I came home this evening with a mind for testing VPC 2007 on my Vista RC1 5600 build… I happily downloaded and installed as Administrator. No failures thus far. Double-clicked the executable and bang!

“Virtual PC cannot find MSXML 4. Please reinstall Virtual PC or install MSXML4 and try again.”

I hazard a guess that the problem here is that x64 bit Vista does not support MSXML4 and thus lies the problem. Very disappointing….

I am yet again filled with joy as the next release of VPC has been put into beta. I feel like a kid at christmas, all these kewl new things to look forward to and test. Knowledge is power! yum yum.

Check out the link below to get hold of the beta product. Be warned this is a Beta product

https://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=874.

Things are moving fast! I had been reading about RC2 and progress Microsoft was making with bug fixing…. dam I am just going to have to get my hands on RC2!! Wahoo…

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsvista/archive/2006/10/06/Windows-Vista-RC2-is-now-available-to-technical-beta-testers_2100_.aspx

I am sad to report that Vista is beginning to rumble a little. Most applications are reporting errors like the one above and resulting in security popups like the below:

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature that can help prevent damage to your computer from viruses and other security threats. Harmful programs can try to attack Windows by attempting to run (also known as execute) code from system memory locations reserved for Windows and other authorized programs. These types of attacks can harm your programs and files.

One other point I wish to point out is that drivers for my HP printer are not available and thus I have had to resort to copying documents to a memory stick and printing on another PC! Crap… but I have no other choice.

Out on the blogosphere I have noticed that other fellow users are voicing similar problems… when are HP going to get into the game. How are commercial industries going to adopt Vista if there are no supporting drivers for their printers!

On a good note I managed to get Virtual Server 2005 R2 installed without hiccup, do make sure you use R2 SP 1 Beta 2 though. This has support for Vista and also make sure you have enabled IIS6 Compatibility options etc and most importantly CGI!

Is this the beginning of the end for Vista – will Windows XP 64bit rise again from the depths of its partition… we shall see, I will certainly keep on fighting.

If you are looking for a very fast, light weight PDF reader then look no further than Foxit Reader 2.0. I stumbled across a mention of this application on Scott Hanselman’s ultimate tool list and boy is he right.

This little gem out performs Adobe and is also free but does not come with all the baggage. It is supported on Vista RC1 and all good Windows platforms as well browsers like firefox and IE.

So grab yourself a copy and thanks to Scott! You’re the man.

If you happen to land on my blog and you are unable to see images for current postings…. I apologise but for some reason when pasting images in Microsoft Live Writer – images are converted to png format.

The problem with this is that on IE6 png support is very limited if non-existent. Please use Firefox or IE7 if you can. In future I will not make this mistake .

ISO’s are a common format for many downloads these days especially from Microsoft themselves. However, to my horror Vista does not have the capability built-in for mounting them. Why? It does puzzle me however rather than sulk and moan I ventured onto the “interweb “ looking for a solution…

After many hours and fustration due to many software applications using drivers incapabile with Vista due to new hardware lingo, I found a solution! Daemon Tools and most importantly version 4.06.

It worked like a dream! Thank-you Daemon. Please note I do not support copying of games or using these tools for illegal purposes! Remember, big brother is watching.

The other day for a project I needed to read some session variables which had been set within a Generic Handler ( ashx file )… Now to my amazement through debugging I found that the Session State bag was not been populated and thus was always Null.

The solution to my problem : IRequiresSessionState. I had never come across this interface before but it was the magic key!

According to MSDN :- Specifies that the target HTTP handler requires read and write access to session-state values. This is a marker interface and has no methods.

However, if you only require readonly access then alternatively it is better to make use of IReadOnlySessionState. This will have a performance improvement and provide more scalability.

After much time and investigation I have managed to get VS2005 to “talk” to IIS7 on Vista RC1. The trick? Well, the problem is that VS2005 unfortunately, does not know the new lingo and thus you must configure IIS7 to provide this ability or backwards compatibility. I do believe that SP1 for VS2005 will correct this problem.

Right, within “Windows Features“ or Turn Windows Features on or off dialog ( see below screen shot )

Expand IIS, Web Management Tools and select IIS6 Management Capability. This will now allow VS2005 to talk with IIS.

Upon trying to debug my project I was faced with this common error. Now in the world of IIS 6 this was a trivial task to sort out. Open inetmgr and tick the checkbox for windows authentication. Press F5 in VS and away you went – happy and suitable chuffed with ones self.

However, with Vista it is a little more work. Please note I do assume here that you have a working website under IIS7.0. Within inetmgr and authentication do check if you have an entry for “Windows Authentication”

If you do not see Windows Authentication – then you will need to install this “feature“… this is a clue as to where you need to go! If you go to “Turn Windows Features Dialog” – which can be found under Programs and Features

Expand IIS, and then WWWS, Securty -> there is a check box for Windows Authentication. Check and click okay.

Return to inetmgr and Enable the Windows Authentication. You should now have no problem debugging your application. However I do warn you that you may face further problems if you have UAC still turned on.