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  • Visual Studio F5 debugging of ASP.NET applications on Vista

    If you are having problems with authentication issues when trying to debug with Visual Studio on Vista then there is a fix for you. A Visual Studio patch that fixes the Visual Studio F5 debugging of IIS7 applications on Windows Vista Home Premium and above has been released! This patch solves the "An authentication error occurred while communicating with the web server. Please see Help for assistance.", and "Debugging failed because integrated Windows authentication is not enabled. Please see Help for assistance" errors, that until now had to be worked around using the instructions below. This patch also enables customers using Windows Vista Home Premium customers to use Visual Studio F5 debugging, who were not able to use this feature at all previously because Windows Authentication was not available on Windows Vista Home Premium. Mike Volodarsky's ServerSide : Fix problems with Visual Studio F5 debugging of ASP.NET applications on IIS7 Vista ttfn David Technorati Tags: Developer , Vista...

  • How to copy files to a DVD / CD, Use the recycle bin, Use previous versions for files and Use the built in Vista backup tools - all in a Video presented with Silverlight

    The Video I have delivered a number of Vista and Office demos over my time, so I decided to record a number of them for others to borrow, use, learn from or anything else they choose. This video covers the following subjects in enough detail for people to hopefully understand what they need to know on how to use these tools: Use of the recycle bin Use of shadow copies to undo changes to a document Use of the DVD writing tools to copy and update files on a DVD Use of the built in Vista Backup tools To see the Backup Video played using Silverlight (just try it) click here *. If you want to download it as a WMV file then head over to the new bCentral - the UK Small Business Center on MS.com - It should appear on this page soon. * it will take a few moments to open if you have Silverlight installed and require you to download Silverlight if you don't, but it is a 1MB download How I made it I simply ran through part of my normal demo talking as I went. When presenting to an audience it is easy to correct anything...

  • What is going on in the world of Virtualisation with Virtual Server and Virtual PC on licensing, Vista, x64 and more

    There are a couple of recent announcements with regard to the current range of products that I thought I would cover off. One is about licensing and has been written up by Matt McSpirit at http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit/archive/2007/06/22/microsoft-virtualisation-licensing-client-and-server.aspx and covers how many licenses you get when. The other is Virtual Server SP1: Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Is Now Available Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 is the server virtualization technology engineered for the Windows Server operating system to increase hardware utilization and enable IT staff to rapidly configure and deploy new servers. Register to download the free software and you will receive relevant resources that are strategically assembled to address the challenges you will face as you discover, assess, and deploy the software. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7042993 The What is New page shows (plus more on the page) - note the x64 support for more memory. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/virtualserver/evaluation...

  • Alistair likes Vista and found out that the Dell SATA drivers were making is go slow

    I was browsing the UKSBSG Yahoo Group (a group for UK Small Business Partners) when I noticed Alistair 's post in response to slow Vista systems and I thought I had to share: Hi, Just from experience, I had similar issues on Outlook 2007 and, to a lesser extent, Vista in general - especially on boot, which would take an age. I am using a Dell Dimension 9100, 2GB ram and SATA drives. One would think it would be pretty good, but behaved like a dog. The Microsoft fix made some little difference. What made a huge difference though was updating the SATA drivers on my Dell box. These were not listed under updates and I had to search for them, but it is chalk and cheese now. Persevere, once you have it right it's a dream: I have to say I love Vista, it is stable, runs all our legacy apps, line of business accounting apps, remote jobs and managed to blow away our desktop uptime record - still stable at 60 days uptime. XP struggled at 30. I do strongly suspect that naff drivers are a major factor in the bad press...

  • SMBs more aggressive with Vista upgrade plans - 47% of small and mid-market customers plan to upgrade to Microsoft’s Vista operating system in the fourth quarter of 2007

    I saw this and thought it was another reason why you need to be prepared for Vista and Office 2007. Among small and mid-sized enterprises 47 percent of them plan to upgrade to Microsoft’s Vista operating system in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a Cowen & Co. survey. The survey, which is done in conjunction with CRN magazine , also found that 78 percent of small and mid-sized businesses will adopt Vista by the second quarter of 2008. Simply put, the small fry will lead the charge when it comes to the Vista upgrade cycle. Cowen analyst Walter Pritchard said in a research note that his firm’s most recent survey is above the adoption rates predicted in February. In February, 43 percent of small businesses indicated they would adopt Vista by the end of 2007. » Survey: SMBs more aggressive with Vista upgrade plans | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com ttfn David Technorati Tags: Vista , Small Business

  • Quick Tip - how to run an application, but not let the writes go back to disk - try Sandboxie

    I have to admit I have not done any extensive testing, but this little tool seems like a good thing to have around! For more information, have a look at Sandboxie . About Sandboxie When you run a program on your computer, data flows from the hard disk to the program via read operations. The data is then processed and displayed, and finally flows back from the progam to the hard disk via write operations. For example, if you run the Freecell program to play a game, it starts by reading the previously recorded statistics, displaying and altering them as you play the game, and finally writing them back to disk for future reference. Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Sandboxie , Tips , application testing

  • If you want Windows XP Pro on a new machine, buy Windows Vista (Business or Ultimate) and then downgrade

    I’m not sure how many people are aware of this, but if you buy a Windows Vista Business or Ultimate then you can use a Windows XP CD (which you have legal access to) to load Windows XP onto that machine. When you need the product key / or need to activate, this will potentially fail, but a quick call to the activation centre with your Vista product key should give you all the details you need. Then when you are ready to put Vista onto that machine, you can do without the cost of buying it anew. Alternatively you can buy Windows XP today and should you ever want to load Vista, you can give more money to a shop to get a copy again. For further information go to http://oem.microsoft.com/script/sites/public/licensing.htm More information can be found in this one page document OEM Downgrade from Vista to Windows XP ttfn David Please Note the following (in legalese) Windows Vista Downgrade Rights Clarification Per the EULA and OEM DTOS Agreement, the end user customer is responsible for supplying media for the...

  • Do you want to ask Microsoft the hard questions on Vista and Office before you sell them to your customers - well now you can in June - Live!!

    Your Office and Vista questions answered We are offering UK partners the opportunity to talk directly to one of Microsoft Europe's leading technology specialists in a series of online Q&A sessions. These sessions will seek to answer the nitty gritty questions you need to answer to transition your customers over to Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. Book your place now. Register for 4 June Register for 5 June Register for 6 June Register for 7 June Register for 8 June ttfn David Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Vista , Office , Partners

  • How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections on Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) / Windows Vista

    Just a quick one - I was playing around with SQL2005 on my Longhorn server and I could not connect from a remote machine - Ahh I thought, the firewall is in the way, but it turned out I had to do 3 or 4 things to get things working. The Microsoft KB article that pointed to the light was How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections which covers how to enable the firewall for the 2 programs you need and so on. When you try to connect to an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 from a remote computer, you may receive an error message. This problem may occur when you use any program to connect to SQL Server. For example, you receive the following error message when you use the SQLCMD utility to connect to SQL Server: Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft SQL Native Client: An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. This problem may occur...

  • Responding to another "I can't load Office 2003 on Vista" e-mail

    [updated to correct a typo - 10:48 27th May 2007] I get lots of mails similar to the one below as a result of the blog entries on the EULA not going away and the Office 2003 on Vista and in some cases the issues have been Vista, sometimes the CD and sometimes non-genuine software that someone has been sold (as a side note - it has never been the new security - UAC that has been at the root of the problem). Hi David, I have read your blog entry re: 2003 installation on Vista but I have a problem not previously mentioned. I am doing an install from the CD and have disabled UAC. I attempt to run the SETUP.EXE (as Systems Admin and even with the compatibility set to WinXP SP2) to no avail. The next dialog window comes up saying that the SETUP.INI file cannot be found (path: ./FILES/SETUP/SETUP.INI). I'm baffled because I take the same installation CD and I put it in my old WinXP box and I can explore to find the SETUP.INI file exists. Why is my Vista box not able to see this .ini? Do I need to install the mentioned...

  • I hate seeing computers advertised on TV with 512MB of RAM with Vista

    This is a personal rant !! I was watching TV and saw a device advertised at a very attractive price, but with only 512MB of RAM. While Vista will work on a machine with 512MB of RAM the RECOMMENDED MINIMUM for all versions other than Home Basic is 1GB , meaning that the systems are shipping with just half the recommended minimum they should ship with. The recommended minimum amount of RAM for Windows XP was 128MB RAM with 64MB being the absolute minimum. Shipping a home premium or business machine with below the recommended minimum is a bit like running Windows XP with 64 (or even 128MB RAM). Think what XP would be like and while Vista is not that bad with 512MB, it is definitely not great. So, please, please, please, 1GB minimum, 2GB and above for power users. I've seen this discussed in so many places, but please, 512MB is just no fun - don't let it happen to your customers - prepare them now. I just bought 2GB of RAM for about £30 per stick so when buying new PCs, be a good person and put it in there...

  • Changing the way that Vista User Access Control (UAC) works in Vista by group policy

    James gave me some hassle the other day for not referencing his blog (which is a valid thing to do), so I thought I would point out this post as it will end some of the gripes of people out there. Using Group Policy you can change the following: User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users User Account Control: Elevate on application installs User Account Control: Run all users, including administrators, as standard users User Account Control: Validate signatures of executables that require elevation User Account Control: Virtualize file and registry write failures to per-user locations More information from James Blog at Views on Windows Vista : Can I customise UAC? . ttfn David Technorati Tags: Vista , Group Policy , UAC , Security

  • The price of Vista in the UK - some really, really bad maths

    OK, so this has really got my goat - I read that there is a £100 difference between the UK and US prices for Vista Premium Edition, so I thought I would add my PERSONAL view on this. Microsoft does not set the prices, the resellers do - some offer products at a loss to bring you in, some add plenty of margin because they believe the market can bear it When comparing prices we need to do so on as close to a level playing field as possible - so no VAT & state tax etc There is some difference due to the unusually high exchange rate - and using the market exchange rate rather than a normal punter exchange rate does not reflect the man on the street pricing The figures stated don't seem to bear out in reality in my opinion I found a typical story here : UK customers face disparity and confusion over the pricing of Microsoft Windows Vista , Computing Which? has discovered. Windows Vista Home Premium has a recommended retail price of $240 (£125) in the US. But to buy the same software in the UK would set consumers...

  • Microsoft Watch - Vista - I Shacked Up with Windows Vista - what happens when a journalist tries Vista and likes it - he makes his Mac Tiger move out for a while :-)

    I saw this and the whole article is well worth a read - a good Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday read to smile. I Shacked Up with Windows Vista Joe Wilcox Last week, Vista and I started living together again , and Tiger moved into an apartment across the hall. I like Vista, but she's sometimes a tough companion. Tiger and Vista are both attractive, but my new roomie is just so much more pleasing to look at—and she likes to do fun stuff that's quite different from the cat woman. Over the weekend we did the Vongo together and hung out at the Yahoo Music club. Tiger wouldn't do either. Vista also is much more social. She loves to nudge her friends and hang out at social clubs MySpace and Live Spaces . She's quite particular about her social calendar , too. Source: Microsoft Watch - Vista - I Shacked Up with Windows Vista ttfn David Technorati tags: Vista business value , MAC

  • Windows Vista AppReadiness- Find out if your application is known and / or supported or expected to run on Vista

    I saw this was released and thought I had to share it - finally a resource will logo'd ready and community opinion on application compatibility for Vista. It states: Welcome to the Windows Vista Application Readiness Beta site! The central place to find and share information about software that runs on the Windows Vista platform. Browse through a comprehensive listing of applications that have a Windows Vista Logo or are Ready for Windows Vista, See comments on compatibility that the community has contributed and The url is easy to remember with www.windowsvista.com/appreadiness . As a quick sample you have the following: Browse by Application A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ( Browse by Company ) Or the "new" sections: NEW! Community Submitted Applications Application App Version Company Comments Status Cosmocall 4.5.0 Build 3201 Cosmocom ( www.cosmocom.com ) Not working on Windows Vista Incompatible with Windows Vista Harvst V. 7 patch 3 Computer Associates (All Fusion) Waiting...

  • Vista and Longhorn Events in May

    Events/WebCasts 1 May 2007, Leeds: Windows Vista After Hours You may be familiar with Windows Vista at work - whether you have deployed it, or are evaluating it - but have you ever thought about the possibilities of Vista outside of work? This session, aimed at IT professionals, explores not only the built-in elements of Vista, such as Search, Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker and the Networking & Sharing Center, but also how you can extend your Windows Vista Experience, with Windows Media Center, Xbox 360 and specific applications to open up a new world of gaming and home entertainment. 01 May 2007, Leeds: An Introduction and Overview of Microsoft Licensing Licensing can be confusing - but it needn't be. Attend this course to understand Microsoft Licensing and how to best apply it in your company to fit in with your business needs. This session is aimed at IT professionals who wish to gain a better understanding of Microsoft's Software Licensing. The briefing assumes no previous in-depth or technical...

  • Vista and Longhorn Webcasts

    Executive Chat: What's New in Windows Server "Longhorn" with Bill Laing, Iain McDonald, and Colleagues Tuesday, May 8, 10:00 AM Pacific Time Join Bill Laing, General Manager for Windows Server; Iain McDonald, Director of Windows Server Program Management; Joseph Landes, Director of Product Management; David Lowe, Senior Product Manager; Ward Ralston, Senior Technical Product Manager; and Eric Rezabek, Product Marketing Manager, to discuss what's new in Windows Server "Longhorn." TechNet Webcast: Cluster Validation in Windows Server "Longhorn" (Level 300) Monday, 7 May, 2007 5:30 p.m.-7:00 p.m. GMT TechNet Webcast: Internet Information Services 7.0 in Windows Server "Longhorn" Level 300) Thursday, 10 May 2007 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. GMT TechNet Webcast: UNIX Interoperability in Windows Server "Longhorn" (Level 200) Monday, 14 May, 2007 5:30 p.m.-7:00 p.m. GMT ttfn David

  • Win an XBOX 360 or 5 x Office and Vista while getting Microsoft to pay some or all of your Marketing Campaign Builder Expenses for Small Business PC, Branch Office solutions or Build Customer Connections Campaigns. Time limited - ends 30th April 2007

    Hopefully I have your attention, which is good. Microsoft UK are trying to encourage the use of our marketing tools and also gain some feedback. First of all, the prizes for the best feedback - an Xbox 360 system OR 5 x Vista Ultimate AND 5 x Office 2007 Pro. Next, the cash - we can offer a limited number of people £150 towards a marketing campaign - if that covers the whole of the campaign, then so be it and it has cost you nothing! This money is to be used at the UK Partner Campaign Builder portal. OK, so now for the pitch! As many of you know we like to help our partners in many ways here at Microsoft and one area that small business partners have asked for help is in the marketing area. Campaign Builder is a one stop shop to either produce materials and run the campaign yourself, or use the agency to run the campaign for you (or at least print the materials). Well, we have a limited number of discount vouchers to make this a £150 easier process. The idea is simple to do, simply do the following this April...

  • Channel Expo Show presentations - Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Windows Server (SBS, Naked, Home Server and Longhorn) sales slides

    If you visited the Channel Expo show this year then you probably saw one or two Microsoft presentations on desktop and server solutions. James Akrigg and Matt McSpirit provided the desktop entertainment while I covered off what servers we have out there and what is coming in the near future. We promised the slides and here they are: Desktop (Windows Vista and Office 2007)- Office 2007 PowerPoint Desktop (Windows Vista and Office 2007)- PDF Server (SBS, Windows Server 2003 R2, Longhorn and Home Server) - Office 2007 PowerPoint Server (SBS, Windows Server 2003 R2, Longhorn and Home Server) - PDF James has an amazing blog (Out of Office) at http://blogs.technet.com/outofoffice Matt touches many aspects of desktop technology including that for small business at http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit Have a look at the blogs and enjoy the presentations. ttfn David Technorati tags: Channel Expo , Vista , Office 2007 , SBS 2003 , Nakes Servers , Home Server , Longhorn

  • View and Search the Windows Vista Registry from the Windows Shell (Explorer) through this Namespace Extensions

    I came across this due to someone pointing it out internally - talk about awesome. The Windows Registry Shell Namespace Extension allows Windows Explorer to view and interact with the Windows Registry data via Explorer windows. It demonstrates existing Shell extensibility points like IShellFolder2 and SHCreateShellFolderView and also demonstrates new concepts in Vista including the property system, property schema extensibility, and content indexing via Protocol Handlers. This project is implemented using C++ and ATL. This release includes all of the latest deltas and addresses the installation issues for systems without VS2005. This is a temporary fix until James finishes the WIX setup. Installation notes: - Download/open the zip file. - If you have VS2005 installed, just double-click RegNamespace.msi. - If you don't have VS2005, run Setup.exe. This will install the necessary VC Redistrubutable. Source: Windows Vista Registry Shell Namespace Extensions ttfn David Technorati tags: Vista , Windows Vista , Search...

  • Dreamscapes 3D spinning earth background where lighting changes depending on the time of day - for Vista, amazing!

    I just have to share some of the pictures my PC created while running Dreamscapes (free from StarDock at http://dream.wincustomize.com/ ) - this one is of the planet Earth spinning, but the view of the earth changes depending on the time of day, so you get to see the light polution if it is night etc. It also works well, as you might expect with Flip 3D: See the tools to produce this and much more at: http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/03/26/vista-enhancements-and-utilities-changing-the-screen-savers-adding-extra-search-functionality-to-the-start-menu-objectdock-logon-screen-changer-windows-blinds-and-wim-image-modifier.aspx http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/03/26/vista-has-flip-3d-for-changing-applications-well-here-are-some-more-3d-cube-based-virtual-desktop-window-switcher-rotation-based-flip-3d.aspx http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/03/26/changing-vista-boot-screens-and-opening-yourself-up-to-rootkits-or-not.aspx

  • Vista enhancements and utilities (changing the screen savers, adding extra search functionality to the start menu, Objectdock, logon screen changer, Windows Blinds and WIM Image modifier)

    Changing the screen saver settings: http://tweakvista.com/Article39129.aspx (make ribbons fatter, increase the number of them and so on) Start++ - search tools from WDS in Vista: http://brandonlive.com/2007/02/22/new-tool-i-made-for-vista-start/ “clear” aero theme for Winblinds for Vista: http://www.skinbase.org/rate.php?skins=32542 Logon Screen changer (free from StarDock when released, part of Object Dock during beta): See http://www.stardock.com/newsitem.asp?id=942 and skins at http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=65 DreamScenes, Dream Maker and Dynamic Dreams – some free, some charged for, for Ultimate Users: http://dream.wincustomize.com/ and http://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/ - these include triggers in the “dreams” vLite – image tweaking tool: http://www.vlite.net/about.html ttfn David Technorati tags: Vista , Dreamscene , Logon Screen Changer , Dynamic Dreams , vLite

  • Changing Vista boot screens and opening yourself up to rootkits (or not)

    I love people who want to customise WIndows Vista and some of my previous posts have covered this, however you can go too far - you can hack the OS. While I understand the desire to "hack" the OS to get customisations, there are better ways. This particular example is where people want to change the boot screen in Vista. The ability to do this will be coming from StarDock soon, but until then people have taken to modifying the existing OS files. THERE IS ALWAYS a change that by downloading someones customised file to your PC and it being loaded so early on in the boot process that it could do nasty things, especially since these files are in now way certified by Microsoft. A classic example of this can be found here when people want to change the boot logo - this could easily be a social engineering attack. The instructions tell someone to remove the access and security permissions from a core system file, overwrite it with one that might make the system look prettier during boot, but who knows what else will...

  • Vista has Flip 3D for changing applications, well here are some more (3d cube based virtual desktop, Window Switcher, Rotation based flip 3d

    3d cube based virtual desktop: http://chsalmon.club.fr/index.php?en/Download Rotation based Flip 3D: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=529816 Alternative to flip-3d (switcher): http://insentient.net/

  • Symantec "Microsoft Listed as Most Secure OS"

    Wow, you have to wonder whether this hurt them to say this :-) Now I am a believer that any security vulnerability is bad and that the longer it is out there then the more likely it is to exploit it. If "people" only have one way to crack into your system, then they can still get in and the longer it is out there then the more likely it is that it will be used, however always nice to see that MS is trying hard and while not perfect, is doing better than other people who throw stones at MS. Of course, Windows also has more in it, so being better with more features in the box is even nicer and this is across all versions of Windows, not just the latest (Vista) for example. I think it shows that the IT industry has more work to do in this area - as Ed the Fed said - "this is a journey." Surprise, Microsoft Listed as Most Secure OS By Andy Patrizio UPDATED: Microsoft is frequently dinged for having insecure products, with security holes and vulnerabilities. But Symantec ( Quote ), no friend of Microsoft, said in its...
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