the body of a very slow loop
This is what I get when I try to install iTunes 6.0.5 on Win x64. /me prays this was an accident.
Update 9/15/2006:
The new iTunes 7 install seems to work just fine on x64. Although I did see a debug exception in msiexec, it didn’t seem to make any difference.
For you command-line junkies, I present size.exe. You can use it to resize a console window programmatically. Here’s an example:
C:\scripts >type vimdiff.cmd
@echo off
size 60 120
vim -d %*
size 60 80
I wrote this in C++ using Boost. If you’re interested, the source is available here.
Update 4/8/2008:
Turns out that Windows actually does have built-in support for this, it’s just hidden in a dusty corner as usual. Good thing, too, because my program didn’t work worth a damn. Here’s the official method:
mode 120,60
(Credit to Sahil Malik)
Although Windows has supported fancy filenames nearly forever, I find that they can still cause problems. Of particular trouble on the x64 OS are PATH variables which contain “C:\Program Files (x86)”. The parenthesis can cause scripts to die with error messages like “\Microsoft was unexpected at this time.”
I found a cute hack on the newsgroups that helps deal with this. Below is a script which will sanitize a PATH variable, cleaning up all that troublesome stuff.
@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set FIXED=
FOR %%I IN ("%PATH:;=" "%") do (
set FIXED=!FIXED!%%~fsI;
)
for %%D in (a) do (
endlocal
set PATH=%FIXED%
)
Every so often Vista decides that I have “Local Connectivity Only”, which is a very odd way of describing the situation where DHCP can assign me an IP address, but I can’t even ping my gateway.
It eventually just starts working.
Update:
Problem solved! I discovered that the problem correlated very highly with unplugging my laptop from the power outlet. It looks like Vista’s default power saving policy goes a little too far. In the advanced power settings menu I have now selected “low” power saving for my WiFi device, rather than the overzealous “medium”.
I’ve been self-hosting Vista Beta 2 on my notebook for a week. The overall verdict is: I like it. Here are some details:
The good:
The Bad:
I won’t pay for Aero Glass. I will however, pay for a systray with a clock that reliably shows me the date.
Sometimes, it seems I just can’t hover long enough to appease the date gods. Other days, they taunt me by placing the tooltip behind the systray, partially obscured, so I can’t actually read it.
Anyone know what day it is?
I just rediscovered the Console project on SourceForge.NET. Console is a replacement for the stock CMD.EXE shell that comes with Windows. Turns out a lot of progress has been made since last I looked. It’s amazing. It fixes nearly every annoyance I’ve ever had with CMD.EXE:
title command)Some things I’d like to see added:
If you use the command line on Windows, you want this. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I’ve installed IE7 and I’m starting to mess around with it. For your bulletized-stream-of-consciousness pleasure:
Apple will not prevent Windows from running on the new Intel-based Macs, according to MSNBC.
In this interview, Ilfak Guilfanov (author of the IDA Pro disassembler and the unofficial WMF patch) indicates that x86 systems with a per-page no-execute flag were protected from the recent WMF vulnerability.
If this is true, I hope the AMD marketing department issues a press release. This was possibly the most dangerous security threat all year, yet anyone who bought an AMD system in the past year was completely safe.
The first x86 processor with a per-page no-execute flag was the AMD Opteron. We called it the NX-Bit (and later, EVP). Subsequently, Intel implemented the execute-disable or XD-Bit (which is, of course, the exact same thing). Eventually Microsoft stepped in and further complicated clarified things by choosing the neutral moniker DEP (data execution prevention).
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