Software

1. DWM (Desktop Window Manager, the service that runs Aero) is consuming 158MB “Working Set”, which I believe to be non-paged RAM.
2. Still has crappy multi-monitor support. Even if I overlook the fact that I had to get a driver written this month to get all my adapters to run Aero Glass, Windows Vista still [...]

Just a quick tip for the Googlers out there who find themselves with as empty a search page as I was. If you’re developing a .NET application using a 3rd-party library to access a DB2 database, sucks to be you.
Anyway, when calling a stored procedure on the DB2 server, you may get a DB2Exception reading [...]

The next release of the big, fancy, secret project I’m working on at work is due within two weeks. By “working on”, of course, I mean “Rewriting from scratch, in six weeks, what took the last guy 18 months; only now with object orientation and a much improved UI”. I completed two major segments of [...]

I submitted an Explorer bug to Microsoft through the Vista SP1 Feedback tool. Their response made me laugh out loud:
Hi Kevin,
According to the Devs this existed in RTM as well therefore it’s a Won’t Fix for SP1. This will be addressed in a later OS.
Just sit and read that again. Can you guess yet why [...]

I’ve been researching possible causes and fixes for my issue with Aero Glass. That is, it doesn’t work and it should.
Synopsis: Aero Glass worked when I had one ATI Radeon X1600 (AGP 8x, 256MB) card and two monitors plugged in. My experience with the initial Windows Vista Beta (RTM, not SP1) led me to believe [...]

Let me begin by saying I am a power user, and as such many things in my environment are different from a lower breed of user. My Vista system has six monitors and some of the best DDR2 RAM money can buy. I have a server at home with nearly 4TB of total storage.
I’m an [...]

Geez, there are alot of services in Windows Vista that just help themselves to an automatic startup…
Tablet PC Input Service: It’s not a tablet PC. Why, then, do you assume I would want the services of a Tablet PC input device I don’t have? Seriously.
Diagnostic Policy Service and Diagnostic System Host: Both “enable problem detection, [...]

Some of you will recall my previous entry regarding my enrollment in the Windows Vista SP1 Beta. The plan was to download the first available image, install three of the same video card (to acheive what Microsoft calls a “Homogenous Multi-Adapter Configuration” - That is, all three cards on the same driver), and use it [...]

There are few things in life that annoy me more than the Catch-22. So often in life, we get software we have major problems with; but which we cannot remove.
Allow me to provide an example. I recently upgraded my webcam to a Logitech QuickCam Orbit MP. Bad product naming schemes aside, this peripheral came with [...]

Long ago, on a previous version of the blog whose data is long gone, I blogged about being on the Beta for Windows Codename Longhorn and (later) Windows Vista. When it went RTM, I received a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition RTM Build 2600 as a thank-you for the dozens of bugs I [...]