OK, take a look at the screenshot from my Tablet.

If I search from within an existing Windows Explorer window (using the search box in the top-right), it works fine. If I search from the Start Menu, it also displays the results in the Start Menu itself fine. Search in Outlook also works.

But if I open the Start Menu to search and then click the “See all results” link, I get 5 blank files displayed in the results area that I can’t interact with in any way. (what the above screenshot shows). If I open the Start Menu, click on Search, and then search using the search box, I also get the same error.

I’ve restored by Indexing Options to the default settings and rebuilt the database, but I still get the same thing.

I suspect some component of Windows Search just needs to be reregistered for the view in Windows Explorer to work again. At least, that would have been my guess for Windows XP. But this is Windows Vista. What gives?

(Update: I fixed it by uninstalling Nokia PC Suite. I have no idea how that could have been responsible, but it fixed it… even after a repair installation of Windows Vista failed to fix it. The most puzzling part is that I reinstalled Nokia PC Suite and it didn’t reproduce the problem.)

Try again? Of course, when I try again to categorise multiple pieces of mail at a time, the exact same thing happens. C’mon at least give me a hint about what’s causing this error? Please?

A true abomination in user experience design from Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. To add insult to injury, I can of course submit feedback about how useful the information was. Listen mate, it couldn’t have been more fucking useless!

(To be fair, I eventually found out the problem was caused by avast! anti-virus… after like two days of painstaking troubleshooting to isolate the cause. The builds since 4.7.981 all cause the problem, so I’ve reverted to build 4.7.942 and it’s working fine again.)

(Update: Going back to 4.7.942 seemed to fix the Trillian problem, but the Outlook problem still persists. Arrrrrrgh! )

Larry Osterman has details:
Vista Ship Gifts
Vista Ship Gift, Part 2

Check them out… it would definitely be way cool as a developer to keep a cube of all the milestone builds of your product sitting on your desk as memorabilia!

(Spotted on the Windows Vista Team Blog.)

(Found this on MSTechToday.)

Microsoft will be heading down a new path for product packaging starting with Windows Vista and Office 2007. As you can see, it’s simple and damn sexy! I love simple understated packaging, I love transparent materials and I love nice gentle curves. So naturally, I think it’s brilliant! I just hope that the back isn’t cluttered unnecessary information in lists like every other Microsoft box to date!

It wasn’t exactly a big secret, as it matches the icons that we have so far seen for the Windows Vista beta installation DVDs and icons in the Welcome Centre and Microsoft has previously also experimented with plastic packaging for it’s Macintosh products. They plan to continue this new idea for other products in the future.

See the packaging for the other retail editions of Windows Vista:

And for two flavours of Office 2007:

(Thanks to the Windows Vista Team Blog for the heads up.)

I took some screenshots comparing the behaviour between the two versions of OneNote, put them together and submitted it to Microsoft Connect. I wasn’t even sure if the file got uploaded properly and despite comments on the bug in Connect that it had been fixed, I was disappointed to find it still present in the Beta 2 Technical Refresh.

But I have no doubt now that’s now been fixed! See the last bug mentioned in this post on Dan Escapa’s OneNote Extensibility & More blog: Customer Feedback — a Success Story & Thank you.

That’s the bug! That’s the screenshot I posted to Connect! They fixed it! Kudos to the OneNote team for really listening to your customers.

If yes, then you’ll have found the same thing I did… that every time you launch iTunes, it gets Windows Installer to replace the shortcuts for you. Want a clean desktop? Not possible. Want to put iTunes straight in the All Programs folder and not inside the iTunes subfolder? Not possible.

Apple, this is Fucking. Annoying. You. Bloody. Control. Freak. Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?! OK, so you’re not the only company that does this and Symantec (think Norton AntiVirus) is very good at it too, but that doesn’t make it right. Users should have the freedom to place shortcuts wherever they like. Are you going to control what icons OS X users can have on their Dock too?

Cut it out. Now.

For the record, Apple is responsible for configuring Windows Installer to do this, not Windows Installer itself, which does not mandate the location of Start Menu and desktop shortcuts by default.

Also check out the Start Menu section in the Top Guidelines Violations page of the Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines. Of course, Apple violates all the rules here with iTunes, QuickTime and Apple Software Update.

In the meantime, I know of two workarounds for this:

• Make a copy of the iTunes shortcuts to where you want them on the Start Menu, and then make the original shortcuts hidden (right click, go to Properties and tick the Hidden checkbox). Windows Installer will be satisfied that the shortcuts are still there, even though they are hidden.
   
• Delete them and replace them with direct shortcuts to the application. The original shortcuts are actually not standard shortcuts but Windows Installer-managed shortcuts (notice you can’t some of their properties). So if you delete them and then make your own shortcuts, e.g. to C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe, it will start iTunes without alerting Windows Installer to the fact that the shortcuts aren’t where they are supposed to be.

(And for those who are wondering, no I haven’t converted to using iTunes as my media player. I only install it to manage the music on my iPod.)

Once again, I have returned from the dead to post a new blog entry! I’ve finally had a chance to play with beta 3 of Adobe Lightroom, and thus far I’m impressed, even though Lightroom is hideously, ridiculously slow. (I’m running it on Windows Vista beta 2, by the way.)

I think I’ll love Lightroom. But I just don’t know how it will fit in my workflow.

Lightroom? What?

For those who haven’t heard of Lightroom, it offers a consolidation of some tools that currently exist in Photoshop (in Adobe Camera Raw in particular) along with some new tools, all with the focus on an efficient workflow application for processing digital images (as opposed to fine manipulation, which you still do in Photoshop). It’s a bit like Apple’s Aperture, really. A key feature is that all the manipulations you do in Lightroom are non-destructive. In other words, it just records a list of what you’ve done to images along with the option to change that list again in the future, instead of permanently modifying the original image or constantly saving versions of edits out to new files.

I really like Lightroom because it’s got a very nicely designed, intuitive UX. It’s also a very simple, focused application. I don’t mean it’s simple in that it’s not powerful, but that what you use Lightroom for is very well defined and you’re not distracted by the application when you’re trying to concentrate on your work, unlike say Photoshop with it’s oodles and oodles of functionality that you only use once every period between ice ages.

How I Will Use Lightroom — Or Not

I currently use the Organiser in Photoshop Elements (how professional! :P) to collect, organise and tag my photos and then edit them in Photoshop proper. It may seem strange to some that I don’t separate my happy snaps with friends and more serious photography, but it’s always seemed a no-brainer to me because I essentially do the same thing with both kinds of images — organise them, manipulate them until they look good and output them (print or online). And you can laugh, but I my favourite tool to do the organise part of that workflow is still Photoshop Elements because it’s tagging and searching tools are so easy to use.

How will Lightroom fit into this? I’d love to have Lightroom replace the organise phase in my workflow and let me do the bulk of my manipulate and output bits too, relegating Photoshop to just advanced editing… but I actually don’t know, because Lightroom doesn’t handle videos at all, I won’t be able to hold my happy snaps in my Lightroom library. I don’t know how to solve this dilemma yet and I’m worried there will be no elegant solution to it. If you have ideas please let me know — otherwise, I have no doubt there are some sleepless nights around the corner waiting for me!

Improving Lightroom

Anyway, some specific changes I’d like to see in Lightroom:

• When cropping images in the developer module, there is an option to constrain proportions to either the same as the original image or an earlier crop. What I’d really like is to be able to select 16:9, 3:2 or 4:3 (occasionally, just for portrait shots) so I can reframe images that I have shot in the wrong aspect ratio.
• I’d like to save multiple versions of adjustments to images. What if I’m working on an image tonight and I can’t decide between two different adjustments I’ve made and want to think about it again tomorrow? As it stands I’d need to save each adjustment as a global preset.
• Multiple level undo/redo is good and all, but how about a history palette just like Photoshop?
• An easy way to compare adjustments to the very original image as well as the last saved adjusted version would also be very handy.

Conclusion

If you haven’t used Lightroom yet, give it a whirl. The beta is now available for both Windows and MacOS. It could easily change your life — you just need to work out how.

This week I finally had the time to install the publically-released Windows Vista Beta 2 (build 5384). While there were some expected problems to overcome, it’s mostly been good going.

Is it suitable for use as your primary OS? Well that’s what I’ll be trying to do. (Admittedly, I’m only dual-booting my desktop, so if anything goes wrong Windows XP is only a reboot away. I also still have Windows XP running on my Tablet PC.)

I had some inital problems and I’m now on my third clean install of Windows Vista. Some hints that might save you some grief:

• Hint 1: Always install drivers for all your storage controllers during Setup. Windows Vista would not boot after files were copied during Setup (it complained about something to do with winload.exe). I suspect it’s because I didn’t load the drivers for both my SATA RAID controllers at the start. (I have a controller on both the ICH5R southbridge and a separate Silicon Image controller on the motherboard.) I thought I only needed to load the drivers for the controller responsible for the drive where Windows Vista was being installed.
   
• Hint 2: If you have a Radeon X1600, stick to the WDDM drivers Windows automatically installs! I installed the beta ATI Catalyst drivers for my X1600, failing to note the brief mention under the ‘known issues’ in the release notes about problems with with X1600s. Big mistake! After finding Catalyst Control Centre would not start, I attempted to uninstall and reinstall the drivers — this in itself was very difficult to do as it kept believing it was still installed and did not need to be updated. I finally managed to reinstall them (after using the ATI driver uninstallation utility), only to find Windows became totally borked and failed to recognise any display drivers.
   
• Hint 3: Use VistaBootPRO to configure the Windows Vista boot manager. The Windows Vista boot manager no longer stores its settings in boot.ini and replaces the Windows XP one on dual-booting systems, so you can no longer configure your startup options from System properties in Windows XP. VistaBootPRO is great as it can run from either Windows XP or Windows Vista. It’s free too!

I’ve been using Windows Vista for a few days now and it’s been pretty stable — more stable than the Office 2007 beta anyhow. There’s only been one major issue: Windows occasionally fails to either startup or resume from sleep. While it seems like everything is fine, when it comes time to show the desktop my LCD goes to sleep as if there’s no input.