A couble of days ago, Windows 7 RC1 was released on MSDN. Since I was pretty amazed by Build 7000, I couldn't wait installing the RC1. Since I'm pretty much depending on my laptop being functional these days, I can't reinstall on the primary just yet. So I decided to try an upgrade from Build 7000. This does not seem to be possible, during the install it claims not to be able to upgrade the current operating system.

Since I really want to checkout the RC1, I decided to try to install it on my MacBook Air. I did not expect this to be without problems, but accually it went quite smooth, but with a few issues.

I have not yet found the golden solution to the issues, but I did a few workarounds, to accually beeing able to use the computer.

First thing I did after installing, was as usual to enroll the macbook into my domain. After a reboot I couldn't login. This is a funny thing about the MacBook Air. Apple got some idea on this machine, to spare away a few buttons. One of them is the delete button. One way to hit delete is to hit fn + backspace. This doesn't work with my new windows 7 installation. On the logon screen you can choose "Ease of access". One thing is to have an onscreen keyboard, wich gives you the delete button. What an irritating thing, but at least I can logon now.

When I got pass the logon screen I noticed, that the keyboard is accually very much fucked up. Buttons doesn't give you the expected keystrokes, when using some special characters. For example "$" is replaced with "<", "\" is hit byt "alt" + $ ... this is quite annoying, but I find it as a result of running a Microsoft operating system on a Mac. It wasn't that gr8 under XP either.  Maybe I'll find a solution for this some day.

When I first got my MacBook Air, it took me tons of time, to figure out, that right mouse click is two fingers on the touch pad, this doesn't work anymore. I hope that the issues regarding the keyboard and touchpad is, because Bootcamp isn't updated to support win7 yet.

Next finding was, that the sound doesn't work. Googling a bit I found the drivers for the soundcard. I can't provide a link for the drivers, but if you google for "Vista_R221.zip" you can find drivers for the realtek sound card, that works.

Daemon tools still doesn't work, but that's because they ignore the fact, that windows 7 is way further than an early beta.

Conclusion of this installation is, that Windows 7 RC1 seems even better than build 7000, but if you run it on a macbook air, you asked for trouble.... can't wait till next week-end, where I hopefully will have the time to install it on my Lenovo.

Update 20090715: Hahaha... the solution to my keyboard issues was so simple, that i totally looked in the wrong place. When trying to install Bootcamp under windows 7, I got some unkown error. This made me look towards googling, and was trying all kinda suff with Bootcamp update for Vista and blablabla.... Since I don't use the MacBook Air very much, I left it with these small issues, and decided to live with them for now.

But since it's vacation time, I got some spare time to deal, with these small things that bugs me. I realised, that the real issue was, that I couldn't install Bootcamp at all. Trying to run an update for Vista showed quite useless, since it is an update, and the initial Bootcamp never got in.

On the OsX disc 1 there's a library with bootcamp -> drivers -> apple. Run the AppleKeyboardInstaller.exe and AppleMultiTouchTrackPadInstaller.exe, and everything is solved. No issues left at all, just a smooth MacBook Air running Windows 7 RC without any problems.

Working at Microsoft we had a checkin policy, that you can't checkin without associating the changeset with a work item. Never really occured to me, why we had to do this, but it seemed like a good practice.

 On the last two projects I worked on, that involved Team Foundation Server as version control, the customer has been using other software for bug tracking. Because of that, we haven't used workitems, and it seems like there's no point in associating changesets to workitems.

That was a wrong assumption. After I completed the first task on the project I'm currently working on I discovered, that it is a requirement that we create a document, describing every change that's been done to the code. The document is meant for code review, so it's a fairly good idea. But - when I had to track down every change done in the repository for 14 days of work, and 20 other developers made checkins, it showed to be a bit of a task to track down my changes (and boring as well).

On the next task, we decided to create a workitem. Not that it'll be used by anybody else. But we decided to create it, and agreed to associate every checkin with the workitem, so that it'll be a piece of cake to list the changesets regarding this task.

Now this seems like a pretty good solution to me. This way we can always track down every change done, regarding this task. But is it without problems? I don't think so. First of all, it requires some discipline from the developers to do the association. I've seen too many developers who doesn't even bother to write a comment, when they checkin. Another problem on the current project is, that there hasn't been awareness of the details in the code review document, until everybody completed a task which typically lasted 2-4 weeks. So what can you do, when it's too late ?

The best solution I found so far, to track down your own changes is to install the "Team Foundation Server Power Tools" which can be found here: TFS powertools .

You'll get lots of small extra stuff in you're team explorer. One thing is, that you'll get a node in the treeview displaying your team members. On the team members node you can get a list of every changeset that's been done by a specific developer, hence help you do the code review.

Big brother? Maybe, but very helpfull.

Update 20090424: Erik Ejlskov told me about a tool for doing extended searches in the repository called "Team Foundation Sidekicks". Pretty cool 3rd party tool, can be downloaded here: Team Foundation Sidekicks

During my easter holidays, I had some sparetime for once, and I needed to reinstall my laptop. The choice was to downgrade to XP or reinstall Vista. I got really tired with Vista, now that's an operating system, that should have never been released.

But since my current customer provides me with a spare laptop, I don't accually use my own these days, so I thought why not give Windows 7 a shot even though it's in Beta.

My first findings was sweet. Win7 is still nothing compared to OsX, but Microsoft really upped them selves on this one. Compared to Vista it is soooooo snappy, and I really love what they did with the taskbar. Off course it's in beta, so there'll be some downs as well:

gr8:

• New taskbar UI is brilliant
• From computer management you can attach a virtual image (vhd) as an extra harddrive
• When docking my Lenovo, I've had big problems with display settings under Vista - these disapeared with win7
• Windows Mobile Device Center connects to my mobile device, _every_ time. This rarely happened with Vista (or XP and Active Sync)

Downers (Hopefully due to beta):

• Some times my laptop goes to sleep mode for no reason, even while using the laptop (Solved: this only occurs while AVG virus scanner is running)
• Some times it boots into repair mode, but can't repair. Shut down the laptop, go for a smoke, try again and it boots