Windows

I got so frustrated with the NCP VPN client software, specifically a recent update, that I decided to let my frustration out by writing about it. For a long time I used the, IT approved, Cisco VPN client to access our corporate network. And as the OS technology moved along, so did my systems, meaning Vista, Windows 7, and 64-bit. While, for the most part, our IT approved systems remained to be only 32-bit XP. Cisco, for some reason, maybe they are representative of IT organizations as a whole, was late to support Vista, was late to support Windows 7, and for the longest time never supported x64. ...

While shopping on Amazon I noticed that they were offering the Pilot of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie in HD for free, so I decided to give it a try. The install (version 2.0.1.95) went smoothly, and the 1.3GB download also completed pretty quickly, and I watched the show. Ok, now I wanted to stop the Unbox player service from running and terminate the tray icon application, I have no need to have it running all the time. ...

I was trying to install SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 R2 RC. But, when I launch SETUP.EXE, Windows warns me that SQL Server is not compatible with Windows Server. If I ignore the warning, the install proceeds but then fails to install .NET 3.5. After a little searching and experimentation I found a way to install without any problems: 1. Create a slipstreamed SQL Server 2008 SP1 install, follow the instructions here. I set my PCUSOURCE=".\PCU" and that worked fine. 2. Add .NET 3.5 by going to server manager and adding the .NET 3.5.1 feature. 3. Install by running SETUP.EXE. ...

I am currently importing a few thousand email messages from Outlook 2007 to my email account hosted on Google Apps. Google provides an Email Uploader utility, and it is easy to use, but getting it to work with Outlook 2007 on Vista x64 was less than trivial. The utility installed fine on my Vista x64 system, but it found no mailboxes to import. A little research showed that several other people using Vista x64 and Outlook 2007 have exactly the same problem. ...

I noted my troubles with the Intel GMA drivers, the Intel DG33TL motherboard, and Vista SP1 blue screen crashing in my earlier post. Since I was running the 15.8 version of the Intel GMA drivers, and Microsoft KB948343 indicates that, based on the driver version numbers, these newer drivers should not be affected by SP1, yet the crash details were clearly the same, and no new driver was forthcoming to correct the blue screen crash, I decided to take the GMA drivers out of the picture. ...

I received my new Lenovo ThinkPad T61 notebook, pre-installed with Vista Ultimate, but also with 3rd party software I did not care for. I wanted a clean Vista install, and that is exactly why I made sure to order the recovery media with the notebook, thinking that this would include an OS install DVD. It turns out that the recovery media is six CDs, I don’t know why not a DVD, regardless, the recovery media does not include a Vista install DVD. ...