Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

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.

It looks like this one came out around the same time as the Zune 3.0 software came out. Coincidence? Most likely!

The features are the same as the beta version of 3.2, as mentioned here.

Changes since 3.1:
Process Tracking: Categorize network traffic based on the name and ID of the owning process.
Extensive Parser Set: Parsers for over 300 protocols, including SMB 2.0.
Network Monitor 3.2 API: Create your own applications that capture, parse and analyze network traffic.
Improved Capture Rate: Drop fewer frames on high speed networks.
ContainsBin plug-in: Search frames for arbitrary byte sequences or strings.
Find Conversations: Quickly isolate related frames.
Support for frame truncation.
Indication of the number of dropped frames.
Streamlined UI toolbar

Download Network Monitor 3.2 RTM here.

iTunes 8 is a neat application but I still get frustrated every time I upgrade or install a new version. I have alternative means of watching for program updates, namely FileHippo.com's Update Checker, so I don't need Apple's update program clogging my StartUp registry key. I don't have any Apple mobile devices, so that is another group of programs I don't need installed. I also don't need 'iTunesHelper', 'QuickTime Task', or 'AppleSyncNotifier' loading on startup.

The biggest offender, however, is the Outlook plug-in. Whenever someone is complaining that their Outlook is crashing quite a bit, or will not shutdown in a timely manner, the first thing I ask is if they have iTunes installed on their machine.

Even though you can uninstall the Apple Mobile Device Support, the iTunes Outlook Add-in will stick around, which means you have to go into the 'Trust Center' of Outlook 2007 to disable or delete the COM Add-in. I like to keep my Outlook Add-in-less as much as possible due to potential memory leaks and strange problems can creep in without warning. Outlook does a good enough job by itself for that.

Honestly, I just want an 'Advanced' install option so I can deselect the items I don't want installed by default. I wish it was a required item for all programs in order to get the 'Certified for...' label.

Keep in mind, I'm only picking on iTunes right now because I upgraded my previously rock solid 7.7.x 64-bit install to 8 and the curse of the Outlook plug-in crash happened on my system. Plenty of other programs out there will add unwanted or unneeded 'features' without permission. Microsoft is just as guilty.

Other COM Addin offenders that I disable:
Streets and Trips add-in for email communication, MapPoint Office Add-In, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Colleague Import Add-in, Microsoft Outlook Mobile Service, Microsoft VBA for Outlook Addin, Send to Bluetooth.

Note: I'm not affiliated with FileHippo.com, but I use their update program quite a bit.

Join this webcast and get your questions regarding Vista performance answered, featuring Mark Russinovich of SysInternals fame.

Official description:
Join Mark Russinovich and a panel of industry experts for a LIVE virtual roundtable to explore your top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what you can do to improve overall system performance.

Submit your performance questions live during the event or send them in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

You can download a .ICS calendar invite from here and read more about it overall here.

Update: I will be on-site at the roundtable fielding questions from IT Pros and participating in the discussions where applicable! Get your questions ready for me!

Update 2: Transcripts are now available.

In Windows Server 2008, "Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer" is not listed when you run the vssadmin list writers command.

When you perform a backup of the Hyper-V virtual machines, the following event is logged to the Hyper-V-VMMS event log:

Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS-Admin
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-VMMS
Event ID: 10107
Description:
An error occurred while identifying the Hyper-V VSS writer. Check for any corrupt or invalid configuration files and try again.
In this scenario, the backups of the virtual machines may be inconsistent because the Hyper-V VSS writer is not used during the backup job.

This problem occurs because of corrupted or invalid virtual machine configuration files.

You can grab the update from the KB 956697 webpage.

The tabs in Communicator 2007 host an instance of the Windows Internet Explorer Internet browser. When a tab is clicked, Communicator automatically passes the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) address for the current user as well as one or more contact SIP addresses. This enables developers to create Web applications that consume the SIPs and present relevant, SIP-tailored information to the end user, all within the Communicator client.

This sample consists of virtual directory containing files that Communicator uses to configure the tabs, as well as a sample Web application that is displayed in a custom Communicator tab.

The next version of Windows Live Messenger (what used to be MSN messenger) is rumored to be WPF-enabled and there is already a version of the Yahoo messenger available as a WPF application, so it makes sense that there would be an SDK available and example applications to use WPF with Office Communicator 2007.

You will be seeing more WPF applications as time goes on and they tend to look 'prettier' than normal applications, so it is neat to see the API getting some traction.

Description of the MOC WPF SDK:
This sample demonstrates using the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 SDK to integrate presence and communication features into Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) clients. The controls are designed to be used in applications developed using the Microsoft Visual Studio development system.

I have a few OCS related posts in the wings but I've been tied up with travel, work and home activities, so they are currently stuck in Draft mode. I'm still behind on many items I need to complete before I can even think of finishing off those articles.

With that said though, this announcement from MS is worth an entry because it will make my life in the upcoming months that much easier. I've been doing a lot of Cisco/MS integration work this year, and there have always been many interesting gotchas.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (aka CallManager) versions 4.2, 5.1 and 6.1 are now certified for Direct SIP connectivity with Office Communications Server.

Direct SIP allows connectivity between the OCS mediation server and the Cisco IP-PBX without the need for a gateway, meaning that Office Communicator users can be enabled for Enterprise Voice (i.e. Office Communicator is a full soft-phone, not just click-to-call or RCC) without significant upgrades or hardware replacements.

Read more about it here.

Short and sweet:

If you are looking for Greasemonkey functionality in Chrome, check this site out here.
If you are looking for an easy auto-updater for Chromium, check this site out here and check out the release directory here.

If you think your Chrome install updated over the weekend, it most likely did. The original version released was build 1583, and the build out now is 1798.

I'm sure buried in the EULA somewhere is that it can update behind your back without any notification too.

If you want to be riding the bleeding edge, download the newer snapshots from here.

As of a few hours ago, the Chromium build number is up to 0.2.152.0, whereas the current installed version of Chrome on my system seems to be version 0.2.149.29.

Much like the Firefox trunk builds, Chromium installs into a different directory than Chrome, so you can run them side by side if you wish.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, a new hypervisor-based server virtualization product (like ESXi), will be released within 30 days and be available at no cost via the Web.

Microsoft will demonstrate live migration feature of Windows Server 2008 R2. And the next version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server (the one after 2008) will have live migration capabilities.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released within 30 days [not a surprise], which will manage Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 or VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.

Microsoft’s global server OEM partners ... report that nearly 100% of their customers who order Windows Server 2008 with hardware are also choosing to have Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V included with their order.

Dedicated virtualization lab established within the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center.

Originally spotted here.

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature included in modern Microsoft Windows operating systems that is intended to prevent an application or service from executing code from a non-executable memory region.

Hardware and software data execution protection (DEP) is a good thing to have enabled for all processes when you can get away with it.

Money 2007 and Money Plus shipped with the inability to launch if you have DEP enabled.

Now, I admit, many programs out there are not DEP-clean yet, but with the security push MS has had ever since Windows XP, you would think they would not ship a product that crashes on launch with DEP enabled. Money SP1 fixes this problem, but you still need to disable DEP in order to auto-update to SP1 from RTM.

Other somewhat recent DEP offenders: The Adobe Flash IE plug-in - only newer versions allow DEP to be enabled without taking out your browser with it.

If you want a command-line way of disabling DEP with an Admin command prompt, use this, with a reboot:
bcdedit /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

Once you have updated to Money SP1 and want to re-enable DEP (for everything):
bcdedit /set {current} nx AlwaysOn

Good: You can use ‘sleep’ and ‘hibernate’ on a laptop again.
Bad: You disable Hyper-V until you reset the registry key and reboot once again.

Originally spotted here.

The original post references changing a registry setting, with a reboot in between, namely:

Disable Hyper-V, enable Power Management features (Sleep, Hibernate, etc):
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hvboot]
"Start"=dword:00000003

Enable Hyper-V, disable Power Management features:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hvboot]
"Start"=dword:00000000

I figured out an easier way, for me, at least, is to use the sc.exe command:

Disable Hyper-V, enable Power Management features (Sleep, Hibernate, etc):
sc config hvboot start= disabled

Enable Hyper-V, disable Power Management features:
sc config hvboot start= boot

Keep in mind sc.exe has syntax from another planet - namely, you really do need a space between "start=" and "boot" or "disabled", or sc.exe will error out.

A good KB article to bookmark for Server 2008 cluster builds. Typically KB articles like this are updated over time to include some ordinary and sometimes out of the ordinary recommended hot fixes.

Right now, it lists 2 hot fixes: KB 952247 and KB 951308.

KB 952247 deals with disjointed namespaces and KB 951308 adds Hyper-V support to the cluster management console, so the list is small so far.

Google Chrome came out today and the most impressive feature (to me) is the task manager.
Yep, task manager. In a web browser.

It also looks to be a cross-combination of WebKit, Safari and Google code. Interesting.
Countdown to 0-day exploit? I'm sure people are already looking.