windows

How to change an IIS application’s AppPool in IIS 6.1 (Windows 7)

kellyb — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:26:54 GMT

I find Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager v6.1 that ships with Windows 7 extremely difficult to use. It’s good looking, but the usability is terrible. I can never find what I’m looking for.

I installed DotNetNuke this morning and wanted to play around. For the life of me I could not find where to change the application’s App Pool. This is very straightforward in previous versions, but this seems very hidden to me in v6.1. The only way I found to do it is to click on the “Basic Settings” in the Actions panel on the far right:

From there, you get a familiar dialog

Wow that was frustrating. I was literally spent 30 minutes hunting through the help file and Google’ing but found nothing. I really wish I could have the old IIS Manager back. Ever since Vista, this thing has been impossible to use :(

Software List

kellyb — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:48:08 GMT

I’ve been maintaining the list of software on my Windows 7 Paving – New Base Image Software List from some time ago. The original intent of that post was to itemize all of the applications that worked w/ the beta of Windows 7. I was using that post heavily for building out new machines. Windows 7 is now in the wild now and there are very few applications left that aren’t compatible. I’m going create a new post that simply itemizes the software I run and why. I’ll keep this current are my world changes

Software	Thoughts
Windows 7 Ultimate	The best Microsoft OS I’ve ever used. Enable the following features Internet Information Services (IIS) Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ)
Windows Sync	I used to be running Mesh, but it was too I/O heavy and I really don’t need anything more than synching – so I moved to Windows Sync.
Password Agent	It’s my long-time favorite password manager and I couldn’t live without it. I use Windows Sync to keep my .pwa file synched to all my machines. Works like a charm.
Virtual Clone Drive	I’m finally leaving Daemon Tools – it said it supports Windows 7, but it didn’t for me. This package as steadily gotten shadier and shadier (constantly trying to install crap-ware, etc.). I’m happily using the free version of Virtual Clone Drive.
TextPad 5	I’ve been using this as my primary text editor for over 10 years. I’ve tried to use Notepad++, Notepad2, SciTE, UltraEdit, etc. but I like this one the best TextPad Tweaks: Change the global font to Consolas 13 pt. Change the “Selected” color to lime green
Launchy	I used SlickRun for years, but I moved this years ago for my quick launch needs. It’s great
Chrome	I love Chrome, but until they have an extensibility model and catalog like Firefox, Firefox will remain my primary browser. Regardless, I like having it around
Firefox	My primary browser for all the obvious reasons Mandatory Extensions: IETab AdBlock Bit.ly Del.icio.us Firebug Shareholic User Agent Switch
Media Players and Plugins	Silverlight Adobe Flash Foxit PDF Reader - I stay away from Adobe Reader… it’s a pig Windows Media Player Plugin for Firefox
Core Development Tools	Visual Studio 2008 Team Developer + SP1 Remap the following keys: F1 – AttachToProcess F7 – Rebuild Selected Project Ctrl+F7 – Rebuild Solution ASP.NET MVC .NET Memory Profiler ReSharper TortoiseSVN VisualSVN SQL Server 2008 Developer Gallio TestDriven.NET Microsoft Silverlight 3 Tools for VS 2008 SP1 Silverlight Toolkit - Release: July 2009 Expression Blend 3
Misc Development Tools	ClipPath Reflector Snippet Compiler Sysinternals Suite BeyondCompare
Paint.NET	I don’t use this much these days with Windows 7 because of it’s nifty new Paint program that handles PNG’s and does precise cropping. I like to have this installed regardless.
WordWeb Pro	I love having this handy at all times on all my machines. I can lookup any word while using any program with a quick key combo
Windows Live Writer	The best blogging client there is on Windows Install this plugin as well: Insert Code for Windows Live Writer
Office Ultimate 2007	Save As PDF for Office 2007 Live Meeting 2007 Add-In for Outlook
Virtual Box	This is the best VM software I’ve found for personal use. It’s free… it’s fast… and it’s stable.
iTunes	I wish I didn’t have to, but it’s kind of a must with my iPhone, peer pressure, etc.
Windows Home Server Console	I run a Windows Home Server at home (life saver) and this is the client software that goes with it.
Trillian Pro	I finally gave this a try and I dig it. It vastly simplify my IM life.
Skype	Stellar VoIP client
Evernote	I never thought I would ever abandon my paper notebook, but I did. This isn’t the best note taking app out there (that would be OneNote), but they have a great web app version of this, an iPhone app, and a Windows client… and they’re all linked together and synch automatically. That’s hard to beat. The iPhone app is what killed the paper notebook. I just don’t need it anymore
7zip	Fastest zip app there is out there
VirtualBox	This kicks the crap out of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1. You can run VirtualBox on Windows 7 flawlessly, and you cannot with VPC! It’s just as good as VMWare Workstation, but free.

Windows 7 Gems

kellyb — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:56:07 GMT

Ever hear the saying “death by a thousand tiny cuts”? The inverse might be “Love by a thousand tiny kisses”…. and that’s the best way I can describe Windows 7. There isn’t one thing that’s absolutely remarkable (except maybe the hibernate reliability), but there’s so many little things that make you smile a couple of times a day. It all adds up to a wonderful user experience.

One of my favorites is the new taskbar. This thing is amazing… so easy to use. It’s simple enough for my mom to use without fear, but it’s sophisticated enough to meet my needs

Look at those big buttons and the concept of a button and running program is now beautifully merged. If it’s running, it’s big and has text. If it’s not running, it’s small(er) and doesn’t. If you want another instance of something right, right-click and you see a standard convention:

Note, the panels. You get “Most visited”, “Tasks” and the standard “Google Chrome”, “Unpin this program from the taskbar” and “Close window”. In other words, “open new”, “(un)pin” and “close”. This is the standard options for all programs. The “Most visited” and “Tasks” is specific to Chrome. However, there’s obviously something in Windows 7 that provides this capability, because each program has their own little nuggets of this flavor. For example, Remote Desktop has the very handy “Recent” panel:

That alone saves me 100 clicks a day easily. Check out iTunes – if it’s playing something and you’re hovering the program, check out this little gem:

The standard right-click gives me to the option of going straight to the store – very slick!

This stuff makes Windows a joy to use – for me the power user as well as normal folks. Version 7 is by far Microsoft’s best OS. Very, very well done.