Tag Archives: software

EasyBCD 1.7.2 Released

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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EasyBCD 1.7.2 has just been released, and is available from download from the official EasyBCD download page.

EasyBCD 1.7.2 has only two minor changes, both of which involve the installer. The more important of the two involves the installer UI: Windows Vista SP1 broke the EasyBCD installer (buttons’ text was no longer legible), making it rather difficult to get on with using EasyBCD if you didn’t already have it installed.

Development of EasyBCD 2.0 is going well, betas should be available in the next month or so.

If you already have EasyBCD installed, you don’t really have to update.

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Vista SP1 Doesn’t Kill Software, Bad Coders Do

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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You can always trust The Register to do what it can to twist the facts into a nice, juicy headline. This time, it’s about Windows Vista SP1, and the very short list of software that’s adversely affected by its installation.

Don’t get this wrong: we’ve got our own reservations about SP1 (between performance and usability – or, more accurately, the lack thereof). But Microsoft is not to blame because certain system tools and utilities won’t run on Windows Vista SP1 when it’s released in March.

According to The Register, "Vista SP1 kills and maims security apps, utilities" and that it’s somehow Microsoft’s fault that antivirus/firewall software by BitDefender, Jiangmin, Trend Micro, and Zone Alarm no longer works on SP1 – but it seems they forgot to mention two facts:

  1. It’s bad coding habits that breaks these utilities.
  2. Thanks to pre-release builds of Vista SP1, all 5 malware-protection programs have updated versions available that are Vista SP1 compatible and shouldn’t give their users any problems come mid-March and SP1.

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Windows Vista SP1 Pre-Slipstreamed DVD Images Available

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Following the recent RTM of Microsoft’s long-awaited Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, Microsoft has created (for limited release) pre-slipstreamed installation media intended for the distribution of PCs with newly-installed copies of Windows Vista.

With Windows Vista, the process of slipstreaming a service pack is no longer as simple as it once was as a result of the new WinPE/WIM based installation procedure. Since the installation media is packaged as a filesystem image, it’s no longer as trivial of a matter to unpack, update, and repack the setup files and ensure they’d still work. With Windows Vista, the only way to create a slipstreamed installation DVD is to install Vista RTM, apply the service pack, then create an image from the newly-installed OS.

This new procedure has multiple drawbacks, including the fact that it can lead to huge installation media sizes, unnecessary bloat, and has been known to create compatibility issues – unless, of course, it’s Microsoft that’s making the image in the first place.

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Why Skype for Windows Mobile Sucks… On Purpose!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Skype is a great and most-useful program, and undoubtedly one of the revolutionizing services in the world of online communication. Windows Mobile (both versions 5 and 6) is an awesome examples of mobile productivity and portable office that fits in your pocket. But unfortunately, the two just don’t mix… not at all. Skype for Windows Mobile has been out for years now, and it’s completely unusable thanks to a problem that has yet to be addressed: it’s absolutely useless without a headset.

Skype doesn’t make this too obvious, but if you take a look at the Installation Instructions for Windows Mobile, you will find this:

At the moment, Skype calls only come through the loudspeaker or a headset. We’re working on this [emphasis added], but in the meantime, please use a headset for the best audio quality.

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Windows Vista SP1 RC1, Server 2008 Nov. CTP Released to Testers

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Microsoft [[MSFT]] has just released another version of its most-eagerly anticipated Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, labeled as Release Candidate 1; along with another build of Windows Server 2008: the November CTP. Both releases are available to official testers from Microsoft Connect.

This is the third SP1 release made “available” to the public, starting with the leaked build back in August, followed closely by the first official release of Windows Vista SP1 beta in September.

Vista SP1 RC1 (build tag: 6001-17042-071107-1618) has been available as both an slip-streamed ISO image and a standalone upgrade utility. The slip-streamed ISO image is available in either English or Japanese, while the upgrade utility supports the five main Windows Vista localizations (Arabic, English, French, German, and Japanese).

The Windows Server 2008 November CTP (build tag: 6001-17042-071107-1618) is only available as an ISO in English in multiple flavors (Web Server & Standard Edition) for multiple platforms (x86, x64, and IA64).

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Microsoft FastCGI Updated – But Should You Upgrade?

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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We previously covered the final release of the IIS FastCGI module, jointly developed between Microsoft and Zend… But just this week, Microsoft [[MSFT]] announced the availability of the RTM of the IIS FastCGI module.

So what’s going on? We’ve downloaded the current release (which, by the way, is not compatible with the old one, you must uninstall then install the new version) and checked the version number on \Windows\System32\inetsrv\fcgiext.dll – it came out to be 6.1.36.1.

By contrast, the version we downloaded and installed a month ago (which seems to have been dubbed the Go Live release) was checked and found to be 7.0.6001.16606.

Obviously the Go Live release was using the numbering from the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 releases, but it’s got us confused.

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Introducing the EasyBCD Debug Toolkit (and EasyBCD 1.7.1 Beta)

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Just a quick heads-up: EasyBCD 1.7.1 has entered the beta stage and can be grabbed at the usual beta builds thread.

EasyBCD 1.7.1 is a bugfix build that addresses two issues that have come up since our (most stable release ever!) 1.7 final a couple of months back. Perhaps you’ll find our new EasyBCD 1.7.1 Debug Toolkit to be of greater interest, though.

The all-new EasyBCD Debug Toolkit is a way to “trick” EasyBCD into seeing a system configuration that’s not really there. You just run EasyBCD with a command-line switch (/debugbcd and /debugbp) and you can then have it use fake info (in the form of a text file containing the stdout dump you’d like EasyBCD to see) instead of actually checking your current system configuration and going by those settings instead.

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Windows XP SP3 Beta (Build 3205) Released – Analysis Included

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Following our coverage of the Windows XP SP3 beta leak almost a month ago in August, here’s some more info on the official beta, which just had its first authorized distributable released earlier today. Say hello to Windows XP SP3, build 3205!

While Microsoft’s [[MSFT]] newly-released build and the one leaked a month ago (Build 3180) may share the same name, we can exclusively reveal that they are not identical releases. This release, also shipped as windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu.exe, is 334.2 megabytes and has been made available to tier-one Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 beta testers. Hashes are as follows:

CRC: 56e08837
MD5: c8c24ec004332198c47b9ac2b3d400f7

Along with the standalone installer redistributables (in English, Japanese, and German), Microsoft also provided the usual release notes and a list of all the hotfixes included in this release. Contrary to popular belief, Windows XP SP3 does ship with all-new features – not just patches and hotfixes, most of them backported from Windows Vista:

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Internet Explorer 7 “Updated” – But Not Really…

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Steve Reynolds, program manager of the Microsoft [[MSFT]] Internet Explorer development team, has just announced an “update” of sorts to Internet Explorer 7 a year or so after its original release in 2006. Never mind the fact that we were promised regular updates and that “Internet Explorer 7 won’t be like IE6” with regards to lack of new features and updates, what’s up with the list of the things that have changed with this new version!? Have a look for yourself at the “changelog:”

  1. No need for WGA verification in order to get Internet Explorer 7
  2. The menu bar is now visible by default.
  3. The Internet Explorer 7 online tour has updated how-to’s. Also, the “first-run” experience includes a new overview.
  4. We’ve included a new MSI installer that simplifies deployment for IT administrators in enterprises. Learn more about it here.

Interesting… Here’s our take on these “updates” 

  1. It really shouldn’t have required WGA in the first place – Microsoft (for some odd reason) guarantees users of pirated versions of Windows “immediate” access to any security-related patches, upgrades, and hotfixes. Doesn’t Microsoft tout Internet Explorer 7 as a security-prioritized upgrade?
  2. Noooo! We love the hidden menu bar! It’s clean, it’s clutter-free, and it gives IE7 a great look. Obviously the reason they’ve put it back is that users had trouble getting the menu to show (hint: press `alt` to make it appear), but who actually uses the menu bar anyway?! At least make it a first-run option… please? Sure, you can make it hidden again by flicking a switch in the options panel, but that’s just so wrong on so many levels…
  3. Not exactly what we’d call an upgrade to Internet Explorer itself so much as it is an improvement to the external documentation. It’s just a file hosted on MS servers that users can opt to view.
  4. Nothing more than an upgrade to the packaging/deployment for Internet Explorer 7, albeit a most-welcome one for sysadmins and software integrators everywhere.

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EasyBCD 1.7 Released & Up for Download!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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 Go and grab yourself a fresh, hot, right-out-of-the-compiler copy of EasyBCD 1.7 before your old bootloader realizes what hit it! Another release of EasyBCD is now available after months of beta testing and – in true NeoSmart fashion – brings dozens of new features and innovative ideas to the table; this time with even more versatility than ever.

Yes, there was a name change. Those of you keeping track of our beta builds are almost certainly wondering what happened to EasyBCD 1.61. To be totally honest here, it was supposed to be released 4 months ago – soon after the 1.6 release back in May. But we got caught up adding a couple of tiny features here and there, and before we knew it, we had a full-blown new version at our hands and not knowing what to do with it – so it’s just shipped as EasyBCD 1.7.

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