Note to self

Skip buttons weren't working after installing Win7 RC

After installing Win7 RC on my production Media Center box (ie the box I literally can't watch TV without) I noticed an annoying problem. The skip forward & back buttons didn't work! At first I feared the issue was an intended "by design" change. Read More...

Building a Win7/2008 R2 box that boots off .vhd's

A cool new feature in Windows7 & Server 2008 R2 is the ability to boot from a .vhd file! Having your OS isolated to a .vhd file has a number of advantages including but not limited to: - easier to backup, - multi-boot scenarios that are more isolated Read More...

SQL updates failing on WSS Developer VM

I noticed SQL updates (KB960089 but also SQL SP3) were failing to apply on the WSS Developer VM. After many hours of frustration, I located this great blog post that helped me to overcome the issue: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlserverfaq/archive/2009/01/30/part-1-sql-server-2005-patch-fails-to-install-with-an-error-unable-to-install-windows-installer-msp-file.aspx Read More...

Unexpected prompts for integrated authentication on WSS Developer VM

After installing all outstanding updates on the WSS Developer VM I started getting unexpected prompts for authentication. First I tried disabling the loopback check as per KB896861. Unfortunately, no luck. Seems the issue had to do with IE detecting the Read More...