Blog reboot – version 4.0

OK.

I have to say, while I liked the v 3.0 design overall, I just wasn’t feeling the lovin’ when it came down to the way the posts were separated.

It was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended.  And colors/fonts were still a bit off.

And I hadn’t really thought through the impact of the floating main content body for wide-screen monitor users.

So I eventually found  the Concept Nova template over at BTemplates.  I liked the overall feel.

The template code was a lot easier to tweak as well for my design.

So here it is…seems to render properly in Mozilla, Chrome and IE (though the lower-case “grand stream dreams” in the grey bar is clipped in IE).  Still need to check how it looks in Safari and Opera but I expect that will be well.

update: Opera also renders it fine although in Safari for Windows, if the text zoom is set at “normal” then the top-most heading punches a line gap between the images. Setting the text zoom for the page down one notch resolves the issue but it a bit harder to read. All else seems fine.

Hope everyone is pleased.

I still need to download and “self-host” the image files that make up the template elements just in case they get nuked or changed (doubtful but it could happen).

Feedback is welcome.

--Claus V.

Read More

Around the (MS) Office pool

Lavie and I must have used Microsoft Office 97 forever.  Years upon years.

It was the primary communication application we used at work.

Eventually we picked up a “Home and Student” version of Office 2003 a few years ago for our home systems.  Even Alvis used it in her Jr. High technology learning class.

That was long-after Office 2007 was released.  Both our places of work still hadn’t migrated to 2007.  Why bother? 2000/2003 was ubiquitous.

About a month ago, I finally got around to picking up another copy of “Home and Student” but this time it was the 2007 flavor.  Although we still are deploying 2003 SKUs at work, our newest leased systems are now tricking out with 2007. (Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats to the rescue!)

The church systems are running 2007 so we had to adapt, particularly as the presentations are built on PowerPoint and to ensure the smoothest compatibility when we do them at home, 2007 was the way to go.

Anyway, after a few weeks of bumbling around the “Ribbon” feature introduced in Office 2007, we pretty much had learned all the major navigational issues it caused and were back to doing what we do in Microsoft Office without much thought…though it does still feel weird when I go back to work and shift back to Office 2003.

Lavie remains less-than-impressed with the Ribbon feature.  I just added several of my common use icons up on the top bar by the Office Orb. Surprisingly (or not) Microsoft didn’t seem to offer a “classic” menu-bar option to revert back to the 2003 Office navigation.

Eventually (and it took me a while) I tracked down a utility that (kinda) does that trick.  There were others but this one seemed to be the cream that rose to the top.

• pschmid.net - RibbonCustomizer™

RibbonCustomizer comes in both a free and a commercial version.  The free one just leaves out a lot of the customizing features and things power-users would find valuable.  However for most home users it more than fits the bill.

It doesn’t change the entire Ribbon back to Office 2003 format. What it does do very well is to simply add an additional tab to the Ribbon at the front. Click on that one and most all of the Office 2003 icon-bar items are comfortingly displayed for your quick and fast access. The “Classic UI” tab which is added can be placed at the front or end of the regular Ribbon tabs.

The primary file v1.1 is dated May 15th, 2007, but I chose to download and install the very recent (and alive) Beta Program version which was last updated May 24th, 2009. Paul’s blog is another good source of Office tool information.

It's very impressive and slick.  There are other products and tricks out there besides this one, but this has been the best one I’ve seen yet.

Lavie was overjoyed when she started playing with it.  Granted, the Ribbon is a powerful tool to accomplish a lot of things once you get familiar with it. On the other hand, we both have lost a lot of productivity in trying to figure out how to do some simple task that would have taken just a second in Office 2003; not that Office 2007 couldn’t do it, just we couldn’t find where the command-feature was located in the Ribbon!

I had no idea of the developmental culture and control programming behind the Ribbon.

• The Story of the Ribbon – Jensen Harris: Office User Interface Blog

• Office Fluent User Interface – MSDN Office Developer Center

• Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering – Microsoft Office Product Development Team blog

PowerPoint to Video?

It seems pretty stable but a look in the forum-spam laden forum indicates that a few users have had some issues with the beta.  If that concerns you, go with the older stable version but expect some slower performance as the trade-off.

• Use Powerpoint Video Converter to Convert Powerpoint to Video – MakeUseOf blog

I hesitated to include this tool as I think it would be less than useful in most cases. What with the PowerPoint Viewer available free for the world.  That said, I guess there could be a need to convert a PowerPoint presenation into a video format.  If so then MakeUseOf blog has found the freeware tool to do it.

Lots of Homes & Students at the Office?

• Office Home and Student accounts for 85% of US Office retail share -Betanews

Really fascinating story into the real cost of Office and how most folks get around it at the retail level by snagging “Home and Student”.  Considering it allows for installation on up to three qualifying home systems at prices between $150 - $80 range, it’s easy to see why it is such a popular seller.  Only the government and large/enterprise customers can afford the volume licenses and/or regular seat prices for Office.

If it weren’t for “Home and Student” version I doubt we would be able to legally install Microsoft office on our home systems.

Curiously, soon after getting that H&S 2007 version, I was able to pick up a single license of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise for $9.99 though our Employee Purchasing Program special offer at work.  Examination of that EULA (find tool to locate all MS product EULA’s here) allows me to install it at home on my desktop system as well as one qualifying “portable” device (my home laptop) under specific conditions.  That suite brings a slew of additional items to my home system that I really don’t need, however it’s a nice excuse to have it all available to play with anyway.

Finally, as we are only now just getting used to regular usage of Office 2007 features and capabilities it seems crazy to be thinking about Office 2010.  But, it is around the corner.

For probably the best source of information on Office 2010 and all the new adjustments that will require I submit the following locations:

• Microsoft Office and business productivity  - Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows

And particularly the following in-depth coverage articles from Mr. Thurrott’s SuperSite.

Office 2010 Technical Preview: A SuperSite Special Report 
Office 2010 Technical Preview Screenshots
Microsoft Office 2010 FAQ
Microsoft Office 14 Web Applications Preview

OO Not Forgotten…

And yes…for you freeware fans (and Microsoft Office is one area I just can’t compromise with) there is the Excellent Open Source office productivity suite OpenOffice.  Also available in a handy  OpenOffice PortableApps version as well. And, alas, it looks like you OO fans will slowly be seeing a OO version of the “Ribbon” creeping its way into future versions.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

Read More

Drop-Dead-Quick Blue Screen of Death Diagnosis Utility

Almost anyone who has been around a Windows system has seen the dreaded BSOD.

It’s a puzzling display of hex-code, and techno-babble that will often cause the sweetest tea-sipping granny to curse the Viking god of war and send him running for cover.

Even many geeks would rather just offer up a “looks like you need to wipe it and reload the system” with a shrug than to try to pick apart the Rosetta Stone of words and code offered.

Sure, with patience and some basic understanding, one can copy down (or pull from a crash dump log) the error, do some Google work, and often find a solution. But come on, how many mere mortals would do that?

Brilliant freeware utility programmer Nir Sofer has just made this process much more delicate and refined.  How easy to get to the bottom of a BSOD you ask? Well, so easy a caveman can…oh…well, you’ve seen the commercials by now.

• BlueScreenView - View blue screen of death (STOP error) information – freeware utility – NirSoft.

BlueScreenView requires no “installation” thus is portable between systems, and it works with Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, “…as long as Windows is configured to save minidump files during BSOD crashes.”  Per Mr. Sofer.

Above: Dump display of a particular crash on my Vista system (BSOD XP Style display in lower pane).

Above: Dump display showing suspected driver causing crash in detail view in lower pane.

BlueScreenView features as described by Nir on the product page are…

• Automatically scans your current minidump folder and displays the list of all crash dumps, including crash dump date/time and crash details.
• Allows you to view a blue screen which is very similar to the one that Windows displayed during the crash.
• BlueScreenView enumerates the memory addresses inside the stack of the crash, and find all drivers/modules that might be involved in the crash.
• BlueScreenView also allows you to work with another instance of Windows, simply by choosing the right minidump folder (In Advanced Options).
• BlueScreenView automatically locate the drivers appeared in the crash dump, and extract their version resource information, including product name, file version, company, and file description.

That 4th one there is really cool.  I actually was running the tool on my VHD booted Win7 system (x64 bit). Unfortunately, the tool doesn’t currently support x64 bit system dumps, but I simply pointed it to the minidump folder on my Vista system (showing in the program’s title bar as on the D: drive (really the C: but as I’m VHD booting, it becomes the "D:”) and it was able to pull up the records just fine.

That’s very important if, say the system does a hard-crash, and you can’t get it up.  Or maybe the system crashed and your significant-other/customer didn’t bother to leave any notes for you and just reset the system leaving you nothing but a scowl and smorgasbord of “it BSOD, Fix it!” on the table before you.

Now you can maybe boot the system with a Win PE disk, with this app unpacked on a USB stick, point it at the minidump folder and retrieve the BSOD history, along with the details.  Save the results in a log file back to the attached USB stick and then do your research and plan your solution-attack. Sweet!

While this information would be very useful to a system admin or desktop support tech, it could also be of use to an forensic examiner as it might provide some clues on the system history or patterns of operating system issues or remnants.

Armed with the information obtained from the BlueScreenView utility, just drop in any any one of these awesome BSOD decoding websites (or Google) and you are good to start the solutioning.

• Troubleshooting Windows STOP Messages - James A. Eshelman

• Understanding and Decoding BSOD (blue screen of death) Messages - Taranfx: Technology Blog

• The ABC of Blue-Screen Dump Analysis - All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Miscellany

Not directly related but seemed better to post here then in the previous Microsoft Linkfest post.

• Two Minute Drill: Debugging – lm, not just Alphabet Neighbors – Ask the Performance Team blog

• Two Minute Drill: Debugging and the k* Commands  – Ask the Performance Team blog

• Converting Perfmon timestamps to a readable format in Excel - the back room tech

Thank you Nir!

--Claus V.

Read More

Windows Linkfest Mowdown

CC photo credit "mower" by todbaker on flickr

More Microsoft bits and pieces…

Upgrading to Windows 7 is as clear as, well…

• What do you get with Windows 7 – DelaneySoft’s Blog – really nice chart that lines up all the included features in each version of Windows 7.  It took me a while to figure out how to see both pages of the chart.  In Firefox I had to enable NoScript to run all the scripts.  Then when I clicked on it it floated above the page and I could select the next page icon at the bottom right corner.  Nice chart just not an intuitive way of launching it.  No real surprises.  The only elements that I don’t find present in Windows Home Premium that are in Windows Ultimate that I will miss are both XP Mode and Boot from VHD.  That last one surprises me.  However, as I was able to use the Windows 7 Ultimate RC bootloader with Vista just fine, I’m hoping that I will be able to swap out the same ones, using the same technique, in Win7 Home Premium.

• Deciphering Windows 7 Upgrades: The Official Chart - Walt Mossberg’s AllThingsD – Bless Mr. Mossberg’s heart. It was in the right place.  The MS chart-designers were just too enthusiastic for everyone’s own good!  It was highly detailed and too confusing.  Just what was wrong with it? Let’s hop next to Betanew’s take.

• Windows 7 Upgrades: Are they going to be too much trouble or just about right? -  Betanews.  Quoting from the post:
  
  ”Out of 66 upgrade scenarios, only 14 allow for "in-place" upgrades. The majority of scenarios require "custom install," which means either installing Windows 7 to a new directory or onto a clean hard drive. While data can be backed up and recovered, applications would need to be reinstalled.”

In our enterprise, we don’t in-place upgrade, we migrate.  That means we copy the user-data to a safe location (server/USB drive), wipe the system, then install a fresh, pre-configured image, and then put the user’s data back in the profile locations.  At home, being a techie, I want a clean-install so I take a similar tack on our systems.  I just don’t like the idea of trying to keep all the apps/data in place and upgrading the whole OS over an existing installation.  However, considering the chart and the options, I’m wondering if more than a few average home users are going to find the upgrade process frustrating or particularly daunting to handle.  Betanews’s article seems to wonder that same thing…

• Microsoft blunders with a confusing Windows 7 upgrade chart - Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report.  Ed Bott redoes the chart into a much more simple to understand version.  Basically, if you are going from XP to Win7, you are facing a custom install.  If you are going from x32 of anything to x64 of any Win7 version you are facing a custom install.  If you are going from Vista to Win7 (same bits) you can pull off some form of in-place upgrade.

• Windows 7 Easy Upgrade Path Truth Table/Chart – Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen – takes a closer but easy-to-understand look at Ed’s own migration table.

• A major Windows 7 upgrade question gets an answer – TechBlog – And Dwight clears up one final question…what about Win7 RC users? The answer: Basically you are facing a “custom-install” like XP users and those going from x32 to x64 bit versions. What does a “custom-install” entail you ask?  Dwight succinctly sums it up thusly:

This is essentially a clean install, but your existing operating system, programs and data are squirreled away in a folder labeled WINDOWS.OLD. You end up with a fresh Windows 7 setup, but you can access that folder to get to any needed data. (Sorry, the programs in there won't work - you'll need to reinstall them.)

So What Am I Facing as an XP User?

Let’s take a look at what an typical (?) XP user will confront when getting ready to upgrade their system to Windows 7

• Step-By-Step: How To "Upgrade" from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen -  Scott has a screen-shot rich walkthrough that covers all the gotcha’s.

1. With XP running, follow Scott’s first section after reading this Microsoft Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 TechNet article.  The trick is to run the Windows Easy Transfer utility buried in the Win 7 setup disk.  Too bad it isn’t included as an option directly off the Windows 7 setup process…
2. Follow the steps, identify an off-system-disk location to back the files up to, then let it run (it took Scott about an hour).
3. When done you get a single “.MIG” (MIGration) file that has all the stuff you are tucking away.
4. Reboot the system with the Win7 disk and follow the setup steps to do a Win7 install.
5. When done, log into the starting account you created and re-run the Windows Easy Transfer utility from the Win7 Start Menu.  Follow the steps and feed it the .MIG file from earlier.
6. When done you will be presented with a list reminding you of software applications you must manually install (if not pre-included in the Win7 install).

So it really isn’t an upgrade but a user-data migration.

• The Complete Guide to Windows Easy Transfer - Channel 9 – If you are a very visual-learner, you can check out this video from Microsoft’s Channel 9 showing you exactly how it works. 

Windows Easy Transfer is the consumer version of the User State Migration Tool (USMT) that Microsoft provides to enterprise users.  It’s heavier duty and much more technically needy.  I actually have a ton of links about USMT that that are in a standby post I hope to get to very soon!

I think the important thing here is that while you are able to (generally) save all your data, documents, pictures, videos, etc. in this manner (assuming they are stored in the expected places) you still aren’t getting your applications transferred over this way. Those must still be reinstalled.

Vista users will have it much easier and could in most cases install Win7 on top of Vista, preserving all their settings and applications in the process.  Though I’d still do a clean-install anyway myself.

• Windows 7 Support, Deployment, Resources – Microsoft TechNet – More technical links and helps for the migration process including the additional links:
  
  • Windows 7 Deployment FAQ
  • Step by Step Windows 7 Migration/Upgrade
  • Step-by-Step: Basic Windows Deployment for IT Professionals
  • Step-by-Step: Basic Windows Migration for IT Professionals
  • Windows Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7 RC
  • Windows 7 Desktop Deployment Overview

For the Technically Impressed…

• HOWTO: Improve Startup & Shutdown Performance on Windows Vista SP1 - Windows Live - Kurt Shintaku's Blog – Probably not recommended but if you are a power-user and/or just desperate to eek out every last millisecond of performance…YMMV.

• HOWTO: Use ALL cores of your multi-core processor during Startup of Windows Vista - Windows Live - Kurt Shintaku's Blog – Again, just because you can…not because you need to...

• Step-By-Step: Turning a Windows 7 DVD or ISO into a Bootable VHD Virtual Machine  – Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen – Use the WAIK 7 to take a Win7 install WIM and turn it into a sysprepped VHD file, ready for mounting and final-pass setup.  Why? Because it’s cool and if you are hard-core into booting from VHD in Windows 7, it will really allow faster turnover as you discard/deploy fresh VHD systems for your testing purposes.

• User Account Control Data Redirection - Windows 7 for Developers – For software developers a great walkthrough and test scenarios of UAC information and workings…also useful to sysadmins trying to better understand now UAC functions.

• Download details: Windows® AIK for Windows® 7 – Now that Win7 is RTM, get the final WAIK 7 set for your PE 3.0 building needs.  Sweet boot-disk building awaits!

Bug? Not so much…

First it was a potential Win 7 RTM blockbusting show-stopper, then it wasn’t, now it’s a yawn.

• Testers claim discovery of serious CHKDSK bug in Windows 7 RTM build | Security News - Betanews.

• Testers claim discovery of serious CHKDSK bug in Windows 7 RTM build | Security News - Betanews.

• A killer Windows 7 bug? Sorry, no | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com.

And then cdman83 points out this "feature” of Win7.  I’ve run into it as well and it is more of an annoyance than anything else.  Why does it have to be so hard to get the correct right-click context menu to appear under Win7?

• Windows 7 UI glitch – Hype-free blog.

And while poking around on Channel 9, I found this neat video that provides background perspectives on the cool Windows 7 backgrounds.

• A Look Behind the Backgrounds of Windows 7 - LarryLarsen | Channel 9

So will that be x32 or x64?

The last item for some consumers/geeks who are upgrading existing systems to Windows 7 will be trying to decide if they will go with the x32 or x64 bit version.  I suppose if your hardware doesn’t support x64-bit processing then the decision is easy.

But for others, it might need some due consideration.

Three of our systems (all laptops) support x64 bit OS.  After installing x64 bit Win7 RC on them all, I have been astonished at the stability and ease of use.  While all of them are pegged at a 2GB system RAM max due to the hardware limitation, in the future, having systems that support more will eventually allow us to run 4GB or greater RAM amounts and access all of it.  Performance is fast, but not really any more so than under x32 bit for now.  As more x64-bit optimized applications are released however, that will certainly change for the better.

So I will be going ahead and installing the x64 bits of Windows 7 when we go with the final versions.

Here are a few more posts from technical bloggers extolling the virtues of x64 Windows 7 installs.

• More Windows 7 RTM impressions, 64-bit edition – TechBlog

• Experiences with Windows Vista 64-bit – 4sysops Blog

• Windows 7: 64-bit or 32-bit? Memory and performance – 4sysops Blog

Claus V.

Read More

Browser Linkfest Blowout

Like there hasn’t been enough web-browser news lately….

• Google Chrome Blog: A New Beta: Why slow down when you can speed up? – Google Chrome Blog – Nice roundup with lots-o-pics of all the newest features to be found in Google Chrome.
• Google Chrome Themes Gallery – I’m liking the “Earthy” theme myself.  How do you install them? It’s a bit confusing (and not clearly documented) but you click the “Apply Theme” button for the one you want and let the “csx” file download to your system.  Then Chrome will find and apply the theme and delete the file.  Worked OK on XP/Vista, though it took just a bit longer to “automagically” apply on the Win7 systems. 
• Google Chrome 3 continues to accelerate even as it adopts themes - Betanews. Accelerate as in rendering speed.
• Rethinking Chrome – TechBlog – Dwight likes it! He really, really likes it!
• Chromium Memory Usage – Chromium Blog – Some technical-level details on how memory is being used and how to better monitor it.

Claus’s thoughts on Chrome/Chromium.  I’ve got Chromium loaded on all my systems and use Dirhael’s (portable) Chromium Nightly Updater to keep my builds of Carsten Knobloch’s portable Chrome packages updated.

I really do like Chrome/Chromium.  It is fast, clean and each tab runs in its own process.  However it doesn’t have the extensibility/Add-ons that I just demand and rely upon daily at work and home with Firefox.  So it continues to be my go-to browser when doing presentations or viewing most on-line media for relaxation due to the simple (non-distracting) interface.  For production work, Firefox still wins hands-down; speed or no-speed.

• Newsfox the Firefox RSS reader I use has received a minor version update to V1.0.5.2.  mozdev.org - newsfox: installation
• Firefox 3.6a1 Released - The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog – I’ve not yet had time to build a “portable/standalone” package of this alpha build.  Maybe I’ll have the chance soon.  The only issues I generally find are breaking of my fav add-ons.  Speed and responsiveness,including startup seem to be the primary focus of this build.
• Sure it’s Fast, But How Does it Handle? – Alex Faaborg’s blog.  Is speed everything in a browser..maybe but possibly not much longer. See also his What’s Next for the Perception of Performance? post.
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3 Beta 3 Released - PortableApps.com.  Lavie and I are still using the public version of Thunderbird 2.x to manage our home/Gmail accounts. 

I’ve not yet bitten the bullet but will likely be migrating our primary email store from the desktop system to my laptop as I rarely go in there to turn it on and pull down all the email locally. (The Valca girls have taken over the study where it is installed and it is becoming the laundry/storage room now…anyway they like my company in the family-room space when I am typing away at the blog.)  I’m considering bumping over to the version 3 build for kicks and grins.  Any GSD readers using it and have any insights or gotcha’s I should consider?

• Opera Desktop Team - Time to try Unite again! – Opera Desktop Team – Tweaks announced to Opera’s Unite product.  I’m still not sure how convinced I am on this “feature” that turns a computer running Opera into both a client and a server to provide content to other systems across the web.  Seems handy for some but a security administration challenge for system admins….  The Valca jury-foreman will be out in deliberations on this one for a while.
• Unite - Opera Unite – The Opera Unite team blog.
• Another day, another snapshot  – Opera Desktop Team – Another Opera 10 beta snapshot. Now adds stability to Unite as well as a Unite-based service called, wait-for-it, “Messenger” so you can chat on Opera with your pals. Other visual features also getting adjusted.

Now I’m not attacking Opera here.  It is a very nice alternative web-browser, behind Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Safari for Windows.  Really.  Very polished and fast in performance.  It’s got it’s own unique interface and lots of positives.  I do install it on most of my systems at home.  That said, I just see it continuing the “more-is-more” value march rather than going back to simplicity.  I wish “Unite” could be unbundled from the main Opera browser (can it?) for those of us who don’t want it. And I wish add-ons were truly integrated like Firefox extensions rather than this “widget” framework that is used.  I' guess I just don’t fully “get” Opera and the browsing experience they are designing for.  Once past those personal feelings, the interface and speed are very, very nice.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

Read More

Mounting VHD files in Windows for fun and exploration

This past week I was able to find a “smidgen” of time at work to apply myself on practicing some system-capture work with a forensic LiveCD.  More on that in a upcoming post.

Once I had my dd image file, I then had a number of Windows tools that allowed me to mount it and access/view it for “examination” practice.  Sure, I know that’s old-hat for your forensics professionals but it is cool and useful even to us system admins.

I routinely acquire and “on-line/off-line” mount ImageX WIM’s and can extract files, modify files in the WIM, and perform other actions.  Sure, because it is a file-based image, it isn’t a forensics level sector-based image but if some WIM’s were captured off a suspect system, these techniques would allow easy review and exploration of the contents.  Standard stuff.

That got me thinking; what options exist for mounting VHD files? 

VHD files can be quite interesting.  Not only do they contain “sector” remnants when items are moved/deleted internally to the VHD, but depending on how the VHD was created, it might even inadvertently have captured unused sector information from the original host physical device it was created on.

Or suppose a target was doing something tricky like dual booting Windows 7 on Vista via VHD file (or on Win7 for that matter).  Or maybe they are particularly geeky and attempting to evade a footprint by Running Windows from a USB flash drive via a VHD file (Hyper-V Server in that case).  Probably not a very common (or easy) thing to do but technically it looks possible.  And Vista/Win7 use the VHD format for “Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore” images; for more info see these Vista and Win7 links.

If the incident responder captured the VHD file either as part of a larger system capture or off a USB drive, they could examine the contents forensically at the sector-level, or they could install Virtual PC/Hyper-V and then try loading/running it there.  But what if they wanted to really explore the “system” or VHD file contents “natively”.

Could it be mounted to a Windows system like we can mount WIM files for examination and review?

It appears so!

The easiest method seems to be to just have a Windows 7 system around handy.  VHD mounting is supported natively in Windows 7 (and Vista with a few tweaks).

• WIM tool enhancements and Fiddling with VHD’s – Grand Stream Dreams Blog

• Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD - Windows 7 Forums

• Mount, attach and create VHD files in Windows Vista and Windows 7 – 4sysops blog

• VHDMount without VHDMount – Dave Northey’s Blog

But maybe you want alternatives?

OK!  Try these on for size.

• Gizmo Drive – freeware – Amazing utility that contains support for Win2K-Win7 builds.  Allows you to mount ISO,BIN, CUE, NRG files to a virtual CD-ROM drive BUT also allows you to mount VHD files as a virtual drive! Also supports mounting of IMG files to a virtual drive.  Supports mount/unmount commands from Windows Shell and command line.  32/64 bits both supported.  A very headache-free solution in a can.

• WinMount – commercial ($) - Mount rar, zip, DVD, CD, HDD images (VHD, VDI, and VMDK) as read-only or writeable mode. 32/64 bit supported.

“What” you say?  You want to do it the hard-way in XP/Vista because you just don’t trust such a simple solution and you don’t have a Windows 7 system laying around your work-bench?

Fine.  Be that way.

Be aware that I’m not responsible for any global-warming, polar ice-shelf melting, or scrambling of your own system if you proceed! M’kay?  (It probably will be ok…)

The final trick involves using a Virtual Server tool called VHDmount to mount the VHD file directly into your host Windows OS.

Because this is some serious voodoo, I’m providing quite a few links to get you the foundational knowledge to strike-out on your own.

• Mounting VHD files with VHDMount - Microsoft Virtual Server – Daniel Petri

• Mounting a Virtual PC disk image with VHDMount in Vista – SharePoint Voodoo Magic blog

• Offline VHD file mounting on the host operating system with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Beta 2 - B# .NET Blog

• Tell me a VHDMount Story (Installing just VHDMount on Windows Vista and then mounting a VHD as a drive letter...) – Greg’s Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

• Server 2008 Hyper-V: Alternative to VHDMOUNT - NetworkWorld.com Community

• VHDMOUNT for Hyper-V - Updated Scripts - Ravikanth Chaganti

• Script Update: Right click to Mount & Dismount Hyper-V VHD - Ravikanth Chaganti

• How to mount a VHD under Vista by double clicking – Clemens Schotte’s Blog

• Windows XP/Vista: How to Attach a VHD File - Tech-Recipes

• Frequently Asked Questions: Virtual Hard Disks in Windows 7 - Microsoft TechNet

Anyone know of any other techniques or utilities to mount a VHD file apart from those mentioned here?

--Claus V.

Read More

Virtual PC and XP Mode Linkage

As is often the case, not only has it been a very busy week at work, but it has been so on the Webs as well.

I’ve ended up crossing paths with a slew of high-interest topics I follow and my to-blog pile is overflowing.

The morning pre-heat yard-work has been completed with Alvis’s assistance. I have cleaned off the dining room table so I can dual-monitor with the laptop in with the girls.

A community college party with friends is on the schedule for this afternoon, followed by a seafood dinner at a local Houston Ship Channel favorite follows with mom and bro.

So many things to play with and explore…so little time….

• Windows XP Mode RC Now Available - Windows 7 Team Blog - “Old” news now in blog-o-sphere terms.  However, if you are running Windows 7 versions a new Windows XP Mode Release Candidate is available along with a new Windows Virtual PC Release Candidate .  There are some new features and requirements.  The newly updated Windows XP Mode now works with the RC and RTM versions of the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise SKUs.  So with the inclusion of “Ultimate” home-users will now have this accessible (if they meet the other stringent hardware requirements). Quoting from the post:

New Features in Windows XP Mode RC

Based on feedback from the Windows XP Mode beta, we’ve made several improvements to the usability of Windows XP Mode for small and medium-sized business users:

• You can now attach USB devices to Windows XP Mode applications directly from the Windows 7 task-bar. This means your USB devices, such as printers and flash drives, are available to applications running in Windows XP Mode, without the need to go into full screen mode.
• You can now access Windows XP Mode applications with a “jump-list”. Right click on the Windows XP Mode applications from the Windows 7 task bar to select and open most recently used files.
• You now have the flexibility of customizing where Windows XP Mode differencing disk files are stored.
• You can now disable drive sharing between Windows XP Mode and Windows 7 if you do not need that feature.
• The initial setup now includes a new user tutorial about how to use Windows XP Mode.

• Windows Virtual PC RC now Available! – Virtual PC Guy blog’s Ben Armstrong expands the list of features even more:

  Granular drive sharing
  In the settings on the virtual machine, you can select specific host computer drives to share with the virtual machine.

  Jump list for virtual applications
  Right clicking on the virtual application icon for Windows XP Mode, on Windows 7 taskbar, displays a jump list that allows one to easily launch virtual applications from the taskbar.

  Faster Windows XP Mode Setup
  Windows XP Mode Setup completes more quickly than in Windows XP Mode Beta.

  Compact differencing disks
  You can compact the differencing disks to decrease the file size.

  Ability to install Windows XP optional components
  Windows XP optional components can be installed in Windows XP Mode RC without prompting for Windows XP media.

  Ability to choose a location to store virtual machine files for Window XP Mode RC
  When you are setting up Windows XP Mode RC, you can choose where to store all virtual machine files for Windows XP Mode RC. The default path is: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines\.

  Option to turn off and discard changes when Undo disk is enabled for a virtual machine
  An additional option is available when you are turning off a virtual machine: Turn off and discard changes. This option will delete the current Undo disk, and turn off the virtual machine.

• Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode release candidates – Mark Wilson’s blog – Mark points out a few more important things I didn’t notice elsewhere.  He says that you cannot upgrade from the XP Mode beta to the XP Mode RC so you will need to do an uninstall of the beta, then do an install of the RC.  Also, Mark makes the following observation which I thought was very interesting.

“Interestingly, Microsoft is now saying you need an additonal 1GB of RAM for XP Mode (2GB recommended). Of course, you don’t need 1GB of RAM in order to run a copy of Windows XP and a virtual machine manager but that tells you what you might want for any level of performance. In addition to the requirement for hardware that offers virtualisation assistance, this is just one more reason why XP Mode is not a solution for clients looking to sweat their existing hardware assets a while longer… this is purely a software sticking plaster for legacy applications.”

• Starting Virtual Machines via Scripting with Windows Virtual PC– Virtual PC Guy – Great tips and techniques for kicking VHD’s off via scripts…because you know you really want to! 

• Windows Virtual PC Executables– Virtual PC Guy – Ben breaks down the different processes that can be observed running in the Task Manager while Virtual PC is executed.   Until you get used to things, this might be a good resource to keep handy.

• Windows Virtual PC + Seamless Applications + Task Bar = Wrong Icons?– Virtual PC Guy Blog – Finally, Ben shares a wonderful taskbar tip that will help clear up the way Windows 7 identifies “seamless”apps running via Virtual PC XP Mode.  Probably not too important for occasional users of XP Mode but hard-core users will likely find it more helpful.

• Windows Virtual PC release candidate – Microsoft Downloads

Overview

Windows Virtual PC (RC) is the latest Microsoft virtualization technology that allows you to run many productivity applications on a virtual Windows environment, with a single click, directly from a Windows 7-based PC.

For more information about Windows Virtual PC, please visit the Windows Virtual PC website.
Windows Virtual PC supports the following Host and Guest Operating systems

• Host: Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise.

• Guest: Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Professional, Windows Vista Enterprise Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista Business Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise.

Note: Virtual application feature not supported on Windows Vista Business Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows 7 Professional SKU's

Note: Upgrade from Windows Virtual PC Beta to Windows Virtual PC RC is not supported. Uninstall Windows Virtual PC Beta and Windows XP Mode Beta, before installing this RC release. Click here for more information.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7

Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise.

Note: Windows Virtual PC Beta requires Windows 7 RC.

• Processor: Processor capable of hardware virtualization, with AMD-V™ or Intel® VT turned on in the BIOS.

• Memory: 2GB of memory recommended.

• Hard disk requirement: 20MB hard disk space for installing Windows Virtual PC. Additional 15GB of hard disk space per virtual Windows environment recommended.

Also released this past week:

• Windows XP SP3 RemoteApp update – Microsoft Downloads.
• Windows Vista SP1 RemoteApp update – Microsoft Downloads.

Both of these packages let you to run many Windows XP/Vista productivity applications from Windows 7-based PC using Windows Virtual PC.  Se the download links above for more details on how to “upgrade/install” these newer versions

So what’s the takeaway?

There is still no news of if/ever XP users will see an updated version of Virtual PC 2007 that packs any of the bells and whistles (primarily for me USB support) that the new Virtual PC release does for Windows 7. (Sigh)

You need to have the System RAM to support your Virtual machines…apparently even more than ever.

You still need to have the hardware-based virtualization support on your system/core(s).  If you don’t got dat, you got nothin’ but plain-vanilla Virtual PC 2007 for now and no XP Mode.

I’ve not had the chance to see if DOS-based applications/OS (DOS 6.22) are supported in this new VPC environment, though I suspect they would work generally OK.  Nor have I had a chance to try to fire up some Linux LiveCD blends in it to see what happens.  I suspect it will remain spotty as it is currently under Virtual PC 2007.

--Claus V.

Read More