Category Archives: windows

microsoft, windows, windows 7

Windows 7 tip: use Group by to merge and manage library views

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I’ve been looking forward to the libraries feature in Windows 7. For example, on my desktop PC I keep some downloads in my personal download folder – under c:\users\[username]\Documents\Downloads – while others are in a download folder on drive E. It makes sense to treat this as one location, rather than two. Libraries let you view these two folders together, without physically merging them.

That said, Windows 7 tripped me up. I created a new library, called Downloads. I added the two folders. I was annoyed though to see that I had two separate lists of folders in the new library, not one. I wanted a single, merged list.

I clicked around to see if there was a way of merging the lists. I tried the Arrange by menu. If you arrange by Name, you get a single merged list but without folders at all – in my case, thousands of files. Arranging by folder got me back to the separate listings. I tried the Organize menu, but that didn’t help. I tried right-clicking, with promising options like Expand group and Expand all groups, but these were simply different ways of viewing the location groups.

Then I noticed that the default Documents library had exactly the view I wanted, merging the personal and public Documents folders. Had Microsoft included some magic for the built-in libraries, or was I missing something?

I was missing something. I found out what when I clicked Organize – Layout – Menu bar. Of course this is off by default, because someone at Microsoft has a religious aversion to menus; they have been removed entirely from most of Office. But once I had the menu bar, I found the View – Group by option. If I select View – Group by – None, then I get the merged folder list that I want.

In fact, all the Group by options seem to work on a merged list, which leads to strange fact number two: once I had the merged list, it was not obvious how to get back to the non-merged list. It is as if there is a Group by Location which is not on the menu. I did eventually work it out. To get back to the non-merged list, choose View – Arrange by – Clear changes. Obvious, eh?

Incidentally, there is a way of using Group by without displaying the menu bar. You have to right-click in the left margin of the right-hand pane of the library listing. Easy when you know how.

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windows, windows 7

Memory leak bug in useless NVIDIA Windows service

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Rafael Rivera reports on a severe memory leak in an NVIDIA service that gets installed and auto-runs by default with many GeForce graphics cards. It consumes ever-increasing numbers of handles while running.

The service is the NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver service – nvSCPAPISvr.exe. I investigated on my system (now Windows 7) and was suffering from the problem. The silly thing is, if I try to explore any of the 3D features (even with the service running) I get a message: Your graphic card does not support 3D Vision.

Well worth disabling the service if you have an affected driver.

This is poor practice from the vendor, and to make matters worse, the driver had apparently passed WHQL verification – a Microsoft certification which is meant to ensure quality. Well, possibly Microsoft only checked the core driver, and not ancillary services like this one, but nevertheless the user has been falsely reassured.

Posted to help spread the word.

microsoft, vista, windows, windows 7

In-place upgrade adventures with Windows 7

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I have just done Windows 7 RTM in-place upgrades on two systems, one running Vista Ultimate x64, and the other running Vista Business x64. Why do an in-place upgrade? Simply because it is much less time and effort than a clean install. Actually, the “less time” bit needs qualification. The in-place upgrade takes several hours; I left one running overnight. However, most of the time is spent leaving the setup chugging away. It does not take much effort from you.

By contrast, a clean install involves finding all your application setup disks or downloads, serial numbers, and patches, then installing and configuring them. In some cases – Adobe Creative Suite comes to mind – you might need to de-authorize an existing installation first, or be faced with a call to support on reinstallation. Drivers are another issue; you will likely need to visit the vendor web site for your PC and any added devices and download the latest drivers. Overall, not a trivial task.

An in-place upgrade is not optimal. Doing a clean install gives Windows the best chance of running with full performance and stability, without inheriting legacy problems. Still, there is no harm in doing an in-place upgrade now, and a clean install later when you have the time. That way, you get Windows 7 goodness immediately.

Although there has been some fuss about the complexity of Windows 7 upgrades, it is not merited. In a nutshell, you can in-place upgrade from Vista to the equivalent Windows 7 edition or higher. You cannot go backwards, you cannot in-place upgrade XP, and you cannot move between 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Simple.

Here’s how it goes. For an in-place upgrade, you run setup from within the running version of Vista. If you click Check Compatibility Online, you are directed to the beta upgrade advisor. I wouldn’t bother if you’ve got this far; the setup does the same job and does not require a download. So click Install Now.

 

Of course, you’ve backed up stuff that matters to you, and appreciate that there is some small chance that Windows will be broken beyond repair and never boot again.

The first thing setup does is to check compatibility (see!).

 

Then it will inform you of any issues. This is what I got:

 

Apparently Windows 7 does not like Civilization 4, iTunes or Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1. On my x64 box it also objected to SQL Server 2008, Daemon Tools, and an IDE storage controller. You are advised to cancel setup (which you do by closing the window; there is no Cancel button), remove the problem software, and try again.

You can fix the SQL Server 2008 issue by installing SP1. Daemon Tools is a low-level utility and could easily trip-up a Windows upgrade, and has only recently come out in a Windows 7 compatible version, so I removed it. iTunes was not being used so I removed that too. I also uninstalled Windows Mobile Device Center.

How about the storage controller on the x64 box? This one made me nervous, since if Windows cannot find a compatible storage controller, nothing will work. However, I knew that the storage controller which matters was the one for Intel Sata RAID, not IDE, so I ignored it.

Once I had tidied up the system, I re-ran setup. This time, I hit Next. I got the Big Decision dialog box:

 

I wanted an in-place upgrade, so I chose Upgrade.

The next task is to wait a long time. Go and do something else. While it would be nice if this part went more quickly, it does not bother me that it takes hours; it is a one-off task. In my case, setup transferred nearly 600,000 “files, settings and programs”.

The aftermath

All going well (and it did) the next action is to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del (strange how that ugliness survives the years) and log onto your shiny new Windows 7 OS. There were just a few issues to resolve.

First, the upgrade tinkers with the Start menu, and one of the oddities is that Microsoft Office (version 2007 is installed) in effect disappears from view:

 

I am not saying it is hard to find. Desktop shortcuts remain, if you have them, and you can always type a search or burrow down into All Programs. Still, this could be jarring for some users. Among my first tasks with Windows 7 is to find the applications I use frequently and pin them to the taskbar (right-click, pin to taskbar).

Second, Internet Explorer 8 opened for the first time with odd dimensions. Easily fixed, though it is annoying that you have to go through Welcome to IE8 wizards that you have seen many times before.

 

Third, Lego Digital Designer (don’t ask) failed to run. Apparently the upgrade messed up OpenGL, even though setup correctly detected my NVIDIA graphics card. I downloaded the latest from NVIDIA, bumping up the version from 8.15.11.8593 to 8.15.11.9038. This fixed it. I suspect it was not the driver version as such, more that the NVIDIA install added additional components including OpenGL support.

Fourth, the Movie Maker problem. Your old Movie Maker 6 is removed, and if you try to run Movie Maker, you are invited to download Windows Live Essentials from the Web. The new Live Movie Maker is in beta, and after installation you get a message saying it has expired and offering an update (I imagine this will be fixed by the time of full rollout in October). Eventually it runs, but it is not as good as the old one. Solution: install the Vista one.

Fifth, the upgrade reduces your UAC protection level without asking. My first move is to put it back to the highest level, for reasons explained here.

Sixth, Windows Live Writer is slightly broken under Windows 7. When inserting a picture, the “From Web” option no longer appears; and even if you type in an URL in the file dialog (which used to work), it still tries to upload it. Some incompatibility in the common dialog API, or risky assumptions made by the Live Writer developers?

Overall, these are minor issues – so far, so good. Even Visual Studio 2008 appears to have survived the upgrade.

I need to run Windows 7 for review; but I’d recommend it anyway. It is an excellent upgrade from Vista, even more so from XP.

windows

The scandal of PC repair shops

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This month’s PC Pro, quaintly dated “October”, has an excellent, shocking article, researched in association with Sky News, in which a faulty laptop was taken to a number of computer repair shops around London. You can also read the article online. The laptop was not really faulty, but had a deliberately loosened memory module that needed to be pressed home. In addition, the researchers installed spy software hooked to the laptop’s webcam (I find it hard to believe that the engineers did not notice this).

The results are truly depressing. Only one of six shops behaved with full professionalism, fixing the fault without charge. Another fixed the fault but could not resist flicking through the customer’s holiday snaps. Three of the six insisted a new motherboard was required and quoted or charged accordingly; one actually charged for this but returned the machine with the old (and good) motherboard still in place. The sixth shop fixed the fault but then quoted £145 for a full fault-finding examination.

One of these six shops went the totally evil route, not only quoting for an unneeded part, but also searching the laptop for logon credentials and attempting to break into the customer’s bank account.

I would find all this implausible except that something similar happened to a friend of mine. They had a Dell machine that shut itself down spontaneously from time to time. They took it to a PC repair shop locally, several times (because the fault was never fixed). First, a new power supply was fitted. Machine was returned as working, but still had the fault. Next, the shop reinstalled Windows, even though the fault bore all the symptoms of a hardware issue. Machine returned as working, but still had the fault. On the third visit, the customer was told that they must have downloaded a virus which was preventing the machine from working. They were sold an anti-virus security suite and made to sign a statement that the PC was now fully working, though it still was not reliable.

I took a look at the machine and discovered that it was a known issue with this particular Dell model, caused by a fault on the motherboard. I didn’t discover the exact fault, since the remedy was to exchange the board with Dell. Nothing to do with the power supply. Nothing to do with Windows. Nothing to do with malware.

Looking at the research, along with my friend’s experience, is enough to convince me that this sort of thing is very common.

I doubt there will ever be a complete solution to the problem. It is like the motor trade. On the one hand you have users who know little of the technology but can only describe their experience: works, does not work, makes a strange hum, etc. On the other hand you have service engineers of variable expertise who can easily exploit their customers’ lack of knowledge, though the better ones will at least deliver a working system at the end of it.

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google, internet, microsoft, windows, windows 7

No more Windows E – Europe will get full Windows 7 plus upgrade editions

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Microsoft’s Dave Heiner has announced that plans for a separate Europe-only release of Windows 7, without Internet Explorer, have been abandoned at the last minute. This follows a new proposal to include a menu of browser choices instead:

In the wake of last week’s developments, as well as continuing feedback on Windows 7 E that we have received from computer manufacturers and other business partners, I’m pleased to report that we will ship the same version of Windows 7 in Europe in October that we will ship in the rest of the world.

Did Microsoft ever intend to ship Windows E, or was the whole thing some sort of bargaining proposition? Heiner even threatens to re-introduce it:

… if the ballot screen proposal is not accepted for some reason, then we will have to consider alternative paths, including the reintroduction of a Windows 7 E version in Europe.

Although Microsoft is making a significant concession by promoting other browsers, its proposal does mean that some users will still get IE by default. These are the users who either install Windows 7 themselves by purchasing Microsoft’s standalone package, or who receive a PC from an OEM that has chosen to leave IE as the default. In this case, here’s what happens:

Shortly after new Windows PCs are set up by the user, Microsoft will update them over the Internet with a consumer ballot software program. If IE is the default browser, the user will be presented with a list of other leading browsers and invited to select one or more for installation. Technically, this consumer ballot screen will be presented as a Web page that can be updated over time as new browsers become available.

There will be a proportion of users who have a “don’t bug me with this” reaction and just close the screen, in which case they will keep IE.

However, if the OEM supplies a PC with a browser other than IE as the default, the ballot screen will not appear, so Microsoft is at a disadvantage in that respect.

I am not sure how this will be handled in corporate environments. IE is arguably more attractive in a Microsoft-centric business environment, because it integrates with network management tools and should work properly with other Microsoft products such as SharePoint or Outlook Web Access. If IE is the corporate standard, I doubt admins will want users to see a ballot screen offering other browsers, and I imagine there will be some way of blocking it.

One final observation. Personally I have never felt locked into using IE or had any problem making choices between different browsers, email clients or other applications on Windows. That’s not the point of course; owning the defaults gives a vendor a substantial advantage because of inertia or lack of technical confidence among a certain proportion of users. It is still worth noting that users have always been able to install alternative browsers, and that the adoption achieved by Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and others would not have been possible if Windows were truly a closed platform.

internet, microsoft, windows, windows 7

Microsoft’s new EU Windows 7 proposal – will IE now be the default?

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I’m trying to figure out exactly what Microsoft is now proposing to the EU in order to satisfy its concerns about the “tying of Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser with Windows”.

The EU says:

This followed extensive discussions with the Commission which centred on a remedy outlined in the January 2009 Statement of Objections (see MEMO/09/15) whereby consumers would be shown a "ballot screen" from which they could – if they wished – easily install competing web browsers, set one of those browsers as a default, and disable Internet Explorer. Under the proposal, Windows 7 would include Internet Explorer, but the proposal recognises the principle that consumers should be given a free and effective choice of web browser, and sets out a means – the ballot screen – by which Microsoft believes that can be achieved.

Microsoft says:

Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a ‘ballot screen’ from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web. If this proposal is ultimately accepted, Microsoft will ship Windows in Europe with the full functionality available in the rest of the world. As requested by the Commission, we will be publishing our proposal in full here on our website as soon as possible.

The difference I’ve noticed between these two statements is that Microsoft talks about “a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser.”

Is Microsoft winning the right to continue making IE the default, in exchange for offering the user an easy way to switch browsers?

I guess we will discover when the full details appear.

It is not yet a done deal. The EU is only considering the proposal; and in the meantime customers will still get the browserless Windows E.

Another question: if the change is agreed, will the full Windows 7 be available in time for launch? Microsoft implies it may not:

We currently are providing PC manufacturers in Europe with E versions of Windows 7, which we believe are fully compliant with European law. PCs manufacturers building machines for the European market will continue to be required to ship E versions of Windows 7 until such time that the Commission fully reviews our proposals and determines whether they satisfy our obligations under European law. If the Commission approves this new proposal, Microsoft will begin work at that time to begin implementation of it with PC manufacturers.

My reflection: if the EU had done this twelve years ago, it might have changed the history of the Internet, probably for the better. Today, this manoeuvring is unnecessary.

See also: EU responds to questions on Microsoft’s plans for Windows 7

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cloud computing, microsoft, software development, windows

Microsoft reports weak financials, still failing in the cloud

Microsoft has reported weak results for the quarter ending June 2009.

Here’s a table which breaks down the results vs the same quarter last year, similar to one I made for the March figures. Numbers are in $millions:

Client Revenue % change Profit % change
Client (Windows) 3108 -28.7 2167 -33.32
Server and Tools 3510 -5.67 1349 -1.46
Online 731 –12.66 -732 -50.93
Business (Office) 4564 -13.33 2816 -16.17
Entertainment and devices 1189 -25.22 -130 -23.98

I am ignoring the hefty $1483 loss on “corporate-level activity” – though I noticed that despite announcing a projected reduction in headcount of up to 5000 by June 2010, headcount actually increased by 2% (around 1800) in the last 12 months.

Grim figures, though given the recession and that Microsoft still reported profits of $3987 for the quarter, not cataclysmic.

I expect Windows 7 will be a success and that the figures there will improve; further, if the global economy recovers (about which I am sceptical but ignorant) Microsoft’s results will no doubt reflect that. If Windows 7 does succeed, it will have spin-off benefits for other products.

Nevertheless, the company should be worried. Although we are not going to be abandoning our PCs and laptops any time soon, it doesn’t take much insight to predict that increasingly powerful internet-connected devices will tend to reduce the number of traditional computers we need, which will impact Office as well as Windows. On the server side, cloud computing will dampen demand for servers, particularly in the small business sector where Microsoft is particularly successful.

The challenge for Microsoft is to counter those trends by growing its online business, but that is not happening yet. Mobile is another potential growth area, but the figures for entertainment and devices show that Microsoft is not exploiting it successfully.

Further, if online does grow, that will damage the partner ecosystem which thrives on delivering and maintaining on-premise Windows and Office.

Right now it’s hard to disagree with Robin Bloor’s prediction of an Incredible Shrinking Microsoft.

This could change; but only if that awkward third line in the table above undergoes dramatic transformation. Although there are signs of life, with promising technology like Azure and Silverlight, I am not yet convinced that Microsoft is even aware of its predicament, though with results like these it will be soon.

microsoft, windows, windows 7

Microsoft’s limited Windows 7 offer a lesson in how to annoy customers?

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I’ve returned from a few days away to discover that Microsoft’s special Windows 7 offer, which was meant to run from July 15th 2009 until August 9th 2009, has already in effect expired. This was the deal for UK customers (already less generous that that offered in the USA):

You can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium E for £49.99** or Windows 7 Professional E for £99.99**.

The double stars are merely a reference to the odd decision to supply Windows without a web browser in Europe – a strategy to counter the EU’s monopoly concerns.

However, if you go along to Amazon.co.uk, for example, you can order Windows 7 Home Premium for £69.98 or Professional for a distinctly un-special £159.99.

I clicked all the links on Microsoft’s offer page and could not find any retailer still offering Windows 7 at the special price.

If the offer was intended to achieve a flurry of pre-orders, I am sure it succeeded. If on the other hand it was a reward to beta testers, as claimed by Brandon LeBlanc:

A special thank you to our beta testers is needed for their time and effort in helping make Windows 7 a solid release. The special pre-order offer we did offering Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional at almost 50% discount was done with our beta testers in mind.

then I am puzzled. First, it was not restricted to beta testers; and second, if you were a beta tester who happened to be away at the wrong moment, then you missed out.

Will customers who are aware that they have missed the offer for arbitrary reasons now be happy to pay 50% more? From a marketing perspective, that is the interesting question. I suppose most users will not allow pique to influence their OS choices; but they will be understandably annoyed.

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cloud computing, microsoft, windows, windows 7

Windows 7 will build the global IT economy, says IDC/Microsoft, or will the Cloud kill it?

Microsoft has sponsored an IDC report on the economic impact of Windows 7 [pdf]. Among the claims:

  • For every dollar of Microsoft revenue from launch in October 2009 to the end of
    2010 from Windows 7, the ecosystem beyond Microsoft will reap $18.52.
  • 19% of the global IT workforce will be working with Windows 7 by the end of 2010
  • IDC expects that employment related to client operating systems will grow by more
    than 300,000 new jobs or more than 30% of total growth in global IT employment in
    2010 solely because of the launch of Windows 7

There is also a forecast that shows Windows 7 taking the majority of Windows client sales in 2010, and which appears to assume that Windows 8 will not be available before 2014.

Realistic figures, or some kind of fantasy? While I expect Windows 7 to take over rapidly from Vista, and to stimulate demand for PCs and laptops somewhat, I don’t believe this steadily rising graph. Cloud computing, software as a service, and growth in mobile devices, will all exert downward pressure on PC sales – even though some of those devices will still run Microsoft’s OS.

I had a conversation with Ian Osborne at Intellect while researching a supplement on software as a service. He made a good point about the unwillingness of the IT industry to embrace change. Although he thinks the cloud is changing everything, he remarked:

You’re dealing with the social phenomena of people working in ITdepartments and data centres who have invested their careers in learning how to make the other stuff work. You tend to want to cling on.

These look like “cling on” charts to me. It is an excellent point though: if the traditional IT industry is being turned on its head by the cloud, that has implications for the shape of IT employment around the world which I’ve not seen spelt out anywhere.

I don’t know if the 20-1 figure quoted by IDC/Microsoft is correct, but it is a useful reminder of how much IT ecosystem revolves around Microsoft’s platform.

.net, microsoft, mono, visual studio, windows

Is Mono safe to use?

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Microsoft has promised not to sue those who develop implementations of its C# language and Common Language Infrastructure – the heart of .NET.

You might assume that to be good news for Mono, the open source implementation of .NET sponsored by Novell; and I suppose it is, though not in any major way.

The key point here is that Microsoft’s .NET platform goes well beyond what is covered by the promise. ASP.NET, Windows Forms, ADO.NET, Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight: all this falls outside. The promise covers only what is standardised by ECMA.

Mono leader Miguel de Icaza is clear about the differences in his post, and says Mono will be split into safe and – presumably – unsafe parts:

In the next few months we will be working towards splitting the jumbo Mono source code that includes ECMA + A lot more into two separate source code distributions. One will be ECMA, the other will contain our implementation of ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Winforms and others.

A good thing? Well, it could help promote the core of Mono in the open source community, which is wary. Open source champion Richard Stallman recently stirred up debate on the subject by proclaiming C# dangerous, in what has become a somewhat perplexing post:

It is dangerous to depend on C#, so we need to discourage its use. … The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue. The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents.

he says (and is unlikely to be comforted by Microsoft’s recent moves), though he adds:

This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C# implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called Portable.NET.) Ideally we want to provide free implementations for all languages that programmers have used.

Confusing. Still, it’s a valid and important question. Is Mono safe to use?

I have been asking myself this for many years; and have asked Microsoft about it on a number of occasions with no clear answer. However, to me the breakthrough came when Moonlight was announced, an implementation of Silverlight for Linux for which Microsoft has partnered with Mono. The dual significance is first, that Microsoft is working with Mono; and second, that it shows how Microsoft has realised that overall Mono is more a benefit than a threat to its platform.

Action against Mono now seems less likely than ever. That opinion is not based on legal knowledge, but on the business & PR case.

Nevertheless, there could be limits. Stallman’s recent statement was provoked by discussions over whether Mono should be part of the default Debian install. It is not; but it is rising higher on the list of packages that are likely to be installed sooner rather than later by users, because Mono applications are growing in number.

On the server, Mono’s implementation of ASP.NET is now rather good. I’m using it on ITWriting.com for a Silverlight demo. I’ve been impressed by its compatibility with Visual Studio, though I’ve also found it increasing resource usage more than I would like. I’m using what is now an old version though, so I expect this to improve.

The cost savings in using Linux+Mono rather than Windows+ASP.NET are significant, which implies that the potential cost to Microsoft is significant too. It’s only a potential cost, because frankly the official platform is still less risky for a commercial deployment, from a technical rather than legal perspective. Mono is currently more likely to attract free or hobbyist users; but that could change. If Microsoft saw server license sales bleeding away because of Mono, my guess is that there would be rumbles.

What then of de Icaza’s move to separate Mono into safe and unsafe parts? I see the sense of it, but wonder if it could be counter-productive. While Mono is, errm, monolithic, Microsoft cannot take action against the unsafe parts without also blocking the safe parts. After the split, it will be easier for Microsoft to agitate about the pieces of Mono which might (or might not; I’m no lawyer) infringe its rights.

It still strikes me as unlikely that Microsoft would risk full-on legal action against its partner and against what is now a significant part of its platform story. However, I doubt we will get any further comfort from the company, beyond what it has already given.

*updated to acknowledge that Silverlight and WPF are covered by the open spec promise – see links in the comments.