If you’re looking for a grey theme, then you’ve found one of the best. This theme has a cool techie and Alien feel to it. Usually grey themes are depressing but I don’t find this one is like that at all. I like how the buttons are greyed out and overal transparent look of this theme.
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Yup, a wish came through - I'm now an MVP!

Receiving the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award is a great honor and much appreciated - thank you.

Sharing Rocks - Information wants to be free!

Time to get a beer :-)

 

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Today marks the release of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2008 - a set of tools for IT Pros managing IT environments for companies who have purchased MDOP plus Windows Software Assurance agreements with Microsoft. There are two key product updates in this release I'd like to highlight that I think IT Pros will find very useful  - Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset 6.0 (DaRT) and Desktop Error Monitoring 3.0 SP1 (DEM).

For those of you not familiar with DaRT, it provides a set of tools for IT Pros to debug and troubleshoot unbootable PCs.  DaRT 6.0 brings in some new tools worth taking note of. Tools such as Locksmith can reset a local administrator password, while Hotfix Uninstall can remove a bad hotfix.  This is especially useful if the hotfix was the cause of the PC crash.  Perhaps one of the simplest uses for DaRT is to recover files from the PC, even if they have been removed from the recycle bin.  One of the new features in DaRT 6.0 is the Standalone System Sweeper, an antimalware product that runs while the Windows operating system is unbootable.  This tool, which can receive updated virus/spyware

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By now most of you have probably read about the next wave of Ultimate Extras rumored to be arriving somewhere between now and the distant future. First uncovered by Steven Bink on the recently launched UltimatePC.com website and later removed, was a list of new content for Vista Ultimate extras which has since been confirmed by many official sources at Microsoft. They include “an original game, enhancements to Movie Maker and DVD Maker, additional Windows DreamScenes, screen savers and sound schemes”.

Today, some of those sound schemes were leaked to me by an anonymous and disgruntled Microsoft employee who did this out of frustration at the lack of transparency in the Ultimate Extras program.

In the email he writes, “what’s interesting is that not only did Microsoft bring back Robert Fripp who contributed to the original Vista sound design to work on these new sounds, but also the talent of Ben Burtt who is a notable sound editor and designer famous for his work in the Star Wars movies - most memorably R2D2’s voice and the lightsaber sound effects.” By sampling a few of the sounds, Ben’s contribution can be

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This guide which I found at Digital Inspiration illustrates the various steps required to integrate Service Pack 1 files into Windows Vista installer via a process commonly known as slipstreaming.

Before we get started, here are four things you need to slipstream Windows Vista and Service Pack 1 files:

a. Windows Vista Installer DVD and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Installer
b. vLite Installer - vLite 1.1.5 Beta
c. A blank DVD disc for writing the Vista SP1 files and few gigs of free hard disk space.

Now that you have all the ingredients ready, let’s get slipstreaming Vista SP1:

1. Insert the original Windows Vista DVD disk and start vLite (install the program if you haven’t done that already).

2. Browse for the folder that contains your Windows Vista files (i.e., your DVD Drive letter). vLite will now copy all the files to some local folder that is specified by you.

4. Once all the pre-SP1 Windows Vista files are copied to the local hard disk, specify the Windows Vista Edition that you want to

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