fininno.blog

When trying to find out when SP1 for Vista would be officially released (it's currently a beta release so I've chosen to wait for it's official release) I stumbled upon a couple of interesting pieces of Windows news.

Windows XP SP3
Microsoft is working on SP3 for Windows XP. Until now I had not been aware that there was going to be another service pack for XP but it excited me as I've been quite frustrated in dealing with my new Vista laptop for the last 10 months. I have found a number of quirky bugs and have yet to find solutions to them (when/if I do I'll be sure to post them here). I had been thinking about putting XP on my Vista laptop but have been reluctant to take the time. So when I heard about SP3 for XP I did some research and found out that it is currently in RC2 Refresh (aka RC3) and is expected to be officially released in the next couple of months.

I read some reviews of RC2 and RC2-refresh and it has solid reviews so far. It has apparently improved XPs stability and security. It is primarily a collection of updates released in the 4 years since SP2 was released, but there a few new features too. There are some details on microsoft's website as well as a review by PC Magazine here. However it is suspected that Microsoft is delaying it's official release because they are well aware of Vista's flaws and that more people may downgrade to XP, so if you are feeling


Windows 7
However, more exciting, though a longer wait, is the upcoming Windows 7. The newest version of windows with it's tentatively scheduled release date set for 2010 which promises to be much more stable and secure than previous versions of windows. I know what you're thinking, we've all heard this before, but then I found a very well written article over at thebetaguy.com which first explains some of the reasoning behind Vista's pokeyness and bugs. Which, I still loathe the problems with Vista, knowing that there is some actual reasoning behind it, though it still doesn't excuse what many might argue was a premature release of an OS that wasn't ready.

The article goes on to explain how the architecture of this new version of Windows will have all new architecture, eliminating much of the backward compatibility and could potentially be the best windows realeas since 3.11! While I find it very hard to believe that it could be as stable and secure as the Mac OS, it gives hope of a brighter future for windows users.

So now what?
So what does someone like me who is tired of the bugginess and slowness of Vista do? Sit tight and wait for Vista SP1 or go back to XP Pro SP2/3? Soon I'll have some time to really weigh the pros and cons and make a decision. Going back to XP is a bit of a chore, as I'll need to make sure my less-than-a-year-old inspiron pre-installed with Vista will be compatible with XP and then take the 2 full days it will take to get it running along with all my software. If/when I do, I'll be sure to post my results here.

Update 7-22-07:

For some reason, and I'm not sure why, I wasn't able to get MySQL to work with PHP. PhP was working, and MySQL was working from the command prompt, but php was not loading the the mysql dll, or not loading it properly. I tried many different scenarios to get it work and finally gave up. I uninstalled Apache, PhP and MySQL and downloaded WAMP5 (www.wampserver.com). WAMP is an installer that installs Apache, MySQL and PHP so that they all work together right from the start. After spending 3 days trying to Install those on my own, I used WAMP and was up and running in 15 minutes. Once installed you can make changes to the httpd.conf, php.ini and mysql as you normally would to customize it for yourself. However, you may still need to disable UAC, but I'm not sure about this.

If you would still like to manually install php/mysql/apache on vista then check out the post below which got php and apache running just fine. If you get MySQL to work with PhP on Vista, I would love to hear how you did it!

Disable User Account Control (UAC) and never look back!

As I mentioned in my last post, I now have Vista Home (for good or bad, it came with my new laptop). First thing I must say is if you have a working system on XP, unless you have a specific NEED to upgrade to Microsoft Vista, then Don't. It has been a troublesome experience for me and now that I have everything working pretty well, there are still little unexplained annoyances (i.e., explorer.exe crashes about once every day or two for no apparent reason, though it does start right back up in about 30 seconds and doesn't effect my other open programs).

That being said, if you do have Vista and are installing (or planning to install) a web server (especially the Apache/PhP/MySQL variety) than the first thing you should do to eliminate at least half of your head-aches is to disable User Account Control. There are many different ways of turning this off and you can find them described here:
http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm

Once you have done this, you should have no problem installing Apache the way you are familiar with (I'm not going to get into that here). Now you are ready to install php.

Install PhP under Apache and Vista:

If you have disabled User Account Control and have successfully installed Appache then check out the step-by-step instructions here:
http://senese.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/install-php-5-under-apache-22-and-windows-vista/

I follwed that procedure from start to finish (after removing my innitial php install attempt) and was up and running with no problems.

I am now working on installing MySQL and if anything weird should come up, I'll add it to this post.

~Billy Flaherty
Website Developer
www.billyswebdesign.com

I recently began using windows Vista which comes pre loaded with Internet Explorer 7. As most web developers know, to produce a quality site that works on all current browsers you need to test on multiple versions of Internet Explorer. On XP you could use standalone versions of of older IE versions (including IE6 and down) along side of IE7. However, the standalone installations of IE do not work on Vista. I did find a solution but it is a bit more involved.

First off, if you are running XP and want the easy to install standalone versions of IE, check them out at evolt.

A solution:

The team at IE Blog have generously provided a hard disk image of a windows XP installation (with IE 6) which you can use.

1. First download and install Microsoft virtual PC (its free)
2. Next, head over to IEBlog and get the image here. The file is a whopping 450mb, so put your feet up and wait. If your on dial-up, give up.
3. Run virtual PC and set up a new machine (the process is pretty self explanatory). Use the XP image you just downloaded.
4. Run the system, you now have access to IE 6

Thats IE6 out of the way, what about the rest?

• IE7 - Your on vista, so you have it!
• IE6 - On your virtual PC
• IE5/IE5.5 - Copy the standalone version (found at evolt) to your virtual PC (drag and drop, easy!)
• Fix conditional comments on the virtual machine, by going start > run and typing regedit. Find HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector and rename the 'IE' key to 'zIE'. Conditional comments will now function in the standalone versions.

Like I said, not the easiest, but it works!

~Billy Flaherty
Website Developer
www.billyswebdesign.com

Greetings!

This is my first entry for my web design blog which will chronicle problems and solutions I come across, updates on current design projects and other random bits of information/news (Transformers anyone?) to keep things interesting. All work and no play is no way to stay creative and productive!

~Billy Flaherty
Website Developer
www.billyswebdesign.com