu. I was out for three days. After something like that happens you don&#8217;t give up a feature without a fight.</p>
<p>One benefit of being part of the early adopter program for WPF and Vista was that Microsoft arranged for training and troubleshooting sessions. I made two trips to Redmond under this program, once to get more in-depth training on WPF and Vista, and once to get help with troubleshooting <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/08/23/compositiontargetrendering-can-be-a-cpu-hog/" target="_blank">performance issues</a> we had run into. That&#8217;s when I learned that there is such a thing as a &#8220;<a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/08/07/remember-to-unhook-those-event-handlers/" target="_blank">managed memory leak</a>&#8220;, which can be introduced in WPF without the programmer necessarily realizing it. Towards the end of the program three of my colleagues and I got to spend a couple of days with Microsoft again, this time at their Platform Adoption lab (Building 20), going over some last minute design and performance questions with their WPF developers one-on-one. This especially helped with getting HP Photosmart Touch into better shape for final release. We got a lot of tips and strategies for dealing with images, collections and containers in these sessions.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it for part 2. Next time I&#8217;ll dig a little more into the guiding principles that were used for the implementation of HP SmartCenter, as well as some of the challenges and problems I encountered on the way.</p>
<p>Update (2008-04-30): Parts <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/17/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-3/" target="_blank">three</a> and <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/24/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-4/" target="_blank">four</a> are now posted.</p>
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		<title>Inside the HP TouchSmart PC software: HP SmartCenter - Part 1</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/04/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-1/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/04/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:23:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
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		<description><![CDATA[I thought some people might enjoy reading a little &#8220;behind the scenes&#8221; story about the most high-profile piece of software I&#8217;ve been involved with so far. I feel pretty lucky to have had the chance to work on a unique product and to have what I helped work on be so central to the user [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I thought some people might enjoy reading a little &#8220;behind the scenes&#8221; story about the most high-profile piece of software I&#8217;ve been involved with so far. I feel pretty lucky to have had the chance to work on a unique product and to have what I helped work on be so central to the user experience as it is on the HP TouchSmart PC. You may interpret this post as highly egotistical and self-centered, and I suppose it is. But I feel like telling a story. My story. I will go over most of the non-confidential details of the events as I remember them. Since there&#8217;s a lot to talk about, I&#8217;ve decided to split the story into a mini-series. This is part one. Here we go.</p>
<p>My involvement with the HP TouchSmart PC began in about December of 2005. The decision was made to invest in software that would be best suited for the touchscreen that the unit would have. One of the results is HP SmartCenter as seen here (screenshot from my developer machine, not necessarily representative of the final product):</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/TheHPTouchSmartPC_757A/SmartCenter013.png"><br />
<img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/TheHPTouchSmartPC_757A/SmartCenter01_thumb1.png" border="0" alt="" width="444" height="249" /></a></p>
<p>We had tight deadlines. Our final bits would be due in about six months, around June / July 2006. Our product marketing folks decided they wanted the touch application to provide quick access to TV and music as primary features. Windows Media Center was our software of choice for delivering TV and music experiences, and so we made HP SmartCenter run within Windows Media Center. This helped to avoid waiting for Media Center to start up when the user wants to watch TV or listen to music. In other areas the choice created lots of challenges. The initial one was picking a software development technology.</p>
<p>I had just attended PDC05 and was pretty excited about <a href="http://wpf.netfx3.com/">Windows Presentation Foundation</a> (WPF) and the speed I could sense it would give developers and designers for rapidly creating exciting software. I had learned that Media Center in Windows Vista would support WPF, and my recommendation to use it for our apps to make the deadlines while delivering a polished user interface was accepted.</p>
<p>An interface developed in HTML would not have had the same quality (read: look-and-feel). Using the Media Center Markup Language (MCML / SplashFX) was not an option, since that was not going to be revealed in any useful detail until about March 2006, way too late for us to learn how to use it and produce a product.</p>
<p>At PDC05, it had been mentioned that a well-know design company had worked on some XAML styles for the show. We approached them to help out with the application design and asked them to deliver their stuff as working XAML / WPF code. They were pretty excited about the idea and signed on.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it for now. Check back soon for the next installment of this mini-series, where I&#8217;ll show you a few screenshots of very early prototypes.</p>
<p>Update (2008-04-30): Parts <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/10/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-2/" target="_blank">two</a>, <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/17/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-3/" target="_blank">three</a> and <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/04/24/inside-the-hp-touchsmart-pc-software-hp-smartcenter-part-4/" target="_blank">four</a> are now posted.</p>
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		<title>Vista SP1 - still no audio after resume from sleep</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/12/vista-sp1-still-no-audio-after-resume-from-sleep/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/12/vista-sp1-still-no-audio-after-resume-from-sleep/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:45:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
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		<description><![CDATA[I have a laptop that has an issue with properly restarting the sound subsystem after Vista resumes from sleep. Microsoft brought out a hotfix about 6 months ago that supposedly fixed issues like this. On my system, the problem persists, even after installing Service Pack 1! I let the computer go to sleep, and when [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I have a laptop that has an issue with properly restarting the sound subsystem after Vista resumes from sleep. Microsoft brought out a <a target="_blank" href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937077/">hotfix</a> about 6 months ago that supposedly fixed issues like this. On my system, the problem persists, even after installing Service Pack 1! I let the computer go to sleep, and when I wake it up again, there&#8217;s no sound. The sound device is listed in Device Manager as &#8220;High Definition Audio Device&#8221; and has the following Hardware IDs:</p>
<p>HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&amp;VEN_14F1&amp;DEV_5047&amp;SUBSYS_103C30A5&amp;REV_1000<br />
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&amp;VEN_14F1&amp;DEV_5047&amp;SUBSYS_103C30A5</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve tried just restarting the sound services (as admin: net stop &#8220;Windows Audio&#8221;, net stop &#8220;Windows Audio Endpoint Builder&#8221;, net start &#8220;Windows Audio Endpoint Builder&#8221;, net start &#8220;Windows Audio&#8221;), but that doesn&#8217;t work. Restarting the computer works, obviously, but is too slow to be a proper solution.</p>
<p>One thing I can to do to get sound back without restarting is remove the &#8220;High Definition Audio Device&#8221; from Device Manager and then Scan for Harware Changes. But it&#8217;s still annoying to have to do this. Since there&#8217;s no crash involved (no Windows Error Reporting possible) and no &#8220;yellow bangs&#8221; in Device Manager, I&#8217;m not sure how I would report this to Microsoft. They probably wouldn&#8217;t do anything about it anyway. They&#8217;d say it&#8217;s a driver issue. Talk to the driver vendor. Nice idea. Trouble is the laptop is older (it scores a 3.2 Windows Experience Index, not half bad) , and the vendor probably won&#8217;t bring out Vista drivers for it. So it looks like I&#8217;m stuck with a broken package.</p>
<p>Maybe a kind soul (at Microsoft?) will read this at some point and get in touch to help me troubleshoot the issue.</p>
<p>Oh well. Feels good to get it off my chest, though.</p>
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		<title>Windows &#34;7&#34;: What will Microsoft learn from Windows Vista?</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/10/windows-7-what-will-microsoft-learn-from-windows-vista/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/10/windows-7-what-will-microsoft-learn-from-windows-vista/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:25:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/10/windows-7-what-will-microsoft-learn-from-windows-vista/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Vista Service Pack 1 is in the can. It&#8217;s no coincidence that Vista SP1 and Server 2008 are &#8220;here&#8221; at the same time. They&#8217;re one and the same apart from the differences in &#8220;configuration&#8221;, i.e. Client vs. Server stuff. Server 2008 is the product that should have been released in a &#8220;Client&#8221; version under the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Vista Service Pack 1 is in the can. It&#8217;s no coincidence that Vista SP1 and Server 2008 are &#8220;here&#8221; at the same time. They&#8217;re one and the same apart from the differences in &#8220;configuration&#8221;, i.e. Client vs. Server stuff. Server 2008 is the product that should have been released in a &#8220;Client&#8221; version under the Vista branding, but Microsoft caved to enormous pressure from the market and released it a little over a year too early.</p>
<p>Microsoft undoubtedly knew they could never afford to release a Server version in the state the code was in at Vista release. Corporations running mission critical things on Server would never adopt anything not rock solid. So Microsoft took the time they should have put into the &#8220;Client&#8221; version to finish things off properly for Server. Hindsight 20/20 and all that.</p>
<p>What can be expected of Windows &#8220;7&#8243; after this? My guess is Microsoft will cave to market pressure again and release something not quite ready for the consumer market. With Vista, part of the reason for releasing too early was that Windows XP seemed to be getting too old. For Windows &#8220;7&#8243; part of the reason will likely be a perceived need to catch up with Apple&#8217;s OS X.</p>
<p>With Vista, Microsoft was incredibly open about providing early builds to lots of people in order to get the quality right. And yet it wasn&#8217;t enough. It also seems that the biggest &#8220;achievement&#8221; that came from the openness was that people weren&#8217;t much impressed when the final product came out. In my view that&#8217;s a bit of a shame, because there are lots of truly great innovations in Vista (one of which is <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/09/vista-from-a-developers-point-of-view/" target="_blank">WPF</a>). Microsoft will probably be more tight-lipped about Windows &#8220;7&#8243; as a result. They might take a more Apple-like approach and keep things secret until the last minute. Surprise the world when they release Vista&#8217;s successor.</p>
<p>The problem is that Microsoft doesn&#8217;t seem to understand what it is about Apple&#8217;s offer that makes it so compelling. It&#8217;s not OS X. It&#8217;s not iLife or iWork. It&#8217;s how it&#8217;s all wrapped up in an end-to-end package. Beautiful, well performing hardware; good OS; good everyday software with features that people find useable and useful, integrated with revenue generating .Mac Internet services. And all because Apple has control of the entire chain, from hardware to software and services. Heck, they even control the retail experience.</p>
<p>Microsoft doesn&#8217;t have an answer for that. They play a different game. They play in many arenas and with many, many different partners. The ecosystem Microsoft provides the basis for is much, much bigger than Apple&#8217;s. Microsoft can never be Apple. And I don&#8217;t think they should even try to be.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m hoping that Microsoft will not cave in to market pressure but chart their own course for Windows &#8220;7&#8243;. Perhaps kick off work for another &#8220;NT&#8221; project (from the Dave Cutler/NT 3.x days) and focus on creating an operating system that is focused on the total consumer experience. Throw away all backwards compatibility in the consumer market, if needed (ironically, sort of like Apple did for OS X.) Provide backwards compatibility through virtualization or by keeping a separate line for corporate mission-critical applications. But mainly chart a course that doesn&#8217;t look too much at Apple or Linux or anything else, but follows new visions for what can be done with software running on ever more capable hardware. They have enough smart people to lead the way. There&#8217;s no need to follow anyone.</p>
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		<title>Can&#8217;t install .NET 3.5 on Vista x64? Try uninstalling KB110806.</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/01/cant-install-net-35-on-vista-x64-try-uninstalling-kb110806/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/01/cant-install-net-35-on-vista-x64-try-uninstalling-kb110806/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:22:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[WPF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2008/02/01/cant-install-net-35-on-vista-x64-try-uninstalling-kb110806/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The title says it all. Several attempts I&#8217;ve made at installing the .NET Framework 3.5 on x64 Vista boxes failed with Error 1603. After a prolonged Google search, I found a forum with someone mentioning to uninstall KB110806, which seems to be related to .NET 2.0 SP1. I forget the forum and the details.
Anyway, if you&#8217;re having trouble [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The title says it all. Several attempts I&#8217;ve made at installing the .NET Framework 3.5 on x64 Vista boxes failed with Error 1603. After a prolonged Google search, I found a forum with someone mentioning to uninstall KB110806, which seems to be related to .NET 2.0 SP1. I forget the forum and the details.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you&#8217;re having trouble with .NET 3.5 on Vista x64, try uninstalling the KB110806 update. I&#8217;m going to assume you know where to do that if you&#8217;re reading this.</p>
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		<title>CardSharkV - now with screenshots</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/12/10/cardsharkv-now-with-screenshots/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/12/10/cardsharkv-now-with-screenshots/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:46:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/12/10/cardsharkv-now-with-screenshots/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It occurred to me that my CardSharkV page didn&#8217;t have any screenshots to show how the program works or what it looks like. That has now been remedied. Here&#8217;s the central part of it (grouping the photos):
 
So head on over to the CardSharkV page and take a look! I think you might find the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It occurred to me that my CardSharkV page didn&#8217;t have any screenshots to show how the program works or what it looks like. That has now been remedied. Here&#8217;s the central part of it (grouping the photos):</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/4-renamed-group.png"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="184" alt="4_Renamed_Group" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/4-renamed-group-thumb.png" width="244" border="0"/></a> </p>
<p>So head on over to the <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/products/" target="_blank">CardSharkV page</a> and take a look! I think you might find the program useful, if you like keeping your digital photos organized right in the file system and not just in some photo management program.</p>
<p>If you have any comments on the program, I&#8217;d like to hear them.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/?p=152&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_152" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a>
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		<title>Introducing CardSharkV</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/11/25/introducing-cardsharkv/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/11/25/introducing-cardsharkv/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 08:06:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Software development]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[WPF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/11/25/introducing-cardsharkv/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Check out this program I&#8217;ve developed, called CardSharkV. It&#8217;s a digital picture storage card/camera &#8220;downloader&#8221; with a twist.
It&#8217;s a bit of an experiment, and I&#8217;m looking for some real-world &#8220;beta&#8221; testers. My plan is to try my hand at charging for the program. But to see if word will spread, I&#8217;m planning to give out [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Check out this program I&#8217;ve developed, called CardSharkV. It&#8217;s a digital picture storage card/camera &#8220;downloader&#8221; with a twist.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a bit of an experiment, and I&#8217;m looking for some real-world &#8220;beta&#8221; testers. My plan is to try my hand at charging for the program. But to see if word will spread, I&#8217;m planning to give out 50 or so licenses without charge while I work out any kinks that might be in the program.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in trying it out, download the program, install and run it, and then click the &#8220;Request License&#8221; button.</p>
<p>Read more about it on the <a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/products/">CardSharkV page</a>.</p>
<p>Update (2007-11-25): CardSharkV depends on the .NET Framework 3.0. It&#8217;s thus meant to be installed on Vista systems only. If you have XP and the .NET Framework 3.0, it should still work. Also, since I posted the whole thing Saturday night after a whole day of re-shaping my first, never published version, I didn&#8217;t test the install too well. I&#8217;ve since had a little time to test and found some issues, especially with the license mechanism. I&#8217;ve posted version 1.0.2.0 to correct those issues and to improve the installer as well.</p>
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		<title>Microsoft deprecates support for XBAP WPF apps in version 5.3 of the Media Center SDK</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/11/19/microsoft-deprecates-support-for-xbap-wpf-apps-in-version-53-of-the-media-center-sdk/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/11/19/microsoft-deprecates-support-for-xbap-wpf-apps-in-version-53-of-the-media-center-sdk/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:02:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Microsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Software development]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[WPF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/11/19/microsoft-deprecates-support-for-xbap-wpf-apps-in-version-53-of-the-media-center-sdk/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I downloaded and installed the latest version of the Media Center SDK just now, and was a bit surprised to see that WPF apps are now officially deprecated as a supported way of extending Windows Media Center on Vista. There&#8217;s no big announcement around this so far, it&#8217;s almost just a footnote in the &#8220;What&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I downloaded and installed the latest version of the Media Center SDK just now, and was a bit surprised to see that WPF apps are now officially deprecated as a supported way of extending Windows Media Center on Vista. There&#8217;s no big announcement around this so far, it&#8217;s almost just a footnote in the &#8220;What&#8217;s New&#8221; section:</p>
<blockquote><p><b>Deprecated features</b> </p>
<p>The following features have been deprecated:
<ul>
<li>Hosting for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) browser applications (XBAPs).  </li>
<li>The Triple-tap/Soft-keyboard ActiveX control for hosted HTML applications.  </li>
<li>Support for using alternative shells to run and host HTML applications.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>The reason I&#8217;m surprised is that Microsoft announced the support for WPF based extensibility apps at PDC05 with some fanfare.</p>
<p>I guess interest among developers just hasn&#8217;t been there for WPF-based Media Center apps, and Microsoft needs to make judgment calls on where to invest in their extensibility platform. The rest of the deprecated features seem to have been made for the same reason: limited interest among developers for these features. In addition I think there might be issues of an architectural nature that just make the three things that got dropped too expensive to maintain or improve.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m sad about this development, mostly because I still don&#8217;t see a great set of development and design tools around for MCML. WPF seems to me to have a whole lot more momentum than MCML (WPF has the Expression suite of tools and has been billed as the &#8220;GDI for the next 20 years&#8221;), but who knows what may be coming for Windows 7, or even an earlier interim update for Media Center?</p>
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		<title>Getting Vista UAC elevation to work for web deployed ClickOnce applications</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/08/25/getting-vista-uac-elevation-to-work-for-web-deployed-clickonce-applications/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/08/25/getting-vista-uac-elevation-to-work-for-web-deployed-clickonce-applications/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 25 Aug 2007 07:06:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Software development]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/08/25/getting-vista-uac-elevation-to-work-for-web-deployed-clickonce-applications/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Normally you can&#8217;t have ClickOnce applications that are deployed over the web run with Vista UAC elevation prompts. It&#8217;s not something Microsoft supports. Not sure why. I guess it&#8217;s once-bitten twice-shy, coming from the whole ActiveX mess. So I guess I do kind of understand why.
There is a workaround, if you really need UAC elevation, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Normally you can&#8217;t have ClickOnce applications that are deployed over the web run with Vista UAC elevation prompts. It&#8217;s not something Microsoft supports. Not sure why. I guess it&#8217;s once-bitten twice-shy, coming from the whole ActiveX mess. So I guess I do kind of understand why.</p>
<p>There is a workaround, if you really need UAC elevation, which you shouldn&#8217;t. But at a high level, it works like this. You create your ClickOnce app like you would normally. To go with it, you create a helper app that you equip with an embedded&nbsp;elevation manifest. You then add a test to your ClickOnce app to see if it&#8217;s running elevated. If it isn&#8217;t you make it call the helper app. It will cause a UAC elevation prompt and in turn launch the ClickOnce app anew. Since the helper got elevated, the ClickOnce app now runs elevated too. Of course, by doing this you might end up with users not accepting the elevation request. But from what I&#8217;ve seen real users do with those elevation prompts, it won&#8217;t matter much. Anyway.</p>
<p>The trick is getting the helper app included in the regular ClickOnce app. There may be better ways, but here&#8217;s one I&#8217;ve spent quite some time on to work out. Maybe it will help someone out there save time, like I&#8217;ve saved time by reading posts on elevation checks&nbsp;using managed code. So here are the steps I&#8217;ve followed to make this work:</p>
<ol>
<li>Modify your ClickOnce app&#8217;s entry point to include elevation checks as described at <a href="http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=198">http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=198</a>. If the app is not running elevated, make it run the helper application and exit.&nbsp;The launch&nbsp;looks something like this:</p>
<p><font color="#008080" size="2">
<p>ProcessStartInfo</p>
<p></font><font color="#000000" size="2"> psi = </font><font color="#0000ff" size="2">new</font><font color="#000000" size="2"> </font><font color="#008080" size="2">ProcessStartInfo</font><font color="#000000" size="2">(</font><font color="#800000" size="2">&#8220;Helper.exe&#8221;</font><font size="2"></font><font color="#000000">);<br /></font>psi.UseShellExecute = <font color="#0000ff" size="2">true</font><font size="2">;<br /></font><font color="#008080" size="2">Process</font><font size="2">.Start(psi);</p>
<p>The UseShellExecute flag makes sure the UAC prompt will happen.</font></li>
<li>
<p align="left">Create your helper application with an elevation manifest (the process for&nbsp;that is at <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/cheller/archive/2006/08/24/how-to-embed-a-manifest-in-an-assembly-let-me-count-the-ways.aspx" target="_blank">Catherine Heller&#8217;s</a> blog)&nbsp;and have it launch your app with something like this:<br /><font color="#0000ff" size="2"><br />string</font><font color="#000000" size="2"> appExe = </font><font color="#008080" size="2">Environment</font><font color="#000000" size="2">.GetFolderPath(</font><font color="#008080" size="2">Environment</font><font color="#000000" size="2">.</font><font color="#008080" size="2">SpecialFolder</font><font color="#000000" size="2">.Programs) + </font><font color="#800000" size="2">@&#8221;\YourClickOnceApp\ClickOnceApp.appref-ms&#8221;</font><font size="2"></font><font color="#000000">;<br /></font><font color="#008080" size="2">Process</font><font size="2">.Start(appExe);</p>
<p>As you can see <strong>the whole scenario only works if you let the ClickOnce app create a Start Menu entry</strong>.</font></p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="left"><font size="2">Build and publish both applications, making sure they use the option to rename the published files to .deploy extensions. This helps tremendously with web deployment.</font></p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="left"><font size="2">Find the published helper .deploy files and copy them to the folder that contains the ClickOnce application&#8217;s .deploy files.</font></p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="left"><font size="2">Open the ClickOnce application&#8217;s .exe.manifest file using MageUI. Go to the Files section and click the Populate button to include the helper app and its manifest in the fileset for the ClickOnce app. Save and sign the manifest. I used a stored certificate for the signing.</font></p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="left"><font size="2">Open the ClickOnce application&#8217;s .application deployment manifest using MageUI. This is probably in the directory above the .deploy files. Open the Application Reference section. Click the Select Manifest&#8230; button and browse down to the manifest you modified in step 5. Save and sign the manifest.&nbsp;I used the stored certificate from step 5.</font></p>
</li>
<li>
<p align="left"><font size="2">Now you have all the needed files packaged for uploading to your web server.</font></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p align="left"><font size="2">This is what will happen when the user downloads the app for the first time: A verification&nbsp;window shows briefly, followed by a download warning, followed by a download progress window. Now the UAC prompt will come, and if accepted, another verification window. Then the app will show.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2">On subsequent launches of the app the user will see the verification window, followed by the UAC prompt, followed by another verification window. Then the app will show.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2">It&#8217;s not pretty, but at least it works.</font></p>
<p align="left">If you try these steps out and they don&#8217;t work, I&#8217;d appreciate an opportunity to correct them.</p>
<p align="left">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<font size="2"></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2">P.S.: The manifest generation step&nbsp;looks like this for C# projects:</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New">&#8220;$(DevEnvDir)..\..\<strong>VC</strong>\bin\mt.exe&#8221; -manifest &#8220;$(ProjectDir)$(TargetName).exe.manifest&#8221;&nbsp; ?outputresource:&#8221;$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName)&#8221;;#1</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="ver" size="2">The .exe.manifest for the helper needs to look something like this (you can leave out the commented parts):</font></p>
<p><font color="#0000ff">
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;?</font></p>
<p></font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">xml</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">version</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">1.0</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">encoding</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">utf-8</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2"> ?&gt;</font>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">assembly</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">xmlns</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">manifestVersion</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">1.0</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">assemblyIdentity</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">version</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">1.0.0.0</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">processorArchitecture</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">msil</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">name</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">Helper</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">type</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">win32</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2"> /&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">description</font><font color="#0000ff">&gt;</font><font color="#000000">Helper</font><font color="#0000ff">&lt;/</font><font color="#800000">description</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">trustInfo</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">xmlns</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font face="Courier New" color="#800000" size="2">security</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font face="Courier New" color="#800000" size="2">requestedPrivileges</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;</font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">requestedExecutionLevel</font><font color="#0000ff"> </font><font color="#ff0000">level</font><font color="#0000ff">=</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff">requireAdministrator</font><font color="#000000">&#8220;</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2"> /&gt; </font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;!&#8211;</font><font face="Courier New" color="#008000" size="2">&lt;requestedExecutionLevel level=&#8221;asInvoker&#8221; /&gt;</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&#8211;&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;!&#8211;</font><font face="Courier New" color="#008000" size="2"> &lt;requestedExecutionLevel level=&#8221;highestAvailable&#8221; /&gt; </font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&#8211;&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;/</font><font face="Courier New" color="#800000" size="2">requestedPrivileges</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;/</font><font face="Courier New" color="#800000" size="2">security</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;/</font><font face="Courier New" color="#800000" size="2">trustInfo</font><font color="#0000ff"></font><font face="Courier New" size="2">&gt;</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Courier New" size="2">&lt;/</font><font size="2"></font><font face="Courier New"></font><font color="#800000">assembly</font><font color="#0000ff">&gt;</font></p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/?p=103&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_103" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a>
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		<item>
		<title>DreamScene preview now available on Windows Update for Vista Ultimate</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/02/14/dreamscene-preview-now-available-on-windows-update-for-vista-ultimate/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/02/14/dreamscene-preview-now-available-on-windows-update-for-vista-ultimate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:21:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/02/14/dreamscene-preview-now-available-on-windows-update-for-vista-ultimate/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just noticed that the Vista Ultimate Extra called DreamScene is now available as a preview on Windows Update. I&#8217;m downloading it now to check it out.
Share This
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Just noticed that the Vista Ultimate Extra called DreamScene is now available as a preview on Windows Update. I&#8217;m downloading it now to check it out.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/?p=71&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_71" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a>
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		<item>
		<title>Attempting to buy the Vista Family discount pack fails repeatedly</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/30/attempting-to-buy-the-vista-family-discount-pack-fails-repeatedly/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/30/attempting-to-buy-the-vista-family-discount-pack-fails-repeatedly/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:05:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/30/attempting-to-buy-the-vista-family-discount-pack-fails-repeatedly/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After picking up the Vista Ultimate Signature Edition copy today, I wanted to spend some more money to get the Family Pack discount, so I can upgrade a few other PCs in the house.
Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with only this message after typing in the Product Key from the box I just [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>After picking up the Vista Ultimate Signature Edition copy today, I wanted to spend some more money to get the Family Pack discount, so I can upgrade a few other PCs in the house.</p>
<p>Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with only this message after typing in the Product Key from the box I just bought this morning:</p>
<p><font color="#ff0000">! </font></p>
<p><font color="#ff0000">We&#8217;re sorry, the following error(s) have occurred: </font> </p>
<p><font color="#ff0000">No Offer Found</font>  </p>
<p>Bummer. I guess I won&#8217;t be spending another $100 for my two extra copies. </p>
<p>Even more curious is that there&#8217;s no way to contact Microsoft about problems with the order page. Maybe they don&#8217;t want my money?</p>
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		<title>Windows Vista Ultimate Signature Edition unboxed</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/30/windows-vista-ultimate-signature-edition-unboxed/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/30/windows-vista-ultimate-signature-edition-unboxed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:46:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Pictures]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/30/windows-vista-ultimate-signature-edition-unboxed/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Update 2008-02-18:  It seems like this post is getting a lot of hits, which is kind of odd to me. I suspect it might be because there&#8217;s a mention of the phrase &#8220;key sticker&#8221; in here, so that makes people think I&#8217;m publishing my activation key. I&#8217;m not. The key is digitally erased with a bunch of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Update 2008-02-18:</strong>  It seems like this post is getting a lot of hits, which is kind of odd to me. I suspect it might be because there&#8217;s a mention of the phrase &#8220;key sticker&#8221; in here, so that makes people think I&#8217;m publishing my activation key. I&#8217;m not. The key is digitally erased with a bunch of black pixels. There&#8217;s no key here.</p>
<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;</p>
<p>Call me a fanboy all you want. I went out to a local Best Buy this morning and got myself a copy of the Vista Ultimate Signature Edition. I figure Vista put bread on my table, so I need to give back a little. And no way am I going to do that without getting something a little out of the ordinary.</p>
<p>I got to Best Buy a little after ten and checked the shelves. No Signature Editions to be found. Luckily I went to the service desk to ask, and just as I was doing so, they brought out the four boxes they had at that store. Two got put aside by (for?) the employees, and I grabbed one of the remaining two. Talk about good timing. I think I also picked a good store to go to. It&#8217;s fairly new and people don&#8217;t seem to know it&#8217;s there, so there was very little &#8220;competition&#8221;.</p>
<p>Here are some unboxing pictures for your viewing pleasure:</p>
<p><a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8190%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="172" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8190.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Box front</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8191%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="240" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8191.jpg" height="159" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Open back</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8192%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="198" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8192.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>System requirements on the side</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8193%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="177" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8193.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Feature comparison list on the back</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8194%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="240" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8194.jpg" height="144" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Other side</p>
<p><a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8195%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="240" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8195.jpg" height="180" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Outside cardboard box and inside plastic box</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8196%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="180" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8196.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Inside plastic box front</p>
<p><a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8197%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="201" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8197.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Inside plastic box back with Bill Gates comments</p>
<p><a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8198%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="64" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8198.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Plastic box side</p>
<p><a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8199%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="240" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8199.jpg" height="172" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Opened plastic box with DVD / media holder</p>
<p><a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8200%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="240" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8200.jpg" height="170" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Leaflets inside media holder</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8201%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="176" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8201.jpg" height="240" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>CD order information</p>
<p> <a atomicselection="true" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8202%5B1%5D.jpg"><img border="0" width="240" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/WindowsLiveWriter/WindowsVistaUltimateSignatureEditionunbo_A530/IMG_8202.jpg" height="180" style="border: 0px" /></a></p>
<p>Back of media holder with key sticker</p>
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		<title>Debugging XBAP applications on Vista using Visual Studio 2005</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/23/debugging-xbap-applications-on-vista-using-visual-studio-2005/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/23/debugging-xbap-applications-on-vista-using-visual-studio-2005/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:35:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Software development]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[WPF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2007/01/23/debugging-xbap-applications-on-vista-using-visual-studio-2005/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I ran into an interesting little quirk with Visual Studio 2005 on Vista yesterday. I was trying to start an XBAP debugging session from VS (using the F5 key), and none of my breakpoints got triggered. Upon exiting the IE instance that hosts PresentationHost.exe, VS considered the session as still &#8220;running&#8221;.
I had set my system [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I ran into an interesting little quirk with Visual Studio 2005 on Vista yesterday. I was trying to start an XBAP debugging session from VS (using the F5 key), and none of my breakpoints got triggered. Upon exiting the IE instance that hosts PresentationHost.exe, VS considered the session as still &#8220;running&#8221;.</p>
<p>I had set my system up according to Tim Sneath&#8217;s post on <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/12/20/building-a-perfect-wpf-developer-workstation.aspx">the perfect WPF developer system,</a> including VS 2005 SP1 and the beta version of the Vista extensions for VS 2005. I was running VS &#8220;as administrator&#8221;.</p>
<p>As it turns out there are some technical details around starting XBAP debugging sessions from an elevated VS process that cause this behavior <strong>if you already have another instance of IE running when starting the debugging session</strong>.</p>
<p>Thanks to Tim Sneath and Chango Valtchev at Microsoft&nbsp;for helping in tracking this down!</p>
<p>Moral of the story: If you want to debug an XBAP from VS 2005 under Vista, run VS non-elevated, or make sure you have no other instances of IE running when you start the debugging session.</p>
<p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/?p=62&amp;akst_action=share-this"  title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_62" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a>
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		<item>
		<title>Getting wireless to work under Vista RTM on a Compaq nw8000</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/11/17/getting-wireless-to-work-under-vista-rtm-on-a-compaq-nw8000/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/11/17/getting-wireless-to-work-under-vista-rtm-on-a-compaq-nw8000/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:28:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/11/17/getting-wireless-to-work-under-vista-rtm-on-a-compaq-nw8000/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since MSDN now has keys for Vista available, I started getting my developer laptop ready. One problem I ran into was that the built-in wireless adapter on the nw8000 wasn&#8217;t recognized by the RTM bits. On previous releases it worked just fine, so I don&#8217;t quite get what the issue is.
Anyway, I found that the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Since MSDN now has keys for Vista available, I started getting my developer laptop ready. One problem I ran into was that the built-in wireless adapter on the nw8000 wasn&#8217;t recognized by the RTM bits. On previous releases it worked just fine, so I don&#8217;t quite get what the issue is.</p>
<p>Anyway, I found that the in-box drivers for an &#8220;Atheros Wireless Network Adapter&#8221;&nbsp;seem to do&nbsp;the job. </p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the drill: Start Menu - Computer - Right click - Properties - Tasks: Device Manager - Find the device in the list&nbsp;- Right click - Update driver - Browse my computer&#8230;&nbsp;- Let me pick from a list&#8230; -&nbsp;Find &#8220;Atheros Communications Inc.&#8221; and pick &#8220;Atheros Wireless Network Adapter&#8221;.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Vista RTM bits on MSDN now (and keys, too)</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/11/16/vista-rtm-bits-on-msdn-now-and-keys-too/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/11/16/vista-rtm-bits-on-msdn-now-and-keys-too/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2006 04:24:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Microsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/11/16/vista-rtm-bits-on-msdn-now-and-keys-too/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re&#160;a lucky MSDN subscriber and have been waiting for the final Windows Vista bits, they&#8217;re available for download now. 
What I&#8217;ve been waiting for is also ready: the ability to request a key for your Vista development system. I&#8217;ve got mine and am writing this from Windows Live Writer running on my shiny new [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you&#8217;re&nbsp;a lucky MSDN subscriber and have been waiting for the final Windows Vista bits, they&#8217;re available for download now. </p>
<p>What I&#8217;ve been waiting for is also ready: the ability to request a key for your Vista development system. I&#8217;ve got mine and am writing this from Windows Live Writer running on my shiny new Vista Ultimate work laptop. Yay!</p>
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		<item>
		<title>News.com reviews Vista RC2 - are they off the mark a little?</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/10/12/newscom-reviews-vista-rc2-are-they-off-the-mark-a-little/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/10/12/newscom-reviews-vista-rc2-are-they-off-the-mark-a-little/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Oct 2006 04:24:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/10/12/newscom-reviews-vista-rc2-are-they-off-the-mark-a-little/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The review from news.com mentions several problems with RC2 that seem like steps backwards from RC1.
That may actually be the case, since, as far as I understand it, RC2 is built from what&#8217;s called the &#8220;RTM branch&#8221; in the source control system Microsoft uses to keep their code neat and orderly.
The thing about the way [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vista_RC2/4505-3672_7-32105681.html">The review</a> from news.com mentions several problems with RC2 that seem like steps backwards from RC1.</p>
<p>That may actually be the case, since, as far as I understand it, RC2 is built from what&#8217;s called the &#8220;RTM branch&#8221; in the source control system Microsoft uses to keep their code neat and orderly.</p>
<p>The thing about the way Microsoft uses source control is that they create &#8220;branches&#8221; of source code at certain points in time. This is documented at <a href="http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/invitedtalks/lucovsky.ppt">http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/invitedtalks/lucovsky.ppt</a>. Granted, this presentation refers to Windows 2000, but I doubt the principles have changed much.</p>
<p>The point that I want to make is that the RC2 source code (from the &#8220;RTM branch&#8221;, according to <a href="http://www.istartedsomething.com/20060901/windows-vista-beta-features-vs-content/">http://www.istartedsomething.com/20060901/windows-vista-beta-features-vs-content/</a>) may have been branched off from the main trunk some time after the RC1 branch, but may not have had some of the RC1 code integrated back into it. Some code from the RC1 branch may not make it into the RTM branch at all, if it&#8217;s judged to be of dubious quality.</p>
<p><a class="imagelink" title="Branching" href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/branching_600.gif"><img id="image27" height="200" alt="Branching" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/branching_600.gif" /></a> </p>
<p>Judging by the fact that what Microsoft terms the &#8220;RTM branch&#8221; started with build numbers at 5700, and that RC2 has a build number of 5744, calling it &#8220;RC2&#8243; is a bit of a misnomer, really. It would more accurately be called an &#8220;RTM preview&#8221;, but since lots of folks have been screaming for an &#8220;RC2&#8243;, that&#8217;s what Microsoft probably decided to give them.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to hear some Microsoft folks comment on that news.com review or my little commentary here.</p>
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		<title>Vista has a new Reliability and Performance app</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/10/05/vista-has-a-new-reliability-and-performance-app/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/10/05/vista-has-a-new-reliability-and-performance-app/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Oct 2006 05:50:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/10/05/vista-has-a-new-reliability-and-performance-app/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The coolest thing in it is the Reliability Monitor:
 
It tells you about crashes that happened in the past, applications that installed or uninstalled with failures, hardware failures, windows failures and so on, and then it compiles all that data into a nice visual to give you an impression of how stable your system is [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The coolest thing in it is the Reliability Monitor:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/WindowsLiveWriter/VistahasanewReliabilityandPerformanceapp_14113/Reliability%5B3%5D1.png" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="271" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/WindowsLiveWriter/VistahasanewReliabilityandPerformanceapp_14113/Reliability_thumb%5B1%5D1.png" width="433" border="0"/></a> </p>
<p>It tells you about crashes that happened in the past, applications that installed or uninstalled with failures, hardware failures, windows failures and so on, and then it compiles all that data into a nice visual to give you an impression of how stable your system is / was. </p>
<p>If you click on a graph point in the past, you get a report of what exactly happened on that day. In the graph above, I was playing around with getting OneNote 2007 Beta 2 TR installed after I had upgraded an Office 2007 Beta 2 install that didn&#8217;t include that particular component originally. I had lots of installer crashes and app crashes that day, and it shows in the dip in the graph.</p>
<p>Of course, the Performance graphs are not too shabby either:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/WindowsLiveWriter/VistahasanewReliabilityandPerformanceapp_14113/Graphs%5B3%5D1.png" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="274" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/WindowsLiveWriter/VistahasanewReliabilityandPerformanceapp_14113/Graphs_thumb%5B1%5D1.png" width="435" border="0"/></a> </p>
<p>It finally&nbsp;includes a&nbsp;hard drive monitor as well, not just CPU, memory and networking!</p>
<p>You can find it in Performance Information and Tools - Advanced Tools (or by typing &#8220;rel&#8221; into the Start Menu Search Box):</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/WindowsLiveWriter/VistahasanewReliabilityandPerformanceapp_14113/AdvTools%5B5%5D1.jpg" atomicselection="true"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="323" src="http://www.geektieguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/WindowsLiveWriter/VistahasanewReliabilityandPerformanceapp_14113/AdvTools_thumb%5B3%5D1.jpg" width="436" border="0"/></a></p>
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		<title>How to connect to older Samba server versions using Vista RC1</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/18/how-to-connect-to-older-samba-server-versions-using-vista-rc1/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/18/how-to-connect-to-older-samba-server-versions-using-vista-rc1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/18/how-to-connect-to-older-samba-server-versions-using-vista-rc1/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I ran across an issue with my home network server, which is running an older version of Linux and Samba to share files around the house. Vista RC1 wouldn&#8217;t authenticate with the server. After some digging using Google I found out that you need to change one of the local security policies (Local Policies - [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I ran across an issue with my home network server, which is running an older version of Linux and Samba to share files around the house. Vista RC1 wouldn&#8217;t authenticate with the server. After some digging using Google I found out that you need to change one of the local security policies (Local Policies - Security Options - Network Security: LAN manager authentication level) from &#8220;Send NTLMv2 response only&#8221; to &#8220;Send LM &#038; NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated&#8221;.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the machine I had this problem on didn&#8217;t have the secpol.msc file on it (I still don&#8217;t know why), so I dug some more and found that there is an equivalent raw registry key:</p>
<p>HKLM/System/CurrentControlCset/Control/LSA - LMCompatibilityLevel</p>
<p>It&#8217;s 3 by default on Vista RC1 (NTLM2 only) and I had to change it to 1 (LM &#038; NTLM, NTLMv2 if negotiated).</p>
<p>I&#8217;m afraid that this will bite some other folks like me who have &#8220;unorthodox&#8221; network setups at home. I hope Microsoft has a good reason to ship with this default setting, but I&#8217;d advocate they change it.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> A friend at Microsoft helped me realize that enabling LM &#038; NTLM can be a potential security risk. Passwords can be stolen when using LM and NTLM. Vista uses NTLM2 by default to guard against the known vulnerabilities of NT &#038; NTLM authentication.</p>
<p>In my personal situation I&#8217;m not that worried about changing the setting, since my computers stay isolated on my home network, but it&#8217;s probably not for everybody.</p>
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		<title>Ghosting a Vista RC1 drive using Ghost 8.x</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/17/ghosting-a-vista-rc1-drive-using-ghost-8x/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/17/ghosting-a-vista-rc1-drive-using-ghost-8x/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Sep 2006 21:13:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/17/ghosting-a-vista-rc1-drive-using-ghost-8x/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had to do this recently to make a backup of a system hard drive for &#8220;just in case&#8221;&#8230;
I found some instructions using Google (https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=181082&#038;SiteID=1) and here is the gist of what needs to be done (to spare you from having to read the whole thread):
Run a command prompt as Administrator and do the following:
BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I had to do this recently to make a backup of a system hard drive for &#8220;just in case&#8221;&#8230;</p>
<p>I found some instructions using Google (<a href="https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=181082&#038;SiteID=1">https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=181082&#038;SiteID=1</a>) and here is the gist of what needs to be done (to spare you from having to read the whole thread):</p>
<p>Run a command prompt <strong>as Administrator</strong> and do the following:</p>
<p>BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot<br />
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot<br />
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot</p>
<p>Then run Ghost 8.x like this:</p>
<p>ghost.exe -fdsp<br />
or<br />
ghost32.exe -fdsp</p>
<p>I tried this with two hard drives (once with a test drive, then with the real one), and it worked beatifully.</p>
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		<title>Vista from a developer&#8217;s point of view</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/09/vista-from-a-developers-point-of-view/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/09/vista-from-a-developers-point-of-view/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Sep 2006 01:05:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[WPF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/09/vista-from-a-developers-point-of-view/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[To me Windows Vista marks a great new milestone for software developers. Not just because Microsoft invested years of development into a new programming framework, but because that framework will be included out of the box. Until now, if you wanted to take advantage of the power of the .Net Framework (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0) [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>To me Windows Vista marks a great new milestone for software developers. Not just because Microsoft invested years of development into a new programming framework, but because that framework will be <em>included out of the box</em>. Until now, if you wanted to take advantage of the power of the .Net Framework (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0) you had to either include the installer for the framework or create some other magic to get it on the user&#8217;s system (asking the user to please, please download and install it first?)</p>
<p>With Vista, not only do you get the .Net Framework 2.0 (much improved over the previous versions) in the box, but also the amazingly powerful Windows Presentation Foundation (which is what I&#8217;ve worked with), Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation (two pieces I know nothing about yet).</p>
<p>This will lower the barrier to entry for applications developed using these powerful tools to zero. As long as you&#8217;re writing your application for Vista you can be sure the basic requirements are there.</p>
<p>There will be issues with certain features of WPF (rendering in software vs. hardware, especially for 3D), but the framework helps you detect these issues and makes it possible to adapt your application to lower its &#8220;flashyness&#8221; (RenderCapability.Tier, remember this needs to be shifted down by 16 bits if you want to use 0, 1 and 2 as the human readable values).</p>
<p>To me Windows Presentation Foundation is the most important technology to come out of Microsoft for a long time. I&#8217;ve never written too much actual Win32 or even MFC/ATL UI code for client applications, but I&#8217;ve done a lot of HTML / CSS stuff and pure business object stuff (COM/ATL). More about that in my next post. I don&#8217;t want this to get too long.</p>
<p> </p>
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		<title>Vista RC1 is out!</title>
		<link>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/01/vista-rc-is-is-out/</link>
		<comments>http://www.geektieguy.com/2006/09/01/vista-rc-is-is-out/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Sep 2006 21:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>GeekTieGuy</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Vista]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Build 5600.16384 is the RC1 build of Vista that Microsoft published to select testers on Connect today. It will be more widely available next week.
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Build 5600.16384 is the RC1 build of Vista that Microsoft published to select testers on Connect today. It will be more widely available next week.</p>
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