Robert McLaws: Windows Vista Edition - All Comments

re: Windows 3.11 Reaches End-Of-Life (Seriously)

rajan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:54:56 GMT

i use to have windows 3.1 on my ole system .. but since it died i no longer have it ..it was a wonderful OS..

is there still a place where i can get support for it or download it

re: Windows 3.11 Reaches End-Of-Life (Seriously)

Nicholas — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:21:20 GMT

i have windows 3.11 installed on my vintage toshiba Satellite Pro T2155CDS...i use it all the time. i have a HUGE collection of old dos games :)

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

Alex G — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:20:12 GMT

After reading all of the blog posts and discussions about this blunder, I have come to the decision that I won't be using WMC anymore, MS simply does not care at all about what the end user wants. MS is a giant, they have the power to tell media companies how their content will be handled, but they are too worried about not upsetting those content providers. I will switch over to mediaportal or SageTV or maybe even scrap my Vista HTPC and go mac. I was really excited for DirecTV support, but if its exclusion from this update is truly due to a strategic decision, I am done.

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

sharkboy — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:28:02 GMT

I think Microsoft is keeping this quiet because it is not fully baked and they do not want to create a negative media buzz for a work in progress. I think that they learned their lesson from Vista. The Vista beta experience was horrible. Based on the Betas it was something to stay away from. It was slow and unstable and did not seem to give you much in return. The Vista RTM on the other hand is not so bad. It is faster then XP on all of the systems where I have dual boot and there is allot of value. Overall 100% better then XP especially on 64-bit. If they had not allowed the betas out to the general public they would have had a much more positive launch.

You job as a beta tester (or User Acceptance Tester) is to try this out and communicate it's short comings to Microsoft. If the product sucks, let them know. If they get allot of negative feedback they can either fix the product or cut their losses and dump it.

BTW

What I would like to see with Media Center is

- Sync with Zune rather then having to the use the Zune App.

- Verizon Fios support (they do not have program guides for Fios which means I can not use the Media Center UI for changing channels)

re: Enabling Bluetooth on Windows Server 2008

Jon — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:42:26 GMT

@David

Extract rfcomm.sys and tdibth.inf from the following ZIP file to your C:\BT folder

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\tdibth.inf_d60a0513

Edit tdibth.inf and change the 1 to 3 like below

%MfgName% = Msft,NTamd64...3

[Msft.NTamd64...3]

RFCOMM should now install just fine, it worked for me anyway just like Nick said.

@ROBERT

A) Thank you!

B) Any chance of including those two files in your zip file for other people??

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

William — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:09:48 GMT

Well. Shocking that you cannot stream DVDs to media extenders. Presently I have a collection of DVD's on my hard drive (.vobs) in VIDEO_TS folders. I disovered a little work around that enables me to use WMP11 to stream DVDs to my PS3. I just use a join program to join the .vobs into one file and then rename that file .MPG. Hey presto I can stream the DVD. Unfortunately it causes problems with lack of chapters and fast forwarding, but if you just want to watch a DVD from start to finish it works perfect.

I really don't understand why they wish to cause people these kinds of problems (not being able to stream DVD's)?? Its obvious that they have designed it to be user unfriendly. You can rename a .vob as .mpg and stream that, so why not just enable the streaming of .vobs?

This kind of attitude makes people want to break the law by turning to torrents and getting divx versions of their films. (On my machine I can download a film quicker than I can convert one of my original DVDs into divx, you see where I am coming from...)

What I want is to be able to stream my DVD collection to any TV in the house with the minimum of fuss, likewise with any recorded TV show. It should just record what I ask it to. Verbatim. And then play it back when I want. It is not upto Microsoft if I am breaking any laws by doing this. That is my choice. And if there are any laws that are preventing me from doing this, they need to be scrapped.

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

Charlie K — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:37:40 GMT

The Vista "Windows Media Center" is a very bad application suite from the usability standpoint. As far as usefullness, it can be compared with another Microsoft past failure, "Bob"

The refusal of Microsoft to include clear Quam Cable support will kill the media center.

At the current time, OEMs are more than doubling the cost of systems that have no additions other than a TV card (est street price ~$150) and the necessary software and BIOS mods to make the system compliant with all the requirements for full digital and analog TV use.

First, the FCC OK's the use of the "broadcast flag", which, since compatable equipment is not generally available for sale to the consumer, locks the cable customer into rental fees, and prevents the keeping of a full resolution copy.

Next, Microsoft has obviously jumped on the make more money from the consumer with hype, and deliver reduced content wagon . (Vista & Fax, now reduced feature TV capability. What next?)

re: Windows 3.11 Reaches End-Of-Life (Seriously)

Mr. Peabody — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:50:17 GMT

I use Windows 3.11 (WFW) daily to run programs for consulting jobs. Because the laws of physics don't change, I am able use apps that I have used for ten or more years to beat the competition by wowing the customer with solid answers in minutes. Virtual Machine is allowing me to run Windows 3.11 on my Mac, Toshiba with Vista and soon my new Netbook on Linux. Vista won't run any of my apps that pay the bills. Mac lets me use Windows 3.11 wirelessly. Looking forward to a two pound Netbook, allowing me to work and play from anywhere and be solar powered.

See you on the beach,

Mr .Peabody

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

John — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:40:24 GMT

Imaging my suprise when 500 gigabytes of expensive videos on an external hard drive became blocked by the blue screen of DRM death. This happened because my system hard drive died, and I replaced it. I thought it was safe on an external drive. Now it is full of unreadable files. The Vistal Ultimate DRM system is crap, worthless, buggy, and only hurts the honest people. Pirates will laugh at it. I paid for two versions of Vista Ultimate. What a waste. Just now I went into the services.msc and permamently disabled my media center forever. I will go to a DRM free PVR somewhere else. Forget Vista Media Center. The DRM is dangerously unstable and renders perfectly legal files completely and permanently dead.

John.

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

FNash — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:45:13 GMT

Grea post. I agree totally as well. It leaves people like me out in the cold. I don't buy anything OEM except laptops. I would rather build the system I want, which allows me to remove the already good RAM, hard drives, video, sound, etc from previous PC and move it to the new one I'm building. Now, just because I am smart enough to do these things for myself, I get shafted by MS by not being offered the ability to install the latest WMC for myself. Now, that's just plain rude!

re: New Releases: SQL 2008, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, VS2008 SP1, and more!

free ipod touch — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:26:40 GMT

Thanks for sharing these links Robert! Keep up the blogging. Blog on. :)

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

pip — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:34:17 GMT

I have a vista ultimate 64 PC and 2 xbox 360 using as a media center extender. So i need to use the media center. If this was not the case i would switch to media portal. I'm really disaponted at microsoft and the whole vista. I need vista to be compatible with most games, software and hardware. Else i would switch to linux or mac os. I think it would be beter for the consumers if there was a other operating system that has it all and more then vista. I would uninstall vista in a heartbeat and go to the other operating system. I can't understand the dicision that microsoft are making. The see VMC as the lowest priority. But for consumers this is have the highest priority to buy vista ultimate. To be sure you get all the VMC updates for free. The took more then 2 years and this is what we get?!? What a ripp-off. And we even can't get it, because it's only for OEM. My PC is just 3 months old with vista ultimate installed and i need to buy a new one to get the Media center TV pack 2008. Ooooh, sure microsoft. My money is burning in my pockets. I just want to buy a new PC with vista ultimate installed every time you make a new upgrade like office, windows media player, Ooooh, and the new internet explorer 8. Does this also need a new PC?!? Can i replace my PC about every half year? I already installed a a RTM from internet, but i removed it. It added almost nothing, only teletext was back for my floppyDTV cable. It crashed my computer many times, because my processor worked overtime. Later i founded out why. It is a 64 bits AMD TV pack. And i have intel.

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

ScottKin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:52:12 GMT

I wonder how much trouble MY comments are going to get me into...let's have a go at it, shall we?

(The following comments are from me, and do not reflect the sentiments of Robert McLaws)

Microsoft - The only chance you have to redeem yourselves and not sow the seeds of a major customer-loyalty meltdown is the following:

1) FIX WMC "Fiji" so that there IS NO DIFFICULTY in compatability with WMC / Diamond and Fiji

2) FIX WMC "Fiji" so that there IS NO DIFFICULTY in compatability with WMC / Diamond and Fiji

3) FIX WMC "Fiji" so that there IS NO DIFFICULTY in compatability with WMC / Diamond and Fiji

For good measure, do the following:

1) FIX WMC & "Fiji" so your loyal customers who happen to have XPMC-compatable Extenders like the HP X5000 Extender won't have to add more toxic chemicals to landfills or streams & rivers in China & Taiwan.

It's truely sad when someone such as I (one of the most loyal Microsoft users around) is actually thinking that MythPC or Apple TV is becoming more and more acceptable.

In conclusion, this has really soured me on WMC. I'll begrudgingly continue to use it, but to see what MIGHT be possible from the folks at 1 Microsoft Way and then see that pissed away because some marketing twit wants to aim this segment into another direction (read "cash cow") and capitalize on the upwardly-mobile-vastly-disposable-income segment instead of the people who have shown their loyalty over the decades.

Maybe what we're experiencing is "dogfood in reverse"?

--Scott Kindorf

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

MikeM — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:08:49 GMT

Good info to know... Looks like I'll be on MCE 2005 for a while longer.

I've been a user since MCE2004. I upgraded to MCE2005 and held there, tried Vista ultimate but my tuner wasn't supported. Why should I upgrade perfectly good gear when the functionality remains basically the same????

Since I'm already a switcher (new MBP 17") the only reason I haven't completely switched is because of the My Movies add-on. My HP z545 gear is getting tired. I'm just waiting for Steve to tweak Apple TV.

re: WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

Robert McLaws — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:42:29 GMT

Well Jay, that's what I was alluding to at the end of the column, but I don't know that it needs to go that far yet. I think MS should be given the opportunity to correct this problem first.

Besides, somehow I don't think MS would be interested in giving me any more information EVER if I was sited as the cause for a lawsuit.