Brenton House

Installing latest Windows 7 updates could cause unbootable system

Be careful when installing the latest updates that just came out from Microsoft yesterday.  I have only tried them on one machine but after installing the latest updates from Windows Update, my machine rebooted and Windows 7 will no longer start.

I have tried repairing my installation but that does nothing for the situation. 

The Starting Windows logo comes up for a couple of seconds and then the machine automatically reboots again.

Activating Windows 7 on different hardware

With Vista, if you replaced hardware on your machine or put your hard drive in a new computer, Windows would prompt you to activate online.  You were typically given 5 or so activations before your key would no longer work.

With Windows 7, if you replace hardware, you still get the Windows Activation message saying that you must activate in 3 days.  However, now you must reactivate using the automated phone system.  Online activation can only be accomplished if you are reactivating with the same hardware.

I wonder if you can now reactivate more than 5 times on the same hardware?  This would make sense since they are storing your hardware information to match up with your activation key.

Avoid creating hidden 200MB partition in Windows 7

The first few times I installed Windows 7, I noticed that it created a hidden 200MB active partition on my primary hard drive.  The purpose of this partition is to store the boot files and the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) for repairing your computer if necessary.  Once it is created, it is very difficult to remove and you risk your computer not booting.

Now this is a good idea in theory and for most people, this won’t matter.  But when I am setting my my systems (at least with Vista and Windows 7) is that I install the OS on a machine and configure it exactly the way I want it.  I then install all the software on it and take an image of it using Acronis TrueImage.  I can then take that image and setup a new computer (with different hardware) within a matter of minutes.

This whole 200MB partition deals complicates the imaging process and so I looked into the details of it.  Apparently if you install Windows 7 on a drive with unpartitioned or unallocated space.   Create the primary partition first by choosing Drive options (advanced).  When you get this dialog box: “To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files.”  Hit Cancel.  The boot files will now be put on the primary partition that you created earlier.

If you aren’t going to be imaging your system or you want to setup dual boot, you can go ahead and let Windows 7 do it’s thing and create the extra partition.

How to get your Quick Launch Toolbar back in Windows 7

1. Right click on taskbar and select Toolbars > New Toolbar
2. Browse to: 
   C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
3. Hit: Select Folder

-or-  you can just download and install a much better version of Quick Launch called Free Launch Bar.  It is free (as the name implies) and has more features the old Quick Launch.

How to find missing drivers for Windows 7

I installed Windows 7 on machine that was a couple of years old.  When it booted up, the max display resolution was 640x480 because of the old vga video driver that shipped with Windows 7.  I tried to find an updated driver from several places but ended up being saved by DriverMax.

DriverMax is a FREE application that helps identify unknown hardware and uploads the data to their site and provides downloads for updated drivers. 

Shortly after using this software I was back up and running at 1280x1024 (max for my monitor).

How to (Successfully) Install Cisco VPN Client on Windows 7

If you do not follow these instructions when installing the Cisco VPN Client on Windows 7, you will probably end up in an endless blue screen / reboot cycle!

1. Uninstall any previous version of Cisco VPN client that you may have installed
2. Reboot
3. Download the Citrix DNE Update and install it.
4. Reboot
5. Make sure you have Cisco VPN Client 5.0.4.0300 (or newer, if available)
6. Install the Cisco VPN Client
7. Reboot

** Check out some of the additional steps others have taken below if you run into problems

Live Mesh update for Windows 7 Beta is now online

Microsoft has posted a new update for Live Mesh that is compatible with Windows 7 Beta.  The info has been posted on the Live Mesh Blog. 

R.I.P. .NET Reflector

Yes.  It is true, Lutz Roeder has decided to end development of .NET Reflector…  This free tool has been the greatest addition to .NET development since, well, forever.   Development will be passed on to Red Gate Software and it is unclear whether it will eventually move to a retail product.  So sad.

Here is a copy of the email that was sent out:

After more than eight years of working on .NET Reflector, I have decided it is time to move on and explore some new opportunities.

I have reached an agreement to have Red Gate Software continue the development of .NET Reflector. Red Gate has a lot of experience creating development tools for both .NET and SQL Server. They have the resources necessary to work on new features, and Reflector fits nicely with other .NET tools the company offers.

Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version and is looking for your feedback and ideas for future versions.

For news and updates on Reflector, sign up for the .NET Developer’s Newsletter from Red Gate. To find out more about the agreement, see the interview on Simple Talk.

Web Analytics with Clicky

I have tried out several of the services out there that allow you to track your statistics and analyze visitors and hits on your site.  Some are free and some of them have a small fee.  One of the ones that I have been the most impressed with has been Clicky.  This service gives you a nice dashboard that lists all kinds of information about your site in a very easy-to-read format.

Like a lot of the other services, you simply place a small amount of javascript code in the template for your web page or blog and you can start seeing results.  They even have a very cool “Spy” feature that uses an Ajax to show you who is on your site right now and what they are looking at.

They have both a free and a premium paid service.  They premium service offers you a ton of features that you don’t find in most other services.   They provide a developer API that allows you to create any kind of GUI that you might want and have it integrated into your application or site.  They also provide a lot of widgets for iGoogle, Wordpress, Vista, etc on their site.

You can also integrate this with your FeedBurner feeds to be able to track actions from users.  This gives you much more details than you find with the default statistics from Google’s FeedBurner. 

The service also allows you to track keywords, visitor actions, as well as the usual browsers, computers, and information about where visitors are from.  Giving you a list of the most popular pages on your site can allow you to optimize traffic based on what keywords that visitors are using to find your site.

Before using Clicky, I was using Google’s tracking service.   I started looking for another service when I had issues reporting on multi-day segments or when I wanted to track multiple sites.  I would often get taken to reports for a different site when I would browse reports within Google’s UI. 

I would try out their features if you are interested.  They have a free 14 day trial of their premium service that allows you to determine if you want the extra features that the free service does not include.

Extension Methods with Enum Description

Since Enum names in .NET do not support certain characters like spaces, often developers will use the DescriptionAttribute to add detailed text to an Enum. 

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   [Flags]

   internal enum SuperHero 

   {

      [Description("Clark Kent")]

      Superman = 1,

      [Description("Peter Parker")]

      SpiderMan = 2,

      [Description("Bruce Banner")]

      Hulk = 4,

      [Description("Tony Stark")]

      IronMan = 8,

   }

You can pull the description from the enum with code like this.  (Keep in mind that you can make this MUCH faster using DynamicMethods and caching, but that is another article…)

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      private const char ENUM_SEPERATOR_CHARACTER = ',';

      public static string GetDescription(Enum value)

      {

         // Check for Enum that is marked with FlagAttribute

         var entries = value.ToString().Split(ENUM_SEPERATOR_CHARACTER);

         var description = new string[entries.Length];

         for (var i = 0; i < entries.Length; i++)

         {

            var fieldInfo = value.GetType().GetField(entries[i].Trim());

            var attributes = (DescriptionAttribute[])fieldInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);

            description[i] = (attributes.Length > 0) ? attributes[0].Description : entries[i].Trim();

         }

         return String.Join(", ", description);

      }

Well, now with .NET 3.5 and Extension methods it only makes sense to make this a little bit easier.

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      public static string Description(this Enum value)

      {

         return GetDescription(value);

      }

And now you can do the following:

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         var secretIdentity = SuperHero.Superman.Description();

         var superHeroes = SuperHero.Superman | SuperHero.SpiderMan;

         var secretIdentities = superHeroes.Description();

Note that the code handles Enum marked with the FlagAttribute as well.  The output of the whole flag thing is not ideal but at least it does not break when handling those Enums.