Lorenzo Barbieri @ Weblogs.Asp.Net

Installing Windows XP SP2 RC1 on an ASUS A2800S... Mission completed!!!

Yesterday I decided to retry to install Windows XP SP2 RC1 on my new notebook (see here for my previous failed tries...).

I installed it, and I started in safe mode. Everything crashed, but I noticed that one of the latest loaded drivers was UAGP35.SYS.

Considering that the boot process messed up all the graphics, and that the PC seemed to work under the Picasso-style screen :-), I booted the system with an Emergency tool and disabled the Microsoft AGP Driver v3.5 (UAGP35.SYS).

The notebook booted, I went into the Device Manager, I selected the "SIS Processor to AGP controller" (that was disabled) and I chose to Rollback the installed driver.

The Device become "PCI Standard PCI-to-PCI bridge", a little reboot and everything works now!!!

I don't understand why if I select Safe Mode or VGA Mode, the bad UAGP35.SYS driver is loaded and the system cannot boot.

Why I've to use a third party tool to save my system?

Hope it helps everybody with the same problem!

FREE XDN Professional for .NET Bloggers during May 2004

I hope it's not too late, but here it is:

FREE XDN Professional for .NET Bloggers during May 2004
Mike Schinkel, president of Xtras.Net, made an offer on his personal blog of a free XDN Professional membership (http://www.xtras.net/xdn) during the month of May 2004 for anyone that blogs about .NET frequently. If you are a .NET blogger, see Mike's post for how to get your free XDN membership.

Another article published on ioProgrammo (#81)!

ioProgrammo (one of the italian leading IT magazines) is out with a new article from me!

The title of the article is "Rendiamo sicuri i Web Services!" and speaks about WS-Security with WSE 1.0 for .NET.

The topic on the cover is "Web Service e sicurezza".

The article is in the Advanced Edition part of the magazine, it erroneously has the UML icon... but it speaks about Web Service, I can assure you :-)

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

My template for RSS Bandit...

Here is the template that I use with RSS Bandit.

It's a modified version of the Outlook 2003 orange template that is included in RSS Bandit.

It shows the comments and the publisher at the top of the page.

I hope that it will be useful to someone else! :-)

I'm sad... Windows XP SP2 RC1 don't work on my new Notebook

The last week my Notebook had a big problem in the Power Supply unit, and I needed to change it.

My company bought a new A2800S from ASUS, with P4 3 Ghz, 1Gb Ram, 60Gb HD, 802.11g WLan and a DVD burner.

It's a great Notebook, but when I tried to install Windows XP SP 2 RC1 it failed to boot.

It displayed the Windows XP boot screen, but without the blue indicator, and after some seconds the image is broken with inverted colors.

I've tried Safe Mode, but it failed to boot after Mup.sys file.

I asked some friends to search in the private newsgroups for the beta, but nothing...

I had to reinstall it. I installed it two times, as an upgrade from SP1, and on a fresh Windows XP installation, but it gave me the same results....

I'm very very sad!!!

UPDATE 1: I've solved the problem with the RC1, you can find my solution here: Installing Windows XP SP2 RC1 on an ASUS A2800S... Mission completed!!!

UPDATE 2: From the RC2, post-RC2 and the Windows XP SP2 RTM version everything is working. I've always done upgrades, and I don't know if I will have the problem again on a clean install.

UPDATE 3: Tony Barlow has told me that on other configurations it could depend on an old version on the BIOS, and it can be solved by flashing a new revision. It could also depend on some PCI cards, so the usual fix can be removing them, upgrading to Windows XP SP2 and then reinserting them one by one.

MSF 4.0 announced and new MSF 4.0 Resources list!

Thanks to all Tech Ed bloggers and in particular to this post MSF v4.0 and agile development I've discovered MSF 4.0!

I hope that with the new version and with the deep integration with VS 2005, finally MSF will get all the attentions that it deserves.

So I posted a new MSF 4.0 Resources List, now with only one article, but I hope that it will grow faster!

Google Game won at the first try!

Ok, I cheated, I used two Italian words, but hey, if you search for

s c r i b a c c h i n o     p e d e s t r e

you find only one entry. And I made at the first try!!!

The words refer to a person that blindly writes everything that is told to write without thinking...

I spelled it to try to don't invalidate my victory!!!

P.s. the google game is very simple to play, you have to find two words that entered on google give one and only one result...

VB6 is still very very popular, or there is something wrong in .TEXT counters...

I cannot believe what I'm seeing in the administrative section of this blog, and the number of Agg.Views is continuosly increasing:

I really don't know what's happening here... VB6 is on the rescue? Or there is something that I cannot understand?

Or perhaps, all my other posts are just crap and nobody wants to read them :-) ?

Why I haven't seen it before? VB6 MouseWheel Fix!!!

Thanks to dredge, today I discovered a solution for THE problem that plagued me since I started programming in VB6...

The VB6 MouseWheel Fix!!!

Now when I have to maintain my old VB6 projects I feel much more confortable... :-)

UPDATE: Many Thanks to robgruen, the original developer of the fix!

MSF Resources list reaches 3000 Views!

From this link http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=da&lr=&ie=utf-8&frame=right&th=cacb2f0a660bde7a&seekm=#difali$dha.3256@tk2msftngp09.phx.gbl came the 3000th viewer of my MSF 3 Resources list...

Ok...to celebrate it, the next week I'll begin a restyling of the list according to some suggestions that I received from some interested readers.

If you have some suggestions, please feel free to share them with me!