Windows Vista alerted me this morning that a solution was available to a problem I experienced yesterday.

KB941649 is another in a series of “compatibility, reliability, and stability” updates and is available in versions for both x86 and x64 Vista systems.

Here’s a list of what it is intended to fix:

It extends the battery life for mobile devices.

It improves the stability of portable computers and of desktop computers that use an uninterruptable power supply (UPS).

It improves the reliability of Windows Vista when you open the menu of a startup application.

It improves the stability of wireless network services.

It shortens the startup time of Windows Vista by using a better timing structure.

It shortens the recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity.

It shortens the recovery time when you try to exit the Photos screen saver.

It improves the stability of Windows PowerShell.

It also resolves these issues:

A compatibility issue that affects some third-party antivirus software applications.

A reliability issue that occurs when a Windows Vista-based computer uses certain network driver configurations.

There is one caveat in the online documentation that applies to systems with the (presumably rare) combination of an older AHCI BIOS and certain CD or DVD drives. According to the article, this issue causes this system configuration to hang at startup after applying the update. The fix is to boot from the Vista DVD and run repair.

This is officially released code, so I can recommend it without reservation. It seems to have had a positive impact on my startup times already.

If you love to tinker with Microsoft software, you really should have a TechNet Plus subscription. For $349 ($249 to renew), you get a year-long subscription that gives you the right to download, install, and activate just about every piece of software that Microsoft makes: every edition of Windows Vista (including Ultimate and Enterprise), Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, every member of the Windows Server family, nearly every member of the Office family, and a slew of tools.

You can get more details on this TechNet Plus overview page, but what you won’t find there is this $100 off coupon, which I found courtesy of Kevin Remde. Enter the coupon code TMSAM08 when you place your order, and that $349 first-year price tag shrinks to $249. (Sorry, this offer is good only in the U.S., and it expires in May 2008, so don’t wait too long.)

A few more details:

• The software is licensed for evaluation only, but it has no time bombs, so even if you choose not to renew, you can continue to use it. (Want more details about licensing? Read this FAQ.)
• You also get access to beta software, such as Windows Server 2008.
• Each annual subscription includes two complimentary Professional Support incidents, which would normally cost $59 each.
• You get access to managed newsgroups, where you’re guaranteed an answer within one business day.

I’ve been a TechNet subscriber for three years, and it’s really a fabulous deal. In fact, for the work I do it’s indispensable. More questions? Hit the comments and ask away.

Looks like I’ll have a full day (and evening) in Chicago early next month. Any suggestions on what to do? Any interest in a geek dinner, Windy City-style?

I was excited to see a fresh round of updates (beta releases) in the Windows Live family last month, notably Windows Live Writer and Windows Live Photo Gallery. After using both on Vista x86 machines, I can give a big thumbs-up to those two programs in particular.

So it was colossally disappointing to see that all of the new releases are designed to work only with the Windows Live Suite Installer, which refuses to run under Vista x64. There’s nothing incompatible about the programs themselves; it’s only the new unified installer that’s standing in the way. Well, that and the fact that Microsoft doesn’t support installing them on x64.

Fortunately, there’s a workaround, as explained by the gang at LiveSide. Because I had already downloaded the files to my x86 machine, here’s how I added the Live Suite apps to my x64 machine (usual disclaimers apply – this is beta software, the configuration is unsupported, don’t ask me for help if it screws up your system, etc.):

1. On the x86 machine, open an elevated Command Prompt window (click Start, type cmd, and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter).
2. Type the following command:
   start %systemroot%\system32\config\systemprofile\appdata\local\windowsliveinstaller
   and press Enter. (The only space should be between Start and the long path name.) This opens Windows Explorer to the folder containing the downloaded Windows Live installer files. [*]
3. Copy the MsiSources folder to a location that is accessible to your x64 machine. A shared network folder or a thumb drive works well.
4. On the x64 machine, open the shared folder and choose one of the Microsoft Installer Package (*.msi) files to install or update each program, one at a time.

Before attempting to install Windows Live Photo Gallery, download and install the SQL Server Compact Edition Runtime. If you skip this step, you’ll get an error message when you try to open the newly installed Photo Gallery.

Alas, the installer package files are not named in any friendly way. Instead, each is in the format Install_{GUID}.msi, where GUID is a 32-bit alpha numeric string.

To choose the right installer, match the first eight characters in the GUID with the program it contains, as found in this list:

• 1F973A7F – Windows Live Writer
• 508CE775 – Windows Live Messenger
• AA436FBD – Windows Live Photo Gallery
• C6876FE6 – Windows Live Toolbar
• CB5EA99C – Windows Live Sign-In Assistant
• EDB619FD – Windows Live Mail

I’ve currently installed the Writer and Photo Gallery betas as well as the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant. The Messenger update threw a confusing network error message when I first tried to install it. The workaround, as it turned out, was to right-click the installer package file and choose Repair. Go figure.

Now, if I could just get an x64-compatible Windows Home Server connector…

[*] The reason I recommend using a Command Prompt in Step 2 instead of trying to open the folder directly in Windows Explorer has to do with file permissions and UAC. If you try to open this folder in Windows Explorer directly, you’ll get a confusing series of error messages and you might end up resetting the permissions on a system folder to something less than secure.

In a comment to my earlier weather-related post, Chris asks:

Is that a special Vista weather gadget? It looks way better than the default one as it has some forecasting too. I tried looking for it but didn’t find anything. Any pointers?

That’s actually the standard Vista weather gadget. So why does mine look different from yours? There’s a good opportunity to introduce the concept of undocked sidebar gadgets.

By default, adding the weather gadget to the Vista sidebar produces a tiny display like this one:

You get the current temperature, the city name, and an icon indicating the general weather conditions (in this case, clear and daytime – a moon icon would appear if it were after dark). You can’t do anything else with this icon. There’s no easy way to see a more detailed view of current conditions or get to a multi-day forecast.

Unless, of course, you drag the icon off the sidebar. When you release it over the desktop or any running program,, you get a much larger gadget:

This view has a three-day forecast and the day’s high-low range. Most importantly, that city name is a live link that takes you to the MSN weather page for the location. (To reset your default location, let the mouse pointer hover over the gadget until a small toolbar appears in the top left corner. Click the wrench icon and enter your zip code or city.)

Having the weather gadget on the sidebar is convenient because you always see it. By contrast, when the gadget is floating, it is usually covered by open windows. To bring the gadget to the top, press Windows logo key+spacebar.

Once you learn that keystroke combination, it’s usually pretty easy to have the best of both worlds. Keep the gadget on the sidebar to see the small display. Drag it onto the desktop when you want more details, and drag it back onto the sidebar when you’re done.

Update: Another alternative, recommended by Robert in the comments, is the WeatherBug gadget. When I looked at it, I found aWeather Channel gadget, which has a cool fly-out forecast menu.

Mary Jo is right. This new [actually nine months old – who knew?] advertising campaign for Windows Vista is truly lame. Whoever approved it should be sentenced to six months of focus groups.

The wind is howling, and the snow is blowing sideways at the moment. None of is is actually sticking to the ground, and this cold front looks like it will pass quickly. But still…

Those of you in Florida and Arizona may now commence gloating.

Last week I mentioned the plunging price of USB flash drives. This week, while clearing some old papers, I discovered a really sharp indicator of how much monitor prices have dropped in recent years.

Back in April 2000, I bought a 15-inch TFT flat panel display with a native resolution of 1024×768. With tax and shipping, it cost $727.17 (that’s $880 in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars.)

Earlier this month, I picked up a 24-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1920×1200 (1080p capable, DVI/HDCP input). It cost $377. On raw pixels alone, that’s nearly 6 times the display area for less than half the price. And we won’t even talk about the differences in color depth or high-definition performance.

Amazing.

Over at ZDNet, I’ve posted the first results from the digital media ethics poll I ran last week. One question involved an issue over which there is almost literally no disagreement. Out of 8,917 votes cast, 98% agreed that when you buy a music CD, you’re buying the rights to play back that performance any way you want, on any media, at any bit rate, as long as it’s for your personal use. According to the RIAA, you don’t have a right to do any of that stuff. In my post, I argue that that is an extremist point of view, and the entertainment industry and its customers are about as far as it’s possible to get on the basic issue of how they want to do business.

The super-consolidated corporate entertainment industry leaves me mostly cold. I’ve been a music fan for as long as I can remember, but in the last few years my tastes and my experiences (and my purchases) have evolved away from the big corporate labels. Most of the new music I listen to these days is from independent artists, purchased from eMusic or from independent sites or on CDs from small labels. I’ve picked up a few albums at Amazon’s new music service and generally enjoyed the experience. I buy relatively few CDs from RIAA labels anymore, compared to the indies. There are more than 17,000 tracks in my music collection, and there’s not a single DRM-protected music track in the bunch.

Every month it seems to get a little easier to find good music in places where the RIAA isn’t involved. I’ve found a lot of artists whose work I love, and I’ve followed links from those artists to discover others that share a style or genre or even a few band members. I probably wouldn’t have done that if the RIAA had offered me better options.

Plus, most of those artists tour regularly, and they tend to play in small venues rather than in giant arenas. In my experience, the indie music scene has gotten far more interesting lately, and my life is richer for that.

So thanks, RIAA, for helping me discover a world that’s much more interesting and enjoyable than the one you’re trying to sell me.

Microsoft security guru Steve Riley says don’t believe everything you read about security on wireless networks:

Hiding an SSID will not hide a wireless network, so ignore any such advice — and it’s amazing how often I continue to see this. By the way, also ignore any advice that says to use MAC address filtering.

Unfortunately, as I learned long ago, it’s nearly impossible to kill bad advice, which tends to take on a life of its own. I just Googled “wireless security” and three of the top five articles included these two bogus tips. Fortunately, item 6 on the list was George Ou’s “The six dumbest ways to secure a wireless LAN”, which debunks these two tips and four others for good measure.