Sad day: no more Windows Media Center for Windows 10

I use Windows Media Center as my DVR for so so so so many year, and I really love it.  But then today when I watched Engadget, I found this article about Microsoft killing Windows Media Center.  After all the crying and such, I started trying to find alternative.  I tried NextPVR, but it didn't seemed to work with Windows 10 Pro Build 10074.

Still I need to continue to look around, before Microsoft finally shut down the data stream that backs Windows Media Center ....

Delete those damn leftover file from previous installation of Windows

I was pretty cool with the Windows 10 Preview installed on my work laptop.  When I looked closer to my system, I realized that, since I did a upgrade on an existing Windows 8.1 system, there were some system file left over.  Specifically, there's a Windows.old folder that was huge and useless in my harddisk now.

I thought, no problem.  I should be able to just drag and drop the folder in my desktop Recycle Bin.  In fact, I even changed the property  of the recycle bin so that it permanently deleted files.  It should be ultra easy, right?

Nope.

It turns out that because of the permission of a lot of these system files, I was unable to delete them.  I was like, damn it, it's my computer.  If I want to delete file, I want to delete it damn it.

So here's how I got that damn Windows.old folder deleted:

• Right click on the folder I needed to delete, and select "Properties".
• Click on "Security" tab, and then click the "Advanced ..." button.
• At the "Owner" entry, click "Change".
• Change the owner to "Everyone"
• Click the checkbox to apply such owner change to all the subfolders.
• Once completed, give "Everyone" full control.
• While you are still on the "Advanced Security Settings for xxxxx" windows, check the "Replace all child object permissions entries ...." checkbox.

Asus EeeSlate with Windows 10 Preview

I was not happy of my Asus EeeSlate for a while, and yesterday I was so fed up that I decided to do somehting because of couple of reasons:

• The bluetooth connection problem, which the driver has to be reinstalled every single time I turn on the machine, is getting unbearably painful.
• The device is getting damn slow.  It's not particularly fast in the first place, but now it's just slow.
• The machine has only 3Gb of free space left, which doesn't make sense as I only have the OS and Microsoft Office 2013 on it and that's pretty much it.

 Still, a few reasons kept me from reinstalling OS until now:

• Laziness: it does take time.
• Windows Media Center was coming with my last installation of Windows 8 and then migrated to Windows 8.1.  Reinstalling a new OS on EeeSlate means I will lost Windows Media Center.

So here's the steps I did:

• Connect a USB external DVDR drive with a USB hub which also connect to USB mouse, and a USB keyboard.  And then I connect an USB external harddisk to the second USB port.  I booted up the system with TrueImage 2010 boot disc, and with that I backed up the whole harddisk (which is like 58Gb).  That way, if something does wrong, I can roll back my current Windows 8.1 .
• Once backup completed, I boot up the machine with Windows 10 Preview by holding the F2 key of the keyboard.  And with that I followed instructions and completed the Windows 10 Preview installation.
• All the necessary drives are already there, so I do the following to make EeeSlate usable at my workplace:
• Install Google Drive.
• Install Microsoft Office 2013 with SP1
• Set up SketchBook Pro 6.2.5 in portable app fashion.
• Re-calibrate the screen/digitizer.  (it was not perfectly done, but good enough for daily use, and plus I was ... tired .... )

The whole process took me about 4 to 5 hours.

When I freshly done with OS setup, I got 44.6Gb free out of 59.2Gb.  After I installed Office 2013 and other app settings, I still have 39.1Gb.  And then I have Windows update on everything, and now I have 37.8Gb left.  This is way better than the 3Gb free space situation I had before the OS reinstall.

So Playstation 2 emulator does exist

While I was trying to get Dreamcast emulator NullDC 1.0.4 to work, something ringed at the back of my head: is there a simulate exist for another console at the same era: the Playstation2?  Endup I found this YouTube video to show that Playstation 2 emulator does exist.  The emulator is called PCSX2, and does the simulation job pretty darn well.  At the same time I found a lot of PS2 ROMs here, and then I found the instruction on settitng up XBox 360 Controller with it.

Here's the problem though: The emulator crashes frequently.  I tried to current version 1.2.1 and the more experimental 1.30 version, and they both crash somewhere in the middle of gaming.  So for now I see it as an interesting way to try out games that I never tried before, but don't want to put too much hope on commit to play it as it may frustrate me more than entertaining me.

Running Windows Phone emulator in a Windows 8 VMWare VM

I created a Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit VMWare VM using VMWare Workstation 10 for developing Windows Store application.  Since Microsoft is pushing for univserial app between Windows phone and Windows Store (tablet), so I am planning on doing my apps that way.  However, I got into problem starting Windows Phone 8.1 emulator with Visual Studio 2013.  

At the end, this post helped solving my problem.  The key steps are:

- In my VMWare VM setting, enable "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or ARM-V/RVI" option.

- At the end of the vmx-file of my VM, add the following 2 lines:

hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"
mce.enable = "TRUE"

with that, I have Windows Phone emulator running properly.  I can even experience touch on Windows Phone when using my iPad with Microsoft Remote Desktop app.

Using remote desktop to connect to a VM

I can't believe that this problem caused me to fustrate and despress for hours. but the good thing is that eventually I got the problem resolved.

So here's what happened:  I have VMWare Workstation 10 installed on a new machine with a static IP address, and I use it as a closet server.  If the VM is a Windows 7, I can use Microsoft Remote Desktop to access it.  But if the VM is a Windows 8 or Windows Sever 2012 R2 VM, then the remote desktop doesn't work.

I was confused and kept trying different options.  And then I found that if I turned off Firewall, the connection works.

Eventually I found out that all I need to do is change Firewall setting to let "Public" access of remote desktop "on".  It seems like that the VM on my closet machine things that access that VM thru remote desktop on another machine in the same network is still consider "public" because of how VMWare route virtual network packet.

At least I got it working.

EeeSlate stopped recognizing my wireless keyboard, and I don't know which one to blame

Technology is meaningless unless it works work you need it to.   And Eee Slate failed to recognize my Microsoft ARc Keyboard right in the middle of my business meeting.  I had to use a fallback solution by typing on the display with soft keyboard.

I continued trying to fix the problem, and eventually gave up.  I really don't know if it's the problem of that Arc Keyboard, or if that's the problem with EeeSlate.  All I know is that, from now on, I will only carry a wired keyboard if I need to use EeeSlate.