Visual Studio 2005 prompting for product key

by | Feb 22, 2007 | Blog, Computer Tips, Microsoft Windows

vbThis probably won’t be beneficial to many people, but I ran into an issue with getting Visual Studio 2005 Professional version installed. Now, this is the Open License version and doesn’t apply to retail versions of the product. So, the problem was that the installation was prompting me for a product key. No problem, I thought, we purchase all of our Microsoft products under their open license program. We are a non profit organization so we fall under their charity pricing which saves us a ton of money.

Normally when a Microsoft product prompts me for a product key and I don’t have it I simply goto eopen.microsoft.com which has all of our licensed products listed with their product keys. Well, the Visual Studio 2005 didn’t have a product key listed. After searching and poking around I broke down and called Microsoft. I got transferred to 6 different people and finally got a guy who said “it shouldn’t be prompting you for a product key.”

Ummm…ok. He said I probably already had a trial version installed so it thought I was upgrading and that’s why it was prompting for a product key. Well as it turns out he was partially right. Somewhere along the line I had installed “Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable.” I don’t even know what that was for, I certainly don’t have a clue about C++ but once that was removed the Visual Studio 2005 installed without a problem.

Update 3/8/07:  I’ve also since found that trying to install Visual Studio 2005 from a local copy of the install CD will also make it prompt for a product key.  In the past I’ve copied the full CDs for Visual studio (which I legally own) to my hard drive and installed from there as I hate trying to round up all the cd’s for software when I reload my computer.  I found some directions for copying and running the install from a network storage, but didn’t want to take the time to go through them all.

Take a Holiday

by | Feb 16, 2007 | Photo - CityStuff, Photo - Signs, Photoblog

Take a Holiday

What was your first thought when you saw this picture? Don’t be shy, you aren’t going to hurt my feelings. Did the caption sway what you feel or think? Do you like it when a photoblog has more than just a picture each day? To me it’s not that great a shot, technically, but I’ve been thinking more and more that getting and posting the perfect shot isn’t the end goal. The hotel holds no particular significance. But, it takes me back to a day and a feeling. A day and a feeling that you didn’t experience, but that’s the blog part of photoblog I guess.

More ice

by | Feb 8, 2007 | Photo - Macro, Photoblog

More ice

While the ice had still coated everything I finally got out and took some pictures. I grabbed my kenko extension tubes and found some interesting things before getting too cold to shoot anymore!

Zune Wallpapers

by | Feb 6, 2007 | Blog, Miscellaneous

zune

I’ve had my Zune now for several months, well, since it came out in November to be exact. I still love the Zune as much as when I first cracked open the box. I use it nearly everyday either for music, videos and I’ve actually started using the FM radio everynow and then when I just can’t find music that I really want to listen to. I love it so much that I ventured into modding and replaced the 30gb hard drive for a 80gb.

I’ve found one feature about the Zune that I really like is the ability to change the wallpaper on it. I’m a wallpaper freak, I change the wallpaper on my laptop and 3 other PC’s at least as much as I change my underwear! I started making my own wallpapers, but just wasn’t digging those as much. Then I found ThemeZune.com and was able to get my wallpaper fix and show my Zune some wallpaper love. They have tons of Zune sized wallpapers arranged by type. There are enough wallpapers on there to suite just about everyone.

Trying to thaw out

by | Feb 2, 2007 | Blog, Miscellaneous

ice

I think the recent cold weather here has frozen my blog as well as my photoblog. We had a nasty ice storm spell during which we went without power for 12 days. Going that long without being able to flip on a light switch, plug my laptop into a wall outlet and turn on the stove to cook whenever we please was a strange experience. You just don’t realize just how dependent we spoiled gadget freaks are on electricity. I found myself thinking, “I’ll just jump on the internet and…oh wait, I can’t get on the internet.” I don’t know how many times I walked into a room and flipped the light switch and thought “man, I need to change that light bulb…oh wait, not I don’t.”

wii-packaging.jpg

On another note I picked up a Wii and have to say that I’m impressed. The Wii Sports is a great game that my whole family really enjoys. The idea of actually getting up off the couch to play video games is just awesome. The news channel on the Wii is cool too. You can sit and have news headlines on the screen along with a globe that spins to where the current news headline is from. This spinning globe is used in the weather channel on the Wii as well and is equally as impressive. Surfing the internet on the Opera browser that you can download for the Wii works really well.  I think it’s worth mentioning that when I read that Nintendo had changed the name of it’s next console from Revolution to Wii I was convinced that they had shot themselves in the foot and I remember predicting that the thing would not make it.  Boy was I wrong and boy do I like this machine. Sorry Sony, I’ll pass on the PS3.  Although I still want a XBox360 just for the cool menu system alone!  :)

Iced

by | Jan 26, 2007 | Photo - Macro, Photoblog

Iced

This is the tip of a branch from one of the trees in my front yard. The ice is finally all gone leaving a couple of my trees pretty well demolished. We’ve finally got electricity back. 12 days without electricity is a wierd experience. :)