Tamir Khason – Just code

Quick IT tip: How to build bootable USB stick

Because of my main job and lack of human resources there, I invest less and less in community. Thus I lost my MVP title. Sorry, guys. Also a ton of management tasks in big company prevents me from actual coding. However I am still able to find some time for doing “real” things such as Windows Embedded Standard 2011 image building. Thus today I will explain how to build bootable flash USB disk with a couple of simple commands and without using special utilities.

Why to use bootable USB instead of regular CD or DVD ROM? Well, it is more convenience, takes less storage, faster and fully recycle. So let’s start.

1. Insert USB flash drive
2. Run command prompt shell as Administrator (just in case the keyboard shortcut for “Run as Administrator” is Ctrl+Alt+Shift)
3. Type “diskpart” to run Microsoft DiskPart utility.

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7600
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: TAMIRK-DEV

4. List your disks by typing in “list disk” or for those who like it shorter (like me) “list dis”

DISKPART> lis dis

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  ——–  ————-  ——-  ——-  —  —
  Disk 0    Online          149 GB  1024 KB
  Disk 1    Online           75 GB     2 GB
  Disk 2    Online         3814 MB      0 B
  Disk 3    No Media           0 B      0 B
  Disk 4    No Media           0 B      0 B
  Disk 5    Online           14 GB      0 B

5. Identify your flash drive (in my case it is Disk 5)
6. Select this drive to mark it for work by using “select disk 5” or “sel dis 5” command

DISKPART> sel dis 5

Disk 5 is now the selected disk.

7. Clean it (this will delete everything on your disk drive, so be careful) by using “clean” or “cle” command.

DISKPART> cle

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

8. Create primary partition – “create partition primary” or “cre par pri”

DISKPART> cre par pri

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

9. Select new partition – “select partition 1” or “sel par 1”

DISKPART> sel par 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

10. Mark it as Active partition – “active” or “act”

DISKPART> act

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

11. Format – “format fs=ntfs quick” or “for fs=ntfs quick”

DISKPART> for fs=ntfs quick

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

12. And finally my favorite command – “assign” or “ass” to mark it ready and create mount point

DISKPART> ass

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

13. Exit – “exit” or “exi” to return to command shell

DISKPART> exi

Leaving DiskPart…

Now your thumb drive is ready and bootable. So you can start copying files from ISO image into it.

Other option is to work with volumes rather than with disks. The all difference is in steps 4-6. Instead of “lis dis” use “lis vol” and instead of “sel dis” use “sel vol”. Maybe it is more convenience way of work because in this case you can identify partitions by labels and sizes rather than by sizes only.

DISKPART> lis vol

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ———-  —  ———–  —–  ———-  ——-  ———  ——–
  Volume 0     E                       DVD-ROM         0 B  No Media
  Volume 1     G                       DVD-ROM         0 B  No Media
  Volume 2         System Rese  NTFS   Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System
  Volume 3     C                NTFS   Partition     68 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 4     D   DATA         NTFS   Partition     80 GB  Healthy
  Volume 5     F   READYBOOST   FAT    Removable   3812 MB  Healthy
  Volume 6     H                       Removable       0 B  No Media
  Volume 7     I                       Removable       0 B  No Media
  Volume 8     K                NTFS   Removable     14 GB  Healthy

If you already copied your image into disk, you can mark MBR by using special utility called BootSect.exe shipped with WAIK. In our case (with Windows 7 embedded), you’ll have to update master boot code to use BOOTMGR (Vista and up) rather than NTLDR (XP and down)

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 K: /mbr

We done, have a good day and be good people. Additional information regarding USB core guys from MS can be archived from their brand new blog (hope it will be up to date).

At the end, just you to know how are CDs make by Discovery Channel

October 7th, 2009 · Comments (1)

TFS licensing model demystification or what should I buy for my company in order not to step on the licensing mine?

Microsoft loves cumbersome licensing models . This is not because of their evil-heartedness, but because it make them possible to get more from bigger companies and less from smaller. However when you come into the real decision about how many and what kind of licenses you have to purchase, you stuck. Today we’ll try to make things clearer, at least for Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio, which is very base things for any software house develops things using Microsoft technologies.

© image for cumbersomeness proposal via Willy-Peter Schaub by SA Architect

To make things even simpler, let’s assume that we do not need TFS Workgroup edition (which is special edition for TFS 5 users only) and we are not using TFS Device CAL (as opposed to User CAL this Client Access License permits one device to be used by any number of users. This kind of CAL is good for kiosks rather then for development environments). Also Test Load Agent needs it own license. So now, and under all those circumstances, let’s start.

To work with TFS we need:

1. One or more Team Foundation Server
2. More then one Visual Studio Client (editions can vary)
3. Optional one or more Software Assurance, which can be licenses separately or together with MSDN subscription
4. … and some other optional tools

TFS Licensing

Each instance of TFS needs it license. Even if you have mirrored deployment of TFS, you need a server license for each instance. Also you need separate license if you are using TFS Data Tier on SQL Server cluster or using TFS Proxy. I think it’s clear, that in addition to TFS license you’ll need Windows Server and SQL server licenses (if it used especially for TFS). You can also put Data Tier on existing SQL server in this case you need only another TFS license without SQL.

You do not need additional Team Foundation Server license for the machine used for TF build services. Also this machine does not need another CAL, except one used for the system user used for initialize builds.

To summarize: each instance of TFS need server license in addition to CALs and other server licenses (such as Windows, SQL, SharePoint, IIS etc).

Client Access License

In addition to server license you need also CAL for each used reads and writes to TFS. There are different versions of Visual Studio includes CAL:

• Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite
• Visual Studio 2008 Architecture edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Development edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Test edition
• Visual Studio 2008 Database edition

Visual Studio 2008 Professional does not includes CAL. So each one of contributes needs one of Visual Studios which includes CAL. The TFS clients might be installed on one of those editions and does requires additional license.

You do not need additional license when you are using TFS for only:

• Create work items, bugs, etc.
• Query for work items
• Update work items

Other words product definition, system analysts, managers and “bug fillers” do not required additional CAL. Note, that they will probably need proper Microsoft Office licenses to use Excel or Project to do this, however they can also use TFS web access (browser) or any other 3rd party tool without purchasing separate CAL.

Also you need only one CAL for server software. Other words, if you are using TFS on Windows Server you do not need TFS and Windows Server CAL. Also those CALs covers all earlier versions of all products in use.

To summarize: Each TFS user does not need additional CAL when he has proper license for Visual Studio Team Suite or using TFS for only bug/issues tracking.

Software assurance vs. MSDN

MSDN is more expensive then SA (Software Assurance), however it includes SA and provides some benefits by allowing access to several Microsoft products for development and testing purposes.

There are two different MSDN editions – professional and premium. The difference between those editions (except price) is that Premium editing includes Windows Server Systems and Microsoft Office. Thus with Professional edition you got software assurance for Visual Studio 2008 Professional while with Premium for all other versions.

Let’s simulate the results

For small software house with 10 developers (two architects, 1 DBA and 3 QA), two product definition guys, and manager we’ll need (in addition to OS, other server and Office licenses):

• 1 TFS license
• 2 Visual Studio 2008 Architecture edition
• 1 Visual Studio 2008 Database edition
• 3 Visual Studio 2008 Test edition
• 4 Visual Studio 2008 Development edition
• 1<n<10 MSDN Licenses Premium (as number of employees need it for testing or development purposes)
• 10-n SA licenses (if SA required)
• Additional CAL for build machine

I think, that now it become a bit clearer. For additional information regarding TFS licensing model, please refer Visual Studio Team System 2008 Licensing White Paper or ask your local licensing expert at Microsoft.

August 2nd, 2009 · Comments (15)

Windows 7 – dry run or how things should be done to correct old mistakes

I have not write for a while (if you’re following me on Twitter, you know why). Even so, today it will not be very informative post. This all about my expression about latest builds of Windows 7 and one job proposal. Have a fun.

January 13rd, I expressed rather bad opinion about Windows 7 (beta those days). Today, after most of post-RC builds (currently with 7260) on work machine I would way with big confidence – Microsoft learned from beta errors and now it works almost like it should work for RTM.

Installation

Installation takes less and less from build to build (this is 7th I’m checking). With 7260 it took about 15 minutes. All hardware devices (including Intel AMT, PM45 and LM5) were found and installed correctly. Shortly after the installation it installed a bunch of security and device driver updates. Looks like Microsoft has no issues with Intel anymore (or they just decided to build drivers by itself).

Hybrid graphic cards still not supported. Also it not seemed that it will be supported toward RTW. However Windows 7 correctly decided to use discrete card, rather then on-board once BIOS settings were set to prioritize it.

Taskbar

It still sucks, but you will accustom to it. From the beginning it looks like it takes all valuable space on your desktop, but shortly after you’ll see that it somehow comfortable to use it (it is really depends how you working. Lately I changed a bit a way I’m doing things [this why you cannot see me in Live Messenger anymore], thus it become rather good for me). Here how it looks for me now

Yes, it is Chome on this bar and this why:

‘Coz Internet Explorer become worse and worse

The only good thing I found about IE8 shipped with W7 is it has support for Windows 7 taskbar. However even this fact cannot defense against its suckness. It slow, buggy, has not enough functionality and absolutely annoying. I love Firefox, but it has too much functionality for me those days. Once I used to open it, I loss at least a half of hour for twittering, reading rss, etc. With Google Chrome is it not an issue, because this is nimble program with only one functionality – browse internet pages.

My last BSoD

Since the last time, I had no BSoDs. Also WDM not eating 999.9 CPU hours anymore (like it did in idle Vista). Also I had no compatibility issues. Everything worked as expected on my machine. The only issue I had is IE, that decided not to die and stuck as running windowless process. You know how it is when any icon on taskbar stops to do anything, just becoming red when you click on it.

Conclusion

Do it. Upgrade your OS as soon as possible and have a fun.

We’re hiring! (Israel residents only)

Lead Software Development Engineer in Test

We are looking for strong Software Development Engineer in Test who is passionate about UI and internal API usage to test rich client applications. Responsibilities would include developing test strategies, writing unit tests, UI automation, custom msbuild scripts, performing problem isolation and analysis, communicating with developers in support of debugging and investigation.

My group takes both individuals and teams success seriously, and looking for the right person to join our team, which is development, rather than test team. What my group is doing?

The AutOS group is responsible for delivering of the system you’ll have inside your next electric vehicle, one of the most important applications we have at Better Place for providing a consistent, transparent and fluent experience for a driver every day. Currently the application is used for energy management, navigation, infotainment, road safety and many other aspects of enhancing your future driving. Come explore the exciting opportunities on AutOS team developing cutting edge tools, facing all customers for all Better Place EVs. Become a member of the outstanding team that strives for engineering excellence in improving the life of all of us. AutOS team is using latest technologies and innovations to make sure delivery of the best possible experience for a driver.

Qualification

Solid programming ability in managed programming using the .NET Framework (C#) with some experience in WPF or Silverlight.
Solid technical knowledge in Information Technology field, including hardware capabilities and performance evaluation and tests.
Strong problem solving and troubleshooting skills.
Knowledge of Team Foundation Server and MSBUILD scripting.
2+ years experience in software testing, including designing and developing automation infrastructure.
Strong test aptitude.
Good communication skills and ability to work closely in a development team environment.
BA/BS or MS degree in Computer Science or equivalent field experience is required.

You think, that you want such job? Send me your CV, couple of word about yourself and why you want and able to work with me at Better Place to tamir@khason.biz with “Lead SDET application” in subject. (if you do get get an answer from me within a week, your mail is in spam, so you should resent it by using contact form here)

Have a nice day and be good people.

June 17th, 2009 · Comments (7)

Some new in-mix downloads

There are some very cool downloads suddenly appear on MSDN download site due to all new technologies, presented at Mix ‘09. So let’s start

• Silverlight 3 SDK beta 1
• If you do not want to install full SDK, you can install only runtime for Windows or Mac. Then, you can read documentation online. You do not need it, if you’re going to install
• Silverlight 3 tools beta 1 for VS2008 SP1. After you have all this, go to the official Silverlight web site and start working.
• If you re “in” .NET RIA Services, you can download March ‘09 preview of it also to use with new Silverlight. It also makes sense to read about what is it in Brad’s blog.
• Also new Silverlight toolkit was released with SL3 support and a bunch of new up/down controls, LayoutTransformer, Accordion and TransitioningContentControl.
• Microsoft Expression Blend 3 Preview. It includes SL3 and WPF3.5 SP1 support, but excludes SketchFlow by now.

To learn more about Silverlight 3.0 and Blend 3.0, you can see first day keynotes at mix 09, Rollup of what’s new in Silverlight 3 by Joe Stegman. This includes offline mode support by Mike Harsh. I’ll write another separate post for this topic, due to the fact, that I’m a desktop guy, so wary about the future of WPF.

To learn more about how to use new Expression Blend, it worth to see this session by Pete Blois. Another good sessions are also wrapped for you by Scott Hanselman.

After we done with all web stuff, let’s speak about a client

• Microsoft MultiPoint SDK. Do you want to use multitouch in your application? This SDK provides you with ability to use up to 250 individual mouse devices simultaneously. And yes, it works with Windows XP SP2 too
• Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP x32, XP x64, Vista x32, Vista x64
• In case, that you do no have Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you can download 30-day evaluation virtual hard disk of Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and see how it works .
• Also a small present for my old friends (from my military consulting era) – WPF and Silverlight APIs for GIS engine of ESRI. Have a fun!

That’s all by now, going to write a review for new book and will publish it soon (probably even before, you’ll finish with all those downloads and readings). So, stay tuned and be good people.

March 20th, 2009 · Comments (1)

Slides and desks from Smart Client Development session

Great thank to everybody attended yesterday at “Smart Client development” session. As promises, please see slides and desks from this session

February 12th, 2009 · Comments (0)

Line-Of-Business vs. Beautifulness or two dogmas comparison as exemplified by two Twitter applications

Today I want to speak about two dogmas: design and functional driven programming. As the example of those two approaches, I want to introduce two Twitter clients: *Chirp by thirteen23 and TwitterFox by Naan Studio

As you can see, *Chirp is state of art application with outstanding user interface, and well-defined usability studies. While TwitterFox is wacky grey boring kind-of-grid only. However, you cannot judge app by only how it looks like. Let’s try to understand first what’s for you need twitter client?

Defining application goals by user story

I’m using twitter as quick and handy business tool to write my thought, feelings and everyday events. It is not my main (not even secondary) task during the day, so I want to be able to open, write and forget. Thus, I need an application, that can be invoked by one click and dismissed after writing. Also, I do not want background application to gasp valuable space in my screen, when not in use. Thus it should be background process with reduced workset and one textarea, to be focused when the main window become active. Also the application should hide itself when unfocus, yet be able to notify me about events without disturbing.

Let’s see how it done in *Chirp:

• 140MB workset
• No ability to hide
• Bouncing thingy at left upper corner to disturb you – it designed as you main desktop beautifier.
• No ability to know that new twittes arrived without showing main window
• Twit process required to click additional button (named “Update” for some reason)
• If you not finished typing, you can either dismiss all text of post it.
• Strange 140 characters countdown on background absolutely esthetical, yet very disturbing.
• You cannot type more, then 140 characters – this restricted by textbox. If pasted bigger text all additional characters truncated.
• You need mouse to operate an application

Now TwitterFox:

• 10MB workset
• You can hide it by hitting escape or clicking X button
• Small and portable without disturbing elements – it not designed as your main everyday app.
• New twits counter over small icon in browser tray, all other notifications can be disabled
• Once focused text are become active, expanded automatically and ready to write
• If you’re hiding it without clearing area, all un write text remains – you can clear it by one click
• Small 140 characters countdown which is visible only when typing
• You can type more, then 140 characters – counter becomes red, and you cannot post, however you’re able to fix, by dismissing unnecessary spaces or characters.
• Can be operated by only keyboard.

Bottom line: *Chirp designed to show how good it looks, while TwitterFox to twit only. Thus for my specific user story TwitterFox won!

Defining functional specifications

Next task defined for Twitter is read other twits. I used to read all my following and followers when I have free minute. Sometimes I retwit things, rather often reply followers and read replies and rarely send direct messages.

*Chirp provides twit area without scrollbar, yet not restricted to number of twits. Other words, you can scroll with mouse wheel only or by holding somewhere inside and dragging unlimited up and down. When the mouse is over specific twit, it fades and show three buttons: reply, direct and retwit. Also each twit contains the name of the client was used (just like in regular web interface). When clicking user avatar it brings to special internal screen with last twit of the user, information and statistics about him, three functional buttons: UnFollow, Fave and Block and huge button Get User’s Tweets. When clicking the line displays the time of the twit it puts twit url into clipboard.

Also *Chirp contains five main functional buttons: Faves, Home, Direct, Update and Refresh. When Home tab unfocused (for example you’re on other screen), it also displays a number of new twits.

Error screen of *Chirp is really odd. It contains everything you not really need to know and beautiful whales moving on screen.

TwitterFox is much simpler. It contains two buttons on mouse/keyboard over – reply and fave. When clicking on user’s avatar it opens it’s page in Twitter with all necessary information. Main TwitterFox window contains three buttons: Recent, Replies, Messages.

No doubt, that *Chirp provides much richer functional spec, but wait, am I really need all this? I told earlier, that I used to read twits and replies, while *Chirp has no such view at all. You can easy copy twit url into clipboard, but what for? Also, you can read  bio and statistics of people you following whenever you want without opening browser window. But how often you’re doing that?

TwitterFox concentrated on functionality – twit, read, reply, read replies (and direct messages) – base tasks , Twitter designed for. It also marks replies with contrast color in public timeline, while *Chirp has inline reply functionality with threaded discussions support (which is very odd for Twitter)

Bottom line: *Chirp is enriched with not useful features, while TwitterFox contains only things, you’re use. Thus for my specific functional requirements TwitterFox won again!

Developers vs. Designers final round

So, we already understand, that *Chirp is an application, designed to show how skilled thirteen23 designers are. And it achieved this goal. The application is state-of-art, looks and designed very well with taking into account even small details, however it huge, unusable for everyday twittering and extremely slow. This is a general example about Designers’ doctrine.

TwitterFox is very ugly, but concentrated on functionality, tiny and reactive. It includes only features are necessary for twittering and has no other goals. So, this is a general example about Developers’ doctrine.

Is it possible to messmate those doctrines? Probably it is. And it is really simple. Each one of actors should do his own work. Designers should design and Developers – develop. I spoke about it a lot during my lectures, I’ll speak about it also at 11th February in user group meeting. By now, when you know how I see Twitter, you can start following me. Also, I’m interesting to hear your ideas about Designer-Developer intercommunication. It is not just about Microsoft way

Have a nice day and be good people.

January 30th, 2009 · Comments (8)

Action required: Smart Client development present and future

Are you in Israel 11-February evening? Are you smart client developer and think, like me, that “cloud thingy” is just like Playboy girl, whom you never know what surprises might be waiting for you underneath? If so, you are invited to attend “Smart Client development present and future” session,  will take part in Yad leBanim house in Ness Ziona (9, Habanim str., Ness Ziona).

 
© Apple store at iMall in Tampa Bay, FL (by Nick Starr)

What we’ll speak about? Net 3 hours of smart client development, which includes WPF for infotainment, WPF for Line-Of-Business, WPF for weak netbooks, running Windows 7 Ultimate. DirectX bridge to enhance user experience. Future of .NET framework, including aspects oriented and modular, yet strong type programming, that you can already use today with some tricks, will be explained. We’ll speak with odd devices, by using some build-in core interfaces from next generation device framework. And much-much more.

Everything is possible 11th February evening, even tits, which will be shown during this session. So it worth to attend. Number of places is limited, so first registered – first served.

See you there

Register to attend “Smart client development present and future” >> (RSVP at Facebook)

Did you know, that 11th February is traditional founding date of Japan at 660BC. Also first session of US senate was opened to the public at 1794. While in 1916, Emma Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control and at 1953 Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel (1964 the same thing was done by the Republic of China with France). It going to be interesting evening

January 26th, 2009 · Comments (7)

Windows 7 – dry run or why Intel does not like Microsoft

Finally, I got a couple of free minutes to install Windows 7 x64 on my work machine. I have to admin, that installation was extremely fast. I just put DVD and keep talking with one of our architects near whiteboard. We enough to close only one issue, while Windows was installed and running. 

There are number of visual glitches, but it’s beta after all. Next thing is to install drivers. Everything was great (it even find and install fingerprint reader), except three strange drivers on my Lenovo W500, that Windows 7 refused to find:

• PCI Serial Port
• PCI Simple Communications Controller
• SM Bus Controller

What can be those drivers? The clue was in SM Bus. It something related to board chipset. So, just checked Intel AMT, Intel PM45 and Intel LMS. My approximation was right, Windows 7 (and Microsoft Windows Update service) has no information regarding Intel stuff while all other (more rare drivers were installed fluently). I also need to install three of those drivers in Windows Vista compatibility mode in order to make it works.

Why this happen? Why it’s so hard to two huge conglomerates to work together in order to bring customers better installation experience? It seemed, that Lenovo did huge work with Microsoft to adopt its hardware drivers for Windows 7. Even switchable graphic cards worked perfect without additional drivers. So why Lenovo can, while Intel cannot?

I believe, that the problem is with Intel, who self fighting not to loss high end (and cost) processors, when the market requests low cost Atom-based machines with low power, yet good performing graphic processors.

Regarding biometric devices and switchable graphics. If you want to be able to login to domain with your fingerprint, be sure, that you visited Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Biometric Devices\Change settings and check this option. By default it’s off.

Also it not seemed, that Windows 7 supports hybrid graphic cards. So unless I’ll find a way to get rid of this issue, I have to use Lenovo switchable graphics utility…

Next thing was to install gentlemen’s assembly:

• Windows Live Essentials
• Microsoft Office 2007 + SPs
• Total Commander
• Skype
• Virtual PC 2008 SP1
• Visual Studio 2008 + SP1

All installations were fine, except small problem with business edition of Skype. Newly introduced Action Center advised me to install 4.0 beta version of Skype to prevent compatibility issues.

Another problem (not really Windows, but Microsoft related) is a time, that takes to install Visual Studio. For some reason installation of Office (which is not smaller, then VS) takes about 5 minutes on my machine, when for Visual Studio it takes more, then 40 minutes to be installed.Devdiv guys, please do something with this installer.

So two restarts and here we go. Windows 7 with all necessary software installed. Now issues started.

The only disappointment was because of Windows Experience Index (140GB 7200RPM hard disk is not big and fast enough for this version of OS). If this not, what is?

But it can be fixed easily by disabling cache on disk Device Manager –> Disk Drives –> Uncheck “Disk write caching policy”.

After doing this your system will run much faster and score will be increased.

I cannot understand the reason it checked by default for non solid state drives, which unsuitable for fast caching.

Switchable graphic cards are also seemed, to be an issue for Windows 7. It does not supported by now to switch graphic cards. All you can do is to pitch BIOS for denying OS from display driver detection and set the card you want. Here how my machine scores looks like with second graphic card enabled.

Taskbar is for fun, not for work

First of all new branded taskbar. How I supposed to distinct what running and what don’t? Shinny borders and backgrounds? Cool, but not really helpful for me. Just for test try to set “Hide when minimized” option for Outlook 2007 and then detect whether it running or not. Ah, yes, I have to go via tinny arrow to configure taskbar icons – too bad.

Another issue with this bar is configuration of shortcuts. Just in case, sometimes I want to run programs minimized or maximized or set start keys (right click on shortcut and Properties). How should I do it for pinned items?

I understand, that for 5 years Microsoft tried somehow to prevent from developers to junk users notification area on taskbar, by hiding, swapping and moving things there. Finally, they managed to solve it by putting all trash into big shiny icons? Just take a look on Microsoft Messenger appearance in tasksbar. You have to run it in Vista compatibility mode in order to prevent it putting icon in this area? Too bad! This not called “feature complete” for sure.

Software compatibility

Yes, not everything perfect. For example drag and drop (DragonDrop) for Virtual PC will not work in regular mode in Windows 7. You have to create shared folder to workaround it. All programs, required elevated permission (those which triggered UAC on Vista all the time) will ask you for run only once, but if you accidently pressed anything else, then Allow, you’ll never be able to run it again (unless resetting UAC credentials in Windows). Also all those great programs, not required installations or any registry changes (for example Notepad++ or WinSCP will always treated as suspicious by Windows Defender, thus will start very slow all the time and some times required to be sent “for inspection”. This is general fail of Defender. Why me (as user) should wait you (as service provider) to check something. Do it on background, if you want to…

My first BSoD

Yes, I did it. I never was able to get Blue Screen of Death on Windows Vista. Here it happened after another restart. The reason was very funny: I did not closed Outlook before restarted Windows 7 (this fade screen with your applications will be forcibly closed). Yes, it was not really major BSoD. Windows made memory dump to prevent future crashes and send information. BTW, if you want to be able to report problems, you should use keys from Connect website, rather, then from MSDN. Beta reporting services is sensitive to product key.

Background services or what is really missing

My overall experience of Windows 7 is 7 of 10. It is major improvement of Windows Vista, but it still far from being perfect. I would advice to add OS foreground task dispatching. There are too many developers (also Microsoft’s, who trying to perform long tasks in UI thread). I think, that operation system should handle such cases and dispatch jobs to background to prevent UI freeze.

Another thing, is to find good compromise between annoying user and smart operations. Other words, do not try to assume what customer want to do, let him to decide (or at least enable such option). Good example for this is very odd Clear Type wizard. What would you answer to such question?

Why I need to see the same stuff three times, when all I want it file manager?

Stop trying to replace software. You already screwed with Microsoft Valet.

ISO file burn directly from Windows is really great feature, but an ability to mount iso images as virtual disks would be much better.

Other words, if you, Microsoft, want to create great operation system – do operation system, do not try to complete OS issues with another nice to have features. But no words – great work. Thank you.

Ah, and do not forget to fire everybody in IE dev team… It awful and has no future.

Next time we’ll speak about developer point of view to Windows 7.

January 13th, 2009 · Comments (10)

Microsoft Tag vs. QR tag

One of Microsoft’s announcements on CES09 was Microsoft Tag. Do you remember last try of Microsoft to create mobile barcodes on Live platform? I remember it. So why Windows Live Barcode was deprecated, while Microsoft creates new one? What the key difference between Quick Response approach, barely adopted by industry and new colorful MS stuff? Let’s try to understand differences and approximate future fail or success on this technology.

Key differences:

• The only information contains inside MS Tag is ID, which should be used to fetch all relevant information from tag server while QR contains all necessary information and can be used offline. Both technologies have it own advantages and disadvantages. From one hand, you can manage and fix results all the time, from the other hand, what happen with fraud and offline usage?
• MS Tag using High Capacity Color Barcode (HCCB) technology, which makes able to encode more information into relatively small area. Also because of small amount of information, errors can be handled easily for MS Tag. For encode 1 byte we need 8 symbols in QR codes, while in MS Tag only 4.
• MS Tag using thee base colors (CMYK) while QR only two (BW), thus in offset print MS Tag is much more sensitive to the quality of color plates. From other hand, if I my approximation is right, MS Tag can be printed in gray palette too, due to the fact, that it uses color differences, rather then color codes for decoding. Also it seemed, that hardware used for four barcodes will be more expensive, than similar hardware for two colors.
• Because of the fact, that QR is mature technology (first ISS was presented in October 1997), there are huge amount of devices, supports it natively, while MS Tag is rather new. From other hand, http://gettag.mobi/ provides WM,J2ME, IPhone, Blackberry and Symbian native clients for reading MS Tags. So it seemed, that very soon (if Microsoft will not abandon it again) this will be distributed de-facto.
• QR Code® is registered trademark of Denso Wave Inc, which makes this technology problematic for future enhancements, also HCCB, used for MS Tag is licensed by Microsoft, however as far as I understand from their IPL site, it can be used as far as remains under MS patent agreement. But maybe an appliance of this technology is protected.

Bottom line – I’m very skeptic with MS Tags, however let’s give it a chance and see whether MS Tag will become another Semacode, ShotCode, PDF417, Dot Code, Aztec Code, etc. or become Barcode technology we see every day everywhere…

Meanwhile, you can create your own MS Tag, download free reader for your mobile device from http://gettag.mobi and decide whether you like it or not. For me, this technology is cool, but the code itself is very ugly

Be good people and have a nice day.

January 9th, 2009 · Comments (6)

Source code for Silverlight 2 controls

Too much exciting news today. Shortly after announced about Windows 7 beta download, I found, that Joe Stegman, Seema Ramchandani, Andre Michaud, Jon Sheller and other guys from Silverlight team released the source code of managed Silverlight controls, included in System.Windows.dll, System.Windows.Controls.dll, and System.Windows.Controls.Data.dll. Get it, you have a lot of thing to learn from this package.

Download Silverlight 2.0 controls source code >>

January 7th, 2009 · Comments (2)