Use VMWare to play your old Windows XP games

Upgrading Windows can be tricky, most applications and current games are usually updated when a new OS is out in order to keep the compatibility, however some of them get left behind by their developers and require workarounds and all sorts of community-based fixes.

Fortunately for us end-users there are more options than ever before to let us use this software, Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate/Enterprise includes Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC in order to run applications just as they would in Windows XP and DOSBox allows even 64-bit users the chance to use 16-bit applications and games that were made over 15 years ago.

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Using Symbolic Links in Vista/Windows 7 for Google Chrome User Data

Recently I have been able to shed Firefox completely and start using Google Chrome, mainly due to it’s simple and speedy nature, but you can read all about that in my previous quick review of it when it first came out here.

I have recently purchased an OCZ Vertex SSD, the problem with Solid State Drives at the moment is their limited writes and while the MTBF is high enough to not expect to reach the limit before it becomes obselete it is still enough to make you self conscious about what gets to write to the drive.

Web browsers are arguably the most common abusers of file reads/writes on hard drives, the cache is constantly being written and overwritten as you browse and SSD users often look for a way to keep a browser’s cache off their SSD. With Firefox it is as easy as using Firefox Portable, it’s also quite handy to use if you move from computer to computer, but Google Chrome doesn’t have this feature yet, though a Chromium based browser SRWare Iron has a portable version.

There is a simple solution for keeping Chrome’s cache and other user data on another drive and that is the symbolic linking feature found in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Move the User Data folder from the C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome directory and place it on the other drive in whatever folder you want to call it, I simply put mine in D:\Chrome Profile

The next step is open up Command Prompt as an Administrator (right click, then click “Run as Administrator”) then type in the following command

mklink /J “where you want the symlink and what you want to call it” “where the real folder is”

For Example:


mklink /J "C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data" "D:\Chrome Profile\User Data"

In this case the symlink name must be called User Data.

The /J command tells it to make a Directory Junction, in other words make windows applications believe that the folder is in the same spot as the symlink, you will notice that if you head to the chrome AppData folder on the SSD that there will be a folder with a shortcut icon in it called User Data, if you double click on it all your user data files with be inside and unlike opening up a normal shortcut, or soft symlink, the files in the folder will all appear to be on the SSD in the correct folder.

If you open up Google Chrome it will open as if nothing happened.

Update 22nd August 2009: I have done the same thing with Firefox’s ‘Mozilla’ profile directory, the only problem is if you load Thunderbird Portable it will for some reason (and somehow) delete your ‘Mozilla’ junction for Firefox, the solution for now is to set up Thunderbird with the ‘Thunderbird’ folder in the same fashion and not use Thunderbird Portable for this function.

New TRIM version for OCZ Vertex SSDs

Tony over at the OCZ forums has released version 0525 of the TRIM utility designed restore the write performance of the Vertex series drives by resetting the write blocks.

This new version appears to work correctly for me, the previous version 0422 didn’t do anything when run even though it said it completed successfully and the original version corrupted many files on my drive.

It was run using Windows 7 x64 RC (7100) using IDE mode with the intel IDE driver loaded.

You can view the forum thread and find the file here.

Rumours that a new Windows 7 UI is yet to be unveiled

There have been rumous mainly started by Paul Thurrott at his Windows SuperSite here that Microsoft are keeping under wraps a new UI.

It doesn’t seem that possible this late in the game, sure if they have all the UI coding already in Windows 7 then there are less chances of bugs, but there are still UI bugs that would need testing, visibility/overlapping problems etc.

My theory is a new theme to distance itself from Vista, there are less chances of bugs and they can keep it secret much easier, however looking at how refined the theme is currently (provided it was carried over from Vista and there wasn’t much work to do anyway) it doesn’t look like they would have done all this refining if they had a new theme ready. For example, Windows XP Watercolor wasn’t that refined before they switched over to the much refined Luna, of course refining the current UI to such an extent creates doubt and that’s necessary for a major announcement to gain full surprise.

On second thoughts: Paul Thurrott supposedly already knows what the big announcement is, or at least some of it, so it’s possible he’s just spreading this to get site hits, I see nothing wrong with that.

Windows Vista SP2 release before Windows 7

Earlier this week Microsoft stated that Vista’s Service Pack 2 will be released before Windows 7. As Windows 7 will be released in the second half of that year it has caused many to be worried that Microsoft are rushing SP2.

I don’t believe this will be a problem and I certainly don’t believe Microsoft would be rushing this, to release a Service Pack within a year was common before Windows XP and has happened since, things have changed and Vista SP2 is not focused on the amount of features and deep fixes that have been needed in Service Packs in the past 6 years.

Windows XP SP1 had a reasonable time frame of just under a year, however it was fairly rushed and rightly so, but there were no issues caused by rushing the update. SP2 of XP took quite some time (2 years since SP1) and this was due to the radical changes in the OS that were proposed, new device drivers had to be made, this led to more and more testing and in the end it was a significant change, but with the amount of changes you would expect from 2 Service Packs, released in the same amount of time. Windows XP SP3 is again more of a roll up release that was not necessarily needed due to Windows Update, it was delayed because Windows Vista needed more resources at the time.

Windows Vista SP1 was like the Windows XP SP1 in a way, there were necessary changes that needed to be implemented and they were implemented fast, just over a year from the Retail release date and it was finished and ready, no rushing was needed.

New Windows 7 Screenshots at ThinkNext

Looks like ThinkNext have their hands on a copy of the 6780 (M3) build of Windows 7 and have show much more of Windows 7 than we have been able to see recently. You can view them here. The screenshots have now been taken down by Microsoft: http://www.thinknext.net/archives/2281.

Going by looks, not much has changed since Vista yet, however it seems a bit glassier, apart from the changes I have mentioned previously Calculator has had a face lift in what I can only say is a good move.

It looks as though the Control Panel items have undergone a change again, though in most cases they are still fundamentally the same.

Internet Explorer 8 is included, not much of a surprise there, it should be fairly complete by the time Windows 7 is out of Beta.

Most importantly UAC appears to have been toned down extensively in Windows 7, hopefully that doesn’t compromise on the security that was originally intended.

Not much info yet, however they intend on releasing a video soon.

Ribbon UI in Windows 7 M3

It appears going by the 2 images that have so far been released showing Paint and WordPad that Microsoft have decided to extend the Ribbon UI used in the Microsoft Office Suite to the included applications in Windows 7.

It’s a small change, but it shows that with Windows 7 Microsoft are willing to try new things. The Ribbon is a fairly handy part of the Office UI, in the case of WordPad it will allow people who are familiar with Word use WordPad much quicker.

I don’t believe the use of Paint will be more productive necessarily, as previously in Paint there was only 1 layer to most of the functionality, however the upside is that this allows Paint to increase in features if necessary without having to have yet another UI change.

Overall I believe it’s a nice addition to the Windows UI, even if it only affects a few applications, I look forward to seeing more of Windows 7 Milestone 3