Windows 7 and a GodMode

Ever heard of a GodMode (strange name by the way) in Window 7? Yes, it's there.
Create a folder somewhere and call it:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
And you get a control panel with 270 options, getting from Action Center (15 actions) down to Windows Update (2 actions). It seems to me that not all settings you can edit and control via control panel are listed. However, is it useful? I don't know, I usually use the search box in the upper right corner of the control panel.

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Edit Office Document from SharePoint in IE8 64 bit version

Have you ever tried to open a Word document from a SharePoint 2007 document library using Internet Explorer 8 64 bit edition? Today I tried, because I am running a 64 bit Windows 7 edition.
Guess what, next message was shown:


So I tried also to open a Word document from a SharePoint 2010 document library in IE8 x64. Of course, it doesn't work either. Only the message was a bit different:


Oh, by the way, I am using Office 2007 SP2. I didn't try it with Office 2010 (not installed yet). Maybe that will work? I guess not, but I let you know.
Thanks Microsoft! :(

Update:

I read on technet that the IE8 64 is a so called Level 2 brower. According to Microsoft, Web browser support is divided into two levels: level 1 and level 2. Although administrative tasks on SharePoint sites are optimized for level 1 browsers, SharePoint Server 2010 also provides support for other browsers that are frequently used. To ensure that you have complete access to all functionality, we recommend that you use a level 1 browser for administrative tasks.

So it seems that editing a Word document from SharePoint is administrative task. In SharePoint it is called 'contribution'... do you follow it?

Read more at Microsoft Technet:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263526%28office.14%29.aspx

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SharePoint 2010: Solution for failing step 5 of the configuration wizard

This week I was trying to install SharePoint 2010 on Windows 2008 R2 (on VMware). That was not that easy. The major problem I faced with was step 5 on the configuration wizard. All the rest went well. There are a lot of sites/blog with information about the different steps, not that hard to do.
But I got every time the following exception:

Failed to register SharePoint services. An exception of type System.ServiceProcess.TimeoutException was thrown. Additional exception information: Time out has expired and the operation has not been completed. System.ServiceProcess.TimeoutException: Time out has expired and the operation has not been completed. at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController.WaitForStatus(ServiceControllerStatus desiredStatus, TimeSpan timeout) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Win32.SPAdvApi32.StartService(String strServiceName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.Start() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWindowsServiceInstance.Provision(Boolean start) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance.Provision() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.InstallServiceInstanceInConfigDB(Boolean provisionTheServiceInstanceToo, String serviceInstanceRegistryKeyName, Object sharepointServiceObject) at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.InstallServiceInstances(Boolean provisionTheServiceInstancesToo, String serviceRegistryKeyName, Object sharepointServiceObject) at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.InstallServices(Boolean provisionTheServicesToo) at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.ServicesTask.Run() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

To overcome this problem, I tried to increase the amount of RAM from 1GB to 2GB. But that does not solved the problem. One of the other advices was to install SQL Server 2008 SP1. I was not able to install that on my version, so I skipped that part.
The solution that worked for me was removing a couple of registry keys. Removing the following keys solved the problem for me:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0 \WSS\Services\Microsoft.SharePoint. Search.Administration.SPSearchService
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0 \WSS\Services\Microsoft.SharePoint. Search.Administration.SearchService

So, finally I have a beta version of SharePoint 2010 running on a virtual machine. So time to play with it!

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Windows 2008 R2 and bluescreen

Last year I posted about the blue screen in Windows 7. Today, when I tried to startup my Windows 2008 R2 in VMware (for SharePoint 2010 test purposes), I got a blue screen. So it's still there...


Sometimes I get sick of it... (even SharePoint 2010 is not getting configured correctly... :( )

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Happy new year!

To all my blog readers: I wish you a good, healthy and happy 2010!

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Portable Skype version available!

Till today, I worked with a Skype version (3.8). For this version there was no portable version, and I love portable apps. My colleague and I created from the installed 3.8 version a portable one. That worked ok.
Today, I found that there is a portable Skype version (4.1) on portableapps.com. So no need to create your own work-around portable version.
You can download it here.

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SharePoint 2010 not possible on Virtual PC

Today I searched around to see whether it's possible to setup a virtual pc (VPC) with SharePoint 2010. I was planning to setup a virtual domain with two virtual pc's: one as a Domain Controller and one as a SharePoint server. Just as I have now for a MOSS development (and presentation) environment.
Anyway, do you want to know if you can setup this? Well you cannot.

Why? Well in short:

• SharePoint 2010 will run on 64-bit systems only.
• VPC can run on a 64-bit host OS, but only supports 32-bit guest OS.
• Virtual Server 2005 R2: same story. It doesn't support a 32-bit guest OS.
  

I am really wondering whether Microsoft will sort this problem out, because running Hyper-V is not really an option. Hyper-V supports a 64-bit guest OS but it’s not an ideal platform especially if you do development on a laptop (as I do). I assume a lot of other SharePoint developers are running into this problem as well.

It is possible to use VMware, but I don't understand why Microsoft does not have a proper solution for this. They are coming with something that's called MED-V.
I didn't have had time yet to read it all in detail, but the basic idea is that those that are 32-bit or running Windows Server 2003 will not have an in-place upgrade option.
Well, that's the place I am standing, right now...

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