CRM rebranding Dynamics CRM as xRM

I was interested to see Neal Houston’s article on the different products in the Dynamics family.

Through Microsoft’s method of acquiring companies there is some obvious overlap in all of these products across the Dynamics suite.

For example Dynamics CRM states that it has a full sales order process from Lead, Opportunities, Quotes, Invoices, Orders, Products. In reality the latter Invoices and Orders is usually accomplished by dedicated financial systems such as Nav, Agresso, JD Edwards etc. which CRM can be customised to integrate with.

Where CRM 4.0 shines is using all the different modules such as Sales, Marketing, Service to get the most from a central shared Contact database not at financial accounting.

What was interesting about Neals article was his comparison matrix which gives recommendations on the best scenarios to use each product for. Microsoft has a cheesy CRM to xRM video on youtube that essentially tries to assert that the CRM product could be used for all of these industries. Of course, Microsoft is just trying to sell “the platform” that the CRM product is built on to spark peoples imaginations that it can be used for Line of Business (LOB) applications as well as just the core Sales/Service/Marketing functionality.

To me, this is a “how-long-is-a-piece-of-string” type of proposition. Of course you could use CRM to create any system you like because custom entities, relationships and the power of the windows workflow foundation (WWF) can create any business case. The question is how much customisation work by your favorite CRM partner is involved ? (with the associated cost)

I have been involved in over 10 large Dynamics CRM implementations that have all been “xRM”. We have always taken the out of the box functionality and created solutions specific to the customers (line of) business.

My hope is that Microsoft will back up this xRM marketing campaign with a series of new free accelerator add-on feature packs for each industry sector in addition to the existing ones

CRM testking exams

To get some sample answers I bought the 50 sample questions from testking.com
for the Dynamics CRM customization and configuration MB2-631 exam,
if anyone else is considering doing the same I wouldn't bother, a lot
of the answers are wrong, there are loads of typos and mistakes in the
text of the questions which is misleading. Finally, when a correct
answer is given there is no explanation why it's correct and why the
others are wrong.

They only give you access to the questions for 90 days after purchase
but there is a way to create a PDF file by printing to a "file
printer" and coverting a postscript file to PDF.

All in all, I'm not a happy testking customer...

Favourite iPhone Apps

I have been using smart phones for the past 5 years, all of which have been windows mobile devices, from iPAQ, iMate JAM x 3 (running variations of windows Mobile 2003 & 2003 SE) to my latest MWG Atom Life (running windows mobile 6.1)

  Vs 

I got a very generous offer (thanks Gerry) to try out a iPhone and I have to say I share Paul Thurotts opinion that an iPhone makes the windows mobile platform look cludgy and outdated. Even with windows mobile 6.5 and eventually 7 coming on they will have to make from ground up changes to compete here.

I have used the iPhone 3G (not the new 3gS) model Jail broken on the three.ie network instead of on the o2 network. o2 exclusively distribute the iPhone in Ireland (Vodafone coming before Christmas 2009). It works without a bother, but you have to sign up for a data plan or your bill could be colossal.

Here are a few free iPhone applications that I find very handy and can be downloaded from the app store.

• Google Mobile App
  • Voice searching, apparently it sends a sound file off to google servers in realtime to analyse your voice and then performs the searches, cool !
• Shazam
  • That app that was on the TV that allows you to listen to any song and it will tell you the artist and title, very handy at parties with obscure playlists
• iePhoneBook
  • Search for residential or business listings for the Irish phone book, never use directory enquiries again !
• Admit One
  • Great little app for showing whats on in the Cinema and when along with reviews of the movies
• Skype
  • Never really got this to work over a 3G connection but can be ok over WiFi depending on the quality of the broadband link.
• eBay
  • Look at auction listings finishing soon, watched items, items for sale/sold etc.
• Facebook v3 App
• This is the only reason I update facebook now, very few features missing.
• Dublin Bikes
  • I signed up to the Dublin bikes scheme to use the shared bikes from stations all around Dublin city centre. This app developed by Fusio shows the nearest bike station to your location, the number of bikes there and the number of spaces, this is great. its a pity this App isn’t available in the AppStore any more as operator JC Decaux issued a cease and desist order to Fusio which is scraping the data from their site, shame, but its still working for me as I got it in the 3 days it was listed on the AppStore by fluke !
• iFooty
  • For Premiership and Championship soccer tables, match reports, team info taken from the BBC but strangely no Champions League match results
• Dublins 98 (Radio Station)
  • Live feed streamed to your phone from 98 FM
• Myhome.ie
  • Be nosy and look at the houses for sale around your map location
• iMapMyRun – Tracking and mapping of runs including time spent, average speed
• GPSLite – Same as MapMyRun but with more features
• xGPS
  • Download Google maps offline and provide turn by turn directions for driving directions
• Google Earth
• Sky News
  • latest stories from this trashy news source
• Bitbuzz
  • Find the nearest WiFi Hotspot, can be handy if you have no 3G coverage and need to send an email !
• Fring (sign in to MSN, Yahoo, GTalk all from one IM client)
• Sky+ (Doesn’t have great navigation but allows me to browse TV listings and record programs on my Sky+HD box at home)
• Cydia & Rock Apps
• This allows you to Jailbreak your phone on any network and install and run non-Apple AppStore Apps on your phone (use with caution as Apple updates to 3.0.1+ could break your phone)
• BossPaper for custom backgrounds and colours
• Docs
• Allows you to view (but not edit) Microsoft Office Excel, Word, RTF files.
• Backgrounder
• This has to be used with caution, by default only the iPhone apps such as iPod, Phone and Messages can still work while another app is working. If you use another app the current one exists and stops running. This allows you to make ANY app run in the background, so stay signed into Skype while sending an email
• Games
• RagDoll Lite
• Sheep Launcher, see how high you can fire a sheep
• I Dig It, addictive, try to collect stuff without running out of fuel
• PacMan, classic
• Paper Toss
• Wild West Pinball

So, in short, I’m a shameless convert to the iPhone platform and even the new Windows Mobile 6.5 is still light years to come close to it.

I find myself opening up the laptop much less because the email and web browsing is so usable. I’m glad I only started using it after v3 update though as I don’t think I could sent emails/SMSs without flipping it on its side to use the on screen landscape keyboard input.

If you’ve got a favorite App, please let me know….

Dynamics CRM Outlook client running on Terminal Services

A client recently wanted to use terminal services sessions for all its users. In the morning they login to their PC and start a remote desktop session to the terminal services (TS) servers and use their roaming domain profile to do all their work in TS (including saving all their documents to the networked “My Documents”). This will allow them to centrally manage all the software that a user has access to such as Office, Internet explorer etc as the users would be connecting to one of 3 TS servers. Their PC is essentially a dumb terminal and any PC can be used because all their programs and files are stored centrally.

They asked could we install the CRM Outlook client on these terminal servers which we initially thought “no problem”. So instead of having to roll out the CRM outlook client via group policy using a MSI file we just used the standard installer and installed CRM outlook client and rollup 6 on the 3 TS servers. When someone logs in and configures their profile they can see the CRM toolbar, the CRM navigation tree on the left under their Inbox etc and all was working fine until they actually tried to use CRM from Outlook.

In outlook if they hit the “Track in CRM” button or choose the “CRM” menu and then “Options” instead of showing the CRM options dialog it shows this error message.

“The caller ID does not match the subscription owner id. Only Subscription owners may perform subscription operations” It seems CRM does not like the fact that multiple users are using the same TS machines based on this article

This is similar to the problem where only one person can have the “synchronizing client” checkbox turned on for multiple PCs in the CRM settings in Outlook.

The solution is to delete the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSCRMClient\OutlookSyncSubscriptionId” but that will only work for the current users domain account.

So from a quick bit of background checking on how the registry sets these current user keys it would appear that deleting the same OutlookSyncSubscriptionId key in the HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT section and any other existing profiles under HKEY_USERS means that when they login these settings will get copied to HKEY_CURRENT_USER and the new settings will apply.

This was done on all 3 TS servers and no more problems…

I hope this is of some use to someone else faced with using Terminal Services and the CRM Outlook client.

Free anti-virus software anyone?

Microsoft just released a free version of what was once a paid product called OneCare. OneCare was a bit on the bloated side though (much like Norton Security Suite) and didn’t sell well so Microsoft dumped it and instead just released a free product called Windows Security Essentials.

I previously used the AVG Free product but this is far more fully featured and less annoying as it silently updates itself in the background as new threats come up. It replaces the annoying windows defender.

Its free and available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. The only possible gotcha they have included is that it checks if your copy of windows is “genuine” but that shouldn’t be a problem unless you bought your copy of Windows from a stall in a market. Anyway, get it here from the Microsoft Security Essentials Page

For a full review with screenshots see Paul Thurrotts article

ASP.Net Web Forms Vs MVC

This is an interesting article that does away with some of the hysterics from both the WebForms and MVC architecture camps and presents the pros and cons in an independant evaluation

Dino Esposito on Comparing Web Forms with ASP.NET MVC

We are looking at developing a number of applications using ext.js and tying this into ASP.Net MVC would seem a good approach

I feel a hello world prototype coming on...

CRM 4.0 and Internet Explorer 6

Unfortunately most corporate customers are still using IE6, this has a number of knock on effects even when fully patched

• Listing screens can popup a “download file” box asking if you want to download a file called Blank.aspx. Apparently this is a problem with a recent service patch for IE6. The completely unsupported fix for this is to locate the blank.aspx file in the CRM web directory usually in the c:\program files\Microsoft CRM Server\CRMWeb\ folder and change this file so that it actually outputs some text. This can be done by adding the line

<% Response.Write(“Loading…”) %>

Or something similar below the existing content in the file. Restart IIS with an IISRESET and you should no longer receive the error

• This is by far the most serious one and caused literally weeks of diagnosis with the help of Microsoft UK CRM Support after logging a critical issue. Lots of fun creating memory dumps with ADPlus and getting 5-6 users to hammer the system to try to recreate the intermittent issue. The number of Simultaneous Downloads in IE 6 is 2, occasionally CRM will try to download more than 2 items at the same time and this will hang the Outlook client for 5 minutes until it times out with an eventual “an error occurred message”. The eventual fix for this was KB 282402 which is a per user setting so has to be applied with a AD group policy so that it is applied when the user logs in.

CRM 4.0 and McAfee Virus Scanner

I was out with a customer recently and he asked me to look at why their CRM server was running so slowly. After running performance monitor on their server and looking at counters for Memory, CPU, SQL, IIS, CRM Async I couldn’t see any of them taking a hit. This was a 8 processor server with 16GB of RAM but opening a contact or account took 4 to 5 seconds.

As soon as I disabled the McAfee “On Access Scanner” opening a contact or account came down to 1 second. Microsoft support have acknowledged this as a known issue.

CRM 4.0 Duplicate detection

There are a few oddities with the duplicate detection and how delays in when it updates its internal list of “duplicates to check” by running the MatchCode system jobs can cause unpredictable results.

• If you enter a phone number for a contact and then enter the same phone number immediately afterwards for a different contact CRM may not have run its "matchcode" job yet to update its internal duplicates list that runs every 5 minutes and not detect the duplicate. Entering the phone number, waiting > 5 minutes and then trying the same phone number for a different client should allow CRM to "catch up" and detect the duplicate
• Duplicate detection popup appears but list the “potential duplicates” in the bottom section of the popup as “None”. This happens occasionally when a record is flagged for deletion but the Async windows service has not cleared it down yet. This is a timing issue that should not happen regularly....

This mostly showed up when our customer was testing and Contacts and Accounts were being added/updated/deleted in quick succession.

Sony VAIO integrated memory card reader upgrade

If your VAIO (or any other laptop) doesn’t recognise SD cards over 2GB and SDHC cards then this Vista driver upgrade will sort it out for you.

Dell, HP, Gateway and many others all use the same Texas Instruments Integrated FlashMedia Controller which appears as “Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated Flash media controller” in the device manager.

I couldn’t find a VAIO drive update that worked but this one from HP did the trick. The only downside is that the memory stick drive does not appear any more but I never used this anyway.

Its now recognising a number of different 4GB SD cards and 16GB SDHC cards.

All the details on possible drivers for your machine are available on this forum thread

MWG Atom Life Upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.1

I was feeling brave so decided to upgrade my MWG Atom Life phone to a unofficial custom build as mentioned in this post.

My phone is now running Version 6.1.0.9 by Medkid who has done a great job. There are plenty of new utilities in the programs and everything seems to work

The new “Instant Messaging like” threaded view of SMS messages in WM 6.1 is great but I tend to agree with Paul Thurrott that the Windows Mobile platform looks like a dinosaur in comparison to something like the iPhone.

I installed the SBP Mobile Shell product which is slick but is only a thin veneer over the standard windows mobile menus and navigation and you eventually get dumped back into the tired user interface when you need to do anything

CRM 5.0 Sneak Preview

Hello all

The lack of posting of late is mainly due to being busy on a number of CRM 4.0 projects.

This information on CRM v5 was leaked onto the internet and then pulled from a microsoft blog. It was gathered Microsoft Professional Developers' Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles  a couple of weeks a ago. CRM v5.0 goes under the codename CRM v.Next at present.

This information compliments the “Dynamics CRM statement of direction” that was sent to partners in July 2008.

Enjoy !

CRM5 is currently on schedule to ship as part of the Office14 Wave (most likely sometime in 2010), and the team is only part way through the development cycle, having just completed Milestone 1 (M1). Even so, there is already much to get excited about. Here is a list of "features" that were discussed:

New Features For End Users

• Enhanced Navigation - I guess it was inevitable, but CRM5 uses the same "Fluent UI" (aka the Ribbon) as Office 2007. This new "command bar" replaces the CRM 4.0 "tool bars" at the top of each page, and is context sensitive. In addition, the "command bar" is fully customizable and you can add your own buttons much like you can with ISV.Config file today.
  
  
  Incidentally, something that isn't discussed but appears on the ribbon is the "Add to Queue" command, from which I can only surmise that you will be add any entity (including custom entities) to a Queue.
• Single Page Forms - The form model in CRM 4.0 made use of tabs to divide a form into multiple pages. In CRM5 tabs are displayed in the same way as section, with each form just having a single, scrolling page. As you can see from the navigation page of an Account entity, tabs are now displayed as a series of "quick access" navigation shortcuts under the "Information" link.
  
• Data Filtering - One often requested feature is the ability to filter data in grids, much like Excel. Now you can navigate to the "DataView", click the "Filter" command, and you can perform your own in-line filtering.
  
  Again, although not explicitly stated, it looks as though you can quickly save your filters as a View, as well as setting your own Default View.
• In-line Visualizations - Although not Business Intelligence in the true sense of the phrase, CRM5 allows you to visualize numeric data using in-line charts. This is not SQL Server Reporting Services, but looks very much like the .NET charting solution from Dundas.
  
  The charts themselves are drill-through enabled and you can select a number of different chart formats such as Bar, Column, Funnel, Line, Pie & Scatter.
• Team Ownership - Entities in CRM 4.0 were either User Owned or Organisation Owned. Now Team Owned entities are added in CRM5, and integrated into the role-based security model.
• Native SharePoint Integration - Integration with Windows SharePoint Services for document management, which includes site and document library provisioning, document metadata, item security, and check-in/check-out capabilities.
• Unstructured Relationships - The next generation of "set regarding" and "relationship roles" functionality, allowing you to define ad-hoc relationships between any two entities.

New Features For Administrators

• Flexible Form Layout - We now have much more flexibility in how forms are laid out, for example, we can position sections side-by-side, as well as field labels on top, left or right of each field. Best of all, we can now configure "In-Line Sub-Grids" for child records, so a combination of IFrames & JScript is no longer required to make this work.
  
• Filtered Lookups - One of the most requested features has finally made it into the product. Whilst customizing the form, you can choose a pre-defined view or better still you can filter by a related lookup on the same form.
  
• Form Headers & Footers - Now that all tabs, sections and fields appear on a single, scrolling form, it is quite possible the form will get become quite long and you will end up scrolling up and down more often to find the information you require. In order to make the most commonly required visible at all times, you can now place these fields in a header or footer so that they will always be displayed regardless of the scrolling.
• Solution Management - With CRM 4.0, you had to implement a manual process when customizing your solution, to make sure that you didn't overwrite previous customizations, or disrupt any 3rd party ISV solutions. In CRM5 we had now added the concept of solutions.
  
  A solution is a defined set of entity customizations, workflows, e-mail templates, security roles, plug-ins etc. that can be managed as a single unit. Each solution is version controlled so presumably your can have multiple versions of the same solution installed, and roll-back to a previous version if necessary.
  You can also define solution dependencies where one solution can only be installed if another solution is also installed. For example, you might have a base solution for your whole organisation, with a departmental specific solution built on top of it.
  
  Namespace collision is avoided by defining publishers, with each publisher having a unique namespace. This avoids the common issue where the default namespace "new_" is used for all customizations, leading to potential namespace conflicts.
  One final plus point is that you can now specify which attributes will be exported as part of a solution, rather than having no choice but to export the whole entity.
• Multiple Option Sets - Otherwise known as "Global Picklists", you can define these at the solution level, and re-use them across multiple entities.
• Drag & Drop Form Editor - One of the most time consuming customization tasks in CRM 4.0 is the form design. Every time you want to add, remove or re-position tabs, sections and attributes, you have to go through a multi-click process. With CRM5, you can now drag and drop all elements of a form, speeding up the process considerably
  
• Audit - Although not explicitly mentioned during the sessions, I spotted an "auditing" setting on the attribute designer form, allowing you to turn auditing on or off.
  

New Features For Developers

• Custom Code Sandbox - There is a new server role for running custom plug-in code and custom workflow activities without requiring full trust. This means that it will be possible to run custom code in the CRM Online environment and achieve true parity between On-Premise, Partner-Hosted and Microsoft-Hosted deployments.
• Plug-In Transaction Support - In CRM 4.0 you could register a plug-in to run either before (pre-event) or after (post-event) the CRM platform operation. However, you were not able to run as part of the transaction itself, so you had to right your own compensation logic in the event the CRM platform operation failed. CRM5 addresses this limitation, and you can now choose to register you plug-in as part of the platform operation. The CRM5 plug-in registration tool has been modified to support this.
  
• Automatic Plug-In Profiling - CRM5 will keep track of how a plug-in is executing, what resources it consumes, if it is causing unexpected exceptions and whether or not it is violating security constraints. If a particular plug-in fails a number of times it is automatically disabled from executing, helping to maintain system integrity.

As you can see there is a lot to look forward to in CRM5, and I hope you are as excited as I am that the team has chosen to share this information early on.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Moving the database location for Dynamics CRM Outlook Client

When you install the Outlook client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 4 it asks you if you want to make it "Offline capable".

If you choose yes it will create a SQL Server Express edition database in the following folder in windows XP.

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\MSCRM\Data

If you work for a large company and the IT dept has implemented roaming profiles for your domain login account its is likely that they have set a limit on the disk space that you can store on your desktop and "Application Data" folders. If so I feel your pain, my limit is currently 50MB which is minuscule and when you go over that limit you can no longer logoff until you clear down the space.

When I first sync the outlook client with CRM it creates a database file called MSCRM_MSDE.mdf which is approximately 40MB in the MSCRM\data folder mentioned above.

I first thought there may be some registry entries that I could change to point these files elsewhere but alas no.

If you want to move this file elsewhere then follow these steps:

• Shutdown Outlook
• Open SQL Server Management Studio (if you don't have this there is a free express edition available)
• Connect to the database by using your machine name with \CRM appended to it (i.e. LAPTOP1\CRM)
• Browse to the database name and click "Detach"
• 
• You can then move the files elsewhere anywhere on the file system outside your profile locations i.e. c:\files\outlook crm\
• Then right click the MSCRM_MSDE database and reattach in the new location.

When CRM starts up it will be blissfully unaware of the new location of the database files and you will have all your profile space available again.

MWG Atom Life phone on the Three 3G network

I have been using Windows Mobile based phones
for a good few years now. My first was a Compaq iPaq and then an i-mate JAM all of which ran Windows Mobile 2003 SE.

I picked up one of these Mobile Wireless Group (MWG) Atom Life phones. First of all for the features it provides at €230 ex VAT its a bargain. I paid around €500 for the iMate JAM when it first came out. Windows mobile 6 is a BIG difference to windows 2003 but still not as slick as the iPhone which i got to play with for a while. This is the same phone as the o2 atom life. The headphones have an o2 logo on them and there is a MWG sticker covering the o2 logo on the front of the phone.

Everything I had trouble with on WM2003 "just works" now with Windows Mobile 6. Some nice new features too like calling contacts via Bluetooth headsets by setting a voice recording for the contact (very handy in the car) etc.

It has 3G connection coverage using the HSDPA network which can potentially provide 3 Mbps data transfer but I suspect in reality its much less. I have no real stats on this yet

Anyway, I dumped my pay monthly o2 contract and signed up with 3 Ireland to try and reduce my bill. Its early days but my experiences so far are :

1. 3 do not support any windows mobile devices on their network so your out of luck getting network setting for it.
   
2. WiFi access is simple and easy to setup, detects the network, enter security key and then your connected. Usual battery drain applies. I have noticed some problems reconnecting to the WiFi network in work after the device has gone into standby.
   
3. By setting up a network connection for the "Celular line (GPRS)" called "3ireland.ie" it allows data access to the HSDPA network. This provides
   
   1. Windows Live Messenger access (free)
      
   2. Skype access (although the device or connection is too slow to properly talk even when connected via WiFi) (free)
      
   3. Web browsing (data charges apply)
      
   4. POP3 and IMAP email support (data charges apply)
      
   5. Exchange and Hotmail access (data charges apply)
      
4. Vodafone and o2 have the push email access and charge €20 per month with it. As a result they block people that are not signed up to it from connecting to POP/IMAP servers directly to download their email the old fashioned way. I assumed that connecting to POP and IMAP servers would be blocked on Three but there are no such restrictions so I have mine scheduled to connect every 5 minutes which is close enough to instant.
   
5. Live Messenger IM's come in the same way SMS messages do which is cool and gives a consistence approach and standard interface.
   
6. Battery life with "everything on" is not great, need to charge nightly if connected to 3G network all day, otherwise you can get 3 days before charging.
   
7. Three have a website accessible for free called "Planet 3", this has downloads of TV shows, none of these work with windows mobile, you get a message saying that "This service is not available on your device. Please use your 3 handset to access this service".
   
8. You can get access to the My 3 section of planet 3 by using the following URL on your device http://mobile.3ireland.ie/837_sc I tried lots of different URLs for different devices found on the internet but this is the only one that worked
   
   1. This allows you to "check my usage" in terms of flexiunits uses so far this month
      
   2. View your price plans and change roaming settings
      
   3. Buy Add-ons for your price plan
      
   4. Other handy stuff…
      
9. I'm missing the iMate/HTC phone pad input method. I tried to install the Resco Keyboard but after a reset the device failed to boot and required a Hard reset and wipe of all the data. I tried this a few times with no success.
   
   1. What I was really missing was the keypad T9 predictive text input that was available as a HTC application on the JAM, turns out other people think it's the best way to input using a touchscreen device too. Here is a good overview of the different types of input options under windows mobile. He comes to the same conclusion I did, the T9 input panel is the best.
      
   2. You can get a customised version of this from those dedicated people at xda-developers.com
      
      
      
      

      
      

I will post other comments as I experience them, including phone bills.

Update: 3 Ireland have just added their 1^st windows mobile device the HTC Tytn II so perhaps some of their online services will start to become compatible with windows mobile devices.

Windows Mobile 6.1 support:

This phone comes with windows mobile 6 but there is a newer upgrade to version 6.1 which has some nice new features including a windows messenger like threaded message view for SMS's

There does not appear to be any official ROM upgrade for this yet on the MWG site but there are some unofficial builds from XDA-Developers.com if you fancy risking your phone with them.

Update on 4GB RAM upgrade

In a previous post I described how contrary to Sony's spec I managed to upgrade to 4GB of RAM on a Sony Vaio AR 21s.

A small but annoying issue. Vista still thinks that there is 2GB of RAM every time to put it to "sleep"/"Hibernation". This gets tricky when it tries to put 3.1GB of memory available to windows into a 2GB disk hiberfile.sys file. The hard drive does not like this and I ended up having a system that wouldn't boot and had to be repaired using the Vista recovery tool from the Vista DVD.

Running the "Disk Cleanup wizard" on this laptop and choosing to delete the hibernation file forces Vista to recreate it after a reboot or two.

I know this blog is starting to become the "Craig's problems with his laptop blog" but I want to try and help anyone else going though similar difficulties. That is one of the main reasons I post here, to try and solve tricky problems that defy rational explanation in software development and IT.

I promise to move onto other topics soon…

The Long Road to 1080p with Vista on Sony Vaio AR Laptop

Please excuse the following post, I'm going on a rant here….

You buy a laptop with HD bluray drive and a HDMI port, then buy a HDTV with HDMI but can you get them to work ? Oh dear god no, not if you are running Vista. I upgraded my laptop from XP to Vista and that's when the problems started. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't go back to XP but the time I have wasted on this has been huge.

When I got my AR 21s laptop it has windows XP on it, everything worked, proper drivers, cool. This was the best laptop that Sony sell on October 2006, and the newer Sony AR series are still the best equipped today, you'd think they would provide A grade support. So they provide 1 set of Vista drivers after Vista ship which only partially work, a nice 1^st step, but after they have released a few newer models in the AR series the driver support stops for the older models. Its like they stopped testing driver releases from their equipment manufacturers like NVIDIA etc.

For example the latest graphics drivers for Vista don't support 1080p HD output through the HDMI port. I was about to repartition and reinstall XP to get this back so I could enjoy the bluray discs I bought when a random search brought back this Club VAIO community article.

It tells of how to install NVidia 158.43 beta drivers but it seems NVIDIA has forgotten about this 7600 GT graphics card so you have to edit the nv_disp.inf file to put in your own hardware IDs to get the drivers to install. The article kindly supplies the necessary file edited for you. This was great and after 4 reboots I have 1080p on my HDTV. Only problem is that whenever I launch the WinDVD BluRay player I get a blue screen of death (BSOD) in the nv4_mini.sys file.

Well I got it working finally, there is a newer beta driver called 158.45 which I could not find on the NVIDIA site. I got them from SoftPedia. I had to figure out what the edits were (using WinDiff) and insert the lines myself in 2 places (shown in bold)

[NVIDIA.Mfg.NTx86.6.0]

%NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0191.1% = nv_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0191

%NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0193.1% = nv_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0193

%NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0194.1% = nv_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0194

%NVIDIA_G73.DEV_0399.1% = nv_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0399

%NVIDIA_G84.DEV_0400.1% = nv_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0400

%NVIDIA_G84.DEV_0402.1% = nv_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0402

And

; Localizable Strings

NVIDIA = "NVIDIA"

NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0191.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX"

NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0193.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS"

NVIDIA_G80.DEV_0194.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra"

NVIDIA_G73.DEV_0399.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 GT"

NVIDIA_G84.DEV_0400.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS"

NVIDIA_G84.DEV_0402.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT"

NVIDIA_G86.DEV_0421.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT"

NVIDIA_G86.DEV_0422.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS"

NVIDIA_G86.DEV_0423.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8300 GS"

This is to tell the NVIDIA setup program that the 7600 GT hardware applies to this installation. If anyone wants the edited nv_disp.inf file please let me know.

Now I finally have 1080p appearing on my HDTV, it looks cool. I played Casino Royale movie on it briefly. However I can't hear it because the sound does not go through the HDMI cable (even though its supposed to support it) and I can't use the remote control because Vista recognises the Infrared port but doesn't seem to accept any signs in media centre or WinDVD. Its getting ridiculous at this stage.