When you first install and run Windows Vista, it will calculate your Windows Experience Index score to evaluate your computer's speed and graphics capabilities. WEI has been a point of contention for many Windows Vista users because the WEI scores tend to be extremely low. Unfortunately, some software requires your WEI score to be above a certain threshold for all the features to work. Fortunately, it is easy to artificially raise your WEI score by modifying the configuration file. Read the article : www.petri.co.il/artificially_raise_wei.htm
This program helps to locate and fix LCD screens dead pixels. You can fix the stuck pixels by calling them to do rapid changes. You need to run this program for a couple of hours. There is no warranty on the result, but you don't really have anything to lose trying it out. Good luck. Official web site : udpix.free.fr
Not soon ! Biran W. McCann has a post on his blog to keep everyone up-to-date on the latest developments of the missing AdminPak for Windows Vista. To summarize it : not before Vista SP1 Read the post : msmvps.com/blogs/ad
Bink.nu just release a great White Paper on BCDEdit : On Microsoft Windows Vista and later versions, the boot configuration data (BCD) store, contains the boot configuration parameters and controls the computer's boot environment. BCDEdit is a Windows Vista command-line tool that can be used to add, delete, edit, and modify data in a BCD store. The paper is a reference for BCDEdit commands, data types, and well-known identifiers. Source : bink.nu
If you want a try Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, there is a new virtual machine available for download. Download : www.microsoft.com/downloads
As you know, Microsoft Office 2007 launched for Business customers through Volume Licensing in November of 2006 and went to general availability through Retail Box and OEM in January of 2007. As such, now is a great time to educate your customers on the benefits and features of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. After June 30, 2007, OEM Microsoft Office 2003 will no longer be available from Microsoft. Some authorized OEM Microsoft distributors may have some remaining inventory left for a short time after June 30th; however, Microsoft will no longer be shipping OEM Microsoft Office to them. For all system builders, you can see more about this on the Microsoft System Builder website. Source : Microsoft Small
Microsoft has released an update rollup for the Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 . The update rollup supports Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows XP Professional. The update includes all updates to BDD 2007 since the release version of January 2007. See here for the complete list of fixes.
Download: Business Desktop Deployment 2007 Update Rollup (x86)(x64)
As a kid a pass so many hours playing with my LEGO blocks. So when I heard that there is a software from LEGO called «LEGO Digital Designer» that allow me to play with my favorites blocks on my computer I was thrill.You work in 3D, you can share your creations with friends you can even order real blocks to make your model in the real world. It's fantastic !Dowload : ldd.lego.com/download LEGO FACTORY (where you share your models) : us.factory.lego.com
Allin Consulting, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the U.S., recently implemented Glu Mobile’s website at www.glu.com. Glu Mobile is a leading publisher of mobile games and entertainment. Allin has been developing solutions around SharePoint and .NET since version “1.0” of both platforms. This is Part 1 in a three part series in which the Allin team (Shawn Parker, Robert Sweeney, Eric Hansen, Stefan Nilsson, and Karl Kuhnhausen) will describe how they architected and developed the glu.com website. Read the article : SharePoint Team Blog
Anna Liu reports : "...we’re extremely proud to announce that the www.microsoft.com site is running 100% on our next generation web platform!!" Source : blogs.msdn.com/annali
Your online accounts, computer files, and personal information are more secure when you use strong passwords to help protect them. Microsoft offer you a Password Check tool to test the strenght of your passwords. Link : www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx
I just find out about Rob Dunn great tools for WSUS : WSUS File Extract Utility
You can use this if you want to download a particular update from the WSUS folder without having to download it from the Internet again. Great for those big Service Packs. WSUS Error Code Lookup Tool
This is a quick and dirty WSUS & Windows Update error code lookup utility Duplicate WSUS ids? - Reset Authorization on remote computer WSUS Superseded Update Finder Utility
A little utility to help with finding superseded updates that have been approved in WSUS. Windows Update Agent force script
This script (the core was pulled from Microsoft's website, and the WindowsUpdate agent install was borrowed from Torgeir Bakken - thank you!) will
From Bink.nu : Today, Apple unexpected released a beta version of Safari 3.0, the upcoming version of its Web browser ... Why is this interesting to you, the Windows user? Well, for the first time, Safari is available in both Windows and Mac OS X versions. Apple did this largely because of the iPhone--third party developers can only target iPhone's built-in version of Safari if they want to create iPhone applications as the company doesn't allow them to create native applications--but no matter. I've always thought that Safari was a high-quality browser. And its release to Windows users could change things, somewhat dramatically, in the browser space. We'll have to wait and see to know if Safari will
Outlook Connector Beta enables you to use your Live Hotmail accounts within Outlook: Read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages. Manage your Live Mail Contacts. Use advanced options for blocking junk e-mail messages. Manage multiple e-mail accounts in one place. With a paid subscription, Outlook Connector Beta enables these additional features: Manage, share, and synchronize your Windows Live Calendar in Outlook. Access your Tasks and Notes. Source : Bink.nu
Download : www.microsoft.com/downloads
More details : Windows Vista Team Blog Update : There is some confusion about connecting to Hotmail with Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail. To clarify all that read the article More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs on LiveSide.net
Great post on My Digital Life blog to show you how to recover from RFM. Read the Post here. You may also want to read brian Livingston's article on WindowsSecrets.com about Vista activation. It will help you learn what to do if you hit the 3 rearm limit.
Today Microsoft will release to the Web the final version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 service pack 1. Available at no charge, this service pack adds support for hardware-assisted virtualization and improved backup services and compatibility. A new feature to the service pack is Volume Shadow Services, which provides customers with improved support for backup and disaster recovery. Instead of scheduling downtime for backing up each virtual machine individually, customers will now be able to take snapshot backups of physical machines, with no downtime, that will in turn take snapshots of all the virtual machines on that physical host. The download be will going live at approximately 12 p.m. PDT today. Source : Bink.nu
Using the power of virtualization, you can now quickly evaluate Microsoft and partner solutions through a series of pre-configured Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs). You can download the VHDs and evaluate them for free in your own environment without the need for dedicated servers or complex installations. Start now by selecting a lab from the VHD catalog below: Exchange Server 2007 ISA Server 2006 SQL Server 2005 SQL Server 2005/Exchange 2007 System Center Essentials 2007 System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Beta 2 Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Windows Server 2003 R2 Source : www.microsoft.com/vhd
A full PowerShell provider for exposing WSS/SPS 2003 (support for 2007 coming) as a filesystem. Administer your SharePoint installation with familiar copy/move/rename/delete and new-item metaphors. Move users between roles, copy users between webs; use the full power of the shell to script away the pain of GUI based mass-management. Link : www.codeplex.com/PSSharePoint
The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.2.3. This release continues to improve the security and the stability of the 5.X branch as well as addressing two regressions introduced by the previous 5.2 releases. These regressions relate to the timeout handling over non-blocking SSL connections and the lack of HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA in certain conditions. All users are encouraged to upgrade to this release. Read more : www.php.net
A beginner's guide to getting started with Windows PowerShell. This Owner's Manual consists of five articles covering getting started, customizing the console window, shortcut keys, pipelining, and running scripts. Source : microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter
Quick reference guide to commonly-used Windows PowerShell commands. For best results, open the file in Microsoft Word, print the contents to legal-sized paper (8 inches by 14 inches), and fold the resulting printout in half, making a four-page booklet. Source : microsoft.com/downloads
Get all the Windows PowerShell Help, plus the VBScript to Windows PowerShell Conversion Guide, in one fully-searchable package. You can even access this help file from a cmdlet. Source and download : www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter
Thanks to the new version of Windows Live Writer now I can use Blogger Labels when posting to my blog. You will notice the new Labels section on the right side.
AMD's Canada-based graphics division ATI has released a new version of its Catalyst driver suite. Catalyst 7.5 comes to the support of the whole Radeon line-up and features: DirectX 10 driver support for the Radeon HD 2900 XT (single card and CrossFire configurations) for Windows Vista Second Generation ATI Theater 650 Performance Improvements OpenGL performance is improved on the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX at high resolutions (1920x1200 or greater) with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. Doom 3 and Quake 4 improves as much as 13-18%, and Prey improves at least 15.6%. The ATI Radeon X1950 Pro and X1650 XT also sees improvements in Doom 3 and Quake 4 of up to 14.1% at higher resolutions with anti-aliasing and
