Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

End of an Era - Bill Gates “Retires” as Head of Microsoft

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Believe it or not, the face that is synonymous with the company we all love to hate, Microsoft is giving up his position as head of the company.Yes, Bill Gates will be putting more of his focus into his charity organization. Mind you, he hasn't left the company completely.

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Posted in Microsoft, The Matrix | No Comments »

Mounting a Virtual CD or DVD

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

I recently had the need to mount a ISO file. There are commercial options, or there is a free option from Microsoft. The software they offer is only for CDs.

Here's the download link:
winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel

Here's the readme:

Quote:
Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1

THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES

System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional

Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click "Driver control"
4. If the "Install Driver" button is available, click it. Navigate
to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and
click Open.
5. Click "Start"
6. Click OK
7. Click "Add Drive" to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that
the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click "Add
Drive" until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click "Mount".
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click "OK". UNC
naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives
should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM
device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the
driver from memory using the driver control.

But if you want to do either a CD or a DVD, then following free software will do the job nicely.

Virtual CloneDrive

Virtual Clone Drive is a free, small and lightweight virtual CD-ROM
and DVD-ROM emulator that let users mount .iso, .ccd, .dvd, .img, .udf
and .bin/.cue image files just like a physical CD/DVD drive.

Download VirtualCloneDrive Version 5.1.4.5 (SetupVirtualCloneDrive5.exe)

 
 

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Posted in The Matrix, software | No Comments »

Please Use Our Browser - IE7

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

Harry McCracken writing for PC World plays it safe with his summation of Microsoft's latest action in his article "Internet Explorer 7's Slow Start".

A more cynical view would be that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is loosing large amounts of market share to their most serious rival Firefox. By allowing anybody to download and run Internet Explorer 7, including those with non-validated versions of Windows (pirates) the hope is that they'll pick up some traction. 

Looking at the satistics of a number of sites I host, which are quite varied in their audiences, I would conclude that IE7 doesn't have a chance. Firefox usage steadily continues to grow. All of these sites are now reporting 30% or more Firefox usage.

Times are changing, including the browsers. 

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Posted in Browsers, Microsoft | No Comments »