This is a problem for anyone who needs to modify a driver .INF to support their device (*cough*Android ADB Drivers*cough*). Fortunately, there is a (slightly complicated) workaround.

To get started:

1. From the Metro Start Screen, open Settings (move your mouse to the bottom-right-corner of the screen and wait for the pop-out bar to appear, then click the Gear icon).
2. Click ‘More PC Settings’.
3. Click ‘General’.
4. Scroll down, and click ‘Restart now’ under ‘Advanced startup’.
5. Wait a bit.
6. Click ‘Troubleshoot’.
7. Click ‘Advanced Options’
8. Click ‘Windows Startup Settings’
9. Click Restart.
10. ???
11. Profit!

When your computer restarts, select ‘Disable driver signature enforcement‘ from the list. You can now load your modified driver. Reboot again once the driver is installed and all will be well.

Updated with my own screenshot

So I dutifully updated as I usually do, only to start experiencing crashes on just about any page I loaded. I know Google was going for humour here, but I think they were oddly prophetic this time….

Enter Fedora 12. I’ve played with the initial Alpha release, several of the Snap releases, and as of this morning, the Beta release. So far, at least as far as my MSI Wind 123 goes, they’re all unusable.

The biggest problem so far is the display – as soon as GDM kicks in, prior to the login screen loading, the screen starts to ‘pulse’. To be more specific, if you were to tap the ‘Brightness Up’ and ‘Brightness Down’ keys fairly quickly between two different levels, you’d get the same effect. This continues incessantly, and makes it impossible to use the GUI. If I boot in runlevel 3 (direct-to-console), everything is fine, so the issue is restricted to Xorg.

As far as the beta goes, there’s been a little regression. In the Alpha and Snap releases, I was able to get all the way to the desktop, despite the pulsing display. Now, with the beta, it takes just over 2 minutes just to get past the boot animation, and then it stalls before the login screen loads. Whether or not this has anything to do with the fact this is a livecd on a USB stick (made with the Fedora live-usbcreator for Windows, with persistent overlay), I’m not sure. I’ll probably download another spin (maybe the KDE version) and see if I have any more luck.

Update: Progess! On a whim, I removed rhgb from the kernel line when booting (press Tab to cancel automatic boot, and then again to edit boot options) and was actually able to get to the desktop, albeit with no improvement to the speed of things. The screen still pulses, however I did notice something interesting: while the screen pulses (briefly before the login screen appears, then it stops until you choose a user, and then it starts again), if I switch to another terminal (CTRL+ALT+F2, for example), the login name starts to fill with “^@” repeated several times, and then stops. If I then switch back to the GDM terminal (CTRL+ALT+F1), the pulsing stops.

At least that gives me something to go on.

Further Update (Dec 12, 2010): The Wind U123 works perfectly on Fedora 14 with no additional hacks/changes needed.

While some people still aren’t happy with the ‘new’ beta process, this will go a long way with a lot of testers. Cheers, Microsoft!

[Credit goes to Mary-Jo Foley for alerting the blogosphere to this]

For Beta Testers & Enthusiasts:

A special thank you to our beta testers is needed for their time and effort in helping make Windows 7 a solid release. The special pre-order offer we did offering Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional at almost 50% discount was done with our beta testers in mind. And many of you jumped at the chance to take advantage of this deal – thank you!

I know there have been some rumors going around about a “family pack” for Windows 7. We have heard a lot of feedback from beta testers and enthusiasts over the last 3 years that we need a better solution for homes with multiple PCs. I’m happy to confirm that we will indeed be offering a family pack of Windows 7 Home Premium (in select markets) which will allow installation on up to 3 PCs. As I’ve said before, stay tuned to our blog for more information on this and any other potential offers.

Beta testers will not automatically receive a free copy of Windows 7. Many beta testers are already subscribers to TechNet; those of you who fit that description will be able to download Windows 7 RTM shortly after RTM happens for free as part of your subscription.

However, if you don’t have TechNet and are waiting for GA (to either purchase Windows 7 or wait for your pre-order to arrive) you can continue to use the RC. In fact, you can continue to use it until it expires on June 1st, 2010 (expiration actually starts March 1, 2010, this is when the reboots start).

While our special pre-order offer with the near 50% has ended, Windows 7 can still be pre-ordered today from the various online retailers (including the Microsoft Store).

We are also going to release an evaluation of Windows 7 Professional for IT Professionals via the Springboard Series shortly after RTM. Over 40% of beta testers are IT Professionals and this will allow them to quickly access the RTM code and plan for deployments.

And in the earlier post that grouped Tech Beta Testers in with ‘everyone else’.

So basically, “nuts to you, TBT’s”.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel privileged to have been invited to it, however I really have to wonder what the point is. Most of the bugs that testers submit, myself included, are quickly closed as ‘Won’t Fix’, and the ones that are have instructions to ‘verify in the next build’. But honestly, how are we supposed to do this when we were only given two builds, the first of which was months old, and both of which were available to the public only a few days later.

Yes, Technical Beta Testers are given focus scenarios and surveys and such, however when most of the feedback seems to go largely unheeded, it raises a lot of questions as to why. Why test a build which is at least 160 builds behind, when the bugs you’re uncovering are likely to already be fixed, or have no way to verify they’ve actually been fixed.

Still, though, I continue on – I have two machines still running RC build 7100. I’ve resisted the urge to go for ‘leaked’ RTM-branch builds that are floating around various Torrent sites, however I can’t help but hope that come time to test Windows 8 (if I’m lucky enough to be invited to that beta), Microsoft will have listened to their testers and provide more builds for us to give feedback on.

In closing, I’ll leave you with a link to “Windows 7 Nightmares“. I don’t know who the author is, suffice to say he’s also a Technical Beta Tester, and he’s a little on the extreme side from time-to-time, however he definitely has some interesting insight in to the Beta Testing Process (read the posts from oldest to newest for the best understanding).

Unfortunately, as I was reading the details on the Connect side of things, I came across this:

Q: Is this open to people outside the U.S.?
A: No, this is a U.S.-based program right now. It may be rolled out to other markets at a later time.

There is a glimmer of hope, however giving their previous track record of restricting special offers to the U.S., it’s not likely to happen. Sometimes I think I should rent an apartment three hours to the south (just across the border in to Washington State) just so I can get in on these things….

Step 2:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x000000ca (0x000000000000000b, 0xfffffa8003b2c6d0, 0×0000000000000001, 0×0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: C:WindowsMEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 050609-17612-01.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit!

So far I’ve had suggestions to update my Intel Management Engine drivers, chipset drivers (which, if installed with the Setup app only updates one device – the rest need to be updated manually using Device Manager), and BIOS. All have been done with no luck. Microsoft has helpfully closed by bugs as ‘External’. Unfortunately, I can’t tell what’s going on, as the Microsoft Debug Symbol Server (http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols) hasn’t been updated with RC symbols, and none are available on the Connect site yet. Oh well, life goes on.

<Shift key><Shift key><Shift key><Shift key><Shift key>. What does this bring up on your computer? Chances are, a StickyKeys window. However, if you’re running Windows XP/Vista/7 (and possibly 2000, although I’ve never tested it), you can quickly turn this quick series of keystrokes in to a shortcut to a Command Prompt. Note that in Vista/Win7, it’s possible to get an Elevated Command Prompt (one with full Administrative privileges) from the Welcome (login) screen, or from the Secure Desktop (the faded screen you see when a User Account Control prompt appears) even if UAC is turned on.

Why?

Sure, you can get a Command Prompt in most places with a quick <Windows Key> + <R>, then cmd and <Enter>, but this doesn’t work if Explorer isn’t running, or if you’re at, say, the Welcome Screen. It’s also very handy if you’ve forgotten the password to the Administrator account on your system and need to reset it, but don’t have a copy of the NT Offline Password Editor kicking around.

How?

The process for setting this up is very simple.

From Windows:

• Open the system32 folder
• Take ownership of sethc.exe, and then grant yourself Full Control permissions (note: if you don’t understand this step, or don’t know how to do it, you probably shouldn’t be doing this!)
• Rename sethc.exe to anything else (I usually choose sethc.exe.bak)
• Copy cmd.exe, and name the copy sethc.exe.

This can also be done from the Windows Recovery Console (boot from a Windows XP install CD) or WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment – boot from either a Vista or Windows 7 DVD). From the Command Prompt in either of these, run the following commands:

• c:
• cd windows\system32
• ren sethc.exe sethc.exe.bak
• copy cmd.exe sethc.exe

Then reboot in to Windows.

Uses Explained

I typically use this for resetting passwords. When I used to work in a local computer shop, if someone forgot to tell me their Windows user password, and I couldn’t reach them by phone, I’d use this trick. Then, at the Welcome (login) screen, I could simply pull open a Command Prompt by hitting <Shift> five times, type control userpasswords2 which brings up the old-style User Accounts control panel, and then reset the users password to blank without needing the old one.

This is also handy for troubleshooting if Explorer continously crashes, or if the UserInit registry value is shot and you can’t login anymore. Just fire up a Command Prompt and open regedit from there.

Which Folder is Which?

Bug submitted. Although Windows 7 is quick at copying large numbers of files and folder, the copy dialog for folder copies (ie, copy a single folder from one location to another) doesn’t display the name of the folder you’re copying, only the source and destination paths. If you start copying one folder, then copy another and another, you end up with the above: three copy dialogs, and the only clue as to what folder belongs to which dialog is the contents scrolling by.

UPDATE: The bug I posted on this issue was closed as By Design – although that typically means nothing will be changed, occasionally the fix will be included anyways. Fingers crossed!