My gap in the void

I came across an interesting problem caused by a group policy enforcing a wireless network policy to attach to the local corporate network and automatically authenticate. The wireless network in question does not broadcast its SSID. Under Vista and XP this isn't a problem as the checkbox that allows you to connect even if the WLAN is not broadcasting its SSID is checked. However in Windows 7 this checkbox was not ticked and because it was a group policy it was not possible to change it. It's possible to take a copy of the profile and change that one instead though using the netsh command. To export the existing profile that has all the settings in you want, just type netsh wlan export profile 'profilename' This will give you an XML file with your settings in. Rename it to 'newprofile.xml' or similar and then edit this file and change the name of the profile to something you want, like Profile2. Then run the following netsh wlan add profile newprofile.xml Then ...

Upon installing the latest version of VMWare Workstation (6.5.1) under Windows, I discovered a fantastic new feature called 'Unity'. What is Unity you ask yourself? Well it's very simple, it takes the windows from within the guest operating system and integrates them as windows in your host operating system. This way you dont have to go full screen or have a frame around your virtual machine to get to one useful window that you're trying to use. It's also available in VMWare Fusion on the Mac, so running your Windows programs has never been so easy! Video

This is a pain if it happens. I haven't seen it at all on a couple of installations, but on another I had this problem pop up constantly after installing Microsoft Office. Everything that uses the Windows Installer seems to crash without really even trying to run. It turns out it's to do with the Customer Experience Improvement Program! Navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions in the registry and delete all the string values, except for the 'Default' entry. Run the group policy editor - gpedit.msc Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Internet Communication Management -> Internet Communication settings. On the right find 'Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program' and double click it, which brings up a dialog where you can select 'Enabled'. Solution found at http://chris123nt.com/2009/01/18/sqm-client-causing-crashing-in-windows-7/

Well here's something thats a bit wierd. Upon installing Windows Live Messenger 2009, the first thing you notice is that the damn window just wont minimize. It's very odd. Even after you've closed all your discussion windows and the main contacts window, you still get an entry on the taskbar, which personally just isn't desirable. It's easy to fix though! Change the properties of the Windows Live Messenger shortcut and set the compatibility level to Vista. Then when you next run it, you'll see it minimizes exactly how it used to...

I recently started using Windows 7 and so decided to push it to the limit and run all the software I was previously running under Vista. The only serious problem I had with incompatibility was a known issue with Daemon Tools in that it simply isn't compatible with Windows 7, so I used the free version of Virtual CloneDrive by ElaborateBytes instead. My next stumbling block was to get the Cisco VPN client working. Oddly enough I had no problems getting this to work on build 6956, but on moving to 7000 I kept getting a dreaded blue screen everytime I tried to start Windows. Luckily the system repair managed to get round this and take me back to the system point just before I'd installed the VPN client. After hunting round the web for a while I found a simple combination of things that seemed to result in a reliable way of getting the VPN client to install and work properly. The VPN client version is v5.0.04.0300. First I changed the properties of the Setup application so that it...

While it seems to be well understood that Windows 7 is in early beta and has many graphics issues, I did come across one particular issue that really drove me up the wall. My laptop, a Dell D830, had been running 6956 for a week or so with no problems and was displaying the new superbar taskbar with it's nice Aero peek function no problem. I found Windows 7 to be pretty stable and run all the software I was running on Vista, so I thought OK, I'll upgrade to the 7000 Beta 1 build which was release a week or two after I had installed 6956. However, after installing the new build, my nice Aero affect had gone and the taskbar was back to a rather cut-down version of the Aero peek feature. I decided to work on this one as it had been working so it seemed quite plausible it should still work on the 7000 build. I had done an upgrade from 6956 to 7000 so I decided to install 7000 from fresh. This resulted in the same problem. I had been accepting the Windows Update recommendation to in...