Have now put up a Windows 7 Service Guide, with a lot of help from the BlackViper.com website. It is pretty much the existing Vista Service Guide with some extra services (19 services in total).

Also added two small Win7 tips:

• Configure the taskbar in Windows 7. Credits WinGeek.com
• Make sidebar and gadgets work with UAC disabled. Credits MyDigitalLife.info

Btw. if using AVG 8.5 and is tired of the nagging popup-offer about upgrading from the free version to the full version, then it can be removed with the following steps:

1. Go the install folder of AVG and browse to the Notification folder:

   C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\Notification

2. Create a new sub-folder called upgrade-oportunity-avg85:

   C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\Notification\upgrade-oportunity-avg85

3. Move all files newer than the 1 July 2009 from the Notification folder to the upgrade-oportunity-avg85 folder. This should include files like:
   • style.css
   • upgrade-oportunity-avg85-message1.html
   • upgrade-oportunity-avg85-message2.html
   • upgrade-oportunity-avgavf85.gif
   • upgrade-oportunity-avgis85.gif

I guess the market for low price antivirus packages will disappear, when Microsoft release their own free product Security Essentials (Currently in beta stage).

First the important news, exactly one month ago (22 april) my girlfriend gave birth to my beautiful daughter Kia. Now most of the things in my life have a different priority than before.

In other news Microsoft have released the second service pack for their infamous Windows Vista. Right now it is only available for MSDN and Technet subscribers, but it will soon be available at Windows Update. Looked through the list of hotfixes included in the service pack, and it is mostly fixes to rare bugs, but there are some few interesting fixes:

• Faster reconnect to wireless networks after waking from power saving sleep mode.
• Support for recording data to Blu-Ray media.
• Support for Bluetooth 2.1 features.
• Faster file transfering between Windows Vista machines on high bandwidth network.
• Less audio stutter when playing music, while performing file transfers on high bandwidth network.
• Windows Media Center now work better with TV tuners.
• Removed limit of only 10 half open TCP connections simultaneously. More Info MS KB969710

Note after having installed SP2, then one can run Compcln.exe to remove RTM and SP1 versions of files there are replaced by SP2. This will save space, but also remove the ability to uninstall SP2 again.

More Info Notable Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista SP2
More Info Hotfixes and Security Updates in Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista SP2

Update 26 May 2009 -The service pack is now freely available for all.

Had planned a small before-christmas vacation, but this was suddenly changed when the news arrived about my webhost provider had gone bankrupt. Have now been busy restoring the website on another webhost and started the domain transfer. It seems I was lucky with getting hold of the Auth-code, so the domain should be transferred within 5 days.

It is sad that Needhost.dk has been taken down, since they provided a very feature rich solution on the Windows platform. Compared to other low-budget webhosting solutions, then there are none in their league (Everyone is on the Linux platform). Really liked the combination of the Helm Control Panel and SmarterTools.

My new webhost is UnoEuro.com and I'm really surprised how fast my website is performing on this new webhost. The support have also been very helpful in my moment of need, and I'm planning to give them a good review if everything is up and running before new year.

Added some articles while waiting for the domain transfer:

• Added Windows Vista/2008 Network Tip about enabling support for Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)
• Added Windows XP Embedded Theme signed by Microsoft. Credits Tweaking with Vishal
• Added Windows XP Tip about accessing exFAT partitions by installing Vista's exFAT file system driver. Credits ItsMyWindows.com
• Added Windows Search Tip about extending the indexing service with IFilters to search within documents. Credits LifeHacker.com
• Added File Recovery Tip about performing a file copy from a scratched CD / DVD.

First the new articles added:

• Added Vista Tip about how to analyze boot time performance using the Windows Performance Toolkit.
• Added WinXP Tip about faster Start-menu navigation using search functionality. Credits LifeHacker.com
• Added Vista Tip about the special "All Tasks" folder. Credits ItsMyWindows.com
• Added Windows Tip about the shell-keyword, and how it can be used to quickly access common folders. Credits Winhelponline.com.

Secondly the bbPress forum has been upgraded to ver. 0.9.0.2 (From ver. 0.8.3). At the same the user integration between bbPress and WordPress has been removed. It seemed natural at first, but this slowly changed:

• Many of the security issues discovered in WordPress (and fixed) take offset in a registered user (Have now disabled user registration in WordPress).
• When posting a comment in WordPress, then one seldom want to bother with user login.
• bbPress is still in beta, so any security issues that might give it access to the Wordpress database is unwanted.
• bbPress has upgraded the password security, but this is not compatible with the old horse WordPress 2.0

With the upgrade, then it is now possible to perform anonymous posting like when posting comments in WordPress. This has also been used to transfer the topics from the old boardnation forum to bbPress.

Have spent the last few months writing a few articles for CodeProject.com. During this time the collection of unpublished tips have been growing. Here is a few to start with:

• Added Vista Tip about how to run programs elevated without UAC prompt. Credits HowToGeek.com
• Added Vista Tip about how to change the OEM branding of the Welcome Center. Credits Unlock for Us
• Added Vista SP1 Tip about how to restore the search context menu option. Credits VistaX64.com
• Added Vista Tip about how to enable auto-tuning of the RWIN in Internet Explorer

Have also been playing around with Wordpress to add support for HTTP 304 return code when using wp-cache. After enabling the support, then this blog returned 3 times as many 304 responses, though the bandwidth usage is pretty much the same according to the website statistics.