Windows OS

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_RC_1_Hardware_Compatibility_List

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

Also, if you want halfway decent Java support, you will want to go the Early Access section of Sun's site for the newer Java 6 JRE - http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/ea.jsp

A 21MB download. Do not try to install older versions - they won't work.

http://www.diskeeper.com/trialware/diskeeper/vistadownload.asp

HTTPDisk lets you mount your ISOs located on a webserver as a local drive under Windows. I'm not sure how fast the performance is yet, but it is a very cool concept.

This little device driver/IFS is from the same guy who wrote FileDisk, which gives you Daemon Tools-ish support in a tiny package. Another cool IFS on the same page is the swapfs driver which lets you use Linux swap partitions as Windows swap drives without much hassle.

Homepage of HTTPDisk and other drivers

I haven't seen it written about much but I've seen it on a few machines running Windows XP SP2. The most annoying part is that it affects my laptop quite a bit during the boot process. Anything network related will hang until RasMan finally launches, which typically will be 5 minutes after the system has booted and the desktop has been painted.

Once the service 'unsticks', everything works normally. I've tried to narrow down the causes but I haven't found anything telltale yet. Just curious if anyone else has had the same type of problem out there in the wild.

For now I've disabled the service because, for the most part, I'd rather have a working machine than the ability to dial out on a VPN connection.

I've always loved the Pentium M chip. It is a supercharged P3 core with bits of P4 sprinkled and retrofitted on top. Of course that is an overgeneralized overview, but considering the P4 was designed around RAMBUS and the P3 had trouble clocking above 1.2 Ghz, the Pentium M is quite a little wonderchip. People always wondered why I avoided the P4-M chips like the plague until they saw the battery life, performance and lack of burnt pants from the Centrino laptops.

Anyway, I've been following a very cool program that used to be called Centrino Hardware Control, but has branched out into more of an overall notebook performance package. My favorite feature overall is the ability to tune the voltages of the Pentium M chip based on what multiplier you have set.

Most people wouldn't care about this, but considering that I can tune down my 2Ghz Pentium M from 1.34V to 0.9V and have a rock solid machine is a great example of the yield Intel has developed with these chips. I know this isn't typical results overall, since this seems to be a special chip overall, but it definitely extends battery life nicely.

The program is also a good example of a .NET 2.0 application that doesn't work and feel like a "clunky" .NET program. I highly recommend it.

You can grab it from here.

One strange thing I have noticed is that if the CPU is running at 1.93 Ghz, it will interfere with CDMA data transfers and cell phone reception. At first I thought it was a fluke, but everytime the laptop is running at 'full blast' at or around 1.9 or 2.0 Ghz, which is near/within the PCM freq. range, cell phone data transfers will start dropping packets.

The HP laptop seems to have enough shielding on it, so it is a bit puzzling but it happens every time.

I'm still tweaking the 20x multiplier voltage settings. It seems a bit crashy around 1.1 volts and is very stable at 1.2 volts. I suspect there is a sweet spot somewhere in between. I'm just impressed that some of the nearby multipliers can go so low, voltagewise, without any problems.

Apparently there is a bug in the MSGINA.SYS of Windows 2003 SP1 that will cause it to trim the working pages of Console 0 applications, which typically are system services, which can be a bad thing if you are running Exchange or SQL or anything else memory intensive.

Thankfully if your swapfile is getting saturated and/or running out of space, you can request this hotfix. I stumbled upon this KB due to the updated definitions in Exchange Best Practices. Another nice addition is that ExBPA can now scan to see if your systems are ready for Exchange 2007.

Plus, I just like using the term "SWAP FRENZY!"

Microsoft KB 905865

This is assuming that you are already running the current version of WSUS. If you're not running WSUS with a company or private network of more than 10 computers, you really should consider it, especially if your bandwidth (personal or data) is already saturated.

#1. Easy to use cleanup of expired and/or superceded patches and removal of "stale" computers.

#2. Rule-based auto"magic" approval or disapproval based on settings you want. The best program feature to compare it to is the rule builder section of Outlook 98/200[0|3|7].

#3. Native and improved support for SQL 2005 / SQL 2005 Express. Mass changes in approvals/disapprovals run much faster, especially compared with the first release of WSUS or SUS.

#4. Migration of the administration page from a web page to a MMC snap-in. This really exploits the new features of MMC 3.0 nicely. It is a good example of what you can build, application interface-wise, with the added features of MMC 3.0. The bundled administration tools in Windows 2003 R2 were just the tip of the iceburg for MMC 3.0.

#5. Configurable e-mail notification of new patches, sync logs, and overall "health" status of all the systems that feed off the WSUS server.

This is all my humble opinion of course, but it should be yours too.

Internet Explorer needs to be patched, again.

Unregister a few DLLs for safety sake until real fix comes out

I didn't think it was possible, previously, but apparently it is. I won't cut and paste here because I'd rather send you to the source.

A great Microsoft blog writeup on it

I updated the Windows Desktop Search engine on my XP laptop before I applied the Office 2007 Technical Refresh. I thought it might have been a bit of a fluke but the related cached mode crashes seemed to disappear once I had upgraded the engine.

I think you are required to install the new build with the technical refresh of Office 2007 Beta 2, so it is a good idea to grab KB 917013 if you are going to run Outlook/Office 2007 on an XP machine. The engine is already built into Vista.

This would also explain why Outlook 2007 Beta 2 would crash under XP with cached mode enabled and wouldn't crash with Vista because the desktop search engine in the versions of Vista I ran were already many builds ahead of the technology preview for XP.

Case closed, I suspect.

I only have a few systems fired up today but this still works as a good example of LLTD maps in Vista.

"Methusela" is my primary workstation, running Vista RC1. I've ditched XP on it long ago.

"Jukejoint" is my Thinkpad 240, , which was originally used as a jukebox, running XP SP2 with the LLTD add-on.

"Amazon" is my wife's machine that I leave alone. If LLTD was installed on it, her machine would show up "next" to mine because they are behind the same gigabit switch.

If the DD-WRT-ized Linksys WRT54GS had support, it would show up as the switch right above "Jukejoint", because both are on the opposite side of the house where the cell signal strength is stronger. I also use the WRT54GS to scare and confuse wardrivers in the area. Every house needs a honeypot, right?

Not shown is "Ghetto Frankenstein", my Apple G3 beige box that was hacked up to support a G4 chip. It is/was the current jukebox of the house but is currently in storage. There are also a few Digital Multias, printers, workstations and laptops in storage that will need a new home at some point.

A few people have asked what LLTD is all about, and since I am just learning about it myself overall, I've collected a few web links that explain it better than I can. It looks like some consumer grade and commercial grade networking products are starting to support the specification.

Vista and Longhorn will have support for it built-in, out of the box, and XP will have a downloadable add-on - most likely eventually hosted as a Knowledgebase article or optional Windows Update item.

Here are the links, any of the files with a file extension of .ppt will need PowerPoint:
The official IEEE specification for LLTD
Microsoft's WinHEC 2005 PowerPoint presentation
Another Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
Microsoft's website dedicated to LLTD

Interesting but true, but not unexpected, due to how LLTD interfaces with the networking stack. I'm actually very impressed with how accurate the map becomes once most of your machines on your network have LLTD support. It correctly identified that there are two switches between my main workstation and the internet gateway device.

Strangely enough, the gateway device is a half-broken IBM Thinkpad 240. I love that laptop to death due to the small form factor but the LCD screen has issues due to loose connections and/or broken traces on the motherboard. I could probably easily fix it but I haven't had the time or energy to look into it. Life has been too crazy lately.

I keep getting "USB_DRIVER_BUGCHECK" crashes on shutdown of the Vista VM and sometimes during normal operation.

Of course, the easiest way to fix this is to remove the USB driver from the virtual machine. I shouldn't complain because it is beta support and VM Server 1.0.1 is free, but it is worth noting at least. I'm sure others have ran into this.

I haven't tried it on my workstation at home or on an ESX server, so for right now, it has only shown up on my HP laptop, which has the Intel 82855PM chipset/82801DBM USB chipset. I suspect it would/will happen on other platforms though too.

XP SP2 is the host operating system on the laptop, with a Pentium M CPU.

Nice - basically type in the server name and it autolaunches MSTSC

Download from here:

http://gallery.microsoft.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c7f9c661-ed0b-44e9-b69c-c068c52110ab&l=1

As seen here:

http://blogs.technet.com/james/archive/2006/09/12/455586.aspx