Entries for daytrip00

Visual C++ Runtime installer doesn't clean up after itself [Visual C++ Runtime installer doesn't clean up after itself]

daytrip00 — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:10:04 GMT

EDIT: This refers to the visual c++ redist.

Here's a screenshot of my C drive:

Pretty obnoxious... Here's a link to the connect topic on the issue:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=316557

No action on the issue since 12/10...

Anybody got any suggestions?

in reply to Visual C++ Runtime installer doesn't clean up after itself

Dear Microsoft [Dear Microsoft]

daytrip00 — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:11:16 GMT

So, i need to preface this with a couple comments. First, I'm so angry right now, and need to vent, and this was the first place i thought to post to. Second, historically, i've been a pretty big Microsoft fan and have been using MS technologies almost exclusively for the better part of 10 years. Onto the rant:

Seriously guys, what going on at Microsoft. I've just spent the better part of a week trying to renew my god-forsaken MSDN subscription, the better part of 4 hours today and it still isnt working properly. It was a huge pain in the (I need to watch my language) last time (when i signed up for it), and now i'm bordering on the edge of sanity having to deal with the 20+ step process it takes to register my stupid subscription. In the meantime, I cant install VS2008 to work on the projects I need to work on. The people in charge of MSDN subscriptions and the eOpen website need to be fired and/or shot. They are so abominably bad that (1 out of every 3 page loads results in an error page on the site) I'm considering getting rid of our subscriptions and just trying to deal with less and less microsoft software and buying only VS off the shelf. But I'm at my wit's end.

Next off, product activation. At best, it's a horrible nuisance for us legitimate customers. The Activation 2.0 changes are more onerous than Activation 1.0 (which is saying quite a bit), and numerous times, i've had WGA complain that I'm using pirated software when I'm not. I wonder if this sort of BS is driving customers into Apple's open arms. I'm seriously considering it for all non-work tasks.

And then there's the .NET Framework. Seriously guyh... 200 megs... What idiot okayed that? MSFT wants adoption of it's new ui toolkit which is for building client apps. So what does it do? It packages a 200 meg redistributable that you need to send with your app. Sorry Microsoft, my app is 5 megs, I'm not about to ship a 205 meg installer. Seriously, I wonder what those product meetings were like! Was there broad agreement that this was the best course of action? Did you guys think that 200 megs was no-big-deal? Well... you've pretty much guaranteed that my apps will be 100% wpf-free. Now i'm even more irate that i spent so much time learning the platform. I even went to a 2-day class on expression blend. All useless knowlege.

Finally, and i know i'm not being original here, but Vista... ugh. I just got a new desktop and decided to install Windows Server 2003 on it instead of Vista, and boy am I glad i did. My machine now runs seemingly twice as fast. Gone are the 30 seconds it took to unlock the machine, the ridiculous slowdows when memory consumption reached 75%, inordinately long boot times, the black screens as the DWM spazzed out, the redesigned and ridiculously confusing network center, slow network performance, i could go on... I'm never going back.

Ok... so i realize that this rant isn't exactly coherent, but up to 2005 i would have called myself a Microsoft "Fan". That the beast has managed to irritate and alienate such a loyal customer is unfathomable to me. I wonder how bad this is going to get. At any rate, I'll be polishing my Mac development skills in case Windows users defect en masse, as I think that's actually possible now. I guess a small part of me hopes they do. That's significant for a developer that's staked a career on .NET. I also hope that you guys get your act together.

in reply to Dear Microsoft

VS2008, WPF Designer [VS2008, WPF Designer]

daytrip00 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:00:20 GMT

Does anyone know how to drag and drop items onto a window? It wont let me drop anything onto the window.

I realize that this sounds like a really stupid question... but VS2008 wont let me drop controls onto the Window...

in reply to VS2008, WPF Designer

Activation 2.0 [Activation 2.0]

daytrip00 — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:36:01 GMT

An article about the new Key server being backported to Win2K3.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=257

I shudder to think of what Activation 3.0 will be. Perhaps you'll have to submit a full brain scan to ensure that you aren't even THINKING of pirating MSFT software.

I work at a small business and we're de-and-re provisioning new virtual systems all the time. It seems like the new activation will specifically make this harder for us.

Worse, this is branded as a "feature" for businesses to "help them manage their keys." Uh huh...

Keep in mind that I'm a MSFT fan. I guess I won't be touching IIS7 with a 10 foot pole, as nice as the new features are.

Sorry for the rant. It's just a little sad MS has started to treat its customers like criminals.

:(

in reply to Activation 2.0

Vista Audio Stack "Feature" [Vista Audio Stack "Feature"]

daytrip00 — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:54:16 GMT

I was playing a c9 video today and tripped over my headphone cable as i was picking something up off the ground...

WMP gets an error and says it can't play back the sound anymore.

I had to close it and start it up again... good thing i had downloaded the wmv file so i could skip forward when i watched it again.

I'm not sure what great positive features this awareness of wether my headphones are plugged in or not allows... Any ideas?

in reply to Vista Audio Stack "Feature"

Goodbye Office 2007 [Goodbye Office 2007]

daytrip00 — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 02:02:07 GMT

Dear Office 2007,

Today is my last day with you. I believe it is now time for us to part ways.

I know our time together was short, but I must tell you that our time together did not meet the expectations set by our first few hours of bliss.

We moved fast at first, and then oh did we ever move so slow. You slowed down my machine... To the point where I could type faster than the screen could respond. You made it impossible for me to do work.

And then the arguing and frustration began. I would curse thee every few minutes. My mouse would stop responding as I yelled at you more and more. I only hope that our friendship is not beyond repair.

Windows Desktop Search 3.0... Oh how slow and bloated are thee! Oh how you are missing much oft used functionality from your younger (2.0) days. Oh how it saddens me to see you go but i feel that it is best for both of us.

Perhaps we shall meet again someday under better circumstances.

Yours, daytrip00

in reply to Goodbye Office 2007

Vista RTM impressions [Vista RTM impressions]

daytrip00 — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 18:58:11 GMT

I would say overall, I like it quite a bit. It's fast, fluid, and, for the most part, just works.

What's great:

(1) Flip & Flip3D - w00t!
(2) Glass - damn pretty
(3) Search - yep, and the indexer doesn't spike the cpu any more!
(4) App scaling - fixed!
(5) Media Center - way faster and way more usable.

That said, it isn't all roses:

(1) When I leave my Dell 5150 alone for a day or so, i return to a "Display Driver Stopped Working" balloon in the task tray. Now, I'd be fine with blaming NVIDIA for this, but if i click the X to close the bubble it keeps coming back. I've tried rapid clicking 100x and it keeps coming back. Is this really the best way to alert me to a problem?

(2) When I'm playing music in Media Center the damn thing keeps throwing up the screen saver. How hard can it be to shut the screen saver off while I'm in Media Center?! Apparently, since this NEVER worked in xp, quite hard.

(3) Sleep has never worked. I leave the machine alone and come back to the CPU spiking both cores in the morning. I'm prepared, right now, to blame NVIDIA, but if it doesn't get fixed soon blame could shift.

What do you guys think?

in reply to Vista RTM impressions

Moderation is the answer [Moderation is the answer]

daytrip00 — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 21:42:03 GMT

Why not implement a moderation ala digg / slashdot. This way, Charles won't have to watch the forums like a hawk with his finger constantly pounding on the lifetime ban button. Yea, it's not perfect, but it'll allow all of us to filter out the noise.

People constatnly modded at trolls get no modpoints (and their posts show collapsed) and people modded up get more modpoints. Either that or ignore lists.

Just a thought...

in reply to Moderation is the answer

Vista's Best Feature (Remote Desktop) [Vista's Best Feature (Remote Desktop)]

daytrip00 — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 18:17:56 GMT

I can finally remote desktop at 1920x1200!! I've got 24" dells running at that resolution everywhere and finally i can remote into them without a huge loss of screen real estate.

Remote Desktop guys: you rock!

in reply to Vista's Best Feature (Remote Desktop)

PDC download site down? [PDC download site down?]

daytrip00 — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 17:44:01 GMT

I keep getting a DNS error when i connect to http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05 . Have they taken the site down?

in reply to PDC download site down?

Linux TCO [Linux TCO]

daytrip00 — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 06:23:46 GMT

So, I'm not trying to start a flamewar, though that's what this will probably degenerate into. Here goes:

I was looking @ deploying Linux development and file servers for my company. I looked at Red Hat (as it's the only Linux supported by our Dell PowerEdge servers), and noticed that Red Hat's base linux package clocks in at $350 / year / server.

I thought, "You've got to be kidding me!"

A Windows 2003 Server license can be had for $700-800 and you get free updates for five years. So for a server over five years, you're at $1750 for the RHEL "Basic" installation. At that price, you'd have to purchase 50 more client licenses for the Windows Server to break even.

Not to mention, I have a hard time believing anybody that would tell me that Samba is easier to configure as a Windows file server than Windows Server.

To compound matters, Red Hat doesn't seem to have licenses for development servers. I suppose they'd have me use Fedora. But I don't want to use a product with a 6 month release-cycle for development servers. Windows has a MSDN OS Subscription.

This all leaves me puzzled. At first I thought Linux might save us money. Above, I didn't even include Microsoft SBS. If you include that, for a small business, the comparison gets even more lopsided as that includes Exchange, SharePoint, Outlook , Fax and SQL Server (in the premium edition).

Any thoughts?

in reply to Linux TCO

C9 Feature Request -- Ignore Lists [C9 Feature Request -- Ignore Lists]

daytrip00 — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 05:48:02 GMT

I'd really like to set up ignore lists and maybe a "flag everything by this person" system on c9. I think it would make my experience much more enjoyable.

in reply to C9 Feature Request -- Ignore Lists