To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question. Well for some people, like me it really isn’t within my ability to decide. I’m currently working on a project for a client that has graciously outfitted me with a killer new laptop complete with all their fully licensed software so that I can work on a project for them. I know, most companies aren’t so gracious – but it came at a cost. Because I’m working in an IT group that is focusing on leading edge technologies I was told I would need to run Windows Vista 64-bit. At first I was very hesitant and continued working on my 32-bit for over a month. Then my lead finally asked me “have you upgraded yet?” and I had to sink down in shame and admit I was a little scared. After all, this is my production computer and I’m not a big advocate of using new software in production until all the bugs have been worked out. But will a little reassuring he convinced me it was time to upgrade. It’s been two months now, and I’ve only had to repair twice. Frankly, on a production machine that is twice too many for my liking, but at least I can say I was one of the few who went through the initial phase with Vista 64.

This week I received an email thread asking everyone to upgrade to SP1 – and again I’m on the “wait and see” fence. After several responses to the request I received an email listing all the great benefits of upgrading. I have had two major issues with my installation, one involving the sleep mode that it likes to go into and not come out of, and one with my USB devices. Both of which are supposedly fixed with SP1. I figure why not upgrade, it can only get better from here. Below is a list of some of upgrades of SP1. Just as a reminder, SP1 is still in beta and Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission critical systems. 

Hardware Changes

• Adds support for UEFI and GPT boot disks
• Adds support for x64 EFI network boot
• Adds 64-bit MSDASQL to bridge OLEDB and ODBC applications
• Adds DirectX 10.1
• Adds support for exFAT
• Adds support for SD Advanced DMA
• Adds support to create bootable DVDs for BIOS or EFI
• Adds new icons/labels for HD DVD and Blu-Ray drives
• Adds support for new types of Windows Media Center Extenders
• Enhances MPEG-2 decoding in Media Center
• Enhances desktop resolution adjustments with Windows Network Projectors

Application Compatibility

• Several compatibility updates released
• Vendors will have additional updates to enhance performance
• Pre-SP1 applications will not break with SP1 applied

Reliability Improvements

• Most common crashes and hangs resolved
• Enhances protection of NTFS data when ejecting media
• Improves IPv6 IPSec communication
• Resolves driver issues when machine sleeps
• Improves ad-hoc wireless connections
• Improves peer-to-peer connections
• Adds support for backing up EFS protected data
• Enhances the Startup Repair Tool (SRT)

Performance and Power

• Consumes less bandwidth during network browsing
• Improves power usage when screen does not change
• Resolves a video issue causing sleep problems
• Improves battery life with fix for hard drive spinning issues
• Improves speed in extracting ZIP files
• Significantly improves speed of moving directories with files
• Improves performance while copying files using BITS
• SP1 is 25% faster copying files locally on the same disk
• SP1 is 45% faster copying files from a non-Vista machine to SP1 machine
• SP1 is 50% faster copying files from a SP1 machine to another SP1 machine
• Improves responsiveness when manipulating media or files
• Improves the copy progress status
• Improves time to read large images by 50%
• Improves IE7 performance on JScript intensive websites
• Boots ReadyDrive machines faster
• Improves Resume process on ReadyDrive machines
• Enhances SuperFetch to improve Resume times
• Reduces the shutdown time by several seconds
• Improves time to resume by 18% in some cases
• Improves network detection and selection
• Improves login times for domain-joined machines not present on the domain
• Removes delay when unlocking machine
• RDP protocol has new compression algorithm reducing RDP traffic 25 – 60%

Security Updates

• Includes all previously released security updates
• Includes new APIs on 64-bit version for Kernel Patch support
• Improves security of RemoteApp programs
• Includes enhancements to DEP
• Enhances presentation of data in the Windows Security Center
• Improves authentication on wired network connections
• Adds security changes to enhance Smart Card usage
• Enhances BitLocker to allow encryption of non-system drives
• Enhances Online Certificate Status Protocol

New Technologies and Standards Added

• Crytographic support added for SHA-2565, AES-GCM, and AES-GMAC for ESP and AH; SHA-256 and SHA-384 for IKE
• Adds Elliptical Curve Cyptography (ECC) pseudo-random number generator
• Adds the Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP)
• Adds support for 802.11n wireless
• Adds support for the Windows Smartcard Framework for the EU
• Adds Digital Signature Directive and National ID / eID support
• Enhances the TCP Chimney card support
• Adds support for FIPS 104-2 wireless cryptographic processing
• Enhancements to Windows Firewall and IPSec for cryptographic changes

Desktop Administration and Management

• Disk defragmenting tools updated
• Adds Rights Management Services polling
• New Group Policies added to elevate permissions without Secure Desktop for Remote Applications
• Allows NAP client to get updates directly from Windows Update
• Allows NAP Heathy clients to connect to NAP unheathy clients
• Adds support for Web Services for Devices (WSD) Print Devices
• Improves printing to local printers though TS session
• Group Policy settings to control network interface naming
• Allows KMS to run in a virtual machine

Setup and Deployment Improvements

• Enhancements added for multi-lingual deployments
• Adds additional “hot” patching support to prevent reboots
• Allows 64-bit versions of Windows to be installed from the 32-bit GUI
• Improves patch deployments
• Reduces the total number of installers running during an installation
• Reduces OS installation time
• Improves the OS making it more resilient to unexpected power failures

General Improvements and Enhancements

• Desktop search can be replaced by 3rd party application
• 32-bit machines will properly report 4 GB of RAM (depends on BIOS)
• SP1 reduces number of UAC prompts for file/folder changes
• Reduced Functionalty Mode removed
• Improves compatibility with 3rd party scanning tools
• Users are now asked for a password hint when creating account

Okay, I don’t know how new you can claim to be when the announcement was made last November, but considering the time it takes to educate people on this new learning option, I would say the training industry is just beginning to implement Microsoft’s new online learning courses. I read one article that explained hands-on distance learning was a bit of an oxymoron. Yet that’s exactly what Microsoft Official Distance Learning (MODL) is. It’s a unique blended learning program that provides technical training to IT professionals and developers who want hands-on technical training and need the convenience of learning when they want, wherever they are.

MODL consists of instructor-led modules that are conducted via Microsoft Office LiveMeeting and spread over multiple days. The modules combine self-paced e-learning, real-life scenarios provide the hands-on learning opportunity, and feedback from assessments and peer interaction – a combination of instructor-based, self-paced and lab learning delivered to the desktop.

I’m sure it is in the plans to offer all of the current MOC courses in the MODL format, but as of now here’s the list of available courses. It looks like their initial focus was geared toward the engineering side of things offering Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 courses. I’m not sure yet if they will be offering the developer courses.

So, after a few months of playing around with Vista, and calling or emailing my trusted colleague on a regular bases we narrowed down most of the Vista compatibility issues I was having after upgrading my laptop. It looks like aside from Adobe Acrobat Writer I am back in business. I must admit that most of these issues were resolved much sooner than I thought. I believe this Windows Vista is here to stay.

Here’s the rundown…

? Quicken

Quicken claims that version 2005 & 2006 were tested with Vista. Quicken 2007 is the latest Vista version and it works (sort of) with Vista, according to this comment on the forum.

Palm Software

Palm has announced that they are fully committed to Vista support. Palm Desktop versions 4.1.4e and 4.2 will install on Vista and will synchronize Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Memos. Palm has an update for Outlook 2007 to HotSync Outlook Calendar. Read the DOs and DON’Ts carefully on this link. Here’s the link that has all Vista information related to Palm: http://www.palm.com/us/support/windowsvista/.

Camtasia

I have installed and tested the new Camtasia Studio 4 on Vista and it works fine.

x Acrobat Writer

Adobe has no immediate plans to make any of their software compatible with Vista (a really dumb decision because they will lose a lot of business).

Java and iTunes 

You might want to remove and reinstall Java Runtime. As far as iTunes download the new version 7.1.1. Here’s what Apple has to say “Apple has released a new version of iTunes that addresses a number of compatibility issues with Windows Vista. iTunes 7.1.1 is recommended for use with most editions of Windows Vista, however, Apple is actively working with Microsoft to resolve a few remaining known issues..”

Check out some of the new downloads for Visual Studio, 2007 Office, and Windows Vista.

So, in case you can’t tell, Windows Vista has been taking up a lot of my time. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I must admit I am learning a lot – and that I will never complain about. So I found this cool site for developers I thought I would share. Windows Vista and the .NET Framework 3.0 – Learning Portal for Developers.

So, as much as I say I love being on the leading edge of technology – there are things that I truly do love and things that I find challenging (not in a good way). Windows Vista has been one of my recent challenges and I will admit that overall the operating system is an improvement. But the drawbacks have not fully convinced me that everyone should upgrade. One of the challenges for developers is the amount of memory Vista uses just by itself. Try running Virtual PC and you may decide not to upgrade at all. But I would encourage you to continue your journey and utilize a couple of tricks to help the operating system work for you.

One trick I found early on is to increase the memory of your computer. You don’t have to go out and spend a ton of money. You can utilize a feature of Windows Vista called ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost allows USB flash drives to be used as memory and actually makes the machine run faster. When you insert your flash drive the computer will prompt you if you want to use it as ReadyBoost or not. Some older flash drives are not initially compatible with ReadyBoost. If you discover that is your issue then check out this article How to Force ReadyBoost on USB Drives.

I have for many years been developing in a virtual environment. I’ve tried VM Ware and Virtual PC and ended up with Virtual PC simply because it was free. So after years of happily coding in my virtual environments when I upgraded my PC to Windows Vista my virtual environments were painfully slow. I made no changes besides upgrading my operating system, but ultimately the virtual environment was so slow for me to work in that I once again thought about reverting back to Windows XP. Luckily I have a colleague in the industry that is a network geek, who continues to support my whining and provides me with viable alternatives.

This colleague recently attended the Microsoft MVP conference (as he is a MVP himself) and came across a plethora of resources. One of the Visual Studio MVP’s told him that if I were to run my virtual environments on an external USB flash drive it would be significantly faster. Although I had my doubts I had nothing to lose. And, turns out he was right. I have been running my virtual environments from a 350GB external drive and have had a much better user experience. In addition, what I love about having the external drive is that I have all of my virtual environments are no longer taking up oodles of space on my laptop. It turns out – I really like this solution. So, okay I’ll keep Windows Vista (for now).

If you have taken a look at Windows Vista then you have probably already discovered there are a few programs that are incompatible with the new operating system. Although not unexpected, I was a little surprised to find that the ActiveSync software no longer worked with the new operating system. Since I pretty much live and breathe by my Pocket PC phone I basically said if I can’t sync then I can’t upgrade.

Well, after I calmed down I was able to find a registry hack that allowed this new version of Active Sync, called Windows Mobile Device Center, to synchronize with my phone.

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft.
3. Right-click the Microsoft key and then select New, Key and add a key called WHOS.
4. Reboot your computer (some people have been able to get this to work without rebooting but I had to reboot to see the results).
5. Run Windows Update. You will notice a new update that will allow you to configure and synchronize using Windows Mobile Device Center. You should reboot again after the update.
6. Configure your mobile device and synchronize with your Windows Vista PC.