For whatever reason, Microsoft has decided that driver signing is now REQUIRED in Windows Vista x64 (and I hear this also applied to Windows 2008). There used to be a couple of different ways you could disable this requirement, but as of Vista SP1 neither of these methods work anymore. There are also individual pre-SP1 hotfixes that “fix” Windows so you can’t disable the driver signing requirement. This is a big issue for anyone who wants to use tweaked video drivers, or for anyone who wants to use VMWare Server. Read on for the solution.

At a company I work for we recently had to downgrade from the 64 bit version of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 back to the 32 bit version (long story ). After removing the 64 bit version of SQL Server and installing the 32 bit version and then recreating the master db and setting up all of the databases again, Optimum no longer worked correctly. I could log in fine, but whenever I tried to open up Employees, or just about anything else, I got a big nasty error message saying “you must declare the scalar variable @USERID”. Read on for the solution to the problem.

Getting Syspro e.net Business Objects to work remotely from a non-Administrator account can be tricky if you’re not familiar with DCOM. Syspro has some general instructions in their Support Zone, but they are missing a couple of steps for Windows Server 2003. Below are the steps I used to configure DCOM for Syspro e.net Business Objects in Windows Server 2003.

This is a sweet little program. Pocket Controller Professional from SOTI gives you complete control of your Pocket PC from your desktop computer. You can take direct control of your Windows Mobile device just as if you were holding it in the palm of your hand. You can do everything you’d normally do with your Pocket PC, plus take screen shots, record videos and macros, and more. It would be especially useful to people reviewing, demonstrating, testing, or developing applications for the Pocket PC, but could be very handy for the casual user as well. It’s nice to be able to manipulate your handheld with a standard mouse and keyboard. It’s sure a lot quicker and easier than using the stylus, especially if your handheld is docked. It doesn’t have to be docked though; you can take control of your Pocket PC over TCP/IP as well. Read on for more details.