As some of you may know, I’m currently rebuilding my dad’s late 2008 15" MBP.  He had a really weird problem that prevented him from surfing to ANY website with ANY browser.  I know…I had him install 3 of the 4 major browsers on his PC and try them all.  Nothing worked.

So, he shipped it to me with the idea that I would be blowing the Boot Camp partition and replacing XP with Windows 7 Professional 64bit.

After I backed up all of his stuff and had Windows 7 Professional installed, I went to activate it.  It wouldn’t activate. Nothing that I did would work.  I kept getting an annoying error message from Activation that said something to the effect that you couldn’t use upgrade media to do a clean install.  If that was the case, why in the world was the option available to me?!  It really ticked me off.

The right key…the wrong error

Thankfully, I have a few resources available to me, having been in the industry for 15 years.  I gave my good friend, Paul Thurrott a phone call.  I thought I saw, but couldn’t remember an article that he wrote about this particular subject.  Paul was right there, and Johnny on the spot with the solution.  If you’re bumping into problems with your install, you really need to give Paul’s article a read.  Its got a lot of great information in it.

What a great guy he is.  He took the time to walk me through his article and to help me get the right solution for me. 

So, thanks, Paul. My dad and I really appreciate your help.

Apple quietly released their third update to Snow Leopard yesterday, OSX 10.6.3. The update plugged over 88 OS security holes and sported some important OS component updates to QuickTime X and resolved some OpenGL-based application compatibility issues.  The update is available via Software Update now, and weighs in at a hefty 432MB.  If you chase after the Combo Update, you’re going to pull down 784MB. 

Apple has been testing this release since January of this year, and had been rapidly seeding testers with updates over the last couple of weeks. I installed the update yesterday and it went in without any issues.

Strangely missing from the release notes is any note about the recent Boot Camp 3.1 update that was recently released.  I was hoping that Apple would include a utility that would build the complete, native Boot Camp 3.1 driver DVD without having to trick Windows 7 into installing the drivers when Win7 is installed on “unsupported machines.”  Maybe next time…

Information about the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Update can be found here.  You can download the update, about 432MB from here.  The Combo Update can be found here. The bulk of the contents of the update can be seen below.

What’s included?

For information about the security content of this update, please visit this article.

General operating system fixes and improvements provided for:

• performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode.
• printing reliability.
• sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand.
• a color issue in iMovie with HD content.
• glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera.
• an issue in which the Finder reports a -36 error when copying directories to a drive formatted as FAT32.
• reliability of photo screen savers.
• compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications.
• an issue in which shadows in PDF of Aperture book are black instead of gray.
• an issue in which the microphone level in iChat may not increase the volume after reducing it to prevent a feedback event.
• the reliability of certain third-party USB devices.
• the Accounts preference pane can now limit login to members of groups hosted by a non-Apple directory service, such as Active Directory.
• DNS server ordering as specified in Network Preferences and DNS reliability. For details about how Mac OS X v10.6 handles unresponsive DNS servers, see this article.
• the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X.
• Data Collection: Mac OS X v10.6.3 can collect diagnostic and usage information from your Mac and send it to Apple for analysis automatically. The information is only collected with your explicit consent, and is submitted anonymously to Apple. For more details, see this article.

AirPort and wireless networking fixes for:

• general reliability for wireless connections.
• improvements to 802.1X reliability, including closed network connections , and WPA2.
• sleep/wake reliability for current iMac models when connected to 2.4GHz wireless networks.

Date and Time fixes provided for:

• Daylight Saving Time rules to reflect recent changes in areas including Argentina, Fiji, Pakistan, and Antarctica.

Directory Services fixes provided for:

• an issue that could cause the system to become unstable or unresponsive when bound to an LDAP server using SSL.
• an issue in which the 802.1X Loginwindow Profile is in place, but the wireless network is not available, directory authentication over Ethernet will now succeed.

File Services fixes provided for:

• an issue that could prevent saving files from Microsoft Office 2008 to an SMB server volume.
• issues copying, renaming or deleting files on an SMB server volume.
• clear-text authentication enabling to an SMB file server.

iCal fixes provided for:

• changing the invitation list for a single instance of a recurring event will no longer "un-book” the location of the meeting.
• an issue in which new invitations on a Microsoft Exchange server might not appear in the Notification pane.
• properly showing recurring Microsoft Exchange events which have a set end date. For details, see this article.
  

Mail fixes and improvements provided for:

• an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail.
• signing and encrypting messages, such as when using an Entrust PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).
• synchronization of the “Sent” mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange server.
• an issue that could cause Mail to delete mailboxes on a Microsoft Exchange server that is hosted behind an Internet load balancer.

Mobile Accounts fixes and improvements provided for:

• home directory synchronization when the home directory is stored on an SMB file server.
• properly warning mobile users in an Active Directory domain about upcoming password expiration.
• creating a Mobile Account that uses smart card authentication, without using a command-line tool.
• reliability in background synchronization.

MobileMe fixes and improvements provided for:

• an issue in which movies could not be viewed in Safari when visiting www.me.com/gallery.
• reliability of iDisk Sync.
• reliability of syncing calendars.

Parental Control fixes and improvements provided for:

• restoring Safari bookmarks functionality to parental controls users.
• better handling of Safari bookmark management when using Parental Controls.
• more reliable application launch restrictions when using Parental Control.

Rosetta fixes provided for:

• an issue that prevented files with the # or & characters in their names from opening in Rosetta applications.

System Imaging fixes and improvements provided for:

• the asr command, which now accepts the "–allow fragmented catalog” option, for restoring images that have a fragmented catalog file. For details, type man asr in Terminal.
• the installer command, which can now be used to upgrade a Mac OS X v10.5 system with a QuickTime 7 Pro key installed to Mac OS X v10.6.

Time Machine fixes and improvements provided for:

• reliability from Time Machine-to-Time Capsule backups, including multiple computers.
• an issue with Time Machine in which system backups could be restored onto unsupported Mac configurations.
• an issue in which a Time Machine backup might not work using an AirPort connection.

Xsan fixes and improvements provided for:

• the reliability of Fibre channel connections to an Xserve RAID.
• an issue that could cause the size of certain Fibre channel LUNs to be mis-reported.

Question of the Day:  What is the Best Way to Migrate from 32 bit Windows XP to 64 bit Windows 7?

Our next question comes from JAMM reader David Gray.  David currently has a 32 bit XP desktop with a 64 bit Windows 7 laptop on the way.  Essentially, he wants to know the best procedures, hints and tricks for making the move up.  See his full explanation below and be sure to hit the comments below.  Let’s help David out with all of our best advise, as many of us have been recently or are in the same boat now…

I have a new laptop on order and am trying to do my homework to be ready for it’s arrival.  I now have a 32 bit XP machine; the one coming will be 64 bit Windows 7.  I will want to keep both machines in service initially, while I decide what to keep, what to transfer over; maybe the old one will stay as the essential desktop it has become.  So what unforeseen conflicts am I about to encounter?  I will no longer need Active Sync, but may want to sync my Tilt2 with both machines for a while.  What software and files can I realistically just transfer over to the new machine without transferring old problems?  And what things are just not going to translate between 32 & 64 bit?  What things should absolutely be a clean install?  You see where I’m going . Might you do a little article on the transition when technology has made a leap?  Thank you.

While I’m kind of in the same boat, as I’m pondering a move from Vista to 7, here’s what I’d recommend.  I’m sure others can chime in to add better advice, though.

• Download the latest versions of all third party programs from various vendor websites.
• Perform fresh installs of these to the Windows 7 laptop.
• Only copy the non-system files, such as documents, music files, spreadsheets and video files.

Be sure to hit the comments below to offer your advice to David!

SoftMaker Office 2010 for Linux Public Beta

This new version of our quick, reliable, and capable office suite for Linux offers significant improvements, such as:

• Reads and writes DOCX files (Word 2007) seamlessly, even those with password protection.
• Imports XLSX files (Excel 2007) with highest fidelity, including password-protected ones.
• PlanMaker offers presentation-quality charts
• Flexible sidebar in SoftMaker Presentations for common formatting tasks
• Comes with a license for 3 PCs (home and business) in the box
• … and much more!

Everyone who purchased SoftMaker Office 2008 for Linux will receive a free upgrade to SoftMaker Office 2010 for Linux after its release!

In a word, no.  Here’s why…

While dramatic, this 3G map is accurate…

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