While operating Long Zheng’s live blogging Rube Goldberg machine, I was kind of upset we didn’t get to see Ballmer run around and act like… well a Ballmer. After sucking down some air to drown the butterflies in my stomach, I got up and patiently waited in the microphone line. In no time, the audience was in an uproar supporting my request to show some web developer love…
Web Developers! Web Developers! Web Developers!
Shortly after announcing my boredom, via Windows Live Messenger’s personal status message feature, I received an interesting request from Ryan Hoffman. He wanted to get the Zune software installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2003.
After some research and digging around, I successfully installed and used the software on a virtualized production server. I put together an installation guide and threw it into the hacks section for those interested in repeating my success.
Anyone want to send me a Zune to conduct more testing?
Jura, on the Windows Live Messenger Team, just posted an entry on the team’s blog summarizing upcoming 8.5 client pushes to consumers around the world. Okay, in itself this isn’t very interesting but what caught my eye was this white lie:
“A special note for those of you running Messenger 8.5 Beta on Windows XP 64-bit or Windows 2003 Server: the final version of Messenger 8.5 will not install or run on your OS“
BZZT. Wrong, sorry. Thanks for playing. Windows Live Messenger works fine on all architectures of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, just download the MSI and install.
I hate FUD.
Update: Jonathan Kay has petitioned Microsoft to remove the claims and host the MSI file. I couldn’t agree more.
Correction: Although aired on FOX, the show is produced by Warner Bros. I made my corrections, sorry.
Tonight’s Sarah Connor Chronicles debuted what appeared to be a critical flaw in Windows Vista granting users remote access to any machine in the world, regardless of Internet connection. Scary stuff. Oh, John: You have a spelling error in your program’s screen output. I’ll file a bug.
The 1337h4x code seen above makes use of media removal locking structures and device handles, very impressive for TV, competing for the #1 slot CSI: Las Vegas currently holds. I’d applaud FOX Warner Bros., but sadly this is Visual Basic-flavored code (and they don’t return my emails). Yuck.
Other interesting shots are of the faux-Windows Vista user interface. Long Zheng pointed out some noteworthy items including the weird Netscape-looking browser, rounded Aero-like theme (on laptop shot), Aurora-inspired wallpaper, network-disconnected system tray icon, and red Start Orb (on PC shot).
Nitpicker’s corner: I’m very aware there is no real security issue.
Just in time to compliment the slow trickle of Microsoft Windows 7 details, blogger “zhou” at ThinkNext posted some screenshots of the recently built 6519. The screenshot lot consists of the usual version numbers and useless windows, consistent with an amateur Microsoft Windows user and alpha quality software.
Let’s compare “ooh, that’s interesting” notes:
Windows “7″ Display Control Panel Applet:
Windows “7″ Notification Area:
Windows “7″ About Window, Windows “7″ Control Panel Items, and Windows “7″ Welcome Center:
Nitpicker’s Corner: I am aware eight (8) screenshots are on ThinkNext. The PowerShell screenshot offers absolutely no insight into the underlying operating system and therefore was omitted. Oh and “Eight shots of 7″ wouldn’t be as catchy of a title.
Yesterday, I commented on some misinformation that had surfaced revolving around Microsoft’s plans to deliver another Plus!-like product.
Despite Future Store, a major Canadian online retailer, having its catalog amended and ITWire, an Aussie technology site, having received an email requesting to remove its uninformative news article, the spread of misinformation appears to be continuing… Today’s shining star: Amazon.com.
According to Amazon, the Windows Vista Plus! Pack is “filled-to-bursting” with amazing games such as The Bicycle Card Collection and… oh. my. A trial copy of Pandora’s Box, voted Best Puzzle Game of 1999 at E3. Release date on all this? March 31, 2008.
Those of us that have been around for a while will should instantly recognize these games as part of the Microsoft Plus! Game Pack delivered back in Microsoft Windows Me days. As much as some of us would love for these games to be revamped, it isn’t going to happen.
Honest mistake or the work of a nostalgic catalog nerd? News at 8…
The blogosphere is abuzz today with news about Microsoft “reviving” the Plus! package label, based on a product box shot posted this morning on Canadian retailer Future Shop’s website (removed shortly after the story broke). According to the site, it is planned for release on February 15th.
Given retailers are often incorrect with dates, I felt obliged to get the scoop on this straight from the horse’s mouth. A representative at Mumbo Jumbo stated:
Currently, MumboJumbo and Microsoft have discussed compiling a game-specific plus pack, but we have not finalized content or release date. This is still very much in the infancy stage, and we do not have any hard information to disseminate.
What concerns me here is the use of “game-specific”, alluding to the fact that Plus! pack’s content will not contain the gizmos and goodies we grew up loving like the Internet Jumpstart Kit, organic art screen-saver, and McAfee virus scan subscriptions.
Oh well, back to playing Chuzzle on my Tablet PC.
I couldn’t help but become distracted by the plethora of “tech. oddities” (and Summer Glau) in tonight’s episode of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. There’s everything from funny named bags (1337) to what appears to be an elaborate faux Windows Vista… Kudos to FOX for the 720p stream.
As promised, I have made the source code for both the Display Off tile and its installer available for download.
displayOffTileSrc.zip (VS08 project) contains the code for the tile executable itself. It’s nothing magic, simply creates a hidden window and sends a message to it to shut the monitor off. Dead easy to back-port project to Visual Studio 2005.
NOTE: The icon (and all derivative works), as per Long Zheng, is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.
displayOffTileInstallerSrc.zip (VS05 project) contains the WiX project and code that creates the MSI used to install and configure the tile. Pay particular attention to the areas that detect existing OEM tiles. I strongly recommend you should leave that logic intact.
In April, Long Zheng brought more attention to a neat applet within Windows Vista called the Mobility Center. It wasn’t until recently, however, he ranted to me about its continued lack of attention by ISVs and challenged me to a) figure out how tiles work and b) create a tile myself.
After some preliminary Google querying, I came across specific implementation information in the Windows Vista OEM Preinstallation Kit, WindowsMobilityCenter-OEMDeployment.rtf to be specific (pdf’ed for shrinkage purposes). Upon glance, you’ll notice the acronym OEM plastered everywhere. Mobility Center’s extensibility, sadly, was designed solely for OEM use.
As you’ll read in the document, there are two types of Tiles. Static and Dynamic. Static Tiles contain an icon, a line of text, a control (button, slider, or drop-down) and its name at the bottom. Nothing more, nothing less. Dynamic Tiles contain all the properties of a Static Tile but also offer the ability to ‘refresh’ the Tile live, programatically, enhancing the UI experience at the expense of code complexity (i.e. the Volume Tile).
Long’s request, thankfully, only necessitated the creation of a Static Tile which only requires a hand full of code. Dynamic Tiles force developers into the fiery depths of COM of which I’ll get into at some other time.
Following the guide, I created the necessary registry keys, assigned them values pointing to string and icon resources in my executable, and wrote some code to shut off the display. (If you’re a developer and wondering why I didn’t just hackishly send a window message to my desktop or all the windows on my desktop with three lines of code, read this article now).
Bare minimum registry tinkering required:
Before you go off creating your own tiles, swamping machines with your viral Tiles, I must emphasize the following points:
Oh, and you can download MSIs for the x86 and x64 platforms too.
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