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Lloyd Ketchum - YAB, "Yet Another Blog"

May 2007 - Posts

  • Recylcing Old Computers - Even Small Builders Can Make a Difference

    A lot of press has been inked of late, about the efforts of major OEM's and other companies' efforts to "Go Green" and change how they manufacture and reclaim old computers they have sold previously. Some, like Dell and Apple, Inc., have some pretty well evolved programs - despite some of the bad press they have received.  Part of me wonders if big companies are entirely sincere about becoming more green and environmentally conscious, or whether they are merely responding to popular trends in the U.S. and other markets, which wish to appear to want to make a difference.  I guess it doesn't matter, why - so long as people and companies are thinking about doing things that help.  I do however wish, just once, that the big companies would get some credit for starting all these things on their own - they don't and that is sad, because many companies have been greener and have extended their efforts by not just reclaiming old computers, but by recycling them and rebuilding them for distribution to charities and families in need.  Many thousands of smaller companies and small business owners have done the same kinds of things and they very actively support a wide variety of green'ish charities.  Even the smallest builders have had a history of helping.  While there is no way small companies like my own can make an environmental difference that the earth would notice - ever, it doesn't mean our efforts to be and remain green, can't have a profound and beneficial impact in the lives of those that we do support.

    It's no secret, Libertech is about the smallest PC manufacturer there is.  When compared to even boutique PC and OEM builders, we're downright tiny.  Volume sales is not what we're about - there are plenty of companies working that market.  We're about building what is individually relevant and as close to perfect as perhaps anything man might build can be.  We reason that our workstations, laptops and servers are the best supported systems people can buy. Since we opened our doors seven years ago, we have always delivered turn-key systems and a big part of that has been the recovery, sanitization and recycling of old computers.  If one thinks of the business benefits associated with being green, it doesn't take long to realize that there are great business and economical reasons for companies of any size to recycle and redistribute old computers. For a tiny company like my own, the entire process is a service that is of value to our customers and it even helps close sales.

    What to do with all those old systems? What we do is leave a business or home better than we found it.  That means, cleaner, better organized and removing all old computer and networking components.  It also means responsibly disposing of waste and migrating all user personal and applications data. As old systems go out, new systems go in and the old systems are secured and held for thirty days - long enough to recover any data we might have missed during the migration.  Once we're certain no data was missed, we clean, sanitize and prepare old systems for donation to churches, schools, kids who need a PC, parents in need and various charities. There are other benefits to be gained - part of this effort allows us to engage young interns that either need work when they aren't in school, or wish to donate their time to help make a difference.  Tiny as we are, we know we're not going to save the planet, but we sure can help a small school, or charity hospital gain access to systems that would otherwise be difficult for them to afford.

    I took a snap-shot of one young man who wanted to help and together we cleaned a dozen or so old Dell desktops that we're preparing for a charity hospital in Nicaragua.  We also built and host the hospital's website for the founder - Dr. Rudy Vargas - who has to be one of the most inspiring men I have ever had the privilege to come to know.  We have something of a shared history - each of us trying to help in different ways during the 1980's when his home country was ravaged by war and politics.  See image of Master Jarrett Brown - a hard charger making a difference, below.

    No one can make much of a difference on their own. These PC's were reclaimed from and donated by the Hoover offices of The EyeCare Associates who has helped us donate hundreds of systems.  Yes, the company does benefit by having access to a cost-free reclamation source, but they could as easily have distributed the systems amongst themselves.

    So you see, even the smallest of PC and technology companies can help all become and remain greener - I suspect that a great many, like my own small company, always have been - and like dell and Apple, none of us needed a socialist press, or left-wing party to convince us it was the right thing to do.  I think there is a message here - that left to their own, people are pretty decent and as such, so are the companies they build.  I'd like our press to take a look at what is really going on out here and ask themselves some of the same questions they are putting to those in business.

    Posted May 27 2007, 11:37 PM by admin with 1 comment(s)
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  • Windows Vista Performance and Reliability Monitor - Silencing Detractors

    Many of us have read technology industry press reporting, blogs and perhaps scores of user and community group threads describing the issues and problems they have had with Windows Vista. Some are sincere and reflect user frustration with use and stability issues encountered during an upgrade over, or from a previous version of Windows. Regretfully, others in the tech press have done little more than wrap vented spleen in half-witted reviews as they railed against Vista - if these people offered solutions other than cleverly worded recommendations for users to hold onto Windows XP, or consider a move to Apple OS X, or Ubuntu, one might be able to take them seriously. 

    I can't and won't - most of the tech industry's press doesn't appear to be objective, or particularly skilled technically and I have found myself moving from a position of decreasing respect for them, to one of utter contempt.  Where this becomes a real problem for me is where the alleged experts facing regular users fail to offer real help and competent technical advice, as they mockingly and recklessly confuse and poorly advise the users who trust them - all in the name of perpetuating the myths they've created around Vista.

    So where are regular users and perhaps system and network administrators supposed to turn for help and real-world assistance?  Certainly, Microsoft TechNet and MSDN are great places to start, but they can be a little intimidating and perhaps a bit too comprehensive for regular users, or newer administrators seeking sources of information that they can share with users they support.  Something simpler and closer to home might help and that is part of why this blog and its forums exist.

    In most cases published here, I am going to draw on our own company's experiences and the work we do each day in the service of our customers.  In many examples, I'll be presenting information that is not based on immediate success, but from our own initial failures and what we did and do to solve the inevitable challenges that are present in any work - including using and supporting Windows Vista. My hope is that people will be helped, but also that together, we can help elevate the discussions centering on our industry and restore some objectivity.

    So back to what matters most - helping people get the most out of their use of computers. As shared, some users of Windows Vista have had a rough time.  In some cases hardware and software failures and stability issues have arisen and a lot of the time it seems hard to diagnose what the problem is.  While it's tempting to randomly blame bad drivers and bad software, or as many in our press have done, declare Vista a monumental flop, it doesn't help much.  What does help are tools specifically designed to aid users, technicians and engineers, and that is what one has every right to expect from Microsoft and an operating system as powerful and evolved as Windows Vista is.

    Fortunately, Windows Vista has some very powerful new tools that are a part of a much larger ecosystem designed to very quickly identify and solve hardware and software issues Microsoft's customers and its partners experience. While powerful and well integrated to the entire ecosystem, Vista's diagnostic tools are very easy to use and they face users and technicians in very readable ways. As and before we get into these tools, I'm going to set up the case study by outlining the scenario and a few parameters which affected our own need and use of Vista's performance and reliability tools.

    System Behaviors and Reported User Experiences:

    Windows Vista Ultimate Computer with a Windows Experience Index [WEI] score of 5.5 reported "Freezing" "Locking Up" and "Unresponsive" when the customer visited the AOL.com public website, resulting in numerous disruptive shutdowns. Similar behaviors were reported by the customer when visiting other websites, like Yahoo.com and a local public library website.

    Telephone support exchanges with the customer revealed that the error messages displayed prior to the computer freezing included:
    Explorer.exe failed to respond
    Internet Explorer failed to respond

    Installed Software on the computer included:
    Windows Vista Ultimate Boxed Retail
    Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Boxed Retail
    Adobe Photoshop CS2 and CS3
    Panda Software Panda Anti virus 2007
    AOL Client Software VR, or Vista Ready edition

    Now, before I go too much further, I have to share that we live, work and play in the same world as our customers - we build and use the same systems we build and sell as delivered and fully set-up, turn-key systems ready for immediate use.  So in our case, there is a lot of information that we can access about our own systems and we can much more closely replicate what our customers are experiencing... and very troubling to us, we were seeing many of the same things.  This was early in our commercial deployment of Windows Vista based media computers, and the system above was one of of the very first media centric systems we had deployed.  The customer has been with us for a very long time and we built and manage all the systems and networks servicing his orthodontics practice.  The system delivered was part of a much larger house-wide entertainment and automation system and built to replace a Windows Media Center 2005 system we had built two years earlier.  The home network into which the new computer was deployed is a large, mixed client wired/wireless network with both desktop and laptop computers - including Mac OS X computers and NAS devices, as well as several commercial image and document printers.

    Solving the Challenge:

    Using our own experiences and the Windows Vista Performance and Reliability Monitor, we accessed instrumentation data remotely and aggregated it.  Most home users aren't likely to do this, but the principles are the same, and all network and systems administrators are encouraged to explore how to access and acquire this data remotely.  Ref: Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor

    For independent users, or on the spot technical evaluations, users and engineers should go to, START | Control Panel | <switch to classic view> | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | <Select and expand, Reliability and Performance and then Reliability Monitor>

    For users that have placed the "Computer" icon on the desktop, just right-click Computer and select, "Manage" then proceed from Reliability and Performance as above.

    Our review of the customer's performance data reported in Windows Vista's Reliability Monitor and that data in our own systems reflected no hardware issues, but they did reflect one very obvious application error and depending upon what type of application, or process it was, it could be responsible for the errors the customer and we were observing.  As reflected in the image below, an applications process called, AVENGINE.EXE had stopped working.  As I shared and since we hand build and use the same systems we build for customers, we do a great deal of testing and knew that AVENGINE.EXE was a Panda Software, Panda Anti virus 2007 process.  Since we have been long term Panda Software customers [7 years], we had participated in their Vista BETA programs, as well as many programs from companies like, Symantec, ESET Software [NOD32], and MacAfee.  We also knew that early in the deployments around Windows Vista that there may not be a great deal of data available from the security software companies and less of which would be proliferated through their technical support staffs - which was confirmed as we sought information about the reflected process error.

    Since we had been testing other products on identical and similar builds as used by the computers reflecting errors, we went back to Windows Vista's Reliability Monitor and we noted that no such errors were being reflected and no such behaviors were being reported by customers who were not running stand-alone client versions of Panda Anti virus 2007.  Again, Vista's instrumentation, as clearly reflected in the Reliability Monitor, made it quick and easy to see exactly how the computers were performing.

    The image below reflects the Windows Vista Reliability Monitor on one of my own Windows Media Center [WMC] Computers - note the error reported for AVENGINE.EXE



    Note also that the same error was reported on the computer on 1st of April 2007.

    Actions Taken:

    We noted that while we were seeing similar AVENGINE.EXE application failures we were not seeing them with the frequency that the customer had observed - but we weren't going to AOL's website either.  When we did, AVENGINE.EXE failed almost immediately, and like the customer reported, closing the application also caused EXPLORER.EXE to fail - freezing the computer. We reassessed the data we had collected and then tested using ESET Software's NOD32 on computers running AOL 9.0 VR and AOL.com's public website.  The systems ran without error and happily, they "felt" both faster and smoother under the mouse.

    Needless to say, we shagged it over to the customer's home and removed Panda Anti virus 2007 and installed ESET's NOD32.  We did the same thing on several other test systems and select personal systems and once again, collected and aggregated performance and reliability data.  Most happily, no further errors have been observed and our customer is very happy.

    The figure below reflects a very handsome 10.0 - perfect performance and reliability rating - which is the only number we like to see.  Sustaining that number is hard to do, but it can be done and remember, this is a Windows Media Center system running Windows Vista and subject to intense daily use.  It processes live satellite television throughout most of our home and supports two Xbox systems as media extenders.



    Follow-on Actions:

    Not being the sort that enters into, or out of business relationships casually, we alerted and have been working with Panda Software's Technical Support Department since recording that it is probable that their shipping AV 2007 product may not work reliably on Windows Vista in all cases.

    After-Action-Review [AAR]:

    While we have seen errors with certain websites while using Windows Vista, Internet Explorer with its default Protected Mode on and Data Execution Protection [DEP] enabled, we had not seen any iexplorer.exe errors resulting from a DEP related event cause a fault in EXPLORER.EXE until it was combined with the use of Panda Anti virus 2007 and AOL.com. We suspect that a DEP related event was intercepted by Panda Anti virus 2007.

    Conclusion:

    As you can see, there is a lot under the hood when it comes to Windows Vista, and while the example above only introduces a small portion of the instrumentation and monitoring available in Microsoft's new operating system, it does hopefully reflect that users and technicians do not have to use all of them, or even understand how they work, in order to use and benefit from them.  By using readily accessible performance and reliability information that is easy to understand, one may quickly discover what a computer is doing and what one might do in order to solve challenges users report.

    Comment: 

    All around these tools is an enormous ecosystem that underwrites Windows Vista - with Vista, the aggregation of data, reporting of and response to hardware and applications failures has been both accelerated and better served.  In our company we have seen the very tangible benefits inherent to this process and we have seen Windows Vista mature at a rate that is very hard to believe - certainly many times faster than any previous version of Windows. Related to this, users will from time to time, note a systems tray icon and balloon help alerting them to resolutions to errors reported by them as part of the customer experience program.  We strongly encourage all users to participate in these programs - they will allow Windows Management Instrumentation systems to alert engineers of problems with hardware and software and provide automated systems the ability to report and deliver solutions to end users.

    I hope this post and our experience using Vista's Performance and Reliability Monitor helps illustrate a few more things - I hope it helps show just how different, new and more advanced Windows Vista is over previous versions of Windows.  I also hope that it reveals what we need to expect from those writing about our industry - including problems that are revealed.  I assess professionals in our industry and certainly all those that allow themselves to be regarded as "experts" have a very real obligation to know and share the truth.  If they don't know about the instrumentation and monitoring tools baked into Vista, they should, or they should write about something else.  If they are aware of these tools and they do not share them, or ask those that seek their help and support what these tools are reporting, then I assert they are intentionally working to prevent Windows Vista from succeeding and being assessed objectively.  It is OK if they are not advocates of Windows Vista, or Microsoft - they are entitled to their opinions, but they need to declare them.  If they, even one time, withhold information like this that could help a person, whether it is due to their incompetence, or by intent, then I assess they need to be held to account.  I've heard and read so many examples of this and it makes me very angry - it's one thing to have an opinion, but quite another to allow a user to suffer or be injured in some way, while some tech pundit with an agenda pursues his or her own interests.  I submit that it will not be long before the instrumentation, reporting and tools that underwrite Vista will very quickly work to silence even its most ardent detractors.

    Lloyd
    Posted May 27 2007, 01:23 PM by admin with 5 comment(s)
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  • Windows Vista Home Basic - Why GDI+ Persists

    The following is speculative and based upon personal observations and my experiences with Windows Vista as it was developed, and shipped in various BETAs and staged commercial/public release.

    I suspect there's is a huge back story here that has not been told - so good, in fact, that it'd make for a great TV movie - if one doubts that IT/MIS is not exciting enough to form the basis of a series, there are two shows shipping this fall that suggest one would be wrong for holding such beliefs.

    Many people do not know that the UI in Windows Vista Home Basic still uses GDI+ and that it differs and is unavailable in premium versions of Vista - it is not like Windows Vista Basic, which uses even older technologies that pre-date Windows XP, but interestingly, it does require hardware very similar to that which can support the Windows Vista Aero interface.

    The Windows Vista Standard UI [WVSUI] emerged <publicly> mid Summer 2006, as a curious revelation - it was introduced at a point when very few people, myself included, understood fully, how Vista's UI was architected in great detail. Not long after that revelation, we began to see stories about Windows Vista's ship date slipping into 2007 - which it did for consumer versions of the OS. By that time most in our industry had become so jaded by the many delays opposite the shipping of the new OS that most were not surprised and the real reasons behind the delay and split in how and when Vista shipped, may have been overlooked, or at least not fully examined. That is the basis behind the speculation shared here.

    At the time of the release schedule announcement, we heard stories that the "slip and split" [say that five times fast without dotting your monitor with saliva], were due to the requirements of computer manufacturers and partners. Some blogs scoffed at that part of the announcement, but few articles followed up on it - it seemed, conspicuously, that those that would comment [the OEM's and hardware partners like AMD/ATI, or Nvidia] would have spoken up - and loudly, if it were not actually true.

    As I learned more about Windows Vista and its video/driver model in particular, I began to question things and wonder just what the heck happened.

    In some ways, I was personally frustrated with the bevy of "Vista BSODed, or BSODs all the time when I try and run, x, y, or z video card..." <Griping without doing anything about the underlying causes always trips a gland or two in me - especially when those griping ought to know better> By now most know that as hardware drivers relate to the Vista Kernel, that they remain one of the fewer areas that run in part, in that mode - in XP, drivers execute entirely in kernel mode and if installed incorrectly, would ensure a system would fail to start or restart with great regularity. Even more frustrating for me was the lack of information about what was actually happening being reflected in our industry press - or better, why things were happening as they were.

    To help some understand things, the new driver model [the WDDM], allows multiple applications to utilize the GPU simultaneously by implementing the following:

    GPU memory manager-arbitrates video memory allocation
    GPU scheduler-schedules various GPU applications according to their priority

    "With these technologies, applications no longer have to cede the GPU when another application requiring its services starts-up. Instead, the GPU is scheduled in a more efficient fashion." REF: Microsoft MSDN/TechNet

    Perhaps the most significant change comes with the understanding that under the WDDM and Windows Vista [with properly crafted WDDM drivers!!!!!!!], the need to include code for the support of various device driver interfaces introduced over many years, has been removed [again, ref MSDN and MS TechNet]. Thus, Windows Vista implements only a single interface while ensuring that all the older drivers are recognized and function optimally. [Lib REF: aa480220].

    Ok, so what do I think happened and who did what?

    In one sentence, I suspect that hardware manufacturers "borked" the OEM's and Microsoft and that a GDI+ based driver had to be resurrected in order to address existing and planned inventories held by GPU manufacturers and enable support for a richer UI based upon largely existing GPU hardware inventories. Based upon this, the OEM manufacturers had to plan for and support essentially two channels within largely the same base of physical GPUs.

    Why?

    One has to understand what was and what is. In XP, applications could refresh based upon requests that were asynchronous. [This is what causes tearing that people see - which is related to the refresh rate that they were running]. Vista does not do this and it renders visuals off the page - so in the context of system resources, Windows Vista will run better, and feel smoother, with Aero turned on - where neither GDI+ as in XP/W2K3 is used as Vista Home Basic, or even worse, where pre-XP technologies are used as at Windows 2000, or in Windows Vista Basic <mode> as on the premium versions of Vista where Aero is disabled.

    Again, I suspect the GPU manufacturers - perhaps only one of them, was the real driver behind the "slip and split" and it happened because of the struggle to leverage the new API's [Direct3D10 is the new Direct3D API] in two simultaneous directions - and while the WPF is available to XP SP2 and W2K3 Server, it does not scale well in terms of parallel image processing [which is where I think things became hard to manage - getting too deep here to serve the interests of this post].

    I don't yet know enough about new queuing features to speculate much more about that impact, but I suspect there were some request queuing issues in play - and for 8800 users, I reason this is why you have seen some frustration with early and less mature drivers for your new DX10 capable cards.

    So there you have it - my speculation as to why there is a GDI+ based UI model in Windows Vista Home Basic and why it persists in Windows - despite using hardware that could run the Vista Aero interface. It wasn't about market segmentation - as I suspect Aero was to be the preferred UI for all versions of Windows Vista - instead it was due to GPU, or "A" GPU manufacturer's struggle with the new WDDM and DWM (Desktop Window Manager) and perhaps a self-imposed late start on WDDM driver development.

    If my speculation is wrong and the slip and split was not due to hardware and manufacturer requests and it was due to market segmentation alone, then Microsoft owes an explanation to all of us. I don't think that is true, however. If it were, I suspect that the manufacturer(s) would have spoken up and very loudly. I think it was a situation where all of them were impacted, and Microsoft stepped up, came up with a solution and they all circled the wagons and since all of them probably at least welcomed the additional time, they have remained quiet about it.

    Posted May 25 2007, 08:29 PM by admin with no comments
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  • Memorial Day

     

    Liberating Technologies' offices will be closed this coming Monday, May 28th, 2007, in observance

    of the Memorial Day holiday.  I and select technicians will be available by phone and email to assist

    users, and to ensure the continuity of all supported businesses and systems.

    I should like to take the opportunity to wish each of you and your families a safe and happy Memorial

    Day and offer my encouragement that in recognition of the significance of this holiday, we each take a

    moment to reflect on its enduring meaning.

    Memorial Day first began as Decoration Day - a day each spring when the loved ones of those past

    spent a moment tending to their gravesites.  Following the Civil War the number of families sharing

    losses was so great that the day took on a meaning which extended beyond individuals and their

    families to the nation as a whole - the day became a part of the nation's conscience and a reflection

    of what it was willing to sacrifice to ensure not only its own freedom, but the freedoms of all people, of

    all nations.

    America's fighting forces are unique in many ways, but they are unique in one singular way which

    sets them apart from all others, past and present - America has never fielded an Army of conquest.

    To the contrary, America has only used its power to protect its citizens and to extend, restore and

    sustain the liberties and freedoms of others.  Despite having defeated every major power this earth

    has presented before it, America hast left behind in its victories not destruction, but nations, and their

    peoples rebuilt and free.  In each case, it has then stood guard and protected and defended these

    freedoms - regardless of the cost in treasure and its soldiers' blood.

    While it is often hard to recognize, that our nation is at war, on this and every day since our nation was

    suddenly and deliberately attacked by radical Islamic theocrats, our forces have stood, as their fathers

    and mothers stood before them, to protect and defend our United States and all people who seek to become

    and remain free. In this war, like all before it, there are men and women whom have paid the ultimate price

    for freedom – our freedom and the freedom of all those who seek it.

     

    As America executed its war strategy - a global war on those waging war using the most malignant forms of

    warfare ever devised [an enemy whose tactics favor attacks on the innocent, while hiding behind the innocent],

    America has come under intense criticism and scrutiny by those most likely to benefit from a world willing to

    accept terrorists as politicians and statesmen.  As that criticism reached its peak, our then Secretary of

    State, the Honorable Collin Powel was asked whether America's war on terrorism and the criminals responsible

    for murdering the innocent was simply our President Bush's extension of the American Empire. 

     

    Our Secretary responded as follows,

    "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to
    fight for freedom beyond our borders.     The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return
    is enough to bury those that did not return."

    Shortly after returning from another of our wars, I drove into the hills and valleys of Belgium and Luxembourg. 
    I drove to the American Military Cemetery for heroes whom had fallen during the Battle of the Bulge,
    which helped liberate Europe from the Nazi's in WWII.  It was Memorial Day.  Coming to a stop at a small
    chapel in a heavily wooded area, I walked slowly up a small rise.  Nothing I could have ever seen could
    prepare me for what I experienced next.  As I moved forward, I came upon a sea of white, as far as my
    eyes could see – were the crosses of many thousands of US Soldiers who had sacrificed all - not for conquest,
    or spoils, but for the freedoms of others. Over these many years, I have seen much of war and in many
    places, but I have also seen nations and people rebuilt and free, and where once stood tyrants and despots,
    I have seen what our soldiers accomplished – nations and people delivered unto themselves and their own ideals.

    Whatever feelings I had, or would ever have for myself, or any other Veteran that survived war, vanished
    in an instant.  In that instant, I came to understand the true meaning of Memorial Day.  It wasn’t just about
    the loss of our finest men and women, it was about the enduring gift that their lives and sacrifice provided
    for so many that they would never know.

    I was and remain, forever grateful for their sacrifice.  May we honor them, by remembering and supporting
    their cause in all that we do and say, as once again our citizens make it possible for us to live as free
    men and women.

    Posted May 24 2007, 08:43 PM by admin with 1 comment(s)
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  • Top Ten Things I Love About Windows Vista

    In many cases the things I love about Windows Vista are not the features that others most often list - they are in many cases, the things that pundits rarely speak to, or that underwrite the operating system's functions in one or more ways. I've provided a link to more information about each item and a brief reason why I like it, or it why it is significant to users. I've also tried to cover related topics in several areas - to provide information for most types of users and engineers.

    10 - Windows Vista's Integrity Mechanism Windows Vista includes an addition to the access control security mechanism of Windows that labels processes and other securable objects with an integrity level. Internet-facing programs are at higher risk for exploits than other programs because they download untrustworthy content from unknown sources. Running these programs with fewer permissions, or at a lower integrity level, than other programs reduces the ability of an exploit to modify the system or harm user data files. Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista uses the Integrity Mechanism and it is what is behind IE 7's Protected Mode. But That is only the beginning - ANY developer has access to the tools that make this possible and it gets better, any single process may be executed in this space, or any grouping of them - so the parts of an application that face the Internet should use them. Think of these as objects, or securable objects in MS speak - see, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa379557.aspx also see, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/IETechCol/dnwebgen/ProtectedMode.asp

    9 - User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI) prevents processes from sending selected window messages and other USER APIs to processes running with higher integrity. If UAC and Protected Mode are straight rights in Vista's security arsenal, the UIPI is one of Vista's stiff jabs. UIPI continually counters attempts to escalate processes and it keeps bad-guy-code off balance. At the same time, it provides developers with an easy way to check process escalation without burning the user experience. Go here to learn how to use it, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms644950.aspx

    8 - Windows Imaging Format I can't say enough good about how Microsoft has made installing and deploying Windows Vista so easy, fast and consistent. (WIM) is a file-based disk image format. WIM files are created with a command-line tool named ImageX. It is officially available in several of Microsoft's deployment tools, such as in the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), Windows OEM Pre-installation Kit (OPK) or in Business Desktop Deployment 2007. A set of public APIs for manipulating WIMs have also been released with Vista, included under WIMGAPI.DLL. Now, this is a big deal and very broad, but to get the best start, go here, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905068.aspx now onto 7 and a WIM related tool most users and all sys admins will love.

    7 - User State Migration Tool 3.0 (USMT) If there is a PC tech or network admin out there that does not fall in love with USMT, he is either Latch, or his soul has been taken over by the devil. USMT is amazing. Admins may migrate user files and settings during large deployments of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Vista operating systems for sure, but for the small tech company or IT/MIS department, USMT allows one to capture and move all user data in one easy whack - to new machines, or for storage and later recovery. Our guys love USMT.

    Check it out here, http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/91f62fc4-621f-4537-b311-1307df0105611033.mspx?mfr=true ***Learn to script for it and then mod your scripts and WOW the pants off of customers. USMT can make a harder job easy and look even easier!

    6 - Windows Imaging Component (WIC) Yeah, I know, one can download some support for WIC in XP, but... what they don't tell people is that WIC is for everyone and it allows developers with no understanding of image file formats to access a consistent model that automates the delivery of required support, like codecs, from within an application. It allows independent shops to write their own codecs, yet access the platform in the same way well known file types can. Companies like TechSmith who produce amazing products like Camtasia and SnagIT make use on WIC in Vista. We make use of it to ship custom graphing applications and entire digital dashes. Please see, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms737408.aspx

    5 - Greatly enhanced support for Non-Uniform Memory Access or Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA) No, not the Numa Numa guy on Youtube... Ok, This one seems out there.... but listen up... if you have a multi-core processor, or happier still, two multi-core CPU's in the same machine, then NUMA is going to seem sexier the more you learn about what it does under Vista. Now, before we go further into NUMA, one has to understand that a great many people outside Microsoft evolved it a very long time ago - heavy hitters like, Burroughs Corp. and Unisys - some dating back to 1961 when I was still easy to look at. Under Vista, NUMA support is very smart and it helps manage, or should I say balance performance - the complex relationship between CPU, Memory and the OS systems that manage them. Under Vista, this management and exposed API's is better than ever and it is what we use to make a system run as smooth as silk - no matter what a person is doing.

    4 - Transactional NTFS I could have made a list made up of the top ten things I love about Windows Vista's I/O performance, but that might not excite a large number of people - so I picked the one I like the most and the one people will likely notice more than all I/O related Vista goodness.  When one says, Transactional NTFS, think Atomicity.  This is like the atomic transaction processor which monitors whether database operations all complete, or none complete - in other words, and as a simple example, did a write operation complete?  This is very important in Vista as such transactions have been extended to NTFS and it allows devs to monitor whether transactions have been completed.  This is leveraged in Vista to allow multiple, simultaneous file transfers to be monitored and managed independently - no more Explorer.exe death in the event one or more transfers dies. Definitely read this blog, http://blogs.msdn.com/because_we_can/

    3 - Windows CardSpace (formerly "InfoCard") In Windows Vista, this is the component that provides the consistent user experience required by the identity metasystem. It is specifically hardened against tampering and spoofing to protect the end user's digital identities and maintain end-user control. It is leveraged in so many ways I can hardly count them, but some make using Vista and writing for it not only safe, but a dream for dev and sys admin alike.  CardSpace and all that is related in Vista is a big part of how virtual folders are supported and tied to a user, or name space - in fact, all user folders are virtual and they can be moved all over the place and replication set up on them.  For a practical way to use what this is all about now, go here and look into Windows Vista Folder Re-Direction http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/03/01/ie7-in-vista-folder-redirection-for-favorites-on-the-same-machine.aspx While it does appear that way, "Identities" and how they are managed is behind both CardSpace and things as seemingly unrelated as who owns what folder and where is it, or may it be moved to.

    2 - Remote Differential Compression (RDC) I know, it doesn't sound very sexy, but it is. Now, we'll have to go into FRS and DFRS some, but not a lot to get why RDC is so hot.  Distributed File Replication and FRS came into near perfection with W2K3 Server R2 - which truly virtualized the name space.  So now what to do with it? Anything, from any place - really fast. That is where RDC is so amazing. With it and Vista, one can roam a profile like never before and even the largest of profiles can be managed and only what you need, accessed right now.  Spin up your propellers a bit and you'll catch a glimpse of how and why Microsoft's hybrid desktop and cloud based services are going to kick Google in the private parts.  With Vista it is possible to roam all over - not just a network, but a planet.  See, http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/f77670d4-3bad-4f88-98c8-e9df5f88fee81033.mspx?mfr=true 

    1 - The Number One Thing I Love About Windows Vista - Microsoft Built It!

    I'll explain why this is number one with two words - audio and Video. Audio and Video in Windows Vista are treated in completely new ways. I know there has been a lot of noise about driver coverage in these areas, but perhaps this explanation will help people understand why and where we are headed - but before I get into these two areas as they are enhanced by Vista, let me explain that audio and video are not just features supported in Vista - they are passions shared by Microsoft engineers, executives and their families. I know this to be true because I see it in everything they have ever done and most especially what they did in Vista. Microsoft engineers are just like us - they share the same passions for the same technologies.

    Vista Audio - Microsoft kicked off the Universal Audio Architecture in 2002. It didn't begin to materialize in any way as desired until Vista was shipped. The UAA provides a standardized interface which audio devices can follow, ensuring that the device's capabilities will be recognized and used effectively by Windows, without the need for additional drivers or custom control panels - think of what this means... device manufacturers and CE manufacturers of all types, now have an agnostic set of interfaces which will not require new drivers from separate suppliers. This is huge, but I suspect we will not see just how huge until Windows Vista is deployed more widely. Please see, http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/audio/default.mspx

    Vista Video - early Nvidia drivers aside, and slow to ship AMD R6xx based AMD 2000 Series Cards excused, video under Vista is more than exciting - it is stunning and will only get better. We can *** about its support for protected content paths - but at least it has such paths! How loud would the complaints be shouted if Vista did not support HDCP Compliant HD Video? Vista does and we use it all the time and it is nothing short of amazing to look at. ***If anyone brings up Apple or the Quartz Compositor, I wouldn't - I'll counter any comparison - so be prepared to get deep into it. There is so much in this one area that no link I can provide here even starts one off well. I'll add some in a later post.

    Ok, so there it is, my personal 10 things I love about Windows Vista and why - with Microsoft heading the list - for their passion for all things PC and all that we do with them and with one another. That is the best part for me - knowing that they'll continue to add to it and improve upon it as much for themselves as they do to help their company succeed.

    Steve Jobs described Apple as a products company.

    Microsoft describes itself as a people centric company and to me that explains why Microsoft's platform is so successful. Steve Jobs focuses on products and how they reflect an image - of himself and his user base. Microsoft focuses on people and building a platform to allow them to do and be their best.

    Posted May 23 2007, 03:18 PM by admin with 1 comment(s)
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