With the recent release of new operating system of Microsoft came huge 'WOW' advertising campaign that you cannot simply ignore. Since our company has Enterprise Agreement as well as MSDN subscription, I was able to download from MS website installation DVD on the day of the release. I tried one of the first CTP's of Vista that Microsoft released - it looked like Windows XP with new theme, but performance was terrible. I was really curious about the progress since then and how the final product will be.
There is only one DVD for all Windows Vista editions - the important role belongs to the product key, which decides what the installed edition will be. You can choose skip the window for entering the key and choose which edition to install, but later on you will have to input the key anyway, and if it doesn't match your choice, the OS will have to be reinstalled. But for my testing purposes it was good enough - of course I chose the Ultimate version.
The computer I used for testing is nothing new and powerful, but for regular home use of internet, word and casual gaming, its good enough.
AMD Sempron 2800+ (1.6GHz overclocked to 2.0GHz)
1024MB DDR400 RAM
ASUS K8N nForce 3 250 Mainboard
GeForce 4 Ti 4200 with 64MB RAM
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 160GB SATA HDD
I was not able to upgrade OS since I had only 32-bit version of Vista and the original operating system was 64-bit Windows XP. The installation was really simple and fast - finished in about 25 minutes - which is even faster than Windows XP. The boot process was slower than for Windows XP, especially for fresh install, but that was just first from the many disappointments and complaints.
I didn't have the proper video driver - Standard VGA Adapter at 640×480 and 16 colors, and 60Hz frequency. Ewww.
I didn't have the proper audio driver - so the only sound I got was annoying 'beep' all the time.
I didn't have the proper network driver - and Vista started to check internet for the drivers…
I had a feeling of deja-vu - remembered the time when I tried to install one of the Linux distributions some time ago - cannot be done without internet.
Good thing I'm a computer geek and my home is filled with computers. So I started to look on the internet for drivers. No problem in finding the network drivers. Then I tried to update the audio, but I didn't find anything. Out of despair I tried to use the built in Vista wizard, and to my surprise it installed WHQL signed driver that actually worked.
But the video was disaster. I didn't expect my card would run Aero, since it has only DirectX 8 support, and has 64MB RAM (half the amount Aero needs), but I at least it would work. On nVidia web site, after downloading and unsuccesfully trying to install the 100MB+ ForceWare driver, I found that GeForce 4 family of graphic cards is NOT supported in Windows Vista. No reason why. But what really made me mad is that the crippled GeForce 4 MX cards supported are!
I was thinking why is it like that, and the only explanation I could find is that lots of OEM vendors like HP, DELL and IBM has sold in the past desktop computers with these cards - we have many HP computers with GF 4MX cards - and since these are the 'business' models, they need to be supported.
I tried to install the MX driver for my Ti 4200 - of course it worked, though I had to click through various warnings about incompatibilities. But the problem is that all software including games then complained that they don't run on MX cards.
Maybe in couple of years, when some of my computers die, and I have to buy a new one, I'll give Vista another chance. But now, I'm sticking with Windows XP.
I'm back with more of How to migrate physical computer to Microsoft Virtual PC machine
6. Restart the physical server and boot from Acronis True Image Rescue Disk. Create disk image(s) of all the partitions and drives in the physical server. True Image allows you to save it over network to a different computer - save it to the virtual machine from step 1.
7. Create the destination virtual machine. Size of the hard drive was not issue for me, since most of the servers just had operating system and couple of applications installed, no databases or large files. I usually choose 10GB size. Make sure the hard drive has fixed size, not dynamically expanding, it will help a lot speed up the hard drive access times.
8. Put the Acronis Rescue Disk in CD drive on the Virtual PC host. Mount the hard drive from the Windows XP machine where the Acronis TIB archive is saved and boot the virtual machine. It should boot from the CD and load the Acronis Utility.
9. Restore the TIB image to the destination drive, this will take from minutes to hours, depending on the size of the image.
10. Turn of the virtual machine, unmount the second hard drive, eject the Acronis Rescue Disk, put in boot disk with operating system that was installed on the physical machine and turn on the machine again.
11. Boot from CD and choose recovery console. Otherwise the boot process will freeze on blank screen before showing the Windows logo.
12. Login into the installation (1. C:\WINDOWS) using local administrator password (or recovery password for Active Directory) and execute the following commands (assuming CD drive is D:):
copy D:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll
copy D:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Reboot the virtual machine.
13. Wait for the computer to start (first time when it detects new hardware it always takes a lot of time), then log in, install Virtual Machine additions, change the network settings, and you're done!
14. Now you can transfer this finished virtual machine to the Virtual Server 2005. For even faster hard disk access, add virtual SCSI adapter (Virtual PC doesn't support it) and change the type of the virtual hard drive from IDE to SCSI - according to Microsoft, this should improve disk access by about 20% over IDE.
In our office we used to have so many servers that were just running 24/7 doing nothing most of the time. But since there were various version of our software and still time to time used by developers, we couldn't simply turn them off and wait if someone will complain. We decided to transfer the physical machines into virtual ones, thus saving electricity, heat, and space inside the server room.
At that time, we had only two choices for the virtualization software - Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, and VMware GSX Server. We chose the Microsoft's product since at that time it was for free. VMware now offers newer version of their product, VMware Server 1.0.2 - and it is for free as well. Unfortunatelly we had big issues with network connection - 70% of all ping requests result in timeouts.
Microsoft offers utility called Virtual Machine Migration Toolkit, but it has some special requirements. I decided to go my own way and make it simplier. Following are the steps to succesfully transfer physical computer to virtual machine.
Note: This will work only for 32-bit versions of Windows operating systems, since Virtual Server doesn't support x64 guests.
1. Create one virtual machine with Windows XP and virtual hard drive big enough to fit the image(s) of the physical computer(s).
2. Obtain free version of Acronis True Image 7 from Acronis website or purchase the latest version. Install this on the virtual machine from step 1 and create Rescue Boot CD. We will need it later.
3. Change the machine type on the physical machine in Device Manager to ACPI Uniprocessor PC. This step is very important in case you are migrating from hyperthreading enabled Pentium 4 machines (as I was) or multi CPU configurations, and reboot.
4. Change the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller driver to Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller, otherwise after migration you will get BSOD with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.
5. Write down IP address and network settings of the physical computer to input later - the virtual machine will create new network card and forget all the previous settings.
When I purchased external USB DVD-RW drive from LiteOn about a year ago, it came in a nice retail packaging with some additional goodees. These were CyberLink PowerDVD player and Nero Burning Rom 6.0. Unlike most of the OEM versions of DVD recorders that include only crippled Nero Express version, mine was full release. Maybe because the drive costs three times more that the internal ATAPI version?
Anyway… since it was for free, I installed it and happily used it ever since. Disaster came some time ago, when I checked Ahead's website and downloaded updated Nero Reloaded - 6.6.something. Not only it includes YM toolbar (what the heck is that for?), but it also reported my Nero is using pirated key and turned it into 30 days evaluation demo - which of course was expired, since it was in use for months.
Okay, so what now? I uninstalled it completely, and installed back the version from CD. It doesn't ask for any codes, so it must be hard coded in the installation package. If I want to use the newest version, do I have to really shell out 60 Euro for burning program, when the drive itself costs one third of that amount? So I started to look for alternatives.
And I found perfect match - Infra Recorder. Completely free program that can do almost everything that Nero can - except of the additional features included in the Nero package, that I really didn't even bother to use. And unlike Nero's latest version 7 Reloaded, that really bloats to 180MB, the Infra Recorder has less than 3 megabytes. And, as I mentioned before, is completely free.
All versions of Windows starting 2000 are supported, including x64 editions of XP and of course Windows Vista.
Highly recommended!
Couple of days ago I got my hands on a very nice piece of hardware - DFI's microATX mainboard 915GM-MIGF/G. It is based on Intel 915GM mobile chipset found usually in second generation Centrino notebooks (codename Sonoma) and is one of the few desktop mainboards capable of running mobile Celeron and Pentium M CPU's. Offers integrated GMA900 graphics chip and 8-channel audio that are good enough for office use and even some older games, has both analog and digital output for multi-monitor support, and one full speed PCIe 16x slot for powerful additional graphics card. And as most of DFI's products it offers great overclockability.
Although the retail prices of Pentium M CPU's are still ridiculously high, thanks to eBay I was able to buy two used pieces for fragment of the original cost. Model 730 (1.7GHz/2MB L2) for $60 (retail price $470), model 725 (1.6GHz/2MB L2) for $50 (retail $340). Both CPU's were pulled from dead laptops, are working perfectly and overclock like crazy. The more powerful model I used in my aging notebook to replace Celeron M CPU.
These are results of my overclocking attempts:
Intel Celeron M 350 (1.3GHz/1MB L2) - at 1.73GHz (13x 133MHz FSB) on default 1.26V
Intel Pentium M 725 (1.6GHz/2MB L2) - at 2.4GHz (16x 150MHz FSB) on 1.504V (default 1.340V)
The only 'flaws' I found so far are the single channel memory controller (chipset supports single channel DDR and dual channel DDR2, but this mainboard has only two DDR slots), and lack of support for 64-bit applications - this is not really big issue, considering the target market of this board.
On the other hand, the power consumption of the whole system is much lower than today's high end graphic cards alone (especially the hyped and not yet released AMD/ATI's R600 with it's 240W). Even when overclocked by 50%, all the CPU needs is just passive heatsink similar to the ones found on northbridges and properly ventilated case (using two slow spining fans, 12cm intake and 8cm exhaust). The resulting computer is very quiet and powerful.
Thank you Intel for such nice piece of silicon!
Tonight I decided to reinstall my desktop computer and try running 64-bit edition of Windows XP. I had no problem with 64-bit drivers for the chipset and onboard audio (ASUS K8N - nVidia nForce 3 250). But the tricky part was to install video drivers for my GeForce 4 Ti 4200 AGP card. In 32-bit version of Windows any ForceWare driver would work, but the 64-bit version refused to install telling me no supported hardware was found.
Since the drivers are first extracted to C:\NVIDIA folder, I was able to compare both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. To my surprise the 64-bit version, while supporting the lame GF 4 MX, totally ignores the full flavor Ti series.
It can be fixed quite easily by editing nv4_disp.inf file.
To section [NVIDIA.Mfg.NTamd64] add
%NVIDIA_NV25.DEV_0253.1% = nv4, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0253
%NVIDIA_NV25.DEV_0251.1% = nv4, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0251
%NVIDIA_NV25.DEV_0250.1% = nv4, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0250
To section ; Localizable Strings add
NVIDIA_NV25.DEV_0253.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200"
NVIDIA_NV25.DEV_0251.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400"
NVIDIA_NV25.DEV_0250.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600"
Windows will complain that the driver is not WHQL signed (as most 3rd party 64-bit drivers aren't), but works perfectly.
Oblivion awaits!
One of my tasks for yesterday was to deploy new release of our software module in testing environment and report back to developers the results. They sent me archive with three files - setup.exe, setup.ini and setup.msi. I logged to the Windows 2003 server machine where this module was supposed to be installed via Remote Desktop and executed the setup.exe file. Immediately, funny looking window showed up:
After clicking on OK, I was told by the installer that 'installation ended prematurely because of an error, click OK to exit'. Duh! What is wrong?
Smelling something fishy, I tried to install this module on my notebook running Windows XP, and it worked without problems. Now that's really weird. Maybe there is problem with Windows 2003 server?
I logged to another machine to try, and it behaved the same as with the first machine. So it really doesn't like server OS! I tried once more, remote connection to XP machine… and it also didn't work! My theory was wrong! So what now?
The Holy Grail of IT - restart will solve it! Nah, it didn't work either…
Maybe the desktop themes? On server they are disabled by default. Nothing…
Maybe some fonts missing? Copied the whole FONTS folder to the server. Nothing…
Maybe incorrect color depth? Set it to 16 bits. Nothing…
Maybe some required files are missing? Monitoring with FileMonNT. Nothing…
Oh well, probably wrong build. Reported this to the developers. They tried to install it on their own Windows 2003 server, and it worked. I didn't believe them. Asked for access to this machine and wanted to see it with my own eyes. Logged in, started the setup.exe file, and same error again.
I went to the guys and scolded them for teasing me. They scolded me for lying. Logged in from their computer, started setup.exe, it worked. How is that possible???
Out of desperation I noticed one little difference - they were using Remote Desktop session in full screen (1280×1024), while I had it set to 1024×768 only so I can easily switch between applications. Jokingly told them to try lower the resolution to the same as I have…
And to our suprise, this theory was right. In smaller resolution than 1280×1024 the installation process simply refused to run. If only it would give out some clues in the error message, or any kind of log. So beware! Installation will only work in the same or better resolution than the build was made.
I can only thank to our company that it doesn't equip it's employees with 24" wide screens…
Where did the comrades from HP make a mistake?
Part of my job is supporting our company’s products at customer sites scattered all over the world. To help me carry all the needed stuff with me, my company decided it's time to go mobile and equip me with a notebook. I could choose between the following two models:
Dell Latitude D510 - Celeron M 350 with 512MB RAM, i855 chipset and 1024×768 15"
HP nx6125 - Turion ML-34 with 1024MB RAM, ATI Xpress 200 chipset and 1400×1050 15"
Although the D510 has much cheaper components than the HP, to my surprise the price was almost the same. So I chose the HP. I had no experience with AMD powered computers since I replaced my good old 386DX/40 so many years ago. Centrino technology rules the mobile market since its introduction, some people love it (including me), some people hate it, so I was obviously curious if there is finally some competition to Intel.
How well does the HP serve me and what are my opinions about it? Read on…
When I first learned that I will go to Turkmenistan, I thought it was just a joke from my boss, who likes to tease us a lot. But few days later, when I together with two more guys from my company received invitation letters, air tickets and hotel reservation, we realized that our boss was serious. All I knew back then about Turkmenistan was that it used to be member country of Soviet Union located between Iran and Uzbekistan. Since 1990 it has been an independent country and most of the area is desert. Time to study more, so I don’t feel like ignorant when I arrive there!
Not minding my coworkers who took every chance to tease us about it, we started to look for more information about the country and people. Ruled by self-elected president for life, Saparmurat Niyazov, who calls himself as Turkmenbashi (meaning 'leader of the Turkmens'), Turkmenistan has the biggest natural gas supply in the world and is one of the biggest exporters of cotton. Thanks to independence and the gas reserves, the country is theoretically very rich. But where all the money ends, that's a different story.
The flight with Lufthansa from Frankfurt had one stop-over in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, where most of the passengers left. Together with about 20 other people who continued to Ashgabat we were forced to stay onboard the plane during refueling. Most of the passengers were business men from Europe, because –as we learned much later – common Turkmen people have very little or no chance at all to leave the country (except Russia maybe).
The first experience with the locals was right after the landing, around 1 am local time. As it was our first time in Turkemenistan, we didn’t know what to expect, unlike the rest of the passengers. As soon as the bus parked in front of the airport hall entrance and the door opened, the 20 guys in suits and ties ran out of the bus like it was going to explode in the next few seconds, probably breaking the world record on 100 meters run, leaving us behind with surprised looks in our faces. The bus driver looked at us with both pity and amusement, realizing we were ’new’ there.
Every human being needs visa to enter Turkmenistan, and the only way to get one is right there at the airport. So the rush earlier was to get the best 'pole position', because there was only one person issuing visas and one accepting payments for it. First you have to show the invitation letter and hand over the passport. The guy looks up the invitation in computer (which takes forever as this is probably his first day using it), then he tells you to move to another small stand where you have to pay the visa and registration fee. The only accepted currency is US dollars, if you have Euro or anything else, you are screwed. The price for 10-day visa is hefty $71, plus $10 for registration. After paying, you go back to the first guy, who – if you are lucky – already placed a visa sticker in your passport, and you are free to go to the next stage which is the registration. This whole process sounds simple; truth is that it takes around 10 minutes per person. Multiply it by 20, and you understand why those people ran.
So after 3 hours of waiting, it was finally our turn. My question ‘do you speak English?’ was answered with resolute Russian 'no’. Too bad last time I used Russian language was in school 20 years ago, it would have come handy right now. Good thing one of us three was often staying in Russia, he will help us to talk with the locals.
After we managed to get through the registration and get our bags from the carousel, we had to pass yet one x-ray check. To our surprise, the two guys standing there knew English. To be more exact, only one sentence – give 10 dollars, no baggage check. Of course we didn’t give anything. After some more waiting, the two guys realized that we really won’t share our money finally gave up and let us go.
Final check was at the customs – as in every airport I have been to, there was green and red zone, however the green zone was blocked. We had to fill form in Russian language - who we are, what we will do there, what we bring with us. The most suspicious things were notebooks and mobile phones. We expected to be asked for some more dollars again, this time they didn’t dare. Yehey, after more than 4 hours we are finally out of the airport!
Outside the building we chose one of the many taxi drivers waiting there, got inside a very old Russian Lada car with cracked front window and headed towards the city with such speed that was almost impossible to hold the car together. It did. When the driver asked us in simple question ‘which hotel?’, both me and the colleague looked at the third guy who we though speaks Russian and waited for his reply. It surprised everyone in the car – he answered with confident ‘yes’. The driver asked again, and he got the same answer. We had to take out the hotel reservation and told the driver ”Nissa”, he nodded and accelerated some more. About half hour later, we reached the right hotel.
And we didn’t know yet what will happen in the next few days.
TO BE CONTINUED
When I was a kid, I still remember attending together with parents monumental celebrations on May 9 every year. That was the “Day of victory” for us. Waving red flags, singing tunes, carrying all kinds of banners glorifying everything socialist and soviet. Not attending this event made you suspicious in the eyes of government, and you never knew which one of your neighbors might be spying on you just to report to secret police the next day as an ‘enemy of the state’. These days we celebrate one day earlier, May 8 as the rest of Europe. That is when the official capitulation of Germany took place in destroyed Berlin.
May 9 was also the day when first tanks and infantry of the Red Army reached uprising Prague. This also predicted the future of our country for the next 50 years. Fact that southwestern part of Czechoslovakia was liberated by Patton’s 3rd army was forgotten and hidden for half a century as it didn’t fit into the socialistic and communist ideology. With Soviet Union Forever!
—
Two weeks ago I was sent to Russia on business trip. While working 14 hours every day I realized that I will be there just when this special day shows up. When I asked if I should report at work on May 9 as well, I received very surprised look from all of my coworkers. It’s prazdnik pobedy, no work! Duh!
I decided that it would be nice to experience the celebration of victory over fascism in the country that liberated most of Europe. Although Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore for about 16 years, its legacy, traces and signs are quite visible and noticeable everywhere. The country is ruled by an ex-KGB officer and to thousands of people Lenin, Stalin and others are sometimes more than God to Christians.
First surprise for me was that all exits from subway leading to Red Square, where the main event took place, ale blocked with fences and guarded by soldiers and militia. The only way how to leave the underground was to travel to another subway station and try to reach the square on foot. Without any map it was a bit difficult task, but after I reached subway station ‘Tverskaya’, I knew that I’m at the right place. The subway was full of people carrying soviet flags and banners with various slogans. So I just followed the crowd, better say I was being carried out.
As I experienced before, there is no such thing as peak hours in Moscow, simply because the traffic is dense 24/7. But this day was different. The traffic in the city must have collapsed. The wide streets with 5 or 6 lanes in each direction were completely empty, available only to pedestrians and to hundreds of police men and women. People carrying flags. Soldiers. Marines. Veterans. Communists. Religious activists. Souvenir sellers. Tourists. Pickpockets.
I tried to walk towards the Red Square but was again stopped by a fence, guarded by police. From listening to the locals talking to the police, I understood that only those with special permit were allowed to enter, regular people were out of luck. Too bad! Sa TV na lang…
But at least I was able to see all kinds of groups marching towards the square, yelling out phrases celebrating various dictators and ideologies. To me it looks the same as 20 years ago.
In about a month from now, our country will have new parliament elections. Social democrats (communists that formed their own party soon after the fall of communism in 1989) rule this country, lately being supported more and more by the communist party. Let’s pray people didn’t forget the ‘dark age’ before 1989, else we might end up waving the red flags and calling out Stalin’s name again.
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