The Internet! On a Disc!

On a disc? Really? Sweet! What're all these tubes for then?

Link (via Paul Thurrott)

My Vista horror story

Ever since the release of Vista in January, stories of failed or expensive upgrades have been floating around the 'net. Many of these stories, however, seem to be overly dramatized versions of ho-hum "why didn't you tell me I had to upgrade my 10-year old video card?" I can understand that you're frustrated, but implying that missing device drivers for INSERT DEVICE HERE is a sign of a broken OS is, in my opinion, severely misguided. For the most part it seemed to be a relatively easy thing to do for anyone with a little tech savvy. Personally, I'm an IT consultant that has maintained more than one corporate network and have been building my own PC's for years. I'm a shoe-in for this stuff, right? Almost.

The Plan

First off, experience with every upgrade since Windows 95 has told me that a clean install is the way to go. I also heard that driver support wasn't up to snuff just yet and even that some of my hardware (like my Creative WebCam NX Ultra) would just plain not work. That, along with some application compatibility problems, prompted me to pursue a dual-boot scenario. This would allow my existing XP installation to remain untouched while I get my Vista installation set up to my liking. That would allow me take baby steps towards this brave new world.

Setting up a system for dual boot is actually much easier than it sounds like. In fact, I had already done this once before, following my own advice from an earlier post. My previous attempt with Vista RC-1 had gone off without a hitch.

Getting Started

It didn't take long for the problems to start. The first order of business involved using Symantec's Partition Magic 8.0 to resize the boot partition so that I could create another partition on that drive for the Vista install. When you do this, Partition Magic needs to reboot your machine to make the necessary changes to the partition. Like I said before, I had already done this quite a few times before so I didn't think that I had anything to worry about.

I was wrong. During this process, Partition Magic halted with error #1552. At this point my system rebooted, and I was greeted with a blue screen of death. My stomach dropped.

"No problem," I tried to tell myself. "These things happen from time to time. Let's just reboot and hope that this is a one-off deal."

This, and all subsequent reboots halted with the same stop error 0x0000007b: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. Initially, I tried running a number of the tools on the Ultimate Boot CD (if you don't already have this, stop reading. Download it. Burn it. File it away for a rainy day. Go ahead, I'll wait). Sadly, none of the tools fit the bill. In fact, most of them wouldn't even recognize the volume. After doing some research, it appeared that simply running chkdsk would take care of it. Since I had no XP boot disk, I booted into the XP install disc and ran the Recovery Console. Unfortunately, chkdsk consistently failed, complaining that it couldn't read the volume.

Moving On

At this point, I'm ready to give up. I had backed up most of my data, but I still had some documents and photos that would be lost. With my dual-boot dreams dashed, I figured that it was time to move on. Having resigned losing them, I decided to install Vista over my damaged volume. Thankfully, my boot volume was in a RAID 1 configuration, so it was mirrored onto another drive. If there was any chance that I could save data on the drive, it was by breaking the mirror. I'd install Vista on one, then try to salvage the other later.

After breaking the mirror, I installed Vista. The install progressed quickly, and it went smoothly. On its final reboot Vista recognized the other half of my broken mirror and decided that it had a problem and ran chkdsk on it. After rebuilding a few indexes, my newly repaired disk appeared fully intact in Explorer!

Post Mortem

Why did this happen? Apparently, the problem resulted from the fact that the disk that I wanted to repartition was RAID 1. What I didn't know at the time was that Partition Magic 8.x doesn't support RAID 1. What I should have done was break the mirror, repartition, then set up the RAID once again. Had Partition Magic detected my RAID configuration and warned me of this, I would have been saved a lot of time.

The irony of this is that with all of the Vista horror stories floating around, my problems weren't caused by Vista itself. In fact, Vista ended up bringing my data back from the void. Thankfully, short of losing my shot at a dual-boot configuration (and a few years of my life...it was a long night), I'm not too much worse for wear. I've been happily running the latest version of Vista for the past couple of months with all of my data in tact.

Hopefully, when your time comes your Vista install will go to plan. If not, maybe you'll find something in my story that will help. Failing that, know that there are others out there that feel your pain. It probably won't give you much solace but...there you have it.

Protect yourself from the latest zero day IE exploit

There's a zero day Internet Explorer 6 exploit out in the wild right now that can do some nasty things to a fully patched XP machine using IE6. It can also affects Firefox users and any other application that uses the IE browser control (like Outlook). There's a vulnerability in the VGX.dll, a vector drawing plug-in, that allows a website to launch a program of its choosing without informing the user. It could very well trash your machine, but likely we'’re talking about spyware and keyloggers. Eric Sites, VP of R&D at Sunbelt Software had this to say (in episode 58 of the Security Now podcast):

The first site we came across with this, in the morning it was only downloading one program, an adware called Virtumondo, which displays advertisements. By the late afternoon it was downloading 50 other pieces of malware, which included keyloggers, tons of adware, all kinds of stuff.

This is a "zero day" exploit, which means that it is out on the 'nets and there is no patch available from Microsoft. Unless something changes, it looks like MS won't be fixing this until mid-October. The best way to mitigate this is to unregister the DLL that has this bug. Sunbelt's blog has instructions on how to do this.

Doing this will disable VML (vector markup language) in your browser. Currently, this isn't widely used, but you may find that some ad banners'’ll break (sadly).

Update: Microsoft has released a patch, but it doesn't look like it has hit Windows Update yet. Find it here: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-055

Link (via Security Now)

The ultimate list of free software from Microsoft

The Road to Know Where has compiled a treasure trove of free Windows software. They have gone through the painstaking process of navigating Microsoft's convoluted website (hey MS, take a tip from your friends in Cupertino!) so that you don't have to. They also throw in a few third party applications for good measure. Here are some highlights (as I see 'em) from the over 150 item list:

• Tweak UI gives access to system settings not exposed in the default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.


• Desktop Search – Enterprise Edition is optimized to help the enterprise IT manager easily customize, deploy and manage the installation of desktop search across their organization.


• ISO Recorder Power Toy makes images of CDs & DVDs to create ISO images.


• Mount ISO Files Virtually - this tool allows ISO image files to be mounted virtually as a CD/DVD device.


• SyncToy helps copy, move, and synchronize files with digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. (Support: How to . . .) I mentioned this last week. It's worth a second look.


• Video Decoder Checkup Utility helps determine if an MPEG-2 DVD video decoder is installed, and whether it's compatible with Media Player 10 or Media Center Edition. This is invaluable if you have a Windows MCE box.

Link (via Robert Scoble)

Some useful XP PowerToys

Periodically, Microsoft releases some new PowerToys for Windows XP that either tweak your system, or add some functionality to it. They're shortcuts to little bits of additional functionality that can make life easier. Here are a couple relatively new PowerToys that I've found useful, along with an old one that I can't live without:

• RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer: If you've been reading Neologies lately, you have already noticed my recent interest in photography. This PowerToy lets you view your RAW camera images in Windows Explorer. You can view thumbnails, as well as view those images in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (which can be used for slideshows). It comes in pretty handy when you're trying to manage your RAW images in Explorer, which I generally prefer.


• SyncToy (version 1.2): This is a pretty robust, yet compact way to synchronize files between a number of different devices and drives. It offers several different methods to do this, including the basic synchronization (both ways), echo (one-way), subscriptions (one-way if files exist), contribution (updates only one-way), and combine (files are updated and copied both ways). If you're not sure which method you'd like to use, it also offers a way to preview what will happen before any changes are made. That said, it would sure be nice if it included a mechanism for scheduling the synchronization of some folders.


• Image Resizer: This is a tiny utility that embeds itself as a Windows Explorer extension (it's a command added to the right-click menu) for image files. It allows you to resize any number of selected files to a preset resolution. If the presets aren't to your liking, you can plug in your own. I use this all the time when uploading images to the web or sending pictures via email. It's great when sending a full resolution photo isn't appropriate.

There are a couple other PowerToys available that may be worth a look as well, but these are the ones that I can't live without. Enjoy!

Link

MS to give holiday computer buyers coupons for free Vista upgrades?

Some news leaked out regarding an alleged incentive program offered by Microsoft to entice potential holiday PC buyers into sealing the deal. A number of computer manufacturers and retailers were a little peeved at the news that Vista will be missing the 2006 holiday buying season. This would have a major impact on their business since so many consumers would rather wait for Vista before buying a new PC.

Apparently, Microsoft is attempting to alleviate that pain by offering consumers coupons for a free Vista upgrade once it comes out (whenever that is). While Microsoft isn't confirming this, they aren't denying it either. From Ars Technica:

The coupon offer will begin in October, and is a result of a joint effort between Microsoft and a group of leading PC vendors worldwide. According to the anonymous sources, Microsoft actually reached an agreement with these PC companies back in July, but decided not to reveal their plans so as to protect PC sales in the third quarter.

Will this be enough to keep PC sales strong through the holiday season?

Link

The Windows XP Boot Process

Here's a rundown of the entire boot process for a PC running Windows XP, from when you first switch on the power supply to logon. It pretty much contains everything you wanted to know.

Link (via Digg)

How to dual boot Windows XP and Vista Beta 2

Lifehacker has a straightforward how-to on how to create a partition on your system drive for a dual-boot XP/Vista Beta 2 install. The Vista installer makes this process a breeze as long as you have Symantec's Partition Magic (a product that I'd recommend anyway). I was a little trepidacious about trying this at first, but it worked out perfectly.

If you're interested in giving Vista a try but aren't willing to trash your current XP install (which is wise, IMHO), this may work for you. Just make sure that you've got about 20 GB on your system drive to devote to the install.

Link

Xbox.com E3 Wish List

Xbox.com is posting some E3 coverage of its own to try to keep the spotlight on Microsoft during the expo. The article "Your E3 Wish List" has got me thinking. Will we see all of the items mentioned in this post during the show? A lot of these have been rumored, and others have been "confirmed," but I find it interesting that all of this would be mentioned by an "official" source.

Are these purely musings of the Xbox.com forum crowd, or is a teaser for what we should expect in the coming days?

Game info:

• Halo 3
• Gears of War
• Huxley
• NCAA Football
• Dead Rising
• Unreal Tournament 2007 (!)
• Viva Piñata
  

XBLA:

• Dreamcast game library
• Retro XBLA titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Golden Axe or Double Dragon

Hardware:

• Xbox 360 camera
• HD-DVD add-on
• Wireless headset
• Larger capacity hard drive
• Is MS making a handheld?

Xbox Dashboard Upgrades:

• DirecTV blade
• Increased friends list capacity
• Dashboard integration with Xbox.com forums
• MSN Messenger-like interface in the dashboard (this one was highlighted in the post)

Update: Yeah. Pretty much all of the above was talked about save for UT2007, Dreamcast XBLA titles, the larger HD and handheld. DirecTV wasn't mentioned as far as I can tell either. Of course, I wasn't there, so I wasn't privyy to any backroom conversations. Then again, I probably wouldn't be privyy to those conversations even if I was there.

Link

Windows Live Messenger invitations available

I have five invitations to try Windows Live Messenger Beta. Comment here to get one.

Update: All gone.

Xbox 360 feature requests

Ok, ok. Lots of Xbox 360 entires, I know. I just got the console last week, so cut me some slack!

After using the console a little over a week, I've got my own list of what I think the Xbox 360 needs to make it "the total package." Here goes:

1. An easy way to toggle between private and public chat. This may exist, but I haven't stumbled upon it yet. There needs to be an easy way to bounce back and forth between the public chat in the lobby of a live game (like PGR3) and a private chat that you're having with a friend at the same time. Chatting it up with people that you're racing is a fun part of live play, but it depends on the group. Even if the group isn't all the chatty, you may still have to say a few things (explaining the parameters of a race, for instance) without having to end your private conversation.

2. Background file downloads and a download queue. It's a real pain that you can't do other things while downloading a file. I understand that it may not be desirable to allow the user to play a game while downloading, but why not let that user continue to browse the Xbox Live Marketplace? Better yet, why not let me add a number of files to a download queue? When I'm finished browsing, I could download everything at once.

3. How about RSS with enclosures? Let's enable podcasting and "video-casting" (hey, this site is called Neologies) support. Microsoft has the potential to reel in a lot of non-gamers (or just increase the "spouse acceptance factor," or SAF) with its movie trailer section, but my fiance doesn't want to sit and watch a progress bar all evening. Why not implement some sort of opt-in mechanism to check for syndicated content on a set schedule? If we only had the technology. Imagine a world where you could power up your console to find your new trailers (or other media) ready for your perusal.

4. Add the ability to play/stream anything to my Xbox. This is probably a long shot, but let me stream content encoded in something other than WMV, WMA, MP3 or MPG-1/2 (see Microsoft's FAQ) from my Media Center. DivX or AAC anyone?

5. Tweak the navigation. This is minor, but how about improving the menu system a bit? It's already a pretty efficient system, but some minor changes could go a long way. For instance, how come it takes three button presses (or more) to watch a video I just downloaded? Why can't I jump straight to my gamer card after downloading a gamer picture? It's not as bad as PGR3's menu system, but it could be better. A search feature in the Xbox Live Marketplace would be helpful, as would a customizable short-cut screen a-la a Motorola cell phone. Again, these are nit-picks, so don't jump down my throat.

Please be aware that I'm making these comments in the interest of making the console better. I am in no way implying that the Xbox 360 is not a good system. In fact, I think that it's a great system. Please try to take another perspective: If you were Microsoft, wouldn't you want to know what people thought so that you could make the best console possible?

Am I missing anything? Please post your ideas and comments below.

Oh yeah, feel free to drop me a message or game invite:

Why the Xbox 360 is not my media hub

First things first: I'm no Sony fanboy. I think that the PS3 is going to be a hit, but I'm still on the fence about whether or not I will buy it if it ever comes out. It'll all depend on whether or not I can afford it after over-paying for my Xbox 360. More on that later.

I waited in line for three hours the morning that the 360 was released. As it ends up, I should have gotten up a half hour earlier as I watched the last system get snagged by the person two places ahead of me in line. I tried to get in on the second round at Best Buy, only to show up the night before just a few minutes too late. Granted I had no plans to stay the night, but it makes for a better story.

Finally, after weeks of monitoring online retailers I relented and bought one on eBay. I figured that paying $75 over retail was better than being forced to buy a $1000 bundle from Amazon or Walmart. I was ecstatic about receiving my new box. I couldn't wait to try out the three games still sitting in shrink wrap on my shelf, Xbox Live Arcade and the new and improved Media Center Extender features.

After a relatively painless setup, I started digging into Xbox Live Arcade. Some slight navigation nit-picks aside, this is a great part of the console. I've already spent more hours than I care to mention just playing around with the arcade remakes and titles such as Geometry Wars, Bejeweled 2 and Zuma. These games are just plain fun. I can't wait to see what's next. Gameplay has been covered by the big boys already, so I'll spare you my thoughts on that one. On to the Media Center features!

To set up the Media Center Extender (MCX), you need to install a package from Microsoft on your Media Center Edition (MCE) PC. Depending on how up to date your machine is, the size of this package varies. I already had MCE Rollup 2 installed, so I only needed to run a small updater. Overall, the setup process was fairly easy.

Once set up, you can launch the Media Center Extender on your Xbox. Doing so presents you with a Media Center interface that looks exactly like the MCE PC to which it is connected. It looks great. Now come the gripes.

I had delusions of being able to move my Media Center PC into the closet now that I have a fully functioning Xbox 360 Media Center Extender to replace it. That certainly isn't going to happen any time soon. While the extender interface looks slick, it doesn't do what my MCE PC does.

First off, I have an iPod. In order to avoid having to re-encode a number of my albums that were ripped in AAC format, I use MusicBridge, a solution offered up by the good people over at TheGreenButton.com. Unfortunately, this causes the extender software to crash. I can understand why this particular solution isn't supported, but I shouldn't have to hack my Media Center to play these files in the first place. If the Xbox 360 can support playing AAC files from my iPod, why is it that the MCX cannot do the same? At the very least, the files should be skipped rather than cause the software to crash.

Secondly, I have video files that use the DivX and XviD (the open source flavor of DivX) codecs. The Xbox 360 MCX simply won't play these files, even though they work without a hitch on my MCE machine. I've seen a number of reasons for this, and what follows is a point-counterpoint that I have cherry picked from a number of sources.

Major Nelson indicates in his podcast (starting at 00:13:15) that the Xbox won't support DivX because the codec is commonly used for watching copied DVD's.

That is absurd.

What about MP3's? By Major Nelson's rationale, we shouldn't be able to use MP3's because they are commonly used for listening to copied CD's. The RIAA would loooove that one. It's a typical case of blaming the medium for the offenses of its users. It's a very slippery slope. Why the double-standard?

Charlie Owen states that the Xbox 360's digital media features are determined by the consumers. Which consumers are Microsoft talking with? Chris Pirillo submits that DivX is "arguably among the most popular video formats for creating and distributing videos online," and I tend to agree. I'm sure that many of the interesting and funny video clips that you've downloaded from the web are in DivX format. It's simply one of the best ways to compress video.

I read somewhere that, considering DivX's source, Microsoft will never support it.

I apologize that I can't link to this comment as I can't remember where it came from. I'll keep digging and update this entry should I find it.

This one had me confused, as it implied some sort of bad blood between Microsoft and DivX, Inc. I did my homework, and it looks like DivX has its roots in one of Microsoft's codecs (from Chris Lanier's Blog):

DivX started out as a hack of Microsoft’s MPEG4v3 codec. MS MPEG4v3 was [n]ever meant to allow encoding into an AVI container, only ASF. This hack was used widely for “underground” encoding of commercial movies that then distributing them via P2P Networks, IRC, USENET, etc. In 2000, DivXNetworks was formed and they released DivX 4 which was supposed to have been completely re-written so that is didn’t infringe on Microsoft’s codec.

Apparently, this explains the hard feelings between the two companies. Since I can't find the source of the original comment, I will simply say: "Get over it!"

Microsoft can't support every codec as the associated licensing fees would drive up the cost of the console.

Jake Ludington makes a pretty good point at Sync2Play. He asserts that "the real story is probably more like DivX competes with Windows Media, so they won't support it and/or DivX wanted money for putting the support into every Xbox and Microsoft didn't want/need to pay for it." That helps explain why we aren't seeing support for Real Media or QuickTime. Although I see his point, I can't help but to feel shafted here. If the Xbox 360 is supposed to be all about flexibility and "having it your way" Burger King style, why am I'm locked into Microsoft codecs? HD Beat makes a solid counterpoint:

If you want to be in my living room all of the time, you need to open up to all of the possibilities. The fact is: folks are downloading high-def videos in formats you don't readily support. They're going to keep on doing this, so why fight it with closure of codecs? Embrace the openness and reconsider DivX support. Sure, your WMV-HD is a solid vehicle; that's not the point. The point is: the more you shut down my entertainment options, the more I'm going to shut down products that you write software for. It's that simple.

There are ways to do this without getting into codec hell on the Xbox 360. Since a Media Center PC is already required, why not have it do the work? Why not use DirectShow or another mechanism to transcode "alternative" forms to a WMV/MPEG-2 format? More from Chris Lanier:

Here’s the fact of the matter, Microsoft’s Media Center Extenders, including first generation standalone devices (Linksys/HP), Xbox v1 Extender, and the Xbox 360 are all DLNA Compliant! All of them support JPEG (Image Requirement), LPCM (Audio Requirement), and MPEG-2 (Video Requirement). PCs are coming that will allow for transcoding of formats like DivX to DLNA Compliant Formats.

It is possible. A resourceful gamer named brainsNbrawn just posted a workaround last Friday that enables the MCE PC to transcode DivX and XviD on the fly for streaming to your Xbox 360. It's pretty kludgy at this point, but it's also a pretty creative use of technology already built into the Media Center. That's a good sign. Hopefully others will help pick up the ball that Microsoft dropped.

What do you think? Are we locked into WMV for the foreseeable future, or is there a glimmer on the horizon?

For the time being, my MCE PC will stay right where it is and I think I'll stick with playing games on my Xbox 360.