Author: Andreas Stenhall

So it seams it isn’t a secret anymore that Windoyws 7 will get a feature (separate download) that using the latest Virtual PC technologies will make it possible to run applications in Windows XP directly integreated into the Windows 7  operating system. The feature is almost the same as MED-V which accomplishes basically the same thing, but The “Windows XP mode” has advantages like it is available for anyone running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate SKUs.

With this Microsoft can guarantee compatilibty in a way no one could ever expect. This also makes the step from Windows XP to Windows 7 much easier and now there cannot be any apps holiding anyone back from upgrading the clients to Windows 7.

More information: Winsupersite

Windows 7 Release Candidate is now finalized as build 7100 and it has already found its way out to infamous torrent sites. The other day I learned a very interesting thing about Windows 7 through my participation in what is called the Windows 7 Ignite program. Apparently Windows 7 is not that feature complete after all and the feature that is coming is quite astonishing, but unfortunately I cannot discuss this further now. For those who wonder the Windows 7 Ignite program is a program which lets Microsoft partners and its small sized customers use Windows 7 at an early stage.

When running the Best Practice Analyzer on a Small Business Server 2008 some time ago I received a critical error:

DNS A resource record points to incorrect IP address
The host (A) resource record points to the incorrect IP address 192.168.0.10192.168.0.17. The record should point to 192.168.0.10.

As we can see the two IP addresses have mysteriously become one. The first being the IP address of the SBS 2008 server and the second one being the RAS IP address. The BPA team gave the following answer:

That is an issue we are looking into, and it appears to be a possible issue with how the object processor is doing the DNS check.  At this point, a possible workaround (if you are having this show up in the Other Alerts of the SBS Console) would be to schedule a task to run at say 2:04am to do a “net stop remoteaccess ” then another task that runs at say 2:07 am to do a net start remoteaccess.  The SBS 2008 BPA by default should be scheduled to run at 2:05am when it is integrating in with the SBS console. If the second IP address listed is the IP address of the dial-in interface of RRAS then you should be able to ignore that error.

If you are using Hyper-V there is no way you won’t be using the Hyper-V gadget that is available and has been available for a long time for Windows Vista and now also Windows 7. The gadget lists all your virtual machines  and easily let you start, stop, shut down or save the virtual machines.

Download the Hyper-V gadget

The beta testing of service pack 2 for Windows Vista is about to end and SP2 will soon be released for download. Unlike service packs for previous Windows client operating systems SP2 is not cumulative which means that you will have to install service pack 1 before you can apply service pack 2.

So if you for some odd reason still aren’t running service pack 1 on your Windows Vista machines now is the time to install it to make sure you are ready for service pack 2.

In Windows 7 you can create and add your own federated search providers for use in Windows Explorer. A while ago I published a step-by-step guide on how you can build federated search for a SharePoint site or for your favorite web site. The article is available in its full (in Swedish) at tipsomvista.se.

Microsoft is working more active than ever to improve application compatibility in Windows 7. Recently two Swedes announced Microsoft’s willingness to help improve application compatibility in general but also for non-English applications.

First Jesper Holmberg, working with localization at Microsoft in Redmond, announced the face that Microsoft actively wants applications in non-English languages to test with Windows 7. Second Danwei Tran, a new IT evangelist at Microsoft Sweden, offered everybody to send emails to a specific address to report compatibility issues with applications. Microsoft will then contact the developers to see how they can resolve the problems, to everybody’s benefit.

These two actions will of course make compatibility for Windows 7 superb, but never to forget, compatibility for Windows Vista will improve as well as a direct result of these actions.

Just a final note, Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 got released yesterday, more about this later on.

If you have tried out Windows 7 you know that it includes some changes when it comes to Windows Update. The good news for Windows Vista users is that the Windows Update client included in Windows 7 also will be available for Windows Vista. A few days ago the beta program for the next version of the Windows Update client started on Microsoft Connect.

Some of the improvements that can be seen in Windows 7 and that will be available in Windows Vista are as follows:

• Reduced number of UAC prompts and the option to allow all users to install any updates.
• Much better interface and separated optional and important updates.
• More information when errors do occur, now also with descriptions.
• Better notification for the user telling them that the computer will be restarted at xx:xx hours and that the user need to save all open documents, if the settings are set to automatically install and restart the client that is.

If you want to try the new Windows Update client for Windows Vista, go to http://connect.microsoft.com and apply to the program called “MUv4 Beta”.

More information about setting Microsoft Update to be the default instead of Windows Update by script can be found in this post I made quite some time ago. I’ve also verified that this works in Windows 7 as well as in Windows Vista.

I’ve had the chance to offer around 70 slots to users for participating in the beta testing of the localized Windows 7 in Swedish. The interest in this opportunity was amazing and all the slots got filled up really fast. Now, we are all eager for the beta test to actually start.

Actually I think it is quite interesting and very useful to run the localized client operating systems from time to time. All (at least almost) servers are running in English and that also applies to my workstations and other machines at home.

A fact is that most users in Sweden actully run the client operating systems in Swedish and by running the localized version of Windows I get a good grip of what all features of the OS, in this case Windows 7, are called in Swedish. This is particularly important when new operating systems arrive such as Windows 7. It is always exiting to learn what some features are translated to in the Swedish version. Let’s see if we get any surprises in Windows 7!

For the last couple of days I have been assisting one the users in my Windows Community alltomxp.se (in Swedish) with troubleshooting the installation of Windows Vista Service Pack 2. The user just get “one or more system components that the service pack requires are missing. For more information, click the link below.”  The links leads unfortunately not to a page with any information on what is wrong.

In the CBS.log the following information can be found:

2009-03-11 20:43:11, Info                  CBS    SPI: Starting SP Compatibility\Applicability scan
2009-03-11 20:43:11, Error                 CBS    SPI: (CSPInstall::CompatibilityApplicabilityScan:993)Detected missing components, aborting SP install hr=0x800f0a0c
2009-03-11 20:43:11, Info                  CBS    SPI: Ending Compatibility\Applicability scan
2009-03-11 20:43:11, Error                 CBS    SPI: (PerformSPInstallation:764)Failed to install SP using UI hr=0x800f0a0c
2009-03-11 20:43:11, Error                 CBS    SPI: (wmain:1034)Failed to perform SP installation hr=0x800f0a0c

The problem is that components are missing, most likely because the application vLite has been used to customize the installation. This can be verified by looking if the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\vLite exist and then delete it. After that the installation of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 should proceed, hopefully without further problems.