Month: January 2009

Installing II7 on Windows 7 Beta

Windows 7 ships with IIS 7, but IIS is not enabled by default.  To turn on IIS 7, you need to dig into a new area of the Control Panel.  One quick note—unlike past setups, when you choose a parent option, this does not automatically select all of the child options in all cases.  You’re better off expanding parents and choosing the children you need.

  1. Go Start >> Control Panel
  2. Click on the green Programs header
  3. Under Programs and Features, click on Turn Windows features on or off
  4. Select Web Management Tools.  This will only install the IIS Management Console.  If you need to install IIS 6 management scripts, you’ll need to expand Web Management Tools then IIS 6 Management Compatibility and select the parts you need.  Again, this is only for IIS 6 management scripts, not application compatibility.
  5. Expand the World Wide Web Services, and drill into each of the children nodes to choose the one you want.
  6. Finally, choose the Internet Information Services Hostable Web Core.

Keep in mind that IIS 7 is a radically different web server than IIS 6, so you have a learning curve once you get this installed.  Also, not every application that runs in IIS 6 will run in IIS 7.  You may become very familiar with IIS 6 compatibility modes.

Dual boot Windows 7 Beta – how to change the default OS

To test the Windows 7 Beta, I repartitioned my hard drive (with Easeaus Partition Manager—flawless, try the free Home edition) and installed Windows 7 on the new smaller partition.

When you do this, a boot menu appears before any OS is loaded, allowing you to choose which one to boot into.  The default is set to Windows 7.  After a short delay, the system boots into the default choice.

I’d prefer to have the default be XP, since that’s where everything I need is loaded.  I don’t have the time or room to reinstall everything I use on my Windows 7 partition.

Here’s how to change the default boot choice:

  1. Right-click on Computer, and choose Properties
  2. Choose Advanced System Settings from the menu on the left.
  3. On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section.
  4. You can now choose which OS to boot into, and how long to display the choices.  The default was 30 seconds, which means that the choices are displayed for about as long as it takes Windows 7 to boot.
  5. OK your way back out, and next time you restart, your default choice will be changed.

Windows 7 Beta Installation Error: Windows cannot copy files…

When installing the Windows 7 beta, I received the following error:

Windows cannot copy files required for installation. The files may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070241

win7installerror

If you get this error, the problem is your ISO file.  I had burned a DVD and mounted the ISO directly.  My buddy Nate burned me a new cd from his ISO, and the installation was fine.

I think the problem occurred when I paused the download, and resumed at a later time.  I guess Akami’s download manager isn’t as robust as BITS or Bitorrent.

So if you get this error, download another ISO, or find someone whose worked.

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Upgrading iTunes Purchases—Is It Worth It?

So at MacWorld, Apple announced it is removing DRM from the songs in iTunes, and you can unprotect any previous purchases for a 30-cent charge.  The question is, it it worth it?  Or should you look into a music converter like DVD neXT COPY iTunes (example only –never used it, but seen good reviews), which will convert your DRM-protected songs into a different format without burning them to a CD?

My music library is a mish-mash of formats.  I have a lot of protected media that I purchased from iTunes, and some from CDs I ripped early on before I figured out how to change the settings.  I have an even greater amount of music purchased from Amazon and from CDs after I changed the output to MP3.

To be smart, you need to separate the protected files from the unprotected ones.  In iTunes, you can right-click the row of column headings and add the Kind column.  Then, click on the Kind column to sort all your music by kind.  Create a playlist for your AAC music, select the “Protected AAC” and “Purchased AAC”, and drag them to your AAC playlist.  As you drag to the playlist, your cursor will indicate the number of songs you’ve selected.  In my case, 744.

Multiplying 744 songs by 30 cents each puts the price at a complete upgrade at roughly $233.  The software costs $30, and is completely automated—tell it a playlist, and let it go.  It’s a no brainer for me—the software is much cheaper and much less hassle.  Are my MP3s going to be the most technologically perfect reproduction of live sound?  Nope.  Can I tell the difference?  Nope.  Good enough for the car, airplane or office.  If you care about that, you’re not using MP3 anyway.

Once the music is converted, I can upgrade my iPod to the RockBox firmware, and add some additional features to my iPod, and maybe replace iTunes with Songbird.  Songbird apparently supports protected AAC, but RockBox does not support AAC (protected or otherwise) at all.

Bottom line, before you start paying to remove DRM, do the math and make sure it’s cost effective to do so.

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