Previously I had been stopping the service manually, either using services.msc or the command line.

The worst thing is being bugged to restart and you are mid-sentence and accidentally tell Windows to restart immediately!

Chris

Check this webpage : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_fractal

Papelbon is a piece of shit … I’ll laugh loudly when they dont renew the contract of that arrogant son of a bitch.

Henry

Your topic Knight Science Journalism Tracker ” Blog Archive ” Wired News … was interesting when I found it on Sunday searching for baby stuff…

sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773

Please explain “much faster” and the type of code you were running.

(My rig consists of 8 cores and 16G of RAM. This plays a big part)

I have 64-bit applications that seem to run in full 64-bit mode under Leopard. Is there any reason to switch to SL under such circumstances?

Thanks,
BB

Cheers,

R.

It’s all about consumerism and getting customers to repeatedly spend on your product, and to think that dropping $300+ on an iPhone (model dependant of course) isn’t enough!

Here here for poorly made products and we’re almost entering 2010.

Everything is disposable these days…

It would be fantastic to see the money we pay for our iPhone actually go towards a product that lasts!

Everything these days seems to be built for the short term. The engineers at Apple need to pick up the pace a little, especially considering the ‘cracking’ is now an epidemic amongst iPhone owners.

I’ve saved the company the cost of two upgrades from the time we went with Windows 2000. I invested a lot of time to avoid this day – I really hoped that Wine would catch up rapidly and provide application compatibility in Linux .

Finally – about a week ago a client gave us a backup of a Quickbooks 2009 file – and we couldn’t install the copy we had to purchase just to open the damn thing. And even though Intuit keeps coming out with new versions of Quickbooks, the quality of our client’s accounting records are never any better.

So, having to buy a newer version of Quickbooks Slow every year just to access our client files annoys me to no end. They really don’t change the software significantly each year it comes out – but purposely change the data file format so folks like us will have to get a newer version. Meanwhile the program gets slower every year.

What pisses me off secondly – is the fact that anyone could use GnuCash to do everything they need to do, to keep a set of books. If they would, both they and our firm would save money.

The truth is that even though Quickbooks looks easy, I’ve seen some clueless clients completely misunderstand how to use it. So even though it looks straight forward – that doesn’t ensure that the output will be correct.

It’s not the ease of the interface, but rather, the accounting skill of the user that ultimately determines the accuracy of the information in their records.

But since most people don’t have faith in free software or lack the confidence to try Gnucash, I have to pay Intuit $200 every year. It would be much better for both of us actually, if they just gave me the source code. I’d compile it in Windows 2000 – wait a few days – and it will run in Windows 2000. Scratch that – I’d compile it with Winelib or in Linux natively, if possible. But for all practical purposes – Windows 2000 would give the best chance of success.

I’d then give Intuit the binaries so they could put it on a CD and sell it to other customers. I’d still pay Intuit for the software – as much as it would irk me to – given I have other tools available (Gnucash) – and that an operating system, is an operating system, is an operating system. Once you can boot into a window manager and the kernel has a way of running apps – everything else is just academic. Its just a matter of making the effort to get the software to run elsewhere – or giving the opportunity to someone to do it for you.

So as a result of being forced to upgrade, I next have to deal with an oddesy of getting Vista to install. Fry’s is out of the upgrade CD – but they still have 3 copies of the regular version on the shelves, but its $100 more expensive then the upgrade. The software is locked up in a cabinet – you have to ask an employee for permission to grab the DVD, walk out of their sight to the large row of cash registers and pay – vs. just grabbing it and paying. Stupid – makes a person feel like they are unimportant.

Thank you for letting me touch this packaged box of bullshit.

Since I initially can’t get what I want to save the company $800 overall – I go to the Internet “Microsoft Store” and place an order – but it has no way to separate out a billing and shipping address. It says billing address – you put it in – It says – “We don’t ship to P.O. Boxes.” I say – “Fuck you, its a download.” It can’t hear me. I try to place the order a few times – but the order form lacks the ability to have a shipping address that is different then the credit card billing address. I ended up alternating the office and credit card address between errors (which is always needed to approve an order)- and to my surprise, the order went through.

Hours later, I still hadn’t received an email confirmation from the Microsoft store saying – start downloading. I mean this should be an automated process. Everyone else can respond reasonably – just not Microsoft.

A day later still nothing. Must be the billing address thing I thought. I buy again – still no instant access so I call. 1/2 hour on the phone to have the guy have me repeat the info already given on the web site. “Ok I’ll release the product.”

Huh? I thought I was a customer. Being from the Linux world, I’m not used to being treated as if the software I was going to use, required an interrogation and subtle hints that communicated to me that I was a bad person and would continue to be assumed as such.

10 minutes later I get a call from the Microsoft Gestapo to “verify my order.”

Lets see, Bill gates is a multibillionaire – but he’s got to have so much security around his product that I have to go through all this bullshit. God forbid he looses a penny.

So I go through another interrogation verifying the information I provided, as if I hadn’t paid them for their product. Keep in mind that it’s a product I don’t even want, or believe should be necessary.

I start to download the Vista installer – 1/2 way through the hour download – 1 of the three download files stops and can’t resume. I then download each file one at a time and finally get the damn thing an hour later.

And get this – the application that decompresses the installation files won’t run in Windows 2000. I later found it won’t from the DVD of Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade. Even though Microsoft advertised that Windows 2000 owners are eligible to purchase Vista at the upgrade price. The message I got was: you can buy it – you just can’t use it.

If I was good little runt and paid for Windows XP the Microsoft Gods would allow me, the piss ant, to decompress the files with their utility. But because I’m not overly concerned about giving them $200 every couple of years, my money’s good, but my satisfaction as a customer is unimportant.

After fooling around with 7-Zip I was able to decompress only a portion of the download file and I can even get setup to start – but I can’t get past “Can’t find the install.wim file.”

After installing Vista – I don’t find it to be an improvement, but instead, a big nightmare. First, its taking up not 5000 MB like Windows 2000 – but almost 10000 MB of space – the entire size of my partition – which means I can’t install anything. I never imagined an operating system requiring so much room, so much more RAM and providing so little additional benefit besides some eye candy, that isn’t very good. And what did I get for the extra 5000 MB? Nothing really. Just a lot of heartache to install a few hundred megabytes of code from Borland – code that they give away for free.

Vista doesn’t allow me to do anything more then I could do before with Windows 2000 – or anything new I want to do now. All its done, that I couldn’t do before – is install Quickbooks Pro 2009, which, according to Borland, has a database engine that is compatible with Windows 2000.

However, I now have a slow bloated operating system that requires a tremendous amount of tweaking just to equal the performance I had in Windows 2000 with the same hardware. Plus Microsoft purposely broke functionality with Samba, which their developers easily remedied. So, I can’t browse the network until I upgrade Samba, because, of course, Microsoft had to mess with that.

Vista, after the install started installing updates like mad. I’ve ended up rebooting the computer too many times to count. It’s a huge time suck just to open up some Quickbooks files – that Intuit could have allowed me to open with Quickbooks 2008 if they so decided.

The next insult is the ultimate disrespect for the customer. The best I can say is that it’s the ultimate in stupidity, giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt.

I ended up buying two copies of Vista. An important thing to note is that the contents of the CD never change, but instead, certain parts of the operating system are installed based upon which key code you enter. They admit that in the error they show below – but this is well known around the Internet.

I used the CD I got from Fry’s to install Vista over an existing installation of Windows 2000. I used the product code for the upgrade – and I received the following error during the installation with Windows 2000 sitting on the same partition I was installing to, with the same disk that didn’t have this “problem” when I used a code for a non upgrade version:

“The following failure occurred while trying to use the product key
Code:
0xC004F061

Description: The software licensing service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations.”

I went ahead and installed anyway – not entering in the code. After all I know that the DVD contains the right amount of software on it to do a full install.

After I installed and tried to activate the product, it said:

“The Software
Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used
for upgrading, not for clean installations.”

Recall from above that the Vista Upgrade will not work in Windows 2000.

So in other words, Microsoft flat out lied; even though I bought a product that was advertised as an upgrade from Windows 2000, I wasn’t allowed to install the product from both within Windows 2000 and outside of Windows 2000.

I couldn’t install the product unless I installed twice – all because of the “copy protection” measures taken by Microsoft – which included Microsoft not ensuring that installer functioned properly from within Windows 2000. And again, all of this is not because of any real technical reason that could not have been prevented, but rather, because Microsoft was dishonest in its advertising. Perhaps Microsoft decided not to care about customers that didn’t pay $399 instead of $219.95, even though they offered it to me for that price, and that they don’t like the fact that I didn’t buy Windows XP. But what it really is, is disgusting greed and unjustified guilt and suspicion cast upon the public.

All that extra hassle to make sure poor old billionaire bill gets paid. Microsoft truly cares about its customers.

I Googled these issues to look for an answer – that I felt was appropriate. Because nothing other then Vista accepting the code I paid $219.95 for was appropriate. And in that light, downloading a crack would have been appropriate. Because I was treated, during this entire episode as if I had stolen the software, when I had actually paid for it. I didn’t find the answer I wanted – but a way to work around the issue instead. That involves performing a second installation, that does not thing to prove I qualified for the upgrade. Meanwhile – when I had proof that I qualified I was told it I wasn’t allowed to use the software I paid for.

and found some interesting conversations, that reflect the psyche of the public when it comes to Microsoft: Its OK for Microsoft to rip off its customers. Anyone that complains must be “pirating” software because Microsoft would never do anything dishonest. If its not pirating of software, the end user surely is incompetent. Bottom line is that anything you buy from Microsoft is a gift from Microsoft, even though they have made more money then any effort, any work any suffering should allow. But, that’s OK because its “The American Way” and “Capitalism” and “Survival of the fittest”

From: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-installation-setup/37064-activation-error-0xc004f061.html

Poster Question:

“I’m getting an Activation Error Code: 0xC004F061 when I try to activate my
Vista Home Premium upgrade. I was running XP Pro on this machine, and when I
was doing the install, the installer said I had to do a clean install from XP
Pro. Now The error message is giving me the description “The Software
Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used
for upgrading, not for clean installations.” Does this mean that even though
I had a Genuine Windows XP Pro on my computer, I can’t use the upgrade to
Vista?

To top it off, it keeps telling me that my 90 day free support call period
has expired, although I’ve never called it before, and just installed Vista a
few days ago. Anyone have any ideas how I can fix this issue?”

First responder:

“To use an upgrade version you have to start the upgrade from within an
installed, activated and genuine copy of XP. It will then allow either an
in place upgrade (for certain upgrade paths) or only a custom installation
(programs and data are not migrated). There has been published a work
around to allow the installation of an upgrade version w/o XP being
installed. Here is one link for it. Use at your own risk.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5932

If you want to migrate data and settings from the XP installation use the
Windows Easy Transfer (WET) on the XP installation before the upgrade.”

Poster:

“I did start the upgrade from within XP…so it sounds like I’m pretty much
hosed because I did what the upgrade told me I needed to do? Am I completely
unable to upgrade from Windows XP Pro to Windows Vista Home Premium?”

The next set of posts are classic examples of the mindset of Windows users:

Poster 1:
1. What will Vista check for?
2. Will it want a valid CD key for the previous OS?
3. Will it give you the option of installing the 64 bit version clean? (assuming u have a 64 bit cpu)

Poster 2:
As far as I know, the Vista upgrade disks will require verification of Windows XP and then you will have the option to clean install or upgrade.
We will know more on or about January 30th:)

Poster 1:
Thanks for that but any idea about the rest of the post? Clean installs are need when you install a new M/B or your pc crashes etc, what will MS need to verify you have a legit CD/DVD

Poster 2:
The EULA is the same as XP now.

Poster 3:

You may be able to get away with that if your comp has XP on board or the CD to pop in during verification. However, I don’t approve of the use of a pirated copy of XP:(

Poster 1:
Not so much the pirating issue but does someone actually know the process of upgrading and technically what will happen if you want to upgrade from a fresh install using an upgrade version of vista. We aren’t really answering the initial post but don’t get me wrong, i appreciate any input. i just want to know the actual process, see my first post.

Poster 4:
I’ve just received my MAPS (Microsoft Action Pack) copy of Vista Business Upgrade. When booting from the DVD the installer asks for the Serial Key which I entered. However the installer refuses to install as “This version must be launched from Windows” So I deleted the key and continued the install selecting BUSINESS as the install at the relevant screen. However when now I try to activate Vista I get the following error code: 0xc004f061 and the text “The Software Licensing Services determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading not for clean installations” ***! Upgrades in the past have always allowed you to clean install as long as you had the original disks. So now it looks like I’ll have to install a clean copy of XP just to get this version installed…

Poster 1:
I called Microsoft this morning and spoke to their tech support. They said this was the first time they had heard of an activation problem. I got through to a real tech support guy, and he asked me about whether I was installing an upgrade or full version. I told him it was Windows Vista Home Basic, bought at Staples for $99, upgrading from a pre-loaded Windows XP Home on my Dell PC. I explained that the “Upgrade” label on the front of the box said “For users running Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP, or Windows Vista only. Backup and clean install may be required. See back of box for details.*”. The back of the box says the following: “Back up all your files and settings before upgrading. You must perform a clean install of Windows Vista and then reinstall your existing files, settings, and programs, unless you are upgrading from Windows XP SP2 Home Edition.” This would lead anyone to believe that a clean install is possible when upgrading. I tried the same things as mentioned above. Booting from the Vista DVD (because clean install was NOT an option when launching from Windows XP), then trying my Product Key at the beginning of the install process, which did not work (”this version must be launched from windows”), skipping it, and choosing “Home Basic” as the version being installed. Then tried to activate from the Control Panel in Vista and received Code 0xC004F061: “The Software Licensing Service determined that the specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations”. The guy I talked to at Microsoft said that I would have to reinstall XP on my machine, and do a non-clean upgrade to Vista for my key to work. In other words, a clean install does not appear to be an option for versions of Vista labeled “Upgrade”, even though right below the Upgrade label it says “A clean install may be required”. This makes me wonder what would happen if you were not running Windows XP SP2 before upgrading, and were “required” to do a clean install with an “Upgrade” version. If Microsoft does not want clean installs to be an option for Upgrade customers, it should not be listed as possibility on the FRONT OF THE BOX, the back of the box, the Quick Start Guide, and in the setup dialogs. The right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing in this case. Excuse me, I have to go downgrade to XP now…

Poster 4:
We don’t install any illegal copies here, so I can’t speak about that. It never mentions that it does a valid key check, but I imagine that’s done in the background — most downloads from their website even require the check.

Poster 5:

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070201/
Use Vista’s ‘upgrade’ version to clean-install

The secret is that the setup program in Vista’s upgrade version will accept an installed copy of XP, W2K, or an unactivated copy of Vista itself as evidence of a previous installation.

This enables you to “clean install” an upgrade version of Vista to any formatted or unformatted hard drive, which is usually the preferred method when installing any new operating system. You must, in essence, install Vista twice to take advantage of this trick. But Vista installs much faster than XP, so it’s quicker than installing XP followed by Vista to get the upgrade price.

Here’s a simplified overview of the steps that are required to clean-install the upgrade version of Vista:

Step 1. Boot the PC from the Vista DVD.

Step 2. Select “Install Now,” but do not enter the Product Key from the Vista packaging. Leave the input box blank. Also, turn off the option Automatically activate Windows when I’m online. In the next dialog box that appears, confirm that you really do want to install Vista without entering a Product Key.

Step 3. Correctly indicate the version of Vista that you’re installing: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate.

Step 4. Select the “Custom (Advanced)” install, not the “Upgrade” install.

Step 5. Vista copies files at length and reboots itself one or more times. Wait for the install to complete. At this point, you might think that you could “activate” Vista, but you can’t. That’s because you haven’t installed the Vista upgrade yet. To do that, run the DVD’s setup.exe program again, but this time from the Vista desktop. The easiest way to start setup again is to eject and then reinsert the DVD.

Step 6. Click “Install Now.” Select Do not get the latest updates for installation. (You can check for these updates later.)

Step 7. This time, do enter the Product Key from the Vista packaging. Once again, turn off the option Automatically activate Windows when I’m online.

Step 8. On this second install, make sure to select “Upgrade,” not “Custom (Advanced).” You’re not doing a clean install now, you’re upgrading to Vista.

Step 9. Wait while Vista copies files and reboots itself. No user interaction is required. Do not boot from the DVD when asked if you’d like to do so. Instead, wait a few seconds and the setup process will continue on its way. Some DOS-like, character-mode menus will appear, but don’t interact with them. After a few seconds, the correct choice will run for you automatically.

Step 10. After you click a button labeled Start in the Thank You dialog box, Vista’s login screen will eventually appear. Enter the username and password that you selected during the first install. You’re done upgrading to Vista.

Step 11. Within 30 days, you must “activate” your copy of Vista or it’ll lose functionality. To activate Vista, click Show more details in the Welcome Center that automatically displays upon each boot-up, then click Activate Windows now. If you’ve dismissed the Welcome Center, access the correct dialog box by clicking Start, Control Panel, System & Maintenance, System. If you purchased a legitimate copy of Vista, it should quickly activate over the Internet. (You can instead activate by calling Microsoft on the phone, which avoids your PC exchanging information with Microsoft’s server.

Poster 5:
Thank-you for the report about using a upgrade verison of Vista. I think Microsoft knows about this but is keeping tight lipped about it because this means lost revenue. I will not be buying a retail (Full) version of Vista because as the above post shows how to install Vista in a clean state using the upgrade version of your choice. Come to think about it I think I read somewhere there are oem versions available as well. I’m all for saving money when the top version (Retail) cost $400.00