Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Microsoft delayed Microsoft Vista until at least January 2007. This means that Dell, HP and other computer vendors won’t have Vista to install on PCs in time for the big “Christmas Sales” push. Most PC purchasers may wait until Vista is available since a large chunk of the price of a PC is the “Microsoft Tax” of the cost of the Operating System (unlike Linux, which is free!)

What’s Really Behind the Windows Vista Delay?

“While Microsoft emphasized during a Tuesday conference call with press and analysts that it was still going to make Vista code available to some customers in 2006, as the company has been promising for nearly two years, not everyone bought that argument. ‘Today’s announcement essentially means Windows Vista is delayed until 2007,’ said Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research. ‘While Microsoft says software will be available to businesses through volume licensing, the company’s own financials show that a small percentage of customers purchase that way. Most businesses buy Windows on new PCs, and these won’t be coming until 2007.'”

Linux v2.6.16 has been released according to the man himself… Linus Torvalds.

New Linux Kernel Released

Linus says:

“Ok, it’s being mirrored out right now, the git tree should already be all there, the tar-file and patches are still uploading.

Not a lot of changes since -rc6, but there’s various random one-liners here and there (a number of Coverity bugs found, for example), and there are small MIPS and PowerPC updates.

Appended is the shortlog from 2.6.16-rc6, the full log (from 2.6.15) is on the web/ftp-sites.

It looks like both Fedora and SuSE end up using a kernel that is pretty close to this 2.6.16 release, so let’s all hope it’s good. Give it a good testing, please, Linus”

I know, I know… everyone’s wondering… where’s Dr. Bill? Well, I have been swamped of late! I plan to get the podcast out this evening… better late than never! Whew! What is it about Spring that seems to stack things on your plate?!?

Two hackers in California won the “Intel Mac running Windows XP” contest this week.

Intel Mac Runs Windows XP

“The hackers who won the contest are keen to keep their anonymity and are known only by the handles ‘narf’ and ‘blanka.’ According to reports, their feat has been independently confirmed and XP has been made to run on an iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook Pro. Technical sites such as Ars Technica have provided walkthroughs for people keen to try it for themselves, though they stress that it is likely to defeat those who are technically unskilled. It is possible that easier ways to get a Mac booting both operating systems will appear as other hackers follow up the success.”

They won $13,854 which was contributed by surfers that hit the contest web site.

On another note, should I buy a MacBook Pro? Should the Doctor take the plunge? Everything I have read so far seems to indicate it is a great machine. Hummmmmm… opinions?

Microsoft is planning on releasing a “stripped down” version of Windows XP for legacy systems (systems that shipped with, say, Windows 95) so that they could drop all security updates on older systems. Now, that release has been delayed.

Microsoft Delays XP for Legacy PCs

“Windows Fundamentals can run on older machines that do not support XP while providing the same level of security. The system could be utilized as a Remote Desktop or Citrix client, along with supporting management tools, terminal emulation software, and viewing of some documents. Microsoft did not give a specific reason for the delay, but the company has been focusing most of its efforts on finishing Windows Vista.”

College students get bored. And when that happens, watch out! Check out this story (with pictures) of what some bored college students did with a bunch of old USB based floppy drives!

Floppy Based RAID

Just what we all need… slow, small capacity redundancy! Riiight!

Yep, that’s what the magazine “New Scientist” reports… a computer that runs a program and reports the correct answer while “turned off.” Okaaayyy!

Quantum Computer Works Best Switched Off

“They send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon. The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program’s components – so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through. ‘It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is,’ says team member Onur Hosten. This scheme could have an advantage over straightforward quantum computing. ‘A non-running computer produces fewer errors,’ says Hosten. That sentiment should have technophobes nodding enthusiastically.”

Riiiight! Pardon me while I slap back a Diet Pepsi… this is enough to drive a man to drink! Is it April 1st yet?

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols from Desktop-Linux says that Windows Vista will suck. Our friends from Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie says, “Every OS Sucks” in our previous “Geek Culture” video from some week’s back. Well, one thing is for sure… Windows Vista will require a HUGE amount of RAM, and MONTROUSLY fast CPU, and a MEGA-FAST video card. In other words, you will need a new computer, and it will cost MEGABUCKS! Microsoft is crazy!

Why Windows Vista WILL Suck

Steven says, “‘Suck’ is a relative term, though. Vista will be better than XP, which has easily been Microsoft’s best desktop operating system to date. However, Vista also requires far more hardware oomph than previous Windows systems. I’d say Intel’s recommendations are pretty much a minimum for Vista. I would only add that if you expect to see the fancy desktop, you need to invest in, say, an ATI Radeon XPress 200, an Nvidia nForce4, or a high-end graphics card. The truth is that very, very few people are going to be upgrading their existing systems to Vista. To make it work well, you’re really going to need a new computer. If you didn’t buy your PC in 2006, I wouldn’t even try to run Vista on it.”

One of our “Dr. Bill” Podcast listeners writes with a problem:

“Hey, what’s up Doc! I don’t know if you’ve already talked about this, but I hope it’s OK to ask. The log file named “trace.txt” on my computer located at “C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\WMI” is always taking up space on my computer until it takes up all the room on my hard drive so that I can’t save or download anything. The only way I can get my space back is to restart and go through the same problem after I’ve logged in. I ran my McAfee Spyware and Virus Protection. And I also ran Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D. But none of them found anything. I tried deleting it but it said it was being used. So I found out that “wmiprvse.exe” was using it. I used Windows Task Manager to end the process, but every time I ended it, it kept popping back up. Is there anything I can do to stop this log file from taking up all the room on my PC? Your advice is needed.

Thanks,
Kai”

My answer:

No problem! It sounds like someone, at some point, ran the “Bootvis” program to trace Windows activities to debug something. Bootvis can be helpful at first, but also pretty “evil!” However, there is a way to disable it, in fact two!

Here are the two methods that seem to work for this issue:

An actual way of removing it is from Windows Registry, so Start->Run… and type “regedit” and click “OK.” From regedit go to:
‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->System->CurrentControlSet->
Control->WMI->GlobalLogger’
and there you should find a key named “Start” double click it and you can give it a new value, put a zero (“0”) instead of the “1” that is there now. Now, Windows won’t start the Bootvis logger at startup.

The second solution is:

During boot, press the “F8” key twice to get Startup options.
Select “Safe Mode, with Command Prompt,” login as administrator. At the prompt, navigate to Windows\system32\logfiles\wmi\trace.log (Or, trace.txt, in your case) (you still can’t delete the file at this stage.) Use the command “attrib +r trace.txt” without the quotes (this stops Windows from altering this file anymore!)

Restart Windows normally.
Go to the file in File Manager/Windows Explorer.
Delete the file.
Create a new (empty) trace.txt file (using Notepad and save it in the same directory where you deleted the original)

Hope this helps!

By the way, the “wmiprvse.exe” program is the “Windows Management Instrumentation component of the Microsoft Windows operating system that provides management information and control in an enterprise environment. By using industry standards, managers can use WMI to query and set information on desktop systems, applications, networks, and other enterprise components. Developers can use WMI to create event monitoring applications that alert users when important incidents occur.”

Send me YOUR questions, and you can help me help others with the same problems!

Squeaking out UNIX for the first time… Windows has just pulled ahead it server installations. Bummer. I think I will go shed a tear.

Windows Takes the Lead in Server Installs

At least the study said Linux continues to gain ground. Go Tux!