Microsoft has released a new product of SysInternals called Desktop V1.0.  It is a simple utility to visualize your desktop offering up to four virtual desktops.  You can activate different desktops by either using the icon in the system tray or by hotkeys.  When you first install it,  you have the option of setting the hotkeys for desktop switching:   As mentioned you can also active a different desktop by selecting the icon in the tray:   When you click on the tray icon it displays a panel to select the desktop you want:   When you switch to a different desktop, all your...

I have read about the new feature in Windows Vista that will help increase your machine's performance by using space on a ReadyBoost compatible USB flash drive.  It is supposed to help systems that have smaller memory kick up the performance a bit (not as good as adding more RAM, but it suppose to help). My main development machine has a bad motherboard in it where one bank of memory slots will not work.  It currently has 1 GB of high speed RAM.  For Vista Ultimate running Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, Developer version of SQL Server 2005 and MS Office...

Got this in an email today and actually found one program I plan to use for sure, "Vista Firewall Control" which asks you to approve applications that try to make outbound network connections.  You might find some applications that are of use to you also: Security SpyCatcher Express a-Squared HiJackFree VistaFirewallControl Tor System Tools What's Running Eusing Free Registry Cleaner Undelete Plus Advanced WindowsCare System Information for Windows Graphics...

Wow!  What a couple of days! To start out, I finally received my new Seagate 320 GB SATA hard drive.  I wanted to replace the two temporary drives I had in my development machine which I installed Microsoft Vista 64.  Since the first drive was only a 40 GB drive, I had to install many of the applications over the last few weeks on the secondary hard drive.   The plan was to replace both the small drives with this new SATA drive. This seemed like a good time to try out the new backup program that comes with Vista, as it...

When copying multiple files via Explorer, if it runs into duplicates, it ask you if you wish to replace the file, keep both files (appending a 2 on to the file being copied) or skip the file and then continues with the copy.  When copying multiple files and it runs into a file that has an error (such as a file in use), it now prompts you to "try again", "skip" or cancel.  In the old days it would stop the copying process and you would not know which files it missed. They added a "new folder" option to the Folders...

Today I run into a quick little problem attempting to open a local website under IIS 7 via the Visual Studio 2005 IIS browse option.  It simply gave a message: Local Internet Information Server You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to access the IIS metabase.  Therefor, you cannot create or open a local IIS Website.  If you have Read, Write and Modify permissions for the folder where the files are lcoated,, you can create a file system Website that points to the folder in order to edit the files. So, at this point I figured it...

Well, I got Vista 64 RC2 install and all running good.  Even works with my QUake 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004. With my new video card and system, Unreal Tournament 2004 looks great!  Much more details than my old GeForce 4 TI4200 card.  Also installed FarCry as it came with my video card.  The FarCry patch though, crashed towards the end of the process. I now have my Mozilla Thunderbird mail installed along with Firefox.  Much to my surprise, I was able to copy my Thunderbird profile information on my old system over the top of the information Thunderbird created on...

This is the first of many posts dealing with my migration to Windows Vista and what happens along the Journey.  After only using Vista for three days, I can see where there are many things people will have to relearn coming from previous versions of Windows.  Hopefully, some of the information I post in this series of posts will be useful to others, saving them a few less hair pulling fits… About a month ago, my main development machine died!  I came in after running an antivirus on the machine for a few hours and it no longer would boot.  Not...