Tag Archives: windows xp

EasyLDR and EasyBCD 2.0′s New XP Support

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At NeoSmart Technologies, we’re not just about making cool software that makes your life easier – we also like to share the how and why behind our work, to make things all the more beneficial for one and all. While the EasyBCD documentation has been out of date for a while now (we’ve been too busy working on the code and support), we’re making a real effort to bring things up to date.

We’d previously finished the tutorials for dual-booting Windows 7 with Windows XP and with Ubuntu 10 (complete with picture-by-picture steps!), but now we’re getting started on the real meat: the technical details of just what exactly is going on behind the scenes. The normal OS boot process is one of the most complicated parts of an operating system with just one OS in the mix – with multiple operating systems, each that works in its own way, things get that much more complicated, and it’s always good to have a nice, illustrated guide to refer to.

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The Woes of Windows Vista/7 Mapped Network Drives

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One of the biggest, bestest, and most-hyped features of Windows Vista (according to Microsoft, that is) was the brand spanking new TCP/IP networking stack. Ask us, it sucks. Network performance hasn’t improved any over the ancient stack used in XP (nor should it – it’s not like there’s anything new in IPv4) though it does add better IPv6 support out-of-the-box and ships with some even more functionality in Windows 7. But more importantly, Microsoft threw out decades of testing and quality assurance work on the existing Networking Stack and replaced it with something rather questionable.

We’ll be following up some more on this topic from a technical side later in another article, but for now, an example that most of you are sure to have come across if you’ve ever tried to map network drives before:

This popup is shown at system startup if you have any mapped network drives to UNC shares which are not protected with a username and password. If you map a network destination that does require authentication, Windows will map the drive OK. To further complicate matters: this message is shown only when you startup from a cold boot! If you restart your PC (vs shutdown and powerup), it won’t appear.

Resolving the issue is straight-forward enough: just double-click on the network drive in My Computer and it’ll automatically, instantly, and silently connect. Which makes one wonder why Windows couldn’t connect in the first place.

Good question.

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Don’t Forget About the Dual-Booters!

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InfoWorld has an article out today wherein Randall Kenney of the “Windows Sentinel” team (a program used to monitor system settings and performance to provide aggregate data for analysis) trashes end-user uptake of Windows Vista by revealing that 35% of surveyed PCs that ship with Vista have downgraded to Windows XP.

While that’s a stunning number of Vista-only OEM machines running Windows XP, Mr. Kenney seems to have forgotten about those of us that dual-boot. As champions of dual-booters everywhere, we’ve got to put our two cents in here.

If you keep in mind the type of people who would install the Windows Sentinel tool and take part in such a geeky program you’ll realize that it’s not too out there for a good number of these people to be the kind that run multiple operating systems on their machines.

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Connecting to WPA2-Secured Wi-Fi with Windows XP x64

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A while back, we reported on how if you’re a Windows XP x64 user, Microsoft didn’t think you needed the additional Wi-Fi security offered by the WPA2 encryption protocol – which just happens to be one of the only two non-trivial Wi-Fi protection scheme available at the same time. Well, chin-up, because if you’re a Windows XP 64-bit Edition user, you can now up that security level on your router and enjoy WPA2-encrypted networking bliss.

That’s right, 64-bit users can now use WPA2 just like the rest of the world has been doing (including Linux x64 users, OS X users, Windows XP 32-bit, and just about every other operating system on the planet). It seems that Windows XP x64 SP2 includes the hotfix, which Microsoft still refuses to release separately, though the 32-bit version was released as a hotfix two years before XP x64 SP2 was made available.

Anyway, all you need to do to be able to connect to WPA2-encrypted networks is download and install Service Pack 2, then connect using your Wi-Fi connection tool of choice, including the Windows Zero-Configuration Wi-Fi module.

You can read the official release notes for Service Pack 2 – just skip down to the “Wireless Protected Access 2″ section and read. Congratulations Windows x64 users, and welcome to the world of the secure. Say thank you to Microsoft for giving you their blessing to enter, but be careful, the party is almost over. So much for a 64-bit future – and Microsoft wants to make Vista the last 32-bit operating system. Scary.

Hat-Tip: Dan