After cursing Linux for not seeming to have a decent open source virtual machine platform, I’ve found out that an application called VirtualBox is now open source.
Seeing as I’ve been quite comfortable using Virtual PC 2007 up to now, I thought that it would be nice to see if I can get Windows XP running nicely under Ubuntu.
You never know, this might mean my migration to Linux after all…
A humerous article appeared on slashdot today, with the typical Windows bashing that’s to be expected.
But for my own reference, and hopefully the benefit of others:
Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium cannot be ran on a virtual machine legally, whether that be Linux, Apple or even Windows 95.
Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium cannot run a virtual machine of itself using the same licence (eg. Installing Vista Home Premium onto a new PC, and then install it again in Virtual PC with the same product key).
This is the same as Windows XP Home.
Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate have virtualisation rights, which means that it is legal to run the same copy of Windows, with the same licence key in a virtual machine.
Following on from my guide on how to install Vista Upgrade onto a fresh hard drive, I’ve noticed that the internet has been rife with guides on how to install Vista without any other media at all, such as on the Windows IT Pro site.
I can confirm that this method works so here goes:
Basically what this does is fools the setup program into believing that you are upgrading your version of Windows Vista.
The downside of this method is that the upgrade takes a very long time. If you do have Windows on another partition, I strongly recommend that you begin your installation from there instead.
I like simple scripts, and this one is so obvious – I wonder why I didn’t think of it:
First, create a folder on your server, and share it as logon$. Make sure that users are given read and write access in the share properties, and in the folder security settings.
Create the following logon scripts and add them to the logon / logoff scripts as appropriate. Both scripts are ONE LINE ONLY.
logon.cmd
echo logon,%COMPUTERNAME%,%USERNAME%,%DATE%,%TIME% >> \\server1\logon$\Logon.csv
logout.cmd
echo logoff,%COMPUTERNAME%,%USERNAME%,%DATE%,%TIME% >> \\server1\logon$\Logon.csv
Once done, you can load the file into a program such as Excel and easily manipulate the data to find what you are looking for.
Naturally, change the name server1 to your server name. It’s a simple way to log users accessing workstations so that you know who as logged on where.
I was considering doing the same with a database and VBscript – which would inevitably slow down the logon process. This should make things wonderfully simple.
I settled on keeping the log file the same for logons and logoffs, as it seems sensible to track these in the same file. If you seperate them and say, want to find out how long a user has been logged on for, then you have to start dealing with too many seperate files.
Release 1 of the OpenXML Translator for Microsoft Word is now available through Sourceforge.
This tool allows MS Word users to open files saved in OpenOffice Write format (.ODF), make modifications and save the files.
Microsoft is due to release this through its website shortly, and apparently there will be Impress and Calc converters, too.
For people who are considering using OpenOffice, or use both OO and MS Office, this is definitely good news.
The tool will work in both Word 2003 and Word 2007.
A friend of mine was asking how to find the emails for Outlook Express on his hard disk drive. So I thought that I should post these instructions for him and others who may find it difficult to get at these files.
In Windows 2000 or Windows XP:
Open ‘My Computer’
Goto your C: drive (or wherever it is you happen to have Windows installed today)
Now follow the path through
See? Easy.
All of your OE files have a .dbx extension. These are database files, and as such you will not be able to read the mail without opening the files in Outlook Express.
If you’re not sure exactly who you are, click ‘Start’, then ‘Run…’ and type cmd. In the prompt (the black-box thing) type SET and press enter on the keyboard. One line should read USERPROFILE=. What you see after the = sign is the path to your user account.