I’m ditching Microsoft Windows at home. Considering that I make my living running Web Sites on IIS, most people may this this is a big deal. Get over it. It’s really a matter of practicality.

No, I’m not crazy. My current PC is circa 2003 (AMD 3200+, 1.5GB RAM, nVidia FX 5700). Right now I’m using Fedora and testing Ubuntu. Both are awesome OSes which have a mature code base while including modern features like virtual desktops and a screen shot application. Package management and OS updates are incredibly simple. yum update. No mess, no fuss. Linux is excellent as an (web) application development platform, if you are deploying to linux. Packages can be the same for desktop / server environments which means that you aren’t troubleshooting many deployment issues due to incompatibility. If you are considering using a Mac for Web Application development, read Ted Dziuba’s Experience.

My design skills aren’t great, so I’ll copy a design or hire out a design expert for projects. Most design professionals I know use a Mac. Presumably because it can run photoshop, illustrator and javascript authoring tools. The Mac also has the ability to run every browser on the planet ( with VMWare fusion ) which is useful for debugging application issues by browser. With the above being said, linux doesn’t work too well with the following:

1. Run iTunes – (Wine doesn’t count)
   1. It does run songbird though
2. Execute powershell scripts
3. Run photoshop, fireworks
4. Sync my iPhone (well, it can’t run iTunes)
5. DSLR Camera support

I like songbird, but the features in iTunes is still a no brainer when paired with my iPhone. Everything just works… well most of the time except when iTunes thinks my iPhone was connected to another PC/Mac.

Running IIS Web Sites means using powershell. Linux nerds have bash. Solaris geeks have korn shell. Windows zealots have powershell. Let me tell you that this is certainly one of the reasons why Windows administrators still have a job and still want work with Windows. Linux can’t run powershell, so I’ll need a virtual box running a VM to develop my powershell cmdlets and scripts, not a big deal for this). FYI, PowerGUI is awesome for authoring powershell scripts

Linux does have wine (Wine is not an emulator) which can execute windows programs. Photoshop CS3 has been known to run in wine on linux. I have CS4 which won’t run well in wine, so I’ll need Windows or a Mac to run it. I’m not up for learning gimp or gimpshop. Running photoshop or video editing tools in a VM is well…. slow, especially if you are opening large files.  The process could be sped up by using SSDs and a raw disk format, but that’s too much work for me, plus I’m working with my circa 2003 PC.

Since linux doesn’t run iTunes, it’s not going to sync my iPhone apps, music, playlists. There are some programs out there to sync music and movies, but I want to whole package. Need Windows or a Mac for this.

The camera of choice is a Canon t1i. Canon’s software installs on Windows and a Mac.  In my brief search on the Internets, libgphoto2 provides support for the camera (.cr2) format within gPhoto or gimp. So, I can get the images off the camera, but I can’t run photoshop.  Winner Windows / Mac.

Conclusion

The Linux desktop has come a long way with installation and ease of use. Some popular software packages are not on the platform. Linux is an excellent desktop environment for basic tasks as well as web application development. Specific tasks for video, photo editing as well as iPhone integration are getting there, but not where it makes sense to switch over. I’ll be running two OSes for the time being. Windows for the non-linux stuff like powershell, powergui, photoshop etc, and Linux for everything else. OK, so I’m not completely ditching Windows, but I am maximizing the benefit of Linux while still preserving my other application requirements.

Last week I had interesting issue with running cscript to execute wsf jobs on a  Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition Server running SQL Server 2005. Every time Cscript ran, a Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Error popped up.

Error Details:

——————————————

Runtime Error!

Program: C:\winnt\system32\cscript.exe

R6034

An Application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly. Please contact the application’s support team for more information.

—————————————————————————–

CScript Visual C++ Runtime Lbrary Error

We have five other SQL Server that run the same job, so I know the job works. In order to find out what was going on, I ran Process Monitor to see what dlls are being called by cscript. As you can see from the error, the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime library was being called from the Microsoft SQL Server Tools\Binn directory. CScript should be calling the msvcr80.dll from the C:\winnt\WinSxS directory as noted in the screen shot below. (I ran the job and Process Monitor on a system where the job ran correctly.)

CSCript Correctly Calling msvcr80.dll

Now that we know that the incorrect msvcr80.dll is being called, we need to figure out why and how to correct it.

Microsoft WinSxs Directory is for Side-by-Side assemblies and dlls. The Windows Kernel works with Fusion to find the correct dll needed for the application. (Learn more about Fusion). In the case of the working system, fusion was finding the correct msvcr80.dll.

The Result:

The wsf script called SQLDMO.dll for a function call. The working system had an updated version of the dll with a Manifest which pointed to the correct msvcr80.dll.

The problem system had an older version of the dll with no Manifest, so the closest msvcr80.dll was being used after SQLDMO.dll was called.

To fix, The SQLDMO.dll was updated to the latest version and the problem was solved.

With this issue, using Process Monitor was the best tool to figure out what the problem system and the control system were doing since it pointed out the different msvcr80.dlls being used.

I’m often asked how windows services are controlled in the enterprise. There is a variety of convenient ways to control services, each with strengths and weeknesses. We’ll go through some of them today.

1. The services.msc MMC is the nice GUI provided by windows. This features a very intuitive interface, but can only connect to one system at a time. This is not very scalable if you need to shut down many services on multiple machines.

2. net start, net stop etc.. This is the original command line version to control services. Good when you are on the system. This is scriptable via a batch file. This command came with Windows NT.

3. sc.exe comes with the Windows Resource Kit. This is a great tool and allows to control services on remote machines. Setting up services can also be done with this tool.

scquery

 4. PS Service (psservice.exe) from the PS Tools Suite, authored by Mark Russinovch. psservice runs on the command line like sc.exe and shares some of the same features like controlling services on remote machines. One advantage is displaying the security descriptor in a readable format.

PSService Security

5. WMI or Windows Management Instrumentation can control services. WMI can be programmed from VBScript, c# (.NET) and PowerShell. Flow control can be quickly executed with any of the mentioned programming languages giving administrators precise control over which services and systems need to have services controlled. Below is an example of some VBScript functions starting and stopping services via WMI. These functions also start/stop the dependate services which is important.

Function StopServiceWMI(strServiceName)

  strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Associators of " _
   & "{Win32_Service.Name='" & strServiceName & "'} Where " _
        & "AssocClass=Win32_DependentService " & "Role=Antecedent" )
For each objService in colServiceList
    objService.StopService()
Next
Wscript.Sleep 5000
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
        ("Select * from Win32_Service where Name='" & strServiceName & "'")
For each objService in colServiceList
    errReturn = objService.StopService()
Next

End Function

Function StartServiceWMI(strServiceName)

  strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * from Win32_Service where Name='" & strServiceName & "'")
For each objService in colServiceList
    errReturn = objService.StartService()
Next
Wscript.Sleep 5000
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Associators of " _
   & "{Win32_Service.Name='" & strServiceName & "'} Where " _
        & "AssocClass=Win32_DependentService " & "Role=Dependent" )
For each objService in colServiceList
    objService.StartService()
Next

End Function

5. One of the last methods is to use the native Get-Service PowerShell CmdLet. To understand what Get-Service can do. Type in Get-Help Get-Service in the PowerShell command prompt. You can resume, start, stop, restart, suspend, set service properties and create a new service. PowerShell does not currently have remoting capabilities, so all CmdLets are executed on the local server. PowerShell V2 will have remoting capability using WS-MAN, but that will be a topic for another time.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the quick tour with controlling Windows Services. Automation is the key to success in the enterprise.

Microsoft is tired of hearing it’s rebel teen-ager, Apple, poke and prod that the Apple OS is better than Windows. The Mojave Experiment is focus group like marketing event where Microsoft asks for user input on the “next” Windows OS called Mojave.  Many people comment that the new OS is “Sexy”, “Easy to Use” and that it “Makes me want to use a computer more often.” Then Microsoft pulls the rug and says this is Vista. Most people are shocked.

This is certainly a clever way to help mitigate the Windows Vista perception issue. This is done is a way that is not directly goading Apple, which is the right move for Microsoft. Microsoft shouldn’t respond back in kind to Apple with similar ads, that would only ligitamize Apple’s campaign. It really is a perception problem at this point. Vista SP1 fixed many concerns about the OS. There is still the lingering “Vista Ready” issue, but that is dying out in the news.

Personally, I have a Vista partition and an XP partition. I use Vista for development, Office, Email etc. On the XP partition I run VMWare workstation. Vista Ultimate takes up too much RAM to run a VM and Vista with 1.5GB RAM. Maybe it’s time to upgrade the PC?