Before we start looking for a solution, the problem needs to be clearly understood and defined. Once you know what you need, then you look for a solution. If the solution doesn’t work, go back and find a new solution. Repeat until the problem is solved. Persistence and faith is necessary for solving difficult and time consuming problems.

Once a solution is found, record it so that if the problem occurs again, you have a source that you can refer to for the procedure required to solve it. Trying to remember a solution is not a good idea, since its very easy to forget things. Its better to write down what you did on paper or electronically … do a blog post .

Installing on Windows XP and 2003

Free XPS viewers can be found at the View and Generate XPS page from Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Developer Central site. There are two options, the Microsoft XPS Viewer, which Vista already has, and Microsoft XPS Essentials Pack. The Microsoft XPS Viewer only integrates XPS with Internet Explorer, but the Essentials Pack installs a stand-alone viewer. All users, including Vista, should install this for viewing documents outside of a web browser.

Once either application is installed, you can generate an XPS document with the Microsoft XPS Document Writer by printing to it in the same way that a PDF is made. One thing that you’ll notice is that an XPS file can be created much faster than a PDF. This is probably due to the more limited functionality that it has as opposed to PDF, but over time this will change as more is added to it.

The Future

Will XPS replace PDF? More and more companies are starting to use it, notably Autodesk as a replacement for their DWF format. As Vista and Windows 7 are increasingly used, we’ll see more documents shared in XPS. There are free PDF generators, but they’re not being widely used. Eventually, printers will be able to use XPS directly which will give an alternative to Postscript.

Highlights

• improved drag and drop widgets
• theme browser and installer
• dashboard widgets can be displayed in 1 to 4 columns
• support for IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module – this important because I’m planning on switching to an IIS web hosting package soon

There were many more updates but these ones are the more significant. The following video gives a quick overview of the new version.

After some research, I discovered the Microsoft Fix it wizard. These are small utilities that Microsoft created to fix minor problems like this. The drive could also be fixed with a manual solution that was published. The knowledge base article with this information and a link to the utility can be found at support.microsoft.com/kb/314060.

After running this utility, the problem was fixed and the DVD drive was working.

This wasn’t the only problem. I tried to delete the F folder, but when I clicked on it, I would get the following message:

I couldn’t access this folder or delete it. I tried rebooting the computer and the folder could not be deleted. It wouldn’t even work when rebooting into safe mode. The Unlocker application couldn’t delete it either.

The reason why this folder could not be deleted is that my security ID didn’t match the security ID of the owner of the folder. Partition Magic made changes to the security ID when it was merging the drives and didn’t restore the permissions when it failed.

Changing the Security ID of a Folder

The following steps need to be done before you can delete folders with different security ID’s:

1. Right click on the Start menu and select Explore to run Windows Explorer.
2. Open the Tools menu and select Folder Options.
3. Open the View tab and scroll down to the bottom in Advanced Settings and turn off Use simple file sharing.
4. Right click on the folder that you want to delete and select Sharing and Security.
5. Click the Security tab and press the Advanced button.
6. Open the Owner tab and click Administrator in the Name list. If you are logged in as an administrator, click Administrators.
7. Click the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects box so that it is on.
8. Press the OK button.
9. You’ll get an error message saying that you don’t have permission to read the contents of that folder. Press the Yes button.
10. Click OK to apply the changes you made to the folder.
11. Delete the folder.

Finding the hosts File

Accessing a database such as MySQL on another server requires the use of the hosts file. This is used to connect to the database server by redirecting a hostname to the server’s IP. On Windows, you can find hosts in the operating system directory in the system32\drivers\etc\ folder. If your not sure where it is, use the file search function in your operating system.

In the hosts file, move to the bottom and enter the IP of the database server and hostname that you will use in your code to use the database. The following example shows the IP of the database server (74.208.28.228) and the hostname that is defined as mysql.database.

74.208.28.228    mysql.database

Connecting with PHP

An example of connecting with PHP:

$link = mysql_connect ('mysql.database', 'mysql_user', 'mysql_password');

A user account in MySQL to access the database needs to be created. You can’t use the root account when connecting to another server.

Once connected, you can perform functions on the database just like as if it was a local server on your computer. This procedure can also be used to connect to other database servers such as Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL.

The first step is to go to the PHP on IIS7 site and then press the Click to Install PHP on IIS button. It will then install the Web Platform Installer 2.0 beta if its not currently installed, or it will start the installer and take you to the page where you can install PHP.

After the installation, you need to set a default document to index.php if you want to be able to serve pages when browsing to your web site or virtual folder, i.e. http://www.cyprich.com/. The is done with the following steps:

1. Click on the web site or virtual folder in the Internet Information Services Manager.
2. Double click on Default Document in the IIS group.
3. Press Add in the Actions section in the right sidebar.
4. Enter index.php in the Add Default Document box. The Default Document list should then have the page listed as below.

Now you can browse to your web site and view the main page without typing index.php in the URL.

You need the Microsoft XPS Viewer to open a DWFx document. This is already integrated into Vista, but it is also installed with the .NET 3.0 Framework or as a download for Windows XP. The viewer is built on the Windows Presentation Foundation and will work on Windows XP, 2003, Vista, and higher.

I would recommend the Autodesk Design Review application for working with DWFx’s because it provides greater functionality than Microsoft’s viewer. The application is a free download from Autodesk.

The first thing you need to do is get the latest version of PHP for Windows from http://www.php.net/downloads.php. Run the installer and follow the steps until you reach the Web Server Setup form.

Select IIS CGI if you are installing PHP on IIS 5 or earlier (i.e. Windows XP). If you are using IIS 6 or 7 (Windows 2003 or 2008), use the IIS FastCGI option if its installed because it will give PHP better performance on your server.

Click on the drive icon next to PHP and select Entire feature will be installed on local hard drive. This will install all of the libraries and documentation that come with PHP. Its easier installing everything now than finding out later that you need a certain feature. I’ve also found that install PHP on C:\PHP\ works better than installing on C:\Program Files\PHP\. I’m not sure why, but there is probably a setting I’m missing when I install it in the Program Files folder.

You’ll get this error message at the final step of the installation:

Press OK and then press the Finish button when the next form is displayed.

Now you need to test the PHP installation by creating a virtual folder in IIS with a PHP page in it. Name the virtual folder as test and the web page as index.php.

Place the following code in index.php:

<?php

  echo ‘Test’;

?>

When you browse to this folder, i.e. http://localhost/test/, you will get the following error message:

In order for PHP to work properly, you need to modify the php.ini file, create a subfolder, and make some changes to IIS. This procedure is described in the following steps:

1. Create a folder call Temp in the folder where PHP was installed.
2. Open the php.ini file in an editor. This settings file is located in folder where PHP was installed.
3. Search for upload_tmp_dir and session.save_path in php.ini. Change the locations to point to your Temp folder: C:\PHP\Temp.
4. Go into the IIS management console and right click on Default Web Site or the web site that you created to install your PHP web site in. Select Properties and open the Home Directory tab. Press the Configuration button to open the Application Configuration form.
5. Press the Add button and enter the following information (see image below):

   Executable: C:\PHP\php5isapi.dll
   Extension: .php
   Limit to: GET,HEAD,POST
   
   
   Press the OK button to accept these settings. Press the OK button again to return to the Properties form.

6. Select the Documents tab and press the Add button. Set the Default Document Name to index.php. This is the default document that gets opened when you browse to a folder (i.e. http://localhost/test/).

Test the PHP web site by browsing to it (i.e. http://localhost/test/). You should see the word Test displayed in web browser.

Windows Server Backup replaces the Backup Utility (ntbackup.exe) that was used on earlier versions of Windows. I noticed that the old ntbackup program also supports backing up the system partition with Automated System Recovery Wizard.

Installation Procedure

In order to use the Windows Server Backup, you need to install 3 components: Windows Server Backup, Command-line tools, and Windows PowerShell. The following procedure will install the required components.

1. Press the Start button and then select Server Manager.
2. Go to Features.
3. Press the Add Features link.
4. in the Add Features Wizard, select Windows PowerShell in the list of Features which check boxes.
5. Open Windows Server Backup Features and select Windows Server Backup and Command-line tools (see image below).
   
6. Press the Next button.
7. Press the Install button on the Confirm Installation Selections form.
8. Press the Close button after the features are installed.

2 Ways to Run the Backup

Windows Server Backup can be run as a Windows GUI application or from the command line. To run the GUI version, open the Start menu, select Administrative Tools, and then select Windows Server Backup.

The command line version can be run from the command shell with the wbadmin command. You can view available options with wbadmin /?.