My hands-on with Virtual PC 2007

Virtualization - that seems to be quite a buzzword these days with most modern processors supporting it natively. I was a bit intrigued. Ofcourse, I knew the meaning of Virtualization but I wanted to get some hands on info on it. I recently installed Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on my computer (C2D E6550, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Vista Home Premium) and tried to install Windows XP on it.

Installation
The install of a guest OS went off without a hitch - all I had to do was mount my Windows XP disc image and the Virtual PC launched the regular Windows XP setup routine (which admittedly, went off rather quickly). Soon enough, I was staring at the Windows XP billboards. No difference in terms of installation - everything was as expected.

Usage
Once the setup procedure was done and the OS booted to the desktop, first thing I did was to check the Device Manager - the Virtual PC was one of the older Intel 440ZX based isystems with a SoundBlaster 16 sound card and an S3 Trio video card with 8MB VRAM. I suppose the older hardware is to provide compatibility with older OSes like Windows 98. Interms of performance, however, I did not notice any performance lags, a nice deal.

I next tried to install a couple of old games like Half Life on this Virtual PC - for some reason, it would not accept my product key. I then tried a few older DOS games like paratrooper, Prince of Persia, Test Drive 2 and the like - all of these worked just fine. The only think I found annoying was the fact that the Virtual PC would reproduct all system speaker beeps using my desktop speakers - really annoying if you're playing games which use that tiny PC speaker to reproduce game sounds.

I had a few MP3s on my host OS and wanted to see how they would sound on the Virtual PC. Microsoft Virtual PC allows you to share folders in the host OS with the Virtual PC. These shared folders appear as Network Drives in the My Computer window. For some weird reason, I was able to browse to the location of my MP3s but when I double clicked on them to play them, I got an error that the file could not be found. I was able to copy the files to the Virtual PCs hard drive and play them just fine from there. Glitch? Me thinks so.

I then tried to install Vista on the Virtual Machine after allocating half of my physical RAM for it. It installed without a hitch but performance wasn't up to the mark - I guess I'll have to wait for my next system with Vista x64 and 8GB RAM before I try a Vista-in-Vista setup. However, one thing I did notice was that the SoundBlaster16 did not get installed in Vista. I was not able to check sound in Vista. I'm keeping my eyes open on a VIsta compatible SoundBlaster16 driver.

Conclusion
Though I haven't tried to install too many Operating Systems on Microsoft Virtual PC, what I have seen so far points at a very robust platform for anyone willing to try out Virtual PC concepts. It should be prudent for corporates who wish to test a few systems with their software before deploying the product across the enterprise. I'll keep working on it and will post any new developments.

Vista SP1 Release Candidate overview

When Windows Vista was first released, Microsoft touted it to be more stable, more robust and more secure than Windows XP. It was definitely more secure, with a much more mature firewall, integrated AntiSpyware and UAC. In my one and a half years of using Vista, I can definitely say that it is indeed more secure. However, within a couple of days of loading Vista, I came across a few performance issues. A clean install of Vista worked fine, but the moment I installed Avast and a few other apps, I noticed performance degrading. Also, internal reports from work showed that quite a few of our customers had performance issues, so much so that a lot of them switched back to XP. Ofcourse, as time passed, Microsoft relesed a number of patches, most noticably KB938194 and KB938979 which improved Vista's performance. Application updates by ISVs also increased the number of Vista compatible applications.

Back in September of '07, Microsoft announced the release of Windows Vista SP1, a whitepaper for which can be found here. I didn't really follow it in the beta stage, however, I just downloaded the Release Candidate and noticed one thing - it improved the performance of my RTM version of Vista Ultimate by about 20%. I noticed fewer lags, especially during system startup.

SP1 Install and usage

Installation of Sp1 went of without a hitch. The program literally needed 3 clicks before which the automated installer took over. Even though the install was totally automated, it took about 30 minutes to install SP1 on my system with an E6550 Proc and 4GB RAM. In the process, the system did reboot about 4 times. After the final reboot, when I got to the desktop, the first thing I noticed was a little message at the bottom right of my wallpaper stating my build number (6001 as against 6000) and that this was an Evaluation Copy. Surprised, I checked my activation status - the OS was still activated. I'm guessing that since this is an RC update, it is bound to be time limited.

After using the computer for a while, I noticed a few changes:

• The 'Search' option from the Start Menu was gone and I didn't really see any option in Start Menu properties to reenable it. The keyboard shortcut still works though
• Disk defragmenter now gives you the option of choosing which volumes to defragment as opposed to the original Vista defragmenter

Ofcourse, these were the obvious changes I noticed. One other thing I did see was when I launched Windows Update. Prior to SP1 installation, I had 3 Windows Ultimate Extras available - Hold 'em Poker game, Bitlocker and EFS enhancements and Windows DreamScene. I hadn't installed any of these extras. However, when I launched Windows Update, I noticed I only had two extras available - Hold 'em and Bitlocker Enhancements. The DreamScene update was no longer available. I suppose the final version of SP1 will enable DreamScene - not that I ever used it. Oh well.

Performance

As mentioned before, SP1 did increase the overall afeel and response time of the system. There was this one quirk I'd noticed about IE7 - with more than 8 tabs open, IE7 was consuming a whopping 500MB of memory. However, after SP1, the same number of tabs are comsuming only 213MB of RAM. Also, the time required to copy files from the system to my MemoryStick seems to have gone down. Not only that, time required to copy multiple files weighing at about a gig from one hard drve to another required no more than 15 seconds as opposed to more than a minute before. That is definitely some improvement.

Conclusion

I have been using SP1 for about 3 days now and these are definitely some changes. The performance increase is definitely noticable and beneficial. I'll keep evaluating the product and keep updating this blog as and when I notice something new. Keep checking back

Common Tasks on Desktop

How many times has this happened? You open the computer and along with the icons, you see the Desktop Common Tasks folder on the left and it's not an Active Desktop item. This happens when either the desktop.htt file gets corrupted or the registry gets corrupted.

• For the registry repair, click here (Thanks to Kelly's Corner for this)
• If desktop.htt is corrupt, try this (Thanks to Doug Knox for this)

Cheers!

Blu Ray or HD DVD

I was just configuring a system online for a friend of mine and this vendor offered BluRay as an option. A good touch, considering that the older DVD format is still popular with no real conclusion whether it'll be Blu Ray or HD DVD or some hybrid format. However, a quick search reveals that Blu Ray seems to be ahead in the race as compared to HD DVD, despite a number of major IT names like Microsoft, HP, Alpine, Intel, Fujitsu supporting the format. However, with the Sony PSP3 featuring a BD Drive and with it having an almost cult following, it's no surprise that BD seems to be the more popular format. Let's see where this leads.

drvmain.sdb corrupt

Friend of mine had this problem lately and I thought this might help others. He would start his computer (Windows XP) and the system would freeze at a screen with the error:

Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\AppPatch\drvmain.sdb

You can repair the file by starting windows
setup using the original setup cd-rom. Select 'r' at the
first screen to start repair.

I tried extracting the said file from the XP disc but that didn't work. We were, however able to start the system in Safe Mode. Installed Windows XP Service Pack 2. That took care of the problem.

USB card reader causes system to lock up

So here I was, ogling over my newly built system. I put my phone's SD card in, copied a few files and shut the system down. When I started the system next day, poof - system locks at the BIOS sign-on screen. In the course of troubleshooting, I ripped the system apart, only to discover that I had left the SD Card in and the system was set to boot from USB devices. Took the card out, entered BIOS and changed Boot Sequence to HDD first. Fixed.

Dell Crystal Takes Home Best of CES Innovations Award 2008

At CES 2008, the Dell Crystal 22" monitor was awarded the Best of CES Innovations Award. I was intrigued about this product - I had heard rumours that Dell was working on a PlexiGlass monitor but those were just rumors. The only PlexiGlass monitor I had seen was the modded Samsung one. When I first saw this monitor, I was amazed. This looks nothing like that modded screen. It has a few interesting features like capacitative buttons and built in speakers with a sub woofer. Now, anytime I hear about sub woofers on a monitor, I tend to take it with a grain of salt - just how much power can such speakers have? I guess I'll have to wait until our labs here can get one of them. This is one baby I'd love to ride.

Click here for image -- (Image courtesy Dell Inc.)

Specifications:

Viewable Image Size
22” widescreen
Preset Display Area
473.76mm (horizontal), 296.1mm (vertical)
18.65” (horizontal), 11.66” (vertical)
Optimal Resolution
1680 x 1050 at 60 Hz
Pixel Pitch
0.282mm
Brightness (Typical)
270cd/m2
Color Gamut (Typical)
98%3(TrueColor Technology)
Dynamic Contrast Ratio (Typical)
2000:1
Viewing Angle (Typical)
160° (vertical), 160°(horizontal)
Response Time (Typical)
2ms grey to grey


More info on the Dell Crystal can be found here

One year with Vista

Okay. For my first post, I'm touching an extremely emotional topic - How has Vista been after a year?

January 30th, 2007. A date geeks would not forget. The unveiling of Windows Vista, the newest and probably most bitched about product by Microsoft. How have things been in the year Vista has been around? Let's take a look.

My tryst with it started when I was made a Vista SME at Dell. I remember my boss coming to me with a desperate look on his face - a look that could only mean "We've got problems." Yikes.

We faced a number of problems - Weird error messages, cryptic commands and downright ridiculous reactions on our test systems. Honestly, my first opinion was "This thing is crap."

People say that it's a Mac clone. Can't really comment there since I haven't used the Mac (except on a 5 day trip to my uncle's place. My brother and my cousin are both Mac affacandos). The only similarity I could make out was the gadget/widget thing. Let me be blunt, I prefer the gadgets. (and let's stop the flaming).

The second most annoying and hated feature of Vista was the UAC. Everytime I so much as sneezed, I'd get that thing on screen. However, UAC seems to have toned down after a few updates to the OS...or maybe I'm getting used to it.

A year down the line though, Vista does seem to have matured. Sure, there are the occasional glitches like IE crashing when all I did was close the darn thing, Media Center crapping out on me etc, but all in all, Vista seems to be coming on the level...

..or is it? Vista Service Pack 1 is due to be released in Q1 2008 and is expected to "improve performance and add stability". Wait, I'm confused here. Wasn't that what it was supposed to do in the first place? Let's see what SP1 does for Vista.