New Windows

Bill Gates recently came out and said the next version of Windows will be released in about a year. That version will be called Windows 7. I hope it will get a warmer welcome than Vista. Somehow to me it seems that Microsoft is a bit off in its numbering. Here is how I figure we should be up to Windows 8 by then:

3.1 Windows for Workgroups
4.0 Windows 95
5.0 Windows NT
6.0 Windows XP
7.0 Windows Vista
8.0 (the next Windows?)

Perhaps Microsoft has a different numbering strategy. Maybe Windows 95 and NT both count for one generation of Windows. Or maybe Windows NT does not count in the grand order of home windows operating systems.

I bet that, by the time the next version comes out, it will have a sexier name than Windows 7. Who knows? I could come up with a snazzy name myself and submit it to Microsoft for consideration. All I would want are bragging rights, and maybe a link from the Microsoft web site to my little blog. Not too much to ask for if I do say so myself.

Visual C++ 6.0

At work we maintenance a set of legacy applications developed with Visual C++ version 6.0. This version of the IDE came out back in 1998. So it is relatively ancient technology. However it works. And there are no surprises when maintaining the software we support. The problem is that developers like to work with the latest and greatest tools. In fact I have a trial copy of Visual C++ 2005 at work for side projects.

At home I also run Visual C++ version 6.0. This allows me to view work that I take home, as well as work on my side software development business. I bought my copy of Visual C++ a long time ago. It has and continues to serve me well. Recently I have been writing software to release on my new blog Black of Hat. My latest program is Crawl. It was written in Visual C++ version 6.0. Details on the program can be found on my post entitled Crawl Program Released.

I am still debating whether to purchase an upgrade to Visual C++ version 6.0. An upgrade would be beneficial to learn how to develop in the Dot NET environment. But for now my goal is to knock out programs quickly.

Windows Explorer

With this post, I want to get back to some basics. Specifically I want to talk about Windows Explorer. Not Internet Explorer (the browser). I want to talk about Windows Explorer. This is the program that let's you navigate your disks and cd-roms and such. It is light years ahead of the old directory command from the DOS days.

You can start up Windows Explorer by right clicking on the Windows Start menu, and then clicking Explore. You can also run the executable "Explorer.exe". Right clicking on an object within Explorer usually let's you choose from a number of options in a context menu.

Choosing About from the Help menu in Explorer tells you interesting things such as the version of Windows you are running, and also how much RAM you have on your computer. I bet there are a lot of other cool features of Explorer that I don't even know about. I hope that Explorer is one piece of Windows that we agree Microsoft did a good job with. Wouldn't you say so?

The Visual Studio Family

I recently installed a trial copy of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite. To tell the truth, I do not know much about this software. Just hoping that I can dig a little into dot Net development. My background is legacy Visual C++ development.

The thing that amazed me is that the installation program for Visual Studio 2005 mentioned that many components were being installed. Here is a list of some of the ones that caught my eye:

• MSXML 6.0 Parser
• .NET Component Framework 1.0 SP3
• .NET Component Framework 2.0
• Visual J# 2.0
• SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

My hope is that I will be exposed to these components/tools in the months to come. I had got to get a move on this learning. The trial version of the software expires in 180 days. And the full version costs a whopping $800 to purchase.

Don't Forget Explorer

I saw a question on a software development board about how to restart Windows Explorer. This is one that I actually know the answer to. First you need to bring up the Windows Task Manager. Then you must kill the "explorer.exe" process. When it is killed, you choose File New Task from the Windows Task Mangager menu. And you type in "explorer.exe" in the open dialog. It will take a little while for Explorer to restart and show the desktop, task bar, and start menu. But this comes in handy when things go awry with Windows Explorer.

The new thing I recently learned about Explorer is that there are a number of optional command line options for the program. For example, "/n" will

[Open] a new single-pane window for the default selection. This is usually the root of the drive Windows is installed on. If the window is already open, a duplicate opens.

Source Fource?

Let me start by saying that Microsoft Office is one of the Microsoft tools I use the most. This might sound strange seeing as how I am a C++ developer. However it turns out that I spend a lot of time on my project doing mundane activities like sending e-mail, reading and writing documents, and generating presentations.

This brings me to a weird marketing attempt my Microsoft Corporation: The Source Fource. To tell the truth, I am not exactly sure what Fource means. That is how they spell it. Could be a knockoff on the Force. Maybe they are combining that with the Source?

The Source Fource is a bunch of action heroes based on the Microsoft product line. Perhaps some interns and good graphic arts employees cooked this up. I do not know. I can say that the "Office Master" who represents Microsoft Office has the best action figure. LOL.

What will Microsoft come up with next? I am hoping for more free downloaded like Visual Studio Express Edition. But that is a story for another post.

Interesting Commands

While it is fresh in my mind, I thought I would list out the Windows commands that I plan to cover in future posts. They are listed here with one-liners describing their function.

ASSOC - Displays or modifies file extension associations.

AT - Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer.

CACLS - Displays or modifies access control lists (ACLs) of files.

FIND - Searches for a text string in a file or files.

SUBST - Associates a path with a drive letter.

If you can't wait until I write my next few posts, you know you can always type HELP at the Windows command prompt. This will give you a lot more information on the command usage.