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Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2008 Released

Raj — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:15:12 +0000

Microsoft has announced the release of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2008 for IT managers. This release is for those companies who have already purchased the Desktop Optimization pack along with Windows Software Assurance agreements with Microsoft.

The current release updated two products of the optimization pack – Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset 6.0 (DaRT) and Desktop Error Monitoring 3.0 SP1 (DEM).

DaRT is a collection of very handy and powerful tools used for troubleshooting unbootable PCs. The collection includes tools such as Locksmith to reset a local administrator password, Hotfix uninstaller that can uninstall a bad hotfix causing PC to crash, a file recovery tool to recover deleted files from the recycle bin and an anti-spy/malware tool called Standalone System Sweeper tool that can run on an unbootable PC and receive spyware definitions update via USB drive.

DEM on the other hand is a monitoring application, that can be installed as a server on your network and the workstations run a smaller version of DEM that will monitor application and system crashes on them. The crash events gets reported to the DEM server on the network and the collected data can be utilized for further debugging and troubleshooting by IT managers.

» More on this @ [Windows Vista Team Blog]

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Microsoft to Retire Windows XP by 2008

Raj — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:45:41 +0000

Windows XP, since its debut in 2001, has been considered to be the most successful operating system from Microsoft will not be available for purchase after 31st January 2008. That will mark the end of life of one of the most successful products from Microsoft. This is perceived to be of a strategy from Microsoft to increase the sales of Vista which has not enjoyed good response from market that Windows XP did. Considering this move, the only option left for the companies is to procure a license of Vista. They will either need to think of an upgrade from XP to Vista or procure a new license for Vista.

This will perhaps make things very uncomfortable for Microsoft considering the minimum system requirements for Vista that’s on a higher side and also for the fact that many of us have not yet tested our applications on Vista.

» Source [BBC]

Comments? Feedback? Please post your comments in the comments section below.

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How To: Create and Restore Registry Backups of Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista

Raj — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:07:29 +0000

It’s a tool that we must have before we will ever need it for our disaster recover operations. Both as End users and Corporate users, we often run into issues with our Windows systems where we need to either perform System Restore or restoring a copy of registry from backup would fix the issue. But did we ever take that backup? Or, do we know how to create and restore registry backups?

Users who are not so tech savvy will find ERUNT (Emergency Recovery Utility NT) as one of the most easiest to use registry backup and restoring tool. Taking a backup and restoring in an event of a corrupt registry was never so easy! This small tool [under 1MB], can take a complete backup set of your registry including the security and user hives. All you have to do is point it to a folder to store the backup copies and be rest assured that you are in control.

Restoring is a pretty simpler task with an executable that sits right in your backup folder that can be launched to restore from a backup copy. Command line switches for automated registry backup and restoration are also available with this tool. Just have the automated backup features enabled and let the tool create a backup every time you start your windows. Technicians will find it more useful as they handle tons of calls on daily basis. Now all they have to do is install the tool and let it take automated backups of registry and when the system crashes, all they have to do is restore from a previously backed up copy.

» Tip: Use the default ERDNT folder inside your Windows folder for taking backups. This will ensure that you have access to this folder from the Windows Recovery Console in case Windows does not boot anymore.

Wait! That’s not all about this tool. There is another small but power registry optimizer tool that is bundled along with ERUNT and it’s called NTREGOPT (NT Registry Optimizer).

How to use ERUNT?

Pretty simple and straight forward. Let’s see the steps.

» Start the program and accept the welcome message.

» Select the backup options.

» Click ‘OK’ to start the back up and let it finish. Depending on your system’s configuration, it might take few minutes to complete the backup.

How to restore the registry?

Assuming that your windows is running normally and you wish to restore the registry from an already available backup copy, do the following:

» Browse to the folder where you have been saving the backup copies of registry. Since each restore folder has a copy of ERDNT.EXE (that’s the file we’ll use to restore the registry from backup), select the appropriate folder and then double click the file.

» This will launch the executable and begin the restoration process. Post which you will be required to reboot the system to activate the restored copy of registry.

How to restore if system doesn’t boot up?

If windows does not boot up anymore, you should reboot it and hit F8 and then select ‘Last Known Good Configuration’ option. If that doesn’t help, try to bring up windows in Safe Mode from the same options menu and perform restoration of registry as per previous section when windows was running normally.

If even this doesn’t help, you will need to perform some advanced steps to recover from the situation.

[Download ERUNT with NTREGOPT] | [Author's Website]

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6 Major Factors to Consider Before Upgrading to Vista

Raj — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:30:29 +0000

Vista is already here and some of us have even started planning an upgrade to Vista. Below is a list of 6 factors that you must consider before you decide to upgrade from your existing operating system to Vista, either for your personal system or your organization.

I don’t intend to draw upon any conclusions in support or against Microsoft Vista. My sole intention of writing this article is to highlight some factors that most of us ignore or overlook when making decisions to upgrade our systems and later regret the decision.

1. Hardware Requirements – Every organization has systems with different hardware configurations depending on who in the office is using it. Developers have different hardware configuration and people in Accounts department have different hardware in their systems. Our home PCs too are either geared for gaming or feature low profile hardware meant for only surfing the web and composing few emails in MS Word. An upgrade to Vista could require significant hardware changes and could prove costlier than buying the license of Vista itself. The minimum hardware requirement for running vista is on a higher side and for organizations with hundreds of computers will require lot of money. Your home PC may also need major hardware upgrade and you might want to first think of your budget before considering an upgrade to Vista.

2. Applications Compatibility – It is highly recommended that you prepare a list of all the applications that people in your organization use for doing their job and it applies to your home PCs as well. These applications could be related to graphics, billing, media publishing, AutoCAD or anything else. You must ensure that your existing applications will work on Vista and upgrading your applications does not require extra investment to upgrade them to Vista compatible releases.

3. Data Backup – If you plan for mass deployment or an upgrade to Vista, I recommend that you also create a plan to backup the data that’s already on those systems before even you roll out Vista. In an event of the upgrade not being successful, you may end up losing data on the systems. It may then require significant amount of time and money to recover data from the failed installations and might end up annoying your users and the management. Consider a pilot deployment on few systems and then deploy batch wise for minimal risk of something like this happening. Prepare a communication plan to let users know about a potential upgrade and ask them to notify the IT department of any situation where legacy applications are still running on one of their systems. For home PCs, backup your data before you consider an upgrade as most of the home users never backup their data.

4. User Acceptance – Are you a non-IT company with lots of users using computers for sales and accounting or something similar? If that’s the case, you will have to think about the time and training costs you might incur to train your employees on Vista. Not everyone has a good learning curve and for people in Sales and Accounting departments, upgrade may not be necessary. You may roll out a survey for non-IT departments with advantages and disadvantages of using Vista and ask for their feedback. How do you use the feedback will depend on what questions you are asking your users but will help you in making a decision on an upgrade.

5. IT Support – Every large organization with several thousands of users, an IT support department or presence of an IT helpdesk is a must. Planning has to be done to train all support personnel who will support Vista related issues and they should ideally be the first batch of people with Vista on their systems. Only after you are confident that IT support personnel can at least handle the basic end user issues related to email, printers, files and folders, mapping network drives, application and driver installation, you should think of rolling out Vista.

6. What is the total Cost? – Calculate the total cost you might incur in buying licenses, upgrading the hardware, training your employees and IT support personnel to see what you will end up paying. Planning an upgrade without considering the cost involved in any one of these could be fatal at a later stage.

I hope this articles helps you in making a right decision. Please share your points that must be considered before upgrading which are not already covered here.

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Windows Resource: 20 Services that you can Turn Off and Boost System Performance

Raj — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 22:35:11 +0000

Here is a list of 20 Windows Services that your Home and Standalone system can live without. Turning them off increases performance and minimizes security risks as well.

Alerter - You don’t need this service unless you want to see your Windows alerting you for un-necessary things.

Automatic Updates – Turn off unless you want to automatically receive updates for your OS. Most often a manual update is more than sufficient for your Windows.

Background Intelligent Transfer Service – Is used to transfer data when your system is idle. Automatic Updates service uses this service to transfer data. You don’t need this unless you are leaving Automatic Updates on.

ClipBook – Safe to turn off if you will not be sharing your clip book information with remote computers. For systems at home this can be happily turned off!

Computer Browser – Unless you are connected to a network and want to see other computers on the network, you don’t need this. Turn it off!

Help and Support – If you are tech savvy and manage to troubleshoot the common system problems without the ‘Help and Support’ of Windows, you can turn this off and save some resources.

Indexing Service - This services indexes files and folders on local and remote system. Turning it off may not have any negative impact on your system’s ability to search files and folders. Turn it off and observe how it impacts your system for a week then turn it back on if needed.

IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service – If you have CD burning software installed, this can be turned off.

Messenger – You should turn it off. You don’t need this for home and standalone systems.

Net Logon – Home and Standalone systems that does not login to a domain can live happily without this service. Turn it off!

NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing – Not even 1 out of 100 people use this to share their desktops. Unless you need this badly to share your system, turn it off.

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager – Turn it off if you have turned off Netmeeting service above.

Remote Registry – This enables modification of your system’s registry from remote systems. If you don’t expect people to modify your system’s valuable registry from remote system, it’s really worth to turn it off.

System Restore Service – Performs system restore functions. To stop service, turn off System Restore from the System Restore tab in My Computer->Properties. It’s your choice. If you face frequent problems with Device Drivers, Spyware etc.. you should leave this on.

Telephony – Unless you use Windows Telephony, you don’t need this service. You may disable it.

Telnet - Are there people connecting to your system from remote PCs? If not, it’s better to turn this off.

Terminal Services – Allows multiple users to be connected interactively to a machine and you may really not need it on a home or standalone systems. It’s good to turn this off.

Uninterruptible Power Supply – If your system has a UPS which is capable of shutting down your system in case of low battery power then leave this on. Otherwise, disable this service.

Windows Time – Turn this off. You may not need synchronization with a remote time server.

Workstation – Unless you are on a local area network, you have a reason to leave it on. For home systems, you can turn this off.

Do let us know about your experience after you have turned these services off. If you have other performance enhancing tips, please do let us know.

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Minimum System Requirement for Microsoft Vista

Raj — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:34:59 +0000

As per the update on Microsoft’s Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs page, the minimum hardware requirement to happily run Vista is as follows:

Processor – At least a 800MHz processor. I recommend 1GHz processor.
Memory/RAM – At least 512 MB of memory. If your GPU uses shared memory, you should look at increasing it to at least 640MB.
Graphics card – A DirectX9 capable graphics processor is required to satisfy the needs of graphics rendering in Vista.

For Premium PCs, the minimum hardware requirement is as follows:

Processor – At least 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
Memory/RAM – At least 1 GB of system memory.
Graphics card – A DirectX9 capable graphics processor, 128MB memory, support for Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
Hard Disk – Minimum of 40GB Hard disk with 15GB free space (why?)
DVD-ROM Drive – Either internal or external DVD-ROM drive is ok.

It might still be possible to run Vista on slow and old PCs!

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UniveRSS: A Stunning 3D RSS Reader for Vista

Raj — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 21:55:37 +0000

UniveRSS is a RSS reader for Vista, leveraging the “WPF” [Windows Presentation Foundation], visualizes the RSS feeds and their contents.

It introduces a full-screen 3D universe where galaxies represent the folders of your RSS feed directory, and the stars are represented by the spinning cubes that hold the feed information. Size and position of the feed cubes indicate how many unread items they contain.

You navigate through the feed galaxies in a game-like environment, freely moving in all three dimensions. Selecting items in lists will turn the cube to the next side displaying the item’s content including images. Just click the right mouse buttons and you turn back to the list view or to the galaxy.

UniveRSS is a showcase application that demonstrates the use of several WPF features, 3D animations, data binding, and data visualization. Currently UniveRSS uses the RSS Feed Store managed through Internet Explorer 7. Later versions will allow you to manage the Feed Store from within the UniveRSS application.

Download your copy and give it a try.

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Download Stunning Microsoft Vista Wallpapers

Raj — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 22:14:56 +0000

Wanna take a look at how Windows Vista Wallpapers look like? You don’t have to download and install Vista for that. Take a look at this URL and you can preview all the wallpapers. The preview is available at [Haklabs] and there are 54 of them available for your viewing pleasure and I must say, they are just awesome!!!

You can either view all of them in the photo album or download the entire collection using the links on the Haklabs page.

Found @ [digg]

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