Huh. Windows Vista's firewall has outbound rules. I didn't know that until today. I wonder if it does anything?
Anyway, this is accessible via Control Panel (classic view) > Admin Tools > Windows Firewall with Advance Security.
Thinking about installing Windows Vista SP1? I am. It doesn't offer new features or (necessarily) better performance, but it does fix stuff in a neater package. I'm going to back up my data and restore a disk image from my fresh Vista installation, then install SP1.
Anyway, Microsoft strongly recommends using Windows Update instead of the Microsoft Download Center to download and install Windows Vista SP1 on single PCs. You can get the standalone install from the Download Center, and if you are rolling out SP1 to 50 computers, it kinda makes sense.
However, for most of us, using Windows Update sounds like a good idea to me. Here's why:
Finally, almost a year (11.5 months) after Vista was released, Palm has finally released Palm Desktop 6.2 for Windows Vista. The beta has been out for about five months (as I posted in August). This update is not Vista-only, but extends support to Vista and Outlook 2007.
According to LifeHacker, there are some limitations:
Palm Desktop 6.2 Beta for Windows (Vista) is available now. It only supports Vista, and it is beta. But, if you are stuck committed to Vista, at least you can play with your Palm PDA again.
Via DSL, via Brighthand
It's about time! If you've copied files and wondered why it was taking Vista so long to do a simple task, here's the update for you.
KB 938979 "performance and reliability" update addresses (among other things) the "file transfer" problem, which Microsoft describes as, "When you copy or move a large file, the 'estimated time remaining' takes a long time to be calculated and displayed." This is what I referred to my coworkers as the "why does it take so long to copy one file?" problem.
KB 938194 "compatibility and reliability" update deals with some video card issues and a printer problem, so you may want this if you 1) play games on Vista or 2) have a problem with print spooler dying unexpectedly (although I'm not sure it will fix bad drivers).
The title bar link will not work for you if you do not have a SonicWall forum login. Nonetheless, here's an interesting problem I ran into and the solution.
I've been running Vista with various wireless access points just fine; Vista's WiFi stack seems OK to me. Then, we had a client running Vista who could not connect wirelessly to the firewall/access point we sold to them. That was a problem.
The Problem:
This Vista laptop was not able to obtain an IP address via DHCP from the SonicWall TZ 170w. It was able to associate itself (it showed up in the mac/ARP table) to the access point, but instead of getting an IP adress it kept reporting an IP address conflict. The same Vista laptop acquired a DHCP address just fine when connected through wired Ethernet.
Other symptoms included the laptop mac address showing up multiple times in the DHCP lease table on the SonicWall, the event viewer recording DHCP errors on differing IP addresses all reporting conflicts, and finally the wireless NIC falling back to an automatically assigned private IP address. I think that, if our DHCP pool has been small, this single laptop would have used up every available IP address in the DHCP pool.
The Solution:
According to Microsoft, a network trace revealed that Vista client is doing gratuitous ARP while losing the IP.
One of the usages of ARP is to provide duplicate IP address detection through the transmission of ARP Requests known as gratuitous ARPs. A gratuitous ARP is an ARP Request for a node’s own IP address. In the gratuitous ARP, the SPA and the TPA are set to the same IP address.
If a node sends an ARP Request for its own IP address and no ARP Reply frames are received, the node can assume that its assigned IP address isn’t being used by other nodes. If a node sends an ARP Request for its own IP address and an ARP Reply frame is received, the node can determine that its assigned IP address is already being used by another node.
After obtaining an IP address from the SonicWall TZ 170w firewall, the Vista client issues an auto-ARP to assure no conflict; in doing so it expects an answer from the DHCP server confirming the IP address. Without the confirmation the client will decline the IP address received via DHCP.
The core of the issue seems to be the ARP request sent out by the Vista client. The wireless Vista client issues out a Version A ARP request with a source IP address of 0.0.0.0. This is non-standard behavior (whatever that means). Future SonicWall TZ 170w firmware will address the issue.
The Resolution:
The ArpRetryCount registry setting sets the number of times that a gratuitous ARP is sent when initializing IP for a specific IP address. If no ARP Reply is received after sending ArpRetryCount gratuitous ARPs, IP assumes the IP address is unique on the network segment.
In the mean time, runas REGEDIT as administrator, then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters and add a new REG_DWORD named “ArpRetryCount” with a value of 0 and reboot.
Again, according to Jean-Marc of SonicWall (as of May 2007), a future firmware will address the issue.
OK, it's been five months since I first started using Windows Vista. I started off using Vista Ultimate, but frankly I did not find the additional features of Ultimate to be compelling. I tried using Media Center a couple of times and never used BitLocker. As I said previously, there's no compelling reason to upgrade from XP.
If you do upgrade, however, make sure that Vista has been available on similar hardware for a few months. My Toshiba laptop required a BIOS update to make all the hardware appear correctly in Vista, and drivers were not completely available until May. I would check for both drivers, firmware, and BIOS updates for your platform before upgrading.
Speaking of upgrading... my opinion on Vista editions is as follows:
I'm running Vista Ultimate and I kept getting this message: "Spooler SubSystem App stopped working and was closed." The details indicated the following:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: spoolsv.exe
Windows Vista has a nice "Reliability and Performance Monitor" which gives you an index of system reliability. Just click START and search for "Reliability" or type in perfmon.msc. It tracks application failures, so you have an idea when things went downhill. I could tell that the application failures I had were related to spoolsv.exe and began on 03/26/2007.
Vista's new User Account Control (UAC) is a new security component in Windows. If you've used Vista at all, you know that it feels like Windows Vista nags you about launching every single program. Here's a simple explanation: Microsoft wants to protect your from evil software, so it makes you think twice when you do something Microsoft doesn't recognize; it does so by asking "are you sure?" when you do something like install software or launch a program that is not registered with Microsoft (e.g. Firefox). For a detailed explanation, see this Microsoft Technet article.
Anyway, these prompts can get annoying, almost like nagging. I didn't like them in the beta, I don't like them now. I ran Vista with the UAC prompts for a week, and I disabled them today with the secpol.msc tool (see this URL to disable UAC it yourself).
That's why I found this new Apple "get a Mac" ad so funny... (click to watch)
There may be too many editions of Vista (as I explained previously).
People have been lampooning Microsoft's number of editions, some more seriously, some less so, but the point is well taken: it is just too confusing.
Given the choice, here's what I recommend: get Vista Business or Vista Ultimate. The Home editions do not include built-in hard disk imaging, which is a great backup mechanism. You should routinely make backups, but imaging is fantastic.
Are you familiar with those "system restore" discs? The ones that you can use to wipe out your computer and make the hard disk like you just took the computer out of the box? That's a disk image.
So, get your computer set up the way you like it (backup and remove your documents), then make a disk image. If you ever have problems, restore the image and then restore you documents. It will probably only take you one hour.
The only edition which does not support Aero and the Flip-3D eye candy is Vista Home Basic. Vista Home Premium addes Aero and Media Center (which you don't need if you Tivo). Vista Business adds imaging but removes Media Center. Vista Ultimate has all of the above, plus BitLocker Drive Encryption (for the enterprise user, or the hyper-paranoid).
If you participated in the PowerTogether promotion, you're getting Vista Business (way cool). That's probably what I would recommend for almost everybody.
So, I installed Windows Vista Ultimate. When I went to the Microsoft's New Day Launch Tour 2007 event in LA and got my copy of Office 2007.
Heres' a hot tip: You are not forced to go to the track you sign up for at the New Day event. If you sign up as a developer, you can still attend the Technology Decision Maker (TDM) track, which is shorter. So if there are any openings left, take them.
Another tip: About 2:30 PM, the TDM track ends, and you can finish your survey and pick up your swag bag.
Final New Day tip: Create a disposable email address to sign up with. Be sure to hit all the booths and have your badge scanned. If you can, preprint some business cards, too, with your disposable email address to enter the drawings. Most booths were having drawings for Microsoft Zune players.
Anyway, the New Day attendee bag includes a "pre-release" version of Vista Ultimate with a valid key. That's what I am running now. I think it is the new equivalent of "not for resale" (NFR). The swag bag includes the Office 2007 license. This gift is actually just the product key; you'll download the install file later, much like the "Power Together" promotion worked (those are beginning to arrive, by the way).
Installing Vista: Before you install Vista, run the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor. If you have a 3.0 or better you should be just fine. Vista will load in 40 minutes (at least it did on mine). I have a Toshiba Satellite M105-S322 and almost everything just worked, except for my fingerprint reader and SD card slot.
Finding Drivers: Finding drivers for my laptop was not easy. Toshiba's support site did not list any drivers for my laptop, and I had a few devices not working (biometrics, SD slot, touchpad scroll). If you are going to install Vista, here's a few suggestions:
