HP a1750e Upgrade to Windows 7

I upgraded my HP Pavilion a1750e machine from Vista to Windows 7 (32 bit) over the weekend, here is how it all went down…

Preparation

Before doing anything I wanted to make sure my system would be able to run Windows 7 so I downloaded the upgrade advisor and performed an analysis. The analysis takes a couple of minutes to do its work before showing you a report with all the (potential) problems you will encounter, allowing you to get your system ready before taking the big leap into an exciting new OS. The report is split up in sections covering the system hardware, devices (drivers) and programs.

One of the first things the upgrade report points out in the system section is the HP webpage describing how to upgrade your system, i recommend you take a look at it.

Drivers were listed as available for all hardware devices that come standard with this system. Two ‘unknown’ devices were listed for me: “HP psc 1600 series” (a printer) and “Yamaha USB-MIDI Driver (WDM)”. I took the opportunity to install the latest USB-MIDI driver from Yamaha (um304x86 at the time of this writing), it still functioned properly after the upgrade. The printer driver was automatically updated by the hardware wizard after the upgrade.

The programs section looked a little more problematic:

• Canon Camera Window MC 6 for ZoomBrowser EX, version 6.3.0.8, Known issues.
  I uninstalled this program before upgrading.
• Hardware Diagnostic Tools, version 5.00.4262.12, PC-Doctor, Inc., Update available.
  I have never used this program and did not update it. - If you experienced problems with it please leave me a comment.
• iTunes, version 7.4.0.28, Apple Inc., Reinstall after upgrade.
  I uninstalled this program before upgrading.
• Microsoft Expression Web, version 12.0.6215.1000, Microsoft Corporation, Update available.
  I did not bother updating it (yet).
• Roxio Express Labeler 3, version 2.1.0, Roxio, Update available.
  I did not update this program (yet). - If you experienced problems with this program please leave me a comment.
• Skype™ 3.8, version 3.8.188, Skype Technologies S.A., Known issues.
  I upgraded Skype to the latest version before upgrading which made the warning go away.
• Windows Mobile Device Center, version 6.1.6965.0, Microsoft Corporation, Reinstall after upgrade.
  I uninstalled this program before upgrading, then reinstalled Windows Mobile Device Center after the upgrade and connected my iPaq. The driver got automatically installed and it appears to function properly.

Execution

After all this prep work I started the upgrade which completed successfully in approximately three hours.

My system is the lucky owner of two sound devices, onboard “Realtek High Definition Audio” and a “Creative AudioPCI (ES1371,ES1373) (WDM)” card, the settings for these devices were seamlessly transferred during the upgrade and they still function properly. Very impressive. I think it is very cool you can hot-switch default audio output devices while playing sound in Windows 7!

Issues

Two issues I am aware of thus far:

• Canon Camera Window MC 6 for ZoomBrowser EX
  After upgrading I downloaded the latest ZoomBrowser EX installer from the Canon website: ZoomBrowser EX 6.4.1 Updater, Windows 7 is not available as a supported OS for downloads so I picked the Vista version. Unfortunately the Camera Window application is not functioning. – Setting the CameraWindow application to run in Vista SP2 compatibility mode will resolve this issue.
• Powersaving for the display does not work (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT/GTO).
  The display will go black but it never gets turned off. -  This issue was caused by the screensaver, changing to a different screensaver resolved the issue.

How To Determine If A Window Is Active (In C)

As promised in my previous blog describing how to add activity notification flash to PuTTY here is another way to check if the window is active. Instead of keeping track of the current window state by handling the WM_ACTIVATE message you can directly query a window for its status with GetWindowInfo(). The WINDOWINFO.dwWindowStatus field will be set to WS_ACTIVECAPTION when the window is active.

Paste the following snippet at the end of window.c:

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION2 */

/* SNIPPET ID: {CE84000D-9024-45f1-B0E6-5029AD1B257F} */

BOOL is_window_active()

{

   BOOL bActive=FALSE;

   BOOL bResult;

   WINDOWINFO wi;

   memset(&wi, 0, sizeof(wi));

   wi.cbSize=sizeof(wi);

   bResult=GetWindowInfo(hwnd, &wi);

   if(bResult)

      bActive = (wi.dwWindowStatus==WS_ACTIVECAPTION);

   return bActive;

}

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION2 */

Then add a forward declaration to the forward declarations (Snippet ID: D8B4F4A3-F870-4ded-B298-EEB71701D25D), it will look like this:

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - FLASH METHODS FORWARD DECLARATIONS AND VARS */

/* SNIPPET ID: {D8B4F4A3-F870-4ded-B298-EEB71701D25D}-20090922*/

static void flash_window_activity(int mode);

static BOOL window_is_active=TRUE;

static BOOL activity_blink_done=FALSE;

BOOL is_window_active();

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - FLASH METHODS FORWARD DECLARATIONS AND VARS*/

 

With this new code in place all that is left is updating the activity detection logic to use it. This is implemented in the from_backend method, replace the use of the window_is_active boolean with the new is_window_active() method call so the code will look like this:

int from_backend(void *frontend, int is_stderr, const char *data, int len)

{

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - SESSION ACTIVITY DETECTION */

/* SNIPPET ID: {9198643F-09DF-466f-971F-EB05EA15A85E}-20090922 */

   if(!is_window_active())

      flash_window_activity(2);

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - SESSION ACTIVITY DETECTION */

   return term_data(term, is_stderr, data, len);

}

 

All that is left now is compiling the code and firing up PuTTY!

Enjoy!

How to add Activity Notification to PuTTY

For over a decade PuTTY has been my Telnet/SSH client of choice for Windows. I mostly use it as a MUD client nowadays and missed one convenience feature: activity notifications. Chat clients all flash for attention when activity occurs and it would be a great addition to streamline my social mudlife, so I set out on a quest to add it…

First of all you need to have Microsoft Visual C++ installed to compile the sourcecode for Windows which can be found on the PuTTY Download page. Get the sources unzipped and load the workspace “putty-src\WINDOWS\MSVC\PUTTY.DSW”, you will need to go through a conversion to a Visual Studio 2008 solution when using VS2008. All code additions and changes are done in the file WINDOW.C in the “putty” project.

To support activity notification we need to know when there is activity and notify the user by making the window flash if the window is not active and it has not already done a flash. This brings us down to three problems to solve: detecting activity, knowing when the window is not active and flashing the window.

 

Flashing the PuTTY Window

PuTTY already has the option to use the window flash as a visual bell so that code can be used as a template. Notice how this feature also has been implemented in the PuTTY code itself to support flash on older Windows OSes that do not support the FlashWindowEx API method. (I have left this code in place, but it has not been tested.)

The following code snippet must be added at the end of the file:

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - FLASH METHODS */

/* SNIPPET ID: {34060BBE-6F8C-4bc1-AF1F-97B3FC8D24A4} */

static void flash_window_timer_activity(void *ctx, long now)

{

    if (flashing && now - next_flash >= 0) {

      flash_window_activity(1);

    }

}

static void flash_window_activity(int mode)

{

   if(mode==0) {

      /* stop */

   } else if (mode==2)

   {

      /* start */

      if (!flashing && !activity_blink_done) {

         flashing = 1;

         activity_blink_done=TRUE;

         if (p_FlashWindowEx) {

            /* For so-called "steady" mode, we use uCount=2, which

            * seems to be the traditional number of flashes used

            * by user notifications (e.g., by Explorer).

            * uCount=0 appears to enable continuous flashing, per

            * "flashing" mode, although I haven't seen this

            * documented. */

            flash_window_ex(FLASHW_ALL | FLASHW_TIMER,

               (cfg.beep_ind == B_IND_FLASH ? 0 : 2),

               0 /* system cursor blink rate */);

            /* No need to schedule timer */

         } else {

            FlashWindow(hwnd, TRUE);

            next_flash = schedule_timer(450, flash_window_timer_activity, hwnd);

         }

      }

   }

   else if(mode==1)

   {

      /* maintain */

      if (flashing && !p_FlashWindowEx) {

         FlashWindow(hwnd, TRUE);   /* toggle */

         next_flash = schedule_timer(450, flash_window_timer_activity, hwnd);

      }

   }

}

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - FLASH METHODS */

 

Add the following snippet to the forward declarations at the top of the file (surrounding code is show for reference to the location where it should be placed and must not be added):

#define TIMING_TIMER_ID 1234

static long timing_next_time;

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - FLASH METHODS FORWARD DECLARATIONS AND VARS */

/* SNIPPET ID: {D8B4F4A3-F870-4ded-B298-EEB71701D25D}*/

static void flash_window_activity(int mode);

static BOOL window_is_active=TRUE;

static BOOL activity_blink_done=FALSE;

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - FLASH METHODS FORWARD DECLARATIONS AND VARS*/

static struct {

    HMENU menu;

The activity_blink_done boolean ensures the window flash gets triggered only one time once the window has become inactive and activity occurs.

 

Detecting the Window Active State

There are several ways of doing this, I embarked on the adventure of using a handler for the WM_ACTIVATE message to keep track of the current state because it seemed to blend in well with the rest of the code in place. The handler also clears the activity_blink_done variable so a new flash will be triggered when necessary.

Add the following snippet at the end of the file:

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION */

/* SNIPPET ID: {75B2CA9C-49F4-4eb5-AFCF-E3D743C37C44} */

int Do_WM_ACTIVATE(HWND a_hwnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)

{

   WORD wAction = LOWORD(wParam);

   WORD wMinimized = HIWORD(wParam);

   if(a_hwnd == hwnd) {

      switch(wAction)

      {

         case WA_INACTIVE:

            window_is_active = FALSE;

            activity_blink_done = FALSE;

            break;

         case WA_ACTIVE:

         case WA_CLICKACTIVE:

            if(!wMinimized)

               window_is_active = TRUE;

            break;

         default:

            break;

      }

   }

}

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION */

 

With the message handler in place we need to hook it up in the window procedure. To do this we need to add a case statement for the WM_ACTIVATE message in the WndProc method. Insert the following code snippet right before default case handler (surrounding code shown for reference and must not be copied):

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION */

/* SNIPPET ID: {5AFAA3AB-FB28-45e9-9DE7-E56648A1B5AF} */

      case WM_ACTIVATE:

         Do_WM_ACTIVATE(hwnd, message, wParam, lParam);

         break;

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION */

      default:

         if (message == wm_mousewheel || message == WM_MOUSEWHEEL) {

 

For completeness add a forward declaration below the previous forward declaration snippet we added:

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION FORWARD DECLARATION */

/* SNIPPET ID: {D3292300-A6A3-402f-A0A5-CE259BD25EC0} */

int Do_WM_ACTIVATE(HWND a_hwnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam);

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - WINDOW ACTIVE DETECTION FORWARD DECLARATION */

 

Detecting Session Activity

With the window flash and window state support in place all that is left to do is hooking it up to the session activity detection. Find the from_backend method and insert the code snippet below so the method resembles the code block:

int from_backend(void *frontend, int is_stderr, const char *data, int len)

{

/* MARK SLETTERINK - ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - SESSION ACTIVITY DETECTION */

/* SNIPPET ID: {9198643F-09DF-466f-971F-EB05EA15A85E} */

   if(!window_is_active)

      flash_window_activity(2);

/* MARK SLETTERINK - END OF ACTIVITY NOTIFICATION SUPPORT - SESSION ACTIVITY DETECTION */

   return term_data(term, is_stderr, data, len);

}

 

Enjoy!

That completes the code additions. Compile the code, fire up PuTTY and enjoy the new activity notification feature!

Quest complete! You gained 1 million XP.

How to parse and modify a URL in .Net

When you need to modify a url string in .Net code the most prudent way to do so is by using the UriBuilder class from the System namespace because it encapsulates all the quirky rules involved in url parsing. However simply creating a new UriBuilder instance initialized with the url string has the potential for throwing a UriFormatException which creates a serious performance hit whether the exception is caught and handled or, even worse, your program will fail on an unhandled exception if your code did not anticipate this.

The UriFormatException can be easily avoided by first converting the url string to a Uri class instance by calling Uri.TryCreate(...) and checking the return value for success. If TryCreate succeeded the resulting Uri instance can then be used to create a UriBuilder instance.

 

The code below shows a C# example of how to modify the hostname in a url without throwing exceptions.

[TestMethod]

public void ModifyUrlHost()

{

   string[] urls ={"http://brokensite.com/test/me.html?a=1&b=2"

                  , "https://brokensite.com"

                  , "https://brokensite.com/"

                  , "http://brokensite.com/default"

                  , "/test/me.html?a=1&b=2"

                  , String.Empty

                  , null

                 };

   string newHostName="www.somesite.com";

 

   foreach (string url in urls)

   {

      Debug.WriteLine("Original Url: " + url);

 

      string newUrl = url;

      Uri uri;

      if (Uri.TryCreate(url, UriKind.Absolute, out uri))

      {

         Debug.WriteLine("Uri.TryCreate succeeded");

         UriBuilder builder = new UriBuilder(uri);

         builder.Host = newHostName;

         newUrl = builder.Uri.ToString();

      }

      else

         Debug.WriteLine("Uri.TryCreate failed");

 

      Debug.WriteLine("New Url     : " + newUrl);

      Debug.WriteLine("");

 

      if(newUrl!=null)

         Assert.IsFalse(newUrl.Contains("brokensite.com"), "url still contains brokensite.com");

   }

}

This test generates the following output:

//Original Url: http://brokensite.com/test/me.html?a=1&b=2

//Uri.TryCreate succeeded

//New Url     : http://www.somesite.com/test/me.html?a=1&b=2

 

//Original Url: https://brokensite.com

//Uri.TryCreate succeeded

//New Url     : https://www.somesite.com/

 

//Original Url: https://brokensite.com/

//Uri.TryCreate succeeded

//New Url     : https://www.somesite.com/

 

//Original Url: http://brokensite.com/default

//Uri.TryCreate succeeded

//New Url     : http://www.somesite.com/default

 

//Original Url: /test/me.html?a=1&b=2

//Uri.TryCreate failed

//New Url     : /test/me.html?a=1&b=2

 

//Original Url:

//Uri.TryCreate failed

//New Url     :

 

//Original Url:

//Uri.TryCreate failed

//New Url     :     

Being Polite Could Get You Killed!

But wouldn't you rather die a gentleman than live as a savage?

--

More British passengers died on the Titanic because they queued politely for lifeboats, researchers believe.

"The American culture was set up to be a more individualist culture and the British culture was more about the gentlemanly behaviour," Mr Savage says.

"You've got to remember that this is the Edwardian period when to be a gentleman was the peak of society."

Mr Savage said: "There was one gentleman who was rather wealthy... who went back downstairs after he put his wife on the [life] boat... put on his tuxedo...went back upstairs and smoked... with the idea that if I am going die, I may as well die as a gentleman and well-dressed."

 

Now THAT is my kind of man! AMEN BROTHER!

Reusable Generic Exception Wrapper in C#

When crossing boundaries between software layers you are sometimes faced with the requirement to wrap a meaningless exception from a lower layer into a more meaningful exception for users from the higher layer. The pattern described below helps with implementing this requirement in a reusable way. It is in no way meant to be a catch-all for every situation where you have to deal with exceptions, but when applied correctly can prove to be an invaluable tool in your toolkit. See Framework Design Guidelines, Chapter 7 (7.2.3) for more one exception wrapping.

The approach used is to wrap the logic that can fail in a delegate and have this delegate executed by the WrapExceptions method. The WrapExceptions method then takes responsibility of handling the exceptions appropriately. It should be modified to handle only the applicable exceptions; some exceptions you might not want to wrap e.g. StackOverflowException, OutOfMemoryException and ThreadAbortException because you cannot recover from them. An added advantage of wrapping the failure prone code in a delegate is that it allows you to easily wrap it around existing code.

The WrapExceptions code snippet:

// public delegate void Action();

public static void WrapExceptions(Action action)

{

   try

   {

      action();

   }

   catch (MyApplicationException)

   {

      // just rethrow exception, it

      // was already properly handled

      throw;

   }

   catch (Exception e)

   {

      throw new MyApplicationException(e);

   }

}

And then you can use it as follows:

public void WrapMyException(string filepath, string myLine)

{

   WrapExceptions(delegate()

   {

      using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filepath))

      {

         writer.WriteLine(myLine);

      }

   });

}

Let me know your thoughts on this approach. What problems did it solve, and did it introduce new ones?

More pain with NVidia...

It has been a while since I last tried to find a stable video driver and reader Gregg's question made me pull the trigger on another adventure in driver-installation-land. It has been a nightmare!

I started out with trying to reproduce the problem desribed in 'Black Screen after Vista Wakes Up from Sleep with NVidia Driver 7.15.11.7521' by installing the latest NVidia GeForce video driver available: GeForce Release 178 WHQL (Version: 178.24, Release Date: October 15, 2008, Operating System: Windows Vista 32-bit, Language: U.S. English, File Size: 85 MB). A reboot later the version number now was at 7.15.11.7824. A quick cycle through sleep-and-resume confirmed the problem was still there. Ouch! Reader Eddy had spent some time troubleshooting this issue as well and pointed out the resolution played a role in it, I am running in 1280x1024 32 bit color. So I changed the color bits from 32 to 16: problem still there, lowered the resolution to 1152x864: problem gone! (I skipped a number of steps here, if NVidia wants scientific data they can hire me and pay for my precious time). Unfortunately now the screen looks like somebody put Vaseline in my eyes. Yuck!

Ok, so the screen was ugly, but I could go through a sleep-and-resume cycle. Was it worth the ugly screen? Absolutely not! Time to run system restore and get back to my original driver setup...

Unfortunately kicking off system restore to my old restore point presented me with a blue screen during the process.

...

Eventually my system rebooted, Vista prompted me to its awareness of the crash, I sent the crash report and Microsoft pointed the finger at the NVidia SATA driver. Gaaaaa! Oh well, that was fun, I figured I would try system restore again only to find every single restore point had vanished. Automatic, Manual, they are all gone! Somebody pinch me! My screen looks like all pixels are smeared into eachother and I'm stuck with a broken driver setup. Wake me up from this nightmare!

Moving on...

My SATA driver is broken, Microsoft says I need to get latest from NVidia... I figured I could put NVidia to work for me this time and use the wizard from the website to determine the Motherboard software download I needed. The verdict? GeForce 6150LE / nForce 430 (nForce Driver Version 15.24 WHQL, Release Date: September 12, 2008). Sounds good. Download, install, reboot. This installer puts a driver for just about every piece of hardware they created on your system, and as it comes as a package I would expect them to work together very well. (GeForce 6150 LE driver version 7.15.11.7540, SATA driver version 10.3.0.42.) Unfortunately, a 'quick' sleep-and-resume cycle showed the problem was still there and Windows Update tells me there are updated drivers available for my nForce networking and SATA controller.

Installed GeForce 6150LE driver version 178.24 again and rebooted. Worked with the system for a couple of days and on my next reboot I blue-screened again. Installing the latest SATA driver through Windows Update seems to have resolved that issue. But for now I have disabled sleep mode.

Conclusion: Problem still not fixed.