Walker News » Microsoft

How To Play Windows Media Files In QuickTime Player On Mac OS X?

Walker — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:37:14 +0000

For Mac OS X users who would like to play WMA or WMV using QuickTime Player or directly open Windows Media content on the Internet using a web browser, Microsoft recommends Windows Media Components for QuickTime by Flip4Mac.

According to source, Windows Media Components for QuickTime is freeware optimized for playback of high-definition Windows Media video files on Power Mac G4/G5 and Intel-based computers running Mac OS X version 10.4 or newer, using at least QuickTime version 7.0 or later.

Features and shortcoming:

Not able to play media files that is protected with Windows Media digital rights management (DRM).

Supports WMA, WMV, ASF, ASX, AVI, RTSP, MMS, MP3, G.726, IMA/ADPCM, G.711 aLaw/uLaw, ISO MPEG-4 v1.0/1.1, Microsoft MPEG-4 v2/3, Microsoft Motion JPEG.

There is also a paid version available directly from Flip4Mac website, if you demand advanced features, such as being able to import Windows Media files for editing and encode Windows Media files for distribution.

If the freeware version with basic features is good enough for you, just go to download Windows Media Components for QuickTime (version 2.3.6.5; 23.5 MB).

Download Free E-Book: Programming Windows Phone 7

Walker — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:16:23 +0000

Whether you’re student, freelance, amateur, or dedicated mobile apps programmer, if you’re going to develop mobile apps for running on Windows Phone 7 platform, then this e-book might be good for reference.

The complete version of “Programming Windows Phone 7″, written by Charles Petzold, published by Microsoft Press, is now available as free e-book (in PDF file format) for general public.

For those who prefer the printed copy, this book also available for purchase at bookstores. Unlike the e-book version, the hard copy is made up of two print editions, i.e. Microsoft Silverlight Programming for Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft XNA Framework Programming for Windows Phone 7.

This e-reference, organized in 23 chapters and taken up 1000+ pages if it’s to be printed, introduces the Windows Phone 7 hardware as well as the fundamentals of writing applications for Windows Phone 7 platform using the C# programming language with the Silverlight and XNA 2D frameworks.

If you interested on how to write Windows Phone 7 application, why not start from here: download Programming Windows Phone 7 (alternate link).

The Microsoft Cibai Technology!

Walker — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:13:57 +0000

If Microsoft Research presents the Cibai program to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in fact any markets with Chinese community, I bet most of them will laugh. Probably, the name of the concept will be a hot topic to debate.

I just stumble upon an archive post by Springer Verlag in Microsoft Research, with such a long title for a rather short content with a PDF attachment, Cibai: An abstract interpretation-based static analyzer for modular analysis and verification of Java classes.

Is there A Reliable Cracked Software? Why Use Genuine Software?

Walker — Sun, 24 May 2009 08:53:34 +0000

Why using pirated software?

About 10 years ago, I spent all money on my first DIY computer, but almost zero cost on all Windows software installed onto it.

Obviously, I used pirated program, with installers borrowed from friends or bought them myself from pirated software booth at a flat price of 3 – 5 buck per CD.

Why I did that?

First, I was about to start the 1st semester of computer study in college on my own limited finance. As you may know, the hardware was not cheap at that time, so I couldn’t afford to spent additional on genuine software.

Second, none of the people I knew in college or friends were using Linux or open source software. As a novice at that time, learning Linux on my own could be a great challenge. In order to learn from peer and “masters” around me, I had no choice to go for Windows. Since all of them were using pirated Windows and also my limited finance disallowed me to have genuine software, I just followed the “culture”.

Why using Genuine software now?

Before Windows XP released, most of the pirated software were actually “cracked” by using a genuine product key or serial number.

By using this method, there is no worry of Trojan or virus, so long as you install the software with a genuine installer and activate it with “pirated” product key that is actually a genuine license key shared by millions of people around the world.

However, software activation changes after Microsoft introduced Microsoft Product Activation or Windows Product Activation, started with Windows XP.

Many other software follow the way of Microsoft licensing Windows XP, i.e. to install the software with a valid product key and then activate it within grace period, by connecting to the software vendor server or phone the call center to get an activation key for this purpose.

Therefore, most of the pirated software nowadays are not simply a result of cracking with genuine product key. Indeed, these are really “cracked” software that done by repackaging genuinely installed and activated software, fooling the software with a locally installed activator, etc.

I don’t kinda like these kind of “cracked” software as I am worry about risk of Trojan or virus that might have built into the activator or repackaged installer.

How To Uninstall IE8?

Walker — Sat, 02 May 2009 17:16:15 +0000

Sometimes, uninstall a Windows program could not be an easy job as you wish, especially Windows program made by Microsoft itself :-)

If you’re going to install the latest Internet Explorer 8 and might make a return later, you should take note that uninstalling IE8 could be painful in some cases.

According to Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB957700, you cannot uninstall IE8 in Windows XP if you installed Internet Explorer 8 before installing the Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP :-(

To fix this issue, you have no choice to uninstall Service Pack 3 first then only to uninstall IE8 from Windows XP. Again, this could be a tough job to uninstall Service Pack 3 from Windows XP too (see KB950249), if removing IE8 from Windows requires such a tedious work :-(

Now, let’s say you installed IE8 after Windows XP SP3, you MIGHT able to remove Windows Internet Explorer 8 with the Add or Remove Programs (Control Panel applet).

If this normal way does not work, Microsoft suggests running the following command in Windows Command Prompt window:

%windir%\ie8\spuninst\spuninst.exe

How to uninstall IE8 from Windows Vista or Windows 2008?

Open Windows Update program window, click View update history follow by Installed Updates. Locate Windows Internet Explorer 8 from the list and click (or double click) it to uninstall IE8 from Windows Vista or Windows 2008 (i.e. click Yes button when the Uninstall an update dialog box pops up).

Similar to Windows XP, Windows Vista might not able to uninstall IE8 with its Control Panel applet called “Program and Features”.

If that happen, copy and paste the following commands to an elevated Command Prompt window and press ENTER to remove IE8 from Windows Vista / Windows 2008:

FORFILES /P %WINDIR%\servicing\Packages /M Microsoft-Windows-InternetExplorer-8*.mum /c "cmd /c echo Uninstalling package @fname && start /w pkgmgr /up:@fname /norestart"

(Remember to open an elevated Command Prompt window to execute these commands).

So, think twice before you want to install or removing IE8 from Windows – it could be a nightmare if it cannot be removed by one or two mouse clicks.

How To Completely Remove Or Uninstall Nokia PC Suite?

Walker — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:04:35 +0000

Except the novice, everyone knows that it is easy to uninstall or remove Windows program. Normally, this can be done via Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet (in Windows Vista, it is known as Programs and Features).

Alternatively, just click the uninstall program shortcut created by the software, which is normally found in Start menu.

It’s that simple so even the geek take the uninstall function for granted. No doubt the default uninstaller seems to work right, it is not always the case.

For example, it took me quite some precious time to uninstall AVG Free Anti-virus version 8.0.

Now, I just stumble upon a “new” program called Nokia PC Suite Cleaner, which is a special tool to perform clean removal or un-installation of Nokia PC Suite.

Do I really need to separately download Nokia PC Suite Cleaner or just count on the “Uninstall Nokia PC Suite” shortcut in Start menu?

Well, as far as the Nokia PC Suite Cleaner download page that I’ve read, it seems to be necessary if I would like to completely uninstall or remove Nokia PC Suite for the sake of better performance.

Nokia PC Suite Cleaner helps you remove any unnecessary Nokia PC Suite-related files, registry data, as well as personal content left on your PC after uninstalling Nokia PC Suite. – quoted the download page as saying.

Take note on underlined words: the un-installation is not clean or complete after running the default uninstall program. But, this cleaner ensures the leftovers are cleaned too.

According to download page, Nokia PC Suite Cleaner is made to work with Nokia PC Suite version 6.83 or later.

Therefore, I strongly believe that this cleaner program is a must if I want to uninstall Nokia PC Suite version 7.1.18.0, at least until the cleaner program functions are built into the uninstaller of new release.

Download Nokia PC Suite Cleaner – supports Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. In Windows 2000, the support is restricted to PC Suite versions 6.83 – 6.86

How To Fix Windows Vista System Tray Icons Disabled Or Greyed Out Problem?

Walker — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:23:03 +0000

After rebooting Windows Vista SP1, I found that Volume and Network icons disappeared from System Tray (a.k.a. Notification Area). At first, I thought that was caused by some unknown delay.

However, none of these system icons appeared in that Notification Area even after an hour or so! Looked like the options to show these icons had been disabled or turned off.
So, I proceed to Control Panel and opened Taskbar and Start Menu applet. But, the options to show Volume and Network icon in Notification Area tab were greyed out (disabled):

^{Windows Vista system icons, i.e. Volume, Network, etc, are greyed out or disabled.}

Although missing these icons do not affect system performance or reliability, except that I could not take a glance at notification area to tell there is a network failure.

Most importantly, I cannot adjust speaker volume with the mouse just next to keyboard. Instead, I have to move my hand further to turn the volume knob of Creative speaker :-(

So, How to fix this Windows Vista system icons greyed out or disabled problem?

Many forums said that this could be easily fixed by restarting explorer.exe process. I try that and confirm it works at no cost:

These steps are tested and verified OK on Windows Vista Ultimate SP1. The guide is only working in the case that these system icons are enabled but go missing after system reboot or account logout.

1) Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC keyboard shortcut to open Windows Task Manager. Alternatively, press CTRL+ALT+DEL and select Start Task Manager, or right click the Taskbar and select Task Manager.

2) In Windows Task Manager window, go to Processes tab, click “Image Name” (the column title) to sort running processes appear in the list, locate the explorer.exe and click End Process button at the bottom-right corner of window:

Once the explorer.exe process killed, the Windows Taskbar, Vista Orb (Start button), as well as Desktop icons and wallpaper are disappear.

3) Now, it is time to restart or start a new explorer.exe process again. In Windows Task Manager window, click the File menu and select New Task (Run…). Alternatively, click the Applications tab follow by New Task button on the lower-right corner of window.

In the Create New Task dialog box, type explorer.exe in Open text box and click OK button.

As soon as the new explorer.exe process activated and running, the missing Taskbar, Desktop, Vista Orb, as well as the Volume and Network icons are all back to normal.