Christmas is almost upon us, so that means our loved ones have to buy us something. They’re looking for dropped hints, circled catalogue pages and the like. For gaming enthusiasts, this is a frightful situation. These best intentioned people will wonder into a computer shop and say “what game should I buy my son/boyfriend/nephew?” And how the salesman will love to dump some piece of crap, assuring the purchaser how every gamer wants this title. Lucky for us Microsoft has launched a major ad campaign this season for it’s latest PC title, Age Of Mythology.

In case you’ve just slipped out from under your rock, this is the third in a series of real time strategy games developed by Ensemble Studios. Defining real time strategy (RTS)games is simple: you collect material, build a base, pump out troops and massacre your opponent. Troops break down into a rock-paper-scissors scenario, with each unit able to slaughter something, but can also be slaughtered by something else. In the end it’s all about balance. Of course that’s a very simplistic definition, but we do have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I’m sure if you play PC games you’ve run across other RTS titles like Age of Empires, Warcraft, Starcraft, Command and Conquer or Dune II. Each one a great game, giving us the same basics but in different settings and backdrops. Whether it’s barbarians, Greeks, orcs or Fremen, there’s nothing like managing your group of people into a fighting force and smashing all who dare oppose you.

Which brings us, finally, to Age Of Mythology (www.ageofmythology.com), or AoM. This time around you’ll command ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Norse to battle an ancient evil and save the world. The single player game weaves a fairly compelling story through 36 missions, progressing through in-game cinematics before and after each mission. It was nice and explained why you as the player was moving around the globe. Of course people play to fight, not to save the world.

AoM differentiates itself from the pack by involving the pantheon of gods that each of these civilizations was known for. During each mission you progress to four different ages, allowing for new units, technologies and powers. To make each player unique you choose of one two different gods for each age. These gods grant unique powers and myth units; mythological creatures that are costly but powerful. A nice twist and definitely a standout feature.

Another “new” item in the RTS field this year is the hero, a very powerful unit that is regenerated on the battlefield ad infinitum. Not enough to sway the game, but helpful early on when you’re getting your butt kicked.

Graphically AoM is very nice. Ensemble Studios has created the game using a 3D engine, allowing for a lot of eye candy. Seaweed moves with the waves, trees look natural, and of course units stand out nicely. Some items are a tad blocky, but that comes from the small sizes and detail required. It didn’t take away from the game at all.

Moving use along to gameplay. Each civilization has completely different units, doing mostly the same thing. Greeks have archers, Egyptians have slingers and Norse have axe men. All of them are a projectile unit, but are varied enough to flesh out the game. The unit balance is great, forcing you to have a variety of troops to counter your opponents. Not like the old days when you built one über mensch and flooded the enemy, a.k.a. the “tank rush”. You know who you are. When you finish the single player game, move on to internet opponents or design your own levels via the mission editor. It’s the game that never ends.

A few problems. The RTS genre really hasn’t changed from Dune II ten years ago. Of course the same could be said for first person shooters like Wolfenstein 3D to Unreal II. I played using Windows XP Professional and my ATI Radeon 8500 video card. Even with the latest drivers I was getting video lockups at random intervals. Annoying, but frequent saves allowed me to finish the title without throwing something.

Let me sum it up: Age Of Mythology is a great game if you like real time strategy titles. Nice graphics, smooth gameplay and enough new items to make it fresh. Don’t take my word for it: download a trial version from the link listed above.

Blast from the past: originally published June 18th 2003.

Traditionally I’ve played sports and fighting games on my console systems. The PC handled everything else with aplomb. Since the console market dominates I’m trying to dally in all the genres available. This led me to Microsoft’s Mech Assault. The latest in a long line of Mech Warrior titles, this is a third person shooter where you control a variety of Mechs in a variety of missions. In case you’re not familiar with the whole FASA universe, I’ll boil it down for you. It’s the future, and war is fought between clans in giant robot suits that are loaded with weapons and armor.

The first mission is a meet and greet, getting you familiar with the controls. Team mates guide you through missions by way of some smooth voice acting. Standard fare cut scenes move the plot along and give you some reasons for blasting away everything.

Which leads us nicely into the reason why people buy games, playability. This is a straight up third person shooter. The camera is slightly behind your Mech, so you see everything that’s happening to it and the world around you. Each Mech is bristling with weapons of various types, plus you can pick up more weapons, ammo and energy on the battlefield when you destroy other Mechs and buildings. Control is straightforward but took me a bit to get the hang of it. The left joystick moves you, the right controls your upper body and where your weapons face. Left trigger cycles weapons, right fires.

There’s a little of something for everyone in types of play available. The campaign is the main focus, but multiplayer is the new be all and end all via X-Box Live, which of course I don’t have. But I have friends (friend) who came over and we played two player, where the screen is split vertically in the center. You can set time limits, kills limits, free for all, et al. If you have X-Box Live then you can go online and challenge others, plus download new levels and new Mechs. I’m thinking about it, but not sure if I’d get my money’s worth.

If you’re a fan of shooters, Mech Assault has enough content to make it worthwhile. Of course I recommend renting it first, just to be sure your hard earned dollars go towards the right title.

Blast from the past: originally published June 17th 2003.

I’ve finally started playing some games on my X-Box. A guy at work was selling his X-Box with two controllers and some games for a song, so I couldn’t pass up the deal. Got it home and read the manual. Grabbed an HDTV adapter the next day and set it to take advantage of the various resolutions available, plus hooked an optical cable for Dolby Digital sound. My X-Box was ready for whatever I threw at it, which was nothing for about two months.

I’m a die hard PC gamer, and while I own a Genesis, Playstation, Dreamcast, Playstation 2 and now X-Box, I don’t consider myself a console gamer. I wanted an X-Box for two reasons: high definition picture and Dolby digital surround.

There are quite a few HDTV adapters for the X-Box from third parties, but I went with the Microsoft branded High Definition AV Pack. It features three RCA component connections, two RCA audio and one optical digital audio (remember when these were called TOS link) connection. Included is a six foot component cable, the HDTV adapter and a two page instruction leaflet. Hook it up and start using, to boil it down. Listed as $19.99 U.S., but $39.99 Canadian: can you say hosed? It worked as advertised, giving me 1080i with NFL Fever 2003. The back of every X-Box game states what features it supports, which I greatly appreciate. In reality, why shouldn’t every game has surround sound and at least a progressive video output? If you’re gaming in the living room, take advantage of the big screen and surround sound. For those without component connections, the Microsoft Advanced AV Pack features a s-video connection and optical digital audio.

If you have a large screen television and a surround sound system, run, don’t walk to get yourself a High Definition AV Pack.

I’m familiar with Windows so I tried out a few WAMP packages to get WordPress, Drupal and Joomla running on my network so I could see what they’re all about.  All fairly straightforward to get running but like a lot of server type items if you have to get your hands dirty in the innards it can get messy.

Not to be outdone by free and opensource software Microsoft released it’s own free WAMP package called Microsoft Web Platform consisting of SQL Server, ASP.NET, IIS and Visual Studio.  It features a one click install and has custom one click install packages available such as WordPress and Gallery.

All together it’s an easy installation and configuration and provides an alternative for those more comfortable with Microsoft products.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free Windows security package that’s a derivative of it’s enterprise Forefront Security package, pared down as a free simplified offering.  That’s not to say it isn’t effective: after instalation it picked up two Trojans that AVG Anti-Virus 8.5 Free Edition, my previous free security choice, had missed.  You can see it in action below:

I uninstalled AVG and installed the 7.5 MB download; it was quick and painless.  During installation it removed Windows Defender providing anti-virus and anti-spyware with real time monitoring.

It’s unobtrusive and takes just 12 MB of memory on my Windows XP Professional SP3 PC.  The final product will be free and should be available next quarter.  Since it’s from Microsoft it will be available in 32 and 64 bit versions for XP, Vista and Windows 7.  Free is good: free and effective is better.

Update: Even though I’m part of the beta program Microsoft took away the files for download and I was only able to download the XP version and didn’t get to try the Vista and Windows 7 versions.  Luckily Softpedia has every version available, for now.

Some months ago Microsoft made available a release candidate of Windows Small Business Server 2008 for public preview: I downloaded and installed it to give it a whirl.  I ran it for a month to see what was new and to form an opinion, outlined below.

I’ve been a big fan and user of the Small Business Server (SBS from now on) line since it’s inception with version 4.5.  The concept is simple: create a product for the small business market that combines key Microsoft server software in a relatively easy to use package.  This means bundling Windows Server with Exchange, SQL and later ISA, SharePoint and WSUS on a single machine and putting a ton of wizards and a front end on the whole package to make is as easy as possible.  At first there was a 50 user limit but they bumped that to 75 users which is a stretch for one machine to handle.

Small Business Server has been an evolutionary product with each version, learning from past editions and steadily making it easier to use while integrating new features and products.  As before SBS will be available in two editions: standard and premium.  With SBS 2008 standard you get Windows Server, Exchange, SharePoint, WSUS, Forefront Security for Exchange, Office Live Small Business, Live OneCare for Server (one year license) and fax services.  The SBS 2008 Premium edition adds SQL and a second Windows Server: for the first time SBS will run on two separate servers.  This is a laundry list of Microsoft server products because SBS 2008 is designed for small businesses to have a complete server product covering all bases.

At it’s simplest SBS 2008 is designed to get a small business up and running on a Microsoft platform with all the software it needs for day to day computing operations.  If you have a reasonable understanding of Windows and want to get your hands a little dirty then this package can be managed: if not you can get a Microsoft business partner to remotely manage it for you.  Small Business Server contains a wealth of remote management tools including remote access, email mail notifications and reporting that lets someone else look after things.  To be fair it’s straightforward to manage and can be handled by a green or junior IT person.

Lets go through each briefly to explain what they do.  Windows Server is the framework that everything else works from: it allows all your computers to work together in a domain sharing resources such as files and printers and allows permissions to be set for users so you can limit what each user has access to.  Exchange is an email server, group calendar and the back end for Microsoft Outlook.  SharePoint is an internal web site and shares documents and information.  WSUS handles Windows updates on your network: download it once instead of on every PC.  Forefront Security for Exchange handles spam and virus filtering for your email.  Office Live Small Business is an online extension of SBS and creates an online presence via a web site, marketing and online tools.  Live OneCare for Server is Microsoft’s anti-virus package: it’s been phased out so it will be short lived in this product.  SQL is Microsoft’s corporate database.  Excellent breakouts for there are available at the SBS site.

Installation is very straightforward but there are some new and higher system requirements: an x64 processor and a minimum of 4 GB of RAM.  SBS 2008 is a 64 bit product and Microsoft has wisely updated the minimum specs to let the product work smoothly: if you don’t have 4 GB of RAM in your system the installation will stop.  I tested on a Sempron 3500 system with 4 GB of RAM: I found the performance sluggish but it was a release candidate and the processor is on the low end.

SBS has implemented a new user interface, the same one used for Windows Home Server.  It’s very slick and easy to use, accomplishing it’s goal of giving you (almost) everything you need on one screen.

As you can see the features are broken down along the top of the panel, each section clearly defined and covering a key aspect of the system.  Home, Users and Groups, Network, Shared Folders and Web Sites, Backups and Server Storage, Reports, Security.

Working here you won’t need to leave this tabbed resource: everything can be done.  And it’s this simplicity that leads to Small Business Server’s Achilles heel: you get so used to everything being easy and wizard driven that when you run across something off the beaten path you may be in trouble.  The software included is full on corporate and each package has it’s own tools that may need to be used to do or fix what a wizard couldn’t.

That’s where Microsoft comes to the rescue again, albeit from the side.  The Official SBS blog is the best written and most comprehensive technical blog from Microsoft I’ve seen on a single product.  It’s an amazing resource and should be a regular stop for all SBS 2008 users.  As well Microsoft Press released a few books that cover the bases as well and are worth a look.  And we can come back to using a Microsoft Partner for help in dire circumstances or everyday management.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 is an excellent product that accomplishes it’s task: to provide a wizard driven simplified Windows server environment.

]]> http://tech.ebabble.net/microsoft-windows-small-business-server-2008/feed 3 http://tech.ebabble.net/dungeon-siege-legends-of-aranna http://tech.ebabble.net/dungeon-siege-legends-of-aranna#comments Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:12:56 +0000 Scott VanderPloeg http://www.ebabble.net/?page_id=246

Can’t favor one system over another, so Dungeon Siege: Legends Of Aranna has occupied my free time for the last three weeks. Some may remember the original title from a few years ago: this is a follow up slash expansion, somewhere right in the middle. Legends Of Aranna follows the same game style: a third person point and click fighting game based on a fantasy genre, like Dungeons and Dragons or Diablo. You work your way through the world, fighting monsters, acquiring new weapons, armor and equipment, adding teammates, trying to finish various quests assigned as you and your party progress.

Play begins by defining a character’s physical traits and getting the introductory quest and story. As you go along characters are encountered that offer to join your party: you can have a total of eight, including pack animals. Characters fall into four groups and are defined by their area of expertise: melee combat, ranged combat, nature magic and combat magic. These traits rise and they are employed, so a fighter will finish the game at around level 30 melee combat. Three traits define your character’s ability to use weapons, armor and spells: strength, dexterity and intelligence. These rise with usage as well, but go along with your area of expertise. A melee combat fighter will see their strength steadily rise, their dexterity and intelligence crawling up.

In the end it’s all about killing creatures and getting goodies. Your team can be managed according to their abilities: the melee fighters can be set to attack enemies at will, while nature magicians can stay at the back casting spells and engaging in combat only to defend themselves. That’s why a healthy mix of party members guarantees winning every fight.

Multiplayer is well handled, allowing you to import a single player character and use them over the internet or via LAN play. As well you can import a player from the original Dungeon Siege. It’s not rehashed maps: the multiplayer world is an extension of the single player, and doubles the playability.

Dungeon Siege: Legends Of Aranna is the best of the hack and slash PC games. It allows for varied resolutions and the ability to zoom into the action or pan out for the big picture. Graphically it’s very immersive and smooth, bringing you into the virtual world. Sound was good overall, but the players used canned phrases at the strangest times. The story is important as it defines why you have to meet the various quests, and a sense of accomplishment is felt at the end of the adventure. In the end it’s an excellent value for your time and money.

Check it out at www.dungeonsiege.com: download a demo and see for yourself.

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published January 9th 2004.

Being a true die hard fan of RTS ( real time strategy ) games, I had to give MechCommander 2 a try. The original had come out a few years ago, but I had missed out on that one and didn’t want to repeat that error. I’m a little behind the rest of the press pack on this review, but I was slow installing it. On the surface MechCommander 2 appears to be a limited RTS title, but just like your mother says it’s what’s inside that counts.

After an uneventful install I fired up the game and was greeted by a standard load menu. Two single player options available; training or Carver V. It seems the game is set up to handle additional missions, but that must be at a later date. I chose the training and became acquainted with the controls and functions of the game. After four easily followed tutorials I was ready to command a group of Mechs.

Starting the Carver V campaign forced me to watch a group of FMV ( full motion video ) sequences giving me the gist of the story. Carver V was a planet that was to be the battleground for three Houses, mercenaries led by me and local resistance. For a better introduction to the Battletech universe check out the MechCommander 2 website. From there I proceeded through 23 missions to a victorious conquest of the planet.

You are a mercenary Mech Commander that leads a group of pilots through planned objectives. Each mission you pick which pilots will man what Battle Mech, your constraints being tonnage allowed. As usual, you start with a small pool of each and gain access to better equipment as the game progresses. Some unique aspects include experience and skills for your pilots, plus battlefield acquisition.

At the end of each mission surviving pilots gain experience that improves their abilities, plus moves them towards specialized skills that you pick from a list. Skills vary and aid missions, but I found overall experience made the biggest impact.

Recovering fallen Battle Mechs from the battlefield is a nice feature; anything you lost or defeated can be purchased for a discount and deployed or sold. Money comes into play by purchasing new Mechs or modifying existing designs. Again new weapons are added as you progress, so new Mechs and new modifications abound.

Let’s look at gameplay. The screens is fairly free of clutter, with information such as objectives and Mech specs available as overlays. Once the mission starts you can group your Mechs by using CTRL plus numbers 1-9, as in all RTS games. Mechs are broken down into short, medium and long range so this helps when attacking your targets. Move in the long range Mechs, start the attack and meet resistance with medium Mechs first followed by short range bruisers. Battles go as you’d expect: select your units, furiously click to attack and move on.

Resource points, collected by capturing enemy warehouses and supply trucks, can be used to call down support vehicles such as repair trucks, stationary cannons or new pilots. This is the best way to take fallen Mechs, as resource points cost nothing and can get you a fighting unit quickly. You can’t get more Mechs from your group during a mission, so manning fallen Mechs can really turn the tide.

Graphics are top notch, with various resolutions and colour depths available. Take a look at the screen shots and judge for yourself. I played at 1024×768 at 32 bit colour depth, as I do with every game. With a lot of activity on the screen I found everything getting a bit jerky, which is surprising with my main system. Sound got the job done, but it wasn’t surround which we’ve all become used to. Why don’t RTS games support surround sound? Hearing enemy Mechs moving in behind me could have helped, but probably not much.

Multiplayer is handled, surprise, on the Microsoft Zone. Find some competitors, start a game and choose a colour. Same great gameplay with up to eight players in head to head action. I didn’t get into it too deep, but it’s what you’d expect.

All in all a nice diversion from the standard RTS fair. Don’t take my word for it: grab the demo and see for yourself. Prepare to be surprised and entertained.

Editors note: this review was migrated from the old eBabble.net site and the photos updated. Originally published October 19th 2001.

Let me start by confirming I am still dual booting, but mainly because Vista x64 isn’t supported by the Connector software from Windows Home Server.  If I want my PC backed up I have to go into a 32 bit operating system to get it done.  A 64 bit version of this was to be available this month but the Windows Home Server team is furiously working on the data corruption bug, which (knock wood) hasn’t affected me.  Every few days I boot into XP and let it back up.

The second reason I boot back into Windows XP is because of Nvidia’s Vista x64 drivers.  I have a Geforce 8800GTX graphics card, which was top of the line until a few weeks ago.  After a few hours of game playing (mostly Company Of Heroes) the graphics driver crashes, the game screen goes black and Vista tells me the graphics driver has crashed but Vista has recovered.  Everything else works fine but I have to close the game.   If I want to play anything after that I have to reboot, and at that point I’m frustrated with Vista so I boot into XP and play games for days without a hiccup.

The last drivers for Vista from Nvidia for the 8800 series were released December 20th 2007.  I realize the 9000 series of cards are now out but I’d still like to see a quarterly driver update!

Service pack 1 installed and on restart gave me a BSOD: I rebooted and everything has been fine since.  Can’t say I see any improvement, but nothing negative has popped up either.

Power saving and power features in Vista are far superior to XP: I have my PC go to standby after ten minutes and it works flawlessly every time, and I’ve never had an issue coming out of standby.  I like leaving my machine on all the time but have been feeling guilty about the power usage so this is my compromise for the time being.

Everything else about Vista x64 just works.  I don’t do a lot on the machine other than email, web browsing and game playing, but isn’t that what home computers are for?

For those not in the know, Microsoft Windows Home Server (WHS from now on) is just that: a small server operating system designed for the home. It’s meant to do three things really well: backup all your computers, share files on your network, give remote access to your home server and computers.

WHS is designed to be run headless, a nice server term meaning without a monitor, keyboard or mouse. As such Microsoft is heavily promoting users purchase a pre-built WHS server: you get this home, plug in the power and network cables and then connect to it from any computer. For the more technically inclined you can purchase just the software and install it on any computer you’d like: that’s the route I went with since I’m computer crazy and have systems and parts lying around my office.

Installation is straightforward and very simple. Boot from the DVD, put any additional drivers you need on a USB memory stick, new install or upgrade, pick a password, and that’s about it. It trudges along for a while and you have a working home server. From here Microsoft wants you to install the Home Connector software, which is a custom Remote Desktop connection that has two purposes: PC backup and access to WHS allowing you to manage your home server. As long as the PC is on at the time you set up backups the PC will be completely backed up to the WHS. I couldn’t get my Home Connector software to install properly until I assigned WHS a static IP address and added that address to each PCs’ HOSTS file: hopefully this isn’t a common problem as that requires quite a bit of PC know how.

Backup is the big sell for this product, in my oh so humble opinion. Every machine gets fully backed up to the WHS, but there’s not a lot of wasted space because single instance store is utilized. Basically a database is run on WHS that makes sure only one copy of a file is stored: if you have four PCs are home running Windows XP Professional that’s basically four copies of all the same files, so WHS only keeps on file but marks down what all the files are on each PC. This is a huge space saver and works very well. Shadow Volume Copy is also running on WHS, so you can restore up to three previous versions of a file you’ve saved by right clicking on the file and picking a previous version. To make the most of Volume Shadow Copy I redirect all users’ My Documents to their own folders on the WHS. In the event of a PC crash you can restore your PC by booting from an included restore CD. This is dead simple and so effective any home or business with ten machines or less needs to be running Windows Home Server. I’m really hoping this technology gets implemented in Windows Small Business Server, so businesses up to 75 machines can use it.

Once every machine has the Home Connector software installed you can set up the Home Server for user and folders access. Make an account for each user, giving the same name as what they log into their PC with: if you’re not using unique logins for each computer (every PC just starting with the Administrator user) you’ll need to go around and set each person up with a unique login, preferably with a password. From there give these users full, read only or no access to the shares set up on the WHS. While you’re at it set up some new shares if you don’t want to fit everything into the predefined shared folders of music, video, public, photos, software. You can also turn on access to your media folders for media streaming around the house: I use my X-Box 360 for music and photo access and it works very nicely.

Another new technology used in WHS is drive extender: all hard drives are added to one large storage pool, apart from a 20 GB boot partition. If you have one 40 GB drive or eight 1 TB drives, your WHS will have a 20 GB C: drive and the rest as a D: drive. The good part is when you enable folder duplication, which puts a copy of your data on at least two drives. On my WHS I have four 500 GB drives: my total used space for files is 480 GB, so each of the drives contains a copy of my data. I pulled one of the drives just to check and it was all there. When your data goes over the size of one the drives this isn’t the case, but it’s a very easy and expandable system for storage. No need for software or hardware RAID. When you want to add more storage just mount a new hard drive or plug in an external drive and in the WHS Console add it to your storage. Boom, more space, no hassle.

To get access from the outside work you need to go through the Settings options. WHS will automatically configure your router if it has uPNP turned on, or you can manually set up port forwarding. Every WHS install comes with a free domain name of *.homeserver.com, so sign in with a Windows Live ID and pick something easy to remember. When you’re away from home log into your site and you’ll have three options: remote connect to one of your PCs, access the files and folders on your WHS, or run the WHS console. Each is really easy to use and navigate and makes all your data accessible from anywhere.

At this point PCs have Home Connector running and are being backed up, users are set up and assigned access to the folders, and remote access is working from outside. With the year long beta there are lots of active users in the online community, and a lot of add-ins are being written to expand WHS capabilities, from OEMs and users. HP bundles a group of features with their MediaSmart models, and there are some gems available online as well. Check out the Microsoft WHS Blog for a slew of information, along with it’s product page.

If it isn’t obvious I love this product and heartily endorse if for any computing environment of up to ten PCs, especially small businesses that need to have an easy and stress free backup and remote access solution for a very low cost.

With even a passing interest in computing you would be hard pressed to have not only heard and shown interest in Microsoft Vista but also the deluge of bad press it’s received. Slower than Windows XP! User Account Control a failure! Version confusion! And so it continues. Whatever your feeling, Microsoft has the leading market share for an operating system and has moved to the Vista platform, with XP to go the way of the dinosaur over the next few months.

Of course XP will live on through your old PCs and their hardware that doesn’t really support Vista, just as that old doorstop in the attic has Windows 98 SE. My day job is as an IT manager for a large company that still has thousands of PCs running Windows 2000 very efficiently, but that’s an aside we won’t pursue.

Microsoft invited me to the Vista launch and gave me a copy of Vista to use. It languished on my shelf for months until I did a large upgrade on my main system and boosted my RAM to 4 GB, since DD2 is so cheap right now. Booting into XP after the upgrade showed a little under 3 GB of RAM, which meant the overhead of a 32 bit operating system, my 768 MB video card and other tidbits conspired to work against me.

To access all that lovely PC-6400 DDR2 memory would require a 64 bit operating system. Basically (very) with a 64 bit environment your system can access more than 4 GB of RAM and work faster with current 64 bit CPUs, which really means any current CPU. Requirements are a 64 bit CPU and 64 bit drivers for your hardware. Of course verify all your applications will work as well. For a bit more information check out what Microsoft has to say. Until now no one would worry about more than 2 GB or RAM in their system outside of a server environment, but with cheap as chips pricing on RAM and decent CPUs it’s very doable.

Since this was a major upgrade and having heard so much bad press I decided to get proper Vista 64 bit drivers for all my hardware before doing anything. Drivers for 64 bit Vista must be digitally signed, and since that’s costs companies money it’s one of the hindrances of their release. As well the vast majority of people are using 32 bit Vista so that’s where the priority goes.

I would need drivers for the following: Nvidia 680i motherboard, Nvidia 8800GTX video card, Creative X-FI Xtreme Gamer sound card, Creative Web Cam. I never bothered to install the software for my keyboard and mouse so I didn’t care, and figured my Dell 24” LCD monitor would be fine. Trolling the web snagged drivers for everything but the web cam, which was a $1 after rebate deal that I replaced with a Logitech $0 after rebate deal that supported Vista 64 bit: nice job Logitech. I had SLI going with two Nvidia 7900 GT video cards until my big summer upgrade, and to be fair to Microsoft non-existent SLI support from Nvidia was my main XP holdout.

With full driver support things were going swimmingly. To protect myself against complete Vista hatred I chose to create a new partition on my hard drive and set up my system for dual booting between Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Installation was silky smooth and there I was staring at the Vista desktop. Drivers installed without issue for all my hardware.

First blush Vista is very nice looking; visually appealing in that round and futuristic sort of way. Finding things proved slightly difficult because I’m used to XP; certainly not Vista’s fault. I felt the same way as I moved from any other Windows version. As I worked the system I installed my must have applications: AVG Anti-Virus, Daemon Tools, Microsoft Office, 7-Zip. All available in 64 bit versions or working in 64 bit Vista. Failures were SyncToy (now available in a 64 bit beta) and Medal Of Honor Airborne.

My home system does three things: surf the web, check emails and play games (not necessarily in that order). Microsoft has worked up the Games For Windows certification, and one of it’s requirements is 64 bit support. It’s easy to spot since the Games For Windows logo runs along the top of the game’s packaging. Pretty well any current game will be Games For Windows certified, but check first. Vista’s other big gaming plus is DirectX 10, but you’ll need an ATI/AMD 2000 series or Nvidia 8000 series video card to get it’s additional perks.

Let’s talk performance: there wasn’t a perceptible performance hit from moving to Vista. I read the articles and blog posts about the 2-10% hit on games that Vista takes over XP, but I can’t see it with my current system. Once I’m over thirty frames per second I want maximum eye candy, otherwise my 24” monitor is going to waste. Since I’m usually over sixty frames per second with my 8800 GTX and most details on high Vista is working just fine. I can’t do a side by side comparison between 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista, but I’m sure getting my full 4 GB of RAM helps out.

After everything was done I was a bit disappointed: with a 64 bit operating system I was expecting something unusual and dramatic. With proper drivers and applications it looked and operated just like it’s 32 bit siblings while providing the benefits that made me want the 64 bit version of Vista in the first place.

We might as well address the major nag everyone talks about: User Account Control. Basically Vista takes security seriously and prompts you to confirm a lot of system changes, which is slightly annoying but can be turned off. Done, next topic.

Microsoft dropped DirectSound hardware acceleration in Vista, hurting Creative and it’s EAX feature. I have had Sound Blaster sound cards since the beginning, and to their credit Creative released ALchemy to restore this functionality in Vista. It’s free for X-FI users and $10 for Audigy users. It’s meant to get pre-Vista games and shouldn’t be a big concern for Vista 64 bit users since most of those old titles won’t work anyway.

The big wrap up: Vista is good. It’s new and a bit scary, but it’s the future. Vista 64 bit is worth the jump if your hardware and applications are supported. RAM is cheap right now so bulk up if you’re moving to 64 bit. Dual booting XP and Vista 64 bit is a great way to embrace the new while keeping one foot in the old. For application and game incompatibilities it’s great to jump back to XP, but these issues will fade away soon enough. If it’s strictly an application issue install a virtualization product from Microsoft or VMWare: they both offer free products and are worth a look.

Side note: dual booting brings up the boot menu, which features Windows Vista and “earlier version of Windows”. Why couldn’t Microsoft just name it Windows XP, 2000 or 98 SE: they clearly know what “older version” you’re dual booting with.

Last week Microsoft released the Windows Home Server Community Technology Preview (CTP).  This put a lot more fit and finish to the product.  I used the upgrade option to upgrade my existing WHS beta 2 installation.  Things went well, but I was still getting a failing service and couldn’t install the client software.  I had hoped the upgrade would resolve these two issues.

Around the same time I realized my home office needed to be cleaned up.  I had three servers in various states of assembly plus four PCs scattered around the room.  Everything needed to be organized and prepped.

Tiger Direct had a sale on AMD Athlon x2 3800+ socket 939 processors so I picked one up.  I have an eVGA Nforce4 SLI motherboard in an Antec SLK3700BQE case and an Antec Neo HE 550 power supply.  It just needed to be assembled to get things cooking.  When the CPU arrived I popped it in with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64Pro since it was an OEM model.  Added two 1 GB PC3200 DIMMs and an LG GSA-H22L DVD re-writer to the mix and it was almost ready.  Around this time I decided this machine would be the new WHS box, so I could just transfer the four 500 GB Maxtor drives from the current dual Xeon WHS machine.  The Nforce4 SLI motherboard had PCI-E slots for the graphics and I didn’t have anything to spare so I threw in an ATI 8 MB PCI card and it was working beautifully; thank goodness I keep boxes of old hardware for no particular reason.

I moved over the hard drives in the same order and booted from the WHS CTP DVD in the hopes of running the upgrade option again, but no dice.  Reordering the hard drives on the motherboard didn’t help and I started to feel a little panicky.  I pulled one of the four and hooked it to my main system: all my files were there.  WHS and it’s folder duplication function had just saved my bacon and vividly illustrated why not to use a RAID array for WHS.  I did a fresh installation of WHS on the three connected drives and copied my data over from the pulled drive.

Everything was going so well…until WHS client installation.  Failure again loomed over me, as it had the last three installs.  I hit the WHS forums, again, and looked around until I found someone talking about adding the WHS machine to the clients HOSTS file.  Brilliant!  Doing so got everything tickety boo.  I did change the IP of the box from a DHCP address (the default) to a static address so I could feel secure with port redirection on my router.

I skipped one little item to keep continuity: the Antec Neo HE 550 wouldn’t power up the new WHS machine.  I hit the power button, and the fans wouldn’t even start: the motherboard flashed “FF” at me.  Solid FF meant booting, but flashing wasn’t really mentioned.  I plugged the power supply into my Antec power supply tester and it showed as all green, thumbs up.  I unplugged everything except CPU, RAM and video card but still nothing.  Swapped the CPU with a Sempron 3000+ socket 939 CPU I had from another system and it was no luck.  Finally desperation sank in and I pulled an Antec TP2-550EPS12V from my dual Opteron server and hooked it up: success!  Swapped power supplies and put the Neo HE aside: this was my first failed Antec power supply.  With it’s five year warranty I’ll try and RMA.

Cleaned everything up and loaded the dual Xeon system with 4 GB PC2100 ECC RAM, four Maxtor 250 GB hard drives and a 3ware Escalade 9550SX.  I downloaded Windows Server 2003 x64 Standard edition from TechNet and am planning to install next week, along with Microsoft Virtual Server.  This will be my secondary test/backup platform as I like a belts and braces approach to my data, and until WHS is a final product I’ll need a secondary file depot.

For some reason I have a bunch of hard drives lying around at home for two purposes: to upgrade my Small Business Server ( SBS ) machine and to build a disk based backup machine.  I had a Xeon workstation sitting around so that was going to be repurposed to WHS, but it didn’t have SATA ports so I needed an add-in controller.  Looking around there seemed to be two choices, both 32 bit 66 MHz PCI capable of 266 MB/s: an endless array of no name SATA rev 1.0 boards with Silicon Image controllers for $40, or a Promise SATAII300 TX4 SATA rev1.0a controller for $80.  Since I wanted native command queuing ( NCQ, the ability for the controller to take requests for data and rearrange them to come off disk in the fastest manner possible ) I went with the Promise card.

Once up and running WHS doe two things: gives network access to shared files, and backs up computers on the network.  This is a home product designed for up to ten users, but borrows most of it’s smarts from various Microsoft servers, especially SBS.  WHS is designed to run headless, meaning once it’s running you interact with it via a client program ( and also means no keyboard, mouse or monitor required ).  Install the connector software and login to the server.  From there you control the four aspects of WHS: backup, folder sharing, user profiles and server storage.

Backup runs nightly and does a full backup of the PC, save any exceptions you add.  It’s based on Windows remote installation services ( RIS ) and maximizes space by only keeping one copy of each file.  Quick example: three PCs are running on the network using Windows XP Professional and Office 2003; almost all the files are the same for the operating system and application.  Therefore the backup puts one file on the backup server and a marker to that file for the other two backups.  Very nice.

Folder sharing is just what is says, but adds a wrinkle by allowing external access to the WHS server, much like remote access in SBS.  Go to your home server over the internet and you’ll hit a secure web page that allows you in the browser to access all the files.

User profiles are pretty simple, giving none, read or read and write access to the shared files.  Nuff said.

Server storage is handled oddly in my opinion, but I understand where they’re coming from.  WHS takes all your hard drives and creates two partitions: a 10 GB partition for the OS and one large partition that spans the rest of the storage devices.  Since this is one big partition backup or file safety is handled by duplicating folders on different storage devices.  This really cuts the available storage to half, but with anything less than three disks it’s really all you can you.   A software RAID system would work much better, but only on three or more disks.  WHS allows external storage to be added to the pool as well, mixing connections and providing the widest berth.

It’s a good product and at beta 2 performs well.  Being a regular SBS user I’d like to see the backup functionality added to SBS instead of relying on a separate home product like WHS.

SBS has a very nice backup wizard that handles tape and disk, but I wanted to add a separate disk based imaging and backup product.  While my server has a RAID 5 array to guard against hardware failure and anti-virus software, a dedicated backup solution was needed to damaged files, older versions and overall piece of mind.

Microsoft has a continuous backup product in the form of Data Protection Manager ( DPM ).  It’s version one and only backs up file servers, but does a nice job of keeping up to date backups of multiple file versions.  Microsoft announced Beta 1 of DPM 2 so I signed up and downloaded a copy.  DPM 2 supports Exchange, SQL and SharePoint now, with general improvements over version one.  I built a new server from parts sitting around and added four 500 GB Maxtor Maxline Pro SATA hard drives; this would give me triple the space of my 320 GB RAID 5 server storage space.

Installation was smooth and very slick, even in beta.  Lots of hand holding and easy to follow wizards.  DPM Beta 2 installs itself and SQL Server 2005 to handle the back end.  Microsoft PowerShell is also a requirement, but the install wizard points you to the download.

Once installation is complete you walk through configuring DPM 2 for your environment.  I selected the unformatted 1.5 TB RAID 5 array as my backup space, then searched my domain to install the backup agents that handle the DPM backup process.  Since I only have one server I picked my SBS 2003 box, but received an error indicating only Windows 2003 was supported.  End of the line.

DPM 2 Beta did partially install the agent on my SBS 2003 box since I received an error when I rebooted it to handle Tuesday’s patches.  I may be moving away from SBS as I was just approved for the beta 2 program for Windows Home Server.

Microsoft basically offers three ways to do this: TechNet, MSDN, Action Pack.  TechNet is aimed at the IT crowd, with full access to all Microsoft retail corporate/enterprise software ( no home or game products ).  MSDN is aimed at the developer, offering the same as TechNet plus development packages.  Both of these are meant for development/testing environments and can’t be rolled out onto production machines.  Action Pack is offered to Microsoft Partners and offers some server and desktop packages with ten licenses; it’s meant to be rolled out to a PC business only.  MSDN was too expensive for me so that was out.  Action Pack and TechNet Plus were about the same price, but TechNet offered the full range of server, application and operating system software.

To further complicate things TechNet came in three varieties: regular, Plus and Direct.  Regular gave you access to all the software for a year, but the licences were only good while you were a subscriber.  Plus had full licenses that didn’t end.  Regular and Plus had the software arrive quarterly on CD or DVD.  Direct was $349 U.S. and didn’t have anything mailed; you downloaded ISO images of the software and received CD keys online.  Cheaper than any other option with instant gratification; what could be better?

What could be better is clear, defined information on each package and what’s included.  Action Pack had a nice website with a clear breakdown of what you received.  MSDN was extremely difficult to navigate through to see what you were paying for.  TechNet was somewhere in the middle, with clear definitions of the three offerings but not on what was actually included.  Darting around the TechNet website gave me enough information to decide, plus they offered a thirty day money back guarantee.

I signed up and gave my credit card information.   The process finished with a nice online invoice and an indication that my subscription would be ready in eleven days.  This was a download service from Microsoft, but it would take eleven days to set up?  Something was very wrong here.  I received an email indicating I had purchased techNet Direct and estimated delivery date was eleven days later, but not applicable for Direct orders.

Sensing I was just missing something I tried logging into the Subscriber area of TechNet, but I needed a subscriber number, which didn’t appear on my invoice.  The next day I received an email indicating my payment had been processed.  Over twenty four hours to process a credit card payment online; I had the feeling Microsoft was taking my online submission and sending it to a clerk at a desk somewhere who manually processed my payment.  Still no indication of how or what to do about using my paid subscription.

I gave it a few days and still nothing, so I hunted for quite a while through the TechNet and Microsoft customer service pages and found a place to retrieve my subcriber number based on my name and email address.  Finally I was in and perusing the available software.  Two days later an email arrived welcoming me to TechNet Plus Direct, seven days after I paid online.  The next day I received a card in the mail with my subscriber ID.  In the age of the internet and e-commerce this was the saddest end user experience I’ve come across.

Once I had access it was time to start downloading.  I run Small Business Server 2003 on my home network and wanted to upgrade to R2, plus grab Vista and Office 2007.  TechNet Plus allows you to install each piece of software on up to ten machines, and provides sixty days before activation is required.   Since my entire home network of two servers and six desktops was a testbed, the TechNet subscription would serve me well.  A bunch of new software is coming out this year and it seemed to be the best time to try this out.

It’s worth mentioning that only retail product is available through TechNet.  Beta corporate software and such are available as well but I haven’t explored everything yet.  I wanted a stab at Microsoft Storage Server and maybe Media Center Edition 2005 but they’re both OEM products and not listed.   More home centric product access would be nice as well, like Streets & Trips.  First day download of eighteen gigabytes put me in touch with most of what Microsoft is offering.  Now I just need the time to install it.

I am a pseudo journalist and have access to Microsoft PR resources that occasionally give me free software, and January 30th I was invited to the Vista/Office 2007 launch in Toronto.  The event was held in an ice block building (very cool; pun intented).  Microsoft Canada people were onsite to demo various aspects of Vista and Office 2007, but it was meant for general press and didn’t get too technical.  I was able to chat with one guy about Microsoft Home Server and the utter lack of CableCard support in Canada (meaning no HD recording in Vista).  The PR folks are very nice, but when you start asking them for a lot of server products they get tight fisted.

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Microsoft Vista Beta 2