Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 update

If you are working in a small team, or just as a single user, Team Foundation Server maybe isn’t exactly what you want to use. Maybe SourceSafe is the perfect companion for your source control system. In that case, Microsoft has just released an update for the 2005 release. You will find of the 64 bug fixes here. Here is the download link and the knowledge base article 943847. Among the fixes are compatibility fixes with Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Vista.

Step1. Version before update is 8.0.50727.42
Step1. Version before update is 8.0.50727.42

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Step2.

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Step5. It was a very quick installation, took about 40 seconds to complete.

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Step6. After update the version is 8.0.50727.1551

 

How to upgrade your existing hard disk in Windows Vista without losing data (Part 2)

Here is the second part of complete PC backup/restore post. In this part I will cover the restore process. The first part is here.

Now, it is time to upgrade your hardware, and put in that new hard disk. After you have done that, put your Windows Vista boot DVD in your DVD drive and start up the PC. Make sure that your PC’s BIOS is set to boot from your DVD drive. Below are 9 screen shots showing each step in the process.

A screen shot of the first bott screen when you boot with your Windows Vista DVD.
1. This is the first boot screen.

A screen shot showing the screen were you set your language preferences.
2. Select your language

A screen shot showing install or repair.
3. Select the repair option.

Screen shot showing the Recovery Tools options.
4. Click on the Windows Complete PC Restore option.

Screen shot showing the scanning for backup disks.
5. Scanning for restore images.

Screen shot showing the backup image found.
6. Restore image found. Click Next.

Screen shot showing the the restore is ready to begin.
7. Click Finish.

Screen shot showing that you must cofirm that your hard disk will be formatted.
8. Put a checkmark to confirm that your C:\ will be formatted.

Screen shot showing restore in progress.
9. Restore in progress.

After the restore is finished, your PC will reboot. After that you have a fully restored PC.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

  • You can’t restore a 64bit image to a x86 booted system. (Or vice versa.)

If you try, you will get a dialog similar to this:

A screen shot showing the error message you will get when trying to restore a 64 bit image to a 32bit booted Windows PE.

  • Windows Vista may be in a de-activated state after restore, so you may have to activate your license again after the restore.

How to upgrade your existing hard disk in Windows Vista without losing data (Part 1)

Well, there you are. You have just realized that your existing local system hard disk is rapidly becoming more and more full. So now you have purchased a brand new 500GB hard disk to be replacing the existing 120GB system disk that you currently have installed as C:\. But going through the steps of formatting a fresh new disk and installing all those programs that you need is somewhat intimidating because you now it will set you back at least a couple of hours of expensive time that you could use to developing new cool things. So what do you do? Well, one option would be to purchase one of those image ghosting tools, like Norton Ghost, or other similar products. But if you are running Windows Vista, there are an alternative.  Which, in my eyes, are far more attractive. You see, Vista has a built in backup utility that can make a complete PC backup of your system with just a few clicks. By backing up your entire system disk to a .vhd file (image file) you can later import this file in the install process. Here are the steps:

1. Backup your entire C:\ to an external USB disk. (Or internal hard disk.)

2. Shutdown your PC, and replace your current C:\ with that brand new disk.

3. Put in your Windows Vista DVD and boot from it and start a new setup.

4. Select the .vhd file you created in step 1.

 

Let me walk through the steps, in this first part I will describe steps 1 and 2. Steps 3 and 4 will be described in the second part.

The backup utility can be found in All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Backup status and Configuration. Select the Complete PC Backup option in the left pane.

This is a screen shot of the Windows Complete Backup startup window.
1.Click on Create a backup now.
This is a screen shot of the Complete Backup window, selecting destination.
2. Select the desired location of the backup file end click Next.
This is a screen shot of which disks you want to include in the backup.
3. Select the C:\ System disk and click Next.
This is a screen shot of the final confirmation window before starting the backup.
4. Click on Start backup to start the backup.
This is a screen shot of the backup in progress.
5. Back in progress.
This is a screen shot of the completed backup.
6. Click Close when the backup has finished.

 

This completes the full PC backup process. Continue to part 2 to perform the restore process.