James Finnigan : Vista

How to launch an un-elevated process from an elevated process

James Finnigan — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 04:11:03 GMT

This question has come up a fair amount lately. The short answer is that you don't * - instead you should: first launch an unelevated process have that unelevated process launch an elevated process and wait for it to finish (or use some form of IPC) have...(read more)

RegNamespace sample up on codeplex

james — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:54:35 GMT

Scott, Jerry, Thayn and I have whipped up a sample of indexing the registry, as well as a shell folder (namespace extension) for viewing it. It's great to be able to search the registry via the index and it's great sample of how to create a shellfolder, protocol handler, and even an IFilter. So head on over to the codeplex site and check out the source code, or if you're more interested in having it than seeing how it's build, just download the binaries and enjoy!

This is something that we're looking to improve over time, adding features and generally fleshing it out to be a rich, complete experience. We're not yet to feature parity with Regedit, but it won't be too long.

If you're interested in samples related to shell programming also check out shellrevealed.

[from my msdn blog]

RE: How to get rid of that pesky Windows Welcome Center at FIRST boot

james — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:16:21 GMT

While reading blog comments about Welcome Center, I came across this entry on how to remove welcome center at first boot.

...

With a simple .reg file though, you can kill Windows Welcome Center dead on first boot — simply put the following into your .reg file and save it, run it, or add it to your scripts:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] "WindowsWelcomeCenter"=-

...

That will do it. But if you run this command instead, you can avoid creating a file and the elevation prompt.

reg delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /v WindowsWelcomeCenter /f

Oh, and sorry about waiting until the second time you see it before displaying the checkbox - that wasn't my idea. (Welcome Center was a feature with a lot of input.)

[original link]

Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista

james — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:01:00 GMT

I was just looking at the Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista video. Wow. It's gorgeous. It's nice to see people doing amazing things with Avalon/WPF. I was particularly impressed with the great flow and visual as you select the background color (pictured, but watch the video about 2/3rds in for the full effect).

I look forward to more luscious apps like this - looks like I may need to dust off my WPF skills and try making a few things myself (too many projects, too little time).

[original post]

Using WMIC to check for predicted disk failure (S.M.A.R.T. analysis)

james — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:37:00 GMT

I was looking at the Windows Vista Reliability and Performance Monitor and noticed that the data collector sets for System Diagnostics included a SMART disk check. I've been waiting for Windows to make better use of SMART and hadn't noticed that there was a WMI entry for it. I took a look at it in WMIC to see what data was there. You can also view the data and thresholds used to predict failure, etc.

WMIC /NAMESPACE:\\root\wmi PATH MSStorageDriver_FailurePredictStatus
Active InstanceName PredictFailure Reason
TRUE IDE\DiskWDC_WD1200BB-00CAA0_____________________16.06V16\5&134a4e1&0&1.0.0_0 FALSE 0
TRUE IDE\DiskWDC_WD740GD-00FLA1______________________27.08D27\5&14d2dd2b&0&0.0.0_0 FALSE 0
TRUE IDE\DiskST3250823AS_____________________________3.03____\5&278c8dd0&0&1.0.0_0 FALSE 0

WMIC /NAMESPACE:\\root\wmi PATH MSStorageDriver_FailurePredictData
WMIC /NAMESPACE:\\root\wmi PATH MSStorageDriver_FailurePredictThresholds
[original post]

Microsoft CES website - Group Shot pictures

james — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 03:11:54 GMT

Here's Microsoft's CES website. There's a ton of interesting stuff on here. The one that will probably impact me the most is Group Shot. Not that the rest isn't incredibly cool, it's just that I have the groupshot problem a lot. :)

These two images becomes combined (source can be seen bottom left) to look like bottom right. How cool is that for group pictures (particularly those involving small children).

[original post]

Sabarinath Nair reviews Guided Help, Vista

James Finnigan — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 07:37:00 GMT

Sabarinath had this to say about Guided Help: Guided Help While this feature is still under beta, I believe this would be an interesting feature to have. In addition to having descriptive help files, Guided Help teaches you visually how to do the tasks....(read more)