Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

I have 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Joost invites.

Mail me or comment and I'll pass them out. First come, first served and all that...

There's now anime content from Gong for European users...

The Internet Explorer 7 web site throws up JavaScript syntax errors when viewed in IE7 Beta 2.

I think that has to count as a big oops, even if the beta browser seems quite a bit more stable than the previous release...

Today, I shall mostly be running Office 12 Beta 1 on Windows Vista Build 5270.

Yes, it's fast forward to the future here!



And it's slightly annoying that the Office folk are still using their own UI widgets, so the Office 12 metallic look and feel persists on Vista - which is a pity as Vista's Aero Glass UI is starting to look quite decent.

If you've got access to a MSDN subscription, then you may want to try out the Windows XP version of Internet Explorer 7 beta 1. Unfortunately the standard install will replace your existing copy of Internet Explorer - and, to be honest, the IE 7 beta isn't the most stable browser around.

Now, you could dual boot Windows Vista, but the Vista IE 7 isn't the same as the Windows XP version, and setting up a whole Virtual PC or VMware image just to try out a browser can seem a bit like overkill...

However there is a simple hack that will make IE 7 work as a standalone browser. Just follow these simple instructions (based on the instructions for older versions of IE):

• Download the IE7 Beta 1 Install from MSDN
• Open the install file with WinRAR (yep, it's an EXE, but it's a self extracting EXE) and extract them to a folder. Alternatively, you can just run the EXE, make a copy of the files which are extracted in the first step, and cancel the install. I was too chicken to do this on my work computer.
• Look in the folder you extracted to for the file SHLWAPI.DLL. Delete this file.
• Create a new text file in the folder, then rename it to IEXPLORE.exe.local.

Then just click on iexplore.exe and the browser will launch and run...

One thing to note - you won't have access to your bookmarks, and trying to open the favourites menu will cause a non-fatal error. Still, you're not going to be using IE 7 for anything other than test purposes...

If you need standalone versions of older browsers (not just IE) you can find them at browsers.evolt.org. How about a nostalgic spin round the interweb in Oracle's Powerbrowser? Or Netscape Navigator 1.1?

If you're installing Windows Vista Beta 1 onto a Virtual PC image, you'll find that it won't install onto a dynamic disk. Don't worry - there is a way around this problem, so you don't have to dedicated gigabytes of disk space to an image.

First make sure that you're running Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1, and you've burnt the ISO to a DVD. For some reason Virtual PC won't recognise the ISO as a usable image, but works just fine with a DVD...

The default VPC 2004 settings work well - however, you'll need to create a fixed sized virtual disk so the installer can, err, format it first. Dynamic disks are visible in the Windows Vista installer, but the set-up application is unable to initialise the disk. Fixed sized disks are no problem, and can be partitioned and formatted with no problems, leaving the OS to install happily. The default VPC "video card" isn't particularly good, so you will need to install the VPC 2004 Virtual Machine Additions. Don't worry about this - they work just fine in Windows Vista, as it's compatible with most Windows XP drivers and devices, and once installed give you a decent display and host machine integration for file transfers.

Once you've installed the OS, you can convert the fixed virtual disk into a dynamic disk. Shut down your virtual machine fully, then use the Virtual Disk Wizard to convert your fixed size disk into a dynamic device. First make sure you use a different name for your dynamic disk, just in case the copy and conversion fails. After all, you don't want to reinstall the OS all over again. The conversion process won't take too long. From the VPC 2004 console switch the disk image to your new image, and then restart.

Smaller dynamic images mean that you can easily build up a library of test images in different states - without filling your hard disk. It will also make it easier to move them from machine to machine. A dynamic disk that looks like 16GB to the client OS can be around 3GB...

Rumour has it that Microsoft will be putting out Beta 1 of Windows Vista today.

I just checked the beta programme site, and got a "currently down for maintenance" message. I wonder if they're loading up the code drop as I type...

[Update: interestingly MSDN subscribers can get product keys already through the subscriber downloads site...]

[Update 2: more detailed rumours from Winbeta]