When moving Virtual machine from VPC to HyperV

If virtual machine bus is disabled, follow this procedure:

Did this vm originally come from Virtual Server or Virtual PC? Or did you create it from scratch in Hyper-V?

When a Vista or 2008 vm comes from VS or VPC, you need to:

1. run msconfig
2. go to the Boot tab
3. click the Advanced options button
4. check Detect HAL
5. click OK
6. click OK
7. reboot the vm
8. apply Integration Services

(from John Paul Cook)

Why slow down :)

Well, simply putted :) We are moving into production :)
2 years of preparation, and new grand entrance :)

And yes :) There is always something more to add, test, reconsider, rethink, redo...

Peek inside Smooth HD

From great James Clark blog
http://www.clarkezone.net/default.aspx?id=6149974c-3ebf-4002-8dd1-e2aecf835eeb

Little peek inside Smooth HD functionality, encoding issues and real life usage.

Power of IIS 7 Media Pack

Few weeks in advance of regional MS conference, called Advanced Technology Day in Zagreb, Croatia, I've was asked to talk about Windows Media Services in 2008 server.

Great :) I like to talk, no problem.

Presentation draft was finished few days latter with about 15 slides, more then enough to show news in WMS 2008.

But then IIS 7 Media Pack happened, SmoothHD, Bit Throttling, ISX etc etc....

In final presentation there was only one WMS 2008 slide, and reset was IIS Media Pack :)

First glimpse of incoming player on Media Server market.

Comparing apples and oranges...

This is very interesting article, if you know even a little bit about photography equipment.

http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

Can you compare Hasselblad H2 and P45+ with the Hasselblad 55-110mm lens attached and Canon G10, or $40,000 USD vs $500 USD?

Yes you can, and results are unbelievable and predictable in the same time.

Instead of saying there is a difference, but not enough to prove additional price, which is trivial conclusion and doesn't mean a thing, let me quote:

In every case no one could reliably tell the difference between 13X19" prints shot with the $40,000 Hasselblad and Phase One 39 Megapixel back, and the new $500 Canon G10. In the end no one got more than 60% right, and overall the split was about 50 / 50, with no clear differentiator. In other words, no better than chance.

So, can we compare apples and oranges?
Yes, if you compare final output - satisfaction with end result, not by taste, or color, or price, but with final output.

Media files locked by process

Sometimes we encounter locking of media files by servers like WMS or IIS.
They provided access to file at some point, but long after usage, the file is still locked for deletion, and only restart of server WMS or IIS process helps.

Unfortunately, there isn't a silver built solution for all use cases, but here is nice conversation on that topic for WMS by Neil Smith:

with this article from Microsoft:
How To Improve Server Performance when Streaming On-Demand Content from a Remote Share

explaining how to control WMS file open share mode.

Hosted WCF Service and 10061 error

Ok,

this is one of those things you just want to kick some ass.
Everything is working locally, but from remote computer, you receive cryptic 10061 TCP error.

The problem is not in firewall, or crossdomain or in the woods :)

You need to specify base address of your service according to actual service location.
Why? Because implementation is faulty, that's why!!

And I don't really think that programmers who developed WCF are guilty, but the lazy guy who leads them, or architect, or somebody anyway...

I've spent 3-4 days of working around the problem, on news groups, on web, on crystal ball, with local priest, and then when I already almost let it all flow down the river, I realized that it must be DNS problem, and so I've found the cure....

Man I want to kick some ass.