I spent a few hours further enhancing my MinVista implementation, and its getting closer. Hopefully I’ll get some time over xmas to refine it further, as I can see some good gains trimming away some of the fat in this build. Talking to people in MS the news sounds good, it seems the message has hit home that the succesor to Vista needs to be more svelte and modular so I’m hopeful beyond Vista R2.
December 16, 2007
December 15, 2007
Mark Russinovich on MinWin, Server 2008 Kernel …
MarkR has done another cool chalk and talk on Windows internals in channel9 http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=365911.
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December 9, 2007
WindowsMobile 6.1 preview
BoyGeniusReport got hold of a Motorola Q9 with WM 6.1 and they have done a video review helpfully picking out some of that latest features so that I don’t bust my NDA;
- Copy / Paste
- Domain Enroll in Settings (Enrolling in a domain will connect your device with company resources.)
- New home screen (pan left and right to check out missed calls, notifications like email, sms, etc.)
- Change Master Security Code
- Added text input settings
- Recent Programs when pressing Start menu
- Threaded SMS!
- When you compose an email, or SMS, and start typing the name of the contact in the “To:” field, the contact names finally pop up like Windows Mobile Professional!
- Internet Explorer now lets you define a homepage, and also zoom in and out using a nice and clean interface
- Task Manager now shows CPU usage as a whole, and also lists it by process
- Internet Explorer offers 6 zoom modes and copy / paste functionality
- IE also uses a new font, which looks worlds better
- ActiveSync will now try to automatically configure your Exchange settings once you enter an email address
- Wi-Fi indicator in the status bar, just as in Windows Mobile Professional
- New “Vista” home screen and theme
The list does however, miss out one feature that I think is probably the most important change for WM 6.1, but I can’t mention it…
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December 6, 2007
XP ON XO
I read with interest on the BBC website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7130637.stm) that Microsoft are porting XP to the OLPC XO. You might say, so what? and so would I normally… but, if MS can actually get XP working at a usable performance level then that improvement could be re-applied back to existing PC’s possibly realising increased performance. Although I’m not expecting to see a retail release for XO, MS seem quite serious as they have 40 engineers on the project. Clearly Vista would never be able to lumber onto the current XO platform but XP improvements are tantalisingly possible.
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December 4, 2007
T-Mobile UK WM6 updates
Finally, TMO UK are releasing WM6 updates for 3 devices, the Compact III, The Vario II and fortunately the MDA Mail. Goto http://www.tm-phonedownloads.com/ to get them. Bizarrely, the MDA Mail is located under MDA but Other. I can’t figure out why its taken TMO UK so long to catch up with these updates although you do get a newer build, CE 5.2.1620.18125 which is a benefit I guess. I hope that they are going to also provide WM 6.1 updates for at least these devices, although I probably shouldn’t hold my breath.
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November 23, 2007
PowerShell 2.0
I have just been trying out the CTP of PowerShell 2.0 to see whats new, and there are good signs of how it really is maturing into a super admin environment. Interestingly, as someone who still see’s the roots of CMD.EXE in its first ancestor, CP/M’s Command Console Processor (remember the back to front logic copying files with PIP?), I still have an issue weaning myself off it and permamently onto PwoerShell. I think that perhaps because of the DCL like structure of the commands it seems more effort to perform a task than in CMD, no matter how much more powerful it is. But with V2 I’m going to make it my default console becuause its so seductive to just be able to CD ENV: into environment variables or CD HKLM: into the registry and then just do a DIR! Try this:
cd HKCU:\software\microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\run
Get-Acl
… and you will see the permissions for this key! How useful is that, wish this existed back in ‘96.
I love the fact that I can just create a registry key and add values, or grab BIOS data info into a variable with $x = Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS and then $x.manufacturer contains the BIOS manufacturer name like “American Megatrends Inc.”. Ten years ago we were writing Win32 apps to call from scripts to get this sort of info, all credit to Jeffrey Snover for pulling it all together and making a shell that is flecible enough to leverage and be leveraged.
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November 21, 2007
MS Device Emulator 3
Although VS2008 ships with WM5 R2 SDK, it does have the new emulator which continues the great pedigree of this component. It really is a class developer tool and because it runs a real image from a device yours apps are true to life performance. Even better, the cellular emulator makes allows the device to communicate with a fake network so you can send and receive data. This is Microsoft at its best producing a quality development toolset to make our lives easier.
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Vista SP1 RC1 performance
Sadly, the latest drop of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Vista doesn’t seem to have addressed the latent performance issues that continue to dog this version for me. One of the interesting aspects is that performace loss for me is not just about the sluggish performance but also the (un)usability of some of some of the Vista ‘enhancements’. The biggest problem I have is the Explorer window where I end up constant renaming files or selecting files or changing columns! One odd thing I have noticed is that Vista generally seems to perform better on 512MB systems as opposed to 1 or 2GB. Scarily, I knocked up a quick app via which I can do bulk copying faster than explorer, I’ll try and do some timings but despite my fiendishly clever code, Explorer should be faster.
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November 19, 2007
VS2008 RTM
VS2008 finally hit RTM tonight which is good news as the betas have been so much more stable than VS2005 was at the same point. One of the best features (from an ISV perspective) is multi-targetting where each project can specify which version of the .NET Framework to work with (although not to SP level). This means we can just upgrade the IDE without converting existing project files until we’re ready. Overall the IDE and packaging tidy up a lot of loose ends and I think this is a very worthwhile update nowithstanding any language enhancements there are.
One decidedly bad ommission is the lack of the WindowsMobile 6.0 SDK, with 5.0 R2 included instead. This is a terrible ommission considering how close the 6.1 SDK is now. Its easily if irritatingly fixed by downloading the 6.0 SDK’s (~700MB) but beware, make sure you get the latest refresh and not the original, get the refresh here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=06111a3a-a651-4745-88ef-3d48091a390b&displaylang=en
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November 7, 2007
TechEd 2007 Europe Keynote
Microsoft have published the keynote from TechEd Europe 2007 … for me it wasn’t that excting compared to previous years and isnt exactly action packed with new products. Anyway, here it is …
http://www.microsoft.com/emea/msdnshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=705
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November 5, 2007
G Phone on the horizon
Google’s announcement of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) has firmly placed a cat among the pigeons, the fatted pigeons being Microsoft WindowsMobile, Symbian, RIM, Apple and less importantly PalmOS. This brings the G Phone closer to reality if actually only as a concept realised through OHA members. I don’t see any of the pigeons wanting to belong to the OHA since they could not sacrifice their own OS investments.
I think there are two irresistable facors why this will be a success; firstly the lure of the free ‘Android’ OS so the manufacturers/operators can reduce costs bit still have a supported industrial strength OS; Secondly the Google development community, which will create the wealth of apps to drive end user adoption.
Combining sexy hardware with Android OS could quickly lead to a tidal wave of end user adoption with users being able to swap devices without losing functionality and data. Very exciting! and its happening quickly; SDK for developers this month and first compliant devices next year. Scary times for the pigeons!
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October 31, 2007
DX10 Revealed
I didn’t notice this before but Vista SP1 actually supports my video card as a DX10 card! Not noticed any difference day to day under Vista, but XP seems so much faster anyway I probably wouldnt notice for a long time.
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October 30, 2007
Updated VS2008 VPC images
If you also spent ages downloading the VS2008 VPC images only to find them expiring, then MS have fixed the problem. But not with a patch unfortunately, you have to re download all the RAR archives again…. and why do they break them up? or at least give us the option of a single file download…. Anyway, the images are here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3B72271C-E996-4989-898D-72D684966CE6&displaylang=en for VS2008 TS Beta 2 and here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=60A5B34B-98B0-4702-B2DD-6FC0BEF7E494&displaylang=en for the one with TFS server built-in.
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October 19, 2007
MCT EMEA Summit 2008
Just saw the announcement of the 2008 MCT Summit to be held in Berlin, Jan 14-16 2008. Don’t think I’ll be able to make it but it is a great meet-up for MCTs from all over Europe to get all the info ready for Windows Server 2008, VS2008 and SQL 2008 launches in February. You can sign up at the URL below with a cost yet to be decided between €500-650 + flights and hotel.
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October 18, 2007
Microsoft Courseware Library
Not sure how I missed this, but Microsoft have opened a courseware portal for MSCLC’s, MCT’s and students to download courseware slides, labs and manuals. Its different content to the MCT courseware download centre and there are only about 40 titles there at the moment. Strangely the site doesn’t use live logon, but does take your email address and watermarks it onto the downloaded PDFs.
http://cwlibrary.mslearn.net/page/home.aspx
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October 15, 2007
October 14, 2007
My blog’s QR code
If your device can recognise QR codes then below is the QR code for this site. QR codes are supposed to be barcode like images which a camera enabled mobile device can convert the image to a block of text or URL/Email etc. Unfortunately most QR reader capability is for non-WM devices but OpenNETCF have released a .NET CF library here http://www.opennetcf.com/FreeSoftware/QRCodeCF/tabid/266/Default.aspx so you could create a reader which I might do if I have time.
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October 13, 2007
Qtek 8500 Hot Pink for £99
This is a great deal, vicki just broke her original black 8500 so I bought her a replacement in hot pink for the amazingly low price of £99! This is great value for money especially if you need test devices. Unfortunately hot pink is not my colour so I won’t be using one. However, the 8500 is a great device and the only flaw is that it has no WM6 upgrade available, but if you can live with WM5 which shouldnt be a problem then its stellar value. You can also register it at the HTC support site so if WM6 is made available (highly unlikely) then you will be able to get it.
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October 12, 2007
IE6 Test VHD for VPC and ITGProxy …
Microsoft helpfully provide developers with a free, although time limited, VHD for VirtualPC with XP SP2 and IE6 for compatibility testing. This is jolly useful for backward compatibility testing or if you are tracking down an issue which needs a vanilla IE6 which hasnt been modified by the dev environment or other add-ins.
There is one gotcha that you need to be aware of. When they built this VHD, Microsoft obviously tested this on their internal network and then packaged it up. As a result they left in their own company specific proxy settings for the proxy server run by their internal IT Group (ITG). So, if you try and connect to a web page from IE on your own machine outside of Microsoft, you will not connect to a page since the ITGProxy server is not contactable. Ping and other IP releated activities will work fine.
So to fix this issue you need to open IE, and from the TOOLS menu select INTERNET OPTIONS and click the CONNECTIONS tab. At the bottom of the dialog you will see a LAN SETTINGS button, click that and the dialog below will appear. Simply uncheck the ‘Use a proxy server…’ check box and click OK and then OK to dismiss the main dialog.
Simple, but unless you know what to look for you could spend ages trying to resolve this issue. You can download the IE6 VHD here http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/7/2/b72085ae-0f04-4c6f-9182-bf1ee90f5273/IE6_VPC.EXE
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October 11, 2007
Verbocity and Redaction
I was just saving a document i had written in Word as an HTML file and I could not believe how big it became with verbose declarations, so I just tried a quick test. I created a new file and typed 3 lines of text comprising 54 characters, then I saved as web page ….
The resulting file is 24,947 bytes with as you would expect 24,947 characters in 552 lines of code!
Its truly amazing how much code is inserted around my 54 characters of text complete with information about the registered user and orgainisation and author. Look at this block which is actually commented out in the doc but still there absorbing space;
<!–[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Author>Tim Carmichael</o:Author>
<o:Template>Normal</o:Template>
<o:LastAuthor>Tim Carmichael</o:LastAuthor>
<o:Revision>1</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>8</o:TotalTime>
<o:Created>2007-10-11T20:47:00Z</o:Created>
<o:LastSaved>2007-10-11T20:55:00Z</o:LastSaved>
<o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
<o:Words>9</o:Words>
<o:Characters>57</o:Characters>
<o:Company>altaVENTE</o:Company>
<o:Lines>1</o:Lines>
<o:Paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs>
<o:CharactersWithSpaces>65</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
<o:Version>12.00</o:Version>
</o:DocumentProperties>
</xml><![endif]–>
Obviously this info is useful from a document management perspective but useless at runtime and potentially embarassing if you didn’t want someone to know this info and they just used VIEW SOURCE in IE.
So be aware when you ’save as web’ from Word (or other Office 12 apps) about what is getting saved in your file…
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