My article for the Software Developer Network Magazine has been printed in the magazine. If you don't receive the magazine you can read the article here.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is now available as a download on Microsoft MSDN Subscription Downloads.

For the release notes, see http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/4/2/5429cde5-32d4-4e55-bf9a-553111438d86/relnotes.htm.

For an overview of significant changes and improvements, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107921.

For a list of the hotfixes and security updates included in SP1, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107922.

My article on the AOL Developer Network about how I created the NFL Video of the Day gadget for Windows Vista went live last week.

Download the gadget here.

Yesterday I spoke at the iSDC and Ronua Community Workshop. We had a great day and it was a pleasure meeting the people at iSDC, meeting the developers in Cluj and surroundings (some drove over 200km to make it to the meeting) and Petru Jucovschi (the DPE for Microsoft Romania).

Here are the two presentations that I did:

11-09-2007 - Developing Windows Vista gadgets.pptx (431.43 KB)

11-10-2007 - 2008.NET.pptx (252.91 KB)

In the Visual Studio 2008 presentation I also talked about the work I've done for AOL. The AOL developer site can be found at http://dev.aol.com and for more reference material on Vista gadgets you can visit my AOL blog.

The article I wrote for AOL, 'Xdrive as Data Storage Device for Windows Vista Gadgets', got published on their site this week. I'm pretty happy with it. It gives a step by step account of how to create a Vista gadget and also shows how to use AJAX to upload a file, which had me up debugging stuff for quite some time.

When installing Vista it will, by default, enables shadow copy and system restore points. While definately very useful (and I DO use these on my host OS) I don't like the overhead they create, so I disable this for my virtual machines.

I did some more research on the settings part of Windows Vista gadgets and storing username/passwords in plain text in your settings is not a smart thing to do.

You can use the JavaScript code below to do basic encryption and decryption.

        function encrypt( plainString )
	{
            if ( plainString == "" ) return "";

            var xor_key = 2;
            var result = "";
            for( i = 0; i < plainString.length; ++i)
            {
		result += String.fromCharCode( xor_key ^ plainString.charCodeAt(i) );
            }
            return result;
	}

	function decrypt( encryptedString ) 
	{
            if ( encryptedString == "" ) return "";
            var xor_key = 2;
            var result;

            for( i = 0; i <  encryptedString.length; i++)
            {
		result += String.fromCharCode( xor_key ^ encryptedString.charCodeAt(i));
            }
	    return result;
	}

Read more background info here.

A Windows Vista gadget is just a zipfile with at a specified location the 'gadget.xml' file.

A mistake I've been making repeatedly is that I right click the folder with my sources and choose 'Send to|Compressed Folder'. Doing this adds the selected folder to the zip. I rename the zip to have the '.gadget' extension and then install the gadget.

Result: nothing happens. :-(

At the 'root' of the zip is a folder with the name of the folder I selected, my sources are one level too deep for Vista to find?!

There is however zero feedback from Vista. Very frustrating. A message saying something like 'Invalid gadget: gadget.xml not found.' would be a big help.

I just finished working on my first Windows Vista gadget.

It's a small gadget which sits in the sidebar and shows the amount of free space on you AOL XDrive (5GB of free online space).

Download the gadget here.

Read more about the making of... on my AOL blog.

I just installed two new Vista sidebar gadgets:

Visual Studio 2008 Global Launch Wave - this gadget counts down to the launch of VS2008.

SDC 2007 - this gadget counts down to the start of the annual software conference organized by the SDN.

Here are the powerpoint and demo code from my session about developing for Windows Vista using .NET 3.0 at the Maine Developer Network user group meeting on the 27th of February 2007 in Augusta, ME.

WorkflowConsoleApplication1.zip (35.87 KB)

HelloWorldGadget.zip (14.31 KB)

02-27-2007_MDN_-_Developing_for_Vista_with_.NET_3.0.zip (417.06 KB)

[Updated: Fixed download link for powerpoint]

Individuals who have been in web development for quite some time, are now slowly converting to internet advertising. Working with tools for web design gives them an added benefit of course. They already have background knowledge on dedicated hosting. All they need is a cheap web hosting service and they can actually start an seo consultancy of their own. Usually pay per click and adsense does not agree with these people. More creative strategies like email marketing appeals to them.

Chris Bowen (Microsoft Developer Evangalist for New England) and Bob Familiar will be touring New England with a roadshow about development on the .NET 3.0.

Roadshow Schedule and Registration

At the event in Portland, ME yesterday they showed a funny video of the WE-SYP program. A quick search on Google revealed that someone has uploaded this video to YouTube.

I spend the day in Portland, ME yesterday, helping out with the Microsoft Across America Launch Tour 2007. The event where Microsoft presents Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 across America.

Russ Fustino (http://www.russtoolshed.net/) invited me on the stage twice and allowed me to promote the Maine Developer Network (www.maine-devnet.org), our Augusta, ME based user group. Quite a few people in the crowd came from the Augusta area and did not know about our group, so that was great!

I also did a quick demo of Workflow Foundation. Without preparing it was a little haphazard, but people seemed to be okay with that. A great crowd! Come to my presentation on the 27th of February to see a better prepared session which will include WF demo's.

In Windows Vista the Add/Remove Windows Components screen in Windows XP has been replaced with the Windows Features list.

Some of these option definately require a little more explaining than the tooltip info provided.

Luckily someone has figured out what every option means and posted quite a comprehensive guide on bleepingcomputer.com.

Go to: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial134.html

I'll be working the Ask the Expert booth at the Windows Vista lauch event in Portland, ME. Hope to see you there!

Yesterday I reinstalled my new laptop with Vista x64. I figured since the Centrino Duo processor is 64bit I should at least run a 64bit operating system.

Ofcourse I forgot to backup my email and my last backup was a couple of days old. Hope I didn't loose anything too important, anyway. A bunch of stuff doesn't run on 64bit.

For instance the driver for my Linksys iPhone doesn't work, luckily my laptop has build in speaker and microphone, nevertheless I logged a support mail at Linksys, let's see what happens.

Microsoft Office 2007 runs like a charm on 64bit. Cool!

Next I discovered that I need a 64bit version of VirtualPC. No problem, just downloaded the VirtualPC 2007 x64 beta and installed it. My heart started beating a little faster when I remembered I had at least one virtual machine in saved state mode. Guess what? No problem! Just added the existing Virtual Machine, it recognized my save state and booted like a charm!

Windows Live Toolbar has some issues in 64bit. It seems that some of the toolbar buttons, most importantly the 'MSN Weather' button does not install :-(  Luckily my Windows Live Favorites is working though!

Plaxo (www.plaxo.com) runs fine on Outlook 2007 so that's great too.

My NVidia driver is working, but the fancy desktop management stuff doesn't install :-(

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how things are running.

The Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 Launch Event in Maine will be held on the 13th of February 2007 in Portland, ME.

Location:

Portland Marriott at Sable Oaks
200 Sable Oaks Drive
South Portland Maine 04106
United States

There will be Developer, IT Pro and manager sessions!

Sign up: http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/signup/default.mspx

Our usergroup (the SDN) uses a sharepoint site to communicate amongst the guys organizing the events. Great tool. Internet Explorer however kept asking me to re-enter my password. The solution appears to be to add the site your list of Intranet sites.

Below a screenshot of how to do that:

Next make sure that you've enabled automatic logon in the security settings of your Local Intranet Zone (this is default).

My new laptop arrived this weekend, after removing the usual junk I sat down and installed Windows Vista, Office 2007 and VirtualPC 2007 (RC). I have to say it's running like a charm!

Laptop specs: Latitude D820, Intel Core 2 Duo T7200, 2.00GHz, 667Mhz 4M L2 Cache, Dual Core, 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD (1920x1200), 4.0GB of memory, 512MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120M TurboCache, 100GB Hard Drive 9.5MM 7200RPM.

With a docking station I have my 20inch regular screen to run Vista in dual screen mode. Excellent

Will my application run on Windows Vista? The 'Application Compatibility Cookbook' does make any guarantees, but following the guidelines will surely help.

Go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/AppComp.asp

The Dutch launch for Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 is scheduled for the 28th of November 2006.

Read more on: http://www.microsoft.com/netherlands/evenementen/klaarvoorhetnieuwewerken/default.aspx (in Dutch)

I just did some research on Visual Studio and Vista. Here is what I found:

It seems Visual Studio 2002 and 2003 will not be supported on Vista. Visual Studio 2005 will need Service Pack 1 to run on Vista, but is expected to have a list of known issues and workarounds.

Visual Studio 'Orcas' will be the tool you need to develop WPF applications.

Visual Studio 6.0 will be supported on Vista.

The recommended approach for maintaining .NET 1.0 and 1.1 applications on the Vista platform is to run Visual Studio 2002/2003 in a VirtualPC environment.

I guess from the various responses on the Internet this last point is causing some controversy, but really, this is the way to go. Why waste energy on supporting legacy software when you need to be making better newer versions? I just wish there was a version of VirtualPC which I could use to create a 'VirtualApp'. A tool, just like VirtualPC, setup with it's own OS, but excellent host integration, which I can setup to run exactly one application. Booting the application may take a little longer, but 100% backwards compatability can be guaranteed!

They're out!

MSDN subscribers can download Windows Vista via http://msdn.microsoft.com/.

If you're running Windows XP and want to try out the .NET Framework 3.0 RC1, then get the bits at http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/downloads/products/getthebeta/default.aspx

The .NET Framework download is available for everyone. Not just MSDN subscribers.

A while back I tried to install VirtualPC on Vista and failed. Last night I continued my battles and discovered that VirtualPC 2004 SP1 actually gives me a different error. This time it said it could not run on a 64bit OS. This gave me hope. I figured, what the heck let's just jump in and install Vista beta 2 CTP 5456 on my laptop.

I did and it's running nicely, next step, install Virtual PC SP1. By mistake I clicked the MSI file, and that will give you an error quite a ways into the installation process, but if you click setup.exe then there is no problem. I've been able to fire up my exisitng virtual machines and the seem to run fine. Only 'problem' right now is memory. Vista hogs a little more than XP and this leaves less for my virtual machine. 512MB is enough to run Visual Studio 2005 though.

I've also installed Office 2007 beta 2, and it too looks nice. The Outlook 'pst' files haven't changed in format. Which is good, beacuse when I go on a trip I copy my pst-file to my laptop and when I get back I copy it back onto my main machine. But I run Plaxo and Office 2007 seems to discard some of the data which Plaxo puts into the pst-file, which means I need to reconfigure Plaxo after copying the file.

I finished installing Vista beta 2 and Office 2007 beta 2 on my test machine. It all looks really cool, but sadly beta 2 does not yet include Virtual PC Express ER.

Not to be held back I downloaded Virtual PC 2004. But sadly this version won't run on Vista.

So I guess my move to upgrade to all beta stuff has just ground to a halt... :-(

I'm in the process of upgrading my laptop to Windows Vista beta 2 and Office 2007 beta 2. Since I do all my development in VirtualPC mode, my first step will be to determine how well my VirtualPC images run on Vista.

I love the way the Vista Enterprise site provides the reader with an example of using Virtual PC Express:

"With Virtual PC Express, you can conveniently run two operating systems on a single computer through a virtual machine. While the latest operating system version (Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise, for example) runs as a host, the other operating system (Microsoft Windows XP Professional, for example) runs as a guest in the virtual machine."

Well I'll be giving it a try.

Btw. for downloading Vista, WinFx and more, go to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/downloads/products/getthebeta/

Microsoft Live Search is the new search engine from Microsoft. Will it be able to nibble at google's marketshare?

We'll see. Go to: http://search.live.com

Great article on: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1931914,00.asp

The February CTP is now available for download, also the WinFX release candidate is available on the same page:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getthebeta/default.aspx

A list of breaking changes between this and the January CTP has been posted here:

http://windowscommunication.net/collateral/pages/BreakingChangesJanCTPToFebCTP.htm