Back to Vista x64

Hi,

Some time ago (sometime around 10/2006) I installed Windows Vista (a release candidate at that time) on my home machine in order to "try" it (to be sincere I've installed various Vista beta/release candidates).

Performance was not impressive but since I'm a software developer (and I didn't used the machine to work anyway) I decided that it worths to be able to experiment with new API / functionality so I kept it.

Some time after that it was released so I got a copy and installed in the same machine.

On 10/2007 I joined db4o and started to work from my home which means that my machine now plays an important role in my development productivity and I decided that I'd rather go with Windows XP (x86 or 32 bits) again (due to the performance impacts I got with Vista x64).

Well, one year passed and I got a new machine (a pretty fast one, lets say) and so I decided to give Vista x64 a try again.

In the first days I do got some BSODs (which made me feel frustrated) but after spending some time searching I found some suggestions regarding memory configurations; after applying such changes (I just set the times after memory manufacturer specifications and increased memory voltage by 0,1 volts) it became stable (no BSOD since them). 

I can say that I'm satisfied up to now; no hardware or software conflicts, performance is pretty good (much faster than my previous machine running Windows XP - I know, XP would run even faster on this machine).

See you.


Adriano

Minor db4o tutorial problem

Some time ago I started playing with db4objects, an object oriented database for Java and .Net.

After installing db4o it started this tutorial (C:\Program Files (x86)\Db4objects\db4o-6.3\doc\tutorial\Db4objects.Db4o.Tutorial.exe, on my 64 bits Windows Vista Box) and everything went as smooth as possible but, when I tried to restarted it in the next day, it failed and the following dialog was shown:


Looking at this dialog we can see that the program failed to delete a file called formula1.yap under C:\Program Files (x86)\Db4objects\db4o-6.3\doc\tutorial\ folder; so I launched Process Monitor and pushed Reset button in tutorial program again.


It just confirms that the tutorial is failing to delete the file but why? Worse, why have it worked when we started it for the first time?

The .Net tutorial that comes with db4o has some minor bugs related to the way Windows Vista x64 handles writes to some specific paths, more specifically to %ProgramFiles% and %ProgramFiles(x86)% folders.

It's a Windows Vista feature called UAC (for detailed information about this topic please refer to this technet article) that prevents standard users (non administrators) from writing to some folders/registry keys, basically to keep the system more stable and secure. Actually it worked in the first time because

Ok, so how to fix this problem?

Basically there are 3 different approaches that can be applied:

• The "Quick and Dirty" way (probably the easiest and fastest one) is to run the tutorial as an administrator. To do this just right click on the tutorial program and select "run as administrator".
  
  
  
  
  
• The second one consists in adding a manifest next to the tutorial program ( (warning: Windows Vista/.Net will cache the tutorial program and will not pick you fresh manifest :(. In this case you can just "touch" the tutorial program -- or move it to another folder -- and Windows will load the manifest in the next time you start it as explained here). This simply instructs Windows to start the program with administrator rights.
  
  <br /><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><br /><assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestversion="1.0"><br /><assemblyidentity version="1.0.0.0" name="Db4objects.Db4o.Tutorial.exe" type="win32"><br /><trustinfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3"><br /><security><br /><requestedprivileges><br /><requestedexecutionlevel level="requireAdministrator"><br /></requestedprivileges><br /></security><br /></trustinfo><br /></assembly><br />
  
  
• The last one (and in my opinion the correct one) consists in fixing the tutorial in order to save this file under %LocalAppData% (or %AppData%) instead of its installation folder (thats the recommended action by Microsoft).
  
  <br />private void UseDatabase()<br />{<br /> string databaseFile = Path.Combine(<br /> Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData), <br /> "Books.yap");<br /><br /> using (IObjectContainer db = InitializeDatabase(databaseFile))<br /> {<br /> // use the database...<br /> }<br /><br />
  
  

That's all folks ;)

In a future post I'll discuss a bit more about a UAC feature called File System and Registry Virtualization and why it wasn't applied in this case.

Silencio...

Já faz algum tempo que não posto nada... o motivo, como todos já devem saber, é a absoluta falta de tempo, afinal de contas, tenho que me dedicar à obra de Deus, minha esposa, filha e aos jogos (need for speed rules!) ;) Como estou um pouco sem tempo para escrever um post mais interessante vou apenas listar algumas coisas com a qual tenho me envolvido atualmente:

• Object Mocking em .Net (comecei a utilizar o Rhino.Mocks)
• OODB, ou seja, Object Oriented Databases (estou estudando o DB4O)
• Estou escrevendo um artigo sobre um dos novos recursos do Windows Vista (e também do Windows Server 2008), o KTM, ou, gerenciador de transações do Kernel, para uma revista sobre .Net.
• Lendo alguns livros, principalmente um sobre WCF.
• Etc.

É mais ou menos isso :) []'s Adriano

Windows Vista RC2

A Microsoft liberou o Release Candidate 2 (RC2) (build 5744) do Windows Vista para o público. Tanto a versão 32 bits (x86) quanto a 64 (x64) podem ser baixadas em: http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc2/en/download.htm Se você tem interesse baixe logo pois o download público será por tempo limitado (eu já baixei :). Adriano