Recently, I have been seeing an Apple commercial on TV that rags on Vista.   I am starting to think Apple may have a legitimate point.

I go and insert a CD into my DVD/CD drive.  I open my Windows Explorer and I do not see my DVD/CD-ROM drive. Ok, what is going on. I have not installed any new hardware or added or removed any programs recently (other than Vista updates).  I proceed to Control Panel->Hardware and Sound->Device Manger->DVD/CD-ROM drives.  Sure enough, there was an error icon on top of the drive.  I select properties and see the following message:

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

OK, there is a button to click on to help solve the problem.  I click on the button--totally useless.   I then resort to Googling on the error message and came up with the following fix: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314060  (use Method Two), which involved deleting two entries from the registry and rebooting my PC.  The fix worked and I was able to see my DVD/CD-ROM drives.

We are now almost half-way through 2008, and I am working with an OS that

1. Does not notify me that a critical hardware device is not working.
2. Provides no immediate help to fix the problem.
3. Requires me to perform an arcane maneuver to fix the problem. 

I believe Vista is a big improvement over XP; however, a basic problem like I described above should not be happening.

I picked this information up from a Dave Hayden blog post.

ZoomIt is a Screen Zoom and Annotation Tool for Technical Presentations created by Mark Russinovich and it is FREE!

Here is a brief description of the tool from the download page:

ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image.

I downloaded the application and tried it out in my Visual Studio 2008 IDE.  It worked great and it is super easy to use.

John