Say you’ve got a server running Windows Server 2003 x86, and you have no CD-ROM drive, and no physical access to the box. The only way to get to it is through RDP. Now, say you want to move it to 64-bit to be able to add more RAM. It should be as simple as mounting an Windows Server x64 ISO and starting the installation from Windows, right?

WRONG, PAL!

You see, installing x64 from inside x86 is not allowed, Microsoft says so. You can’t even do a clean install that way. So you’re thinking, maybe you could do it with Windows Server 2008. right?

WRONG AGAIN! You can’t do a clean install of Windows Server 2008 x64 over Windows Server 2003 x86 either. Any way you slice it, the x64 installer won’t even execute on Windows x86.

I have been dealing with this problem for over a year now. My host, ServerBeach, doesn’t support x64 installations yet, so I’ve been SOL. Last week, I set out to find the solution. ServerBeach graciously offered their assistance, since other clients have been asking for this too, and their support has been amazing.

Well, after beating my head against my desk for the past week, today I finally accomplished it: a completely unattended upgrade to Windows Server 2008 x64 from inside Windows Server 2003 x86. It turns out, there are actually two ways this is possible, neither of which is for the faint of heart. Once will only work for WS2008, and the other will work for both WS2003 and WS2008.

Right now, I’m trying to buy new servers in ServerBeach’s Texas data center so I can beef up my hosting network, but as soon as I can, I’ll be documenting the process step-by-step, so that others may do the same.

I’m so happy right now I could explode. Woo hoo!

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You’ve seen it on airport monitors, information kiosks, timetable displays and automatic teller machines, and now appearing on an arcade machine near you! I didn’t know arcade machines used real operating system, but apparently this one runs Windows 2000.

For those of you playing at home, the game is “Wasteland Racers 2071” by TrioTech.

“If you were in the middle of something”, say playing an arcade game, your coin is now lost.

On one hand, it’s interesting to see arcade developers utilizing the Windows (and presumably DirectX) platform to develop non-PC games. On the other, obviously it comes with certain risks. I wonder if you can download “Arcade.exe” anywhere.

Disk drives are marvelous devices. Especially when they go “clunk” and stop working. I’m not kidding: at least you know your data is hosed. I prefer that to the silent data corruption you don’t find out about until you can’t access a file or your OS starts freezing. Or a RAID rebuild fails.

Silent data corruption is common

You just don’t know it. Many low-end RAID controllers don’t report problems, figuring you’ll never notice. If you do notice, months later, what is the chance that you’ll know it was the controller’s fault?

Back up is better than insurance

Insurance is designed to protect you against damaging but uncommon events. But data loss is very common. Backup isn’t insurance. It is simple digital hygiene. You’ll use it again and again.

What are disks made of?

Hard drives sit at the bottom of a stack of hardware and software that usually gets your data from your CPU to the disk and back. But there are a lot of places where things can go wrong.

Here’s a partial list:

Media: those beautifully plated silver disks are subject to a couple of major problems:

* Flipped bits: when a read-only track sits next to frequently written track, the extraneous magnetic field from the writes weakens the magnetization of the read-only bits until your disk can’t read it. Normally disk ECC corrects these errors, but not always.

This is why disk fanatics periodically zero-out their disks and reload all their data. I’m not recommending this, just noting the practice.

* Physical problems, like a piece of dust, can scratch the disk and/or create enough heat so the head stops reading momentarily. Depending on severity the disk may remove that block from use or begin a death spiral into oblivion.

Wear out: disks have a lot of moving parts. In a 7200 RPM drive the disks are spinning 120 times per second compared to the 500 RPM of a CD drive. After a few years the motor can start to go. It may become slightly erratic, so some bits get squeezed and others get smeared.

The arm that moves the heads may can move dozens of times per second. When the bearings get loose it can go off track and corrupt data on adjacent tracks.

Electrical: if the drive power supply fails your drive will shut down. But if it is slowly degrading it can create extra heat or power surges that affect already marginal components. Component failures leading to sudden death are not seen by SMART reporting, which is one reason why SMART isn’t much use.

source: blogs.zdnet.com
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Recently Microsoft had a 50% price cut for Home Basic and Home Premium Editions of Windows Vista. The price cut is mainly targeted at China which has the 2nd highest software piracy rate in the world after Vietnam.

The reason is to compete with pirate software market. Pirated version is better, why buy an expensive genuine copy? Here are some views of people who are using pirated version.

Consider these facts:
Genuine Vista

1. Limited number of re-installtions of Windows Vista.
2. Activation via internet or phone activation.
3. Hardware upgrade problems.
4. It’s expensive.

Pirated Vista

1. No re-installations problem.
2. No any kind of activation, easy to install cracks, pre-cracked Windows Vista.
3. No one cares if your hardware changes.
4. Yup. It’s totally free saving you some bucks :P

No features are missing with pirated Windows Vista. They are identical. Why buy genuine?

Why buy a real copy of Windows Vista?? Activation is the pain in a$$. You can install your pirated copy of Windows Vista many times as you like, with a genuine copy you have to do a phone activation and explain them why you need to reinstall and of course there’s only a limited number times you can do this. Also if you feel like upgrading your hardware with “genuine” copy of Vista installed, think again because you license for Windows Vista might be taken away and having to reactivate since Windows Vista activation system keeps track of your hardware and suspect that you have pirated Vista installed same thing might happen if you install drivers for your hardware.

As you can see pirated vista gives you more flexibility and easier installation. You see that by buying genuine copy is just having to activate and run into license problems.

Windows Genuine Advantage???? Think again, Windows Genuine Disadvantage sounds right to me.

Note: Though this post is very interesting in knowing about Pirated Windows Vista, being myself an Open Source Software user i recommend everybody to use Genuine Windows Vista. I know how hard it is to develop a software… SO YOU CAN HELP STOP PIRACY AND PIRATED SOFTWARE.

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Microsoft has quietly released a beta version of Windows XP SP3 to a small group of testers. Microsoft has acknowledged the release, but will not specify what updates will be included in the final version.

Microsoft said it is looking at the first half of next year for the final release, but said this is only a preliminary date - and declined to commit to anything specific.

A third service pack for Windows XP may seem silly at this point, but many businesses are staying away from windows Vista so it is important that Microsoft remains committed to this version of the operating system.