Edit*: The beta for CoD WAW has now cloed - however the following information still does apply to some users of the RTM game.

I know this isn’t really related to Microsoft in any way but the public beta for Call of duty World At War has just come out and I am a huge fan. You can download yourself a free copy of the game if you go to http://www.callofduty.com/ and register to get a serial number and a download link.

If you are running a Vista machine you will most likely run into some difficulties when running the game for the first time after installation. These errors are:

-Message box displaying missing d3dx9_37.dll (or something along those lines)
-Message Box displaying: “Error during initialization: Unhandled exception caught”

To remedy these problems do the following:

The Missing DLL file (d3dx9_36.dll) is attributed to an outdated version of Microsoft DirectX. Simply point your browser to here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en) to download the Microsoft DirectX 9/10 web download application. This will determine the version of DirectX installed on your system and apply the latest SDK updates accordingly.

After this install is complete the error should no longer appear and the game should run fine.

The second error: “Error during initialization: Unhandled exception caught” is a stupid error attributed to the Way the game uses the Windows Vista playback Device.

To remedy this problem click:
Start>Control Panel>Sound

Right Click on the default playback device (e.g. Speakers) and click properties. From there select the Advanced tab.
To eliminate this error the default playback format must be set at 24 bit 48000Hz (Studio Quality). Simply select this from the dropdown list and apply the settings.

Try launching the game now-Everything should run fine.

 Any Questions or comments-don’t hesitate to post them below.

-Patrick (>DDC<Ping)

Edit: Looks like the beta has closed down-we’ll soon see if these errors happen in the full version released in the states today & New Zealand on friday

Edit2: Thanks to xGame (see his comment below):
to any1 having problem with “error during intialization…” in xp go to: control panel->phone and modem options->modems->remove the modem/modems you are not using

Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers.

To build these applications and services, developers can use their existing Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, and XML. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments.

 What is the Azure Services Platform?

Why did we do it?

We needed a logo that was in sync with the key values that we want .NET to stand for: consistency, robustness and great user experiences. We also wanted a logo that conformed to the design principles that are driving Microsoft’s brand identity evolution and is reflected in newer brands such as Silverlight, Surface and more.  Finally, we needed a logo that is more strongly aligned with the portfolio of brands that .NET is most strongly aligned with: Silverlight, Visual Studio and the AppPlat server products.

The result is a design we refer to as the “wave.”  The design is strong, simple and distinctive. The suggestion of the letter ‘N’ in the design will become instantly recognizable over time as shorthand for the .NET brand name.

It’s one of many things we’re actively doing to renew our commitment to the future around the overall Rich Platforms we have today.

Hope all have fun at PDC2008 and you’ll see glimpses of what I mean there

Onwards and embrace the new .NET logo!

People who are registered in the Imagine Cup I.T Challenge-this starts tonight/today [10/10/2008] (In a Few hours actually)

Wish me luck!

Round One Quizzes are during the following times (don’t miss out!!)

EDIT: Round One Quizzes have finished-Round 2 Begins on 6/11/2008 with Quiz 2A… I better Start Studying!!!

Browsing through the blogosphere today I realised that no one has really mentioned the beginning of the 2009 Imagine cup that’s run by Microsoft consecutively every year.

Imagine cup started back in 2003 when it made its debut in Brazil. From there it wen to Japan, India, Korea and France (last year). This time round (Imagine Cup 2009) the competition is to be held in the land of Civilization-Cairo, Egypt.

This competitions primary focus is to solve a real life problem (this years topic [although broad] is “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today.“).

The software Development challenge is the Competitions main focal point, but it also caters for people from various other backgrounds, including:

Compared to the years past Imagine Cup 2009 is quite different from its predecessors…
Last years Imagine cup consisted of 9 competitions in total. Imagine Cup 2009 has only 8 competitions, coupled with some dramatic changes.

Project Hoshimi/Interface design and Algorithms have been removed completely to be replaced by two new competitions:

• Mashup-Idea is to create a new and useful Web 2.0 application that is connected to the Imagine Cup theme (using technologies such as PopFly).
• Robotics-This competition is a mathematical obstacle course where students must navigate a series of brain teasers, code challenges and algorithmic puzzles to demonstrate their ability to understand the potential of robots in our world.

• First Category:
  • Software design.
  • Embedded Development.
  • Game Development.
• Second Category:
  • Robotics & Algorithms.
  • IT Challenge.
  • Mashup.
• Third Category:
  • Photo Story.
  • Short Film.

Good luck to all those participating this year…
And if you are a student that has not signed up check out http://www.imaginecup.com to sign up.

By the way-congrats KenLin for the 1000th post on MSBLOG (the previous one )

Microsoft opened up the kimono today on Press Pass.

The next release of Visual Studio is Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0.

In addition, if you go down the page here, you find some juicy goodness:

“Better Together – Visual Studio Team System Development Edition and Database Edition
In recognition of the increased need to integrate more of the lifecycle members together, we will provide a unified Development and Database product in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Beginning October 1, 2008 Development Edition and Database Edition MSDN subscribers will have access to both products.”

Great news!

We’re excited to release IE8 Beta 2 today for public download. You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8. Please try it out!

You’ll find versions for 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon.

While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2. Before the team blogs about our Beta 2 in detail, here’s an overview of what you’ll find in IE8.

We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services).

To download, click here.

Source: IEBlog

Bitlocker was introduced when Vista was in the works, and Bitlocker became one of Microsoft’s key feature in pushing Windows Vista to the corporate customers.

For the people who doesn’t know what Bitlocker is: Bitlocker is a drive encryption technology by Microsoft. Unlike EFS (Encrypted File System) which is a file level encryption technology, Bitlocker will encrypt the entire disk or volume or partition. OS and data files would be encrypted.

The bad news is, Bitlocker comes only in Windows Vista Business/Enterprise/Ultimate editions…

If you need a full disk encryption but do not have the $$$ to purchase any of the above Windows Vista license, introducing - TrueCrypt 6.

TrueCrypt 6 is a full disk encryption just like Bitlocker, but it can do more than Bitlocker (sorry Microsoft!). Depending on the password that you input during the bootup, TrueCrypt will load the respective operating system the password corresponds to. So if you are being “knife-pointed” and was asked for your OS password, you can provide the thelf/attacker the password to load a not-so-important-operating system. Savvy?

Creating a volume in TrueCrypt

So how is it better/worse than Bitlocker? Here is my breakdown:

Pros of TrueCrypt:

- Much more flexible/More options VS Bitlocker: Simple straightforward wizard
- Different password to load different OS VS Bitlocker: Can only protect one OS/Not so straightforward if 2 or more OSes need to be protected.
- Type of encryption can be specified VS Bitlocker: Microsoft sets the Encryption for you.
- Protect/Hide different volumes VS Bitlocker: Not supported…

Cons of TrueCrypt:

- Too many options - Normal users tend to stay away VS Bitlocker: Straightforward process.
- Not easy/Not hard to setup VS Bitlocker: Easy to setup if using Bitlocker Drive Preparation Tool.

So which one do you prefer? Which is better? Why? Have your say!

I was exporting the settings for Microsoft Office Communications Server today, using the command line tool LCSCMD.exe.

The output was:

Executing “Export Configuration”
Executing “Validate File”
Executing “Establish WMI Connections”
Check the log file “C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1.OCS\LOCALS~1\Temp\export[2008_07_09][15_39_26].html” for details.
ERROR (0×80041010):

On opening the log file, I was presented with the following helpful unhelpful log file.

 (click to enlarge)

Thanks to Google, I searched using the error as the keyword and found out that this error means “An error message of 0×80041010 means that you are trying to reference a WMI class that does not exist.”

The syntax that I used was:

lcscmd /config /action:export /level:machine /configfile:c:\backup\ocsserversettings.xml /fqdn:ocs.blizhosting.com

Where it should be:

lcscmd /config /action:export /level:machine /configfile:c:\backup\ocsserversettings.xml /fqdn:member01.ocs.blizhosting.com

Stupid me… Duh!!

But I think the error in the log file should be more helpful tho.

Hi Reader,

Today is in-fact MSBLOG’s third birthday-Where have the years gone?

It seems that I write this post every year on this very date and reminisce of past times.
The sad fact of the matter is that everyone has moved on now it seems.
Here’s what some of the best people I have known are up to these days:

• -Zack is now studying at Kent University (studying Computer Science at the very home of Bluejay-a Java compiler used by many first year CS students around the world). Zack is also blogging for ZDNET (http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/) where he keeps tabs on the technology world from a student’s point of view.
• -Andre N has just landed an internship with Google (Congrats)-He starts on the 8th as a developer
• -Jabez is in his final year at College
• -I am in my 2nd to last year of college-I am a Microsoft Student Partner for MSDNAA and I work for IBM.
• -Joseph is studying at College
• -Patrick E is still working for Microsoft in a permanent position and frequently travels the world
• -Dennis has started his own company in Germany as a consultant
• -As for the others, sorry, I don’t particularly know what you do full time but they’re excelling in their chosen IT field.

Although the blog is not updated all that often, we will defiantly put on the odd post here and there.

Happy Birthday MSBLOG,  Thanks for reading

Patrick Squire

One of the most anticipated features for IIS is now available. Yesterday the first preview of the URL re-write module for IIS 7 was launched. It is free for all IIS7 users and available for download x86 and x64.

So what does it do exactly?
The URL Rewrite Module provides a rule-based rewriting mechanism for changing request URL’s before they get processed by IIS. The module supports regular expression based URL rewriting logic or a simpler wildcard-based URL rewriting logic. Rewriting decisions can be based on the URL, HTTP headers and server variables. While the primary purpose of the module is to rewrite URLs, it also has functionality to perform redirects, send custom responses and abort requests based on the logic expressed in the rewrite rules.

Here is a quick feature overview:

• Rules-based URL rewriting engine. Rules are used to compare/match the request URL with and what to do if comparison was successful.
  • Regular expression pattern matching. Rewrite rules can use ECMA-262 compatible regular expression syntax for pattern matching.
  • Wildcard pattern matching. Rewrite rules can use Wildcard syntax for pattern matching
• Back-references to patterns and conditions. Back-references are used to capture parts of a matched URL so that it can be re-used later in a rule when constructing a substitution URL string. Back-references are available with regular expression and wildcards patterns.
• Global and distributed rewrite rules. Global rules are used to define server-wide URL rewriting logic. Global rules cannot be overridden or disabled by lower configuration levels. Distributed rules are used to define URL rewriting logic specific to a particular configuration scope, e.g. an web application.
• Access to server variables and http headers. Server variables and HTTP headers provide additional information about current HTTP request. This information can be used to make rewriting decisions or to compose the output URL.
• Various rule actions. Instead of rewriting a URL, a rule may perform other actions, such as issue an HTTP redirect, abort the request, or send a custom status code to HTTP client.
• Rewrite maps. Rewrite map is an arbitrary collection of name-value pairs that can be used within rewrite rules to generate the substitution URL during rewriting. Rewrite maps are particularly useful when you have a large set of rewrite rules, all of which use static strings (i.e. there is no pattern matching used). In those cases, instead of defining a large set of simple rewrite rules, you can put all the mappings between input URL and substitution URL as keys and values into the rewrite map, and then have one rewrite rule which references this rewrite map to look up substitution URL based on the input URL.
• UI for managing rewrite rules. Rewrite rules can be added, removed and edited by using “URL Rewrite Module” feature in IIS Manager.
• GUI tool for importing of mod_rewrite rules. URL rewrite module includes a GUI tool for converting rewrite rules from mod_rewrite format into IIS format.

Install the URL Rewrite Module today!

Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 CTP1 (x86)

Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 CTP1 (x64)

Sourced from : Bill & Thomas’s IIS blog’s 

After yesterdays announcements Microsoft finally demonstrated Windows 7 in public yesterday.

Microsoft has been investing in many forms of natural input to enable users to interact with the PC and their devices using touch. Last year at the All Things Digital conference Bill Gates introduced Microsoft’s surface computer. This year Julie Larson-Green (VP, Windows Experience Program Management), who was responsible for the innovative Office 2007 design, demonstrated the multi-touch innovations first previewed in Surface that will ultimately play a part of the next version of Windows.

Could this now be the start of Microsoft slowly revealing more information over the coming months until their grand double of PDC/WinHEC in November?

Video: http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=8700c7ff-546f-4e1d-85f7-65659dd1f14f

Demo Transcript: http://d6.allthingsd.com/20080527/gates_ballmer/

Source: Neowin

From Budapest, Hungary, comes news of a strange — and perhaps scary — moment for Steve Ballmer today. The Microsoft chief executive was speaking at Corvinus University when a protester interrupted and started throwing eggs at him, according to report on the Hungarian-language Index news site. Here’s the Index video of the incident, via YouTube:

Video from HU TV2 channel:

Before throwing what appeared to be three eggs, the protester demands that Microsoft give back money “stolen” from the Hungarian people. He wore a shirt that said “Microsoft = Corruption.” It’s difficult to hear, but Bloomberg News, citing the Index report, says that the protester “yelled that Ballmer should pay back taxpayer money.”

After taking cover behind a desk, a clearly surprised Ballmer recovered and resumed his presentation as the protester was led out of the room. “It was a friendly disruption,” he said, pacing around and grinning. “That broke my train of thought.”

News Source: SeattlePI
and Thehotfix

Yep…It’s still going-and its worse than ever it seems. Hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting people are stillstumbling across perfectly legitimate websites that have been compromised by an SQL injection, and as a result are infected with a nastyTrojan.
These types of Trojans are known for changing an affected system’s local DNS and Internet browser settings, thus making the system vulnerable for even more potential threats. (Trend Micro have written a very good post explaining what happens once infected)

Therefore I thought I would take some time to mention a dew domains (courtesy of f-secure) admins should block to avoid any possible chance of infection:

yl18.net

www.bluell.cn

www.kisswow.com.cn

www.ririwow.cn

winzipices.cn

www.wowgm1.cn

www.killwow1.cn

www.wowyeye.cn

vb008.cn

9i5t.cn

computershello.cn

This is a good time to again mention that this not a vulnerability in Microsoft IIS or Microsoft SQL that is used to make this happen. If you are an administrator of a website that is using ASP/ASP.NET, you should make sure that you sanitize all inputs before you allow it to access the database.

There are many articles on how to do this such as this one. You could also have a look at URLScanwhich provides an easy way to filter this particular attack based on the length of the QueryString.

With Netscape now dead (thanks to AOL) I saw a funny little comic on joyoftech.com the other day.

 Click for bigger view

With the availability of rich media such as online video becoming more and more important in day-to-day life the Windows Live team have come up with a pretty neat idea to share video with a friend through Windows Live Messenger.
Messenger TV is born: Launching in 20 countries (Surprisingly not the U.S) and in 12 languages, Microsoft hopes to lure a few more people away from youtube and onto the MSN powered service.

“Watching online video is no longer about one person in front of their computer, it’s now a social experience. Users can now share a selection of free content and watch it at the same time as their friends through Messenger TV.” 

To do this Microsoft have partnered with a number of popular content providers, such as MTV, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, National Geographic, and the U.K.’s Channel 4 to offer content that people will want to watch

To give it a whirl simply open up a convo with a friend, click activities and select Messenger TV. If you cant wait to try it with a buddy you could add the bot (MessengerTV@live.com [click on the link to add]) and it will take care of the rest.

The service is determined by your Internet Language options…so if you have it set to English (U.S) then chances are it won’t work for you. Using something link English (U.K) or English (N.Z) should do the trick. 

Click for bigger view

Check out http://messengertv.msn.com/mkt/en-gb/default.htm

Many know for a fact that the transition from Windows XP to Vista was a major step for most. The heightened system requirements to run all that eye candy were immense-even if Vista only just slightly out performs XP.
People therefore turned to Microsoft’s next planned operating system, Windows Seven as the answer to speedy computing with system requirements equal to Vista’s and (hopefully) not a whole lot higher.

Today the Now retired Bill Gates had this to say about Microsoft Windows Seven:

We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

Huzzah…The people rejoice?
…Not just yet-Its early days, and Gates touched on a lot more than just the system requirements of the next gen OS.
Seven is of course built on top of the existing Vista structure and so far not much has really changed dramatically-yet. Hardware will most likely change a lot by the time we see 7 on shelves. Watch this space

—–

Seven has been planned to ship 3 Years after Vista RTM’ed but let’s face it, Microsoft are useless at sticking to deadlines. I believe Seven will bring with it a lot more hype and I for one am looking forward to seeing/testing 7 a lot more than I did Vista.

I have been creating Office Communications Server 2007 videos for JupiterMedia (www.internet.com/video), and the 3rd video on OCS has been posted.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1431564240/bclid1433966019/bctid1529519989

Taken off the video:

“Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 provides support for enhanced presence. Through enhanced presence, co-workers or even bosses can track one another through the use of enhanced presence.

In this video, we will show how you can configure what can be shown to your co-workers, and how enhance presence works in Office Communicator”

Do you like the video? Give some feedback by leaving your comments here.

As most of you know Microsoft launched their Popfly Game creator today. Its an online tool for creating web based games similar to the casual games you’ve probably wasted hours playing when you should have been studying/working/eating/sleeping- Now you can waste hours making the games as well

I wont go on about it because its all over the web but for more info on the api etc check out this blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/ben_anderson

However the real reason I am writing this post is to show you some funny videos made by Microsoft Channel 10 for the popfly launch. The videos are small rip off’s of some popular games including:

• Halo
• Punchout
• Mario
• Tetris
• GTA
• Frogger
• Pong

Here’s The Halo one but check out the rest of them here: http://www.on10.net/blogs/tina/Popfly-Game-Creator/

watch?v=DVanGGz3R30