Vista

For testing purposes only watermark after installing Vista SP1

Scott Lock — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:33:55 GMT

An odd thing happened to me after installing the Vista SP1 RTM. I have a laptop running Vista Ultimate. The OS was installed using my MVP Team Suite license. I use this machine as my primary development box. After installing Vista SP1 I had two interesting things show up on the desktop:

1. "Test Mode" showed up in each corner of the desktop - Run Bcdedit.exe /set TESTSIGNING OFF using an elevated prompt to turn off test for signed drivers.

2. "for testing purposes only." and build number - This one I am not sure why it has appeared in the corner. My previous version did not. The only thing I could find was a very lengthy step by step process which seemed way to complicated.

So I don't have the warm fuzzy feeling that I've been hearing everyone talk about after installing Vista SP1. I don't feel like I'm running the RTM build. The messages I see make me feel like its the RC. I hope there nothing else that I can't see broken. I didn't realize that I was signing up for the beta test!

Virtual PC 2007 Stops Working after Vista SP1 Install

Scott Lock — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:22:31 GMT

I've been having an interesting time with the Vista SP1 install and Virtual PC 2007. After installing Vista SP1, I thought all was well. Assuming "Well" means that you now have "For testing purposes only" and the build number watermarked in the corner, but I'll save that for another post.

I was unfortunately at a client site when I went to start Virtual PC 2007 for the first time, post Vista SP1. Started okay but then as soon as I clicked on "New", all I got was an open task in the task bar but no window on the desktop. Hovering over the task bar item, I could see that the windows was blank according to the Vista thumbnail view.

I tried uninstalling Virtual PC, getting the latest bits, reinstalling...no good. I posted a message on the MVP Vista boards and got a response from Paul Adare, MVP Virtual Machines. (Thanks Paul!) He mentioned that he has heard that this was reported and suggested:

"Try deleting C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Virtual PC\options.xml and then starting VPC again."

That did the trick.

This is because the configuration is set to display the window in an area which is way out of the scope of the current viewable area. This may be due to switching between multiple dual monitor configurations and sleep mode?

SQL Server Client Working on Vista, Not connected to a domain

Scott Lock — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:40:17 GMT

To continue in the traditiion of trackbacks, and since I can't seem to find an orginal post in my body, I thought that I would share this one with you. Jason Follas psted a solution on how to get SQL Client, running on Vista, to use different credentials when connecting to a SQL Server using Windows Authentication. Basically, there are a ton of posts out there, but this is the ONLY one that that I could find that had the solution. Here's the link to the full explantion: Making SQL Server Management Server work on Windows Vista

Here's the solution - Create a "runas.exe" shortcut with the following configuration:

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /netonly /user:domainx\myusername
   "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\SqlWb.exe"

Works like a charm! Thank's Jason!