Alexander’s Blog

Dreamweaver 8 was released more than a year before Windows Vista became publicly available and does not officially support this new operating system. However, Dreamweaver 8 runs fine for the majority of users running Windows Vista. The next version of Dreamweaver, expected to be released in Spring 2007, will be certified to run on Vista.

Check out the following TechNotes from Adobe for your particular situation.

- Dreamweaver 8 crashes on some Vista systems while browsing for files (TechNote kb400788)
- Vista help system stops working when Dreamweaver is the default XML editor (TechNote kb400789). Microsoft has also published a KB article on this topic called The Help and Support feature stops working when Dreamweaver is configured as the default XML editor on a Windows Vista-based computer. Click here to read Microsoft’s KB article 937491.
- Control-Alt-Tab keyboard shortcut change in Windows Vista (TechNote 8718ad77)

For more details, check out the TechNote Dreamweaver 8 issues on Windows Vista. For more information on Adobe product support in general for Vista, see the PDF document How Adobe Products Support Vista.

Have you received the following error when you try to run Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard or Professional in a terminal server or remote desktop session?

“An error has been detected with a required application library and the product cannot continue. Please reinstall the application.”

If you have, Adobe has posted a TechNote that explains the reason why.

Issue

When you start Adobe Acrobat 7.0 within a Citrix or Windows Terminal Services remote session, you receive the error message “An error has been detected with required application library and the product cannot continue. Please reinstall the application.” Then Acrobat quits.

Details

– You have installed a retail or trial version of Acrobat 7.0 Standard or Professional on the application server that requires activation in order to launch.

– Acrobat launches without error on the application server.

Solution: Purchase a volume license for Acrobat.

In order to use Acrobat 7.0 Standard or Professional on an application server, you must purchase a volume license based on the number of users your environment plans to support. For more information about purchasing a volume license through the Adobe Open Options program, see the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/ .

Background information

The retail and trial versions of Acrobat 7.0 do not allow multiple users to run the application at any given time, such as when they are hosted on an application server running Citrix or Windows Terminal Services remote sessions.

Downloading software from Microsoft used to be fairly simple in the past. No passport mess, no sales call, no hassles. Now Microsoft requires you to register when you download certain products so you can receive calls from Microsoft or third-party representatives. Here’s something interesting. Try downloading a trial version of Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager here. You must agree to register or else you cannot download the software. Okay, that sounds fine as long as you are given an option to opt-out of e-mails and phone calls, right? Well, not exactly. The registration process gives the following six options for you to check or uncheck.

1. Microsoft may use the e-mail address I have provided above to contact me regarding important security, product, and event information.

2. Microsoft Partners may use the e-mail address I have provided above to contact me regarding important security, product, and event information.

3. Microsoft may use the address I have provided above to contact me regarding important security, product, and event information.

4. Microsoft Partners may use the address I have provided above to contact me regarding important security, product, and event information.

5. Microsoft may use the phone number I have provided above to contact me regarding important security, product, and event information.

6. Microsoft Partners may use the phone number I have provided above to contact me regarding important security, product, and event information.

So you must be glad that you unchecked all these boxes and Microsoft has now promised not to contact you by e-mail, address, or phone numbers, which by the way are all REQUIRED items on that page that must be filled out. But did you actually read what’s on that download page? Here’s what it says.

“Regardless of any contact preferences you might have previously made on this Microsoft site or on other Microsoft sites or services, by registering for trial software, you consent and agree to allow Microsoft or one of its third-party agents to contact you no more than three (3) instances during the software’s trial period for the purpose of soliciting feedback on the trial software or to supply you with additional evaluation content and information about trial software. Any other use of the personal information in your .NET Passport profile is subject to the Microsoft Privacy Statement.”

In other words, the checking or unchecking of these boxes has absolutely no meaning whatsoever. You still agreed that you should be contacted via e-mail, address, and phone number. Notice it also states that “Any other use of the personal information in your.NET Passport profile is subject to the Microsoft Privacy Statement.” Take a minute and think about this last statement. It is very telling.

Knowledge Base artice: Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own

Vista Event Viewer: This is odd, and it also means no user configuration can be found.

Dell Warning: You are disruptively hitting our Dell Factory Outlet Web servers too fast….

Microsoft has released Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), formerly known as Software Update Service (SUS) & then later changed to Windows Update Services (WUS). For now its called Windows Server Update Services. WSUS enables administrators to quickly and reliably deploy critical updates to their Windows 2000-based servers as well as desktop computers running Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional.

In addition to WSUS, Microsoft also offers Microsoft Update and Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003. Microsoft Update is free and is geared towards home users. WSUS requires a Windows Server Client Access License (CAL) and is meant for small to medium-sized businesses. SMS 2003 requires Windows Server CAL, SMS CAL, SMS Server CAL, and SQL Server CAL and its meant for medium to large organizations.

All three tiers support the following clients:

- Windows Server 2003
- Windows XP Professional
- Windows 2000
- Office 2003
- Office XP
- Exchange Server 2003
- SQL Server 2000
- MSDE
- Additional Microsoft products over time

There are several differences between the thre tiers. Click here to compare the three tiers. For WSUS FAQs, click here.