Andy's Tech Fun

I just saw an announcement on Microsoft’s Server and Tools blog that Hyper-V is going to be available for download at noon PST (2PM for us Central folks), today.  Just in time, too, since we have a Server 2008 RC server that finally needs to be updated to 2008 RTM (or SP1, for those who are picky about it).

Check out their post for some Hyper-V interviews, or just go download Hyper-V.

I guess I’ll have to update our RC0 Hyper-V, too.  That’ll have to be in the evening, though, or I’ll definitely here from the rest of the users…

Paul Thurrott let us know that he received an e-mail saying Hyper-V RC1 will be released, today.

The RC1 Evaluation copy of the code will be made available here  for download by EOD on May 20th. For more information, please check out the STB News Bytes Blog  or Virtualization and Consolidation.

Since upgrading from the CTP to RC0, we haven't had any problems running machines on Hyper-V.  We're even running our Exchange 2007 server in a 64-bit, 2-core virtual machine.  Since it's running so well, and I'm going on vacation next week, we'll probably hold off on upgrading until RTM (or RTW, whichever). 

I guess that's the biggest problem with Hyper-V.  When you have 6 or 7 machines running on one, it can take a little longer to shutdown all the guests for a reboot.  With its reliability at RC0, though, we'll probably never reboot after the final release (yes, we'll still patch!).

The Windows Virtualization Team Blog has some cool information on Microsoft's use of Hyper-V for MSDN and TechNet.

The success of Hyper-V as a web platform for both MSDN and TechNet for performance and stability has given us the confidence to accelerate our plans to implement Hyper-V for many of the other sites we run, such as the live traffic testing of www.microsoft.com on Hyper-V, which we have already started.

Since I am developing applications for Office, I have enabled "Show add-in user interface errors" in the Advanced options of my Office applications.  Yesterday, I installed KB949810, which was handed down from our WSUS server, which got the update from Microsoft.

Now, whenever I open any Office application, I receive a series of error messages all saying they couldn't find an Office control.

Error Title: Custom UI Runtime Error in Office Genuine Advantage Add-in
Error found in Custom UI XML of "Office Genuine Advantage Add-in":
...

UPDATE/RESOLVED (4/19/2008 9:00AM)

UPDATE (4/18/2008 7:45AM)

To stop the error messages, I removed the Office Genuine Advantage Add-in:

1. Go into the application's Options (i.e. click the Office Button and select "Excel Options")
2. Select "Add-Ins" from the navigation pane on the left.
3. At the bottom of the Add-ins form, select "COM Add-ins" in the Manage: drop-down, then click "Go..."
    
4. In the COM Add-Ins window, highlight "Office Genuine Advantage Add-in" and click the Remove button. 
5. Click the Okay button.

For me, this seemed to remove it for all applications, so I didn't receive the error message.

The default is to not show user interface errors, so unless you turned it on for a reason, you will most likely not see these messages.

Today was the first really nice day of the year that we could take Declan outside to play.  This was a great opportunity for him to ride his Easter present he got from his Godmother.  He had plenty of practice inside, so we knew he'd enjoy it.

He can't steer, yet, so he keeps one hand on the handle to push the button and holds on to the center bar for his life.  The four-wheeler starts off pretty quick and gives him a good jolt.  He loves it.

The whole time outside he spent looking around.  He'd drive a few feet, look around, drive a few more feet, look around, again.  He really used the four-wheeler more to get to the next thing to look at then as a toy.  You can see the intense concentration on his face.

Usually, when you offer to carry him, Declan won't hesitate to come to you.  After about half an hour of riding around, there was no way I was going to coax Declan to let me take him.  I had to peel him off the four-wheeler, and he still held on tight to the handle bar.

I can't wait to get him out more this summer.  I have no doubt that he'll love it.

I recently found out that one of my posts had been getting some attention, since it helped solve an uncommon and difficult error.  Unfortunately, I incorrectly thought I would automagically be notified when a comment was added to one of my posts.  It wasn't until a couple of months later when someone sent me a message through Windows Live which I did receive an e-mail for that I learned I had been helping people.  (Why would I read my own blog?)

I spent some time searching through all the settings in Spaces, but couldn't find anything about getting notifications for comments.  Finally, tonight, I was trying to find some kind of workaround when I started looking for my RSS feed link.  After scrolling down to the bottom of my sidebar, I found the RSS link in the Visitor Tools module.  I noticed there was a Sign up for alerts link, so I thought I'd try it.

When I clicked on it, I was happy to see there was an option for Comments!  And they even recommended it for me. 

Now, hopefully, I will receive an e-mail notification when someone posts a comment to my blog.