Planet SCM

A neat (if not well known) feature of Windows Vista is the built in ability to do a "Command Prompt Here" by selecting a folder, keeping the shift key down and right clicking on the folder.  While this is neat, I've sometimes found myself needing an Command Prompt with full administrative privileges.

I stumbled upon an excellent tip from Randy Rants on how to get an elevated command prompt here. 

Personally, I like my admin command prompts to have a dark red background color so that I remember it is running with elevated privileges (see my previous post if you want a admin command prompt icon using this meme).  Anyway, my registry entires look something like:-

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Admin Comm&and Prompt here"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
"Extended"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /t:4f /k \"pushd %L && title Command Prompt\""

Have fun - usual warnings about registry hacking and backing up etc. According to Randy this should also work for XP users who run with non-Admin privileges.

With the Trustworthy Computing initiative, we'd all thought the days of easter eggs in Microsoft products had died, however three enterprising young men from the Anti-piracy Team at Microsoft managed to get themselves included as part of the security hologram on the front of every copy of the Windows Vista media.  If you have a copy of Vista handy, take a close look at the color windows logos, in the outermost circles you will see two large rectangles with two small rectangles either side (about 1mm high).  If you zoom into these rectangles you'll either get a public domain picture of an old master, or the picture above of the folks that designed the hologram.  Good work fellas!  For more information, see the Windows Vista blog, the site of the guy who noticed this picture or the Engadget post about the story.

In Windows Vista, one of the first things I do on a new machine is create an "Admin Shell".  The steps I do are as follows:-

1. Copy the shortcut of your favorite command prompt (PowerShell or cmd.exe)
2. Rename the shortcut "Admin Shell" or whatever you want.  I use "Admin Shell" and then eventually the Windows, "Admin" keyboard shortcut works for it when I have use the computer long enough.
3. Edit the shortcut properties.  (Right click, Properties).  In Shortcut, Advanced... check the "run as administrator" option. Then set the Colors, Screen background to be something that will let you know that this command prompt is running as administrator - I use 51,0,0 as the RGB value to give the shell a nice but slight scary red tinge.

The only thing that was missing was an icon to make this stand out more as my admin shell.  Here is a red version of the PowerShell icon that I just hacked together - enjoy (Right click, save as...)

File attachment: admin_shell.ico (72kb)

When debugging network issues, I tend to fallback to good old telnet as a way of opening a port to a machine.  Being able to do "telnet myserver 80" to check if a web server is up, listening, resolvable and no firewalls getting in the way helps you figure out where the problem is.

I'm staying in a hotel at the moment, and struggling with hotel WiFi.  While debugging the network problems I realized that the telnet client is not installed by default on Vista.

To install it,  go to Control Panel, Programs, and then "Turn Windows Features on or off" under "Programs and Features".  Scroll down a bit and then Telnet Client is available.

When running Remote Desktop from Windows Vista I've been getting the following error popping up everytime I connect.  It is a little alarming and I've never really sat down and figured out what this was telling me - basically I translated this to mean "Vista has a new, more secure Remote Desktop client, you are talking to an older version of the server - is this ok?".  I've been meaning to figure out how to make this dialog go away for a while and was just assuming I was dumb.  However a couple of few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the MVP Summit and every single Microsoft employee that used remote desktop to talk to his or her machine somewhere else on campus also got this dialog pop up - so I figured that I wasn't being that dumb after all - or maybe just as dumb as everyone else, which considering the company I was keeping at the time I would take as a compliment.

It took me a while to figure out how to get rid of the dialog when connecting to a known older version of the remote desktop server.  When doing the connection, click on the "Options >>" button and then the "Advanced" tab.  In the "Server Authentication" section, change the authentication option to "Always connect, even if authentication fails".

Then, after a bit of digging around I found this great post from Scott Forsyth who points out that there is a registry key you can also use to control this behavior, add a DWORD value called AuthenticationLevelOverride to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client and set it to 0.  You will no longer get prompted and the Server Authentication option in the advanced tab will be grayed out.  Obviously that reduces the security when remoting to your machine so it is up to you if you want to take that risk to save you the annoyance of seeing that dialog any more.

Today, I received a fancy new Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter 8000 mouse courtesy of Microsoft.  This is a Bluetooth enabled mouse with some useful extra buttons for slide advance and a built in laser pointer when presenting.  It is a nice mobile mouse that, while not without flaws, I would still recommend.  Anyway, I wanted to use my Dell's built-in Bluetooth model (the Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Module) rather than the supplied Microsoft Bluetooth USB dongle.  It was then that I noticed my Bluetooth wasn't working properly under Vista - when I searched for new devices, it just wasn't finding any.

I had a bit of a search around, and people were suggesting all sorts of nasty hacks.  In the end, I came across the new official Dell drivers that were posted on the 26th January 2007 so I'm making this post to hopefully get caught in the search indexes and help out a few other fellow early adopters.  To download the Dell Wireless 350 drivers for Windows Vista - visit the official Dell site.  The install flashes the Bluetooth chipset and installs all the stuff necessary to get your Bluetooth up and running.  I also downloaded the Reliability update for USB stack in Windows Vista 32-bit (KB925528) (not sure if I needed to or not, it just sounded like a good thing) and the latest version of Microsoft excellent IntelliPoint software.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about Windows 2000 -> Windows XP -> Windows Vista is that no matter how much the UI changes, some shortcuts just seem to stay around allowing me to quickly navigate around the system.  One that has survived is right clicking on My Computer and then selecting "Manage" - which takes you to an MMC console with most of the commonly used snap-ins pre-loaded.  However, one I used a lot more has disappeared.  I used to to right-click on the "My Network" shortcut in the start menu and select "Properties".  That would take me to the network connections wizard.  In Vista it takes me to the Network and Sharing Center screen (possibly helpful for my Dad, but not what I was after).

From the dialog, you can press "Manage network connection" and it takes you to the good old network connections dialog

However, I wanted a quick way to access this from my keyboard, so I used a tactic I've found I've been doing a lot with Windows Vista - I create a shortcut to it that I placed in my Programs menu.  The trick was to find the control panel file responsible for this dialog.  After a bit of digging I tracked it down to be "%SystemRoot%\System32\ncpa.cpl".

Here is a screenshot of my shortcut settings in case you want to do the same

So, next on my list was to get iTunes working so that I can easily feed my podcast addiction.  I am very nearly at the point of purchasing a new MP3 player so I am ready for any excuse to tip me over the edge.  Anyway, to get iTunes 7.0.2 to work correctly on Windows Vista RTM, I had to run the application as an administrator.  It only seems to need to run as administrator to get iTunes to Sync with my iPod, but as that is the only reason I run iTunes it is kinda handy.  This gave me the change to make my first foray into the world of the Program Compatibility Wizard.

Step 1:  Press the Windows Globe (or press the windows key on your keyboard) and go to Control Panel.  In the search dialog, type "compat".  Click on the link "Use an older program with this version of Windows".

Step 2:  Press Next

Step 3: Select "I want to locate the program manually" and press Next

Step 4:  Type the program location or browse for it.  Mine was in "c:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" which is the default install location for iTunes.  Press Next

Step 5:  Select "Do not apply a compatibility mode" and press Next

Step 6:  Press "Next" on the display settings screen, nothing needed to be changed here

Step 7:  Finally.  Check the box "Run this program as an administrator" and press Next.

Step 8:  Press Next again and confirm that everything works as expected, then save the settings. 

There we go.  Hopefully they'll be a Vista compatible version of iTunes soon.

I'd been having trouble getting Visual Studio Team Suite up and running on my new vista install.  I was assuming it was something nasty in the long winded installs of Visual Studio Team Suite, Team Explorer, SP1 for both and the Beta of the Vista GDR for Team Suite.  Every time I tried to start Visual Studio, I got the following error:-

"An error has occurred while trying to access the log file. Logging may not function properly".

Luckily for me, Gabriel Lozano-Morán posted the solution over on the MSDN Forums - turns out that I had installed a Visual Studio Plug-in as part of my VMware Workstation 6 Beta.  I didn't really want this plug-in from within Visual Studio anyway, so I re-ran the VMWare setup and removed the plug-in.  All is now working just fine.  Thanks Gabriel !.

I was having trouble getting my external monitor to work properly.  The NVidia Quadro FX Go1400 installed in my Dell Precision M70 is quite clever when it comes to auto-switching and automatically selecting the best resolution.  However, Vista was also trying to be clever and the two collided.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, I stumbled upon the Windows Mobility Center which is a handy place for laptop owners.  Pressing the Windows-X key brings this up instantly and you can turn your Wi-Fi On/Off, mess with external monitor configuration etc etc.  Not exactly rocket science, but it'll add it to my short list of Windows key shortcuts that I actually use.

Well, the time came.  I got too jealous of everyone with Windows Vista and decided to upgrade myself.  Before I start complaining, the reason I installed Vista on my main dev box is because I like it.  I like the fact I use the mouse less.  I like the fact I get prompted when things want admin status.  I like the fancy UI.  I like the faster start-up times and the additional support for mobile users.  I upgraded to Vista because I like it.  It runs great on my Mac Mini so I decided to bite the bullet and see what it is like to run on day in day out.

However, an upgrade before the official consumer launch means that I knew it was going to be painful.  So much so that I actually bought a new hard drive for my laptop and installed Vista on it.  My dev machine is vitally important to me so I wanted to make sure I could roll back quickly at any point.  I took the opportunity to upgrade from a 60Gb drive to a 100Gb drive at the same time as I'm guessing that I'm going to have to use a Win XP virtual PC image quite a lot for the forseeable future so that I can test / reproduce problems with software in XP.

I started the upgrade on Saturday so that I would be productive again by Monday morning.  The actual install of the OS went very well, by far my easiest install of Vista to date.  I have a Dell Precision M70 and my Windows Experience Index is 4.1 - constrained by the CPU which is a Pentium M 2.26Ghz.  My new hard drive got a 5.0 and my Aero experience got a 5.9 from my NVidia Quadro FX Go1400.  Eclipse and Teamprise all installed just fine and worked with no problems so I knew I was good to start work Monday morning.  I've created a new category on my blog called "Vista" in which I'll post my trials and tribulations as I use the OS day in day out as a Team System developer.