Windows OS

I've gathered up a collection of archived Microsoft Vista Springboard recordings for easy download and off-line viewing.

Windows Springboard Series - Virtual Roundtable: Vista Performance
I helped with this one at Microsoft Studios.

View Keith Comb's Silverlight streaming version here.

Download the non-streaming version (~400MB .WMV download for 60 minutes of A/V!) - Right click and Save As the link here. (courtesy of Keith Combs and Silverlight)

If you want to stay updated on the Virtual Roundtable series, go here.

Windows Springboard Series: Microsoft User State Virtualization
Jason Leznek, Senior Product Manager in the Windows Client division, discusses User Roaming Profiles and Folder Redirection in Windows, highlighting the differences between Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Windows Springboard Series: Windows Vista Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
Fei Lu describes the Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology in Windows Vista, and scenarios where organizations can take advantage of the flexibility this technology offers.

Windows Springboard Series: AppV™ Application Virtualization
Karri Alexion-Tiernan, Director in the Windows Client division, unveils the latest version of this technology for virtualizing applications to reduce application-to-application conflicts and improve manageability.

Windows Speech Recognition Macros extends the speech recognition capabilities in Windows Vista. Users can create powerful macros that are triggered by voice command to interact with applications.

The Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool – or WSR Macros for short – extends the usefulness of the speech recognition capabilities in Windows Vista. Users can create powerful macros that are triggered by spoken commands which can perform a series of tasks from as simple as inserting your mailing address to as complex as providing a completely different speech interaction with applications.

While we have tried to make it easy to use, this release of WSR Macros is a technical preview of technology we are planning to release in the future. Not all the features we have planned are included, and some are incomplete. Users are cautioned to treat this release as “pre-beta.” While creating simple macros is very straightforward, the creation and editing of more complex macro files is best suited for advanced users. We welcome your feedback on how we can improve WSR Macros to best suit your needs.

Download here.

This wasn't obvious to me originally and I have heard many people complain about the amount of screen real estate taken up by the "What's New?" banner on the bottom of WLM 2009 (Wave 3).

If you go under Tools->Options->Layout, you will see an option to "Show the what's new list" which you can uncheck.

An extension called ".NET Framework Assistant" is installed for Firefox 3.x when you install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. If you comb through some of the .NET 3.5 SP1 release notes, it is very briefly mentioned as adding ClickOnce support into your browser.

On the downside, the .NET 3.5 SP1 installer doesn't really come out and ask for permission to do so, and also seems to gray out the Uninstall button.


It also adds .NET user agent strings to your Firefox user agent string.


You can enable and disable ClickOnce support and how many versions of .NET the browser reports to web servers.


If you want to completely kill the extension, with Firefox closed, delete the folder %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension, and delete the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions\{20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}\.

I try to keep my Firefox profile as lean as possible, and I am not aware of many ClickOnce applications on the web yet, so I'm not really missing out on much by removing this for now.

Registry location found from a post here.

It doesn't have all the usual goodies, due to anti-tampering mechanisms built into the new Messenger.

The options available for use with this version include:

1. Remove advertisement, nudge delay and shake, featured content
2. Accept more than 3 files transfers at a time
3. Disable Windows Live Spaces Contact Card Integration
4. Polygamy (use multiple instances of WLM)

The only annoying aspect I find with the new Wave 3 beta is the screen real estate taken up by the bottom status updates and the fact that you cannot turn them off. It wastes a lot of screen real estate. The default blue on white text is also annoying but can be easily worked around.

Even though the WLM beta looks like it might be using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) like the Yahoo Messenger beta, it isn't!

You can download the A-Patch for WLM (various editions) here.

This seems to be a hot topic because of the lack of description provided by the Live installation program.

To quote Len, one of the Windows Live MS employees:
Choice Guard is a piece of code that is responsible for setting the users homepage and search default if they chose those options during setup. Typically, this is a simple task of writing a value into a registry key.

However, several of our competitors install a "service" that is always running on your machine that prevents the registry key from being changed, even if that is what the user decided to do. So Choice Guard looks for the presence of those apps that might be preventing the user's choice from being carried out and works around their block to set the search default.

It only does this one time. If the user attempts to change it again, either manually or programmatically, they are free to do so. It turns out that in order to set the search default and homepage on the Firefox browser you need to install yourself as an add-on, which is why Choice Guard is appearing in the list.

In case anyone is wondering, Sean is a real, live PM working on IPv6 just like he says.

From: Sean Siler [mailto:sean@windows.com]
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 7:38 PM
To: Aaron Tiensivu
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Test message from commercial

Hello! I’m a PC – and I can’t answer your email right now. I’d like to say that I’m out climbing Mt. Rainier or biking across Europe with the Swedish Beach Volleyball Team, but in fact I’m probably just chained to a desk somewhere in the depths of Redmond pounding out product specifications.

Now that I have been in a commercial, Microsoft has given me access to super-secret “BillyG” level of executive resources. That’s right – I have my own email auto-responder!

This, as you have probably surmised, is my pre-prepared auto-response (All natural, no filler. No animals were harmed in the making of this response. Except for a ferret.) I really would like to have answered you myself, but if I did, (a) I’d probably get no work done, and (b) then I’d get fired, and (c) then I’d have no chance of doing any more of those really awesome commercials.

So let me try to prognosticate a few of your questions and answer a few of them.

Why did they put you on TV?
I think it’s my devastating good-looks and animal magnetism. No, really – there’s a ferret stuck to my leg right now.

But really – you aren’t even an actor!
No I’m not. But I play one on TV. I really am a Microsoft Program Manager. I work on IPv6, and other things that you haven’t heard of.

How did you get selected?
I auditioned along with a couple of hundred others. I guess I looked very Engineery. And the ferret probably helped.

Are you interested in more acting?
Oh no, I think that Engineering is MUCH more fun.

What’s with Windows Vista?
You’ve been watching those commercials again, haven’t you? Windows Vista rocks. Listen to real users, not actors.

-The Real PC, Sean Siler

In another frustrating move by a unified setup program, which I disagree with for the most part, the new Windows Live Wave 3 setup program will not allow installation on Server 2008 x64, even though it is technically running the same kernel as Vista SP1.

Not only can you not uncompress the ~140MB WLSetup-All.exe into individual .MSI files, which would be ideal, the web downloader, WLSetup-Web.exe, will not download the individual files on an unsupported OS.

I have, however, been able to install every single piece of Wave 3 on my x64 OS except the Family Safety product, which is strictly x86 only.

Unfortunately, this requires a supported OS, which in my case, was an XP VM. If you install all of the applications on a supported OS, you will have a new directory: %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\. The '.cache' directory will not show up in Explorer if you not have hidden files shown.

You will want to look into the %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\cache.ini file to find out which directory contains the Wave 3 binary that you want to install on your unsupported OS.

A cut-and-paste of the contents of my cache.ini:

[neutral::Watson-x86::any]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\ddfb16b01c918f7
Name=DW 2.0 Client - x86

[neutral::crt80::any]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\e3d930001c918f7
Name=Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime

[neutral::Contacts-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\e6c900401c918f7
Name=Contacts

[neutral::SegoeFont::any]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\ea4257601c918f7
Name=Segoe UI Font

[en::wlc-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\ee1d7a801c918f7
Name=Windows Live Call

[en::signin-5.0::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\f0716da01c918f7
Name=Windows Live Sign-in Assistant

[en::WLXSuite-ship-14.0.5025.904::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\f35812c01c918f7
Name=Installer Beta

[neutral::choiceguard-w3::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\f3b23ad01c918f7
Name=Choice Guard

[en::Messenger-14.0.5027.0908-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\4c8400d01c918f8
Name=Messenger Beta

[en::Mail-14.0.5027.0908-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\8a2e8ee01c918f8
Name=Mail Beta

[neutral::WindowsXP-KB954708-x86-ENU::any]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\8e1f16a01c918f8
Name=Windows Imaging Component Hotfix

[en::PhotoGallery-5026.0905-en::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\d8e58ab01c918f8
Name=Photo Gallery Beta

[en::writer-14.0.5025.0904-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\ee9819401c918f8
Name=Writer Beta

[en::familysafety-14.0.5025.904-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\f86841801c918f8
Name=Family Safety Beta

[en::olc-12.0.6237.1003-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\56559801c918f9
Name=Microsoft Office Outlook Connector

[neutral::searchenhancementpack::any]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\ff77b9001c918fc
Name=Search Enhancement Pack

[en::toolbar-14.0.5023.902-ship::ship]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\8e923a01c918fd
Name=Toolbar Beta

[_CATALOG_]
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\wlc120.tmp
Type=CAB
Language=en
Build=ship

I'm sure as the files get revised, the file contents and version numbers will change. For now, you can use this as a 'cheat sheet' to find which product you want installed.

Ideally, I would like these available for download without jumping through hoops like this to get the actual binaries. I'm not a fan of unified installers like this.

Update: Rafael Rivera Jr. has provided a much more elegant method of providing support for unsupported operating systems:

#1. Download Resource Hacker.
#2. Open the Live installer executable (either WLSetup-All.exe or WLSetup-Web.exe) inside Resource Hacker.
#3. Locate CONFIG -> CONFIG0 -> 0
#4. Strip out the following XML, leaving the surrounding text:



#5. Compile the script.
#6. Save the modified executable.
#7. Run the modified executable, and the OS check is no longer there!

Although you should probably be using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Update 1 (say that five times fast) for any new desktop rollout or DDPS session, the older versions are handy to have around for features/operating systems that get retired/depreciated over time.

If you have a need for any of these versions:

BDD 2.5 Standard
BDD 2.5 Enterprise
BDD 2007
Microsoft Deployment
MDT 2008

You can grab them from here.

Previous versions of the Zune software would install without any trouble on Server 2008, my desktop OS of choice, as long as the "Desktop Experience" feature was already installed on the system, which provides the missing Windows Media and related DLLs.

The new Zune 3.0 setup program will complain with "Can't install - Zune doesn't support your current operating system."

You can however, 'shortcircuit' the install by going into either the "x64" or "x32" directory of the unpacked archive, then going into the "packages" directory and directly running "zune-x64.msi" (for 64-bit) or "zune-x32.msi" (for 32-bit).

It is possible your system might be missing some of the prerequisites but thankfully they are included in the same directory in case they are needed.

If you attempt to launch the Zune client without the "Desktop Experience" feature of Server 2008 installed, you will get an instant crash of the Zune client upon launch. It is a tell tale sign that you are missing the necessary DLLs.

So, officially, Server 2008 is unsupported, but you can make it work if you need to, like I do.