VMware announced on Monday (11-12-07) the release of VMware Fusion 1.1. It is a new update to its virtualization software for Intel-based Macs. If you are not familiar with it, the software allows you to run other operating systems in a window under Mac OSX.
This is a free update for all current customers, and there is even a
trial you can download.
I have been using VMWare Fusion 1.0 since its release on my modest Apple MacBook. And if you have been following blog, you know that is all I use to do my development. It runs Windows XP quite well in a virtual session.
The new release has made a great product even better. Here is a list of updates:
* Support for Mac OS X Leopard.
* Improved 3D graphics with experimental support for DirectX 9.0.
* Improvements to VMware Fusion’s Unity feature.
* Support for Microsoft Vista Boot Camp partitions as virtual machines.
* Support for French, German, and Japanese-speaking customers.
* Overall performance improvements.
One of the most pimped out features (Yes I reserve those words for only a few things I really like) is unity. Unity allows you to run Windows applications seamlessly along side your Mac applications. If you look at the shot below, you can see Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and a command prompt running on my Mac Desktop. This feature alone makes it worth the $79.
In this release, it seems snappier, and the unity feature works much better than before. All in all I think it is a great release.
If you have a Mac, and need to work with Windows, I suggest giving it a spin.
For more info go to the product website.And no, I don't get anything from VMWare for this. I simply think it is a great product.
Written by Steve Wiseman on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
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Only 2% of enterprises have deployed, and 38% have no plans.
-
The title says it all.
-
Not suprising. A good quote from the article is “Vista isn’t a matter of if, but of when and how”.
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The new version of the Windows Live OneCare service is being made available today, running on both 32- and 64-bit Windows Vista systems.
Written by Joe on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Compatibility and Deployment and Enterprise and News and Novell and OneCare and PR and Sales.
By default, Windows XP will not allow you to use anything but the FAT and FAT32 file systems to format your USB drives. With a little fiddling you can also enable the NTFS file system on your removable devices though. As for whether you would want to, there are pros and cons.
On the positive side, enabling NTFS allows you to encrypt your documents with Windows XP’s built in file encryption (though you should only do this in a Windows 2000 or 2003 domain network). It also allows the use of file compression to stretch the capacity of your disk. You can also use NTFS to allow and deny permissions for individual files and folders within XP, something you can’t do with FAT file systems. You can also set disk quotas. In short, enabling NTFS on flash drives might have several benefits for IT departments that use or issue these devices as standard. (more…)
default windows,
disk activity,
disk quotas,
Drivers,
drive faster,
file compression,
file encryption,
flash drives,
Hardware,
linux systems,
ntfs file system,
ntfs partitions,
read ntfs,
upshot,
usb drive,
usb drives,
Windows,
windows xp
Written by Jason on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Drivers, and Hardware and Windows XP and default windows and disk activity and disk quotas and drive faster and file compression and file encryption and flash drives and linux systems and ntfs file system and ntfs partitions and read ntfs and upshot and usb drive and usb drives and windows.
If you are exasperated by the welcome screen and the need to enter a password for your user account, you can disable this fairly easily, but be careful. If your computer is connected directly to the Internet by a cable or DSL modem, do not do this. It’s just not worth the risk.
In fact if you are at all concerned about the privacy of your data, keep a strong password enabled for your XP user account. If you are sure you want the password gone, and the welcome screen with it, here’s what to do:
To get rid of the welcome screen, you need to have only a single main user account and have the Guest account deactivated. (more…)
control userpasswords2,
dsl modem,
guest account,
remove password,
start control panel,
user accounts,
welcome screen,
Windows,
windows xp,
xp
Written by Jason on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Windows XP and Xp and control userpasswords2 and dsl modem and guest account and remove password and start control panel and user accounts and welcome screen and windows.
This tutorial assumes that you’re running Windows Deployment Services and want to update the default BOOT.WIM file to enhance platform compatibility, but the processes for injecting extra drivers into a WIM file are exactly the same for ANY WIM-based image.You’ll need a full install of the WAIK, as it contains the necessary tools to manage WIM files. This can be done on any system, but if you’re running WDS it will install properly on the WDS server. Insert the DVD and select “Windows AIK Setup†and install WAIK.
Next you’ll need to create a folder to easily modify BOOT.WIM. I found it easiest to create a Temp folder, and then two more folders within that called Mount and Drivers. Then copy BOOT.WIM from the Vista DVD to the TEMP folder and rename it CUSTOMBOOT.WIM.Now download the drivers you need, and extract them to \Temp\Drivers.You’re not after DOS drivers – remember that this is Windows PE 2.0 so XP drivers are the best ones to use (or Windows Vista, if they’re available).WinRAR is a great tool for extracting the contents of an EXE while maintaining the folder structure – this is very important as you need to be able to get at the INF driver files.Once that’s done, go to the Start Menu, Microsoft Windows AIK, Windows PE Tools Command Prompt. This loads a command window with the PE tools IMAGEX, PEIMG and OSCDIMG loaded into the path, which makes life much easier.
Navigate to \Temp and type in:
imagex /info DRIVE:\Temp\customboot.wim
Where DRIVE is the appropriate drive letter. This checks the CUSTOMBOOT.WIM file and lists the images contained within it.
There are actually two images, but the one we want is the Longhorn Setup image – number 2. Now type in:
imagex /mountrw DRIVE:\Temp\customboot.wim 2 DRIVE:\Temp\Mount
This mounts image 2 of CUSTOMBOOT.WIM into the \Temp\Mount folder in read/write mode. You can navigate to this folder and browse the contents and make any changes you like.
Now go back to the command window and type in:peimg /inf=DRIVE:\Temp\Driver\FOLDER\*.inf /image=DRIVE:\Temp\Mount
Where FOLDER is the appropriate folder which contains the INF driver files. This injects the drivers straight into the mounted image. You can manually specify which driver is to be installed, or just use the wildcard to install all the drivers found in that folder. Repeat this process for all the drivers you want to install.
Once that’s done, type in:imagex /unmount /commit DRIVE:\Temp\Mount
This unmounts the image from the \Temp\Mount folder and commits the changes you made. Do NOT forget the /commit statement or you’ll have to do the whole thing all over again. Not fun.Now go back to the WDS console and right-click on the boot image, then select Disable. Right-click again and select Replace Image, then browse to \Temp\CUSTOMBOOT.WIM. This will replace the contents of BOOT.WIM with the updated CUSTOMBOOT.WIM. It doesn’t erase BOOT.WIM, and the boot image will still use the original file, but the extra drivers are now loaded into the Longhorn Setup image. Being able to replace the image means that you can maintain an offline master boot image, so you never need to directly work with the WDS boot image.Unlike RIS where any such change required a restart of the service, WDS accepts this change on the fly. Connect your clients to the WDS server and they will use the updated setup image with the incorporated drivers. In my setup, both problematic platforms worked perfectly with the custom boot image.News Source: www.apcmag.com
Written by Odd-Magne Kristoffersen on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista and Windows XP and windows server 2003.
Apple’s commercial to stick it to Microsoft for some of the bad buzz Vista has gotten from early adopters. If only Microsoft threw the same types of jabs, now would be a great time to stick it back at Apple.
Written by Joe on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Videos.
Whilst the previous Zune software was something like a Windows Media Player experiment turned Frankenstein, the new Zune software is something worthy of exploring.
Whether or not you agree with Tim Gideon from PC Magazine, “Microsoft’s answer to iTunes….is quite attractive and makes iTunes seem like a big, boring spreadsheetâ€, you must admit it is probably the only worthy contender to-date.
Whilst there’s a lot to like beyond just the looks - although I still reckon there needs to be more borders/separators - there’s an interesting bit of magic behind how the Zune software is designed and displayed.
The whole application, top-to-bottom and inside-out, is powered by a Microsoft framework no one has ever heard of before. It has several names, simply “UIX” or the “Microsoft Iris UI Framework”.
How do I know this? The most obvious clues are the framework library files in your Zune directory. They are UIX.dll, UIXrender.dll and UIXsup.dll - Microsoft Iris UI Framework, Rendering engine and UIX Debugging Support respectively. On the same note, the product name of all of these files is “Microsoft Zune-MediaCenter Platform” which helps a little later.
Looking a little deeper, all of the presentation markup files are actually embedded in a resource file called ZuneShellResources.dll (also the same file the images are in). In here we find each component of the UI defined in a separate .UIX file. There are literally hundreds of these. For example there is a “AboutDialog.UIX”, “Button.UIX”, “GalleryView.UIX” and “Tooltip.UIX”.
The UIX markup language is distinctively XML-based. Here is a snippet from “AboutDialog.UIX”.
After a little more researching together with the reference to Media Center before, it appears UIX is an extension to Media Center Markup Language (MCML), the presentation markup language used in Windows Media Center to third-party developers. In particular they share a lot of the same namespaces, for example and . However they are not identical besides UIX being a 2007 schema whilst MCML is 2006.
The biggest difference in UIX is the inclusion of scripting logic. For example here is a snippet from “Scrollbar.UIX”.
Here they are defining some of the very simple logic behind a scrollbar. This also gives the impression UIX is a very low-level framework as simple controls like buttons, checkboxes and scrollbars are all user-defined and not built-in to the framework itself. The advantage being they can really fine-tune exactly how controls function as they intend it to. Explains why the buttons in the Zune software looks so good. Together, they can pretty much mimic most if not all of the common user interface available in Windows with UIX.
Rendering wise, I don’t have a lot of understanding on how UIX renders its outputs, but in the rendering engine DLL it makes references to DirectX9 functions which makes me want to believe this is 3D-accelerated renderer, which might explain why the animations and transitions run so smooth.
Whilst all of this is all well and interesting, the thing that really captures my attention is why they would invest so much time into developing this framework and implementing it just for his software when they have plenty of alternatives like Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to work with. I can’t stop wondering if this is going to become a new framework offering by Microsoft for all developers to use. Or maybe the foundations for the next version of Windows Media Center! In any case, now if anyone ever asks “gee, I wonder what the Zune software is designed with”, they’re not left out in the cold.
Written by Long Zheng on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on blog.
Whilst the previous Zune software was something like a Windows Media Player experiment turned Frankenstein, the new Zune software is something worthy of exploring.
Whether or not you agree with Tim Gideon from PC Magazine, “Microsoft’s answer to iTunes….is quite attractive and makes iTunes seem like a big, boring spreadsheetâ€, you must admit it is probably the only worthy contender to-date.
Whilst there’s a lot to like beyond just the looks - although I still reckon there needs to be more borders/separators - there’s an interesting bit of magic behind how the Zune software is designed and displayed.
The whole application, top-to-bottom and inside-out, is powered by a Microsoft framework no one has ever heard of before. It has several names, simply “UIX” or the “Microsoft Iris UI Framework”.
How do I know this? The most obvious clues are the framework library files in your Zune directory. They are UIX.dll, UIXrender.dll and UIXsup.dll - Microsoft Iris UI Framework, Rendering engine and UIX Debugging Support respectively. On the same note, the product name of all of these files is “Microsoft Zune-MediaCenter Platform” which helps a little later.
Looking a little deeper, all of the presentation markup files are actually embedded in a resource file called ZuneShellResources.dll (also the same file the images are in). In here we find each component of the UI defined in a separate .UIX file. There are literally hundreds of these. For example there is a “AboutDialog.UIX”, “Button.UIX”, “GalleryView.UIX” and “Tooltip.UIX”.
The UIX markup language is distinctively XML-based. Here is a snippet from “AboutDialog.UIX”.
After a little more researching together with the reference to Media Center before, it appears UIX is an extension to Media Center Markup Language (MCML), the presentation markup language used in Windows Media Center to third-party developers. In particular they share a lot of the same namespaces, for example and . However they are not identical besides UIX being a 2007 schema whilst MCML is 2006.
The biggest difference in UIX is the inclusion of scripting logic. For example here is a snippet from “Scrollbar.UIX”.
Here they are defining some of the very simple logic behind a scrollbar. This also gives the impression UIX is a very low-level framework as simple controls like buttons, checkboxes and scrollbars are all user-defined and not built-in to the framework itself. The advantage being they can really fine-tune exactly how controls function as they intend it to. Explains why the buttons in the Zune software looks so good. Together, they can pretty much mimic most if not all of the common user interface available in Windows with UIX.
Rendering wise, I don’t have a lot of understanding on how UIX renders its outputs, but in the rendering engine DLL it makes references to DirectX9 functions which makes me want to believe this is 3D-accelerated renderer, which might explain why the animations and transitions run so smooth.
Whilst all of this is all well and interesting, the thing that really captures my attention is why they would invest so much time into developing this framework and implementing it just for his software when they have plenty of alternatives like Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to work with. I can’t stop wondering if this is going to become a new framework offering by Microsoft for all developers to use. Or maybe the foundations for the next version of Windows Media Center! In any case, now if anyone ever asks “gee, I wonder what the Zune software is designed with”, they’re not left out in the cold.
Written by Long Zheng on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on blog.
This tip will show you how to create an unattended disk cleanup which will also empty your prefetch folder. This tip assumes you have Windows XP installed in c:\windows.
Step 1.
Create a new text file and place the following contents inside:
c:\windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /dc /sageset: 1
c:
cd \
cd c:\windows\prefetch
del *.* /q
(more…)
appication,
cache,
cleanmgr,
cleanup program,
disk cleanup,
disk space,
performance decrease,
prefetch folder,
unattended,
Windows,
windows prefetch directory,
windows system32
Written by Jason on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on appication and cache and cleanmgr and cleanup program and disk cleanup and disk space and performance decrease and prefetch folder and unattended and windows and windows prefetch directory and windows system32.
This tip will show you how to create an unattended disk cleanup which will also empty your prefetch folder. This tip assumes you have Windows XP installed in c:\windows.
Step 1.
Create a new text file and place the following contents inside:
c:\windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /dc /sageset: 1
c:
cd \
cd c:\windows\prefetch
del *.* /q
(more…)
appication,
cache,
cleanmgr,
cleanup program,
disk cleanup,
disk space,
performance decrease,
prefetch folder,
unattended,
Windows,
windows prefetch directory,
windows system32
Written by Jason on November 15th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on appication and cache and cleanmgr and cleanup program and disk cleanup and disk space and performance decrease and prefetch folder and unattended and windows and windows prefetch directory and windows system32.
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