So yes, it’s been a bit of a while since I last made a real entry here at Dev-Toast. The reason is really far beyond the scope of this website. For the longest time I’d been using Microsoft Word as my blogging editor and then posting directly from word. Then I was using Adobe Contribute CS3, which is great… if you only use Internet Explorer…
While stumbling around on the net with StumbleUpon, I found Windows Live writer. The big thing about it is that essentially what you see is really what you get. It downloads the CSS from your weblog so that you’re editing is done inside the constraints of the CSS style sheet. Very slick indeed. Keep checking back here for a full review on the HTC Kiaser also known as the AT&T Tilt among a plethora of other names.
-Joe
Quoted from http://www.thewebsbest.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=27:
thewebsbest.net – picture embedded within the holographic Vista DVD’s surface
| Written by V551 |
| Friday, 15 June 2007 |
| These guys in Spain took a Windows Vista Business DVD and studied the surface using a handy little microscope and they found the following.
Step 1: Open DVD
Step 2: Look closely
Little closer…
closer….
wait what is that??… closer….
Wellhow about that 3 dudes forever immortalized on the Windows DVD’s that will bein the hands of millions.
I think this might be a new anti-piracy tool to tell real media from fakes you buy off the streets. 
|
Quoted from http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/18/meizus-latest-minione-m8-incarnation/:
Meizu’s latest MiniOne (M8) incarnation – Engadget
Here you have it, what looks to be a (re-touched) photograph of a real engineering sample of the Meizu MiniOne (M8). The picture was posted by CEO, Jack Wong, with the promise of more pictures to come in a “few days.” At the moment, the 58 x 105 x 11.8-mm M8 is said to carry a spec list which includes a 667MHz ARM11 processor running a Windows CE 6.0 kernel up on a 3.3-inch, 720 x 480 pixel touchscreen display. The MiniOne M8 model will pack GSM with EDGE data while the MiniOne M8 w (”w” for worldphone we presume) is said to go WCDMA/HSDPA/GSM/EDGE. WiFi, Bluetooth, and what appears to be a 3 megapixel camera also come standard with your choice of 4, 8, and 16GB of flash capacities. While we’ve seen pricing and an “end of 2007″ release date before, the specs have changed so dramatically since then that we’ll just have to continue holding tight as this pup evolves. You know, if they can actually push this wunderkind out the door.
[Via MeizuMe]
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
Revisiting Windows Vista-=- by Joe Hancuff
Introduction
It’s been quite some time since I’ve tackled the subject of Windows Vista again. I’ve been quoted and quoted and for some my opinion is gold. However, I also want to ensure that my opinion is as unbiased as possible. The reason we’re back here is because I’ve decided to give Vista another try. “Heck, it’s been a couple of months, let’s see what’s changed,” I said as I unpacked my fresh retail copy of Vista Ultimate. So I backed up my production XP machine yet again, expecting to deal with the complete debacle that was the upgrade situation the last time I tried Vista. I honestly didn’t have high hopes for this install despite being a fresh format. We all know upgrades are bad, mmmkay? This brief article will go into my experience this time around and point out the most notable differences between this one, and the last. Hopefully you can take this into account when making the decision between both upgrading or not and if you do, choosing between 32 bit and 64 bit.
Installation
As per the norm with Vista at least for me, a fresh installation always goes smoothly. This one was no different; a quick deletion of the XP partition and initializing a new clean and shiny NTFS partition was a breeze. The rest of the installation was for all intents and purposes automated. Smooth as glass is how I’d describe it.
I chose the 64 bit version as I have a T7200 dual-core 64-bit capable Intel process in my Dell XPS m1710. Good choice if you ask me, the 64 bit version runs a perceivable 20 percent faster than 32 bit.
One thing to note in the retail packaging vs the developer copies is that the retail versions, unlike XP, can only be activated once, and that’s it. If you need to activate it again, you’ll have to call Microsoft. However, recently, I’ve found that since Vista is so new and after all of the Windows XP social engineering for new keys went down, you’ll be told that there’s nothing they can do at this time to help you should you need to call Microsoft for a new product key. There currently is no method of deactivating an old machine in order to transplant your copy onto a new computer. So for you upgrade junkies, you may get faced with activation on a clean install when you think you shouldn’t only because you changed a major portion of your system. As of right now, you’d be stuck. There are ways around this of course, but that is clearly beyond the scope of this article.
So, What’s New?
As a self-proclaimed fan-boy of Windows Vista, I found it tremendously refreshing to be back after having gone back to XP for productivity reasons. However this time around, I had researched all of my hardware and found that many drivers that were beta last time around are now out of beta and functioning. So this is why I decided to give it a try. Out of the box experience with Vista as I’m sure you all know is irritating at best. UAC is the anti-Christ to power-users if you ask me and I fully intend on modifying my installation media to have that preset as off.
My XPS was lightening fast after the install. Way quicker than XP ever could hope to be thanks to the extra bus width and memory addressing. Dell now has an entire set of drivers meant for Windows Vista, both 32 and 64 bit versions, so the first thing I tried was using Dell drivers everywhere I was banged in Device Manager. There were and still are a couple in there that I can’t recognize. As far as I know all my devices work, however, I still have two unidentified devices that don’t seem to be causing very much trouble. I’d imagine they’re Bluetooth virtual devices such as HID driver or audio drivers.
Oh yeah, Bluetooth. Dell released WIDCOMM 6.whatever drivers for the 355 Bluetooth radio. I was quite excited by this as I published a guide instructing users to install version 5 in Vista. The Microsoft stack in the retail release is the same as beta and RTM. So after installing the Dell drivers I realized they were garbage. Nothing works, the WIDCOMM virtual devices won’t install properly, and it’s nothing but a huge mess. I’d recommend staying away from Dell BT drivers… for now.
nVidia released a set point official version of their Vista video driver. This by far is the most impressive aspect of moving back to Vista. Especially 64 bit. My gaming has been taken to a whole new level. My hat’s really off to nVidia for really making a solid 64 bit driver. No more flickers, and my frame rates in games and applications are far better than they were even in good ‘ol stable XP. That alone makes me a happy camper, but wait, it gets better.
If you look at the build versions, they will tell you that it’s the same exact build as RTM. That being said, there are some major differences in the way the operating system handles in retail than in RTM. My theory is that MS did some quick settings tweaks in the retail image that have alleviated many of the complaints of beta and RTM users such as Vista being very memory hungry. For some reason, this is no longer the case. In-fact, I’d almost go so far as to say that Vista is even more resource efficient than XP was. At idle after all of my ancillary programs have started, I sit neatly at 32% memory usage. Of course this will go up with usage, but it’s just the Operating System being cached. 32% memory usage was unheard of in RTM or the betas. It’s now ridiculously efficient.
Whenever I was doing something intensive it would take what it needed but afterwards it released the memory back to the system in no time. XP didn’t even do it that well.
Holy Stability Batman!
I think the one most dramatic difference between this retail install and the RTM install is stability. Now, I’m not ordinary user. I do 3d modeling, video editing, audio editing, a dash of programming, and I work a great deal with obscure hardware. I have a lot of programs, codecs, and such that simply weren’t ever designed with Vista in mind, let alone a 64 bit operating system.
In my previous installation, nearly anything out of the “ordinary user” realm that I tried would end up with a “<insert program name here> has stopped working” message. I’ve only received this error once and I can readily explain that as the programs lack of support for the architecture not the other way around. Vista has been so stable it’s almost a little scary. Programs that I previously had insane problems with; Adobe Premiere, Cinema4D, Vista Codec packs, Fraps, Steinberg Nuendo, all work fantastically now. Now, I sung praises about Microsoft Office 2007 as I found that package to run flawlessly every time and to this day still does quite nicely. My impression of Vista is now reaching up my impression of Office. I find it super clean, super stable, super efficient, and generally a good user experience this time around.
Clearly I can’t speak for all users, all hardware, or all applications. I’m writing this article based on my experiences with the changes to the retail image whereas my hardware hasn’t changed at all. It’s fairly safe to assume that if your computer is recent that you too would experience a greater level of satisfaction if you grabbed the retail version.
Gripes…
Oh yes, Microsoft! You didn’t think you’d make it through this review unscathed did you? Oh boy no. I still have a bone to pick with you.
Let’s first talk about elementary 64 bit drivers (all the following devices work great in 32 bit Vista). For instance, my SD Card slot works fine, but Windows requires a driver for the SD card and that didn’t come with Windows. What? When did I ever need a driver for the specific card? How about my LaCie USB 2.0 External HDD? It wants 3 drivers for that. If you just click “ask me again later” it shows up in explorer anyway. So what’s with the strange drivers? USB Compact Flash Card reader? Nope, no initial compatibility. You have to restart the machine with the card reader attached to the USB port and then do the “ask me again” trick and it finally shows up. You only have to do that once though, so I suppose that’s a plus. Each time you connect it subsequently, it just comes right up (it still asks for drivers though.)
So what gives, Microsoft? Oh wait, I’m not done. My 2 thousand dollar Canon camera that Canon claims the PTP driver ships with both 32 bit and 64 bit Vista? Nope, no driver anywhere for it.
Can we just be honest for a moment?
Look, here’s my take on the whole situation. Microsoft has packed an insane amount of drivers that it was allowed to pack onto their DVD. They clearly can’t just bundle all the software in the world with their OS because there are copyright and distribution agreements and licensing and all that other crap to deal with. Basically, the companies that didn’t want to play ball got left behind and Microsoft basically said, “Screw you, we’re leaving without you.” In that respect, I don’t totally blame Microsoft for some limited functionality of things that previously “just worked”. The whole point of the 64 bit architecture aside from speed is the security of the uber-hardened 64-bit kernel. Just to illustrate, I deliberately attempted to run a virus and spyware infested 32 bit executable on my 64 bit machine. It hung for a second and then did nothing more. I didn’t even have Windows Defender turned on. It simply just didn’t do anything. I did scan after the fact and found nothing but the exe I attempted to run, and there have been no symptoms since. The 64-bit kernel is very hardened and very strict in terms of what gets to run and what doesn’t. The 32-bit kernel is more XP’ish in that it had to remain somewhat like XP because the vast majority of folks would be migrating from 32bit XP to 32bit Vista with a reasonable expectation that every device and piece of software would work in Vista.
Previously, as with Windows XP, whenever Microsoft came up on the decision between application or device compatibility and security, Microsoft chose compatibility. However, in Vista, the choices have been different, whenever it came up again, Microsoft chose security. Sure it’s inconvenient. But I enjoy having a hardened system. Now it’s up to software developers who really give a damn to get on board with this methodology and develop software and drivers meant for 64 bit Vista.
Conclusions
Is Windows Vista ready for the world yet? Ya damn skippy it is! It’s more of a matter is the world ready for Vista? Maybe… Maybe not. But with the way Vista has performed for me since I installed my retail copy, I’d feel a lot more comfortable now installing it on my parent’s machine. Although I’m sure since my father is an IT guru he’s probably already done that. But you get the idea.
I have been re-enchanted.
Increasing NTFS Free Space Efficiency
A simple hard drive tweak for NTFS file systems.
Ok, this one is sort of old but not well known because many don’t understand what it does. Most folks should understand the difference between this tweak and what most would recognize as cluster size they see when formatting their hard drive in Windows XP/Vista.
Let’s go over something real quick.
When you format NTFS, you’re asked to input the allocation size. The default of which is 4096 bytes per cluster. This is known to be the most efficient for NTFS file systems which are expected to harbor both very small files and very large files alike. This is also the maximum cluster size that you can use that will support compression. As a side note, you’re able to format NTFS file systems with cluster sizes as large as 64 KB. The cluster size denotes how large of a swath of hard disk space a file will take up. If your cluster size is 64KB then any file under 64KB in size will take up 64KB on disk. For example, if you save a file that’s 11KB in size it will take up 64 KB on the disk. Most see this as a grotesque waste of space, however, this extreme cluster size is very useful on extremely large volumes that are designed to house very large files such as video files or databases. This also allows the Master File Table to be very small, helping you recover much of the space lost, also called MFT overhead, noticed by most users who format at the standard 4KB cluster size.
The tweak of which I speak refers nothing to this allocation size, but rather how the system handles free space.
WARNING: This involves editing the registry.. If you botch something up don’t blame me.
Who does this tweak apply to?
- Anyone using large hard drives or more specifically large volumes(100GB or bigger after MFT overhead, i.e. 120GB physical drive)
- Anyone who regularly stores, reads, moves, modifies or deletes large files. For a lot of you, this might include video files, uncompressed audio(for you studio heads out there.) and file archives including zips, rars, and any drive image backups you might store.
- Anyone with a lot of problems with fragmentation on their volumes due to lack of free space(more on that in a moment).
Who shouldn’t apply this tweak?
- Anyone with less than 100GB in a volume after MFT overhead.
- Anyone on Fat32 filesystem(there is a tweak LIKE this, but it’s buggy)
- Anyone looking to try this tweak on a Virtual hard disk such as those utilized by VMWare and MS Virtual PC. This can break the file that contains the virtual volume.
- Anyone who’s even slightly skittish about editing the registry.
The Tweak
What we’re going to is change the contiguous file allocation size. The default is something ridiculous like 16kB or something, meaning that when the system looks at the hard drive for free space to write a new file it comes across a gap of free space larger than 16kB it begins the new file there up to the end and then fragments to the next free 16kB. This can cause larger files to become insanely fragmented if stored on the same drive as many small files that are written and deleted often. What we want to do is set this value higher, a lot higher…
Depending upon what you do with the volumes, I’d initially recommend setting the value to 512kB. This means that now, the system will look for a contiguous length of at least 512kB of free space before beginning a file write operation. What does this do? A couple of things. Firstly, it speeds up the write process because the system will skip over the 16KB space and any other space less than 512KB. This also helps to avoid fragmentation because larger files will only fragment into spaces larger than 512KB.
On MY workstation, since I do a lot of video editing, but I also do a lot of writing and operations with small files, it behooves me to raise this value to 4096KB. This means that my system looks for a space of longer than 4 megabytes before writing a new file. This reduces fragmentation GREATLY and insanely speeds up the defragmentation process.
There are draw backs to this however. If your system can’t find the contiguous space long enough, then you may get a false “Drive is full” error. So this is risk of sorts. However, if you start this process while the drive has at least 50% free space and you keep up on defragging then you will have no problems.
Overall, this will increase the speed at which your system performs file operations on large files with very little, if any speed detriment to your small file operations.
Navigate your registry to the following key:
HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management
Create a DWORD key named ContigFileAllocSize and give it the DECIMAL value of 512, 1024, 2048, or 4096 depending upon how large of a space you want to use for this process.
I do NOT recommend going above 4096. If you know what you’re doing, be my guest, but if you set this too high, you’re system may fail to boot.
After you create and value this key reboot your machine and defrag immediately with whatever tool you have handy. Preferably something that will defragment free space. You’ll notice the defragmentation process being super fast and efficient.
Contrary to popular believe, this isn’t not like setting up your cluster size to be bigger than what’s necessary. You do not LOSE free space with this tweak, but you may have the situation in which you will lose ACCESS to said free space due to heavy fragmentation.
Now… for you kids with super heavy defragementable volumes, this is because you no longer have contiguous space big enough to handle the movement of your files…
To remedy this set your contigfileallocsize to something absurdly low like 4 or 8. Reboot into safe mode and defrag… go read the Iliad, it’s going to take forever, but it will eventually finish. Once you’re all defragged, go back and set your key back up to 512 and defrag once more after rebooting. Also, don’t do anything, and I mean ANYTHING no web browsing, no email checking while you’re defragging at such a low contiguous allocation size. You’ll just seriously jack it up and cause MEGA fragments.
Remember, you have to reboot after changing this key value in order for it to take effect.
Good luck and God Speed.
Uncrippling Bluetooth in Windows Vista RTM – Addendum
What I missed the first time around and who’s still responsible.
Introduction
I wanted to take a few minutes to touch on this really quick as it seems I’ve helped project a misconception. My lack of substantial reasoning in my article Uncrippling Bluetooth in Windows Vista RTM.
The Beef
I’ve since come across some information tucked nicely away on Microsoft’s website discussing the new plans for Bluetooth. I’ve since discovered that they kept the MS Bluetooth Stack with all the profiles in RC1 and RC2 for testing purposes. That being said their final ideology is to begin enforcing driver signing on Bluetooth devices to coincide with their requirement for direct devices and generally create a more secure operating system (A potential exploit would exist on a machine that requires drivers to be signed but Bluetooth device profiles not to be. I wouldn’t be very secure if you had an unverified device being able to interact with the kernel.) They also want to reprioritize the way Bluetooth devices are handled in the operating system. Using a technology called Synchronous Connection-Oriented profiles. These profiles can only be developed on Vista machines. So this infers that the vendors, who previously expected Microsoft to knock out these generic profiles, are now required to get Vista machines and develop their profiles from square one and still be able to sign their driver using the method only available on Vista platforms.
That being said, Microsoft is still to blame for at the very least not leaving us with a backup plan. It’s completely up to the vendors and now us to find out where to download the profiles. Maybe in SP1 we’ll get a full set of profiles that have been collected from all of the vendors. And they’ll all be signed and be really shiny, I’m sure. Until that point, we’re not going to know which devices will work and which won’t. Natively with Vista’s MS Bluetooth Stack, which I’m sure still isn’t going to be as full featured as the WIDCOMM driver used in my guide
Disenchanted by Windows Vista
Why Vista isn’t ready for the real world – by Joe Hancuff
Introduction
In the past few months I’ve been rigorously testing and using Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate on a number of platforms. My goal was to see if it’s ready to become the centerpiece of my workflow. It was… almost. In this editorial, I will be expressing my opinions and technical observations on the operating system as a whole, my predictions, wishes and concerns regarding Microsoft’s efforts in creating and maintaining this operating system and what I’m going to do now.
The experience
I’ve installed and have been using Vista RTM for some time now. In general, the operating system is very polished. As many of you already know the installation process has finally been updated for this century. Gone are the DOS based installers of 1991. You’re finally confronted with an easy to use and easy to see graphical interface almost as homage to Linux installers(which have been graphical for quite some time now.) I think what Microsoft was trying to accomplish was refine and make the “out of box” experience as nice and simple as possible for users who know nothing about installing or upgrading an operating system. This has been done very successfully. If you’re doing a fresh install that is.
Install times have been shortened dramatically and will utilize your hardware better to make the installation as quick as possible. On my AMD FX60 machine, a fresh install will take as little as 10 to 15 minutes depending on the speed of the drive, etc. One thing to note is the driver support inside the installer. Unlike XP, I didn’t have to specify any additional drivers for installing to my RAID array which is a big bonus because before, you were forced to either integrate the drivers into the installation image or install and make the grand hajj for a floppy drive and a floppy(who still uses those anyway?) and find the boot-time driver for your hardware(since you couldn’t use the Windows driver in most cases for things like RAID controllers, etc). That was one of my biggest gripes about XP, even the later installers still required a floppy drive to install 3rd party drivers at install time. Not very forward looking at all. That being said… I can’t say whether or not they’ve eliminated that requirement in Vista. Because even though the little button was there to install 3rd party drivers it was never needed on any machine I installed on. I’m sure that will change just like with XP as hardware changes and the installer versions don’t. I highly doubt that Microsoft will bother updating installer drivers. Be prepared to have that stack of discs handy to install the boot-time driver for your holographic storage device.
Post installation is simple and painless in its worst form; it really has been cleaned up and polished to a nice luster. You’re simply asked to enter a username which becomes a local administrator by default. This I found to be very handy because one of the first things anyone who’s used a computer for longer than oh… say… 5 minutes will do is disable UAC.
In general Vista is absolutely gorgeous. That is, if you have the appropriate hardware. My FX60, a watercooled and overclocked gaming rig scored a 5.1 on the performance scale after some tweaking. So suffice it to say my user experience was fantastic. I installed the 64 bit version which surprisingly enough had some fantastic driver support for my hardware despite my hardware being almost a year old. This comes not from Microsoft hard-coding driver support into the OS, but simply moving from a CD to DVD for installation media. I feel this move is long overdue as there are just too many different devices out there to not include as much driver support out of the box as you possibly can. Nobody likes installing a new OS and then having to dive into Device Manager looking for what didn’t get installed and then trying to get their drivers from the manufactures or if your NIC or wireless adapter wasn’t installed, searching for the original driver disks.
The Aero interface is slick and clean, and a lot of clutter has been eliminated. I have my gripes about where they moved stuff to but that’s fine. It’s more designed for non-powerusers and that’s where Microsoft wants to go with it.
Most surprising is that both 32-bit and 64-bit version have nearly the same support. The limitations come from vendors who have not yet released or refuse to release 64-bit drivers to Microsoft or the general public. Contrary to the case of Windows XP x64 which had absolutely no driver support out of the box and Microsoft appeared to just shrug their shoulders at it.
The first impressing is that Vista is cleaned up, dressed nicely and ready to rock. We’ll see.
The good
Here I will sing the praises of new features or advancements not just conveniences in the operating system.
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Windows Media Center
This is an absolute joy to use. They’ve really cleaned up the interface and generally revamped the entire program. All in all it takes no time to start and has a smaller footprint than the application from MCE 2005. The biggest change was that they made the arrangement more intuitive for widescreen displays. You’ll see better organized information in widescreen in addition to actually not having to scroll as much to get to your desired media. They’re removed the limitation that you had to have an NTSC Tuner installed before you could install an ATSC tuner. So those of you with your nifty USB ATSC tuners are now in luck. Chances are that they’ll work great in Vista MCE.
The program guide is where I’ve seen one of the biggest enhancements to content. Not only do you get your regular guide with information for 2 weeks in advance and all the expected DVR abilities, you also get a movie guide which is more like a program guide filter. What it does is filter the movies from the program guide and arrange them more like DVD’s. You can sort by genre or channel that they occur on, schedule viewing or recording times as well. Very slick.
This feature by far is one of the best new features of Windows Vista.
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User Account Control
Ok, so while I absolutely abhor this feature because I’m a geek, this is actually a really great sort of feature for say… your mom. This is a Unix-like kernel level user session isolation that actively prevents a user from doing anything damaging. In its default configuration it’s extremely annoying however it can be configured to still protect the machine and not be as annoying. This feature will help keep support calls to a minimum and definitely help eliminate issues with spyware for those users who simply don’t know any better.
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Internet Explorer 7
While this isn’t exclusive to Vista it’s been in Vista far longer than it’s been available for XP. This is the integrated and default web browser. There’s nothing spectacular about the overall experience from IE7 other than it appears to have ripped off tabbed browsing from Firefox. I guess that’s ok, I just want it to work. The big deal with IE7 is the phishing filter. I don’t know how many spam/phishing email’s I’ve gotten with links to say… my bank, and if you clicked the link you’d be taken to a site that looked something like or exactly like your real bank page. The problem is that it’s not, and when you put your information into the page, you’re just handing it over to the unscrupulous thief who’s about to have a shopping spree on your tab. The phishing filter will alert you if the page you’re viewing isn’t actually what it claims to be. While I don’t know the particulars on how exactly this works, I can tell that with a fair amount of accuracy it does work. It will at least provide the haphazard users with at least a speed bump before emptying their bank accounts.
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Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption
This is a fantastic new feature that with the right hardware is totally transparent to the user and still offers complete protection. This feature is more geared toward users who are somewhat worried about physical access. This would mostly apply to laptop users who carry critical or proprietary information on their machines. The basic gist of the software is that it will encrypt your drive on a hardware level. There are two modes for this one of them requiring Trusted Platform Module chip present on the motherboard. Transparent mode simply uses the key from this chip to unlock the hard drive at boot time and requires absolutely no user interaction. If this hardware isn’t present, the drive won’t boot and cannot be accessed on any other hardware with any other operating system. The second mode requires you to enter a user settable pin or insert a USB thumb drive with the key certificate present before the drive will boot. This is fantastic for every level of user. The only downside is that if you go with the TPM1.2 method and you have a hardware failure or environmental failure(i.e. fire, etc) then it will become impossible to recover your data save for government forensics. However, I don’t think the point of BitLocker is to save your data but to simply make sure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
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Windows Explorer
This is just getting better. It’s more of a convenience but there are several additions to this venerable program as well. First and most notably is the ability to sort and search on any type of meta data. For instance, you can search for music files based on artist instead of just a file name. You can sort pictures by date taken, or any of the data available in EXIF entries if present. This means that you can sort the pictures by the camera by which they were taken. Or even the lens used on the camera by which they were taken. And the list goes on and on.
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Shadow Folders
This is yet another advancement on the venerable system restore. This is more or less a breadcrumb trail of changes to files. You can revert single files or entire volumes to any arbitrary point in the past without compromising too much space on the disk.
These are some of the most notable new features from my perspective. I could go on and on and on about all the new stuff in Vista but that’s really outside the scope of this article.
The Bad
Here’s where things start getting ugly for me. As a basic user who won’t be doing any sort of media development, transcoding or distribution won’t be disappointed. Anyone looking to use Vista in an enterprise environment will be in for quite the surprise.
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Smart Cards
Remember those silly little credit-card sized things you heard about way back in the day? You might even use one now. Little miracle of biometric security technology they are. There are numerous vendors and they all require their own Cryptographic Service Providers. They’re like drivers for the cards themselves not just the reader. These CSP’s were included with Windows 2000/XP and thusly the vendors have adopted this relationship and have not made their CSP’s available to the general public to download and install based on the assumption that Microsoft would include them with each new version of Windows.
That being said, Microsoft left them out. All of them. All but two… the two Microsoft-branded basic and enhanced CSP’s which aren’t even supposed to be used with smartcards just certificates.
Enterprise customers who currently utilize biometrics should consider holding off or checking with your card vendor for the CSP’s before migrating to Vista as you will not be able to use your card with Vista.
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Data Execution Prevention
As if this feature wasn’t irritating enough in XP now they’ve gone and cranked up the sensitivity so that even other Microsoft products “Stop working” due to DEP. This is simply ridiculous. The vast majority of application and software incompatibilities are caused by DEP being over-sensitive about what you can and can’t run. On top of that, despite the fact that you appear to be able to exclude executables from DEP prosecution, you are only allowed to exclude Microsoft executables from DEP. If it’s a 3rd party application then no, the system will insist on whining about it. This is the biggest reason why software doesn’t run on Vista.
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Driver Signing Enforcement in x64
This is almost understandable for security reasons. Microsoft wants to increase stability by only allowing drivers to be installed that adhere to their strict standards in terms of quality and structure. The fact that you can’t turn this off on a permanent basis is kinda stupid at best. It’s off by default in 32-bit windows. What I also don’t understand is why some unsigned drivers will still install despite being given the warning while others that should be pretty generic and no where near the kernel get disabled by this Gestapo feature. Right up there with DEP on my annoyance scale, let me tell you.
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Vender Support
This really isn’t Microsoft’s problem. I blame the vendors for the vast majority of hardware incompatibilities. The reason being is that XP x64 has been out forever it seems and the vendors have known about Vista since it was called Longhorn and have had plenty of time to develop their API’s against Microsoft’s Driver SDK(which, by the way vendors if you’re reading this, is a free download from Microsoft.) As far as I know the only difference between 32 bit and 64 bit drivers for the most part is how their compiled. I shouldn’t be that difficult to at least release a beta of all of your XP drivers in 64 bit form to at least give it a go. There are vendors out there who are cold and downright mean when asking about 64-bit support. Pinnacle Systems, I’m calling you out here.
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Codecs
This is a huge gripe of mine as a do a lot of work in various media types, none of which function 100% if at all in Vista, 32-bit or 64-bit. I don’t understand where the huge jump in codec architecture except that perhaps DirectX 10 is still. Well, not finished. WDM codecs don’t install, VFW don’t install right. DirectShow filters don’t install right and for some reason Microsoft’s MPEG2 Directshow filter was disabled. This means no streaming MPEG2 to extenders. This seems to be nothing but damaging to functionality. It doesn’t enhance security all that much. I conjure Microsoft did this to try to battle piracy of media. If you install one of the many famous large codec packs you’ll be left with holes and formats that crash Windows Media Player. There is however a Vista Codec pack which seems to work well enough for playing. But if you’re looking to transcode, don’t bother, you simply can’t unless it’s uncompressed AVI into Windows Media.
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Compatability with Current Server Architecture
This sort of relates to the whole smart card thing above but a different aspect. This is a good example of how they’ve made certain breaks in compatibility from XP in Vista. For instance enrolling in smart card services for using a smart card to log on. If the server you’re using to enroll is not Longhorn Server, Vista will not be able to enroll. What’s more, Microsoft has actually released instructions on how to hack the enrollment website for Windows Server 2003 with code from the enrollment page from Longhorn. Seriously fellas. For a bunch of guys who don’t like it when people reverse engineer your stuff that sure is a strange way of going about it? How about releasing an optional hotfix for Server 2003? Speaking of which.
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Hotfixes
This is almost funny. I have a source inside Microsoft that tells me that the quality control on the hotfixes that go out the door is very little if any. I had a hotfix designed for my processor specifically for Windows Vista x64 that crashed when trying to install it. Now that’s comedy. I wonder if they’re going to release a hotfix to fix the hotfixes.
The Ugly
Alright, that’s it! This is the “there’s no excuse for this crap” section of my article. I really only have one item on here that I’m going to talk about that’s the absolutely and complete lack of any useful Bluetooth support.
There is no official word on why all but two Bluetooth profiles have been removed from the Vista RTM build. They were in RC1 and RC2 and other Betas. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There is no official word even internally at Microsoft as to why this was done. And for someone with a Mobile device, stereo Bluetooth headphones, hands-free kit, this is ultra frustrating. There are many business professionals who depend on Bluetooth connectivity for their PDA’s or cell phones and others who print via Bluetooth. As of this writing the only profiles that function in Vista are file transfer and… oh that’s it.
No A2DP support, no headset profiles, no PIM profiles, no OBEX profiles, NOTHING. Even the basic Microsoft BT stack for XP supported Activesync over Bluetooth. It’s ridiculous and incorrigible that Microsoft would just leave these out.
Word from one of Microsoft’s coveted MVP’s was that you now have to approach the manufacturer of your Bluetooth device for a “driver” for your device. The problem with this mindset is that the manufacturers have banked on Bluetooth being a standard, and instead of using drivers, there would profiles that adhere to a standard interface so that any hardware architecture can interface with the profile making drivers specific to the device unnecessary. This universality is what Bluetooth technology is all about. That any device can work with any other device, no matter the brand as long as a generic profile—instructions on what do to do with the device – exist on either device. This is why you don’t have to install drivers on your Samsung cell phone when you join a Jabra headset to it. Why should you have to do this for the PC?
(1-10-2007 EDIT: After exhaustive research I came across a bit of information that makes a bit more sense in this particular context. Microsoft wanted to implement new architecture called SCO(Synchronus Connection-oriented) drivers for the devices. This means that drivers developed on XP wouldn’t work. The MS Stack is actually quite advanced, the problem is that the only way you can create a driver that works with it is to develop your profiles on a Vista machine. As we all know Vista isn’t exactly out. It’d be nice if this was something Microsoft had decided to announce. )
Because this was such an annoyance and disappointment I’ve written and article entitled Uncrippling Bluetooth in Windows Vista that can fix this issue but it’s still a major pain and Microsoft’s omission of something that worked fine previously is ultimately an insult to the computing community as a whole. In otherwords, you shouldn’t have to read a guide to do stuff that should already work out of the box.
The Disenchantment
At first glance, Vista is fantastic and phenomenal. Despite everything it does its speed is mind-bendingly quick given the right hardware and it’s fairly evident that the operating system is forward looking. It’s designed more for the hardware of tomorrow than for the hardware of today. Vista has made great advances in making it easier for new users of computers to find their place safely and securely.
The bottom line is simply this: Vista is not finished.
The rumor mill says that there are two current OS projects at Microsoft(other than Longhorn Server) one called Fiji which could more technically be called Service Pack 1. It contains all the features and/or drivers for Vista RTM(and subsequently the public release at the end of this month) that Microsoft had to strip out so that they could release the OS sometime this century. We’ve endured delay after delay after delay. And while we understand that with technology as advanced as Vista it’s going to take a bit more time to get it right, but I think we still expected something more for our time. Vista should not have been released. It is not finished and should still be in Beta. Microsoft should be ashamed at trying to pull a fast one over us so they could get their product out before Apple releases OS11. They should have at least called it Windows Vista Basic User’s Edition because that’s essentially what it is. It’s fine and great for the family computer or Media Center. But as soon as you try to do something remotely advanced or specialized that’s when you being to run into problems.
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***Update – 02-23-08: You can find the support forum on Dev-Hack.Com forums by clicking HERE
UnCrippling Bluetooth in Vista RTM
Introduction
If you’ve found this page, that means that you’re one of the many legitimate Vista RTM users who have a plethora of Bluetooth devices that you were hoping to join up to your new shiny Vista machine and enjoy because as with all Microsoft products, they’re just supposed to work, right? Wrong.
The Microsoft Bluetooth stack has been stripped of all profiles except OBEX file transfers and Mouse and Keyboard HID profiles. No stereo audio, no hands-free, no pda syncing, nothing. Why? No idea, there is no official word on the issue though there has been speculation in the community that perhaps Microsoft is trying to hold tight to increasing stability by decreasing functionality, like how some new phones from mobile phone uk are made with lesser applications but are more user-friendly. This is ok for most folks. Just not the rest of us who are constantly wireless and in need of information, syncing, audio, phone calls, what have you.
This guide is an in-depth tutorial on getting complete and enhanced Bluetooth functionality in all version of Windows Vista RTM both 32bit and 64bit editions.
First a little bit of legal.
Disclaimer
Dev-Hack.com or its administrators provide this information for educational uses only and while great effort has gone into ensuring the accuracy and value of the information included herein, it cannot be guaranteed to work for everyone and thusly, we accept no responsibility if you fuck up. J
Method
We have broken this installation into a number of steps listed below.
- Download installation packages
- Determine which Bluetooth device you have
- Preparing the new installation
- Removing old drivers completely
- Disabling Microsoft Bluetooth stack completely
- Installing WIDCOMM drivers
- Patching your WIDCOMM installation
- Installing your device
- Enjoying unrestricted Bluetooth functionality
UPDATE(06/21/07): It has been determined that through this method, A2DP(stereo bluetooth audio) does NOT function properly. A workaround/fix is currently being researched so sit tight.
Step 1 -=- Download Installation Packages
First thing to do is get all of the tools you’re going to need to be able to do this. This includes the WIDCOMM drivers appropriate to your system, the patcher program, and optionally, you can download this guide in PDF format for offline viewing.
You may download the WIDCOMM 5.1.0.1100 drivers along with the patcher from Dev-Hack.Com’s downloads section. The packages will be clearly marked to avoid any confusion.
NOTE: If you know of WIDCOMM already you may be asking, “Well why aren’t we going to use the latest version of the driver?” That’s a good question and with it comes a good answer. After version 5.1.0.1100 the driver stops supporting 3rd party chipsets, that means that you all with your CSR chipsets would be very frustrated after having completed this guide. In addition, the patcher utility isn’t of the latest version however is much easier to use and has been extensively tested and confirmed to function properly with this version of WIDCOMM drivers.
Step 2 -=- Determining Which Bluetooth Device You Have
Once you have downloaded and extracted the drivers, it’s time to minimize your folder and head into your device manager to determine exactly what hardware you have installed. Make sure you have your Bluetooth adapter inserted in your computer(working or not).
- Right click “Computer” on your desktop, and then select Properties
- On the top left click Device Manager.
- Expand your Bluetooth tree to see your Bluetooth radio(if installed) or look at Other Devices to see if it appears there(if not installed).
- Double click your Bluetooth radio device(The name may vary depending upon manufacturer and model). Then click the Details tab.
- Click the drop down box and select Device ID
Now with that window open go back into the extracted drivers folder. We need to check and see if the installer already supports your device.
- In the root folder go into the appropriate folder for your system. i.e. If you’re in 32 bit Vista, enter Win32. For 64 bit, enter Win64.
- Open up btwusb.inf in notepad (should already be the default viewer so you can just double click it.)
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Now look at your hardware ID in the device manager it should be formatted like this:
USB\VID_XXXX&PID_XXXX where “XXXX” is a 4 digit hexadecimal number(There may be revision information after the basic Hardware ID’s such as: USB\VID_413C&PID_8126&REV_0100).
- Quickly copy or memorize the 4 digit number after VID.
- In notepad hit Ctrl+F to open the find dialog. Enter your VID as VID_XXXX where the XXXX is your four digit number specific to your device. Hit Enter.
- If your device is found, then look again and confirm that your VID and PID numbers match exactly then and only then may you skip to Step 4 -=- Removing Old Drivers Completely
- If you did not find your VID and PID then please continue on to Step 3 -=- Preparing the New Installation.
Step 3 -=- Preparing the New Installation
Since your device wasn’t specifically included in the installer script that doesn’t necessarily mean that the drivers aren’t compatible. There’s a very good chance that they are and should work fine (since most Bluetooth devices are created alike and their functionality is determined by the profiles they support). In this step we need to modify the installer script to include your specific device. You should already have btwusb.inf opened up for your specific platform. Add the following lines
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Under [ControlFlags] section add
- ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_XXXX&PID_XXXX (change the XXXX with the numbers from your device)
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This varies for different versions of windows.
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32bit windows:
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Under [WIDCOMM.NTx86.5.1] add
- %****.DeviceDesc%=BTWUSB, USB\VID_XXXX&PID_XXXX ; My BT USB Dongle Where “****” is a string or single word that’s all caps and would be the name of your hardware vendor. EXAMPLE: %DellFangorn.DeviceDesc%=BRSMARTUSB, USB\VID_413C&PID_8126
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64bit Windows:
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Under [WIDCOMM.NTamd64] add
- %****.DeviceDesc%=BTWUSB, USB\VID_XXXX&PID_XXXX ; My BT USB Dongle Where “****” is a string or single word that’s all caps and would be the name of your hardware vendor. EXAMPLE: %DellFangorn.DeviceDesc%=BRSMARTUSB, USB\VID_413C&PID_8126
- Save and Close the file.
Step 4 -=- Removing Old Drivers Completely
What we’re going to do here here is effectively remove the installer script files from Windows’ view. So now when the device is found it won’t be able to find a driver. And you should select “Don’t ask Again” when prompted to search for new drivers for your device after you uninstall it.
Now, if you still have your device manager window open and you already have the Windows or manufacturer driver installed, please uninstall ANYTHING Bluetooth related. (HINT: If you remove the Bluetooth Radio device first, it will take everything else with it.) You can uninstall devices simply by Right clicking them and selecting Uninstall.
Step 5 -=- Disabling Microsoft Bluetooth Stack Completely
Now that the installation is prepared we have to make sure that Microsoft’s automatic and crippled Bluetooth driver doesn’t just jump in the way and automatically install itself when you’re trying to install the new driver. We have to disable Microsoft’s installer script for Bluetooth devices.
- Navigate to C:\Windows\inf\
- Rename bth.inf to bth.inf.old;
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Rename bth.pnf to bth.pnf.old
Once everything is uninstalled, close all files and dialogs and restart your machine.
NOTE: This is important! If you are running Windows Vista x64, you absolutely HAVE to press F8 on boot. Right after your BIOS post, pound F8 until you’re presented with a menu. You MUST select “Disable Driver Signing Enforcment” or you will not be able to install this driver. As of yet, there is no other way to disable this other than attaching a debugger to the kernel which isn’t practical.
Step 6 -=- Installing WIDCOMM Drivers
And now is the time you’ve all been waiting for. Time to run the installer for the WIDCOMM Drivers.(Please see the bright red note above if you’re running Windows Vista RTM x64). Make sure your Bluetooth Device is unplugged from your machine.
- Browse to where you have the drivers unpacked.
- Browse directly into your platform folder(i.e. Win32 or Win64)
- Do not run Setup.exe
instead run Inst.exe.
- Go through the installer, when it comes up and says that no Bluetooth device detected, click CANCEL to continue the installation without installing a device first. It will always say this even if your device is internal or still connected.
- Windows will bitch at you for not installing signed drivers about 11 times so go ahead and make sure you’re clicking away at “Install Anyway“
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The WIDCOMM drivers will install the following virtual devices and profiles:
- Bluetooth Communications ports(COM 4 and 5)
- Bluetooth LAN Access Server Driver
- Bluetooth Virtual HID Mouse
- Bluetooth Virtual HID Keyboard
- Hands-Free Audio
- Stereo Audio(also known in xp as High Quality Bluetooth Audio or A2DP)
- Once Vista is done installing the various devices then click Finish in the installer to close it.
You’ll now notice You’ll have the Bluetooth icon down in the task bar which should be red and a My Bluetooth Places icon on your desktop. Do not click either of them yet. We’re almost done.
Step 7 -=- Patching Your WIDCOMM Installation
Before we restart, you should make sure you have available the WIDCOMM patcher that you downloaded and optionally this guide in PDF form that you can download from Dev-Hack.Com.
The next portion is very simple.
- Restart your machine in safe-mode by mashing F8 right after the bios post and selecting Safe Mode with Networking.
- Once in safe mode, browse to where you have downloaded and extracted the patcher.
- Run the patcher by double clicking the executable.
- This is where it gets slightly tricky. In the drop down box, you have to find your Bluetooth device. If you added your device to the installer script for the drivers, then you should already be able to recognize it. Look for the beginning of the device description. Once you’re sure you’ve found your device, select it and click save.
- Restart your machine.(x64 users, remember you have to disable Driver Signing Enforcement at EVERY boot, sorry)
Step 8 -=- Installing Your Device
Once you’re back into windows, do the following.
- Plug your Bluetooth adapter in(if it is external)
- If your adapter is internal, then open up the Device Manager and click Action>Scan for Hardware Changes to initiate the installation process.
- When it asks you to search for drivers, select to Browse for the location yourself.
- Browse to the following: C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\bin
- Then click ok and the installer will find the drivers assuming you correctly edited the installer script.
- Once the device is installed(if successful) You’re ready to rock.
Step 9 -=- Enjoying Your Bluetooth Experience
Once everything is installed and patched you should be able to right click the Bluetooth icon down in the task bar, select Begin Using Bluetooth. With any luck, you’ll start the Bluetooth Wizard and be able to choose which profiles your computer will provide to devices. If you get a license error, then something went wrong with the patching or you didn’t choose the right device in the patcher. If you get a device not found, then I recommend completely uninstalling the device and starting from Step 6.
Should you need to Uninstall and return to your default driver(no idea why you’d want to.) then you need to open up Device Manager then, through the control panel, remove the WIDCOMM Drivers(Add/Remove Programs). The drivers will prompt you to remove your device. You can do that or just right click your Bluetooth radio in the Device Manager and click Uninstall, the driver uninstallation will resume automatically.
Supporting Dev-Hack -=- Donations
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Thanks for reading!