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VMWare releases Vista compatible beta
Vista has been able to run within VMWare for quite some time now. We have been waiting for a version that will allow us to do it the other way around - run VMWare within Vista.
Our wish has been granted, and VMWare Beta 6 was released today. Here is a list of the new features: * Support for Windows Vista - Use Windows Vista as host operating system * Multiple monitor display - You can configure a VM to span multiple monitors, or multiple VMs to each display on separate monitors. * Integrated Virtual Debugger - Workstation integrates with Visual Studio and Eclipse so you can deploy, run, and debug programs in a VM directly from your preferred IDE * Automation APIs (VIX API 2.0) - You can write scripts and programs to automate VM testing * Headless mode - You can run VMs in the background without the Workstation UI
Update 9/24/2007...
It looks like the beta program has completed, and the latest version now supports Vista, and Windows 2008 with no problems. Here is the current download link:
http://www.vmware.com/download/server/
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Saturday, December 30, 2006
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Pre-Register for Longhorn Beta 3
Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing Beta 3 of Windows Longhorn in the first half of 2007.
It will be feature-complete, and the first public beta of the server operating system. To get notification of the beta release, simply sign up at Microsoft's websiteHint: Look for this text on the bottom right: " Register to be notified of Windows Server “Longhorn” Beta availability" When it is available you will receive an email that tells you how to obtain the beta.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, December 26, 2006
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Commodore 64 Commercials
Microsoft releases requirements for Vista machines
Microsoft has published the requirements for Vista capable machines.
According to Microsoft, a Vista capable machine must have at least:
-800 MHZ Processor
-512 MB of RAM
-A graphics card that is DirectX 9 compatible
-20 GB of hard drive space
These are absolute minimum requirements, and our testing here shows that to be productive in any way you will need to meet the Vista 'Premium' requirements: -1 GHZ Processor -1 GB of RAM -A DirectX 9 Compatible Video card with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of ram, and 2.0 pixel shader -40 GB of hard drive space Even with the above specs, you will still feel Vista is sluggish. At least 2 GB of ram will make things much faster.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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Nec to sell waterproof laptop
Yep. You read it right. NEC is working on a waterproof laptop that can withstand 20 degree weather, water, and drops from a foot off the ground.
Our terrible translation from the NEC (Japanese) website
NEC on the 5th, is strong in impact, prevents the penetration of the water, withstands also the cold of 20 degree Âtough notebook PC ÂFC-N21S (the alias sealed professional) it sold. As for the new product, using the magnesium die-cast alloy for the substance. Dropping from height 90 centimeter, besides the fact that it has the toughness which is not broken, it has the dustproof drip-proof efficiency which prevents the penetration of the dust and the water. In addition, although it tries to be able to use even with environment of 20 degree with the efficiency improvement and the like of the hard disk, 2.5 kilograms approximately 22% than the product it lightened weight until recently. As for shipment, as for price it differs from at January of next year depending upon specification, but 300,000 Yen level first half is anticipated from 200,000 Yen level latter half. Total 20,000 you aim toward the sale of the sealed professional who is in 2 years. According to the same company, raises toughness, supposes the use with the outside as for market scale of the personal computer which, 2005 approximately 20,000 unit. You say that the extension of year 20% is continued from the fact that purpose of the personal computer is spreading. Simply, the personal computer for the outside has become monopoly Âof the tough book series of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., at NEC, with sale of the sealed professional, it is the thought of liking to assure the rollback.
The machine should be available next month for 300,000 Yen or $2,700 dollars.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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Vista Limitation - Multi Monitor Displays
The Multimonitor support in windows is great. It is perfect for development - one screen for debugging, the other for the application. Better yet it is nice to have one monitor for television in Media Center, and the other for work.
Multiple monitor support has been there since Windows 2000, but Microsoft added some really nice features in Windows XP that made it a breeze.
In Vista, Microsoft introduced a new driver model. The core reason for this change was stability. Microsoft found that many blue screen crashes were caused by a bad Video driver. To get Aero Glass, and Media Center to work in Vista, you need to have a WDDM (Windows Vista Display Driver Model) driver for your video card that supports the new model. Here is the catch. If you have two different video cards that have different WDDM Drivers - one will be disabled. In other words you must have two video cards from the same manufacturer. Otherwise you will get a nastygram like this:
What is the solution? To downgrade to older Windows XP XPDM drivers. Goodbye Glass, and Goodbye Media Center...or go out and purchase another video card of the same make and model. Why is it a problem? The biggest problem will be for the folks who already have XP Media center with two different cards. Right now it is working great, but when you upgrade Media center will no longer work with that configuration. If you have two video cards, and are running XP Media center - Check your video card setup before upgrading to Vista. For more detailed info, Microsoft has a short whitepaper on the subject
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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Remove the software keyboard from Windows XP Tablet edition
I have the latest version of XP Tablet edition. The thing is...I never use the software keyboard that pops up on login.
I only switch to use my pen when I want to scratch out an idea, or write a journal entry. I never use it while logging in so there is no need for it.
After some searching I found that there is nothing within Tablet edition that will let you turn it off. No configuration setting to be found. What I discovered is that you can unregister a specific DLL and make it disappear - with no side effects. To remove the keyboard first get to a command line Now type: regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Ink\loginkey.dll" For Tablet PC 2005 regsvr32 /u "C:\Windows\System32\loginkey.dll" If you want it back, you can simply type this on the command line: regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Ink\loginkey.dll" For Tablet PC 2005 regsvr32 "C:\Windows\System32\loginkey.dll" Now if you don't like the command line, we have written a program that will do it for you (Works under any version of XP Tablet Edition)
Download it here - As usual, no spyware or adware...only freeware goodness
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, December 19, 2006
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Turn numlock on at startup
Applications that are number intensive - such as Excel, Financial, or Banking software make heavy use of the numeric keypad.
When you are crunching numbers you need to eek every bit of performance out of the computer that you can. I find that number crunchers have the numlock key on 24/7 - and they get really annoyed when rebooting. Why? Because every time you reboot numlock is turned back off. You would think that Microsoft would have put in an option somewhere within windows that you could set this. No simple way to do it except diving into the registry. (You can mess up your system when in the registry so be careful!) If you open up HKEY_USERS\Control Panel\.Default\Keyboard You will find the key named InitialKeyboardIndicators If you set it to the number 2 (String Value) Then numlock will be on when booting. If you set it to 0, then numlock will be off when booting. For those who don't like playing with the registry, just use our free utility do to it for you:
Download it from here - No spyware, adware ... just freeware goodness
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, December 18, 2006
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Clear recent documents list on logoff
Many times when using windows, your recent documents list gets loaded up with documents you don't want people to see:
You can tell windows to clear it every time you logoff. You will need to fire up regedit and browse to this key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Add a dword value named ClearRecentDocsOnExit and set it to 1
Now every time you exit windows, your recent documents list will be cleared.
If you don't want to mess with the registry, we have created a program that will do it for you:
Download it from here - No spyware, or adware. Only freeware goodness.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Friday, December 15, 2006
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How to change the password reminder
A Windows 2003 domain controller comes out of the box with numerous default settings. The 15 day password reminder is one of them, and can be really annoying. Who wants to spend the next two weeks clicking NO every time they login?
Group policy can be used to change this to a more reasonable setting. I will show you how, and in my example I will set it to 5 days.
First we need to get into Group Policy for our 2003 Domain controller. On the domain controller, click to Administrative Tools, and open Active Directory Users and Computers.
Right Click on the domain name and go to properties
Move to the Group Policy tab, and select the policy you want to modify and click edit.
Now, drill down to
Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Accounts -> Security Options
On the right you will see a list of options. Scroll down to the item that says:
Interactive Logon: Prompt User to change password before expiration
Double click on it. Check the option that says 'Define this policy setting', and set it to the number of days you want the reminders to start. In our example we set it to 5.
Click OK, and the policy is changed. It will take 15 to 30 minutes for it to be propagated out to machines on the domain.
Now password reminders will happen when you want them to.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, December 13, 2006
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Generate random passwords using Windows XP
Sometimes it can be hard to pick a secure password. Dictionary words, and pet names usually come to mind, but are not secure. A good password will have numbers, letters, and special characters. Windows XP has a hidden feature that will generate a password, and set it at the same time.
Get to a command prompt by clicking on start, then run ,and type the word 'CMD'. Click OK
Now on the command line you can type:
net user [username] /random
This is where [username] is the name of the user you would like to reset to a random password. After clicking enter, Windows XP will come back and print out the random password that it has picked:
Make sure you write it down. Windows XP has now set the account password to this random value. One more time - write it down! Or you might lock yourself out.
One final note - this only works on local accounts, the command does not seem to recognize domain accounts.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, December 11, 2006
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Hide your name from the start menu
Sometimes when I have a kiosk, or demo machine I want the windows session to be generic as possible. This includes the name that is sprawled across the top of the start menu.
Especially when I am making a video of a demo I don't want my name all over it. Unfortunately Microsoft did not make an easy way to shut this feature off. If you want to remove the name from the start menu you can dive into the policy registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer And add the following dword value: NoUserNameInStartMenu and set it to 1 After you make the change and reboot, your name will be gone from the start menu
As usual we created a utility to set it for you if you don't like messing around in the registry:
Find it on our download page - As always no spyware, or adware ... only freeware goodness
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Sunday, December 10, 2006
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Microsoft announces a *new* zero day flaw for word
Another zero day flaw for word has been found in the wild. Microsoft has reported that they have seen it exploited in a very limited and targeted basis. It is a different flaw than the one reported last week that affects almost every version of Word.
Microsoft has stated that in their initial investigation they have discovered that Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003 and the Word Viewer 2003 are affected, but Word 2007 is NOT affected.
The best you can do right now is to not accept word documents from untrusted sources. No patch, or workarounds are available yet.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Sunday, December 10, 2006
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Adobe releases Acrobat Reader 8
Adobe announced today the release of Acrobat Reader 8. The release comes in at a whopping 27 MB.
One of the most annoying 'features' of the previous versions is the broken automatic update. It usually pops up at the worst time...and many times locks up the application. Better yet, it can be so confusing that it stops novice users in their tracks. That is why this one feature alone in the new version got me to install it:
You can finally disable automatic updates! YEA! I am so tired of being prompted to update every single time I open a PDF.
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader 8
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Friday, December 08, 2006
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Dell to produce green machines
Dell announced a new line of their Poweredge servers, the Power Smart models 1950, and 2950 that are supposed to be 25% more power efficient than their standard counterparts. This follows their launch of the Optiplex power saving desktop computers back in September.
The servers will only take up 40 watts of power compared to the 65 or 80 watts of standard servers. They had to make some changes to achive this power saving. The server uses 2.5" floppy drive, special fans, and software to reduce system power during periods of low activity. These savings may not seem like much, but can save a significant amount of money in power costs for larger companies.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Friday, December 08, 2006
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Zero day flaw reported in Windows Media Player
Right after the zero day exploit for Word was announced. We have this from eEye Digital security:
The Windows Media Player library WMVCORE.DLL contains a potentially exploitable heap buffer overflow in its handling of "REF HREF" URLs within ASX files. If the URL contains an unrecognized protocol (only "file", "ftp", "http", "https", "mms", "mmst", "mmsu", "rtsp", "rtspt", and "rtspu" appear to be recognized), the function at 7D7A8F27 in WMVCORE.DLL version 9.0.0.3250, and at 086E586E in WMVCORE.DLL version 10.0.0.3802, will create a copy of the string in which the protocol is replaced with "mms". A heap buffer is allocated, the string "mms" is copied into it, and then everything after and including "://" in the "REF HREF" URL is concatenated using wcsncat.
Unfortunately, the heap buffer for the new "mms" URL is allocated to the size of the "REF HREF" URL, and even more unfortunately, the length of the input string being passed to wcsncat is supplied as the character count, effectively causing wcsncat to behave identically to wcscat. As a result, a two- or four-byte heap overflow is possible if the "REF HREF" URL features a protocol shorter than three characters (the length of "mms").
Single-letter protocols (such as "a://") are rejected, but this restriction can be circumvented by encoding the protocol ("%61://"), thereby making a four-byte overflow possible.
Exploitability due to the corruption of the adjacent heap block's header is assumed likely but research is ongoing.
Microsoft has not announced the vulnerability yet, nor do they have a fix available.
The best way to protect against it right now is to open windows explorer and click on the tools menu, then folder options
Click on the file types tab, and scroll down to "ASX". Either delete it (Windows will no longer know what to do with ASX files - BE CAREFUL! -, or change to another program.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Thursday, December 07, 2006
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Show hidden devices in Windows XP
Blue screens, lockups, or simply rebooting. XP has done all of these for me... and probably you too. Whenever a friend brings me a machine that is giving them trouble I start by pulling out all programs that run at startup. Then I scan it with the latest anti-virus software and clean spyware off the best I can.
When that still does not fix the problem I start looking at device drivers. One bad device driver can really hurt the reliability of your system. Bad drivers lead to frequent 'blue screens of death', lockups, or even keep the system from booting (Unless you are in safe mode)
Simple enough - we can go into the control panel and start disabling drivers until the problem goes away
Usually printers, scanners, and any accessory is the best place to start. I go through them one by one disabling until the problem stops. What if you know it is a scanner, but every time you unplug it the driver disappears? When this first happened to me my first thought was "Oh..it is hidden. I can just go into the device manager and check that menu that says 'show hidden devices'"
Nope - that doesn't do it. See...that option is for showing legacy plug and play devices. There are actually two types of hidden devices. Legacy plug and play, and devices that XP hides when they are not connected. The only way to modify the second type of hidden device is to reconnect it...or create a special environment variable named devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices and set it to the number 1 How do we create it? First get into the control panel. Look for the system icon. If you don't see it you might still be in category view - you will need to switch to classic. Just click on the option on the left:
Now, find the system icon and double click on it.
A properties window will be displayed. Click on the advanced tab, and see the 'Environment Variables' button on the bottom - click on it.
Another window will come up. We want to add a new system variable. So look towards the bottom, and you will see a 'New' button - click on it
Now you can enter the environment variable, and the number 1
Click OK on all of the open windows, and reboot. Now you will be able to see those hidden devices. You will know which ones they are right away - they are grayed out.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Thursday, December 07, 2006
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Remove search bar from IE 7
The search bar in IE 7 can be convenient. You can customize it to use any search engine you want. Even your own home brew search engine if you want.
It can get really annoying if you already have search software installed from Google, or Yahoo. Who wants two search bars when you only need the one you want?
Microsoft never put an option in the settings for IE 7 to disable or remove it, but you can set a registry key to make it go away.
If you open this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Infodelivery\Restrictions
And create a dword value named "NoSearchBox" and set it to 1. The search box will be gone. Set it back to 0 and it will be back again.
For those who don't like messing with the registry, we have made a utility that will do it for you
Get it from our downloads section - As always no spyware, or adware...only freeware goodness!
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, December 06, 2006
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Microsoft announces serious zero day flaw for Office
Microsoft warned today that an unpatched vulnerability in Office could be used by attackers to gain control of a Windows machine.
The affected software includes Word 2000, 2002, and 2003 (Including the Word Viewers), also included in this vulnerability is Microsoft Works 2004, 2005, and 2006. Surprisingly the vulnerability also includes the Mac version of Office 2004.
There are no pre-patch workarounds available. Yep. Thats right . Right now there is nothing you can do about the problem. No patches have been released by MS yet, and Microsoft is suggesting that users to not open or save word documents given to them from unknown sources.
Microsoft has said that users who download and use the Office Document Open Confirmation Tool for Office will be prompted with an Open, Save or cancel before a file is opened.
Hopefully they have it resolved by next patch Tuesday.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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Disable Windows Hotkeys
Sometimes when I am locking down a kiosk machine I need to disable access to any windows Hotkey. This keeps savvy users from getting around by primitive lockdown procedures. A Hotkey is any keyboard shortcut that uses the Windows key. For example you can lock your workstation by pressing Windows Key + L.
To disable it you need to open your trusty regedit and create a new value under this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
The value is: NoWinKeys (DWORD Value)
Set to 1 = Hotkeys disabled. Set to 0 = Hotkeys enabled
If you don't like playing around in the registry, you can use our free utility to do it for you:
Download it here - No spyware , adware...only freeware goodness!
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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AT&T and Wal-mart to sell DSL
AT&T Will start selling their DSL services at Wal-Mart in the US across 13 states. The number of stores offering the service will expand as AT&T starts to offer their services in more markets.
The sale of DSL services is crucial to the long term plans of AT&T, as it can be used to get customers to purchase VOIP, and Cable TV. Verizon sells their DSL services in Wal-mart too - they made deals with Wal-mart earlier in June. No problem for AT&T since their DSL service areas do not overlap. No special prices will be offered, but gift cards for $25 and $75 will be given to customers purchasing the premium versions of their product. Starting February 2007, Wal-mart employees will start stocking the DSL kits, and pushing the product to customers.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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Intel to use 802.11n in new Centrino laptops
During a presentation at the Globalcom 2006 Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday Intel revealed that they will be using the 802.11n pre-standard wireless into their Centrino chips by next year.
The standard is not expected to be solidified by 2008 and is supposed to give users much higher performance than current wireless cards. Currently 802.11n hardware is on the shelves, but has been dogged by interoperability problems. Numerous tests with the hardware shows that different manufactures of the hardware are not compatible with each other.
Hopefully the widespread use of the Centrino line will get all hardware vendors in line with a compatible hardware.
Either way. If you have purchased 802.11n wireless gear, most likely it will have problems with these new laptops. This standard has really been all over the place. If you are planning a corporate wireless network I would stay away from these as long as possible - It will probably be the end of 2008 before we see a compatible set of products by different vendors.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, December 05, 2006
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McAfee releases Vista compatible virus scan.
McAfee announced the final release of Virus Scan 8.5. It marks the first version supporting Vista, and 64 bit windows.
In the press release for the new product, Microsoft chimed in with support: "Our partners play a vital role in the early adoption, development and delivery of Microsoft technologies. By working closely with partners like McAfee, we are helping to provide our mutual customers with a high quality product, seamless technology integration, and improved user experiences." It seems that McAfee is satisfied with the changes Microsoft made to Vista. They are able to implement their products without any special hacks. If you missed it - earlier in the year McAfee made lots of noise about the 64 bit version of Windows. They claimed that the way Microsoft had designed it would require them to hack the operating system, and called for Microsoft to make changes to Vista before it was released. At the last moment Microsoft relented. We did some internal testing of 8.5 here, and it seems a little snappier than the previous version with a few minor updates like some updates to access protection rules.
One thing to note, these features are not supported on the 64 bit version: - Buffer Overflow Protection. - Scanning of Lotus Notes databases. - Alert Manager 4.7.1. If you have a grant number with McAfee, you should be able to start downloading today.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, December 04, 2006
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