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Product Description

Tips, tricks, treats, and secrets revealed on the latest operating system from Microsoft Windows 7

You already know the ups and downs of Windows Vista-now it's time to learn the ins and outs of Windows 7! Internationally recognized Windows experts, Microsoft insiders, and authors Paul “Jerk” Thurrott and Rafael Rivera [that’s me, Mom!] cut through the hype to pull away the curtain and reveal useful information not found anywhere else. Regardless of your level of knowledge, you'll discover little-known facts on how things work, what's new and different, and how you can modify Windows 7 to meet your own specific needs.

A witty, conversational tone tells you what you need to know to go from Windows user to Windows expert and doesn't waste time with basic computer topics while point-by-point comparisons demonstrate the difference between Windows 7 features and functionality to those in Windows XP and Vista.

• Windows 7 is the exciting update to Microsoft's operating system
• Authors are internationally known Windows experts and Microsoft insiders [who dat!]
• Exposes tips, tricks, and secrets on the new features and functionality of Windows 7
• Reveals best practices for customizing the system to work for you
• Investigates the differences between Windows 7 and previous versions of Windows

No need to whisper! Windows 7 Secrets is the ultimate insider's guide to Microsoft's most exciting Windows version in years.

FCC mandated disclaimer: Obvious.

Back in July of 2007, Microsoft released its first iteration of Windows Home Server (WHS). Over the three years that followed, Microsoft has updated the product with three Power Packs, each of which has provided significant functional improvements. And of course, some WHS partners, most notably HP, have also contributed to making WHS more usable and functional via a series of machine-specific enhancements and other add-ons.

Windows Home Server "Vail", the next major version of this product, will be based on the current generation Windows Server platform (Windows Server 2008 R2) and will share a number of features and capabilities with Small Business Server and Essential Business Server. Unfortunately, Microsoft has been tight-lipped about Vail and the quality of information we have today is lacking, to say the least. Fortunately, a recently leaked build of Vail – tagged build 7360 – has shed some light on what the WHS team has been working on.

Others have written quick overviews of this leaked Vail build. But while anyone can find a torrent, download, install and then make a quick YouTube video, I think I can provide something quite a bit more detailed… and useful. Using some home-baked tools I used for gathering information for "Windows 7 Secrets," I was able to mine Vail for its actual capabilities. Here’s what I have thus far:

New codenames
Vail exposes some interesting codenames, including a few even Mary Jo Foley hadn't heard of. Key among these is "Aurora," which appears to be a Small Business Server version that sits somewhere between WHS and the current SBS products (Paul’s SBS + cloud services dream solution?) and “Colorado,” which appears to be remote device related. (Windows Media Connect or DLNA-based devices, maybe?)

Update: Further evidence supporting the SBS = Aurora theory can be found on various sites, such as http://bjosbs.com/. (The site is registered to a SBS ‘softie apparently.) [thanks to Daniel K. for the tip]

New features
This version of WHS Vail provides two major functional updates, Homegroup creation/integration and media streaming. Both appear to be based on the same functionality that appears in Windows 7, and the media streaming feature utilizes a sweet Silverlight-based player, through its revamped remote console, that transcodes content of virtually any kind from what I can tell, on-the-fly. (I personally tested WMV, H.264, and XviD.)

New Dashboard
WHS Vail comes with a new dashboard, which replaces the awful admin console from the current version with a new normal window that appears to be the basis for similar dashboards in future versions of Windows Small Business Server and Windows Essential Business Server. This Dashboard is customizable, more so than previous versions, enabling server makers like HP to customize it with their own look and feel – color scheme, unique Home tab content, and more.

Add-in changes
Perhaps sensing that WHS add-ins can be the source for malicious and software, or otherwise just responding to complaints that some current add-ins seem to adversely impact the performance and stability of the server, Microsoft is making some big changes to how WHS interacts with these mini applications.

Some add-ins will be “Microsoft certified” and therefore known to be safe/good, while others will be digitally signed (or unsigned) and provided by third parties. Add-ins, of which will now also reside in an online catalog, will be version controlled, preventing the user from inadvertently writing over a newer version with an out of date version, and can support subscription-based services like anti-virus. Vail will also keep a watchful eye on add-ins, intervening when they crash, allowing a user to quickly locate the source of the problem. And, if I'm reading this right, WHS Vail will support the deployment of specialized add-ins to connected PCs as well, not just on the server.  (As in, install AV on the server and have it protect clients as well.)

Server health
In keeping with broader efforts across other Windows Server products, WHS Vail includes a number of server health technologies, many of which leverage the pre-installed PowerShell. It supports scheduled cleanups and backups of both clients and server and checks clients for both anti-spyware and anti-malware protection. While at work, Vail may find the need to generate an alerts or report, both of which can either be printed on-screen or emailed, much like the SBS product.

More to come?
With the TODO and DRAFT labeling littered throughout Vail’s interfaces and documentation, it’s impossible to know what Vail will really be. From what I’ve seen, however, it’s shaping up to be the easiest yet most powerful server solution in the home today.

Flickr Screenshot Gallery

Every several years or so, I undergo a complete system overhaul to keep up with the increasing demands of PC games. One of the components I try not to cut corners on is the GPU. While I was on the NVIDIA track for some time, I decided to pick up an ATI Radeon HD 5970 at Sapphire’s premium price and then some more, due to eBay sharks. (NVIDIA’s Fermi chip is going to be a complete and utter failure, jump ship now.)

Of course, I’m not here to write about the hardware.

After installing the card, I registered at Sapphire for their “gold club” membership; in other words, I registered my card for warranty services. One of the benefits to registration is access to an exclusive tool that allows users to tweak the card’s voltages for (enthusiast) overclocking purposes. After download I ran it a small issue. It doesn’t work at all.

The error baffled me a bit. It was specifically written for the 5970 yet doesn’t work on the 5970. What the hell? Poking around a bit, I discovered the executable was written in a .NET language making troubleshooting much easier.

After disassembling RedLine in Reflector, I noticed two things. First, the error popping up was due to an error being caught by a generic exception handler [1]  in the code. In other words, if anything happened during the initialization of the interface it would cower behind the “not supported” error and shut down. Hardly an accurate message, but at least it isn’t an error with hexadecimal digits.

Notice the program makes use of Windows Event logging? I did. Firing up Event Viewer, I caught a break and found the event generated by the disassembled code above [2].

VoltDisplayViewModel Failed Instantiation:System.BadImageFormatException: An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007000B)
   at HemlockOvervolt.ViewModel.VoltDisplayViewModel..ctor()
   at HemlockOvervolt.MainWindow..ctor()

Whoa whoa whoa. This looks familiar. Oh, that’s right… Yahoo made this same mistake a little over a year ago with their WPF-based Yahoo Messenger application. This “troubleshooting signature” is usually indicative of an application being compiled with “Any CPU” mistakenly selected as the target platform. (The target, “Any CPU”, was designed for applications that don’t have a reliance on platform-specific assemblies.) In this case, RedLine is attempting to load a 32-bit (GPU) hardware interoperability assembly into its 64-bit process, which is a big no-no.

Thankfully, the RedLine tool isn’t digitally signed making correction very simple:

• If you have Visual Studio installed, open an instance of the Visual Studio Command Prompt, execute corflags /32BIT+ SapphireRedLine.exe, and be on your way.
• If you’d rather use a hex editor – I recommend XVI32 – simply navigate to file offset 0x218 ($218), change the byte 01 to 03, and save.

Sapphire should feel ashamed for not releasing a quick fix for this by now. It’s been available (and buggy) since November 2009 plus they charge over $700 for the card. Tsk tsk tsk.

Since Windows 7 went gold, the Internet has been abuzz with little tips and tricks to improve the end-user experience. One of these tips, originating from back when Windows 7 was still in beta, outlined how to access Super Secret Hidden Wallpapers in the %windir%\Globalization\MCT folder. Sadly, nobody seemed to really understand what these folders are for – and worse, never challenged the steps to gain access the wallpaper. (It’s super easy, keep reading.)

Before we go forward, we need to define some acronyms, clear up some fancytalk, and tie everything together with a simple picture:

• Theme: A collection and configuration of elements – wallpaper, screensaver, sounds, and colors – that work together to provide a specific look and feel.
• MCT: A Market-Customized Theme is merely a Theme tailored for a specific locale (e.g. South Africa).
• Local Pack: A collection of locale-specific elements, typically links, RSS feeds, and a MCT.

Make sense so far? Well, sadly the engineers responsible for this feature complicated things with their abysmal folder configuration. Let’s untangle the mess:

• %windir%\Globalization: A folder supporting Globalization services in Windows 7, such as Extended Linguistic Services (ELS), National Language Support (NLS), and Local Packs.
• %windir%\Globalization\MCT: A (poorly-named) folder containing installed Local Packs.
• %windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-XX: Each installed Local Pack follows this (poor) naming convention. MCT-[ISO 3166 two-letter country/region code].

As mentioned earlier, each Local Pack (typically) contains a MCT and a handful of web links and RSS feeds. This translates to the contents of each %windir%\Globalization\MCT\MCT-XX folder:

• \RSSFeed: Contains configuration data defining locale-specific RSS feeds. These are installed into Internet Explorer upon activation.
• \Theme and \(LocaleName): These folders comprise of the actual MCT. The configuration file in the \Theme folder dictates what folder to pull resources from, making the exact name irrelevant. In your everyday-copy of Windows 7, this name matches the locale name (e.g. United States). Themes are made visible via the Personalization applet upon activation.
• \Websites for (LocaleName): Contains shortcuts (.lnk) to locale-specific/popular web sites (e.g. usa.gov). These links are copied into Internet Explorer’s favorites upon activation.

Phew. Now that you’ve been exposed to the purpose of all these files and folders, we can talk about actually using a Local Pack. In a normal end-user scenario, Local Packs are only activated when the user sets his/her location/region via Windows Setup (fresh install) or while tinkering in the Region and Language Options Control Panel applet (existing install). Power users, however, can activate and deactivate Local Packs at their leisure without dicking with permissions, an abusive method used by… pretty much everyone.

To properly tinker with Local Packs on Windows 7, make use of the oddly-named Content Management Engine Tool (mctadmin.exe). (This tool ships with Windows 7 and should not be run as an Administrator.) After issuing the desired command, check your Personalization applet for the new MCT! (Developers can use %errorlevel% within a batch to check for error.)

• To apply (install) a Local Pack, issue mctadmin /a <region>
• To remove a Local Pack, issue mctadmin /r <region>

TIP: If you’re unsure of what to put as a region, refer to this handy list of ISO 3166 codes.

I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea. Microsoft stole it, I swear.

I received a nudge from the folks behind a nifty aggregator called Microsoft Feeds. (Glad they emailed, because I completely forgot about it.) For those that haven’t seen this by now, Feeds sucks in data from various sources, including Twitter, displaying Microsoft-related jabber from around the world in an easy-to-use timeline view. While old news isn’t very appealing to me, I do find it extremely useful in determining what the hot topic of the day is. You know, like that ridiculous “God Mode” shortcut.

Adding your own content is simple, too. Simply litter your content – blog post, tweet, rant – with either a popular product name (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Exchange 2010) or a few hash tags (#ms_feeds #windows7 #windowsserver2008 #exchangeserver2010). As I’ve included them all, I have a great shot at appearing on the timeline. Fingers crossed.

The catch? There’s no catch or sign up required, but keep in mind Microsoft reserves the right to filter what shows up on the feed. While photos of Natalie Portman will likely be axed (categorized as too beautiful), “genuine conversation” will not. Even when it’s talk about pirating Windows 7… Wait, what? My only complaint is that the feed cannot be widgetized for full-screen viewing (like on a huge TV).

Screenshot showing Microsoft Feeds aggregator and some genuine warez talk.

Similar to previous external beta service pack rollouts, Microsoft has enabled – via updates you already installed – a beta ‘candidacy check’ within its Windows Update software. Just like Windows Vista, a registry key and value pair need to be added prior to being authorized to download the new software.

Although I’ve documented the required key and value names, the value’s data (likely a GUID as before) remains unknown. The takeaway here is that external Windows 7 SP1 testing should commence soon, if it hasn’t already. Tips regarding the significance of the name SPORTM would be greatly appreciated.

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Win7SP1
Value: SPORTM (REG_SZ)
Data: Unknown (likely a server-side checked GUID)

Back on the 16th -- (I’m bad with email) -- I received a note from Editor in Chief John Burek of Computer Shopper. A snip of it has been reproduced for your consumption below.

Hope this note finds you well. To introduce myself: I’m the editor in chief of the site ComputerShopper.com (and formerly of the venerable Computer Shopper magazine, with which you may be familiar; it was founded in 1980 and stopped printing earlier this year). On our site, we started an editorial series earlier this month highlighting “Blogs We Like,” calling attention to PC-technology-related blogs that our editors and writers find worthy of note in various tech-blog categories. (So far, we’ve highlighted blogs in the PC-tech-help arena, and blogs that focus on Windows 7.)

Just wanted to let you know that Within Windows has been singled out as a “Blog We Like” for the month of December! We’ve done a brief writeup of it on the site at the following URL (as part of a slide show on our Windows 7 “Blogs We Like”):

http://computershopper.com/slideshow/best-windows-7-blogs/blogs-we-like-windows-7-blogs/within-windows

Pretty cool. Oh wait, they called out Long Zheng too. Booooooooo.

The How-To Geek tipped me off to some odd behavior he noticed while taking Flash 10.1 beta for a spin. Every time he viewed Flash content in his browser, the disk would start thrashing with an alarming amount of access to NPSWF32.dll as pictured below.

After updating Flash, I fired up Process Monitor and confirmed his finding. Scary looking. Checking out the call stack for a few dozen entries, they all looked the same. Some code within NPSWF32.dll keeps calling SetUnhandledExceptionFilter. Over and over and over and over again and over and over and over and over and over again. Internally, this API causes Windows to query the file on disk (for some odd reason).

I fired up IDA Pro and ran it through some light debugging to confirm the problem. While I passed on performing an in-depth technical analysis, I looked at enough to tie the affected code to a ‘crash logging’ feature that’s enabled, out of the box, for debug builds of Flash. To disable this feature – and work around the bug – simply create a mms.cfg text file in the C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash folder (Syswow64 for 64-bit users) with the line CrashLogEnable=0. Restart your browser (or application housing Flash) and you’re done. If only Bugs=0 would work…

You can vote on/watch the reported bug by accessing Adobe’s bug tracker (free sign up required). Update: Adobe confirmed the bug at 12/29/09 04:24 AM and has since made the bug private.

Tom Warren, over at Neowin, just shot me a note about a post he just wrote up. The short story is Microsoft China took a bunch of source code from a popular Asian site called Plurk. While this is interesting, given the recent GPL fiasco, I’m going to say what everyone else is already thinking: Do we expect anything less from the Chinese? While I understand this may sound like a gross over-generalization of who’s at fault, and may even offend some readers, let me rationalize my thinking by providing IIPA’s copyright piracy figures from 2007 and 2008. China ranked in as #1 in terms of estimated losses due to copyright piracy, more specifically over 3 billion US dollars. A commenter on Neowin said it perfectly:

If this was in the US (or just about anywhere else in the world) I'd think it was a big issue, but it's China. Do they even have intellectual property laws?

(Jonathan Marston)

[removed unnecessary jab, may be construed in ways I don’t intend]

Back in November, I wrote about Microsoft lifting GPL licensed code for use in a Microsoft Store tool, more specifically the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. A few days after the initial report, Microsoft confirmed my findings and vowed to set things right.

Only a month later, access to the tool has now been restored and a new Microsoft Codeplex project has been stood up, housing all the source code for all to consume. I personally built the downloadable binary from the source, so I know it works as advertised.

Figure: WUDT project open in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

You’re probably wondering... where did the ImageMaster project go? Microsoft unpublished the project from Codeplex after receiving a request from the author to do so. I suspect he freaked out after half the internet started linking to the project – understandable – and pulled the code. Here’s hoping the author returns...

For those curious, I’ll be submitting a patch to support imgburn-created ISOs, eliminating the need for my separate tool.