Development Dan’s Blog

Now that SP1 is rolling out, you may have noticed that Vista is ignoring your hi-res customised boot logos and using its own one.  Sadly, SP1 has disabled the trick we’ve been using to replace the logos, so we’re pretty much stuck with the lame default one for the moment grrrrrr.  You can still replace the old 16 colour 640×480 logos, but they suck!

To summarise the situation:

• The hi-res boot logos are contained within a resource (a .wim file) within winload.exe.
• You can’t patch winload.exe directly because its digital signature is verified during boot.
• Prior to SP1 we could get round the digital signature check by adding the the logos to winload.exe’s associated MUI file - winload.exe.mui.  In SP1 this no longer works

Anyone got any ideas how to get round this?

Microsoft have been on a roll releasing new techologies lately, but from a developer prespective, the Entity Framework looks like it’s going to be the most exciting and genuinely useful technology in years.

Channel 9 have got a great video on the current progress as well as a demo.

I especially liked the part where they hooked their project up to an Astoria service and immediately made their app accessible over the web

Just came across a really cool post on thewpfblog showing how a WPF application can be controlled using the input from external sensors!

This definitely looks like something I’d like to play with!  Check it out (and follow the link to the video on the Content Presenter site):

 http://thewpfblog.com/?p=89

Update: Wow, I’m really impressed with the response time of the triage team on Connect.  They acknowledged the bug same day and are already looking into a resolution.  That really is first class support.  Thanks guys!

Just ran into a rather annoying bug in WinForms.  You’ve got a ContextMenuStrip which is shared by a number of controls on your form.  When the user right clicks one of the controls, and chooses an item in the context menu, the SourceControl property of the ContextMenuStrip is supposed to be set to the control that you right clicked on.

This works fine if you have a flat context menu, but if your context menu has sub-menus, and you click one of those items, then the SourceControl property is always null!

If this bug affects or annoys you, please vote for it here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=282496

Thanks to everyone who took the time to send in feedback and bug reports.  I’ve updated Vista Boot Logo Generator to v1.1 which includes a couple of bug fixes and new features.

To anyone having problems with blank screens during boot, this should now be fixed.  Vista is quite picky about the format of your source BMPs, so the images are now being processed internally by the tool so that they behave.  You can now also drag and drop your images directly onto the application to save a few clicks.

You can download the latest version for Vista x86 RTM here:

Vista Boot Logo Generator v1.2 (BETA) (30th Jan 07 Updated version to 1.2)

I know a lot of people were disappointed by the lack of a decent boot logo in Vista, so I’ve thrown together a tool that should simplify the process of creating the new high resolution boot logos!

Your works of art need to be saved as 24-bit BMPs, and you’ll need to create them in two sizes: 800×600 and 1024×768.  On my machine the boot logo always defaults to 1024×768, but I assume the 800×600 version automatically kicks in if your graphics card is rubbish :-)  Once you’ve selected your two images, just click File -> “Save Boot Screen File As…” and it will generate the logo file.  To make the logo come up during boot, you’ll need to copy the file to the following folder: 

%windir%\System32\en-US

You’ll also need to make sure the /NOGUIBOOT option is enabled in the MSCONFIG tool, otherwise you’ll only get the old 16 colour boot screen.  For full details, make sure you read the info during setup.

Download Vista Boot Logo Generator BETA 1.2

IMPORTANT: It’s still beta and there may be bugs so use at your own risk, and make sure you backup first!

If you’re living in the US and thinking of switching to Verizon - think twice!  In what is probably the most frustrating conversation I’ve ever heard, this poor guy is trying to clear up a billing error where he’s been charged 0.002 dollars per KB rather than the 0.002 cents per KB he was quoted.  It’s got to be heard to be believed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q

Okay, I’ve gone three posts without mentioning Star Trek, which is certainly a disgraceful omission for a technology blog.  If you’re reading this far I’m guessing you’re already sitting comfortably in your replica Star Fleet Commander’s uniform, or busy gluing your forehead on…

So you’ve probably seen the various characters in the Star Trek universe interacting with the LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System) onboard computer, with it’s sleek “Okudagram” interface, and voice control.  Of course, it’ll likely be a few years away before we see anything quite as nifty as the LCARS system, however, we do have the beginnings of some of the technology today.

Speech Recognition is definitely becoming mainstream, especially now that it’s being included by default in Windows Vista.  Automation of various devices around the home is also becoming increasingly popular especially with prices coming down to sensible levels recently.

So what kind of system could we build with today’s hardware, and a bit of software development?  Bear in mind that I’m not trying to replicate the LCARS system.  My main aim is to build a system to control devices around the house through voice commands.  If the system happens to have a black screen and make chirping star trek noises, that’s a bonus!

For the hardware side, I started off with:

• A CM19U USB PC controller (sends and receives X10 radio signal commands using a PC)
• A TM13U Transceiver module (transmits signals through your house’s power lines to your X10 devices)
• Various lamp and appliance modules for controlling your actual devices.
• A Labtec USB microphone (for speech input)

These devices are all readily available and you should be able to get hold of them fairly cheaply on e-bay.

Tune in next time for details of the software side of things!

We’ve just released a beta version of our Windows based bakery control system netBake. Click here to get it while it’s hot!

Recently I built myself an ultra low powered machine to use as a media centre for the living room.  I wanted something low powered and completely silent, so I got myself one of VIA’s microscopic 12×12cm Nano-ITX boards:

Everything you need is built into the board - audio, network, TV out, etc. and the whole thing is cooled with a passive heatsink.  Perfect for what I needed and completely silent.  Except for one snag - the hard disk makes a hell of a noise when every other component is silent!

So back to the drawing board.  Eventually, I found a fantastic device:

A flash based IDE disk.  It plugs directly into your IDE socket and as far as your system is concerned, it appears as a normal hard disk.  As an added bonus, it uses a fraction of the power of a normal hard disk, and random access time is much faster.

There are a couple of drawback though.  The main problem is the limited number of write cycles of flash devices.  Normally this isn’t a problem if you’re using a flash disk for storing files, but if you’re running an operating system from one, then the number of writes to the disk increases dramatically.  So if you going to use a flash based disk, you’ve got to limit the number of writes, or your devices could become useless in a matter of months.  That’s when I found an excellent guide to write protecting your disk by Silvio Fiorito:

http://mason.gmu.edu/~sfiorito/eXPinstall.htm

It involves borrowing the Extended Write Filter driver from Windows XP Embedded, and installing it on your normal version of XP.  It’s quite a chore setting it all up - editing security permissions, adding registry keys, replacing files, etc.

I’ve created a small tool that should automate the installation and configuration process.  It’s a stand alone app, so no need to install, just unzip it to a folder on the machine that you want to configure and run it.

The driver only works on Windows XP Pro, XP Home, and Media Center 2005.  You can download it here but be aware that it is beta software, and I’ve only tested it on my machine, so use at your own risk!