New Sysinternals utility released today, Disk2vhd v1.0 – Yes, creating a VHD from a physical hard drive, even an online one, is now a couple clicks away…

Sysinternals - Disk2vhd v1.0

“By Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell

Published: October 7, 2009

…

Introduction

Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).

The Disk2vhd user interface lists the volumes present on the system:

…

Note: do not attach to VHDs on the same system on which you created them if you plan on booting from them. If you do so, Windows will assign the VHD a new disk signature to avoid a collision with the signature of the VHD’s source disk. Windows references disks in the boot configuration database (BCD) by disk signature, so when that happens Windows booted in a VM will fail to locate the boot disk.

Disk2vhd runs Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher, including x64 systems.

…

…”

This looks AWESOME for Win7/Windows Virtual PC usage…

(via @jamestenniswood – Fantastic utility for Window 7 users... Disk2vhd http://ow.ly/teMr)

Windows XP Mode & Windows Virtual PC RTM are now both available on MSDN Subscribers Downloads…

MSDN Subscriber Downloads (product availability depends on your subscription program details)

Looks like Windows XP Mode RTM and Windows Virtual PC RTM are both now available via MSDN Subscribers Download.  :)

“We are not worthy… We are not…” – The Gu-ru and you

Craig Shoemaker - 15 Desktop Backgrounds to Support .NET Development (and pay homage to the Gu)

“This weekend was one of those times I just couldn't get “that thing” out of my head. After a short conversation on Twitter earlier in the week about desktop backgrounds I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to just sit down and do some design work.

The rubber hit the road after being inspired by the Smashing Magazine’s themed desktop wallpapers. Then it hit me - how about a series of desktop wallpapers themed toward the .NET developer – and who better to represent the community than ScottGu!

So, with all apologies to Mr. Guthrie here are my backgrounds for your pleasure:

…”

This killed me when I saw it yesterday. Note that Craig also created a Windows 7 Theme with these!  LOL

Another portable application suite and launcher, NirLauncher (Beta) - 100+ NirSoft utilities + easy Sysinternals integration too

life hacker - NirLauncher is the Ultimate Flash Drive Toolkit

“…

Windows only: Portable application NirLauncher bundles 100+ of the best NirSoft utilities into a single launcher window, and even allows you to add your own utilities to make a killer flash drive toolkit.

…

Tweaking the Launcher

You can edit the included NirSoft.nlp file in a text editor to add or remove the utilities that you prefer—or you can even create a new .NLP file with your own customized settings. Just make sure to use relative paths to the executable files to make sure that they will be portable when you put it onto your flash drive.

The NirSoft blog even provides a launcher file for the suite of awesome, portable, system-tweaking tools from SysInternals—simply download the launcher file and extract all of the SysInternals applications into a folder, and then …”

NirBlog - Beta version of NirLauncher package is available to download

“As I promised a few weeks ago, the Beta version of NirLauncher, with a package of more than 100 utilities of NirSoft, is available to download.

Before you go to the download link, it's important that you read the following guidelines:

• For now, the download link of this utilities package is a little restrictive. I only allow to download it 5 times per day for each IP address. So please don't download this package with any 'download accelerator' software that open multiple connections. …
• Antivirus False Positives - This package contains more than 100 utilities, and if you have any Antivirus on your computer, there is a very high chance that it'll falsely detect one or more of these utilities as Virus/Trojan/Spyware/Malware or anything else.
  It's also possible that your Antivirus will simply delete some of the utilities or prevent you from running them without displaying any alert.
  In any case, please don't flood my email address with messages like "You have virus in your utilities package"   or "After I extract your files, some of them are deleted" or "I double-click xyz utility and nothing happens".

…

NirLauncher also allows you to add additional software packages. Just for example, here's how to add Sysinternals Suite into NirLauncher:

1. Go to Sysinternals Suite Web page, and download the latest zip file.
2. Extract the zip package of Sysinternals into a new folder located in the same drive of NirLauncher.
3. Download the sysinternals.nlp that I created for Sysinternals Suite, and save it into the same folder with all Sysinternals files.
4. …

…”

Okay officially that’s a bunch of utilities, all easily portable and accessed. I didn’t know NirSoft had this many, and these kinds, of utilities. …sigh…

Please note the False Positive Antivirus message above. In just extracting the zip NAV whined at me… It’s a FALSE POSITIVE.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
40 Desert Island (aka Portable) Web Dev Tools
LiberKey – 264, and counting, portable applications for your thumb drive are just a download away
PortableApps.com Platform v1.5 Released (with v2 coming in a few weeks) – Your App world is just a thumbdrive away…
Your Application Suite To Go - Portable App Suite v1.1 Released
PortableApps Suite
The Portable Freeware Collection

Sysinternals Suite Refreshed – All the latest Sysinternals Utilities, one tiny zip (well 10MB zip…)
Sysinternals Suite (8MB of Complete Sysinternals Goodness)
Use the Sysinternals Utilities? The EULA bug dialog you? Then try this…

Seems like it’s a WinDbg Day - Windows Kernel Debugging For Dummies

Alois Kraus - Why Does My System Hang? Windows Kernel Debugging For Dummies

“Did you ever wonder why your system at random times hangs? Sometimes it comes back after a few seconds (could simply be paging) but at least once a day I wish I would be able to know why the system is responding so slowly. Before going into Kernel land I must confess that I have never written a device driver so my knowledge to Kernel Mode debugging is quite limited but on the other hand if you did not do this either you will have a much easier time to follow me.

Some hangs seem to be Heisenbugs which disappear when you start looking at them. I have found when I let Process Explorer running on my machine it seems to resolve some issue by its pure presence. It could also be that some malware and Trojan software does not even install when Sysinternals tools are running.

Did you know that you can watch with Process Explorer the Call Stack of all applications in your system? Simply right click on a process and select Properties and select the Threads tab where you can view the stack for each thread with full function names.

…

When your system has frozen you can not start any new processes so starting a debugger is of little use. Luckily there is a nice trick to force the generation of a kernel dump by pressing a magic key combination: Right Ctrl + Scroll Lock + Scroll Lock will generate a nice looking real blue screen. See instructions below how to enable it. Technically speaking it is a user initiated kernel dump.

Before you can generate the blue screen (= kernel dump) you need to set the kernel dump mode to Complete Memory Dump. You can find this menu if you press the Windows Key + Pause and then look in the Advanced System Settings – Advanced – Startup and Recovery

…

A more thorough list has been created by Dmitry Vostokov at his famous Crash Dump Analysis web site which gives a good overview about the most used Windbg commands. To step deeper you will need to buy the Windows Internals book by Mark Russinovich to understand how the Windows Kernel and drivers do work and visit the NT Debugging blog where Microsoft escalation engineers show some advanced kernel debugging techniques.

If you have read until here you (should) have lost fear of the dreaded blue screen. Its not the end but the beginning of an interesting debugging session. It is a pity that so few people are able to analyze kernel dumps even at the most basic level. In many cases it is possible to find out which device driver is the guilty one. You then have the option to remove the faulting driver entirely or try to get an updated one. At least you know who is to blame and most of the time it is not the OS.

…

”

I dig the force/cause a BSOD tip (which looks to be almost as fun as the “How do I speed up this MMO that I’m playing…” “Alt-F4” tip ;). That’s one that I’m going to have to remember. :p

Related Past Post XRef:
Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Troubleshooting for Dummies (like me)

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Troubleshooting for Dummies (like me)

Righthand’s Blog - Investigating Windows BSOD cause for dummies

“Does your Windows displays nice, we all love, BSOD once in a while or perhaps, god forbid, often? There are two most plausible suspects for this behavior. And no, it is rarely Windows fault. Instead it is either hardware or driver and I won’t even dig into the quality of drivers produced by various hardware companies.

But the big question here is, which one? Which driver? Which hardware? It is even harder to pinpoint the cause in case when BSOD occurs at random times. Luckily there is a tool that might shade some light on the mystery and point cyber finger at the offending driver: Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows.

…”

I so rarely get BSOD’s anymore that when I do I have to relearn what to do to hunt down the reason. Also I’ve never used WinDbg much (yeah, yeah, I know there goes what little geek cred I had… lol  ;), so I found this post a nice, simple and short primer.

(via Bite my bytes – Links of the week #92)

A Feed You Should Read #6 - Bite my bytes, Links of the week

This week we’re still on the link blog road, travelling toward an unknown destination, with an unknown goal, yet all the while trying to have a little fun and share a some companionship along the way.

um…. yeah… Sorry… The 50th anniversary of the Twilight Zone this past week (premiered October 2, 1959) seems to have gotten to me. ;)

Bite my bytes – Links of the week

Background:

David Vidmar’s Bite my bytes (I love that name…) has been going for a quite a few years now, first post April 17th, 2004. The Links of the Week started in September 2007.

The posts range from a weekly Links of the week links post to MS CRM, to some re-blogging (i.e. highlighting cool things he finds).

This blog, like so many others (and all the A feed you should read’s) is obviously a labor of love. He does it because

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

I’ve been follow Bite by bytes since he linked to a post of mine in 2006 (got to love ego searches… lol) and there’s a couple things I like in his Links of the week posts.

First is that while we seem to read many of the same blogs, there’s quite a few he reads that I don’t. An easy trap to fall into online is the echo chamber. David’s links help me see outside of that chamber.

Secondly I really like the Software Updates section. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s monitoring a ton of applications and each week provides those that updated recently. This is a great way to keep up with all the different releases for a good number of different Windows utilities/applications.

The Software Update section alone is a great reason to subscribe. And once there, I’m sure you’ll find even more reasons to stay…

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	Bite my bytes - What I learn by day I blog at night.
URL:	http://vidmar.net/weblog/Default.aspx
Feed:	http://feeds.vidmar.net/BiteMyBytes, Links of the week, http://vidmar.net/weblog/category/27.aspx/rss
Post Types:	Links, Microsoft CRM, Development, Re-blogging

Did you know you can use Amazon’s SimpleDB for free? (Just keep the data and transfer below 1GB per month, and keep the queries limited)

Amazon Web Services Blog - Don't Forget: You Can Use Amazon SimpleDB For Free!

“We polled the attendees at a recent Amazon SimpleDB webinar and found that over half of them didn't know that they could start using the service for free. That's a shame because SimpleDB is easy to use, scales easily to handle high request rates, and is available in our US and EU regions.

You can keep up to 1 gigabyte of data in SimpleDB without paying any storage fees. You can transfer 1 GB of data and use up to 25 Machine Hours to process your queries each month. This should be sufficient to allow you to issue about 2 million PutAttribute or Select calls per month.

We have pages of SimpleDB sample code and libraries, plenty of SimpleDB articles and tutorials, and some really good SimpleDB documentation.

…”

Wow, I don’t think I knew this (lol obviously! ;) I like free. I wonder how I can use this to store personal information and stuff? hum…

Make sure you click though to the samples as there’s a good bit of stuff there.

Amazon SimpleDB - Category: Sample Code & Libraries

Also there’s a few interesting looking SimpleDB related projects on CodePlex (like Linq to SimpleDB, etc)

CodePlex, SimpleDB Search

 

Related Past Post XRef:
“Query Analyzer” for SimpleDB – Visual Studio 2008 Add-in that makes querying SimpleDB almost too easy?
LightSpeed 2.2 Released – SimpleDB, ASP.Net Dynamic Data, Stored Procedure and more added.
Amazon's new SimpleDB Service

VSTS/TFS2010 Beta 2 coming “real soon” and will have a “Go Live” license (i.e. Now’s the time to start getting ready…)

Brian Keller: Technical Evangelist for Team System - Get ready to “go live” with Team Foundation Server 2010 beta 2!

“Beta 2 of Team Foundation Server 2010 is going to be available very soon - unfortunately that’s all that the marketing team will let me tell you right now. :-) But the best news is that beta 2 of Team Foundation Server 2010 will have a “go live” license, meaning that you can use it for your day-to-day application building (unlike beta 1 which was limited to just evaluation, tire kicking, learning the new features, etc.) …

…

But in preparation for beta 2, there are some things that you can be doing now in order to take advantage of the release as soon as it’s available for download. The Team Foundation Server product team has put together some great guidance which can give you a checklist of things to do as you prepare to take advantage of beta 2. This guidance is available as an overview in a PowerPoint deck, or in greater detail in the Word document. I’ve uploaded both of them for you to check out.

…” [GD: Click through for the links]

“Very soon” IMO means a week or two’ish. No, I’ve not heard anything more that what’s in Brian’s post, but based on past “very soon’s” I really think we just a few weeks away (and that it’s been baking since even before B1 was released, yada, yada…). In short, I’m thinking well before PDC09. Which is good, since that means we’ll have a ton of fully baked 2010 B2 sessions, bits, etc there. ;) (cough… and there won’t be the confusion like TechEd09 and 2010 B1…  cough)

Anyway, If you going to upgrade to TFS 2010 (ZOMG, why wouldn’t you?) now is the time to start preparing your infrastructure. You all know how slow that goes, so now’s the time to get that process moving…

BTW, this screenshot is the docx via the Office Web Apps Tech Preview (that’s all web, no addin… looks nice doesn’t it? )

 

Related Past Post XRef:
SourceSafe Still? TFS2010 may be the TFS tipping point for you…
Planning for TFS 2010 (fka Rosario) – A picture says a thousand…

Getting started with Lucene.Net, the DimeCast version

DimeCasts.Net - # 145 - Getting started with Lucene.Net Search Library

“In this episode we are going to start to take a look at the Lucene.Net Search Engine Library. Lucene.Net is a source code, class-per-class, API-per-API and algorithmatic port of the Java Lucene search engine to the C# and .NET platform utilizing Microsoft .NET Framework. In this episode we will learn the basics needed to simply get Lucene.net up and running.

 

…”

I have this off again, off again (no, that’s not a type-o ;) thing with Lucene.Net. Been following it for a billion years, want to use it in a project, but have yet to take the jump. One of these days…!

And when I do, this quick 12 minute video looks like a good warm-up point.

SourceSafe Still? TFS2010 may be the TFS tipping point for you…

bharry's WebLog - TFS 2010 for SourceSafe Users

“…

TFS 2010 represents a huge step forward in making TFS more approachable by smaller teams.  With software development technology continuing to advance and SourceSafe slowly looking older, TFS 2010 is a great opportunity for SourceSafe users to look at updating their toolset.

So what’s different about TFS 2010?

There are 3 main areas that we’ve focused on in 2010 to make TFS attractive to smaller teams:

1. Price – We’re not quite ready to announce the pricing and licensing for 2010 yet but I can tell you that it will be at least as easy and cost effective to get as SourceSafe has been.  Stay tuned for more info on this.
2. Pre-reqs – We’ve eliminated the vast majority of the restrictions TFS has historically had:
   • TFS 2010 can be installed on a domain controller – We understand that many small organizations don’t have spare servers lying around and they need to be able to consolidate their servers.  Now if you just have one server and it’s your domain controller, email server and whatever else you need it for, you can use it for TFS too!
   • TFS 2010 can be installed on client OSes – The TFS server can be installed on Vista and Windows 7 Home Premium and above.  Of course it can also be installed on server OSes (Windows 2K3, Windows 2K8 and Windows 2K8 R2).  If you want to run version control locally on your laptop – you can do that.  In fact, just to prove it out, I bought a Samsung N110 Netbook and installed VS 2010, TFS 2010 and a build server all on the Netbook, running Windows 7 and it works!
   • TFS 2010 supports both 32 & 64 bit – No matter whether you’re running a newer 64-bit OS or an older 32-bit OS, TFS will work on your system.
3. Installation – Installing TFS has been a pain point for years.  Although it’s gotten better, 2010 represents a quantum leap.  The TFS installer now has 3 wizards: Basic, Standard and Advanced.  The big innovation is the new “Basic” install wizard.  It is a Next, Next, Next install experience that allows you to install and configure TFS in about 20 minutes or less (assuming .NET and SQL Express are already on your computer – a little longer if TFS has to install them for you).  Both will already be there if you’ve installed VS 2010.  The Basic wizard will install and configure IIS (if it’s not already there), install and configure SQL Express (if it’s not already there), and install and configure TFS.  The only thing that really pains me is installing .NET 4.0 requires a reboot :(.  Here are screenshots of the entire installation experience:

…”

Did you see that second bullet under Pre-req’s? TFS on Client OS’s (Vista and WIn7)! That’s cool! Oh yeah and the new setup is nice too (ZOMG… Oh heck yeah! Having install TFS2005, TFS2008, this new setup experience looks like it’s going to rock!  ;)