Have you cleaned your CD or DVD burner’s laser lately? Until this week, I had never tried using a special disk to clean dust from the laser in my optical drive. But that turned out to be the sure cure for a stubborn problem I encountered recently, and I thought it might be worth sharing my experience here.

For the past month or so, I’ve been frustrated when trying to burn music CDs. In a typical session I might be able to burn one music CD successfully, but trying to burn another would fail. The writing software would hang or appear to complete successfully and then return a write error. In some cases the drive itself would lock up so tightly the disk couldn’t be ejected until a restart. The burned disks wouldn’t play back properly on any other device.

I probably turned 30 disks into coasters while investigating this problem, trying every troubleshooting trick I know to find the source of the problem. Converting the source files to WAV format and caching them locally didn’t help. The problem wasn’t software, either, as I found by repeating the issue with multiple burning programs, including Media Monkey and Easy Media Creator 10.

I knew the cause wasn’t the media itself (high-quality Sony disks). I also knew the cause wasn’t specific to my original test system, as the problem was reproducible with a clean install of Windows 7 on a separate PC from a different OEM using a different brand of CD/DVD burner. Both systems had plenty of RAM and fast quad-core CPUs and had burned plenty of CDs over their lifespan. Searching forums and support sites I found scattered reports of people with similar problems but little in common with my configuration. In fact, I found several posts from people who had experienced similar problems using OS X.

By this point I was beginning to suspect a conflict between Windows and the drive or drive controller—both drives were connected to a Intel ICH8R/ICH9R SATA controller using Intel Matrix Storage drivers.

To rule out the controller, I tried an external drive, using an LG combo Blu-ray reader and DVD writer. This SATA drive is mounted in an external enclosure with its own power supply, and I used the USB output to connect it to my Windows PC. This time I was able to burn multiple CDs in quick succession with no problems using every imaginable combination of file formats and software. But when I hooked up a second drive to a SATA-to-USB converter and tried using it as a burner, I got coasters again.

In several forum posts, I had read recommendations for special disks designed to clean the laser on a CD/DVD player/burner. I found this Memorex model at Amazon for $6.03 (the price has since risen to $7.98), and decided to take a chance. (This Allsop model costs about $5 more at Amazon but also gets excellent reviews.)

When I received the product and removed it from its packaging, I have to confess I was skeptical. It looks like a regular music CD with instructions on the label side and a half dozen small brushes arranged in a track on the bottom (shiny side) near the center of the disk. In Windows Media Player, it plays like a music CD, with 14 tracks that include audio instructions delivered in a friendly female voice, along with some test tones to help you determine whether your speakers are wired correctly.

After completing the entire suite of tests in 10 minutes or so, I popped in a blank CD, fired up Media Monkey, and told the software to burn a collection of FLAC files from a network location to CD, converting them to WAV files in a local cache on the fly. Surprise! The first disk burned just fine. As did a second, a third, and a fourth.

Still slightly skeptical, I ran the disk cleaner on my other test system and tried the same operation. The results were the same: 100% success using multiple disks, multiple burning programs, and multiple source file formats.

The Memorex marketing copy says the disk “has 6 ultra-soft brushes designed to safely remove dust and dirt from your CD/DVD player’s lens” and recommends using it “after every 10 hours of playback to ensure optimum laser performance.” Given my results here, I plan to do exactly that.

When Microsoft announced its intention to offer a Windows 7 Family Pack consisting of three upgrades to Home Premium edition for $150 or less, they warned that it was a “limited time offer.” Now we know just how limited it was.

Today, barely six weeks after the public launch date on October 22, Paul Thurrott reports that stocks of the Family Pack have “disappeared” in the United States. Sure enough, when I checked at Amazon.com, Newegg.com, and Walmart this morning I found that the Family Pack stocks are gone, and scalpers have moved in. Enterprising Amazon Associates are offering copies for $260 or more. Even Bing Shopping turns up only one seller with the product in stock, at $272, which is nearly double its list price.

For Microsoft, this decision is stupid and short-sighted. It’s guaranteed to bring them a boatload of ill will and bad publicity in the final three weeks before Christmas. It looks greedy and decidedly not “customer focused.”

When I asked a Microsoft spokesperson for comment, here’s what I was told:

The Windows 7 Family Pack was introduced as a limited time offer while supplies last in select geographies. Response has been very positive and in some cases, the offer has sold out.  Customers interested in upgrading their PCs should purchase Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate upgrade products.

I haven’t heard much about the Grinch lately. Now I know why. He’s been hanging out in Redmond, working on marketing plans and drafting statements for the press.

Humbug.

During the beta cycle for Windows 7, I noticed an interesting detail in Windows Update. If you’re offered a new driver file via Windows Update (or if you’re looking at the history of previously installed updates), there’s a link that offers to provide additional information about the driver. Here’s a recent example from an HP Pavilion Elite system:

The Winqual subdomain points to Microsoft’s Windows Quality Online Services site. The driver ID at the end of the URL is, presumably, a unique identifier tied to that driver. (I checked some other drivers, and they have different ID numbers.)

When I clicked this particular link, I expected to find information specific to the listed update: version number, a description of compatibility issues, a list of fixes, and so on.

Instead, I was redirected to a generic information page containing links to articles about how drivers work.

This is the exact behavior I saw during the beta cycle and after RTM. I expected the links to begin pointing to driver-specific information after Windows 7 was officially launched last month, but there’s still no live connection to the Winqual database.

A quick scan of Microsoft message boards reveals that I’m not alone in being confused and frustrated by these links that promise but don’t deliver.

Microsoft, what’s the story?

I’ve written about Office 2010 previously at ZDNet. Today, Microsoft officially released a public beta of Office 2010, with many of the features that were incomplete in the technical preview release enabled and some new features available as well.

I’ve been running Office 2010 for several months for daily use and have been very impressed. If you’re comfortable with beta software and understand the risks, I recommend giving it a try. But please, please don’t try this on a mission-critical PC!

I’ll have an in-depth look at the beta the week after Thanksgiving. (For you folks outside the U.S., that means the first week of December.)

If you’re an IT professional considering a move to Windows 7, I recommend a visit to IT Expert Voice:

IT Expert Voice is a resource for IT professionals who are concerned primarily with making technology work in their organizations, and in particular with deploying Windows 7 in a sane and trouble-free manner. The site, which is sponsored by Dell, aims to provide credible and useful information that helps you make good decisions. Our underlying assumption is that you are seriously considering a migration to Windows 7; we’re here to help you learn what you need to know for it to happen flawlessly.

Editor in Chief Esther Schindler has assembled an excellent and diverse lineup of contributors, including yours truly, My first contribution to the site is a look at a new Windows 7 tool designed to make it easier for nontechnical users and help-desk staffers to communicate with one another: Using the Problem Steps Recorder to Diagnose Problems Remotely. Go read my post and take a look around. There’s lots of great stuff there for anyone interested in Windows 7 at the enterprise level.

Full disclosure: As noted above, IT Expert Voice is sponsored by Dell in partnership with Federated Media, which provides advertising support for this site.

As I noted on Friday, Microsoft has finally released the tool needed to make any Windows 7 PC capable of using a digital cable tuner. They also released the required firmware for ATI CableCARD tuners via Windows Update. The Windows Media Center Team Blog has a full write-up on the Digital Cable Advisor tool and how it works, complete with screenshots.

I have two completely separate Windows 7 systems here that use ATI cable tuners. One system has a single tuner, the other has two tuners. In addition, each system has one or more over-the-air (OTA) and/or analog cable tuners. As of last night, I have done some testing and can report that everything works as promised. The biggest benefit is that many programs recorded on a CableCARD tuner can now be freely copied and shared.

Initially, I was puzzled that the Digital Cable Advisor wasn’t showing up in the Media Center Extras Gallery. The solution turned out to be pretty simple. The code arrives courtesy of Media Center’s download option, which also updates TV guide data. On one system, it appeared after a day and a half when the guide did its automatic update. On another system, which had never been set up for TV recording, there was no Extras Gallery at all. I fixed that by doing a manual download. From the main Media Center screen, choose Tasks, then Settings, General, and finally Automatic Download Options. You’ll find a Download Now button there. After the download was complete, the Extras Gallery appeared and the Digital Cable Advisor was available.

I ran this tool on the HP Slimline computer in the living room that I plan to use as our new main Media Center PC. It passed with flying colors. Meanwhile, back in my office, the other two PCs were busily recording programs from their attached cable tuners. Previously, anything recorded using the DCT was copy-protected, which meant that trying to use the Shared Libraries feature in Windows 7 would fail on content that was never intended to be copy-protected. Here, for example, is the listing for a copy of Late Night with David Letterman, recorded on a DCT before the updated firmware was made available:

If you try to play that program from a remote PC, you get a warning:

If you click Continue, the playback fails with this error:

But after applying the update, I was able to use the ATI CableCARD tuner in the office to record programs from sources such as high-definition broadcasts on local network affiliates and also from cable sources that don’t use copy protection, such as C-SPAN and MSNBC and play them back successfully over the network. Playback was smooth, glitch-free, and everything worked exactly as expected.

Unfortunately (but not unexpectedly), the new firmware and new rules have no effect on previously recorded programs. If you recorded a program last week or last month or last year on a cable tuner, it is copy-protected, and there is no way to remove that DRM. But going forward, sources that are marked Copy Freely will work as they should. Also, high-def premium channels such as HBO and Showtime are still copy-protected and cannot be played back except on the original PC where they were recorded, or on an extender device such as an Xbox 360 connected to that PC.

Still, this is a giant step forward for Media Center and a major cause for celebration. I’ll be discussing my Media Center systems in much more detail over the next few weeks and months and am especially looking forward to testing the new Ceton digital cable tuners when they are finally available.

Mike Garcen at Missing Remote just noticed that the long-awaited ATI CableCARD tuner update is finally available. I have two CableCARD-tuner-equipped systems here, one of which checked Windows Update this morning at 10:27 and found nothing. But when I checked manually just now, here’s what I found:

On my system, the firmware update completed without incident. I’ll be recording some shows tonight and checking to see whether the DRM rules really have been relaxed.

Update: Strangely, when you finish installing the update you are not told to restart the computer. But as I discovered through trial and error, the actual firmware installation doesn’t take place until you restart. After you log in following the restart, you’ll see the firmware being downloaded and installed to each attached ATI tuner. Still no sign of the Microsoft update tool in the Extras Gallery, though.

There’s also a tool available from Microsoft that reportedly allows you to attach a CableCARD tuner to any PC with sufficient horsepower without having to hassle with a special BIOS or activation. According to Mike’s report, the tool should show up in the Media Center Extras Gallery. I’m not seeing it here yet, unfortunately.

Missing Remote has a nice set of screenshots showing the Microsoft Digital Cable Advisor Tool in action. I’ll be calling my friendly local Comcast rep and scheduling a truck roll at the earliest opportunity so I can move those tuners to the small-form-factor PC in the living room and get the full Media Center experience on a big-screen TV instead of using an extender.

Ironically, just yesterday I sent a note to Edelman, Microsoft’s PR agency, asking when we could expect these components to arrive, I still haven’t heard back from them. Harrumph.

HP is doing something pretty smart this week, hosting a round-the-clock “Windows 7 Experts Day” on Thursday, November 5th, It starts at 12:01 am Eastern time and runs for 24 hours sraight.  The responders reportedly include more than 70 Windows 7 experts from HP, Microsoft and Symantec.

More information in this announcement on the HP forums. The event will be repeated (presumably live, with all new questions and answers) on November 19 and December 1.

I get lots of questions from readers about support for HP all-in-one printers and scanners, so this event should be especially good for you.

I dream of the day when all devices that have a clock also have a tiny radio connection that will automatically allow them to reset themselves for Daylight Saving Time. Meanwhile, I’m happy that my PCs do the job for me. Here’s what I saw when I clicked the clock in the Windows 7 taskbar a few minutes ago:

 

Continue reading “Daylight Saving Time” →

I just noticed this purchase option at the Microsoft Store:

Do you see the error? The packaging correctly notes that this is an upgrade from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium. There is no such thing as a “Home Starter” edition, which is noted on the order page at the Microsoft Store.

I find this particularly amusing when some Microsoft bloggers are lecturing the Windows community about being “hacks” who don’t understand this stuff.

Glass houses. Stones. Etc.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t that big a deal, of course, and this post is mostly tongue-in-cheek. But given the constant complaints that Windows has too many versions, it really would be wise of the webmaster who hit the Publish button on this store to make sure that they don’t actually create a brand-new (nonexistent) edition and confuse customers even more.