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.
December 6, 2007
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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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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September 29, 2007
Xtended Play
I was pleased to see Microsoft actually listened to the many voices asking for Windows XP to remain available until Vista’s successor appears. Although the extension is only until mid-2008 I expect this will be extended again until a suitable successor appears.
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June 20, 2007
In Windows, no-one hears you scream
In the true spirit of the Windows 3.1 usability labs, copying and deleting files in Windows is as flawed as ever. I sometimes wonder whether the coders and PMs for the Windows file management components must actually use Linux or OS X. I’m sure they can’t use Windows, or, they have never tried to copy or delete a large amount of files within which one is open by another process, at which point Windows helpfully stops and doesn’t continue…WHY? … How can this make any logical sense? OK I know I should use Robocopy to ease my copy woes, but why doesn’t MS help and put the functionality of Robocopy into plain old copy ? </rant>
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June 12, 2007
ZFS for Windows
Is not here yet … sorry if you thought I was announcing it, or had written a driver in my spare time. I’m just as annoyed as the next geek that SUN’s brilliant filesystem is not available under Windows for use at home. or is it ….
I was pondering whether I could build a Solaris 10 based home server with a ZFS pool. Well of course I could, I really meant should. Microsoft WHS is quite well packaged and NTFS does have some elements of ZFS (or at least those that I need sans 128 bit addressing) so is it worth the bother? I’m still pondering, but I do like the extreme geek factor involved of a stripped out ZFS only Solaris home server.
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June 11, 2007
Elevating MSI
One of the big (supposed) benefits of Windows Installer technology is the capability to install applications easily without admin privileges because MSI would elevate privileges to facilitate the installation process. Turns out this doesn’t work so well and when logged in as a regular user the MSI will fail to install and you will need to (rather inconveniently) log in as administrator and start the install again.
Now if the MSI ships with a companion setup bootstrap program then you can right click it and choose ‘Run AS’ and then provide admin credentials interactively without logging out and everything is sunny again (except any user specific items get created in the Administrators profile, but you cant have everything).
However, right clicking an MSI does not provide a Run As option … why? Indeed, why oh why….
There is a solution though, turns out its not that it can’t be done its just that Microsoft chose not to make that option available by default. Just add a registry key and you will get Run As for your MSI files. Copy the following into a .REG file and then double click the REG file you created and import these settings into your registry. You will have to do that as Administrator.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\RunAs\Command]
@=”msiexec /i \”%1\”"
Happy Running As!
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June 10, 2007
XCOPY RIP
I was just updating a script (which I really should migrate to PowerShell) on Vista and I found that the classic command line utility XCopy is now deprecated in Vista, meaning its still there but on the way out. I discovered this when I was updating some parameters and checked the help, which helpfully informed me that XCopy was now deprecated and I should use RoboCopy. Robocopy has always been a ResKit tool that I have never relied on to be present on the base OS, but it does indeed ship with Vista. A bit of googling and I found Jon Box of Microsoft also found the same issue as me.
So farewell XCopy, we knew you well, and now we need to get to know your descendant as well. RIP.
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June 6, 2007
HTC Touch down
So I’ve switched over to using the new HTC Touch, this was previously codenamed Elf when the engineering prototypes were circulating. I decided that this is the device to try and break my strong dislike of the PDA form factor. My big problem with PDAs is that they don’t add enough benefit over a smartphone but have extra bulk and more critically require 2 handed operation.
The Touch has a new skin which is designed to overcome some of the limitations of the WindowsMobile ‘Pro’ UI and so I’m willing to be convinced that TouchFlo can make the difference. I am disappointed that the TouchFlo as it is called is not deeper integrated into the OS and carried through the rest of the OS. Touted as a possible competitor to the iPhone, I really think HTC had (and still do) have an opportunity to improve (or personalize) the whole experience much better than they have, although this is just their first major veer away from the WM6 UI. I suspect much of the reason UI innovation has been stifled so far is because of Microsoft’s branding and UI guidelines which are quite strict and I have fallen foul of myself before.
Unfortunately the rest of the spec is pretty dreary, with only 64K RAM a mediocre processor, an unexceptional 2MP camera, but it does have GPS. Come on HTC please start using 640×480 display panels and ditch the old tech 320×240 which have no place in a device like this.
Anyway, I’m giving WindowsMobile Pro a chance, albeit in highly modified form, and I will report back on my findings.
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December 18, 2006
How Aero Works
There’s a useful whitepaper on how Windows Aero works and certainly highlighted a couple of things to me that I had been unaware of. One thing is that there is an Aero state that looks like Vista Basic but is in fact fully compositioned and is using the DWM. Its called Opaque, and the reason it looks confusing is it has the properties of Aero Glass but the borders are not transparent. As the author points out, a sure fire way to check if Aero is running is to hit Win+Tab keys and see if you get the 3D window stack displayed known as ‘Flip 3D’. Anyway, if your job requires you to support Vista this is a worthwhile read and quite interesting, although somewhat superficial.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/aero_rules.mspx
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