Today I decided to take my latop out of my Windows domain. For many years I have had a Windows domain for various reasons, but mainly to test the scenarios I encounter in my job. In the past six months owning a Windows domain has proven to be more annoying, than practical. This of course works for organisations, but when you are trying to do cool consumer stuff with consumer products, you could be running into trouble. Simply because the products are not designed to be used with computers, that are part of a domain.

As you may know, I have bought a Xbox 360 and I have a Windows Phone, both have several cool features that you can use, but only when the computer is not joined to a domain.

To make use of the cool features (eg. wireless sync with Windows Phone), I decided to disjoin my laptop from my Windows domain. The domain will live on, but as a test domain - which it should have been in the first place - but hey! ;-)

When disjoining af Windows computer from a domain, you will have to create a new normal Windows account. This means, like moving a computer from one domain to another, that you will have to migrate your files and settings - or at least your files.

From my experience with domain migration, I have a few asumptions on what to expect:

1. It should be possible to just copy my files to my new account manually. Perhaps it will not work with the application settings, but I can manage without.
2. File ownerships may or may not be a problem. I am not sure, if this will actually cause a problem, but I will assume, that I would need to reclaim ownership of all my files.

As a precaution I created a backup of all my files. This is always a good idea, even when you think nothing will go wrong, because, that's when it usually does.

Before I disjoined the computer from the domain, I created my new account. I then disjoined the computer from the domain.

After a restart, I could log onto my new account. Before did anything else, I logged on as the system administrator. Then I copied the files from my old account onto the new one - including the settings (in the hidden folder AppData).

This did not work, the settings confused Windows, and broke a few things. So I had to delete the account and try again - without the settings. This worked - the files are now in place. I reclaimed the file ownership, just to erase any trace of my old domain account.

I can now enjoy all the features of my Windows Phone and Xbox 360 as they were meant to be enjoyed. :-)

My wireless network is hidden, this is a very common thing to do when you have a wireless network. Windows 8 setup will let you connect to a hidden wireless, which is to be expected, but unfortunately it will keep its default setting, which is not to automatically reconnect if the network is hidden. This is rather inconvenient, because you will loose your connection sooner or later.

The solution is to go to the Manage Wireless Networks section and tell Windows to reconnect even if the network is hidden, unfortunately this section is not available in Windows 8 - or so it would seem at a first glance.

You can recall this very important section by opening a command prompt and type:

explorer.exe shell:::{1fa9085f-25a2-489b-85d4-86326eedcd87}

There you go. :-) You're back in business.

To Microsoft:
Please make this easier in the upcoming version. :-)

How can I find information like this myself?

Well, I used Google - as you probably have done, when reading about it here. Although it is rather easy.

1. The dialog is called "Manage Wireless Networks". Every such dialog has a GUID, which in our case is {1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}.
2. This information is located under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\ in the Registry.
3. Search the registry for "Manage Wireless Networks" and whatever it finds under HKCR\CLSID is what you need.

Using these three steps will tell us, that for instance "Recycle Bin" is {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}.

The following command will start the Recycle Bin:

explorer.exe shell:::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Note: Searching for "Recycle Bin" will give you more than one hit under HKCR\CLSID, you will need the GUID from whatever matches your exact search. Otherwise try. If you are unsure on what you're doing, you might want to use a virtual machine to test your stuff.

Today I looked for a neat ad-block plugin for Internet Explorer 9 and was unable find any that I liked. Many of them did not have the same easy administration as the legendary Ad Block Plus for Firefox or came at a price.

On my way around the web I stumpled upon the new term in Internet Explorer 9 called Tracking Protection Lists - and this is actually why no real plugin is available: The feature is already built right into the browser! :-)

To use this very simple feature, just go to the site http://iegallery.com/en/trackingprotectionlists/ and add the TPL that you want. When you are done, most ads are history. I subscribe to both the Ad-block plus list and the Fan Boy list.

If you come across a site, that is not working properly, you can turn off TPLs for that individual site by clicking the TPL icon in the address bar. This will only affect the current site and leave other sites as they are.

I really like this feature, using it I have a better experience with Internet Explorer 9 when surfin' the web. :-)

Happy surfin'!

Xbox 360 unfortunately cannot join a domain and thus domain members cannot find the Xbox 360 on the local network. This creates problems when you need to make the connection between your Xbox 360 and your Media Center on the domain member computer.

But fear not brave gamer (and Windows Server geek - I assume), the solution is pretty straight forward. Follow these steps and you are good to go.

1. Make sure your local administrator account is enabled and that you know the password.
2. Remove the computer from your Windows domain
3. Log onto your computer as the local Adminstrator and make the connection to your Xbox 360
4. Join the computer to the domain

Congratulations. You are now connected with your Xbox 360.

Adding Media Libraries

Your Xbox will not be able to access your media libraries before you make one additional change. The Xbox connects to your computer with a local account on the computer. You must grant that account access to your music libraries in your user profile before you can enjoy your music. If your music is placed in the public music folder you can skip this step.

1. Using the Windows Explorer. Right click your music library and expand the menu item "Share With" and select the menu item "Specific People"

2. Expand the drop down menu and select "Find People...".

3. Select the button "Locations..." and select your local computer from the list. Click the button OK.

4. Enter the name of the Media Center Extender account. It would be something like "mcx1-<your computer name>". My pc is called sjl-pc1, so the MCE account is named mcx1-sjl-pc1. I guess if you have more than one Media Center Extender they would be called mcx2, mcx3 and so on.

5. Make sure the account is granted "Read" rights. It does not need any more rights than that - and you make sure it cannot mess up your library. Click the button "Share".

That is it! You're done! Now head over to your Xbox 360 and add your music libraries.

Happy Xbox'in!

Microsoft has started a series of videos showing the new Windows 8 user interface. I must say this is a very nice piece of artwork. As expected the touch user interface resembles the user interface used for Windows Phone 7 and is a very welcome feature. Windows 8 also features a new type of applications, that are designed for the touch user interface with a brand new and very sleak appearance.

Take a look at this video, showing the new interface and stay tuned on Youtube or the Windows 8 team blog for more updates. :-)

User Interface Highlights

• Completely redefined start menu
• Look and feel like the Windows Phone 7 Metro UI - the UI on the different devices becomes similar and consistent *thumbs up*
• Completely touch aware
• New possibilities for developing cool and sweet looking apps
• A user interface you will want to explore
• Switch between applications by swiping your finger to the right
• Snap apps to the screen by swiping your finger half way to the right and let go
• Run legacy Windows 7 and Vista applications

More Information

Microsoft posted a video on Youtube and an article in the Press Center.

More about the upcoming hardware

 

From time to time I need to quickly write a guide for my users (e.g. to explain how to perform a task in an application). For this purpose screenshots are very good at explaining the steps instead of writing them in text. In the old days I just used Paint to get the job done, but the Windows Snipping Tool feature in Windows 7 is much better.

Open the Windows Start Menu and type "Snipping", the Snipping Tool program menu item will appear.

The Snipping Tool opens as a little window and immediatly lets you drag a box around the area of the screen of which you need a screenshot. When you are done, it will allow you to highlight details in the screenshot using a highlighter or a pen tool to draw stuff on the screenshot.

When you are done with your screenshot, simply save it and use it in your guide or blog post or whatever you are up to. The Snipping Tool defaults to saving images as Capture.PNG. You can of course change this to your liking.

The finished image:

Happy Snippin'

Whenever I leave my computer, I tend to put it in sleep or hibernate mode. I almost never shut it down. Today I noticed that updates were available for my Windows 7, but when I went to check them out, they were hidden from the list of available updates. Check the screenshots below.

The Solution

What worked for me was to simply restart my computer. Yup, da good olde trick, worked once again. NOTE: It did not help to simply restart the Windows Update service.

I hope this problem will be fixed in later versions, because it is really frustrating, now at least I know of a workaround. Even though I would like to know what caused this issue in the first place.

Happy Programming