vista
There are 28 entries for the tag
vista
The second day keynote at PDC 2009 in Lost Angeles was shared by Steven Sinofsky and Scott Guthrie. Steven is the President of Windows and Windows Live Division and it really must have been a great day for him as he came out for the first time in a major conference with the new Windows 7 launched and the old Vista problems just fading away into Microsoft’s past. There is a lot of excitement for Windows 7 and there is excitement for the new Windows 7 APIs that are available for developers to work...
One of the features that has been available since the Vista days and is also contained in the Windows 7 release is Microsoft’s Desktop Gadgets. Gadgets have become quite the popular set of little tools that lots of people like to completely litter their desktops with. You can think of them as mini-applications that run on your desktop for common tasks that you perform or common pieces of information that you need. Microsoft is in no way the first to the scene with this nor the most popular. Though...
It has been known for a little while now that Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 7, will be released to the computer makers to install as the machine OS for the computers they are getting ready to sell in late July. Then later in the Fall (OCT 22nd), it will be available to the public for purchase. This is welcome news for many who were not as successful with Vista and are quite tired of Windows XP. I was definitely in that camp. I have a lot of computers that I run at home and they were all Windows...
Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) is out and the incredible thing is that Microsoft has provided this operating system (OS) for free to the entire world. They will only let you download the OS for a limited time – so if you are thinking of getting it – you should be getting your hands on a copy of it as quick as you can. Microsoft is offering both a 32bit or a 64bit version that you can download. This is NOT the final version of the OS though – that is something to be aware of. If you install this...
Good news for us all is that the RC build of the much-anticipated Windows 7 is going to be made available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers on April 30. For the rest of the world, you won’t have long to wait, as the Windows 7 RC will be available on May 5th as I previously reported on my Twitter account. For those that are not aware, RC means Release Candidate, as this is the pre-final version of the operating system and it is supposed to include everything that will be in the final shipping version...
Before I had posted a small blog entry on how it was basically impossible to get the Cisco VPN software working on a Windows Vista machine. It turned out to be one of the most hit blog entries I had – mainly due to the amount of help that was being provided in the comments. In the comments, many folks tried to help others with a solution. Though, one of the last entries I read recently was about a gentleman that pointed out that if you get all the Vista updates, that it seemed to just work. There...
Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 8 comes on Windows 7 (of course) but I am unable to tell what version of IE this really is. Here is the About dialog from the one that comes on the OS by default: If you look at the version number – it is 8.0.7000.0 – which I really don’t think is too real as it looks like the Microsoft programmers just set all the build numbers to 7000 for the sake of being Windows 7. A little annoying but I understand the fun they are trying to have. The reason for all this conversation...
I have installed Windows 7 on “bare metal” on one of my machines. This was a laptop that I work with and it was a very easy install. First off, it was the quickest OS install that I have ever experienced. You can tell that Microsoft spent some significant time working on the performance and quality of the install and bravo to the team that worked on that feature! I also used the 64-bit version of the operating system. More and more people are turning to 64-bit and it is really starting to be the...
Well, according to Neowin.net, Windows 7 Beta 1 will be released on January 7th, 2009. I think the "7" for the date might be there for a reason! :) Microsoft released an Alpha version of Windows 7 to the attendees of PDC this year, but it was missing the new skin that we will see in Windows 7. I have been rather down on Vista (as many others were) as I could only use it for my book writing, but was unable to effectively use Vista for my normal work at Thomson Reuters for many reasons not worth going...
This keynote is all about Windows 7 (the Vista that shoulda been) and new things from ScottGu's team. While yesterday was about the back-end infrastructure of the new cloud platform Azure from Microsoft, today's keynote focused on the front end of Microsoft. One funny question from Ray Ozzie was wondering what we would do at work all day if we didn't have a computer on our desk. Here are some random notes from the keynote. "The PC will be more relevant in the next era." - Ray Ozzie Today we barely...
You have a host file found at C:\Windows\system32\drivers... that allows you to specify IP addresses and their mappings to a URL. For instance, when you type in http://www.reuters.com or something similar - you are actually going to an IP address (216.35.67.135) that is mapped using a DNS server somewhere. Sometimes you are not going to want to do the DNS lookup, but instead use a specific and known IP address when a URL is typed in within your browser or if your application is using URLs...
Though just rumors at the moment, there has been some talk in some computer journals that they are hearing that Vista's Service Pack 1 is going to be released in the next few weeks. One reported that Microsoft is aiming for February 15th for the *much anticipated* release. I, myself, have seen these rumblings in both Wired and Computer World magazines. Though the RC1 build has been out for some time, I have always been rather wary of installing a beta or an RC build of a service pack. I really worry...
Spent the weekend so far using the new release of Visual Studio 2008 and ASP.NET AJAX. More specifically, I have been using the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Adding the new controls to your VS2008 toolbox is a straight-forward process, but when I added them - at first everything was fine - but after a few hours they seemed to magically disappear. Trying to add them again didn't seem to do anything at all as nothing changed. Right-clicking on the VS2008 toolbox and selecting Show All actually did...
Yes, we have Windows Server 2008 coming. Yes, also SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, the .NET Framework 3.5, and more - but probably one of the more exciting new items to come at this same time is IIS 7. As Scott Guthrie states in his recent blog post on IIS, this is a major update to the technology. IIS 7 will allow for a plug-in architecture and allows you to take out all the pieces of the IIS stack that your applications don't need. It also allows you to build your own extensions and plug...
I woke up yesterday morning, I noticed that Vista had installed three different security updates overnight. Opening Microsoft Word, I noticed that I was unable to use my mouse anywhere within the document anymore. I couldn't select any text. I couldn't right-click. I could only move my cursor around with the arrow keys on my keyboard. For me, this made Word completely useless. The problem was with a SnagIt add-in to Microsoft Office that was installed on my machine. It all of a sudden seemed to have...
Some folks are lovin their Vista machines while others are cursing as they are having problems (mostly with the drivers and some lockup issues). It really does only depend upon what you are using your machine for. Though, Microsoft has just released some performance and reliability patches out there: http://support.microsoft.co... http://support.microsoft.co... The first one takes care of the following issues: This update resolves the following issues: • The screen may go blank...
Talking with Microsoft, I learned of some of the additions they are making for .NET Orcas (due at the end of this year). I am investing quite heavily into Windows Forms projects here at my company; therefore this environment is quite important to what I am doing here. Some of the highly touted items that are being added to Windows Forms are a lot of WPF interoperability items. This was announced at last year's TechEd, but the idea is that you will be able to host WPF controls directly inside of a...
Recently, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1). Looking at this release, you would have maybe noticed that it was fine and dandy for Windows XP, but it isn't going to work on Windows Vista. Microsoft is building a special release of VS2005 SP1 for Windows Vista. The bad news is that it isn't ready yet – but the good news is that it just made beta today. You can download this beta here. Enjoy...
When working with your new version of Windows Vista, after you install your Cisco VPN Client software - which I did - you might get the error: "Reason 403: Unable to Contact Service Gateway" This is due to the fact that your VPN software will not work on Vista. There is presently a version out there (in beta) that works on Vista and you can find it here: UPDATE - NO GOOD INSTALLS AT THE MOMENT. THERE ARE SOME IN THE COMMENTS
Installed Windows Vista back on my machine. Took it off for a while due to the fact that the new Zune software didn't work on Vista. It does now - so I'm back! :) In installing Windows Vista, for the second time - one thing that took me a while was finding all the software for my Microsoft Keyboard with Fingerprint Reader. You can find the software for both the keyboard and the fingerprint reader here: http://www.microsoft.com/ha... It is two separate pieces of software...
As everyone is probably blogging ... Vista is out! Yeah! Very nice. I am quite looking forward to have Vista on my machine full time now as a finished product and I am very much looking forward to MSFT Office 2007 and the abilities it gives developers to more easily build within its environment. Have you seen the new VSTO Special Edition for Visual Studio 2005? If not, then this is something to check out. It seems quite easy to program to from the demos that I have seen. I am also looking at the...
There are so many new items out for download today. The first set are all the new .NET Framework 3.0 downloads: .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components Windows SDK for Vista and the .NET Framework 3.0 Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (WCF & WPF), November 2006 CTP There was also a release of VSTO 2005 SE: http://www.microsoft.com/do...
So many releases ... so little time. The July CTP release of .NET 3.0 has been put out. Some links: The Annoucement .NET Framework 3.0 July CTP Runtime Components Windows SDK for .NET Framework 3.0 July CTP Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation Release Candidate 4 .NET 3.0 July CTP Read Me File Determining Which Build of Windows Vista and .NET 3.0 Development Tools is Right for You Windows Communication Foundation Virtual Labs ...
Dang, I really really wanted to run Windows Vista on my new Lenovo (formally IBM) Thinkpad T60. I installed it just fine and got all the drivers working, but I need three things in order for this to be my work laptop. One, I need Microsoft Outlook and that worked just fine. I need our work-based messaging program to work. It didn't at first, but you can run this program using the Program Compatibility Wizard and assign it to run in a Windows XP SP2 context. Then the last program I need is Nortel's...
After Bill Gates spoke, Jim Allchin came out and gave a presentation geared at developers with the promise of showing lots of code (which was done by Don Box and company). Here are some of the highlights from Jim's presentation: First Jim showed everyone an IBM computer from the Microsoft museum with Windows 1.03 loaded. He then showed us the OS booting up and then pulled up the game of Reversi. Funny, I remember all those screens he showed ... I must be getting old. The point of showing that is...
After Bill Gates keynote, Microsoft allowed us to go down to the distribution center and receive “The Goods” as they call it. This is a five disc set which includes a mass amount of software including: Windows Vista Beta 1 Visual Studio 2005 Team System Beta 2 SQL Server 2005 June CTP Virtual PC 2004 Virtual Server 2005 R2 Beta WinFX & Other Stuff Windows Vista CTP: PDC 2005 There is a spot for a sixth disc, but it is empty in my set. I am unsure if that is intentional or if there...
It was interesting that they only allowed photography of Bill Gates for the first minute of his presentation. Also, you weren’t allowed to use your laptops in the crowd as well – so I ended up taking my notes on paper instead of doing it with Microsoft Word like I normally do. Oh well. So, there was a lot said at the Bill Gates keynote, so I will only go through what I think were the highlights of the presentation. Video – Bill started off with a bit of humor and presented a video...
I recently received Windows “Longhorn” Vista Beta 1 in the mail from my MSDN subscription and decided to install it on one of the extra computers that I have at my house. I have installed “Longhorn” in the past, but I was quite interested to see what has changed in the install process this time around. The install process has changed quite a bit from the last time I installed it. It is a very graphical install process instead of the blue screen DOS style install process that...