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How to troubleshoot the Longhorn Transformation Pack 10.5?

strizloskialeksandar — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:42:19 GMT

Hi. I must ask a question because I have serious problem with my Windows appearance. If there is someone to answer, please tell me how to solve my problem. Before I say the question I must introduce you with my situation.

I have computer with the following hardware: motherboard: Intel GA-8PEMT4, Intel Celeron processor running at 2.0 GHz, graphic card Ge Force 440 MX with AGP 8x and 768 MB of RAM DDR. Few weeks ago I had installed Windows XP Professional SP1 on the computer and the Longhorn Transformation pack 10.5 on it. It worked brilliant those days, but I decided to upgrade my Windows by installing the SP2. I haven't reinstalled my Windows a almost a year ago and I decided to re-install the operating system, but to install another Windows XP Professional, with the service pack 2 included in the installation (the previous was with SP1). I also downloaded and installed ALL updates for Windows XP found on the Microsoft Download Center site. Then something went wrong with the computer. As usually I installed the Transformation pack 10.5 and I had the following problem: When you running for first time there are for e.g Windows XP icons, but Longhorn's theme appearance. Next time you run you have Win XP boot screen and appearance, but longhorn icons. Next time the font is different in EVERY application (one is Win XP's font and the other is Longhorn's font. So my question is how to solve this problem and if you can tell me instructions to do it. Or will installing newer or older Transformation pack solve the problem or not? And I have another question: Can I install the Windows Vista 32bit BETA on my machine (see the specification upper) or not?, because I love it's appearance and I want to test the Windows, but I will have to download (it is about 2-3GB) and if I download it I won't take the risk to download a copy that doesn't work on my machine, although it is very big for downloading.

Thanks

Windows Media Player 12?

Overclocked — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:48:34 GMT

Hi. I googled "Windows Media Player 12 beta 1", and up came a bunch of torrent downloads! Are these fakes?

Windows Vienna

Overclocked — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:51:23 GMT

Hi. Could someone please notify me when Windows 7/Vienna is available for testing via a private message?

Thanks.

IE 8 beta installation problems

tomvason — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:30:16 GMT

I tied to install IE 8. However, I get a message that an update must first be installed. When I try to install the update, it tells me that the update I'm trying to install is older than what is already on my system and that I "do not need to install this update." What gives? I recently installed XP service Pack 3, and a new netgear update (which resolved the problem with netgear and sp3). couold this be the problem? However, it would seem that SP3 should not be a problem for IE 8. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Vista volume license keys to be tagged and neutered

RichieUK — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 06:30:41 GMT

Vista volume license keys to be tagged and neutered

6/27/2006 11:29:42 AM, by Jeremy Reimer

"Corporate Edition" versions of Windows have been the blessing of both IT workers and casual pirates since the days of Windows 95, when the operating system first started asking for a license key on installation. Large firms and OEMs who did not want to go through the hassle of typing in a CD key for every install received Volume License Keys (VLKs) that could be used on as many installs as necessary. Microsoft relied on the honor system to ensure that companies did not abuse this privilege, but it looks as if with Vista this system may be ending:

"We are making changes to the process to Vista and a new approach to VLK licensing," Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows client marketing for Microsoft told CRN during a recent interview. "We're training our enterprise customers and we'll do some key management for customers that's more automated and makes reporting easier."

The exact details of the "new approach" to VLKs haven't been made clear, but Ward Ralston, a senior technology product manager at Microsoft, has confirmed that the company is "introducing the notion of a key management server" for Windows Vista Server. This program will require licensed customers to check in their keys and Client Access Licenses (CALs) every 30 days, via an automatic reporting process. The procedure for the Vista client will likely not require a key management server, but may also "phone home" periodically to report on the status of various VLK installs.

Microsoft has been slowly introducing more and more antipiracy controls with its software products ever since CD keys made their debut with Windows 95. Windows XP introduced product activation (WPA) that combined CD keys with a hardware hash generated at install time. Corporate editions did not require activation, and when pirate groups leaked corporate VLKs into the wild, Microsoft decided to attack the problem from the other end. These VLKs were marked as "invalid" and new keys issued to the corporations and OEMs that originally used them. This didn't affect pirated copies of XP that had already been installed elsewhere, so Microsoft came up with the idea of Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA).

WGA checked the user's license key and compared it against a "blacklist" of known leaked VLKs. Microsoft made passing WGA mandatory to download noncritical updates from the Windows Update web site, as well as for many "free" downloads, such as the new version of Windows Defender. WGA was also found to periodically "phone home" license key information back to Microsoft.

The addition of new reporting tools for VLKs puts the antipiracy pressure back on corporations and OEMs. The debate over whether these measures actually defeat piracy is endless. While WGA was cracked early and often, Microsoft continues to make changes to the program to defeat the crackers, including embedding new versions of the WGA check into the installation executable for programs like the Internet Explorer 7 beta. At some point, many casual pirates may decide that chasing down all the cracks is simply too much effort.

The real question is whether or not adding new antipiracy measures to corporate versions of Windows will annoy IT managers enough to consider alternatives to Microsoft software. However, any move away from Windows will be slow if it happens at all—after all, the predicted backlash against Windows over XP's product activation had no measurable impact on the platform's market share. Microsoft is also not the only company introducing more stringent antipiracy reporting. Adobe added activation technology for all products (both PC and Macintosh) in their Creative Suite 2, and Quark has required the use of a "License Administrator" since version 6. Look for this trend to continue in the future, as software companies try to maximize their revenue in an era of increasing costs.

http://arstechnica.com/

XP Service Pack 3 and NetGear problems

tomvason — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:44:46 GMT

I have installed SP3 for XP and afterwards, my NetGear wireless will not connect. I can find the network, see no visible errors, but when I try to connect it simply will not work. Any ideas?

XP Service pack 3 is in beta

Mezaexcon — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:10:37 GMT

XP Service pack 3 is available for download.
Go here to get it. I find it to be stable so far and I had it for about a month.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=75ed934c-8423-4386-ad98-36b124a720aa&DisplayLang=en
I also saw it will be released around Mar. 22-23 :)

Vista 5744 RC2 available.

RichieUK — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 05:50:20 GMT

[quote][i]This build (5744) has a number of improvements and updates from previous builds, and has been through daily testing processes to refine quality and performance. [b][color="red"]We are making this release available for a limited time only[/color][/b] (and only by download) in order to get broad distribution and testing in a variety of PC configurations.[/i][/quote]

Download here:
[url]http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc2/en/download.htm[/url]
:D

Office 2007 staggers toward launch.

RichieUK — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 04:53:48 GMT

[b]Beta 2.0 Technical Refresh out today.[/b]

[QUOTE]Microsoft's Office 2007 suite is nearing the end of its long testing process. Microsoft today will offer a refresh of beta 2.0, the last external test release of the product before it is released to manufacturing, the company said.[/QUOTE]

[URL]http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=7068[/URL]

Download Windows Vista 5536.

RichieUK — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:25:13 GMT

Windows Vista 5536 pre RCI release is available for the first [b]100,000[/b] to download it:
[url]http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/prerc1/en/download.html[/url]
:)

Strange IE 7 Beta 3 Issue

oneyejack — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 22:30:00 GMT

I installed IE 7 Beta 3 recently. I like to customize the icons for all my links. So I went through and changed all 20 some links I use frequently to the icons I like. As soon as I rebooted they were changed back to the generic IE 7 shortcut icon. I attempted to change them again and realized that the file path was correct in the properties of the shortcut and displayed the icon when I viewed it that way. I tried to reapply and it would not change it back. Gets even stranger...I can pick any other icon that I want and change it no problem. Once I reboot though it's gone again. Now I have two icons that I can no longer use for a given shortcut. I tried to reset the icon cache with Tweak UI and that didn't help. It also only happens with .ico file I made. Shell32.dll icons stick with no problme.

What's up with that?

Vista to be aggressively promoted at Xmas

RichieUK — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:47:44 GMT

June 23, 2006

Vista to be aggressively promoted at Xmas

To soften the blow of delay

Elizabeth Montalbano

Microsoft said yesterday that it will run promotions for Windows Vista to tie in with the Christmas-shopping season in November and December. The move is aimed at ensuring PC sales remain strong despite Vista's delay in shipping until next year.

The company is working with partners on the issue, it said in a statement sent via email by its public relations firm. But it declined to comment on specific plans, saying more information will come later.

Analysts have suggested the company offer coupons for customers purchasing PCs that will support Vista so they can easily obtain the OS (operating system) or buy it at a discount once available.

In March, Microsoft delayed the widespread release of Vista until January 2007, a move that is expected to discourage PC sales during the busy holiday shopping season. The company originally had expected to have Vista on PCs by that time. Some analysts, including those at Gartner, have predicted that the general availability of the OS may slip even further into 2007.

At this point, according to Microsoft's current Vista release schedule, business customers will be able to purchase Vista through volume licensing by the end of 2006, with the general release of the OS coming early next year.

Microsoft has already been trying to prepare customers to purchase PCs that will be ready to run Vista when it is available. In May the company launched a website outlining the minimum hardware requirements for Vista.

The Get Ready site outlines the requirements for running both low-end versions of Vista or higher-end versions that take advantage of the OS' Aero graphical user interface capabilities. It provides a tool so users could test whether their current hardware can support different versions of Vista.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/

Microsoft defends cap on Vista beta downloads

RichieUK — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:53:08 GMT

Microsoft defends cap on Vista beta downloads

Not for the masses, says Redmond

Matt Chapman, vnunet.com 14 Jun 2006

Microsoft has defended its decision to cut back on the amount of users who can download the beta version of Windows Vista.

The software giant claimed that the pre-release versions of Vista are not appropriate for use by a broad, non-technical audience.

"As such, we want to limit the availability of the code to a technical audience, while also keeping the program manageable from a logistical standpoint," Microsoft spokesman Richard Saunders told vnunet.com.

According to an official Microsoft blog post, the Windows Vista beta was originally restricted because of fears that the huge downloads could cripple the internet.

However, the company now claims that the cap on the number of downloads is designed to help it manage the beta test.

"Our goal, especially at this point in the development process, is to make the feedback process as efficient as possible, and we are confident that we will get a high level of quality feedback regardless of the cap," said Saunders.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/

Download Windows Vista Beta 2

Steve Sinchak — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:57:30 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/preview.mspx

Get it now before the servers get hammered with downloads! :D

A problem too jumbo-sized for Bill Gates to solve?

RichieUK — Fri, 12 May 2006 07:25:57 GMT

A problem too jumbo-sized for Bill Gates to solve?

John Naughon
Sunday May 7, 2006
The Observer

It will not have escaped your attention that Microsoft is labouring to finish the next version of its Windows operating system, Vista. A version aimed at the corporate market is supposed to be ready for Christmas, with the consumer edition following some time later (missing the Christmas market, which has irritated computer manufacturers and retailers more than somewhat). Last week, Gartner, a leading IT consultancy, predicted that Microsoft would miss those shipping dates.

'Microsoft's track record is clear: it consistently misses target dates for major operating system releases,' the firm wrote. 'We don't expect broad availability of Windows Vista until at least the second quarter of 2007, which is nine to 12 months after Beta 2.' Microsoft challenged this. A company spokesman told CNET News: 'We remain on track to deliver the final product to volume-licence customers in November 2006 and to other businesses and consumers in January 2007.'

So there! The significant thing about Vista, however, is not the shipping date but the fact that it has been an unconscionable time in the making, subject to endless slippages (which have triggered major organisational changes within the company) and - when it eventually ships - will be just a shadow of the system envisaged when it was conceived. And while all this has been going on, Apple has released several major upgrades of its OS X operating system, and the programmers behind Open Source Linux have significant upgrades over the same period.

The difference between Microsoft and Apple can be largely explained by two factors. One is structural: Apple's OS X is based on Unix, which has a different architecture from Windows, and may be inherently easier to upgrade. The other is that Microsoft is a victim of its past monopolistic success: any new version of Windows has to be 'backwards compatible' with the thousands of programs and hardware devices built to work on earlier versions of the operating system. Apple has much less of a 'legacy' problem in this sense.

The really interesting comparison is with Linux, a product of comparable complexity developed by an independent, dispersed community of programmers who communicate mainly over the net. How come they can outperform a stupendously rich company that can afford to employ very smart people and give them all the resources they need?

Here's a possible answer: complexity. Modern operating systems are staggeringly complicated. In terms of the number of their components, and the richness of the interactions between them, they are far more complex than an Airbus or a jumbo jet.

Microsoft's problems with Windows may be an indicator that operating systems are getting beyond the capacity of any single organisation to handle them. Whatever other charges might be levelled against Microsoft, technical incompetence isn't one. If the folks at Redmond can't do it, maybe it just can't be done.

Therein may lie the real significance of Open Source. In a perceptive book published in 2004, the social scientist, Steve Weber argued that it's not Linux per se but the collaborative process by which the software was created that is the real innovation. In those terms, Linux is probably the first truly networked enterprise in history.

Weber likened Open Source production to an earlier process which had a revolutionary impact - Toyota's production system - which in time transformed the way cars are made everywhere. The Toyota 'system', in that sense, was not a car, and it was not uniquely Japanese. Similarly, Open Source is not a piece of software, and it is not unique to a group of hackers. It's a way of building complex things. Microsoft's struggles with Vista suggest it may be the only way to do operating systems in future.

And while we're on the subject of Vista, have you heard Google's whinge to the folks in Washington? It has complained that nasty Bill Gates has made the MSN search engine the default in Vista. 'The market favours open choice for search,' said Marissa Mayer, vice-president at Google's search products division. 'We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.'

Right on. So will Google provide links to MSN and Yahoo Search on its Home page? You only have to ask to know the answer. Having already ratted on its 'Don't Be Evil' motto by capitulating to the Chinese government, maybe Google should try 'Don't Be Hypocritical' next.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/