DevTopics

Most people look forward to software upgrades.  It usually means new features are added and old bugs are removed.  But I hold my breath every time I perform a Windows Update because I never know what’s going to happen.  Windows Vista is so complex from a design POV that each update carries the risk of toppling the Windows house of cards.

Case in point, after a Windows Update the other day, my home networking stopped.  It was working fine before Windows Update, and dead in the water after.  No explanation, no reason, just a message that the network shares were inaccessible and I should contact my system administrator.  Damn, I guess that’s me.

I spent five hours rebooting, checking the hardware, routers and lines, checking permissions and sharing settings, investigating NetBIOS and TCP/IP settings, pinging and prodding, Googling for explanations and chasing white rabbits.  Finally I discovered the solution.  I just needed to set an obscure registry value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\
LanmanServer\Parameters\IRPStackSize

Geez, now why didn’t I think of that?

I have 25 years PC experience and am comfortable tinkering with networking settings and the Registry, and still this glitch stumped me for hours.

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Microsoft has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the PC desktop for two decades.  Though the Apple operating system is superior to Windows in many ways — especially for simplicity and usability — Apple’s closed-system approach has ensured that Apple OS will never be more than a strong niche player.  Open-source Linux has made significant inroads in the server market, but the lack of singular vision and decent user-interface has kept it as a hobbyist toy on the desktop.

This has allowed Microsoft to continue to own the PC desktop, in spite of major missteps, such as Windows ME and the disaster that was Vista in its first year, with significant incompatibilities, endless security warnings, and user-defections back to Windows XP.  Microsoft’s new operating system — Windows 7, which is expected to ship later this year — has been receiving mostly positive reviews.  And not a moment too soon, because along comes Microsoft’s greatest threat to its stranglehold on the desktop in twenty years.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially target netbooks.  Later this year, Google will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.

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Microsoft has announced retail pricing for Windows 7 that includes an option to preorder the operating system at a substantial discount. 

From today through July 11, U.S. consumers can preorder an upgrade from XP or Vista to Windows 7 Home premium for $49 or Windows 7 Professional for $99.  However, XP customers must do a clean installation of Windows 7.

Also starting today, buyers of new PCs with Vista installed will receive a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it becomes available.

Retail boxed copies of Windows 7 go on sale October 22.  Microsoft plans to charge $119 for Home Premium, $199 for Professional, and $219 for Ultimate.

In Europe, the EU’s anti-trust ruling has forced Microsoft to ship a special “E” version with the Internet Explorer web browser removed.  Therefore, the European launch will be delayed, and all users must perform a clean installation, even if purchasing an upgrade.

Early reviews are generally positive and indicate that Windows 7 is much better behaved than Vista was when it was first released.

Story at CNN

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Microsoft has just released the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1): Release Candidate (RC).

The Microsoft Windows SDK is a set of tools, code samples, documentation, compilers, headers, and libraries that developers can use to create applications that run on Microsoft Windows operating systems.  The Windows SDK combines two formerly separate SDKs: the Platform SDK (PSDK) and the .NET Framework SDK.

The following is a small sampling of what’s new or updated in this SDK:

• Documentation – Approximately 80% of the SDK documentation set has been refreshed
• Headers/Libraries – numerous new and updated – please see What’s New in the Windows API under the top-level Getting Started section in the documentation
• Samples – Over 200 new and/or updated samples
• Tools – Several new tools added
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1 C++ command line compiler toolset and matching CRT

Windows SDK
More .NET News

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Microsoft may ship Windows 7 on PCs by September, said Compal president Ray Chen at an investor’s conference.  Compal builds personal computers for Acer, HP and other major PC vendors.  The news matches rumors that Microsoft hopes to release Windows 7 well ahead of the holidays.  This would give Microsoft some time to hopefully iron out some of the initial bugs and avoid the major embarrassment it saw with people downgrading back to XP because Vista simply wouldn’t work.

Microsoft spokeswoman Amelia Agrawal maintains the company’s official position that Windows 7 will ship within three years of Vista, which means by early 2010.  This estimate is presumably conservative to avoid embarrassment in the event of an unexpected delay, as happened repeatedly with Vista, which shipped more than two years after its original scheduled date.  Microsoft has acknowledged an expedited testing phase for Windows 7 that includes just one public beta and one release candidate before shipping.  But so far Windows 7 has been relatively stable in testing.

Microsoft is under significant pressure to release Windows 7 this year to offset the first significant declines in Windows revenue in Microsoft’s history.  These declines are the result of the global recession, plus continued reluctance by both consumers and enterprises to adopt Windows Vista.  Windows 7 is said to improve the user interface and performance, especially on hardware with more modest specifications.

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From xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.

Very funny!  But in my experience, one of the fastest ways to kill programmer productivity is to give them beer.

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If you’re one of thousands of Simpsons fans who added ChunkyLover53 as an AOL Instant Messenger buddy, your computer may be at risk from a Turkish botnet.

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Apple’s share of the U.S. PC market jumped to 8.1% in the third quarter of 2007, a 37% increase from the previous year.  One reason for Apple’s surging success is its catchy “Hello, I’m a Mac” commercials starring Justin Long as “Mac” and John Hodgman as “PC”:

As you might expect, these successful Mac vs. PC commercials have spawned a legion of spin-offs and parodies. 
 

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When buying a new PC, should you spend the extra cash to upgrade your RAM?  Here’s a rule-of-thumb for how much memory you need to run Windows Vista:

Windows Vista RAM

• 2 GB is minimum
• 3 GB if you can afford it
• 4 GB is mostly wasted (on 32-bit Vista)

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Tags: RAM, Vista, Windows