Author: Andreas Stenhall

No new kernel in “Windows 7”, welcome killer compatibility!

By May 27, 2008 Windows 7, Windows Vista 0 Comments

Microsoft is now announcing some information about Windows Vistas successor with codename “Windows 7”. There wil be no all new kernel in “Windows 7”, instead Microsoft will improve the kernel from Windows Vista and make it more componentized.

Killer compatibility is something that is coming in “Windows 7”, as “all” applications and drivers that work in Windows Vista also will work in “Windows 7” thanks to “Windows 7” being based on the same kernel as Windows Vista. Looking forward to the beta program for “Windows 7”!  

“Fix” the compatibility problems with IE8 beta

By May 26, 2008 Compatibility, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 8 2 Comments

Some time during the third quarter this year the next beta of Internet Explorer 8 will be released. Microsoft is already asking people, webmasters specifically, to update their web sites to be Internet Explorer 8 compatible. IE8 follow web standards in a new way and this causes quite a few web sites to look not so good in Internet Explorer 8 native mode.

Of course the best option is to make your web site follow the standards but in any cases where this is not possible, due to lack of time, money or knowledge there is a snippet of code that you can add to your web sites to make Internet Explorer 8 render them as if they were interpreted in Internet Explorer 7.

The below snippet of code must be placed directly after the <head> tag.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7">

Adding this tag is equal to running Internet Explorer 8 in the “Emulate IE7” mode.

More information: Your Web site may not display correctly in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Collection of best practices guides

By May 21, 2008 Performance, Security, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 0 Comments

Microsoft is providing best practice analyzers for most of their server products and I have gathered them on a list, for your convenience. These best practices analyzers are extremely good for troubleshooting and for making sure that the servers are performing at their best. Here is the link for the article:
http://www.theexperienceblog.com/technical-articles/collection-of-best-practices-guides/

Filtering policies in new Group Policy management tool

By May 4, 2008 Group policies, Vista Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 2 Comments

When you install Vista Service Pack 1 the old GPMC.MSC control panel is removed. The reason for this is that there is a new and improved Group Policy management tool released in the Remote Server Administration Tool kit that was released slightly after Service Pack 1 was released to the public.

One of the new features of the new Group Policy management tool is that you can filter policy settings. Directly under “Administrative templates” for both Computer and User Configuration there is a new “All settings” category which lists all settings in “Administrative templates”. If you select “All settings” you might then right click anywhere and choose “Filter options”. It looks like the screenshot below.

Group Policy Filtering

By entering the information you are looking for it is very easy to find the group policy settings that you are looking for. This is becoming more and more necessary as the number of policies grows by hundreds or nearly a thousand for every new Windows version released and it is hard to find the setting one is looking for.

Download Remote Server Administration Tools (x86)
Download Remote Server Administration Tools (x64)

Warning for using Vista Offline files with NAS devices

By May 3, 2008 File system, Offline files, Windows Vista 0 Comments

This is just a warning to anyone thinking about using Offline files in Windows Vista together with a NAS device. The Offline files feature is activated by default on all folders which you redirect when using Folder Redirection. The problem is that the Offline files feature is not supported by all NAS devices out there.

The Windows Storage Team posted a blog notice about this more than a year ago but this is worth mentioning again. Although they provide a solution for NAS devices using Samba (which many does) there is no guarantee at all that the NAS device has the correct version of Samba or even support making the necessary changes.

Vista detects that the system is working slow

By March 30, 2008 Uncategorized 0 Comments

The other day when I was running a couple of virtual machines in Virtual PC in my computer I got a warning looking like the picture below. Vista detected that the machine was working very hard and offered me to switch to the Windows Vista Basic color scheme. This is the first time I’ve seen this in Vista since I started testing a couple of years ago. Have you seen this or anything similar?

Slow Performance in Windows Vista

Turn off UAC in a domain using Group Policies

By March 30, 2008 Group policies, Security, User Account Control, Windows Vista 0 Comments

Some people for whatever reason want to turn off UAC for all or certain computers in a domain using Group Policies. This is done by setting the Computers Configuration > Windows Settings > Local Policies > Security Options > User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode to disabled. As usual when turning off UAC a reboot is required for the changes to take effect.

No image catalog for 32-bit images when running Vista x64 SP1

By March 11, 2008 Installation, Vista Service Pack 1, WAIK, Windows Vista 3 Comments

I have had severe problems with System Image Manager crashing when trying to create the Catalog file for a Vista Enterprise SP1 image. The other day an updated version of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Server 2008 Windows Automated Installation Kit was released and my hopes were high for a fix being included. That version crashed as well and after studying the release notes it clearly state that what I am trying to do is no longer supported, as I am running a 64-bit version of Vista and am trying to create a catalog image for a 32-bit image of Vista. Another SP1 problem it seems!

“Because of the changes in the servicing stack in Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008, Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM) cannot create catalog files for some Windows images of different architecture types. The following list describes the Image Manager architecture types and catalogs that can be created for each one.

  • x86 Image Manager
    Can create catalogs for x86, x64, and Itanium-based Windows images.
  • x64 Image Manager
    Can create catalogs only for x64 Windows images.
  • Itanium-based Image Manager
    Can create catalogs only for Itanium-based Windows images.”

See the release notes and download the new WAIK package.

Make Vista SP1 permanent and gain gigabytes of disk space

By February 29, 2008 Vista Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 0 Comments

With Windows Vista Service comes a very handy tool which is called VSP1CLN.EXE, short for Vista Service Pack 1 Cleaner. The tool can be found in %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 and when run it makes Windows Vista Service Pack 1 permanent on your computer. In short that means that all files that are backed up during SP1 installation are removed and you will gain several gigabytes of disk space. It also means that you cannot uninstall Service Pack 1 after you have run VSP1CLN.EXE. This tool should pass anyone by!

Script for enabling Network discovery and File and Printer sharing in Vista

By February 14, 2008 Network, Windows Vista 6 Comments

In Windows Vista it might at a first glance appear to be tricky to automatically enable File and Printer sharing and Network discovery. However it is actually very easy when you know what to type. The “netsh” command comes in handy here, and you can use the below strings in a script to enable it on many clients automatically.

To enable File and Printer sharing you run the command:

netsh firewall set service type=fileandprint mode=enable profile=all

To enable Network discovery you run the command:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”network discovery” new enable=yes

Please note that you can change which profile you want to apply the changes for.

EDIT: First and foremost, I accidently added the “profile=all” to the Network Discovery string which is totally incorrect, as Network discovery is enabled for all profiles when this command is run. Second, if you are using Windows in another language than English you will have to adjust “network discovery” to what it is called in your localized language. For instance on the Swedish version of Vista it would be:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”nätverksidentifiering” new enable=yes

EDIT 2: The network discovery script only work with Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.