I’m not yet a big fan of Windows Vista, but unless I go to some form of Unix it
is in my future whether I like it or not. The machine I am building will support the fanciest operating system that Microsoft makes, which is 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate.

It would certainly also support Windows Vista Business, which is about $50 cheaper than Ultimate, but Ultimate has two things I might want that are not in Business:

• Media Center stuff - I could become interested in this, and
• Windows BitLocker, drive encryption.

So I ordered Windows Vista Ultimate, full, not upgrade or OEM, from VioSoftware for $253.22. Note: VioSoftware has two prices for this software package, one if you go to PriceGrabber first and a higher one if you go directly to VioSoftware. There is a $27 difference.

• Vista ReadyBoost doesn?t improve performance
  Apparently in some cases it even hurts performance.
  (tags: ReadyBoost )
• Mother’s ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista
  Ballmer gets to defend Vista after a mother first installs, then uninstalls it for her daughter.
  (tags: PR Review )
• Administrative Templates files for Windows Vista RTM
  If you manage Vista machines with GPOs, the Group Policy Team Blog has packaged all of the .admx/.adml files that shipped with Vista and have them available for download.
  (tags: GPO Policy )

Today, Windows Live SkyDrive has received some updates to the service - including everyone now having 1GB of storage. That’s double what was previously there. Along with increased storage, the SkyDrive Team has included a few more things worth taking Read More……(read more)

Today, Windows Live SkyDrive has received some updates to the service - including everyone now having 1GB of storage. That’s double what was previously there. Along with increased storage, the SkyDrive Team has included a few more things worth taking note of:

RSS Feeds on Public Folders: Users can now subscribe to an RSS feed for their Public folders. This allows folks to keep track of each other’s public files and stay up-to-date with what is uploaded. You can subscribe to our Windows Vista Team Blog’s Public SkyDrive folder here.

See who uploaded a file: you can now check out and see who has uploaded specific files to your shared folders in SkyDrive.  I have quite a few shared folders which are shared out to large groups of friends - it is great to be able to see which files were uploaded by whom.

Add a contact directly within SkyDrive: you can now add a friend via Windows Live SkyDrive instead of having to go to Windows Live Messenger or Windows Live Hotmail.

Expect to see fixes and tweaks across the board. You’ll also notice that the

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By now you probably know that Vista SP1 Beta is available to a select few testers. If you’re somewhat savy, you may know how to find it on the P2P sites, where it is available for download. But did you know that you can get it directly from Microsoft, through Windows Update, with only a very small, simple hack?

Nero, from the Nero’s Club website, posted instructions on how to trick Windows Update into thinking you are supposed to get the Beta SP1. It’s just two registry settings that need modifying, after which Windows Update will begin feeding you the components required for SP1 beta. Here’s an easy way to do it.

1. Open a text editor like Notepad, and paste the following text into it:

   @echo off
   reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWindowsUpdateVistaSp1 /v Beta1 /t REG_SZ /d a2c3c14a-9586-4d37-9aaa-79fbd64069d2 /f
   reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWindowsUpdateVistaSP1 /v Beta1 /t REG_SZ /d a2c3c14a-9586-4d37-9aaa-79fbd64069d2 /f
   echo Vista SP1 registry key has been set. Please check for updates in Windows Update.
   pause

   Save this file as a ‘.cmd’ or ‘.bat’ file, any name is fine, I chose sp1beta.cmd. Make sure there isn’t a ‘.txt’ extension at the end or it won’t work (changing the save

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