I recently experienced issue installing security update KB967723 for Windows Update on a Windows Server 2008 (32-bit). This seems to be a very common issue with Windows Server 2008 resulting in a error code 80070490.

The easiest way is getting the update from the Microsoft Download Center for 32-bit or for 64-bit directly. Once you get the update you can execute the standalone installer to install the security update manually. This should do the job.

Once installed you can start Windows Update again, it should now show Windows being up to date. Let me know if this worked for you.

While setting up Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 one might into an non obvious issue with user rights. The error observed would look the following:

The  TFS installation considered is a single machine installation with SQL Server Reporting and Analysis services and SharePoint Services installed during the TFS installation.

The full descriptions of the error is:

Error
TF30224: Failed to retrieve projects from the report server. Please check that the SQL Server Reporting Services Web and Windows services are running and you have sufficient privileges for creating a project.

Explanation
The Project Creation Wizard encountered a problem while creating reports on the SQL Server Reporting Services on http://coruscant/ReportServer/ReportService2005.asmx. The reason for the failure cannot be determined at this time. Because the operation failed, the wizard was not able to finish creating the SQL Server Reporting Services site.

User Action
Contact the administrator for the SQL Server Reporting Services on http://coruscant/ReportServer/ReportService2005.asmx to confirm that the SQL Server Reporting Services server is running and you have sufficient privileges to create a project . Your user account on SQL Server Reporting Services must have Content Manager permission to create a new project. Also, you might find additional helpful information in the project creation log. The log shows each action taken by the wizard at the time of the failure and may include additional details about the error.

A wild guess might be checking all rights for SQL Server, SharePoint sites, SQL Server Reporting Services etc. Pat Ramadass comes up with the right hint that origins from the previous TFS version.

First of all do not look for the Reporting Service Configuration Manager. Go straight to http://localhost/Reports/ (logged in on your TFS server machine with administrator rights). You will get the SQL Server Reporting Services site. Select the Properties page and click on New Role Assignment.

Now add exactly the user (or group) you tried creating the TFS Team Project with. Select at least Content Manager and confirm by pressing OK.

Go back to you local machine and try to create the TFS Team Project again. The users should now have sufficient rights to create the project.

There is an urban legend that Google Calendar Sync would not run on Windows 7. Indeed, if you follow the installation instructions Google Calendar Sync will first ask you for your credentials and consequently fail to connect to Google Calendar. In the following you’ll find an solution how to use Google Calendar Sync with Microsoft Outlook 2007 on a Windows 7 system that that is provided under a works on my machine premise.

Once saved, Google Calendar Sync will try to connect but fail with error 2006. There is not many information about this error beside various frustrated users ranting about this and some statements that the current version of Google Calendar Sync (0.9.3.5) is not supported under Windows 7 yet.

In the current case we will even run Google Calendar Sync on a Windows 7 64-bit system. Before you continue, make sure you exit Google Calendar Sync. First of all open a Explorer window and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Calendar Sync or C:\Program Files\Google\Google Calendar Sync on a 32-bit Windows 7 system.

Right click on GoogleCalendarSync.exe and select Properties. Now select the Compatibility tab, check the Run this program in compatibility mode for and choose Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) from the drop down list. Click on OK and restart Google Calendar Sync either from your desktop icon or from the start menu entry.

Once restarted you can happily sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook 2007 on (even a 64-bit) Windows 7 system.

The Compatibility mode of Windows is a great feature to make usage of legacy programs that have not been or will never bee updated to the latest Windows version. Since Windows 7 even mode modes (including Windows Server) back to Windows 95 are supported. The number of supported versions might vary depending on the Windows 7 version you use, however, the Vista and XP mode should always be available.

Microsoft’s Windows 7, Outlook 2007 and Adobe’s Acrobat just do not play well together on 64-bit systems. After receiving a PDF document via email, Outlook usually cannot display the PDF.

When selection Preview File, you will simply get the message PDF Preview Handler for Vista (Vista!?) caused an error.

For now, the only way to view the PDF file is to open it in an external PDF reader. Leo Davidson provides a fix that finally solves this issue. Just get the fix, and run the Adobe Reader preview handler x64 fixer.exe which is included in the file.

After applying the fix, both, the 32-bit AppID as well as the 64-bit AppID will show the value as correct.

No reboot required, just go back to Outlook (worked even without restarting the application) and et voilà.

Thanks to Leo Davidson, who provides this outstanding fix. Well played.

Nice eye candy in Windows 7. When selecting multiple items in the Windows Explorer, the preview stacks all the selected items.

AWStats is a free, Perl-based analyzer for log files. To get results quickly on a Windows Server 2008 with IIS 7 you only have to follow a few steps. These are not well documented in the AWStats documentation and require some time of research. This post will show you how to set up AWStats with IIS7 in only a few minutes.

1. Install Perl, e.g. ActivePerl. There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions available. Make sure that Perl is added to your PATH environmental variable. The ActivePerl installer usually provides this option during the installation.
   
   
2. Install AWStats. Remember the path AWStats is installed. Paths used below are based on the installation folder of AWStats. In this example we use c:\awstats.
   
   
3. Run the configuration script at c:\awstats\tools\awstats_configration.pl. Follow the on screen instructions. This will create a default configuration file in c:\awstats\wwwroot\cgi-bin e.g. called awstats.www.example.org.config. The site name www.example.org depends on whatever site name was provided while running the script. When asked for the Apache Web server path type in none.
   
   
   
4. Open the configuration file awstats.www.example.org.config with any text editor of your choice.
   
   
5. AWStats already supports IIS, however, it is required to tweak the config file. First change the entry for LogFile. Log files for IIS might be found at c:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVCNNN where NNN is a different number for each web site, IIS creates log files for. Change the entry to
   
   LogFile=”c:\awstats\tools\logresolvemerge.pl c:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC1\*.log |”
   
   This will merge all log files for a site provided by IIS. Adjust the paths corresponding to your installations and desired log file folders.
   
   
6. The AWStats configuration file offers the possibility to set the LogFormat to IIS (LogFormat=2), however, the log entries provided by a standard installation of IIS 7 won’t match. The AWStats documentation recommends to change the settings of IIS. The change will take effect only after restarting the Web site and is only valid for entries after that particular moment. Consequently, this is not an option if you are going to analyze the logs of the last 12 months where the original settings were used. To make AWStats work with the standard log format of IIS 7 change the LogFormat  to
   
   LogFormat=”%time2 %other %method %url %other %query %other %host %other %code % %other %other %bytesd”
   
   
7. Change SiteDomain and HostAliases to meet the settings of your site.
   
   
8. Change to c:\awstats\wwwroot\cgi-bin\ and run
   
   awstats.pl -config=www.example.org
   
   This will build the statistics database for AWStats.
   
   
9. To create output run
   
   awstats.pl -config=www.example.org –output –staticlinks > …\example_org_stats.html
   
   
10. Not that example_org_stats.html is created one folder up. In case you do miss this, the output will not work correctly until you adapt the entries for DirCgi and DirIcons in the configuration file.
    
    
11. The output file is now located in c:\awstats\wwwroot. You might want to create a Virtual Directory or set up a Web site to view the reports via the Web or your Intranet.
    
    

Repeat steps 3-7 fore each site you want to create reports for. Repeat step 8 and 9 every time you want to create a new report.

After upgrading Windows Vista to Windows 7 you might encounter an issue with VMware Workstation and its network adapter.

When setting up a NAT or bridged network connection in VMware Workstation it shows a message telling

The virtual network drivers on the host are incompatible with the installed VMware application. Expected version 5. Please reinstall the product. Failed to connect virtual device Ethernet0.

Make sure all your virtual machines are powered off and quit VMware Workstation. Open a command shell as administrator and follow the steps below.

First cd %windir%\system32\drivers, check for the file vmnetadapter.sys, right-click it, select Details and check its version. It should be 4.0.2.0. If the file is not there,

cd "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\VMware\VMware Workstation"

rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection VMnetAdapter1.Install 128 %CD%\netadapter.inf

vnetlib -- install devices

This will install the required adapters and devices. Do again a cd %windir%\system32\drivers and check for the First cd %windir%\system32\drivers, check for the file vmnetadapter.sys file.

After a reboot of the host system, the NAT settings for the VMware network adapters should work again. Switching to bridged mode will probably result in another message.

Reason for the message saying

The network bridge on device VMnet0 is not running.  The virtual machine will not be able to communicate with the host or with other machines on your network.
Failed to connect virtual device Ethernet0.

might be the missing VMware Bridge Protocol on the according host network adapter.

Got to Network and Sharing Center and select Change adapter settings. Choose the network connection you want to use with your VMware network adapter, right-click, select Properties, Install, Service and finally Add. This will allow you to select the VMware Bridge Protocol. In case the entry is not listed, select Have Disk… and navigate to %ProgramFiles(x86)%\VMware\VMware Workstation.

After installing  the VMware Bridge Protocol restart the VMware Workstation and choose the bridged mode for the network adapter.

Doh, if you are going to use your Windows Server 2003 as a streaming server for your Xbox 360, you might be in trouble. For a while I went with a rather sophisticated solution, running a Windows XP Media Center within a Virtual Server on my Windows Server 2003. The solution is not the desired one and as Windows Media Center and the Media Center Extender within Xbox 360 have some trouble in streaming h.264 encoded movies files, I had to dig a bit deeper.

Before you go one, please be aware of the following disclaimer:

The following is given under a “works on my machine” premise. The proposed approach is based on my very personal attempts and comes a”as is”. If you try to attempt the following steps, you do it on your own risk. It is not supported by Microsoft, and hey, in case you brick your box don’t expect any support from Microsoft. Don’t blame it to me either as you did it on your own risk, but let me know as it could be fun, tough.

There are several ways to share media with your Xbox 360. The easiest ways is to check out http://www.xbox.com/pcsetup/. After determining your OS, you will be guided through the best way to share media. Bad luck if you work on a Windows Server 2003, though. Not supported, you will be told. 

The easiest way is to share media over Windows Media Player 11. Windows Server 2003 comes with Windows Media Player 10. But as we know the core of Windows Server 2003 is somehow Windows XP and therefore there must be away to install WMP 11 on Windows Server 2003. If you google for it, you will come along a dozen hacks and workarounds and most of them won’t work.  Recently, this guy called C:Amie posted some awesome hack to install Windows Media player 11 on Windows Server 2003. If you have time, go through it, if you are in a hurry, do it that way:

1. Make sure your box is fully patched and Service Pack 2 is installed.
   
2. Download Windows the Windows Media Player 11 installer for Windows XP. 
   
3. Download the automatic installer from C:Amie’s website.
   
4. Run the automatic installer and extract it to any folder on your Windows Server 2003 box.
   
5. Copy the previously downloaded wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe into the same directory.
   
6. Go to the folder and run the INSTALL.CMD file.
   
7. Follow the onscreen instructions.
   
   
   
   The script creates a temporary folder on your C: drive called C:\wmp11. There you have to change the compatibility mode of two files to Windows XP. Go to C:\wmp11\update\1\. and right click the update.exe file. Chose the Compatibility tab and check the Compatibility mode for Windows XP. Make the same for the update.exe file in c:\wmp11\update\2\.
   
   
   
8. Now go back to the command line window and press a key to continue and the simply wait.
   
9. The software updater wills start after some time and after some more time you will end up with the UPnP for Windows Server 2003 dialog.
   
   
   Check the Universal Plug and Play checkbox and select Next and then Finish.
   
10. If everything went well, you will end up with Windows Media Player 11 on a Windows Server 2003. Hurray.
    
    
    

But you remember that we want to stream h.264 encoded files to our Xbox 360, right? The good news is that Windows 7 will support h.264 natively. The bad news is that we work on a Windows Server 2003 right now.  With some work however, we can teach our Windows Server 2003 also to deal with h.264 encoded .mp4 files. All we have to do is to install some codecs and to apply some registry hacks.

1. For the sake of simplicity, I took the K-Lite Mega Codec pack. It took the mega pack instead of the standard pack because Dirty Harry is using a .44 and not a .375. This might be reason enough.
   
2. During installation select Profile 2. It’s the default profile without the players (you remember we want to stream anyway). Feel free to experiment with other profiles and custom settings.
   
   
   
3. When you come along the Select Additional Task step, don’t forget to scroll down and to check Make thumbnail generation possible for the following types. This will create the thumbnails in the Windows explorer and within the Windows Media Player 11.
   
   
   

At this point your Windows Media Player can play h.264 encoded files but your server is still not capable to share any kind of .mp4 files. They won’t show up in the folders monitored by Media Player until we apply some tweaks to the registry.

On my crusade I came along two registry patches. It seems that they did not work for everybody, however, nobody tried on Windows Server 2003. It worked for me after I installed both of them.

1. Download the first registry patch, rename to .reg and install it.
   
2. Download the second registry patch, rename to .reg and install it.
   
3. Reboot to apply the registry changes.

Now, out Windows Server 2003 is capable to stream h.264 encoded media files. The previous patches will now cause that Windows Media Player 11 will add all kinds of .mp4 or .m4a files within the monitored folders. Adding these folders to be streamed is straight forward.

1. Go to  Libary /Add to Library… 
   
   
   
2. Add all kinds of folders that should be streamed to your Xbox 360. The media types will be organized automatically, so movies, music files and images will be shown in the corresponding tabs in the NXE. 
   
   
    
3. In some rare cases (and I know what I am talking about as I encountered this rare case) all your mp4 files won’t show up in the movie folders. In this case select Library / Other and check if the files are shown there.
   
    
   
   If you find all your files here, something went terrible wrong with your media library. Calm down, there is a easy workaround (FWIW: if you already share media, stop sharing as the following won’t work).
   
   Go to C:\Documents and Settings\[YouProfileName]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft and delete the Media Player folder. This will wipe out the whole media library for this computer. Restart from 1. and everything should be green now.
   
    

Now, where everything is nicely organized, indexed and monitored, we are ready to share our media with the Xbox 360.

1. Turn on your Xbox 360. 
   
   No kidding, you won’t be able to turn on sharing if the 360 is not on at that point of time.
   
2. Go to Library / Media Sharing…
   
    
   
3. Now it’s straight forward:
   
   a) Check Share my media to
   
   b) Select your Xbox 360
   
   c) Click Allow 
   
   
   
   
4. Finally, don’t forget to check out the Customize button which will open a dialog for some more fine tuning (what kinds of media to share, what ratings to share, etc.)

Now got to your Xbox 360 and enjoy your h.264 streamed media.

There are a few point’s I haven’t found out how to resolve, yet.

1. The registry hacks don’t include .mkv file extensions. Also both hacks could be combined into one. I simply haven’t spend time in this yet.
   
2. The 360 won’t show any thumbnails for the h.264 encoded files. Not sure if this is related to the XNE or the Media Player. This might worth some more investigation.
   
3. The 360 does not show the length of the media file. It does so for .avi files, so this might be automatically answered once 2. is answered.

Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky, both senior managers for the upcoming Windows 7, are hosting a blog called Engineering Windows 7, inviting everybody to comment about the future development of the new Windows platform. Actually, they only request to follow a few guidelines that however should be self-evident following a certain netiquette.

"We’re excited about this blog. As active bloggers on Microsoft’s intranet we are both looking forward to turning our attention and blogging energies towards the community outside Microsoft. We know the ins and outs of blogging and expect to have fun, provide great information, and also make a few mistakes. We know we’ll misspeak or what we say will be heard differently than we intended. We’re not worried. All we ask is that we have a dialog based on mutual respect and the shared goal of making a great release of Windows 7."

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/

Simple but powerful: http://live.sysinternals.com. 

What they say:

"This is a file share allowing access to all Sysinternals utilities. We have developed this to test an alternate distribution mechanism for our utilities. This will allow you to run these tools from any computer connected to the Internet without having to navigate to a webpage, download and extract the zip file."

What you get:

After upgrading to the Windows Search 4.0 Preview I was quite happy about the new "index now" and "pause" functionality, finally provided by the preview. Brandon Paddock now came along with the missing tool to control the indexer.

Download, install and run. Works perfectly. No more locking down my system due to SearchIndexer.exe. 

Download Link: http://brandontools.com/files/folders/sidebar_gadgets/entry511.aspx

Here we go...

You probably run into the same problem that Windows Server 2008 won't be able to recognize the virtual hard disk you have planned to installed it on. Get the corresponding SCSI drivers as floppy image from the VMware site. Select the image and connect the drive.

Now say 'Browse' and choose drive 'A:' - don't forget: After selecting the .flp image you also have to connect the drive. Otherwise Windows cannot read the device.

Click on 'Next' and after a few seconds the hard disk will be found. The currently available drivers for Windows Server 2003 seem to work fine also for Windows Server 2008.

Installing the VMware Tools might be a good idea. You can find the image at /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso or just install them from the VMware management console's menu. While the image is mounted go to 'Device Manager' and install the drivers for the network adapter which probably does not work yet.

Now some tweaking for the IP, gateway and DNS servers and one more step in my master plan achieved.

1. Got root
2. Install VMware
3. Install a Windows Server 2008
4. Move my existing site to the new server

Vista Flickr Uploader is a small tool I found at CodePlex to quickly push a whole bunch of pictures to your Flickr account.

Pros: Allows you to select a whole bunch of images at once, allows to assign the images to a previously created set and remembers the folder you picked pictures from the last time.

Cons: Takes some time to start since it validates the verifies application requirements every time, does not allow you to create title or description of the photos and finally the code is under LGLP - no way that I touch it.

Nice, but some room for improvements.

Nick White recently announced the Windows Search 4.0 Preview. The description of the Remote Index Discovery seems to be promising.

The first positive improvement after the installation I realized is a 'Pause' button at the 'Indexing options'. A tray icon, for convenient pausing the indexing, as I did know from the early versions of MSN Desktop Search or Microsoft Research's Stuff I've Seen, is not provided.

On the Windows Server 2003 installation, I find a tab at the 'Advanced Options' allowing me to add UNC locations. Since I had no Desktop Search running on my server before I am not sure if this is some new feature.

So far, I haven't found anything about the Remote Index Discovery, yet. However, I will follow up the development of the Desktop Search in the future.

Today, Daniel helped my to solve a long standing miracle. For some unknown reason, Vista decided not to support hibernate on my Toshiba m400 anymore. So what to do:

Start the command prompt and type powercfg -H ON.

You won't see anything on the screen, but when going back to your advanced power potions you will see both, hibernate and hybrid sleep again.

That's all - and you can send your machine to hibernate again.

Looks like it enables import and live preview of RAW files in Vista without any further third-party tool. Can be downloaded at [1].

[1] http://www.olympus.co.jp/...

... in Windows Vista to be fixed by KB 938979 [1] and KB 938194 [2] if you can't wait for Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979
[2] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194

Yesterday, I discovered the images related to your Windows Mobile device shown in Windows Mobile Device Center. Today, I found another surprising feature: Whilst selecting my mobile device in Explorer the image of the corresponding  device appeared on the Explorer. Nice feature.

Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac [1] r0ckz. Listening music on the Mac mini, sometimes I had to do things on my server. Consequently, I had to start one of my machines to connect to to the server remotely. Using the Remote Desktop Connection Client that's a thing of the past. there are some c00l features, not seen on the Windows client, yet (maybe I should have a better look): Copy and paste seems to be working from and to the host system and you can print on your Mac printer while being in the remote session.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient

Just getting the microcode update [1] since I am running only Intel processors. Read [2] for more information about the patch. 

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
[2] http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=936357

SearchIndexer.exe does all the indexing stuff on your Vista machine. Not bad at all it is not possible to schedule when the indexer is running as it was able using MSN Desktop Search. E.g., there you have been able to send the indexer to sleep for a 10, 20 or 60 minutes or to avoid running the indexer whilst working on the machine. it looks like the only way to calm the machine down is by switching of the service at all. Another work around I am trying right now is to got to Control Panel / Power Options and choosing the High Performance Change power plan settings. There chose Change advanced power settings Search and Indexing values to Power Saver or Balanced. This should lower the indexing effort of the Vista Search significantly.

Ther are two versions of the Windows SDK out there. The fist one is a .iso download [1], the second one the Web setup [2]. They should be the same, however the .iso is version 5.0 while the Web setup is version is Orcas_March07CTP...

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...

After years of using Windows XP I got used to some additional features provided by Microsoft Windows XP Powertoys [1]. Coming with a couple of new features I still missing some very essential tools for my daily work. The two things I miss the most are Open Command Window Here and Image Resizer.

[Update 26/02/2007]

Eric [2] just pointed out, pressing shift while clicking a folder in Explorer brings up the Open Command Window then.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
[2] http://research.microsoft.com/ero/people.aspx

Windows Mobile Device Center 6 is available for download [1].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx

For a while I am waiting for the drivers for my Toshiba m400 running Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise Edition. Drivers availability is scheduled for end of January as the Toshiba support page [1] says.

"Toshiba is committed to making final production BIOS and various software components for Windows Vista available for our Vista Capable systems within the timeframe of the public launch of Windows Vista, scheduled for January 30, 2007."

[1]  http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_dtlView.jsp?soid=1566484

Benjamin G. points out two interesting gadgets for the Vista sidebar on his blog [1]. Personally, I like the Outlook Tasks gadget [2] the most. The Outlook Upcomming Appointments gadget did not work on my machine. It is showing only one appointment from september. Actually, this is also one comment on the gadget's homepage [2].

[1] http://benjamingauthey.com/...
[2] http://gallery.microsoft.com/...
[3] http://gallery.microsoft.com/...

Looking for svnserve [1] I realized that the link is dead. Instead I found some hints that subversion from version 1.4 .x on supports to be started as a service out of the box. After running

sc create svn.local binpath= "\"c:\program files\subversion\bin\svnserve.exe\" --service --root c:\svn" displayname= "Subversion Repository" depend= Tcpip

I just had to change the service settings to be automatically started.

More information on this topic can be found at [2].

[1] http://blog.aheil.de/SVNService.aspx
[2] http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/tags/1.4.0/notes/windows-service.txt

Ever stuck in sorting a huge bullet list? One of the 90% unknown Word features found at [1].

The Sort Text command can be used to alphabetize lists instantly.

1. Type a list of names, pressing ENTER after each name. Your list should look something like:
   • Madeleine Kelly
   • Brian Cox
   • Tamara Johnston
2. Select the entire list.
3. On the Table menu, click Sort.
4. Click Options, click Other, press SPACEBAR and then click OK.
5. In the Sort by list, click Word 2, and then click OK.

   Now your list looks like this:

   • Brian Cox
   • Tamara Johnston
   • Madeleine Kelly
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5, but click Word 1 in the Sort by list, and your list will look like this:
   • Brian Cox
   • Madeleine Kelly
   • Tamara Johnston

[1] http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA101154421033.aspx

Windows Vista comes with a whole bunch of new, high-color icons. How to create own icons for Vista applications is explained in the Vista Icon Creation Guidelines [1]. If I find some time I will purchase Axialis IconWorkshop [2]. The tutorial [3] for that tool look quite promising.

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/UxGuide/UXGuide/Resources/WhatsNewInVista/Icons.asp
[2] http://www.axialis.com/iconworkshop
[3] http://www.axialis.com/tutorials/tutorial-vistaicons.html

I quite like the possibility offered by Mac OS with the detection of network errors when the system cannot connect to the network. Microsoft now also offers such a tool as Hotfix (KB914440) [1]. 

"The Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool analyzes information about your network connectivity to help you troubleshoot network-related problems with your computer."

After installing the tool, IE proposes to use the tool after a network error.

 The Network Diagnostic Tool is accessible by the  Tools / Diagnose Connection Problems ... menu.

Viewing the log file after the check allows to review the performed actions.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=EA541E8E-85A3-4D2F-A3A4-B329D03FC2FA&displaylang=en

Why (and how) IE is restricted in simultaneous DLs is described in the knowledge base [1].

"WinInet limits connections to a single HTTP 1.0 server to four simultaneous connections. Connections to a single HTTP 1.1 server are limited to two simultaneous connections. The HTTP 1.1 specification (RFC2616) mandates the two-connection limit. The four-connection limit for HTTP 1.0 is a self-imposed restriction that coincides with the standard that is used by a number of popular Web browsers."

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=htt...

Windows Vista beta2 does not want to upgrade to RC1 on my Toshiba m400 since there is no IDE controller driver available yet. Looks like I have to wait for another build or maybe the drivers will be available before.

Windows Principles [1].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/windowsprinciples.mspx

How to do can be found in [1].

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q102712/

While writing papers, there are some really usefull hints you must know. If you write down topics, usualy it's a royal pain on your back always to grap the mouse to choose the Heading 1 formatting. Just press [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[1] to [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[3] to mark the lines as a heading. Unfortunately this doesn't work for Heading 4.

Another great thing is the rand macro. Sometimes it is usefull to have some arbitrary text betwwen all the headings which make the structure of you document. Just type in =rand() for some paragraphs of text or =rand(2) if you want exact two paragraphs. Of course you can choose any other number as well.

Word provides you some text to fill your empty space:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

IIS is not willing to start anymore. At least in the Microsoft Knowledge Base [1] you can find a hint for this problem. So first, I thought it could be all the beta WinFX and Indigo stuff, I have installed on my machine. Finally I found the reason: Skype grabed port 80. After closing Skype I was able to restart the IIS.

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;816944

While e.g. German keyboards provide only the €-sign, the Office 2003 add-in International Character Toolbar provides an easy way to access different currency or language symbols. 

[1] microsoft.com/downloads

Two weeks ago, I have seen a short presentation by a group presenting their work using a Office Research Service for Microsoft Office 2003. Willing to do this by my own, there is the Getting Started... article [1] to do so.

The Office Developer Center [2] may also be a good point to start with.

The Step-By-Step Guide [3] to build own shapes in Visio may helpful in anpther project I have planned.

[1] msdn.microsoft.com/office/...
[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/
[3] msdn.microsoft.com/...

Today I got the hint to take a deeper look into the AD. Surprisingly I found the following entry in the Active Directory Schema [1]:

Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? If you have a look into RFC 1274 [2] search for section 9.3.5. There you will find

9.3.5.  Favourite Drink

   The Favourite Drink attribute type specifies the favourite drink of
   an object (or person).

     favouriteDrink ATTRIBUTE
         WITH ATTRIBUTE-SYNTAX
             caseIgnoreStringSyntax
             (SIZE (1 .. ub-favourite-drink))
     ::= {pilotAttributeType 5}

Seems like it is no joke at all...

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/adschema/adschema/a_drink.asp
[2] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1274.txt?number=1274

While indexing of network locations works fine with the MSN Desktop Search [1], there is an anoying issue with the index file. The Desktop Search allows you to choose the location where to put its index file.

click to enlarge (86,19 KB)

I have done so. Because I like to store all my files on a server, I have choosen a folder within my 'My Documents' Folder, which is located on a network share. Right after this, Desktop Search moves its index to the new location. After that it says that something is not ok with the index file. Because of this problem, the dialog above is disabled. Even the button 'Restore Defaults' is disabled. To restore the defaults I had to reinstall the Desktop Search. Which in fact is really anoying.

[1] http://desktop.msn.com/

DAS kann man alles aus einem Windows XP mit Service Pack 2 herausholen! Und endlich kann ich der Welt auch einmal zeigen wie einfach das ganze geht. Natürlich hätte auch ich das nicht ohne Hilfe geschafft, aber einmal in die richtige Richtung gestupst ist es kein Problem mehr sein Desktop mehr und mehr zu tunen: Was AMG für Mercedes ist... ist mein Desktop für Windows!

Das Theme ist sogar ohne weitere Hilfsmittel auf dem System installiert worden, hierbei handelt es sich um das von Micrsooft erst vor kurzem veröffentlichten Energy Blue Theme Pack für die Tablet PC Edition 2005.