The release of a beta of Virtual PC for Windows 7 allows Windows XP applications to run in a way that integrates them into the usual Windows desktop without it being obvious that an entire second copy of Windows is running. Virtual PC on Windows 7 requires hardware virtualisation and I was looking for a quick way to determine whether that is supported on any given PC. SecurAble by Gibson Research Corp supports both Intel and AMD CPUs and tells you simply whether the processor is 64-bit capable, whether it supports Data Execution Prevention technology, and whether it supports...

I have an old printer. Very old. It’s an Epson EPL-5500 and I got it in about 1995/6 and it has served me well ever since. Soon I might need a new printer – soon I won’t be able to get toner cartridges for this one – but for now it is fine. It worked fine in Vista but now that I’ve decided to enter the 64-bit world with Windows 7, I need 64-bit drivers and they don’t come with Win7. After all, who still uses a printer that is more than a decade old? My printer is connected...

Yesterday, I started experimenting with building a simple application using the .NET Compact Framework v3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. It was pretty simple to get running using the emulator after downloading and installing the Windows Mobile 6 SDKs (make sure you get the Refresh). As part of the SDK install, you are reminded that you will need to install the Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) application in order to connect to a real device. Since I am running Win7 RC, I was a little nervous about this. I remember trying to install ActiveSync on Vista and getting in a...

I’ve been running builds of Win7 on my 1525 for some time after doing an in-place upgrade from Vista 32-bit to the Win7 Beta. We recently announced that we won’t support build to build upgrades from Win7 Beta to Win7 RC (which will be available to MSDN/TechNet subscribers tomorrow) I could either revert to Vista and do another upgrade or install from scratch. I decided to take the opportunity to move to 64-bit and since that’s not possible when doing an upgrade from 32-bit Vista I installed from scratch. Although all the hardware was successfully detected, this left me without...

I like to have a couple of desktop clock gadgets so that I can see the time in different time zones without having to think about it. A while ago I found a gadget that I like but there are lots of clocks in the Windows Live Gallery and so I’m never sure if I’m picking the same one when I install on a new machine. Sure, I could copy the file locally and make sure I just install that each time but that pre-supposes that I have access to the copy when I need it. Instead, I’m...

I had a look around yesterday for an up-to-date binary of cURL to run on Windows. The build I had already didn’t support SSL. This page has a builds with both SSL and SSPI support and the dropdown allows you to select other versions. Technorati Tags: cURL,HTTP,command line