Day: Monday 1 November 2004
Today’s Windows IT Pro magazine network Windows Tips and Tricks Update, highlights Microsoft’s Error Code Lookup tool. The tool can be used to determine error values from decimal and hexadecimal error codes presented by Windows operating systems, looking up one or more values at a time and showing informational data associated with the value where it is available.
(Note that although the Web page is called “Exchange Server Error Code Look-up” the tool actually handles Windows operating system error codes).
A few days back I downloaded and ran a fantastically useful tool for writing CDs from the command line – Alex Feinman’s CreateCD. It seems to work well, and appears fast, with plenty of functionality. In a recent Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine article, CreateCD was even discussed as a method for creating backups using CD-RW discs.
Microsoft has released another add-on pack for Windows, but this time most of the software is supplied by partners. The Partner Pack for Windows is aimed at consumers and includes:
- Games (Super Slyder and Serpentine).
- Homestead Photosite (web photo publishing application).
- Microsoft Time Zone (displays the time in multiple zones around the world).
- Computer Associates eTrust (antivirus software).
- Google Deskbar (desktop search tool).
- Desktop Media Gallery (templates and images).
- Onfolio Express (research tool which runs within Internet Explorer).
- Post-it Software Notes (software version of a post-it note).
- PayPal Payment Wizard (add PayPal payment buttons to e-mail).
- Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (backup and restore files to/from USB flash drives).
Some of this may be useful, some not, but it’s interesting to see Microsoft shipping Google Deskbar at the same time as developing their own desktop search capabilities.