Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 on Windows 7 SP1

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 are shipping with support for RDP 8.0 out of the box, and now Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 just got an update for it.

Remote Desktop Services Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2012/10/23/rdp-8-0-update-for-windows-7-sp1-released-to-web.aspx

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Update 13 Nov 2013 - also see:

Remote Desktop Protocol 8.1 Update for Windows 7 SP1 released to web

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/11/12/remote-desktop-protocol-8-1-update-for-windows-7-sp1-released-to-web.aspx

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Just followed the instructions to enable RDP 8.0 on a remote Windows 7 SP1 machine.

1. Install hotfix 2574819 and restart

An update is available that adds support for DTLS in Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2574819

If you are unable to download the hotfix due to Windows Genuine Advantage complaining with:

This version of the Windows Genuine Advantage validation tool is no longer supported. Please download the newest version and ensure that your system clock is accurate

see this Microsoft Forums thread for a solution – opening this address in Internet Explorer will install a newer Genuine Advantage ActiveX instead of the downloadable exe that fails with above message.

2. Install update 2592687 and restart

Description of the Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2592687

The KB goes in detail through features and known issues, as well as the steps on how to enable RDP 8.0 on a Windows 7 SP1 machine.

3. Enable RDP 8.0 on the remote computer (Windows 7 SP1)

Open Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) and

a) Enable Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Remote Session Environment > Enable Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 = Enabled

b) Enable UDP transport (optional) 

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Connections > Select RDP transport protocols = Enabled, Use Both UDP and TCP 

Connecting from an updated Windows 7 SP1 machine (or a Windows 8), you will notice the change in the remote desktop client title bar (in full screen).

Before, with RDP 7.1 I noticed when moving up and down over the Start menu the highlighting was lagging behind (every few items), where now with RDP 8.0 it is much faster - probably due to improvements in the protocol as well as I assume the use of UDP packets.

Windows 7 : Easy Transfer Files, Users and Settings to new or same computer

A very useful Windows 7 feature allowing to transfer your users and settings from an old computer to a new one.

Windows Easy Transfer
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer

Windows 7 : Easy Transfer Files, Users and Settings to new or same computer
http://www.technospot.net/blogs/windows-7-easy-transfer-files-users-settings/

Power Dimmer screensaver

http://www.whitsoftdev.com/powerdimmer/

If you are like me where you have a main computer that you use most of the time but you also have a laptop on the side for reading emails or messaging, this is a nice screensaver that allows to dim the screen after a couple of minutes, but you can still see what’s going on. I noticed that at full brightness I was checking it far too often and my old laptop doesn’t support the built-in dimming feature in Windows 7.

Although the project page says it requires Windows 2000 or XP, it works fine for me on Windows 7 x64 Enterprise edition.

My case of Windows 7 0x0000007b BSOD

We’ve started rolling Windows 7 x64 Enterprise at work with new laptops and thanks to a colleague in IT I was enrolled as well for my work Dell Latitude D630 laptop running Windows XP Professional, but I was going to do it myself at home over the weekend.

After backing up my files on an external USB drive and restoring the Norton Ghost image (I did manage to restore just the system partition so I could’ve kept the others untouched, but it wasn’t worth risking), then I had to go through the recovery process and let Windows 7 repair the boot so that replaces the Windows XP boot manager. That is a nice tool and it works in most cases, what it doesn’t do is help with ATA vs AHCI modes.

And this is where the troubles begun – I understand that the image was preset for ATA mode, while previously my XP was configured for AHCI mode, and therefore I was hit hard with 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF88009A9928, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x000000 …)  BSOD.

I figured that it must be  because of that so I went in BIOS and changed from AHCI to ATA. Trouble was that it didn’t solve the problem… Went again through the Windows 7 recovery mode, nothing.

Googling the problem I found that most of the solutions were suggesting to change the SATA mode in BIOS, but that didn’t solve it for me (I changed to both, reset the BIOS setting etc no luck)– some explained that Windows loads either the AHCI or ATA drive as configured. Then I found this Microsoft KB (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976) that says how to change the registry keys to enable AHCI mode.

BUT how to change the registry keys when my Windows wasn’t booting up?! What I didn’t know is that you can run regedit.exe from the recovery console and then load the SYSTEM hive from HDD, change the registry keys and then unload it!!!

Searching for “how to edit registry files from recovery console” I found this article - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm - which was written for something else but I could use it to load the SYSTEM hive from C:\Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM, went in both ControlSet001 and ControlSet002 (to be sure :-) and changed the two Msahci\Start and IastorV\Start to 0 (from 3), rebooted with AHCI mode in BIOS and BINGO, my new Windows 7 was booting fine now!

Case closed - thanks to other people sharing the information, I thought I should do the same and pay it forward…

PS: If your system supports and has AHCI enabled you can install Intel Rapid Storage for an updated driver from here (search for Intel Rapid Storage – it is not detected automatically). Intel Rapid Storage Manager used to be called Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

Windows 7 system waking up at night

A common reason for a computer to wake up is that a network interface was configured to Wake on LAN (WoL) (usually company computers) – that means it can wake up due to a link change signal or a Magic Packet. This feature can be quite useful if you want to wake up your work computer, first logon through the company VPN and then run a WoL software from one of the Citrix / Terminal Server sessions (usually WoL packets are not allowed through gateways from the Internet). Nowadays even wireless network devices allow for WoL (depending on BIOS and motherboard).

To disable (or enable) WoL, see this article below for more details – simply check/uncheck the the box that says “Allow this device to wake the computer” accordingly. The “Only allow management stations to wake the computer”  I believe it means to wake up only on Magic Packet requests.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/fix-sleep-mode-randomly-waking-up-issue-in-windows-vista/

Another reason for your Windows system waking up, and probably more common to Windows 7 editions including Media Center (e.g. Professional), is that if the computer supports APM 1.2 or later it is possible to have tasks that can wake up the system from S4 (Hibernation) or S5 (Power Off) – most common seems to be the case with the Media Center Update scheduler task – see more details below.

http://www.beirtech.com/blogs.php?action=view&bid=6

Notice the “Wake the computer to run this task” is checked - either uncheck the box (double click the task scheduler entry to edit) or simply disable the task altogether.

Dell Vostro 1520 – driver updates

Windows Experience Index before updating the drivers.

Personal note, I usually keep all drivers in D:\_Drivers, in folders per component containing the driver archive (including the version in the name of the file or in a separate readme) and a link to the provider’s website - it makes it easier to check later for driver updates.

To Dell’s credit the system came with quite recent drivers, most users don’t need to do this, unless of course you are the type that likes to experiment with newer drivers.

• Intel Driver Update Utility (auto-detection)

This is a really good resource, at least for your Intel components, no need to go and pick them (requires an ActiveX install, use the Internet Explorer 32bit):

http://www.intel.com/support/detect.htm?iid=dc_iduu

• Intel Chipset Identification

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/id/

Although I ran the utility as administrator, as the popup says, it didn’t allow me to run it. I’ve used CPU-Z which reports GM45/GM47 chipset.

A useful link from where to get the graphics, chipset and storage drivers is:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-029319.htm

• Graphics driver

Dell’s support site has a slightly older Intel graphics driver (04/11/2009, 8.15.10.1840) than the one on the Intel site (8.15.10.1986) – going for the Intel one.

 http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/detect.htm

• Wireless driver (Intel Wi-Fi 5300)

System driver : 12.4.1.11, Dell’s website : 13.0, A01, Intel’s website : 13.0.0.107 – going for Intel’s driver.

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/detect.htm

• Intel Chipset Driver (Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family)

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+Chipset+Software+Installation+Utility

• Intel Matrix Storage

The system came with the latest AHCI enabled drivers, but it didn’t include the Intel Matrix Storage Console, so I just installed the Intel package from:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101

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A very good idea is to start from http://support.dell.com website, where it can detect the tag of your system and will provide you with a page where you can select the operating system and get the appropriate drivers for your system.

The you can find drivers or firmware updates for your HDD (mine already had the latest firmware available, as it can be seen in Intel Matrix Storage Console), audio drivers (also latest version, usually it’s quite hard to find these off the web, providers usually rely on OEM channels) or the more important BIOS updates (do not apply these unless in the release notes you see a fix for problem that you’ve been experiencing as well – updating BIOS incorrectly could brick your system and you will have to send it back for repairs).

Already having recent drivers, I didn’t expect a huge leap forward in performance, there’s very small differences, probably not worth the effort if you’re already happy with the overall performance.

To keep the performance at top levels you should regularly clean your system (using Windows CleanUp tool or 3rd party tools like CCleaner) and defrag your hard drive (Windows Defrag or 3rd party tools like PerfectDisk).

Shrinking the system partition in Windows 7

Most new computers are coming with one large partition where the OS and applications are installed. Personally I like to have a separate partition for OS and one or more for other things, like say one keeping your personal files and other ones for backups etc. The advantage is that if you want to reinstall the OS, once that’s done you can simply change the location of your documents to where you put them on one of the other partitions – this used to be much easier in XP, where you could’ve just right-clicked My Documents on your desktop and change the location to say D:\My Documents. It seems in Windows 7 you have to go and do that for all your folders in your profile folder on your desktop, or you could move them in bulk and I believe Vista/Windows 7 will update the paths in the registry as well.

Back to shrinking the one big partition, I didn’t know until I searched just now the Internet that Vista and Windows 7 have a partition shrink option in Computer Management > Disk Management. One limitation is that files like swap, hibernation or even system restore files can be in the way, preventing you from shrinking a partition down to the size you want. One solution is to disable / turn them off, reboot and defrag the drive before attempting the shrink operation. Windows Defrag does not compact the free space, but there are other tools out there that can do that – one of my favourites is Raxco PerfectDisk, they have a trial version you could try on.

Here’s a good tutorial on shrink feature and solutions:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/working-around-windows-vistas-shrink-volume-inadequacy-problems/

As you can see from the screenshot above, it only allows me to shrink the partition with a mere 1.2 GB – see the black blocks in the middle of the partition and also the files at the end of the partition in PerfectDisk.

Disabling the page file from My Computer (right-click) > Properties > Advanced System Properties > Performance (Settings) > Advanced (tab) > Change. Select No paging file and click Set, then OK.

Hibernation has to be disabled from an elevated command line window (administrator) using powercfg –h off command.

System restore can be turned off from My Computer (right click) > Properties > System Protection (tab) > select each drive and use the Configure button to turn off system protection.

One reboot later, run PerfectDisk again and you can see the black blocks are gone. Now defrag the partition with the option to consolidate free space, that’ll push the files at the start of the partition.

Once that’s done, notice that although the files are all now at the start of the partition, there could still be some system files (notice the grey boxes in the middle of the white space) left. You need to use the System Files defrag (toolbar button) – that will require a reboot, as the offline defrag needs to be done as part of the Windows system boot tasks.

If you find that the pesky metadata won’t move (apparently the preferred position seems to be somewhere in the middle of the partition), one solution is to try to shrink the partition as much as possible, do the offline defrag process to move the metadata in the middle, consolidate the free space and repeat if necessary until it allows you to shrink down to the size you want (in my case 96 GB for the system partition). Once the system partition is shrunk, you can create other partitions in the newly create free space.

The whole process can be a pain in the neck, obviously the easier solution is to use a proper partitioning tool that is certified with Windows 7 - otherwise Windows might not like it and you will need to repair Windows (as it happened in the past when using GParted).

Ah well, a couple of hours down the drain I managed to shrink the system partition and created a new one and still have a running system, I can only wish you the same. Makes you wonder if it wasn’t worth the 5 euro for get the custom partitioning when ordering the system on Dell’s website or getting some proper partitioning tools...

VERY IMPORTANT:
Once done with the system partition you should enable back the swap file, hibernation (powercfg –h on) and system restore.

Catalyst “Mobility” 9.11 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

Same procedure as before, with the difference that this time the setup worked fine, except for an error at installing the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable (I don’t know what the implications are on this one…). Driver seems to be working fine in full resolution (1920x10200) on a Dell Inspiron 9300 (ATI Mobility X300).

ATI Catalyst Display Driver v9.11
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

Catalyst “Mobility” 9.3.1 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

Windows 7 RC default drivers for ATI Radeon Mobility X300 are working fine on my work Dell Inspiron 9300 with Aero Glass and all, but let’s try to push it a bit further.

Download Catalyst Radeon 9.3.1 legacy desktop drivers for Windows Vista x32:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

Run the package and let it extract the drivers - usually to a path like X:\ATI\Support\9-3_1_legacy_vista32-64_dd_ccc – then cancel the installation.

Download and run DriverHeaven’s Mobility Modder to modify the drivers package (see similar notes on the application download page).

I’ve tried then to run the setup.exe from the driver package as the instructions say on the Mobility Modder page, but the driver didn’t show up in the list, so I went and update the driver manually through Computer Management > Device Manager > Display adapters > ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300 > Driver (tab) > Update driver > Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from list of device drivers on my computer > Have Disk > X:\ATI\Support\9-3_1_legacy_vista32-64_dd_ccc\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF > etc. Reboot when prompted.

The updated driver didn’t change the graphics rating and I couldn’t notice any performance increase, but I’ll keep the drivers if no problems appear.

 
Note: I have tried the same procedure on ATI Catalyst 9.8 desktop drivers, and although the driver is being presented through the manual update procedure, on reboot I lost the Aero Glass and the maximum resolution allowed was 1600x1200. Which probably makes sense, since ATI has dropped support for the legacy chipsets in newer drivers, even if the Modder makes them appear in the .inf file.

Catalyst 9.3.1 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

ATI’s made the Catalyst 9.3.1 Legacy Display Driver for Windows Vista 32bit work fine on Windows 7 now, no need to do any hacking, of course it comes with the note saying that’s not officially supported.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx

 
I don’t know about yous, but this gives my old system (Intel P4 3.0 GHz Prescott, 2 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9600XT) a new lease of life, Windows 7 is working pretty much as fast as Windows XP, maybe with a little more HDD activity (although I stopped Superfetch service and turned off write-cache buffer flushing), but generally fairly happy with it. It works fine with the Aero Glass and all the nice stuff, haven’t missed running any software yet, heck, even old Halo (2003) works no problems.

Add Ubuntu 9.04 boot entry to Vista / Windows 7 boot manager

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my old Shuttle box a couple of months ago to test some of my plugins on XBMC for Linux. The installer was smart enough to included the Windows XP boot entry and all was good until I installed Windows 7 later on, overwriting Grub with it’s own boot manager.

EasyBCD was the first thing that came to mind, they even have this tutorial on how to add Ubuntu to Vista loader. Adding the Ubuntu partition as per tutorial didn’t do it for me, and then I found this post explaining how to use EasyBCD to install NeoGrub.

I’m not a Grub expert so I went on and booted with Ubuntu Live CD to get the original /boot/grub/menu.lst, saved it on a temp directory on one of NTFS partitions, came back and booted in Windows 7. Run EasyBCD and follow the post to add the NeoGrub boot entry and saved the menu.lst directly in F:\NST.

Choosing the Ubuntu 9.04 boot entry now starts Grub showing it’s own boot entries, but you I could probably customize menu.lst so that it starts Ubuntu directly (timeout=0, default=0).

Catalyst 9.3 Vista legacy drivers on Windows 7

I had a problem starting XBMC on Windows 7 on my old Shuttle destkop with an ATI Radeon 9600 XT graphics card and the default W7 graphics driver – ATI discontinued support for a bunch of old graphic chips including mine, I went and on ATI website for a driver for Windows 7 and Radeon 9600 is not in the list anymore.

Luckily MerlinUK posted on ATI forums how to install the ATI Catalyst 9.3 legacy drivers for Windows Vista on Windows 7 and it works, XBMC running fine now, see below.

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http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=279&threadid=111846

MerlinUK
04/12/2009 08:38 PM

I have been trying to find a way of installing Catalyst 9.3 in Windows 7 to support my X700 AGP card. After a bit of trial and error, I have found a way that this can be done. This not only installs the 9.3 drivers but also allows use of Catalyst control center. This method should work for all legacy cards supported by catalyst 9.3.

There are five Step to the installation although step five is optional.

Step 1: Start the installation as normal upto main installation then cancel. This will extract the driver files to your hard drive.

Step 2: navigate to C:\ATI\Support\9_3_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\pakages\drivers\display\LH_INF. Open in notepad CL_76828.inf and look for the following entry;

[Manufacturer]
%ATI% = ATI.Mfg, NTx86.6.0, NTx86.6.1

edit it to read

[Manufacturer]
%ATI% = ATI.Mfg, NTx86.6.0

and save

Step 3: manually install the display driver by clicking on start and entering Device Manager in the search box select your graphics adaptor and update driver select the second option and have disk browse to the inf file you saved in Step 2. Windows will display a warning but click yes

Step 4: Navigate to; C:\ATI\Support\9_3_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu and run setup this will install the Catalyst control center without error. reboot and hey presto

Step 5: Not strictly needed but will save you having to do the above again if you have to re-install Windows 7, save the ATI folder to a USB drive or CD. Just follow steps 3 & 4 in any order.

And that is it, hope this helps...

Windows 7 RC on ASUS R2H

I hope Microsoft fixed everything in this version as I’m getting a bit tired of installing all these Windows 7 releases :-) to be honest though is not the actual Windows installation as that takes only about a half an hour and it needs your input only on a couple of things, but installing all the other drivers and apps, and lastly to customize things as you prefer.

Probably because I rarely use computers for leisure and mostly for work or doing some coding for a hobby (some may find sad the idea of having a hobby same as your main occupation :-), I like my computers running quick with little visual effects, although luckily for me and my job, I do try to keep a balance between useful and pretty as much as possible when developing stuff. In this case, with the R2H I prefer it to be a little snappier rather than waiting for drop-down to come down nice and slow, anyways you get the idea. Some of the customisations include changing from Segoe UI font back to good old Tahoma 8pt (some of the windows I noticed keep using Segoe even after the change), removing the wallpaper, disabling ClearType (I usually like texts nice and crisp, except maybe for a few specific applications like Adobe Reader or in coding editors), setting the System Properties > Performance Options for best performance, except maybe for Show shadow under mouse pointer (ironically, I still keep this one...), Smooth edges on screen fonts (that’s the basic font smoothing) and Use visual styles on windows and buttons (I don’t use this one on XP, only on W7, that much I like the theme in W7 :-), setting up Process Explorer to startup minimized when logging on (like to keep an eye on the system) and some changes in Explorer, like showing all file extensions, displaying the full path in the titlebar, sorting by default by type and applying the settings to all folders, enabling single click to open items etc. Enough about me, back to Windows 7 RC...

Finishing the installation from a DVD-RW, you need to connect it to the Internet through the Ethernet cable and that should install about 6 updates: Atheros Wireless driver, AuthenTec finger-print driver - a nice addition Dave spotted earlier, Intel 915 chipset driver, ATK Input ACPI utility and a couple of IE8 related updates. There’s also an optional Realtek wired network driver, checking that box as well. 38 MB worth updates and a reboot later, we have a nice and slightly slow R2H running W7 :-) only messing, doing the above will make it snapier without much loss of the actual W7 experience.

Touch Screen

Working fine, it needs calibrating.

Graphics

The default drivers works fine, although I’ve noticed W7 installed Standard VGA Graphics adapter which scores a double 1.0 in Windows rating and I’ve also noticed some flickering in Google Chrome dialog windows and when running Mobility Center when it’s being drawn up, which is just as well, we are going to install the ASUS Intel Graphics driver for Vista v6.14.10.4764 (in Windows Vista SP1 compatibility mode). After rebooting, noticeably less flickering and scoring now 1.9 in desktop performance and same 1.0 in 3D – still no Halo3 on R2H :-)

Sound

Same as before, the output doesn’t switch automatically from headphones to speaker, install ASUS Audio driver for Vista v6.10.1.6030.

WebCam (Bison)

Not installed by default, detected as USB2.0 Camera, install ASUS drivers for Vista v6.32.0.04.2 (if you don’t have a Bison webcam user your Vista driver or download the appropriate one from vip.asus.com, they explain which driver to download based on hardware IDs).

Some may find interesting, Dave reported earlier he uses ASUS SmartLogon for face recognition for logging on in W7 (no download link just yet, google yourself for “ASUS SmartLogon download”).

Thumbstick

Same as before, install the ASUS Touchpad driver for Vista v9.1.5.0 for better sensitivity and click on push.

Wired network (Ethernet)

Works fine out of the box, there is a newer driver through Windows Update.

Wireless (Atheros)

Same as before, works fine with the default driver, the ASUS Wireless Console for Vista v2.0.8 needs though the ASUS Hotkey Utility v1.00.0012 to be able to enable/disable the device and to get the wireless hardware button working.

GPS

Works fine, use the Device Switch utility for Vista v1.0.0.1 to enable the device.

Fingerprint sensor

Driver is now delivered through Windows Update, go to Control Panel > Biometric Devices to enable and register your fingers.

ASUS Settings Center

Install ASUS Hotkey Utility v1.00.0012 then install ASUS Settings Center v1.6.7.115, then reboot or at least logoff and then log back in. Same as before, brightness and volume work ok, for resolution you need the ASUS Intel Graphics driver for Vista v6.14.10.4764.

Note: I couldn’t get the resolution to switch I changed output to Single Display: Notebook from the Intel Graphics Media control panel. The application flickers a lot when you click Ok / Apply, best to use the Enter key on the 15 second OK button otherwise clicking with the mouse it might not work and reverts back to previous settings.

Hibernation

I noticed Hibernation wasn’t available as an option until I installed most of the drivers above – probably one of them wasn’t fully supporting ACPI, I don’t know exactly which one… Resuming for hibernation is fast as in previous builds.

Final thoughts

Looking at Process Explorer > System Information, Windows 7 RC has pretty much the same memory footprint (with disk swap disabled, and default services, haven’t stopped any just yet, like for example the Print Spooler and other’s I’ve listed in original post in the performance tips section). The system feels unnoticeably slower, but that may be because I haven’t stopped any services just yet, nor uninstalled any features I don’t use or maybe it’s just me, or maybe it needs a defrag :-)

Haven’t had any problems, except for a message popped up twice about a “USB device not recognized”, but that may be specific to my setup, when I used it at my desk I connect everything through a hub, including a Thermaltake Mobilefan II, which probably doesn’t send any information back to Windows, just powers from the USB port.

Windows 7 beta build 7068 on ASUS R2H

I haven’t noticed much change since build 7057 aside from a few small things. People using P2P TVs and torrents will be glad to know the new limit for half-open connections was raised to 120 where before it was as low as 10 connections, no need to use 3rd party tools to hack the tcpip.sys. This also the first leaked build that allows to choose which Windows 7 edition to install (see the feature list comparison here) – keep in mind that the key you got when downloading the build 7000 is for Ultimate edition - I found it complained when I chose to validate it with Professional edition, there might be some upgrade feature somewhere. There’s also a new build of Windows Media Player, 12.0.7068.0. Windows Experience Index is same as build 7057.

A few small performance tips, if you haven’t got a lot of those already :-)

• Choose No Sounds scheme – that might speed things up a bit when moving about in Explorer;
• Also for Explorer, in Folder Options choose Always show icons, never thumbnails.
  Since already there you might want to deselect the Hide extensions for known file types (I always found that one creating more confusion than being actually helpful);
• Go to Device Manager > Disk Drives > HTCxxxxx ATA Device > Policies (tab) and select the Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device, see if it helps with I/O performance:

Windows Vista bootloader repair

As per previous post, I had Windows Vista on C: partition and installed Windows 7 beta build 7057 on a D: partition, upon next boot my Vista boot entry was gone.

I managed to restore Vista boot entry using Windows Vista Recovery Disk from Neosmart.net – kudos to them for making it available as a torrent download – wrote it on a disc and went a couple of time through the automated repair process (see more details here on how to use the recovery disk) and managed to recover both Vista and Windows 7 boot entries, but only Vista is bootable now. I had Vista’s tcpip.sys “fixed” to allow for more half-open connections, and I eventually had to use the console from the recovery options, go into your \Windows\system32\drivers, delete / rename tcpip.sys and copy tcpip.copy (that’s how my backup file was named) as tcpip.sys, as Vista was complaining that tcpip.sys was corrupt.

Trouble is that now with Vista boot entry restored, I cannot boot into Windows 7, the Windows Boot Manager complains with error 0xc0000428, file: \Windows\system32\winload.exe, “Windows cannot very the digital signature for this file”. Now, if I understand correctly from reading this article, it seems that as part of the security checks the Vista Boot Manager is checking various boot files, one of them being winload.exe, which leads me to the conclusion that Vista Boot Manager doesn’t approve of Windows 7 boot files, and same goes the other way around (don’t actually recall the other boot message last night, it was late it could’ve been the same as about on tcpip.sys or this new winload.exe signature thing).

Reading A few more changes from Beta to RC I noticed this change:

25. Dual Boot partition drive letter assignment

For a dual boot configuration for the Beta, the other Windows OS wouldn’t get a drive letter and therefore wouldn’t show up in explorer.  We heard overwhelmingly from Beta customers that the lack of a drive letter was confusing and even caused some to believe that their secondary OS was lost. Assigning the drive letter makes it visible in explorer and aids in navigation across OS installations.

While I’ve noticed in W7 beta the Vista partition was not showing up in Explorer and now in build 7057 was back in, I wonder if this change might have something to do with my issue here… Must be something to do with both Vista and W7 naming C: the partition was being installed on and renaming the other ones – anyways, after lots and lots of googling for Vista and W7 dual-booting and bcdedit command parameters, I’m even more confused and couldn’t find much relevant info, so I’ll give up for now…

Windows 7 beta build 7057 on ASUS R2H

Warning: You should consider making a note / saving the BCD settings with EasyBCD or similar before installing this build, as it lost my Vista boot entry, although I installed Windows 7 on a separate partition, no upgrade.

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Following Rudi's comments that some things have been fixed in build 7057, I gave it a try myself and here are my notes.

Same as before, I installed it from a DVD-RW disc and into a 9.5 GB disk partition, with about 2 GB free left. The wireless adapter is not detected automatically, you will need to connect your tablet through the wired (ethernet). The first Windows Update run installs an update for Intel 915 Express chipset, Atheros ASUS USB Wireless, ATK0100 and Realtek RTL8101E Ethernet. Rebooting...

Rebooting brings only good news - I see now the Intel Graphics Media icon in tray area, things like rotation seems to work fine, going into graphics Properties, doesn't seem to know about the 800x480 screen resolution, but it still looks fine on screen - again this is the default Windows driver, not ASUS driver version 6.14.10.4543.

Screen calibration works fine now, you can use the pen close in the corners now, kudos to Windows 7 developers, seems they listened to all that feedback we all sent.

A new wireless driver was installed and it seems to work fine, detected my wireless network no problems - btw, I like the new popup window that shows the wireless connections... I might install the ASUS Wireless Console, it seemed to me it saves a bit more battery when I disable it using the console, as opposed to using the Windows Mobility Center.

More good news, now we have a Windows Experience Index of 1.0, not too bad considering the last time it was freezing half way through the rating process – again, good job MS.

So, to recap…

Touch Screen

Calibration works fine now, you can access the screen right close into the corners.

Graphics

Windows Update will install a new Intel graphics driver, but oddly enough this is version 6.14.10.4543, older than the ASUS Intel Graphics driver for Vista v6.14.10.4764. You need the latter to change the resolutions through the ASUS Settings Center. Same as before, you have to install it in Windows Vista compatibility mode, otherwise the installer will complain.

Sound

The default driver works with a few problems, I’ve noticed sound corruption (pops) on high volume on headphones and no speaker output when you unplug the headphones. You have to go to Control Panel > Troubleshooting > Troubleshoot Audio playback wizard to change the speakers to the default device, and then the same back to headphones if you want to switch. None of these if you install the ASUS Audio driver for Vista v6.10.1.6030.

WebCam (Bison)

Not installed by default, detected as USB2.0 Camera, works fine with ASUS drivers for Vista v6.32.0.04.2. Tested with Live Messenger, which works fine now, btw, good job MS.

Thumbstick

Same as before, you have to install the ASUS Touchpad driver for Vista v9.1.5.0 to get better sensitivity and click on push.

Wired

Works out of the box, newer driver installed with first Windows Update.

Wireless

Works fine after first Windows Update. The ASUS Wireless Console for Vista v2.0.8 work fine as well, with the note that you need to install the ASUS Hotkey Utility v1.00.0012 not only to get the hardware button to work, but apparently even to be able to disable the device from it.

GPS

Works fine. I used the Device Switch utility for Vista v1.0.0.1 to enable the device and tested with Microsoft AutoRoute 2007.

Fingerprint sensor

It is detected as an unknown Fingerprint Sensor and then I went straight on to install the AuthenTec update Windows 7 beta suggested the last time. And wow, it actually works now! Go into Control Panel > Biometric Devices, choose to use the AuthenTec AES1610A device to logon in Windows and enroll your fingers and that’s pretty much it, nice and easy. I understand Windows 7 introduces a new Windows Biometric Framework to provide a common API and tighter Windows integration, where before each manufacturer had to come up with their own set of apps and solutions.

ASUS Settings Center

Install ASUS Hotkey Utility v1.00.0012 then install ASUS Settings Center v1.6.7.115, then reboot or at least logoff and then log back in.
 
You can control brightness and volume, bad news on changing the resolution, but if you miss it badly I’d say you can install the ASUS Intel Graphics driver for Vista v6.14.10.4764.

Hibernation

While I cannot judge whether going into Hibernation is faster, resuming is noticeably faster!

Performance Tips

Not going to go through that again, see the previous post on how to disable certain services and features if you are not happy with the performance.

Final thoughts

I don’t know if I missed anything, feel free to remind me if I did. Except for the Vista boot issue, Windows 7 build 7057 looks pretty good, lot of things were fixed and it looks as promising as the beta version.

Here’s my 1.2 GB RAM system looking with swap disabled and bare minimum running.

How to install Adobe Reader 9 on Windows 7 beta

If Adobe Reader 9 doesn't want to install on Windows 7 beta for you - it didn't install on my ASUS R2H UMPC, but then it did on my Shuttle XPC desktop - and you only get the self extract part of the install and then it simply disappears, you can try extracting the package contents yourself by running the following from a command line:

AdbeRdr90_en_US.exe -nos_ne

that will extract the installation files in "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Setup Files". If you want to install both AIR and Reader 9, run the main setup.exe, otherwise for just the Reader run the Reader9\setup.exe. Follow the instructions to finish the installation and you can remove the setup files when you're done (~113 MB).

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Tip: If you are the occasional PDF reader like me you probably don’t see any benefit from having the Adobe Reader Speed Launcher run at logon. I would suggest removing / disabling the start-up entry with AutoRuns. I haven’t noticed any slowness at application start-up without it, even on my tiny R2H UMPC.

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Update 18 March 2009: You should try the Adobe Reader 9.1 out now - just installed it on Windows 7 build 7057 with no need for the workaround, I assume Adobe fixed the issue rather than MS having anything to do with it.

Windows Live Messenger 2009 freezes Windows 7 beta

If you find that Live Messenger 2009 freezes completely your Windows 7 beta system - seems quite a few people have this problem, I have it on both my ASUS R2H UMPC (Intel 910/915) and Sony Vaio VNG-A115B (ATI Mobility Radeon 9200) - a fix was suggested in the above link to reduce the display adapter hardware acceleration - not ideal, but it seems to work for now.

Right click the desktop, select "Change Resolution", click on the "Advanced settings" link, go to Troubleshoot tab, click "Change settings" button, move the slider left to the third notch and click OK.

Update 29 Jan 2009 : I should've mentioned I've been using Windows Live Messenger 2009 (14.0.8050.1202) and that it seems to work with Standard VGA Graphics Adapter with full acceleration.

Update 17 Mar 2009 : Tested again with Windows 7 build 7057 and it works fine, no need to change the hardware acceleration, kudos to W7 developers!

Windows 7 beta on ASUS R2H

Now that Windows 7 beta is out I've decided to try it on my ASUS R2H see how it compares to Vista, which I became used to and why not even like it. W7 is supposed to be built on top of Vista and coming with a few usability and performance improvements - some of those visual improvements like Aero Peek won't be able to run on this tiny machine, but other nice things like Aero Shake or snapping windows to left or right sides might just work.

After writing the 2.5 GB ISO image on a DWD-RW, the installation from the USB DVD drive took about 40 minutes (some people installed it from a USB stick, see here), a clean install on a 9.5 GB partition where I used to have the good old XP. A nice surprise is that the installation only took about 8 GB of disk space (and that includes 1.5 page file and 950 MB hibernation - ?! no wonder the hibernate/resume takes longer in Vista/W7, it may need to compress the 1.2 GB RAM contents into 950 MB).

Graphics

Works fine with default driver (6.14.10.4543), but you won't be able to change resolutions from ASUS Settings Center (below) until you install the ASUS Vista driver (6.14.10.4764). You will have to run setup.exe in Windows Vista compatibility mode, otherwise it will complain the OS is not supported.

Update 23/01 : While my suggestion to install the ASUS graphics driver may give the ability to change the resolution from ASUS Settings Centre, it seems that this may be the cause of a system freeze when resuming from Sleep mode or when running Windows Live Messenger 2009.

Touch screen

While it works out of the box, I can't seem to get close into the corners on any side of the screen for about half a cm - the cursor follows the pen until you reach the limit and then it just stays behind. Btw, there is a new cursor just for the pen, different from the mouse arrow. There is also a new tablet screen calibration tool with additional touch points, maybe the outter additional points were meant to be closer to the actual screen corners, I don't know, I'll have to follow this. 

Thumb stick

It works, but with lower sensitivity, no click - you have to install the Vista driver / utility to get all that functionality.

Ethernet

Works fine with default driver.

Wireless

Doesn't work with the initial driver, you have to run Windows Update using a network cable to get the new driver and that one will work fine. You could also try the ASUS Vista driver, I would expect that to work as well.

If you want to use the Wireless hardware button at the top of the unit to swich on/off wireless and bluetooth and make the leds on the front of the unit light up, you will have to install the ASUS Wireless Console application, same as in Vista.

Bluetooth

Seems to be installed correctly, I don't have a device to test it though.

Sound

Not working with the default driver, install ASUS Vista driver.

Fingerprint reader

While the ASUS software for Vista seems to install correctly I couldn't get it to register the fingerprint as means of authentication. I found this AuthenTec press release announcing software to support Windows Biometric Framework within Windows 7 - see the contact details at the bottom of the page. Maybe that will get it to work directly with Windows without a need for the ASUS Security application.

Update 22/01 : I've eventually uninstalled ASUS software, although the AuthenTec driver seemed to stay behind. Probably based on that information later on W7 suggested installing this update from AuthenTec. I noticed then the device is available in Control Panel > Biometric Devices. The device is listed and next to it there is a link saying "Use your fingerprint to log on to Windows" that starts an application that allows you to record the fingerprints. The trouble is that I couldn't get more than 2 readings on the same finger, I got frustrated after a while and I dropped it. I noticed high CPU usage during the process...

GPS

Works fine, slow to receive the initial data as you alreay know it, but it works. Use the same DEVICE_SWITCH.EXE tool from ASUS to enable/disable the GPS device, also consider using Bogdan's tool to enable it at logon.
ASUS Settings Center

Install ASUS ATK Hotkey Utility and ASUS Settings Center for Vista. You can change brightness and volume, but you won't be able to change the screen resolution until you install the Vista graphics driver (see graphics section). To be able to change the power modes, you have to install ASUS Power4Gear eXtreme for Vista.

Windows 7 tips

• User Account Control - you can customize UAC now to fit your needs, read some more here.
• If you don't like the new taskbar and want to revert to the old style taskbar, go to Taskbar and Start Menu Properties (right click on Taskbar > Properties), in Taskbar tab tick Use small icons and change Taskbar buttons to Never combine.

Performance tips

• Disable Offline files. Obviously if you don't use them, go to Control Panel > Offline Files > Disable offline files.
• Disable System protection. This used to be called System Restore in XP, I don't know if there is any new functionality added since, I've only used it a couple of times to create restore points before. See before last screen here how to turn it off.

Performance tips - Windows services

• Distributed Link Tracking Client - stop and set to manual. Read some more here, I've never missed it, I think the special folders like Favorites or My Documents, you can still move them around without the need for this service (I usally move those on a separate partition from the actual OS).
• DHCP Client - stop and set to manual, obviously if you don't want to use a DHCP server and are used to set fixed IPs on your network interfaces.
• IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules - stop and and set to manual if you don't use IPSec.
• IP Helper - stop and set to manual. I haven't seen IPv6 used anywhere yet.
• SuperFetch - stop and set to manual. Not sure about this one, the behaviour may have changed, there is free memory in Task Manager when started, where the behaviour in Vista was to fill up the memory in the background and that was causing serious HDD activity, at least on my machine, so it's up to you realy. Personally I only use a few apps on this machine, one at a time, I don't think I'll miss the functionality, we'll see.
• Print Spooler - stop and set to manual, only if you are not printing from this machine.
• Themes - stop and set to manual, only if you are using the standard theme.
• UPnP Device Host - stop and set to manual. Sharing media in Windows Media Player might need this service, if it needs it will start it.
• Windows Search - stop and set to manual. Do not have much content on this machine I need to be indexed, I can still search in Explorer the old un-indexed way.

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Windows 7 looks very promising - Microsoft shaved off a couple hundred MB of memory usage - with file swap disabled (not recommended for most users, you can try it until Windows starts complaining) and Process Explorer the only user application, 700 MB free out of 1.25 GB.

Windows 7 will probably be well received by most people that slagged Vista when it came out and some of them will feel frustrated they didn't get all this goodness in the first place :-) hopefully Microsoft will come up with fair upgrade plans, at least for home users. There's been rumors of a Windows 7 netbook edition which will probably suit better UMPCs, but it's probably too early to talk about that.

I only had a couple of problems with Windows 7 itself, the touchscreen sides issue and that I couldn't get a system rating (the whole system hung when it reached the Windows Media Decoder Performance stage) and one with applications, where I couldn't install Adobe Reader 9 (didn't do anything past the extraction phase). Other than that, Windows 7 looks nice and performs well even on a machine that most people wouldn't think or even want to run it on :-)