FYI - Vista Build 5536 / Pre-RC1 for x86 has been released - updated

I was looking at connect.microsoft.com for a x64 version of 5472 for my Acer (Knowing that RC1 is just around the corner, but I had some time to play while upgrading an Exchange cluster), but I just noticed that 5536 (RC1) is available for download (So far only for x86, I guess I will wait for the x64 version before proceeding with my Acer). UPDATE - No x64 edition of 5536 will be released according to connect.microsoft.com.

I have been using 5472 as my primary OS since it was released and I guess with RC1 that I will make the shift from dualboot to "single-boot" on my primary laptop (Dell Latitude D820) - with an XP installed on a Virtual PC / Virtual Server image.

IE7 RC1

I just noticed that RC1 of Internet Explorer 7 was released to the web -

1. Technology Overview: Internet Explorer 7 RC1
2. Internet Explorer 7 RC1 (ia64)
3. Internet Explorer 7 RC1 (x64)
4. Internet Explorer 7 RC1 (Windows Server 2003 SP1)
5. Internet Explorer 7 RC1 (Windows XP SP2)

I "of course" use Vista as my primary OS by now, so I will have to wait for the soon-to-be released RC1 of Windows Vista.

You can check Paul Thurrot's review of RC1 here

Would you like to integrate Asterisk with LCS ?

Then voipen has created a tutorial on how to do this -

This is a tutorial on how to setup calling to/from MS LCS 2005 using SER and Asterisk. In this case LCS is acting as the IM/Presence/VoIP server, SER converts protocols TCP2UDP and Asterisk is a SIP to ISDN gateway. This setup allows for outbound calls from Microsoft Office Communicator – OC to a normal telephone and inbound calls from a normal telephone to Microsoft Office Communicator - OC. This also allows you to access services provided by Asterisk such as Meetme Conferencing. You can also use Windows Messenger 5.1 instead of OC client.

You can find the tutorial here.

Look & feel of msgoodies

We are playing a bit with the template used for msgoodies as we are preparing to move to a "Stretched" template and hopefully soon the updated version of Blogger (Check beta.blogger.com or msgoodiestest.blogger.com, that better will serve larger postings and postings including code samples. it shouldn't affect our RSS readers, but our web readers probably need some "patience" with the look & feel of msgoodies.

Sorry for the inconvenience !

APOD Viewer v1

I love APOD - Astronomy Picture of the Day - as I'm privately quite interested in the universe and all that stuff. But I do not visit APOD daily, so once in a while I browse the site.

But, wouldn't it be nice to have a slideshow with the pictures?

Surprise! PowerShell to the rescue.

This script really show the power of PowerShell. It has a web client, caculates dates and controls Internet Explorer. Give it a shot. If you make any clever changes, please post those as comments. I have a big wishlist myself, but this got me going.

function apod {
    param([int] $days=1) # show latest picture by default
    $baseurl="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/"
    
    # create IE COM object
    $ie = new-object -com internetexplorer.application

    # create .net object
    $webclient = new-object system.net.webclient

    # date manipulation
    $date=[datetime]::now
    $date.AddDays(1) # start tomorrow as the loops starts by subtracting a day

    $ie.fullscreen=$true
    $ie.visible=$true
    # You may have to press the window in the taskbar to make it appear


    # An easy way to do a for loop - could have used for, but as said this is easier
    1..$days | % {

        # back one day
        $date=$date.AddDays(-1)

        # construct url
        $url=$baseurl+"ap" + $date.tostring("yyMMdd") + ".html"
        $url

        # get HTML page
        $html = $webclient.downloadstring($url)
        $html.length

        # Pick up the link the picture has - links to the high resolution version
        # I want to display
        # This is not idiot proff coding - but, hey, scripts are easy to change

        $html -match '<a href="([^"]*)">\W*<img'
        $matches.count
        # get the value matching the pattern in parenthesis
        $img=$matches[1]
        $img

        # show high resolution picture
        $ie.navigate($baseurl+$img)
        
        # wait for IE to load picture
        while ($ie.busy) {sleep -s 1;"busy"}

        # give me 10 seconds to enjoy the picture
        sleep -s 10

    }

    # shutdown IE
    $ie.quit()

    $ie=$null

    # wish list: load pictures overlapping (but keep presentation interval)
    # wish list: include some kind of fancy transition
    # wish list: pick out the explanation and present it in some way
    # add our own...

}

An easier way to learn/use PowerShell

When I write PowerShell stuff, I end up typing a lot on the keyboard - and using command recall a lot. When you start doing complex things, that gets quite boring. An alternative is to have a work PS1 file, editing it with notepad (or another tool) and only recall the line, that executes the PS1 file. In this way you 'only' have to ctrl-s, alt-tab, up arrow, return to execute the changes and the alt-tab back to make the next change.As I hate repeating the same actions over and over again - that is the reason I love making computers do just that - why not use PowerShell to help me? This is also an opportunity to use PowerShell for a real thing.

To do just that, I made these two functions -

function workpad {
    $global:workpad = "$env:temp\workpad.ps1"
    "Start workpad - execute with '. $workpad'"
    notepad $workpad
}

function execute-workpad {
    param([boolean]$executeFirst=$false) if ($executeFirst) {
        $oldLastWriteTime=[datetime]"2000-01-01"
    }
    else {
        $oldLastWriteTime=$(get-childitem $workpad).lastwritetime
        "Waiting for change.."
    }

    while ($true) {
        $lastWriteTime=$(get-childitem $workpad).lastwritetime
        if ($lastWriteTime -eq $oldLastWriteTime) {
            start-sleep -s 1
        }
        else {
            "File changed - executing"
            ""
            . $workpad
            ""
            "Waiting for change.."
            $oldLastWriteTime=$lastWriteTime
        }
    }
}

So now it is just a matter of starting the editor with workpad (and it takes you off where you left) and use execute-workpad to have the changes to the file executed automatically whenever you press ctrl-s. To break execute-workpad use ctrl-c or ctrl-break. I would have liked a version where you could use the window interactively at the same time, but I have not found a similar function to cmd's start/b (yet, I hope). Start /b is like & in the korn shell. Any feedback on this would be welcome - but keep in mind that the execution of the interactive commands must be done in the same context as the workpad script executes in, so variables can be used directly.

PowerShell'ed

During the last couple of months I've spent quite some time on getting the grips on PowerShell (PS). As written earlier, PowerShell will be important, but expect it to take some time and effort to get it 'in the fingers'.

When you first look at it, you may ask yourself - hey - what's the big news in the examples you see? Most things can easily be done with other well-known tools. What so funny about - say - creating 10 folders -
PS> 1..10 % { md folder$_ }
when I could do it with
CMD> for /l %i in (1,1,10) do md folder%i

And what is the big advantage in starting a service with
PS> start-service bits
when I could do it with
CMD> net start bits

Of course, restart is nicer
PS> restart-service bits
But this does the job as well
CMD> net stop bits & net start bits

But as you start try to do REAL stuff you realize the potential. How about keeping the logs for the last 10 days, named with the date? That is not easy at all with CMD and I often created an self-contained script to do the job -
CMD> set script=%temp%\x.vbs
CMD> echo script line 1 > %script%
CMD> echo script line 2 >> %script%
CMD> cscript %script%
With PS you can do it right away with code like -
PS> $logbase="$env:temp\my.log"
PS> $fivedaysold=$logbase+[system.datetime]::now.adddays(-5).tostring("yyyyMMdd")
PS> $fivedaysold
D:\DOCUME~1\user\LOCALS~1\Temp\my.log20060730

So, if you want to learn PS, do not just use it once in a while. Expect that you will spent much time on learning it - but stop using CMD as much as possible and realize that you can combine all your tricks and (programming) skills by combining command line stuff with COM, WMI and .Net stuff - right from the command line. In this way, you will learn along the way.

Be powershelled yourself!

New Office Communicator 2005 hotfix

Microsoft has released a new hotfix for Office Communicator 2005 as described in KB921348. It contains the following fixes -

• Advanced VoIP calling features are unavailable in Office Communicator 2005
• Internet Explorer unexpectedly closes when you refresh a Web page
• A telephone number may contain a clock icon instead of the number zero in Communicator 2005
• Error message when you try to shut down Windows: "End Program-WMS Idle"
• You experience poor video quality in Communicator 2005 running through a multipoint control unit
• Communicator 2005 responds to invitations to conversations with a "Busy" reply
• Communicator 2005 stops responding during a video conversation with Communicator 2007

I guess it must be cumulative and include the updates from the February 10th hotfix(KB903928) as it also updates Communicator.exe, now updated to build 183 (From 121).

Internet Anonymity, TOR and Scatterchat

Came across an article about the Scatterchat tool, recently released in the Danish Computerworld. The article is in Danish - sorry. Anyway, it is not that important as the important stuff can be found on the EFF web site. EFF has a good article on the TOR network. The aim of TOR is to provide anonymous communication on the internet. Some researchers claim that more money is put into making statistically analyses of the network traffic than trying to decrypt encrypted traffic. Read more about TOR here - and read this research paper on why networks like TOR are very problematic to establish and run. Parts of the paper can be hard to read - but I think I got the most out of it without needing to understand all the formulas therein.

Virtual PC fix for laptops

I'm using VPC on my laptop and after suspends/hibernations, the screen goes blank and I have to restart VPC to get it back in shape. Well, according to Virtual PC Guy a laptop hotfix was just released. Fine, but versioning is to say at least weird for Virtual PC 2004 as I have written about earlier. This time, you have to download SP1 (again). Microsoft.com/downloads calls this version 582.27 but with a release date of July 12th 2006. Downloading the zip and opening it, reveals a subfolder called Laptop Hotfix. This folder contains the MSP-file, that you want to apply to you laptop. The hotfix has an associated KB 889677.

After applying the hotfix, my version is now called (5.3.)582.32...

The Hypervisor term

Hi. Now that my summer vacation is approching the end (bad, bad), I just catched up on a few blogs including Virtual PC Guy. Ben has a good article on what the Hypervisor term actually is.

And while being there, I also followed his link to Wolfenstein 3D and took a little stroll down memory lane...

Windows VistaBootPRO 2.0 Beta

PROnetworks has released their second version of VistaBootPRO. Its an editor for the Boot Configuration Store (BCD) store that replaces boot.ini in Windows and it works with Beta 2 and Build 5456 (Corrected build # - Reminds me not to blog while my wife is shouting "Dinner is ready" ;-) .

Designed for both beginners and advanced users, VistaBootPRO can be used to make "cosmetic" changes to the Windows Vista boot Menu such as changing the name of the Operating Systems shown in the boot menu and make advanced "functional" changes like adding an Operating System to the boot menu and repairing the Windows Vista boot configuration data. Advanced settings include backing up and exporting your boot loader configuration and modifying various details for the entries. Included in this latest release are additional features, including a built-in help file and more advanced boot configuration options. VistaBootPRO 2.0 has been completely rewritten using Microsoft C# for improved stability and performance.

In my multiboot environment I have three partitions, one for Windows XP, one for Vista builds and one for my Data (Documents, redirected shell folders, my source code, drivers/applications etc.) and at one time I had to recover my system entirely from ground up after a failed install of an older build of Vista. The Vista version of the editor called Bcdedit is a pain in the .. to work with - at least when you need to have a working machine by the next day and don't have the time to research how its working (So VistaBootPRO comes to the rescue as a real life saver ;-)

Information on the new version found at bink.nu

Service Level of Public Instant Messaging Connectivity (PIC) in LCS

When deploying Instant Messaging with Live Communications Server in your company you of course expect to get enterprise degree service levels out of it.

But what happens when you mix a consumer based service (Like Yahoo, MSN and AOL) with an enterprise level deployment of LCS with PIC federation?
Well for me the answer is obvious you get a Consumer degree service level out of it - and this is also what my experience shows me.
What is important here is that if you are a customer or a consultant talking to customers/decision makers, then its worth to emphasize the point that PIC isn't an enterprise level service.

Also if you are implementing and/or troubleshooting PIC then its worth to look at at the LCS PIC troubleshooting posting.

Yahoo! and Microsoft Instant Messaging connectivity

Microsoft has just announced their integration between Yahoo! and Live Messenger. You can sign up for the beta at either http://ideas.live.com or http://messenger.yahoo.com/ - Not avilable for Denmark though :-(

Read more at at the Inside Windows Live Messenger blog Talk to your Yahoo! friends from Windows Live Messenger or at the Press release Yahoo! and Microsoft Bridge Global Instant Messaging Communities.

LCS Federation information

Microsoft has published a whitepaper with details on how both federation has been implemented in LCS. It includes details on how the proposed IETF standard "Best Current Practices for Interdomain Instant Messaging using SIP/SIMPLE" has been used as a model for federation in LCS. It includes which standards are followed and which aren't and how PIDF documents are used.

Some of the details of the implementation hasn't been described though as they are subject to "licensing" :-(

ActiveSync 4.2 ready for download

You can find it here. The fixes include -

• Microsoft Outlook Improvements: Resolves issues relating to error code 85010014.

  Proxy/DTPT interaction Improvements: Improved auto configuration of device Connection Manager settings when desktop has no proxy path to the internet.

  Improved Desktop Pass Thru behavior with ISA proxy failures.

  Partnership improvements: Better resolution of multiple devices with the same name syncing with the same desktop.

  Connectivity Improvements: Better handling of VPN clients (resolve unbinding of protocols from our RNDIS adapter). New auto detection of connectivity failure with user diagnostic alerts.

Also there's a nice little troubleshooter tool, that will check your computer for problems and, given the pemission to do so, send the results to Microsoft.

It still seem to have a problem with setting up the synchronization of tasks directly with the Exchange Server from ActiveSync, this still needs to be setup from the device itself (On a new/wiped device that is, if it already has been setup, it recognizes it correctly).

Remote Desktop goodies in Vista

When you use multiple monitors (Like I do) then this is nice little trick.

In Vista (Build 5456) there's a commandline switch called /span that will allow the remote desktop to span across multiple monitors (I often help Service Providers or manage our own network by using a single server/workstation as a jump-host to the rest of the systems, sometimes doing it while writing documentation in a Wordpad document or the like in the same Remote Desktop session, so this is a very useful addition to mstsc).

Other enhancements are two-way pre-authentication when connecting to Vista/Longhorn Terminal Services and the possibility of using a TS Gateway, that will allow you to connect through HTTPS/443 to a Gateway server, that again will connect to Terminal Services inside the network (Thereby avoiding the use of VPN and 3389 in and outgoing on the network - the latter being a real advantage when you are connected to e.g. a customers network).

WSUS SP1 upgrade issues

If you, like me, have had or are having problems with WSUS SP1 upgrade and MSDE databases that have been migrated to SQL, then look at the article named Known problems when you upgrade to Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) Service Pack 1

• Proxy server user name and password settings are reset
• WSUS SP1 does not update WSUS servers that are set up using remote SQL deployments
• Computer name changes after you install the original release version of WSUS and before you install WSUS SP1
• WSUS SP1 upgrade may fail when the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (Windows) (MSDE) database has been migrated to a local SQL Server 2000 computer
• WSUS SP1 upgrade may fail when the MSDE database has been migrated to a remote SQL Server 2000 computer
• WSUS database is in an inconsistent state after a failed upgrade

Joining a domain remotely through VPN in Windows Vista build 5456

If you have joined a domain remotely through VPN in Windows XP you probably know that the trick is to use the local user to create a VPN connection for everyone, dial-up to your company, join the domain, reboot and then use the logon using dial-up networking feature, when you first logon with your domain account (Thereby caching your credentials for future logons).

In Vista there is no Logon using dial-up networking option (Or at least I haven't found it ;-) instead the trick is to create a VPN connection, dial-up to your company, join the domain, reboot and then logon with the local user. Then dial-up to your VPN again and selest padlock icon, Switch User (While keeping you VPN connection open) and now logon to you domain account.

Office Communicator Mobile updated

Microsoft has released version 1.0.7.0.3 of Communicator Mobile (I was running 1.0.530.0 until now) and it includes the following fixes -

• You are not notified that a "File Transfer" or a "Remote Assistance" request from Communicator 2005 to Communicator Mobile could not be delivered
• The home screen layout on a Moto Q device changes when Communicator Mobile is installed
• A "Call Computer" request in Communicator 2005 is not established when the recipient is a Communicator Mobile user
• Nothing occurs when you single-tap the "My Status" screen in Communicator Mobile on a Pocket PC
• ActiveSync may try to install the incorrect version of Communicator Mobile on a device
• Updated phone forward settings may not be displayed on a Windows Mobile-based Smartphone that uses Communicator Mobile
• The bottom of the text in the second row of a contact note is truncated in Communicator Mobile

See more information in KB919950.

NOTE that the uninstall/install process is a bit quirky. You need to change the today screen away from the "Communicator Standard" to something else and then reboot your device, before uninstalling the old version of Communicator Mobile.

Remember to check out Tom Laciano's post on support issues, that still seems to apply to this version of CoMo (And may I ask, when are you, MS, releasing an updated version of Office Communicator, I hope we won't have to wait for the 2007 release).