Chris123NT's Blog

As many of you know, I published an article a few years back telling everyone how to make WMP x64 the default in Windows Vista x64.  I had hoped at that time that Microsoft would have the sense to make the x64 player the default one in Windows 7.

Well not only did they fail to see why the 64 bit player should be the default, they also locked the user’s ability to switch the default player.  They locked the registry keys that the old Vista command altered.  Their excuse for this is that it “adds security” so that malicious code cannot modify the WMP play/enqueue commands.  Fine, I can buy that, but then alter the tool so that it can change those keys.  Well apparently this wasn’t on the timetable, and I decided to find a way around this, because after all, who wants to have to install TWO sets of codecs to watch stuff in Media Player (x86 player used by default) and also watch stuff in Media Center (which is x64).

So for those of you who recognize that the 64 bit media player SHOULD be the default in Windows 7, I have made a script with the help of Kristan Kenney that automates the entire process for you.  It unlocks the necessary registry keys, and then uses the old vista command to make the switch.  We have also included a script that allows you to switch back to the 32 bit player if you choose to do so.

So Microsoft, specifically the WMP team, you guys didn’t want to fix it, so we did it for you.  Now users can have some consistency in their 64 bit user experience.

NOTE: After changing the default Media Player to x64, remove the media player shortcut from the taskbar, start media player via the start menu and then re-pin it.  If you don’t do this you will see 2 WMP icons on your taskbar.

If anyone has any other questions or comments, either post in the comments section or contact me privately and I will answer them.

Download: Windows Media Player x64 Switch Script

So as we all know, Microsoft announced the pricing details for Windows 7 yesterday, and some people are already waving the Snow Leopard 29.99 upgrade price around.

ZDNet Blogger Ed Bott had taken the time to read the fine print on the Apple upgrade offer and has come to an interesting conclusion.  Windows 7 is CHEAPER than Snow Leopard for the majority of the market.

You see, you can only actually get Snow Leopard for that 29.99 price if you’ve bought an Intel based Mac AFTER October 2007.  Anything before that will cost you $169 and anything before 2006, well you’re SOL, no upgrade for you.  Kind of puts things in perspective doesn’t it?  At the end of the day the Microsoft offer is actually pretty darn good, at least it’s cheaper than Vista right?

Here’s a chart Ed made that breaks things down nicely:

Full Story: Ed Bott’s ZDNet Blog

So as we have all seen, the Windows 7 retail packaging is nice and simple, and easy to open.  What we haven’t see is the retail packaging for Anytime Upgrades if people choose to move up to a higher SKU of Windows 7.  Bryant over at AeroXP has posted some pictures of the packaging.

From AeroXP:

Just about everyone has seen the shots of the new Windows 7 retail packaging, but pictures of the new Anytime Upgrade packaging are much harder to come by. Nearly impossible to find are any current examples of the packaging besides press shots and renders, so having said that, here are a few good hands-on shots I managed to take.

(There’s nothing relevant inside the boxes themselves; just a fake key and a CD of Visio inside the retail box of which I was also taking some pictures.)

Have at it:

Source: AeroXperience

So today Brandon Leblanc over at the Windows Team Blog has officially revealed the packaging for Windows 7.  It looks exactly like the images that have been floating around for a while now, but the post also outlines how this new design is sleeker, lighter and easier to open.

From the Windows Team Blog:

Simple, Clean and Easy To Open…

We approached the packaging for Windows 7 the same way we approached the product – by listening to what our customers told us they wanted: make it a simple clean design, easy to open, and reduce waste.

Simple Design

Customers told us they liked the big bold Windows logo and how it clearly communicates that it’s Windows 7. They like larger typefaces to make it easy to read and they like background colors for each edition to make it easier to differentiate between Windows 7 Home Premium all the way to Windows 7 Ultimate. In their own words, the “clean” design gives off a “fresh” feel.

Make It Easy To Open

We’ve reduced the number of elements in the package down to three: the plastic case, the paper sleeve, and a simple Getting Started Guide. The plastic case opens easily like a standard DVD case and it will have a single easy-to-remove seal at the top – And that’s it!

Reduce Waste

The plastic case protecting the Windows 7 disk is lighter and is recyclable. The packaging itself has a 37% weight reduction and a 50% improvement on it’s econometrics score over the predecessor.

Essentially, this packaging is what customers told us they were most interested in picking up to learn more about Windows 7. We hope you do the same.

Look for the new Windows 7 packaging to hit this fall!

View: Original Post @ Windows Team Blog

As you all know, I posted last night that Microsoft have made the CEIP fix available through the action center.  So when you hit the bug it will actually pop up and tell you exactly how to fix it.

I want to pass on a message I received from a Microsoft employee.

The fix in the action center will be permanent, you will not have to repeatedly fix it.

Here is the statement from Microsoft on the issue, as seen on Mary Jo’s blog:

Microsoft deployed a configuration change which exposed this (installer) problem. New machines installing Windows 7 Beta will not experience this problem. An issue related to the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP also known as SQM) client in the Windows 7 Beta is causing crashes of Explorer, MSI-based installers and other applications. In order to resolve the issue, impacted customers need to run the following script from an elevated command prompt. This script will stop crashes related to CEIP and removes those changes (registry keys) to prevent further CEIP related crashes.

I recommend that you ALL turn the Customer Experience Improvement Program back ON.  In order to do that, do the following:

1. Open gpedit.msc
2. Expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand System, expand Internet Communication Management, and then click Internet Communication settings.
3. In the details pane, double-click Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program, and then click Disabled.

That’s it, that should turn CEIP back on, and with Microsoft’s published fix in action center you will be good to go.

NOTE: I have also updated the old post with the fix instructions as to no longer instruct people to disable CEIP.

So remember the issue I talked about two posts down about the Explorer and MSI crashes?  I was playing around tonight and made the issue happen again to test something, and this little guy popped up:

So as you can see, Microsoft have acknowledged the issue and posted the fix.  Looks familiar doesn’t it?

Also one thing I would like to note for everyone.  CEIP is one of Microsoft’s biggest avenues for feedback in betas especially.  You may want to turn it back on.  Although turning it back on may cause the issue to come back periodically, at least the action center will pop up telling you HOW to fix it now.

As many of you undoubtedly know already, in Windows 7 Beta 1, disabling UAC also causes the gadgets to stop working.  This can be very annoying, especially for the power users who turn off UAC, or for those who are turning it of in order to avoid that nasty token elevation bug that rears it’s ugly head out of random on some machines.

The reason for this is that Microsoft made the assumption that the sidebar process would never be run in an elevated state.  So when you try to start it with UAC disabled it detects that it would have to run elevated, so it just does nothing to abide by the pre-set rules set by Microsoft.  Thankfully there is an undocumented registry setting to correct this issue.

1. Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Sidebar\Settings
3. Create a new DWORD Value called AllowElevatedProcess
4. Set the value of the new DWORD to 1
5. Close the registry editor.  Your gadgets should work now.  No reboot or anything necessary.

So there you have it, an actual fix to the issue that doesn’t require swapping out the sidebar executable like some sites suggest *cough* mydigitallife *cough*.

Many users have started experiencing random crashing of explorer and msiexec.exe when trying to start Windows Update or install anything that uses an MSI based installer.  This issue is bad enough that some people have even formatted because of it, only to have it come back again.

Rafael has discovered that the fault lies with the SQM Client which is part of the Customer Experience Improvement Program.  It seems that ANY process that calls WinSqmStartSession in ntdll.dll will start crashing when MachineThrottling is enabled in the registry, which seems to happen as a result of CEIP running.

Use the following to fix the issue.

1. Open a Command Prompt as Administrator
2. Type reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f and press enter.
3. That’s it, no further action is necessary

Yet another Windows 7 build has escaped Sinofsky’s watchful eye, except this time the circumstances were a bit different.  This build was actually stolen off a machine on the WinHEC China demo floor by a few gutsy guys who decided to image one of the boxes.  This could explain some of the issues that I will outline further down.  Paul over at Geeksmack was kind enough to write up a little mini-review on this build so I figured I would post what he wrote and add a few things to it.  I’m really not going to do a full scale guide for this build because of how badly broken certain things are, it just isn’t practical for every day use.  So without further ado, on to the review after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

So, it seems that Mr BOFH is at it again.  In his “Windows 7 Exclusive” he claims that Microsoft will do away with the backwards Application compatibility that is currently present in Windows Vista.  I am here to assure everyone that this is NOT true.  Windows 7 will not be doing away with any backwards compatibility.  As a matter of fact it will be largely based on Vista so most things that work on Vista should naturally work on Windows 7.

Normally I don’t request these sorts of things, but I would like everyone to digg the story below to put an end to the lies and deceipt.  The digg article links back to Paul Thurrott’s blog where the original post about this beig utter bullshit was made.  Click the link below to go to the digg story and digg it .

DIGG THIS STORY