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By Walter, December 10, 2008 6:16 pm

As you’ve probably heard by now, Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta is now publically available for testing. It promises better power usage, reduced resource consumption in Sidebar gadgets, Windows Search 4, the ability to burn data to Blu-Ray disks, several other features, and numerous security fixes and updates.

You can see a full list of those updates on Microsoft Technet.

After testing basic compatibility and stability in a safe environment (my notebook), I decided to go for it and just do the install on my primary work machine. Obviously, I made sure I had a good backup first and I recommend you do the same.

The short version: installation was a breeze and so far, not a hitch.

I’ll be doing some performance testing over the next few days and will report back on that. In the meantime, here are the basics and some initial thoughts.

Installing

You can download Vista SP2 Beta 1 from the Microsoft Download site. You can also download the Windows Update Experience Kit, which provides the instructions and scripts necessary to install SP2 through Windows Update.

You do need to have Service Pack 1 installed before installing the SP2 beta. I’m hoping that the final version will include SP1. In the meantime, if you have not yet installed SP1, you can install it through Windows Update or download the standalone SP1 update for 32-bit or 64-bit.

The installation of SP2 is straightforward. It creates a System Restore Point, copies files, and asks you to restart. My installation was quick – about 25 minutes. Your mileage may vary.

Experience

As most of the changes in SP2 are under the hood, you won’t see a lot of difference right off the bat. After using it for a couple of days, I did notice that the wireless connection on my notebook seems more solid. Occasionally, I’ve had to reset the wireless adapter under SP1, but not yet with SP2.

All of my software and hardware that worked under SP1 work just fine under SP2. My software list includes (at least the big stuff):

• Office 2007 Enterprise
• Adobe Creative Suite 3
• Windows Live 3 Beta
• Roxio Creator 2009
• Firefox 3.1 beta
• IE 8 beta 2
• Ultramon
• Tivo Desktop
• Picasa 3
• iTunes 8.02
• VMWare Workstation 6.5

I’ll let you know more as the days wear on.

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By Walter, October 9, 2007 1:44 pm

About a year and a half ago, my son was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. (Not Type II, which has been getting all the news lately along with declining health issues).

He decided last year to do the walk for research for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and raised a bunch of money. He asked this year if I’d post this for my friends and colleagues on the Internet, so here it is.

Please, absolutely no pressure to donate at all, but they do good research with the money. Mostly, I’m just proud of him for taking the initiative to do something and wanted to show him off a bit.

Liam’s page

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By Walter, August 13, 2007 12:49 pm

Ars Technica has the first 2 parts of a multiple part story up on the history of the Amiga computer:

History of the Amiga Part 1

It’s a great read, since they go not only into the technical details, but also into the video game politics of the day. Each part is multiple pages, so it’s not a quick read, but it is fascinating. In my computing lifetime, I’ve had an Apple II, Commodore 64, original Macintosh, a bunch of PCs, and a bunch of Macs. I still remember the Amiga as one of my favorite computers I ever owned. I gave it to a friend long ago, but now I really wish I still had it.

The Amiga was so ahead of its time that even back then it was capable of some things that modern computers still can’t do. Here’s a quote from part 2:

Another new invention for the Amiga computer was the “copper” chip. This was essentially a special-purpose CPU designed specifically for direct manipulation of the display. It had only three instructions, but it could directly access any part of the other display chips at any time. What’s more, it could turn amazing tricks in the fraction of a second that it took for the monitor to refresh the display. This allowed a trick that no other computer has ever reproduced: the ability to view multiple different screens, opened at different resolutions, at the same time. These “pull-down” screens would amaze anyone who saw them. Modern computers can open different screens at different resolutions (say, for example, to open a full-screen game at a lower resolution than the desktop is displaying, in order to play the game faster or at a higher frame rate) but they can only switch between these modes, not display multiple modes at once.

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By Walter, August 11, 2007 1:49 pm

Since my last article on Vista’s new Volume Mixer, I got a few comments from people saying that Vista didn’t remember their settings and just set volume for other apps somewhat randomly. But Volume Mixer does remember the settings, just not the way you might think. I thought I’d do a follow-up with a few more details about Vista Volume Mixer. Take a look at the picture below:

Remember, a new app doesn’t show up in the Volume Mixer until it actually makes a sound – not just when you open it. So play around with. You’ll see that Vista Volume Mixer does remember the settings. It doesn’t remember fixed settings for each individiual app. Instead, it rather remembers settings in relation to the master volume. And that still applies when you change your system’s master volume when Volume Mixer is not open. That’s why you’re likely to see changes in position the next time you open it.

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By Walter, June 27, 2007 10:48 pm

Windows Vista includes Complete PC Backup, an image-based backup program that works similarly to Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage. Complete PC Backup creates an image of one or more entire hard disk partitions. In the event of a hard drive failure, you can replace the disk, restore from that image, and have your computer right back at the state it was in when you last backed it up.

Unfortunately, Complete PC Backup does not have a scheduling function built in so that you can automate backups. Fortunately, the command-line equivalent wbadmin.exe supports a rich command structure and with a little help from Task Scheduler, you can schedule automatic image backups.

wbadmin.exe supports the following commands:

Start Backup. Runs a backup.
Stop Job. Stops a running backup.
Get Items. Lists backed up items.
Get Status. Lists status of currently running backup.

The Start Backup command is the one we’re concerned with here. To create a full command, you can use the following parameters:

-backuptarget. Indicates the location to save the backup image. This can be a drive letter or a UNC path.
-include. List of drive letters, volume mount points, or volume names to include in the backup.
-noverify. Tells wbadmin not to verify backups written to removable media such as DVD.
-quiet. Runs the command with no user prompts.

So, let’s look at a simple backup command:

wbadmin start backup -backuptarget:e:\backups -include:C: -quiet

This command starts a backup of the C drive and saves the image to the Backups folder on the E drive, and does it with no user prompts. This would be a useful command for backing up the typical computer with one hard drive to a folder on an external hard drive.

To make this work as a scheduled backup, all you need to do is open Task Scheduler and create a new task using this command on the appropriate schedule.

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By Walter,

I’d like to announce the publication of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Administrator’s Companion, which I wrote with Scott Lowe and Josh Maher. This is the fourth edition of the book. I originally wrote it for Exchange Server 5.5. Written for the experienced IT pro (who may or may not be experienced with Exchange Server), this book covers the full range of server and client offerings. Enjoy!

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By Walter,

A couple of years ago, I helped out with the documentation for the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit. On June 22, 2007, Microsoft released the newest incarnation of the product, now named Windows SteadyState. For those who haven’t seen or heard of it, SteadyState is a utility that makes it easier to manage public computers, such as those found in libraries, classrooms, and Internet cafes – or even the computer you keep in your guest room that you get sick of having to troubleshoot every time your nephew visits.

One of the challenges of managing public computers is that all manner of malware, other programs, and system changes can be introduced by users. SteadyState works by offering several vital functions in an easy-to-manage interface:

• Windows Disk Protection. This feature basically creates a snapshot of the hard drive at a certain point in time (like when you finally get it configured just the way you want it). Whenever the computer restarts, Windows restores the computer to this exact state. So whenever a user is done with the computer, you can just restart the computer and it returns to the same state as before the user logged on.
• User Restrictions and Settings. This feature allows you to restrict access to programs and settings, and also to lock a user account to prevent changes.
• User Account Manager. This feature lets you create and delete user accounts, and also to export user accounts for use on other shared computers – perfect for creating identical user accounts on a group of shared computers.
• Computer Restrictions. This feature lets you restrict access to computer settings.

Right now, Windows SteadyState is only available for Windows XP and does require that you validate the copy of Windows you’re running.

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By Walter, January 20, 2007 12:09 am

I recently wrote a new article comparing the various editions of Windows Vista and talking about how to decide which edition is right for you. Check it out at the Windows Vista Community site.

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By Walter, January 13, 2007 11:03 pm

While the new .docx format in Word 2007 promises great things, for now most of the people you’ll be working with are still using Word 2003 or (gasp) an even earlier version. The .doc format remained virtually unchanged in Word 97-2003 and is still supported in Word 2007. But Word 2007 by default saves files as .docx documents, meaning that when you need to share with someone using a previous version you have to open the .docx file you created and save it as a .doc file.

If you work with folks that use previous versions of Word, you can change the default format Word 2007 uses to save a file. To do this, use the following steps:

1. In Word 2007, click the Office button (the big round button at the top left of the Window) and then click Word Options.
2. In the Word Options dialog box, choose the Save category from the list on the left.
3. Use the Save files in this format drop-down menu to choose the format you want Word 2007 to use by default. I use Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc).
4. Click OK.

When you save a new file, if you really want to save it as a .docx file, you can always choose that format from the list in the Save As dialog box.

Microsoft also has an Office Compatibility Pack available for users of Office XP and Office 2003 for opening documents created in Office 2007 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint)

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By Walter, December 19, 2006 12:02 am

I picked up a couple of the SanDisk Cruzer 2GB U3 Titanium USB drives today because I found them for $50 each after an instant rebate at Costco. I’ve been needing to upgrade from my old 512 MB drive for some time anyway. The drive itself is beautiful – a brushed silver look with a thumb slide to extend the drive, so no more caps to lose.

Getting it installed on Windows Vista (RTM) was a little tricky, though. For those that don’t know, U3 is a system added onto these drives that lets you install applications (such as email and Web browser) on the drive and then run them from any computer you plug it into – in essence, carrying around your important apps with you. Sounds pretty cool in concept. The drives are formatted in two partitions – one a small partition that Windows sees as a CD-ROM drive and a larger partition that Windows sees as a USB drive.

Unfortunately, Windows Vista does not recognize U3 and cannot install the drivers for the smaller partition. You also cannot remove U3 without first having the drive recognized by Windows. So, I took it over to my Windows XP machine. On Windows XP, the drivers installed just fine. After playing with U3 a bit, I decided there were a few reasons I just didn’t care to have it:

• No Vista support yet.
• It loads up on any machine you insert the drive onto and putting it on a friend’s or coworker’s machine can make them (rightly) feel a little nervous about the extra menus that pop up.
• While the technology is cool, I just really didn’t have the need for it.

Getting rid of it proved tricky, though. You can’t just reformat or repartition the drive. You have to use an uninstall program. The U3 interface has an uninstall feature built in, but it didn’t work for me. When I tried to use it, it just told me there was no drive connected. I downloaded the uninstall program from SanDisk, but it turned out to be the same program and also could not recognize the drive to do the uninstall. Of course, the drive was there and working just fine. The only program that couldn’t see it was the uninstaller.

Seems a lot of people have similar problems getting rid of the U3 software, though, because U3 has created a U3 Uninstall Web site that lets you remove U3 from any drive that has it installed. After telling the site a couple of times that I was really, really sure I didn’t want their amazingly useful software, it finally let me reformat the drive to work as a simple USB drive. One catch, though. Once you remove U3 from your drive, you cannot reinstall it.

When I plugged the drive back in on the Vista machine, Vista recognized it right away.

Now, what I like about the drive itself (and that’s pretty much everything but the U3 software):

• It looks great, as I mentioned.
• It has a retractable key.
• It’s extremely strong – rated to withstand 2,000 lbs of pressure.
• It is blazingly fast.

I plan to use one of them to test out Vista’s new ReadyBoost feature, so when I get around to that, I’ll be sure to post a review of how it does.