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<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Welcome to Making IT Work Windows & Net Magazine, OH - 4 hours ago Although this blog will focus on SQL Server Express, I'll also pass along tips about Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Hyper-V, VMware ESX Server, ... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Hi. My name is Jane Maliouta and I am the Deployment PM for IE8. You might remember my recent blog on Installing IE8. Today I am here to tell you about Windows XP SP3 (XPSP3) and how it’ll work with the various released versions of Internet Explorer. Windows XP SP3 contains some new updates, and a number of bug fixes and security improvements. You can learn more about XPSP3 features by reading the white paper located here. We expect XPSP3 will be publicly available shortly and want you to have this information prior to its final release to the web. Internet Explorer 6 Users XPSP3 will continue to ship with IE6 and contains a roll-up of the latest security updates for IE6. If you are still running Internet Explorer 6, then XPSP3 will be offered to you via Windows Update as a high priority update. You can safely install XPSP3 and will have an updated version of IE6 with all your personal preferences, such as home pages and favorites, still intact. If you are currently running IE7 or IE8 on Windows XP SP2 (XPSP2) and you are thinking of upgrading to XPSP3, read on. Internet Explorer 7 Users If you are currently running IE7 on XPSP2, Windows Update will offer you XPSP3 as a high priority update. If you choose to install XPSP3, Internet Explorer 7 will remain on your system after the install is complete. Your preferences will be retained. However, you will no longer be able to uninstall IE7. If you go to Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs, the Remove option will be grayed out. This behavior is by design and here is why. When we install IE7 on Windows XP SP2, we backup the existing IE6 files in an uninstall directory. Those IE6 files are the ones that shipped on XPSP2 plus all the security updates you’ve installed while using IE6. Windows XP SP3 contains a newer version of the Internet Explorer 6 files. If you have XPSP3 on your system and uninstall IE7, your system would revert to the backed up (older) version of the IE6 files rather than the newer XPSP3 version. You would end up in a mixed file state in Windows where most files would be the upgraded XPSP3, except for the IE6 files restored when uninstalling IE7. This state is not supported and is very bug prone. To ensure a reliable user experience, we prevent this broken state by disabling the ability to uninstall Internet Explorer 7. If you must uninstall IE7 after you have upgraded to XPSP3, then you have to first uninstall XPSP3, and then uninstall IE7. After this series of uninstalls, you will be reverted back to a XPSP2, and a stable version of IE6, so feel free to upgrade to XPSP3 again. If you install IE7 after you install XPSP3, then you will be able to uninstall IE7 at any point and be reverted to the newer IE6 version that ships in XPSP3. The restriction on uninstalling only applies to when you install a Windows Service Pack release on top of a standalone IE release. Keeping this in mind, you might want to uninstall IE7, upgrade to XPSP3 and then install IE7 again so you can uninstall IE7 in the future if need be. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 Users Installing IE8 Beta1 on Windows XP SP3 is fully supported, so go ahead and upgrade your computers to XPSP3 and then install IE8 Beta 1 to try out our new features. You will be able to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 at any point to revert back to either IE7 or IE6 depending on what you were using before. However, if you already have IE8 Beta 1 installed on XPSP2, Windows XP SP3 will not be offered to you via Windows Update. This is because after you update your system to XPSP3, you will no longer be able to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 and the Remove option will be grayed out under the Add/Remove programs in Control Panel. The reason is the same as in IE7 case described above. Since people are more likely to uninstall beta software, we strongly recommend uninstalling IE8 Beta 1 prior to upgrading to Windows XP SP3 to eliminate any deployment issues and install IE8 Beta 1 after XPSP3 is on your machine. Thanks, Jane Maliouta Program Manager http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=8435930 More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

My coworker is really freaked out by the Visual Studio 2008 Installer Guy. Apparently, he is not the only one: http://www.secretgeek.net/vs2008_bugeye.asp. He thinks he was genetically engineered, and I just think he was an unfortunate choice for a model. Does anyone know the real story? More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Does anyone know a definitive answer to this problem?* My Vista OS'es, both Business and Ulitimate (64 and 32 bit) editions, cannot reliably reboot and reconnect it's network.* I have seen references to "try this" and "no, try this" but I have not seen any definitive solution yet.* It seems something has changed with the Vista TCP stack which causes it to be unable to get a DHCP IP address.* I keep seeing references to "unplug your router and reboot".* This is not a practical solution. I have replaced by cable modem/router with a Motorola SBG900 as my previous was three years old.* The communication between Vista and the SBG 900 basically fails.* Windows XP, Macs, and Linux have no such problem.* Even booting all operating systems, at the same time , produces DHCP IP addresses on all non-vista OS'es.* Vista will successfully get a IP after about one dozen "repair/diagnose" attempts.* This seems rediculous. I would love to find a documented source which describes the changes to the TCP/IP stack so I can purchase the correct item which will work (assuming such a device even exists).* Simply throwing money at the problem is not working.* Given a documented solution I could solve my problem. Thank you for any insight you folks have. About the only thing I have not tried yet is static IP addresses. More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Hello everyone A while back, I built a tool for watching/navigating screen capture videos.. I am posting it here if anyone is interested. For further information, visit http://screencastdirectory.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-use-screenvideoplayer.html The website for the software is http://www.soonerdev.net/screenvideoplayer I have also moved on to create a web-based version of essentially the same idea, which you can find here http://www.mediastoryboard.com/video/search.aspx Aravindhttp://channel9.msdn.com/Photos/402426.jpg Download the project More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Here's a very practical geekSpeak that's loaded with tips on how to incorporate LINQ into existing architectures and applications. Our guest Jim Wooley has a longtime background with databases, coming out of the Access and Foxpro world. He shares his insights about how the advent of LINQ brings with it a new paradigm for working with data. This geekSpeak will get you thinking about data access in different ways - about a functional approach that's less about iterative manipulation - plus how this type of data access will find its home in future technologies like Silverlight. As for thoughts of any actual "migrations" you might have been entertaining, give some thought to Jim's tips in here and consider the business justification and trade-offs. Listen to Jim's points about maintainability and how you can use LINQ to enhance what you're already doing. It's compelling to think about getting some slick benefits from LINQ to SQL like cached query plans and precompiled optimizations, as well as free concurrency checking without having to rewrite your whole application. Conceptually, you'll get a better sense of what's in LINQ versus what's in LINQ to SQL by considering things like the fact that CRUD operations are a part of LINQ to SQL, not LINQ. And that the CRUD equivalent in LINQ to XML for example is a save/load of the whole document. Architecturally, Jim explains why passing DataContext objects across tiers is a bad idea, and what parts of your LINQ objects you should and shouldn't pass. He also touches on how ADO.NET Data Services (Project Astoria) will be able to expose anything that implements IQueryably to the outside world, and how it will be extended to allow updates as well. Practically, Jim runs through how he updated the data access layer of the Personal Website Starter Kit*(an ASP.NET 2.0 sample). You can do this*yourself, and it's a great chance to learn about applying LINQ to an existing architecture. He also illustrates how (forgetting data access for a moment) LINQ can help you write better loops and finds, and gets you ready for parallelism in LINQ. Also, for no good reason, Jim also shows a neat trick for writing a single VB statement on multiple lines by using XML literals. About our guest: Jim Wooley http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/geekspeak/WindowsLiveWriter/NextgeekSpeakLINQMigrationStrategieswith_B4C4/JimWooley_thumb.jpg Jim is a Microsoft MVP and has been working with .Net since the initial PDC bits in 2000, releasing his first application 1 week before the .Net 1.0 go-live. He has been active evangelizing LINQ since it's announcement in 2005. Jim is actively involved in the Atlanta developer community and is a frequent speaker. He is a co-author of the recently released “LINQ in Action” http://www.manning.com/marguerie/. Jim's blog is http://www.thinqlinq.com http://channel9.msdn.com/Photos/402424.jpg Watch the screencast(WMV) More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Welcome to Making IT Work Windows & Net Magazine, OH - 1 hour ago Although this blog will focus on SQL Server Express, I'll also pass along tips about Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Hyper-V, VMware ESX Server, ... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

I recently sat down with James Whittaker who is a Principal Program Manager Architect on the Visual Studio Team System Test Edition team. James is tasked with helping to shape the next wave of testing tools coming out of the Visual Studio Team System family of products. And since software testing is one of the major "pillars" of for the "Rosario" release of Team System, James has been hard at work. James isn't able to comment on specific features of Rosario just yet, but instead we got his insights about how he sees software testing evolving over the next few years to help testers become more effective at finding bugs... before the customer does. For more information on software testing techniques featuring James and company*be sure to check out the MSDN Tester Center. Listen to the podcast(MP3) Listen to the podcast(WMA) Download the Video Watch the Video More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

So, I have been to a grand total of two microsoft events. At both of them there were*guys in the audience asking questions that were obviouslyt designed to point out the flaws in Microsoft and make the presenter uncomfortable. I wonder if Microsoft trains Evangelists in how to deal with those people? More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

This screencast shows how you can combine a set of Microsoft applications/tools and technologies to author, develop and host media content that can be embedded into any Microsoft Office document supporting VSTO. We use Expression to author the media, Silverlight Streaming for hosting and streaming the media content, Visual Studio and VSTO to develop the hosting Office document for embedding the media content. The theme is around creating user/instruction manuals with enhanced media content to increase user experience.http://channel9.msdn.com/Photos/402391.jpg Watch the screencast(WMV) More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

We caught up with Tandy Trower recently to find out what's new with the Microsoft Robotics Studio, now named Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio*2008 (got to love our naming schemes, eh?:)). The Robotics group has moved from Redmond to downtown studio. They are still a very small team, but they are now more of*an official MS product team as opposed to an incubation group tied to MSR. Tandy reflects on the current state of MSRDS 2008, robotics in general, RoboChamps competition and more. It's always fun to chat with Tandy, who's been at MS for almost 27 years now. Tandy pioneered Microsoft's foray into robotics and his small team has produced some amazing core technologies (CCR, DSS). Enjoy. Low res wmv file MP4 file Zune file Listen to the podcast(MP3) Listen to the podcast(WMA) Download the Video Watch the Video More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Josh Smith has built the simplest of applications that share the same object data source, one being WPF and the other Windows forms. A quick look in task manager shows WPF consuming 3 times as much resources for exactly the same thing. I am getting double, i.e. winforms is 7.4 MB and the WPF is 15 MB. What is shocking is the simplicity of the application and the huge difference. All you have is three text boxes and a picture box. What happens when vector graphics are added? What about expensive database/web service calls. Are you prepared to offer paying customers applications with performance differences as startling as this? How on earth do you justify it? More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

This screencast shows how you can combine a set of Microsoft applications/tools and technologies to author, develop and host media content that can be embedded into any Microsoft Office document supporting VSTO. We use Expression to author the media, Silverlight Streaming for hosting and streaming the media content, Visual Studio and VSTO to develop the hosting Office document for embedding the media content. The theme is around creating user/instruction manuals with enhanced media content to increase user experience. http://channel9.msdn.com/Photos/402367.jpg More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

I have to write a program for my final project in my Java class. My program must be written in Java and it must be cross platform compatible (meaning it will run on two different operating systems). At the same time, I am writing a completely different program for my final project in my C++ class and I would like to write a GUI for it. I have much more flexibility in writing it than I do with my Java program, which must be strictly Java. Rather than learning two completely different APIs, I would like to use GTK+ in place of the AWT and Swing libraries for my Java program and in place of Winforms for my C++ application. I have spoken to both of my professors and this is acceptable. My question is, how do I do it? If someone could point me towards or provide me with directions for getting simple Hello World applications running in both languages on Windows using GTK+ (preferably in Visual Studio for C++ and Eclipse for Java), I should be able to work from there. More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Safari for Windows up, Mac down, iPhone rocks at Flickr TG Daily - 45 minutes ago Despite the widely reported criticism of Windows Vista, it appears that Microsoft ate into Mac’s operating system share, which fell 0.47 points between ... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Safari for Windows up, Mac down, iPhone rocks at Flickr TG Daily - 13 minutes ago Despite the widely reported criticism of Windows Vista, it appears that Microsoft ate into Mac’s operating system share, which fell 0.47 points between ... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

http://minh.truong.images.s3.amazonaws.com/spam_abuse_9000.gif I'm eagerly awaiting the deafening silence from the C9 admins... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Does anybody know when SilverLight will work in FireFox 3? Can't install it.... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

hey I need a USB (I don't want a PCI card) video capture device to record demos from my xbox, I want to be able to watch the video input directly on the target computer while it records the video, all via USB, does anyone have any ideas where to find such a device?* Thanks More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Is it dead or* is there still anything else than ActiveDirectory? What was it generally, - ActivePlatform? What was there? I've read about ActveDirectory and ActiveDesktop - Desktop is allready dead as far as i know. What was the concept idea of ActivePlatform? More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

As far as I know, Worldwide Telescope is to come out during spring, but I haven't seen anything about it since the announcement. The website still shows the same boring "I am professor X and I think WWT will be great" videos that it has had since the beginning. Has anyone heard any news on the project? More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

Is it possible? Some people cannot bye Windows Server because it is to expansive for them, Linux is free. On the other side, most client machines are running Windows. Isn't it possible to build some kind of support for Linux services in Windows for client machines or so? Perhaps it would be a cause for people to bye the " new, better" version. More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

When working with Linux, everyone can build own Linux, an own distribution. Is anything similar possible when working with Windows? I registered myself as a partner of Microsoft for i thought it would be possible, but now i don't know and ask to not do anything wrong. More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Vision Solutions Announces New Global Information Availability ... CNNMoney.com - 36 minutes ago Widgets/gadgets for Windows Vista and the Apple Mac will soon be available. Links to the blog, its syndication feeds as well as the Google Desktop widget ... More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds

I need some help for my master thesis.*I'm creating an algorithm to detect skin and I want to be able to compare my algorithm with the results on how humans classify skin. Therefore, I have taken images and cut them into pieces. I have done that because humans usually classify skin via the context; and I needed to remove that exact context. What does "classify by context" mean? It means that we see a person and know it's a person and therefore know that this person has skin. We are then able to find the skin easier. But*detecting people is*already a very hard task for a computer. For now there's no algorithm that always finds a person in an image. So far so good. I have cut the images into pieces and created a website that gives you exactly these pieces (in three different sizes). On the website you will find also four buttons saying: No Skin, 1/3 skin, 2/3 skin and All skin. Click on the button that gives you the best approximation. 1/3 skin, for example, means that you think that 1/3 of the pixels in the image on the page are skin. Also: you don't need to try to "see" things!*The image you see might make no sense at all.*Let yourself guide by the colors and the first impression. To help me click on this link: www.liensberger.it/master/ and categorize between 200-500 images. You can also categorize less. Each vote counts and I'm happy for all votes that I get... Thank you very much! More... View All Our Microsoft Related Feeds