I've been told that this is related to the leaked SP1 beta of Vista floating over the internet, but you can now manually download and install two Vista patches that improve performance and compatibility. I'm sure these will filter through to Windows update eventually but what I heard was that they were specifically supposed to be part of SP1 instead. Interesting! Download the Performance Path here, and the Compatibility Patch here. I haven't installed them yet, but plan to today.

I'm using Vista as my primary OS on my laptop, but tonight I decided to install Windows XP. Mainly because I have a few multimedia things that don't work under Vista but I still need to use them every now and then (For those curious, the main one is the BlueMic Snowball – A high quality USB mic I use for Podcasting). XP and Vista ship with too different bootloaders and only the Vista bootloader will pick up an existing XP installation. For design and forward compatibility issues, the XP bootloader will not recognize any existing Vista partitions. Once I had XP installed, I then had to do a few things to make both dual boot happily. I searched quite a bit on the net before I got all the answers, I had to review a few of commands as they were pre-RTM vista. I certainly didn't find anything that documented the process fully. So here it is – hopefully someone else will find this useful:

Part 1: Installing XP

• Before you install XP, be sure to use the Vista Disk Manager (Right click on Computer and select manage) to resize down the vista existing partition and create a new partition. You don't need anything like partition magic if you have Vista
• Install XP into a new partition directly after the vista partition you created
• Restart – you should boot back into XP and have no ability to boot into Vista

Part 2: Vista Bootloader re-setup (From Windows XP)

• Once into XP, make sure you have your Vista DVD in the DVD player and your user has admin rights
• Open a command prompt window (start, run, "cmd")
• Change to your CD Rom drive by typing the drive letter and colon, e.g. E:
• Change directory to \boot, e.g. "cd boot"
• Run the following command: Bootsect.exe –NT60 All
• Restart the machine – the machine should now boot into Vista and have no ability to select Windows XP from any bootloader

Part 3: Using BCDEdit to get XP booting again (From Windows Vista)

• Once into Vista, make sure your user has admin rights
• Open a command prompt window (start, run, "cmd")
• Change directory to \Windows\system32, e.g. "cd Windows\System32"
• Run the following commands to create an XP boot option:
  • Bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Windows XP"
  • Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=x:
  • Bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
  • Bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast
• Reboot
• You should now have a boot option menu for Windows XP, select it to make sure it works

Part 4: Copying over ntldr files to ensure a successful XP boot

• If you get a "status: 0xc000000f" error with "Windows failed to Load" when you try and load windows XP, do the following steps:
  • Place the follow files from your Windows XP setup CD: NtDetect.com and Ntldr into the root of your XP partition
  • These files are in the i386 directory on your Windows XP directory
• Reboot and you should now be able to select and boot into Windows XP okay

Regarding Part 4, I'm not sure whether everyone needs to do this – but I did notice that Windows XP did not place these folders into root directory of the XP probably because the XP setup wizard thought it was a single boot environment.

Disclaimer: Use at your own peril, this worked for me but I can't guarantee this works for you!

Apparently the private beta of Vista SP1 was leaked recently. There is an interesting view of this Service Pack here at APCMAG.com. The article is particularly interesting around the issues of speed of Vista and the fact that the service pack drastically increases the performance of vista.

Thanks to Ric Anderson @ MS for these resources:

Windows Mobile Reference Index

Microsoft Enterprise Platform Group and Partner Support Line

Australia: 02 4221 9780 OR freecall 1800 027 128; New Zealand: Freecall 0800 450888

• For certified partners and Enterprise IT
• SBS set up issues
• End User help
• Connectivity issues
• Not linked into PSS support calls
• Wireless Data Services answering the calls
• Reporting and issue consolidation back to MS

Windows Mobile Homepage

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/windowsmobile
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/default.mspx

• Local device availability (Australian site)
• White Papers
• Case Studies
• Developer Links

Case Studies

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/business/success/default.mspx

Partner Resources

Windows Mobile Competency Partner certification
https://partner.microsoft.com/msppmobility
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/partners/logon/login.mspx

Partner collateral, logo's and reference information
http://www.windowsmobilepartnershop.com

Application certification (Mobile2Market)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/partners/mobile2market/smartphoneapps/default.aspx

Developer sites

Local Microsoft Developer resource page
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/msdn/tools/msdnflash.aspx

Windows Mobile elearning Training Application Development
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=112167

Windows Mobile elearning Training IT Pro
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=112394

Deploying and maintaining mobile applications
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8a5a43ea-dd75-425b-b05c-1aa3a0e55420&DisplayLang=en

.NET Compact Framework and the Mobile Client Software Factory

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=27fc4663-8661-4760-9993-cde5d27d5fc9&DisplayLang=en

MS Developers Conference 2006 DVD
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=27fc4663-8661-4760-9993-cde5d27d5fc9&DisplayLang=en

BLOGS

• Technology information and tips
• jkruse, dglover and jeffa36 includes local MS information
• Local UMPC info on UberTablet

http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonlan/
http://blogs.technet.com/vik/
http://littlesandpit.blogspot.com/2006/10/direct-push-guide.html
http://jankity.spaces.live.com/
http://blogs.technet.com/jeffa36/
http://blogs.msdn.com/dglover
http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/
http://blogs.technet.com/jkruse/default.aspx
http://UberTablet.blogspot.com
http://msgoodies.blogspot.com/2006/12/tip-installing-communicator-mobile.html
http://www.mogadget.com/

VISTA with Windows Mobile Device Centre

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx

• Think ActiveSync for Vista
• NOTE if folks are having trouble syncing after upgrading to Vista check that the Proxy settings are disable on the device in
  start/settings/connections(tab)/connections/proxy

3rd party retail applications

Handango UK – Voice Command 1.6
http://tinyurl.com/3ye4dv

iMate supported software and services
http://www.clubimate.com/

Trend Micro trial software (mobile virus protection)
http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/mobile/tmms/evaluate/overview.htm

Check out big screen headlines so far one of the best plugins for Vista media centre. It's incredible. Beautiful interface and extremely usuable application for MCE. I've been running it for a while at home on my MCE setup.

Hit Tip to Engadget for most of these leads, but some great stuff happaning with Home Threatre PC's these days:

Ablatron releases the most powerful Mini-ITX mainboard called the Nano Abox and supports a niffty 155 x 87 mm screen.

The FLeX 4.2 home theater PC from Italy's P.Guerra is a beautiful looking box which folds out and has Bose speakers built in!

An MCE based jukebox from CEPro with all the wonderful jukebox stylings is also equied with a beer cooler.

Origin AE Release a LCD equipped HTPC enclosure.

Windows Media Centre was always a specific version of Windows XP that end-users could not get. It was only open to OEMs who built and sold machines. That all changes with Windows Vista, now there is versions of vista that come with Windows Media Centre built in.

Windows Media Centre comes in the the home premium and ultimate versions of Vista.

More MS info at this link.

Probably old news to most, but Windows Vista and Office RTM versions are released on MSDN. More at this link

I've been playing around with a couple of vista versions on my dual opteron and have am now needing to figure out how to edit the new boot loader in Vista. This link on Wikipedia is a good explaination of what's going in the new Vista Bootloader. Very useful reference so I thought I would share it!

Okay, so the plan once I got RC1 download was as follows:

• Install Vista RC1 x32 on a new partition on my work laptop
• Install Vista RC1 x64 on a dedicated Vista partition on my Dual Opteron home machine

I haven't looked into doing my laptop yet (more on this later when I do it), but I did install Vista x64 for my dual operton machine. Initial thoughts from a quick play:

• Simple easy installation. Much easier for joe-user than XP
• The interface is simply beautiful. The usability is massively improved over XP. I especially liked the simpler shell integration as this is something I still personally use a lot (i.e. I prefer to type c:\ as opposed to opening up windows explorer)
• No Vista x64 drivers for any of my m-audio gear. I have the audiophile 24/96 sound card and an audiosport 4x4 midi box. It meant I couldn't do any multimedia testing - I really wanted to see how well certain multimedia software worked, but I'll guess I'll have to wait.
• Big speed improvements over Vista Beta 2. It seems to run much faster on my dual operton if not fly. 

Couple of interesting notes, that Vista now longer uses boot.ini for multiboot. Instead it has a whole new mechanism which is slighty confusioning if you have a couple of other OS's already loaded on your machine. Some interesting links on how config and change the new boot configuration data can be found here and here

Well it wasn't there last night when I checked, but it Vista RC1 is now on MSDN friday morning NZ time. A full couple of days ahead of schedule! MSDN sure is gonna be slow over the next few days!!!!

In more Microsoft release candidate madness .NET 3.0 has rearched RC status. The link is not yet posted on MSDN as far as I can see, but a quick google search reveals this Microsoft downloand link to download the RC.

Coverage of this can be found on Microsoft Watch.com and ActiveWin.

Over the weekend NZ Time, Windows Vista RC1 was finally released. Full details are on the Vista team blog. Summary details here:

It’s official — Windows Vista RC1 is done!

You’ll notice a lot of improvements since Beta 2. We’ve made some UI adjustments, added more device drivers, and enhanced performance. We’re not done yet, however — quality will continue to improve. We’ll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish, until RTM. If you are an ISV, RC1 is the build you should use for certifying your application.