Fixing Problems in an I.T World.. With A Hammer and Sticky Tape..
October 2006 - Posts
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Windows Media Player 11 has been released. I thought I would post some links up to get you pointed in the right direction. Windows Media Player 11 works with all versions of Windows XP.
Media Player 11 FAQ Page - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/faq/default.mspx
Media Player 11 Download Page - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/download/download.aspx
Also, if you have a Creative Zen device, READ THIS FIRST!!!
Issues updating firmware on Creative ZEN portable devices after installing Windows Media Player 11
If you have a Creative ZEN device, make sure the device has the latest firmware before you install Windows Media Player 11. To download the latest firmware, go to Creative Worldwide.
If you try to upgrade the firmware on your Creative ZEN after you install Windows Media Player 11, the Creative firmware upgrade software might not recognize your device.
In this case, remove Windows Media Player 11, update the Creative firmware, and then reinstall Windows Media Player 11. Creative plans to address this issue in future firmware updates.
For information about removing Windows Media Player 11, see Rolling back to a previous version of the Player.
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Ive had a busy one. Been tidying up around the place (mostly in my office at home and the garage, which I guess is also my messy domain). Done a bit more reading on Altiris SVS and ESX server as well. Went to a blessing ceremony on Saturday with some good friends of ours, following by a chinese banquet. Ive also been to a birthday, anniversary, retirement party this weekend as well. Its 940pm Sunday night here. Just watching the end of Castaway on BBC Three, waiting for Episode 3 of Torchwood to start. Cant say Im looking forward to that Monday morning feeling, but another week starts, which is another week closer to the arrival of out first baby. Due date is the 19th November, so time is ticking around. Cant wait, just cant help clock watching the hours go by until he\she arrives!
Hope everyone has a good week, and good blogging to all.
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http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/oct06/10-20officeroundtable.mspx
This is something I had missed on my radar. First I have heard of it. Sounds like a smart all in one solution, but I guess only time will tell.
"RoundTable is a table-top device, not much bigger than a traditional speaker phone at the base. It can be connected to a standard PC to offer synchronized voice and video conferencing. The device creates a 360-degree, panoramic video of side-by-side images of everyone who is taking part in the conference. It tracks the flow of the conversation, so the image and voice of the person who is speaking are spotlighted. People across many locations can attend meetings together virtually.
RoundTable works with Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Live Meeting, allowing companies to integrate virtual presentations, shared whiteboards and file sharing into their audio/video conferences. If someone misses a conference call, the RoundTable sessions can be recorded and viewed later."
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I just pinged this by someone in the office
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cSRpu7bI04
That dog is nuts man! There is NO way I would have that in my house.. scary stuff.. I wonder if it goes pyscho for peoples legs and not just its own? That is one mean, poodle eater of a dog :-)
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Just a heads-up for anyone out there in the same situation to myself...Part of the unattended build that I designed checks for the manufacturer in the BIOS to determine if it needs to carry out certain actions. Anyways, the old build checked if the manufacturer was IBM... well.. I can tell you that as of the T60\X60 models that I have here(and I am guessing other models of thinkcentre and thinkpad i guess) that this has now changed to LENOVO (all in uppercase).
Just in case anyone wants to check , save the code below in to a VBS file and just run it on the system, it will tell you what you need to know :-) The code will run on any manufacturer's piece of kit, although whether they have populated the relevant smbios area's who knows..
'Code starts here
strComputer = "."
Set WshHandle = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colComputerSystems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_ComputerSystem")
For Each objComputerSystem in colComputerSystems
strManufacturer = objComputerSystem.Manufacturer
strModelA = objComputerSystem.Model
Next
Wscript.echo "Manufacturer: " & strManufacturer & VBCRLF & "Model: " & strModelA
' Code ends here.
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*sigh*.. another day that I wake up and its raining.. man.. I have the weather in the UK at times, and this time of the year its all rain, storms and cold weather. Although the recent heatwave was a welcome break(at least for the first few weeks of it..) I would love just another week of pure sun and warmth.. Maybe I need to book another holiday, somewhere hot.. Although I cant see that happening with the baby on the way!
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Is anyone using Softricity with SMS yet?
http://www.softricity.com/products/softgrid-sms.asp
Last year the company I work for, went through a major change in its environment (new infrastructure, servers, clients, processes etc). Part of the change was a project, created to deal with our applicaton portolio. The project was raised to consider consolidation and repackaging of all our applications. The portfolio was approx 1300+ applications, as you can see, a nightmare. The project decided to employ a 3rd party company to assist in repackaging and UAT of applications. Prior to this the project looked at alternatives to MSI creation. one of which was the use os softricity product offerings. If you havent seen Softricity Softgrid at work (now owned by Microsoft) you should have a look. The applicaiton is packaged using a custom tool and then can be delivered to the user via deployment or a streaming method. The application if streamed is delivered in parts when required by the client. For example, Microsoft Word 2003 is streamed to a client when required. The initial download of files to the client is small (under 1mb). When you actually open the application and then run across the menus, toolbars, launch the spell checker for example, the required parts that are not present on the machine are streamed and cached to the client. This is very clever, and you CANNOT see any lag in the application. So, if you only use 5% of the functions available to you in Word2003, you will have a very small footprint for Word on your desktop. Can you see the benefit yet? Now this all looked very impressive last year. Now Microsoft have bought Softricity, they are providing a connector between the virtual technology and SMS.. so you can deliver your virtual apps with SMS, including streaming them. It looks very good and I can see the benefit. Unfortunately for me, my current employer wont be pushing any dollars across the table to look at this properly. So.. I was wondering if anyone had experience of this yet? Anyone used it, or seen a proper demo with SMS2003 being used as well for the delivery method? Is anyone in a position to do a demo blogcast on this at all? It would be great to see it working.
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Wow.. I dont post for ages as I never seem to have time, and then when I do get time, I have so much to say and post.. hopefuly some of it useful? :-)
I might have to stop soon.. my fingers are starting to get sore.. I'll tell you what though, if I could dictate and get my spoken words typed up automatically for me.. hmm..... the mind boggles...
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Nvidia have released their latest drivers for Vista RC2 for their range of Forceware cards. I had problems with RC2 crashing and lots of BSOD when I tried it last, and (for the life of me I cannot remember why I came to this conclusion) I concluded it was to do with the graphics drivers. Well, the PC has an Nvidia card so I might download, reinstall RC2 and give it a go with the new drivers. Hopefully I will have time in the next few days. If\when I get round to it I will post my results.
Here is the link to the driver: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897613
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I was wondering if anyone had officially seen anything from Microsoft regarding support for virtualised servers and services. We run virtualised Microsoft servers (file and print services for example) on an ESX platform. We havent had problems doing so, and I was just wondering if anyone else does, and whether they have gotten in to a situation where Microsoft have said they wont support them.. I found this KB on support and all it references is Virtual Server. Does anyone have any views\opinions\knowledge on this at all?
Microsoft Virtual Support KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897613
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Any of you using the built in wireless functionality in vista at all? I have an intel based builtin wireless NIC in my laptop and Vista looks after it so well its a dream. I used to hate the Windows XP wireless support and never relied on it. I always used a 3rd party manager, for instance, on the Thinkpad laptops, I used Access Connections to manage my wireless configuration and connections. Vista has really impressed me though (RC1 that is.. RC2 kept bluescreening, didnt even get to try the RC2 wireless support). The drivers come for the NIC straight out of the box. I configured the connection and got connected straight away. And the connectivity to my Access Point when Vista loads is established so quickly that I can surf and mail immediately when the GUI has loaded. Also, wireless speeds seem to be quicker to me.. has anyone else found that? If it is this good in the beta, it has to be at least this good if not better with the RTM releases.
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At the moment we have a call logged and open with MS regarding some very funky SMS2003 woes that we are experiencing.. woes as in turning of patching in the Enterprise.. I thought we werent getting to far with it, but then having read the following article I had to laugh.. If MS can fail that badly internally then please.. help us, because we are in serious trouble! The article does raise an interesting point though at the end in that how many users dont patch as they dont want to deal with the problems that may come of it afterwards, and then the problems of trying to obtain support form Microsoft. I cant say I have ever avoided a patch (I might wait and let other peoples machines bluescreen first) but it would be very interesting if we could get some kind of survey just to find out how many people would rather take risk through known vulnerabilities over the risk of patching your machine and bluescreening it!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/24/ms_hot-fix_hell/
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I have been using the screenselect service for a while now and have found it excellent. Its a shame that they have gone (financial problems I believe). They have been taken over by lovefilm (www.lovefilm.com) - good news is the service seems quicker on the turnaround of recieving and dispatching new titles to me. With the baby well on the way, Im going to have plenty of sleepless nights, and now plenty of good films to watch as well!! :-)
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I do like Nero and I use it at home for copying music and dvds and all the homely things we all want to do. However, at work, I have been using Nero as I need to frequently burn ISO files to CD (mostly downloaded from MSDN and Licensing subscription sites). However, whilst trawling the internet the other day looking for something I stumbled over a free addon to the Windows builtin CD Burning functionality that gives you the ability to burn ISO files natively in Windows!! :-) And.. yes.. you are reading this right.. in Vista you can natively burn to DVD's as well!! The program is called ISO Recorder. Maybe old news to some of you, but I though this deserved a mention. I have found it so useful and I dont neen to use Nero anymore :-)
"ISO Recorder is a tool (power toy) for Windows XP, 2003 and now Windows Vista, that allows (depending on the Windows version) to burn CD and DVD images (DVD support is only available on Windows Vista), copy disks, make images of the existing data CDs and DVDs and create ISO images from a content of a disk folder"
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
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Windows Live Gallery is your one-stop shop for all the great Gadgets, add-ins, and extensions to customize and personalize Windows Live products and services, and Windows Sidebar.
http://microsoftgadgets.com/
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So, I have IE7 loaded on my Windows XP desktop, and IE7 included on my notebook running RC1 Vista (didnt like Rc2... it died and blue screened a LOT)..
I have seen some postings about IE7 and Autodesk product problems (see here - http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39163484,00.htm) but I was wondering if anyone had seen this problem at all.
On the desktop (XP with IE7) webmail (OWA) presented from an Exchange 2003 SP2 box running on W2k3 with latest SP and patches works fine. On the Vista laptop, it presents itself ok, until you try to create a new email. A new window opens as it should but the window is completely blank, no toolbars, no buttons, no nothing.
Anyone else seen this and know what the fix is at all? It has to do with IE7 on Vista..
oh.. not that this really helps, but we use a system called JDE to enter timesheets (web based app).. same problems there as well :-(
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I have to say that I was a big fan of firefox mainly due to the tabbed browsing, but since Microsoft have released IE7, which also features this functionality, I have shifted allegience back to the MS browser (even if it has security flaws from day one.. but that adds the excitement does it?). So the new version of firefox has anti-phishing built in as well.. but so has IE7. So what attracts people to Firefox still (except for the fact that it isnt a MS product?)
Quote" Many users also create add-ons for the browser which add all kinds of functions that people see a need for. There were now more than 1,900 add-ons for Firefox, said Mr Schroepfer, which made it possible to keep the core software slim."
I wonder how many are really useful add-ons though?
New Firefox Browser Released - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6078016.stm
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Im just putting together a new build on some Lenovo Thinkpad T60 and X60 units. I have to say that the thinkpads are really smart bits of kit.
I am mainly working on the T60 at the moment. Drivers etc are basically shared between the devices, so I am adding in what is needed to ensure our single laptop image that already supports the T43 and X32 laptops works ok. The particular thinkpad sku we are looking at buying is the one below, but with 1GB of RAM as standard. They are really great and I was wondering if anyone else reading this had had experience good or bad on the T43\X32 platforms or if anyone else was buying any of the new models as well?
Here is the model we are looking at - http://www5.pc.ibm.com/uk/products.nsf/$wwwPartNumLookup/_UT0FSUK?OpenDocument
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Hmm.. so anyways, im helping a mate out tonight, by loading some software on to a laptop for him, a brand new shiny Lenovo notebook. I have to say that it is really nice. I have a T43 myself which I use for work, but this new notebook really is the business..until you come to patching it.. the image the guys used on this NEW notebook (hasnt been out that long) was so out of date it was a joke. Loads of critical MS updates were outstanding. So I hooked it up to my mates domain and watched as WSUS picked it up and then started to patch the.. the.. huh? uh.. why arent you patching? What error in the WindowsUpdate.Log file... FFS.. come on.. give me a break.. its 830pm here and I want dinner :-(
Anyway, after I had bounced it off the wall out of frustration for a while, I had a look in to the problem. And you know what it was..Windows Installer 3.1 wasnt installed on the notebook. A simple fix, I downloaded and installed it and now WSUS is doing its thing, Im flicking over the chinese menu trying to work out which chowmein to have and all is good in the world again.. Only question I have:- if the notebook was only release a few months ago.. how on earth can they NOT include the Windows Installer 3.1 in their base image. It was released in April 2005 FFS.. I mean come on.. quality notebook manufacturer or not, that is slack. I wish manufacturer's would actually think about updating their image a bit more often. I mean, they had to do a whole new factory image for the Z series notebooks, so why not actually update them all with the applicable Windows Security updates hey? Rather than selling us Security Vulnerable Equipment?? If anyone from Lenovo would like to answer this question be my guest..
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