Windows

Archive for the 'Windows' Category

Safari 3 for Windows. New OS, same missing features!

Published

on 11/6/2007

. 18 Comments

I saw from Engadget that Apple have released a new beta version of their browser, Safari, which will run on Windows. There are versions for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

I downloaded it and installed on an XP machine and it does appear to run quite quickly.

However, Apple still haven’t addressed Safari’s biggest bug - it is far too easy to close a window in accidentally Safari closing all its tabs. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer give you a warning if you try to close a window with multiple tabs open. How hard would it be for Safari to implement this feature?

Having said that, if you load the Acid2 test on IE7, Firefox and Safari for Windows, only Safari displays it correctly.

Opera also passes the Acid2 test (not displayed). However, Opera also allows you to close multi-tab windows without warning!

So as well as being fast, Safari for Windows is, along with Opera, the most standards compliant browser available. Just don’t close any multi-tab windows accidentally!

You can download the beta from the Safari download page.

Update 1: Apple’s official announcement is now up

Update 2:Â As Conall notes in the comments of this post, the multi-tab warning is working in the new Mac version of Safari.

Microsoft Vista Service Pack 2?

Published

Tom Raftery

on 7/6/2007

in Microsoft, Vista and Windows

. 175 Comments

Microsoft’s Windows Vista is a buggy product. Heck, even I found an unreported bug in it after playing with it for less than ten minutes!

I was talking to Microsoft folk in Madrid last week and I said to them that I couldn’t wait for Service Pack 2 for Vista to be released. Their response was - “You mean Service Pack 1?”

Nope, I meant Service Pack 2. Vista is so buggy that I don’t think Microsoft will address all the problems in their first Service Pack release. Like Windows XP, Vista will not be reliable until SP2.

The Microsoft guys weren’t impressed with my opinions of Vista!

It looks like SP1 is getting closer though. According to istartedsomething.com the Microsoft Downloads site had links to documentation for SP1 for OEMs - as of this writing the docs are still available.

Cool, now has anyone seen any sign of Vista Service Pack 2?

OS X to Vista networking help needed

Published

Tom Raftery

on 18/5/2007

in Mac, Windows, networking and wifi

. 19 Comments

Anyone know of any good resources for networking a Mac (running OS X) and a PC (running Vista) on a peer-to-peer lan network?

I’m asking because I have a 4.75gb file on my Vista machine which I want to transfer to the Mac and it is too big to burn to DVD.

I have turned on File Sharing for Windows on the Mac but although the two machines are on the same subnet (192.168.2.x), and both can ping the router (192.168.2.254) neither can ping the other!

I have tried both wireless and wired networks, to no avail!

My move from OS X to Vista - Day 6

Published

Tom Raftery

on 20/4/2007

in Microsoft, Vista, Windows, os x to vista and video

. 2 Comments

Good news for a change!

I received an email from Miel Van Opstal alerting me to the fact that NVIDIA has updated its video driver for the Vaio (Miel is the guy in charge of the Vaio Influencer program in Microsoft).

Previously SecondLife refused to run on the Vaio because of video driver issues. Steve Clayton had kindly offered to help out at MIX07 but that won’t be necessary now because the new driver which Miel emailed me about, fixed the problem (after I uninstalled and reinstalled SecondLife and restarted the Vaio!).

I have already wasted the morning grappling with Windows Live OneCare, I might as well blow the rest of the day now trying out SecondLife on Vista!

Thanks Miel.

Windows Live OneCare is a POS

Published

Tom Raftery

on 20/4/2007

in Mac, Microsoft, Vista, Windows and os x to vista

. 37 Comments

Windows Live OneCare is a fantastic idea. Write buggy insecure software and then charge the people who buy your software extra if they want to buy OneCare, which is supposed to protect them from the errors you created in the first place.

Anyone else see a conflict of interest here? Why fix the software, when fixing it, only gives people a reason not to buy OneCare!

Anyway, a trial version of OneCare came on the Vista laptop that Microsoft sent me. This morning I was sent an Activation key to upgrade from the trial version to a full version. Excellent, that will get rid of the nagware screens Microsoft have in the trial version and allow me to update the virus definitions.

Ah, the naivete, if only life (with Vista) were that simple.

Three hours and countless restarts later I was still battling unsuccessfully to Activate OneCare.

First off, if you want to go from the trial version to a full version you have to uninstall the trial version (requires a restart) and download and install the full version (requires a restart). Why? Why can’t you simply add an activation code to the trial version and it change automatically to the full version?

Anyway, after going through this process I was faced with the following unhelpful error message:

When you click the Get Help button, you are brought to a screen which asks you what the error is! I dunno. You tell me. You are the one with the bloody problem.

“OneCare has encountered a problem” doesn’t elicit any helpful responses unsurprisingly!

I decided to make sure I had done a full uninstall. So I uninstalled OneCare (and restarted) and then I ran the OneCareCleanup tool (has to be run as Administrator and requires a restart).

I then reinstalled OneCare and sure enough an Activation screen appeared - wohoo, I thought, success at last. Silly me.

I clicked on the Activate button, the screen closed and nothing happened after that. I decided to try a restart as almost everything else in this process had required a restart! Still no joy.

I tried going further in the Windows Live OneCare Support pages. Could I contact someone to help out? Of course not. Why? Because Windows Live OneCare determined that I was still in the Free Trial Period so I was only entitled to email support (24 hour turnaround).

AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I give up.

My move from OS X to Vista - Day 4

Published

Tom Raftery

on 29/3/2007

in Vista, Windows and os x to vista

. 9 Comments

I know, I know, I didn’t post anything yesterday so this should be Day 5 but I wasn’t using the Vista machine yesterday, I was using the Mac for a Keynote presentation I was giving. Powerpoint has nothing on Keynote.

Today I wanted to run Second Life on the Vista machine but ran into the following error:

I’m fairly certain that this is a machine specific error and not a general Second Life not running on Vista error however, as I can’t access the Vaio Update page because of the following error: