Another problem my grandma had with it was that the Windows Media player always stopped directly after starting the video in the browser. Opening the URL in the standalone Windows Media Player application showed the error that the protocol was not supported. Doing a quick google search for that error brought up this Microsoft knowledge base article. After opening a command line running under the Administrator account issuing the following command resolved the problem:

regsvr32 wmnetmgr.dll

An error occurred while registering the module C:\Program Files (x86)\Research In Motion\BlackBerry\IS71 Connectors\OE Connector\OLKExpress5.dll. HRESULT -2147010895. Please contact support.

After looking into the Connectors folder I found out that it contains various dll for connecting to different applications to sync with. I always had Outlook 2007 installed on my systems which he had not. So it seems like the BlackBerry Desktop Manager tries to install the connector dll for Outlook Express – which does not exist on Windows 7 anymore – it is called Windows Mail now.

I will try to contact RIM to tell them that the Desktop Manager installer is not fully compatible with Windows 7.

Today I tried to backup my current Windows 7 installation before updating the firmware of my Intel Postville SSD – but I was not able to creat the backup. I always got the following error message:

There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on storage location. Make sure that for all volume to be backup up, the minimum disk space required for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and volume included in the backup. Minimum requirement for Volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabyte of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. Recommended at least 1 gigabytes free of disk space on each volumes if volumes size is more than 1 gigabytes (0×80780119)

I figured out that the hidden volume created by the Windows 7 setup caused this error. It is only 100 megabytes of size and has only 37 megabytes free. I was not able to deselect it or to free space on it. So now I am giving Macrium Reflect – Free Edition a try – I hope this does the trick, so far it looks pretty nice.

After fidling around with some settings and trying some workarounds from various web resources I decided to uninstall BitDefender. Now I am looking for a good replacement. Any recommendations for a Windows 7 antivirus program?

The bad thing about cygwin is that it uses the Windows Command/Console to run the bash. Selecting text, copy and paste are really hard to do inside the Windows Console so I searched for a better solution.

I came across puttycyg which is basically a manipulated putty that allows to make a “connection” to the local cygwin installation. This is the perfect way for me to have a real bash functioniality under Windows. Working with maven, subversion and git got a lot better for me.

Microsofts UAC looks for executables with “install”, “update” or “setup” in their name and requires user account elevation to execute them. This does not work for git-update-index.exe under cygwin and so the command fails with “Permission denied”.

The workaround of creating manifest files for each of the “suspicious” files as described here worked for me.

I found out that there is even a FAQ entry for that problem but I already had the Skype version that should fix the problem. This thread in the Skype community forums and this Jira report are also discussing my problem. The hint in the forum thread about using the Process Explorer from Sysinternals to find out if a program has a handle on the files in the Skype profile was the key.

I found out that my BitDefender antivirus still hold a handle. After closing the handle Skype worked again. Adding the profile directory to the list of scanning exclusions in BitDefender should avoid the problem in the future.

Now for everybody who does not know it until know: I love Launchy! It is THE tool that improved my whole using-a-PC-experience to most in the last year (next to using Google Reader).

Launchy creates an search index of all the shortcuts on your PC so you can start any application by pressing ALT+Space and entering a part of its name. It is also possible to open web bookmarks and do calculations. You may even extend its functionality with plugins.

It increases the speed of working with Windows a lot because you do not have to get your hands of the keyboard just to open an application.