Vista

Thanks to Luc notifying us in the original post - you can read about the fix/workaround here.

An official fix for the Family Safety binaries is due in January 2008, but in the meantime, you can download the registry workaround here.

If you are curious what the .REG file does, it is modifying the behavior of the Browser Helper Object's interaction with Explorer.exe.

Read about it here.

A quick run down:
1. Install the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0.
2. In the Start menu, locate the Compatibility Administrator inside the ACT folder. Right-click it and Run as administrator.
3. In the left hand pane, right-click on the database under Custom Databases and select Create New, and select Application Fix.
4. Enter the name of the application you want to alter and browse to it to select it.
5. Click Next until you are in the Compatibility Fixes screen.
6. On the Compatibility Fixes screen, find the item RunAsInvoker, and check it.
7. Click Next and Finish.
8. Select File and Save As. Save the file as appname.sdb in a directory you will easily find it.
9. Copy the appname.sdb file to the Vista computer you want to alter the elevation prompt behavior on.
10. Click Start>All Programs>Accessories. Right click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator.
11. Run the command: sdbinst appname.sdb

It should display: Installation of "appname" complete.

I've updated the XsX Alpha Blended cursor package with my time off for the holidays.
You can grab the updated package here.

The installation procedure is much easier! Just run .EXE and follow the dialog prompts. It asks if you want to install the cursors and if you want to set them as your current mouse scheme. VERY EASY!

Note: You'll want to run the program with Administrative rights or else the install will fail.

Changes

#1. It is no longer a 7-Zip self-extracting .EXE - this was the most problematic aspect of the original version.

#2. Through the magic of IEXPRESS.EXE bundled with XP and Vista, it is a self contained package that asks if you want to install the cursors, and if you want to set them as your current mouse scheme.

#3. I didn't include the normal cursors this time around. I am mainly testing this new deployment method. I am leaving the old .ZIP file around for those that want it. I do know there is one cursor missing for the normal cursors, but that was missing in the original package from 2001. If someone can create a replacement, I'll include it in the next version and give them credit.

Known issues

#1. Not an .MSI package. I have a 99% working .MSI package but the last 1% is a release blocker.

#2. If you run the .EXE, tell it to install, and the cursors are already installed on your PC, Windows will ask if you want to overwrite the cursors. I'm not too worried about that.

#3. No automated uninstall. The unreleased .MSI package has an uninstall routine. It is pretty easy to add uninstall entries for the current .INF/.EXE installation/uninstallation method.

Future plans

#1. Finish/fix the .MSI package so that it installs and uninstalls correctly.
#2. Create an uninstall routine for the .INF/.EXE version.
#3. Create a stub .EXE that calls SystemParametersInfo SPI_SETCURSORS to remove the AutoHotKey dependency.
#4. Include smaller versions of the icons for low resolution monitors.
#5. Include the shadow-enabled cursors if they let me.

Resources used to create this release

AutoHotKey
Portions of Farhan Ahmad's excellent AHK script
Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK)

For those wondering what I am talking about overall, see my previous entry here.

This was a strange one that I had forgotten about. Even though Vista ships with DirectX 10, it doesn't contain the DirectX 9 updates that have been released in the past year or so. This makes sense if you think about it, because Vista RTM'd in November 2006. It is almost 2008 now.

I was reminded of this fact when I tried to run a DirectX 9 screensaver that needed d3dx9_30.dll to run properly.

There is a lot of bad advice out there on how to fix this problem, but the best and easiest advice I can give anyone facing this problem is to download the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. This package is typically updated whenever the DirectX 9 and 10 SDKs are updated.

The installer figures out what parts are missing on your system and only downloads the packages needed.

If you need an offline installer with all the packages included, which is very handy for systems without an internet connection, go here.

Coworker Pat Simpson was having trouble installing the latest RC of the Vista SP1 update. I was a bit stumped on why it was failing on Stage 3, but he ended up finding the solution before I was able to dig into the problem!

Check out the post here by Gary Bouchard for a nice way to reset your registry permissions to their default values.

It solved the problem for him, and I'd only advise trying this if you are experiencing problems. Most installations will install error free without resorting to this.

If you are seeing, "Windows could not start the Windows Event Log service on Local Computer." and/or "Error 4201: The instance name passed was not recognized as valid by a WMI data provider.", give the fix a try.

A short rundown of the procedure (in case that thread goes away):

1. Make a backup of your registry.
2. Download and install subinacl.exe.
3. Copy the text below into a text file called reset.cmd and run reset.cmd with administrative rights (it may take a LONG time):

cd /d "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

4. Reboot and check to see if the errors go away. Attempt installing Vista SP1 again.

This might not only fix Vista SP1 problems, but any other problem related to corrupt registry permissions. It isn't necessarily Vista specific either.

If you want to download a premade reset.cmd, right click and 'Save as' the file here.

I've been doing more BDD/Microsoft Deployment work lately with various DDPS engagements and there are two fairly well known bugs in the current Microsoft Deployment toolkit that are easily fixed, but becomes tedious to fix on every install.

Rather than editing three scripts every time I install Microsoft Deployment, I've created this ZIP file that you can extract into "C:\Program Files" or wherever you have installed the Microsoft Deployment package. You should be asked to overwrite three files when extracting, and you should say "Yes". The original files are renamed with ".orig" at the end if you want to compare the before and after.

If you are not asked to overwrite files, you are probably extracting the ZIP file into the wrong location.

Update - 12-17-2007: I've updated the ZIP file to include the third fix mentioned here.

First off, this product has one of the longest names of any Live product, if not the longest name: Family Safety from Windows Live OneCare but has one of the shortest website addresses: http://fss.live.com

With that said, it is actually a really nice program but recently I have witnessed crash problems with Explorer.exe under Windows XP or Vista. I haven't had a chance to attach windbg.exe to an ailing install. I have however posted "Me too" posts to the team's blog and Connect site for this issue.

I originally had run into this issue with one of my XP SP3 beta VMs and at the time wrote it off as a fluke of the VM because it has had so many things installed and uninstalled from it in the past year. Once you uninstall Family Safety, Explorer.exe no longer crashes. Install Family Safety again, and the crashes return.

I was reminded of this problem when my boss ran into the same issue on his home machine recently. I suspect only the very latest version has the crashing problem, but I no longer have copies of the earlier builds.

To get to the point of this post, please post a comment here if you are experiencing crashing problems under XP or Vista with FSS installed. I'm trying to gather a pool of data to send over to the product team. I'm hoping it is a quick and easy fix.

Update: There are a few other people reporting the same problem here on the FSS team's blog. Please let them know too!

Update 2: Thanks to the comment left here by Luc - the update/fix for this is located here!

As time goes on, this will be the place to see what KB articles, hotfixes, and security updates are included in Vista Service Pack 1.

It is current up to Release Candidate 1 as of today. I highly recommend Service Pack 1 for anyone running Vista.

This is a preview release apparently but goes to show what you can do with the new graphical goodies in the .NET Framework and Aero. It seems to be a bit buggy at the moment but shows a lot of promise.

Note to Windows Live Messenger developers: It would be cool to see some of this in WLM 9.0 or WLM 9.5.

These guides will assist IT Professionals in evaluating and deploying Windows Vista SP1 and are downloadable versions of the SP1 guides found in the Windows Vista Technical Library.

Available guides
Overview of Windows Vista SP1
Notable Changes in Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate
Hotfixes and Security Updates in Windows Vista SP1
Deployment Guide for the RC1 Version of Windows Vista SP1
Enterprise Guidance for Application Compatibility Testing and Windows Vista SP1

Grab them here.

A nice step by step write up, based off Paul's excellent post here, by the infamous Matt Wade can be found on his site here.

Not only does he describe how to move the WinSXS directory, but also the SoftwareDistribution directory, which is used by Windows Update. Both of these directories tend to balloon in size over time, which can be a problem for smaller C: partitions from upgraded Windows XP installations.

True - it is always better to do a fresh install but I know a lot of people still do in-place upgrades when in a hurry or can't do a native install for some reason.

Just because it might not be a best practice doesn't mean it doesn't happen in the real world - I have seen some insane installs in my day. Some of my greatest home experiments have been the cause and result of these endeavors.

Quick example: At one point, on a box at home, I ran out of space to do a new beta build upgrade of Vista on a 9GB hard drive, so I booted off another OS on a different drive and made junction points for "C:\Program Files" on the 9GB drive to a different 9GB hard drive. It worked, but it was a horrible hack. This is a bit more elegant.

The day my house has a dedicated SAN is the day when I know I've gone too far. Although, I do have a gigabit switch and iSCSI is very affordable these days. You never know.

As you can see from this post here, you can get Vista onto a stock ASUS EEE PC if you try hard enough. I wish 32GB solid state hard drives were cheaper because this would make a perfect little networking nomad laptop if the "hard drive" was bigger.

I know they are coming out with an 8GB version of the ASUS, and I have to admit, if I had a legitimate reason for picking one up, I would in a heartbeat.

Excuse me while I go back to hacking up lung butter... not a pretty sight. I hate being sick. I get cabin fever.