Microsoft’s Sysinternals tools are now ”live”. When I read this today, I wondered how this could possibly work. I mean, how can you integrate a bunch of sophisticated system tools in a Web site? I was quite disappointed, when I saw that Sysinternals Live is nothing other than a directory on a Web Server, which contains all of the Sysinternals tools.

The directory only lists the DOS-style name of the Sysinternals tools. If you are not a Sysinternals geek, you will hardly find your way around in there. So what is the purpose of this? Well, you can launch the Sysinternals tools from the command prompt with \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\<toolname>. This is could be useful, if you work on a desktop where you don’t have your toolbox at hand.

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Most Windows programs have to be registered to work properly. Registering means that the files of the application (exe, dll, ocx, etc.) store their information to the Windows registry. Usually, this is done during the installation process, but sometimes you have to do it manually if problems occur.

If an application doesn’t work, the first thing to do is to uninstall it and install it again. This often helps simply because corrupted registry entries have been added again to the registry. If it is a simple program with a couple of DLLs you can just register them manually using the regsvr32 command.

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Thanks for reading this post. But you don’t really believe that I know more about Windows 7 than you, do you? Sorry for luring you into this, but the same thing just happened to me. I read an interview at Cnet with Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s Windows chief. Wait, wait, don’t click on the link so fast. The interview is seven printed pages long and you can save yourself time if you read my version. It contains all the relevant info:

Ina Fried: Thanks for giving me an interview about Windows 7.

Steven Sinofsky: You are welcome.

Ina Fried: What will be the new features of Windows 7?

Steven Sinofsky: I don’t tell you.

Ina Fried: Hmm, but why?

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In my opinion, there are only a few things that are changed for the worse under Vista. One is the replacement of Boot.ini with the Boot Configuration Data Store (BCD Store). Perhaps using an ini file for storing the boot configuration was a bit outdated, but replacing it with the command line tool bcdedit is not really a better solution. It is even standard under Linux nowadays also to offer a GUI tool for this purpose. You can take this post as an example of why I usually try to avoid the command prompt.

Today, I had to change the boot configuration for the first time under Vista. It is a test computer where I have Vista and Windows Server 2008 installed. I wanted to replace a Vista x86 installation with Vista x64, so I deleted the corresponding partition and created a new one. After I installed Vista x64, the Windows Server 2008 installation vanished from the boot menu. That was not very smart of Vista setup, but okay, it is not a big deal to add the entry again, or so I thought. With Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, I would just have edited the boot.ini, which I had done countless times before. Thus, I thought, it shouldn’t be a big deal to use bcdedit this time.

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• 41% had no direct experience of Vista, but are offering an opinion on Vista’s suitability in a business context. http://snurl.com/2aduv #
• Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 available: Intel AMT support, new Inventory capabilties, Vista SP1+Server 2008 support http://snurl.com/2adx7 #
• Technet and MSDN are now hosted on Hyper-V. They have 4 million hits daily. Guess the final will be released soon. http://snurl.com/2adxo #
• New white paper from Microsoft comparing Vista SP1 with XP SP3. This is highly recommended for Windows XP fans. http://snurl.com/2adyf #
• Just tried Hyper-V-Manager for Vista SP1 that was originally released for Hyper-V RC0 with RC1. No problems so far. http://snurl.com/2apw9
• PCWorld has an interesting article according to which UAC helps better against rootkits than anti-virus software. http://snurl.com/2apuv

During research for my series on Vista vs. Windows XP, I stumbled across an article at ChanelWeb that claimed that according to Gartner, the adoption of Vista by businesses is in line with that of XP at a comparable juncture after its release. As I will also publish an article at Computerwoche on this topic, I wanted to be sure if this surprising data really is correct. So I contacted Gartner and they were kind enough to mail me their latest numbers. This data does not exactly match with that of the ChannelWeb article, but it allows us to draw the same conclusion: the adoption rate of Windows Vista is indeed comparable to that of Windows XP after its release.

Here are the numbers I received from Gartner:
PC Installed Base by Operating System, Worldwide

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In his last post, Kennedy discusses an interesting point that no other Vista bashing article has addressed so far. He voices a fear that is probably shared by most IT Pros who have decided against Vista. They might not be aware of it, but it is nagging unconsciously under the surface: Will I be left behind if I skip Vista? Is there something essential I missed about Vista?

Kennedy tries to ease the mind of the worried IT pro:

If ever there were an opportunity to skip a Windows upgrade cycle, the XP-to-Vista transition is it. XP may be showing its age, but its age is mainly skin deep: The new challenger is flashy, but also slower and heavier, and it lacks a killer combination of compelling features needed to unseat XP.

At the end of the decade, when Microsoft’s executives look back at the debacle that was Windows Vista, they’ll see that simply slapping a fresh coat of paint on an otherwise aging Windows architecture wasn’t enough to fool anybody.

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Kennedy dedicated three rounds for this topic, one for Microsoft software compatibility, one for third-party software compatibility, and one for developer tool support. I’ll cover all three topics in one post. Let’s see first what Kennedy said about Microsoft software compatibility:

And as I just noted, the current version of Office – Microsoft Office System 2007 – runs great on Windows XP.

What about future versions? There’s no doubt that, eventually, Microsoft may try to target Vista exclusively. However, finding features and functions that Vista supports and XP doesn’t is not as easy as it sounds. Remember, much of Vista’s “newness” is only skin deep.

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Compatibility has been Vista’s weakest point since its release. Hardware compatibility was even more problematic than software compatibility, because Microsoft mostly depends on third-parties here. The fact that they have changed the driver model will pay off in the long run, but if you have to decide now whether to deploy Vista or not, this doesn’t help much if you can’t find device drivers. Kennedy boiled it down into two sentences:

When’s the last time you worried about driver support under Windows XP? With an installed base into the hundreds of millions, chances are you’ll still be finding XP drivers long after Vista’s grandchildren are being put out to pasture.

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Today, I can just quote Kennedy because he expressed the essence of his stance in just two sentences:

Windows Vista is a bloated pig of an operating system. In fact, compared to Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or 3, Vista requires roughly twice the hardware resources to deliver comparable performance.

He knows what he is talking about, because he ran numerous performance tests. I have been discussing some comparable performance tests before, and I don’t want to go into this again, since I think that they are rather pointless.

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• @edbott Funny article! Windows 7 ship date? The crowd has spoken: September 30, 2009 http://snurl.com/29a3z #
• For German speaking followers: My article about Windows Vista x64 vs.Vista x86 has been published at Computerwoche. #
• Gates demonstrates Touch Wall. Will the web really replace fat desktops? Watch the first video under Downloads. http://snurl.com/29a6h #
• Virtual PC 2007 SP1: 64-bit support, multiple monitors, hardware virt. Features: http://snurl.com/29a6y Download: http://snurl.com/29a74 #

We have seen three rounds so far, and Vista clearly won two of them (Security, Manageability) with knock outs and lost the last one (Reliability) on points, mostly because the old champion XP just picked up lots of experience in its countless fights over the last 7 years. Let’s see if the old man can also outlast the young challenger when it comes to elasticity and smoothness. We are talking now about usability.

This is my summary of referee Kennedy’s judgment of the fourth round:

Aero’s changes are only superficial. Many settings were moved to other places which makes it difficult for XP veterans to find their way on Vista. Most modifications of the user interface were just made for the sake of change and didn’t improve usability. Some modifications are even a change for the worse. The “up a level button” in Explorer is missing, the Search field shows up much too often, and the backup tool doesn’t provide enough feedback about the success of backups.

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• Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 update supports Server 2008 and Vista SP1 as host and guest. http://snurl.com/293jw #
• PowerShell on Server Core. Not officially supported but Jeffrey Snover blogs about it. http://snurl.com/293ko #
• Jeff Jones compiled a new Windows Vista vs Windows XP SP2 vulnerability report. Another proof that Vista is more secure than XP. http://snurl.com/299y2

• It seems that the video about Windows 7 I showed in my post on Tuesday is a fake. http://snurl.com/28×7k #
• There is an updated version of sysprep for XP SP3. Does anyone know why it is needed? http://snurl.com/28xcu #

It is time for the next round of the Vista vs. XP match. In my view, Vista won the first two rounds (Security and Manageability) by knocking out XP within the first few seconds. If this were a boxing match, XP would have been counted out already. But because we are fair sportsmen, let’s give the old champion another chance to regain its title. As before, the text in italics summarizes Kennedy’s arguments.

With Vista, Microsoft introduced some enhancements under the hood that improve reliability. Examples include improved heap management, power management and support for low priority I/O tasks. During day-to-day operations, however, these new features don’t have much impact (expect low I/O priority). When it comes to stability, Windows XP SP2 has proven to be rock solid, and SP3 might even improve the situation. Vista has little room to score in this area.

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