1. Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler
2. In the right pane, click “Create Basic Task”
3. Enter a name for the task (can be anything), then click Next
4. Select “When I Log On” then click Next
5. Leave “Start a Program” checked and click Next
6. In the Program field enter the name of the EXE and optional arguments, then click Next
7. Check the box “Open the Properties dialog…”, then click Finish
8. Check the “Run with highest privileges” box, click OK.

You are done. Next time you reboot, your app will start automatically after logon.

Easy, huh?

Worse, if you have network drive letters (which live in user space), the system will sometimes assign conflicting USB drive letters (which live in system space)

The solution, at least in XP and Vista, is six magic letters: USBDLM.

From the website, “USBDLM is a Windows service that gives control over Window’s drive letter assingment for USB drives.”

Now, that being said, it has the feel of being made by, and for, programmers. You will need to edit text files to get this working, installation is via a command line script not an installer, etc.

It’s not that hard once you master the concepts, but there is a steep learning curve to use the advanced features.

Lets see if we can’t simplify a bit, just to get you started.

Step 1) Download USBDLM

Step 2) Unzip into an appropriate location.  I’d recommend “C:\Program Files\USBDLM”

This location should not be within your profile (not the C:\Documents and Settings\ directory in XP, or the C:\Users\ directory in Vista)

3) Rename the “USBDLM_sample.ini” file to “USBDLM.ini”

4) Open USBDLM.ini in notepad (Just double click it, in most cases Windows will know what to do)

Look for the “[DriveLetters]” section, enter the following settings to have USB drives use “X” “Y” and “Z”

[DriveLetters]
Letter1=X
Letter2=Y
Letter3=Z

You can add more “Letter#” lines, up to a total of 9.  They count up from one and if you either miss or duplicate a line, USBDLM will stop reading.

There are *lots* of other configuration options available, I can show you a few interesting ones if you’re not too overwhelmed yet, see the “Advanced” section.

5) Install it by running the _install.cmd script.

Note that you must be an administrator, and if you’re using Vista, right click and use the “Run as administrator”, this installer will not prompt to be elevated.

*whew*  That wasn’t so bad, was it
As soon as the install finishes, any existing USB drives should be reassigned to appropriate drive letters.

Most users can stop reading here.  If it works, and you’re happy, smile, nod, act proud, and never speak of it again.

Since you’re still reading, one quick tip: If you want to change configuration options after installing, just edit the usbdlm.ini file.  When you want to “apply” the changes, go to the start menu, choose run, and type “services.msc”, in the list find “USBDLM” and click the “restart” button in the toolbar (it looks like a square, with a play button)

Now, advanced users only, keep reading, there are some other fun settings that can make your drive letter mess a little more friendly.

(Note that you can actually render your system unbootable — If you screw up the settings badly enough, you can cause USBDLM to actually try to unmount your system drive.  This isn’t easy, but it can be done)
First off, I really like [Settings]’s “NoMediaNoLetter=1” option — This means for a card reader, the drive letter will disappear entirely when you don’t have a card inserted.  This is fantastic if you own a multi-slot card reader and have four drive letters used up that you rarely use.  As soon as you insert a disk (media card, whatever) the drive letter will be assigned.

Second, you can use ranges of drive letters like this:

[DriveLetters]
Letters=A,W-Z
(Note that it’s called “Letters” instead of “Letters1” — Read the documentation for all the details, but the above example will work, and you can tweak without risk)

Next up, you can use multiple [DriverLetters] sections, like this:

[DriveLetters]
Letters=W-Z

[DriveLetters1]
MinDiskSize=10GB
Letter=RSTUV

This would assign any disk larger then 10GB to “RSTUV” while smaller USB drives get assigned to “WXYZ” — Unless you have any other drives that are 2TB in size, this is the easiest way to force drobo to one letter, and let other USB drives sort it out amongst themselves.

If you want to get more advanced, read the full help file at http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_help_e.html — This tool is extremely powerful, you can force all sorts of different types of drives to different letters, or even assign letters by drive serial number, interface, size, media type, or any combination.

Success stories welcome, or share your pain — I’ve lost a bit of hair trying to get this working, sometimes you just need a second pair of eyes in the advanced stuff.

I mentioned I missed “Open Long URL”, which would let you paste a long URL and unwrap it before it loads.  This is now part of the main address bar, so an extension is no longer needed.

Sweet!

Firefox appears to be entirely Vista compatible too, which is also a nice bonus.

It doesn’t appear that they addressed any of the deficiencies that existed in the one and only beta which was released many months ago (like still no support for Quick Install… removed support for category coloring in calendar,etc.) — In fact, they removed support for a few devices! Why even run a beta?

For me, this is the last straw.  Well, actually a combination of this, plus iTunes64.  Why?  (And how is that related?)

Well I’m glad you asked.  With Apple having released iPod Touch drivers for Vista x64, my Treo is now my *only* device that doesn’t have 100% support for Vista x64.  (Well okay, in the vein of being completely honest, my printer/scanner/copier doesn’t have 100% support, I can’t make the “Scan” button on the scanner launch my scanner app in x64 mode, it works in x86 mode.  This is actually a limitation of the scanner software though, the drivers themselves support the scanner button — If I manually launch the app, it works great.  Since I didn’t notice this omission for over three months, I can’t say I’m broken up over it)

I’ve been a loyal Palm user since the 90s, and have owned more devices I can count (IIIe, IIIxe, m505, Zire71, TE2, T|X, Treo 650, Treo 680 all come to mind, but I know I am missing a couple in the middle somewhere), and having been progressively more disappointed with each device, I have been near the edge of moving on for a while.

I enjoy PalmOS, but it’s just not powerful enough to keep up with today’s applications, especially combined with the unavoidable brokenness of NVFS.

So, with that in mind, I am ordering a new HTC 8925 (aka TyTN II, aka AT&T Tilt).  Windows Mobile 6, built-in GPS, slide-out keyboard, 2.8-inch touchscreen, Wifi, 3-megapixel camera, 3G HSDPA, support for 32GB SDHC cards, stereo bluetooth headphone support, all in a form-factor that rings in smaller then the Treo 680 (okay, okay, only by a couple millimeters, but still, that’s an impressive list of features that Palm doesn’t even dream about)

I look forward to a phone with reasonable voice quality — My Treo 680 is so bad that I actually put it on a data-only plan and carry a real cell phone for voice, and use the Treo only for data.

I look forward to being able to answer the phone without a crash — Something neither my Treo 650 nor 680 could do 100% of the time.

I look forward to being able to survive a full day of standby with my email client running the background without needing to recharge mid-day.

I look forward to being able to check my email in a hotel lobby via wifi, rather then paying my carrier per-KB roaming charges that reflect a level of greed that would make the Enron folks blush.

I look forward to having more then 15 categories.  Seriously Palm, Y2K was eight years ago, get with the times.

I look forward to one again having more then 1-bar of signal in my basement.  Even my 2004 Razr has enough signal to make and receive calls, and transmit data — I have reliable data on my LifeDrive using Bluetooth through my Razr, but the Treo 680 doesn’t even notice inbound calls most of the time, and don’t even get me started about checking an email.

As I compare the specs against what is more or less the top of the line for Palm’s GSM line (Treo 680), were I Palm, I’d be embarrassed by the 2005-like feature set.

I’ve stayed loyal to Palm thing long due to some bad WM experiences in the 2001-2002 era, my existing collection of applications, and the fact that I know and understand PalmOS’ internals well enough to be able to fix nearly any software issue I bump into.  Once upon a time I was on a constant hunt for new Palm apps, updates to my apps, new tips and tricks — I rarely went more then a week without finding something.  It’s been months since any application I use released anything other then a minor bug fix, and several of my can’t-live-without-them apps have been abandoned completely or simply killed by Palm (KeySuite, Mapopolis, Chatteremail, Blazer)

I am still apprehensive as despite having done a fair amount of reading, I am still effectively going by marketing rather then real life experience.  Palm’s latest devices look great on paper too, so we’ll see.  I am a little concerned about losing some functionality, from what I have heard there isn’t a single functional IMAP mail client on WM6, but there are a couple on the horizon, and this area is an area that I am personally and professionally invested.

So, fingers crossed… Ordering on eBay in a little over 12 hours (no local carrier carries the device I want, nor do I want to renew my contract)

UPDATE (2008/01/12): Palm’s official blog announcement post…

The workaround? Download iTunes with IE in 64-bit mode, then you’ll get the right version.

On the plus side, Vista x64 + iTunes works as well as iTunes ever does.

Kudos to Apple for at least making the RMA process easy…

We have received your request for a replacement IPOD TOUCH.

Our initial diagnosis indicates that because your product replacement will likely be covered by the warranty, an AppleCare Protection Plan, or another Apple repair program, there should be no charge to you for the service performed. If we have questions or concerns regarding the repair coverage, we will notify you.

And they even ship out a box to send in the b0rk’d product. That’s sweet of ’em.

Windows Vista might report that there is “no driver found for you device” and/or will not display the pre-installed Vista OEM drivers. Even by manually selecting the driver, you will still get the “no driver found…” error.  This is most likely caused by a corrupted INFCACHE.1 file. This file stores the location of drivers and their INF files. This file is hidden, has restricted access, and can be found in “c:\windows\inf”.

Delete the INFCACHE.1 file and it will force Windows to rebuild the INFCACHE.1 file the next time Windows searches for drivers. To delete this file, you have to set the security permissions of it to allow Full Control for the User Group Administrators or full control for your user account. Please follow the directions below:

1. Open a Windows Explorer window by right clicking on Start and then clicking on Explore.
2. In the address bar, type C:\windows\inf and press Enter.
3. Find and then right click on the file named INFCACHE.1.
4. Select Properties.
5. Click on the Security tab.
6. Click on Edit to edit the permissions of the file.
7. Click on Add to add User Groups.
8. Type Administrators in the User Groups field and click on OK.
9. Set Administrators to Full Control and click on OK.
10. Move or delete the file INFCACHE.1.
11. Reinstall a device to force Windows to rebuild the INFCACHE.1 file (DO NOT reinstall the same external hard drive that you were having issues detecting before. Please connect another USB device other than the one that Vista had an issue detecting).

This detection issue can happen several times in a row, but repeat the steps 1-11 and try again until this works.

UPDATE: To clarify a couple emails I received, this *only* applies to Vista (all editions, x86 and x64) but not to XP, or any other version of Windows.

Well, I bought myself an iPod Touch — If you don’t know what that is, it’s like an iPhone, but without the phone. Basically it’s an insanely flat 3.5″ touch screen interface on a portable web browser, calendar, photo viewer, contact list, and video player. Oh, and it apparently can play music too.

Out of the box, I’ve gotta say, I was pretty wow’d. It uses Safari, which isn’t a personal favorite, but it’s almost all the power of running a real desktop webbrowser in the palm of your hand (Which is quite unlike Palm’s “Web” (formerly Blazer) or Pocket Internet Explorer, neither of which you’d ever confuse with a desktop browser, although both can get the job done if the site isn’t too complex)

The interface is simple, moderately intuitive, although for a company that specializes in interfaces, there are some glaringly obvious shortcomings. One of the neatest features is the screen rotates to match the direction you’re holding the device. This is surprisingly handy since you’re sometimes wanting a long screen and sometimes wanting a wide screen when viewing the web, or photos. Unfortunately, those two are the only apps that actually rotate, the main menu does not, so if you’re jumping around (say you’re browsing and need to switch WiFi connections) you need to rotate the device in your hand. Not a big deal, but not a polished feel.

On the flip side, until a couple weeks ago it was rock solidly reliable. I’ve started running into a problem where Safari will close randomly, then a few days later it started rebooting immediately after pressing the power button, at least in some cases. Twice now it has reverted back to 1999 (which I guess is another feature, it appears to be Y2K compliant — Yay!)

Apple is surprisingly difficult to get in touch with, I’ll give $20 to anyone who can point me to where there is an email address (or even a *sigh* webform) to contact support to find out if I’m doing something wrong, or if the device needs warranty service. I’ve already reset to defaults using the interface, using iTunes, and by performing a recovery update to the latest firmware (which wipes the device entirely). I guess I’ll break down and phone Apple tomorrow and see where we go from here.

On the plus side, giving credit where it’s due, Apple has responded to consumer feedback, version 1.1.2 of the firmware allows you to not only enter and edit contacts, but calendar entries right on the device as well. I’d like to meet the moron that decided it would be a good idea to make the calendar read-only, but that’s another issue altogether.

Now if only Apple would add a few of the iPhone’s other apps. A tasks list, synchronized to my desktop, would be a nice start. Supporting Vista 64-bit wouldn’t be all that bad either (and this is another gripe, iTunes tells you to install iTunes 64-bit, but such a beast doesn’t exist — It’s probably just around the corner, but still, would be nice for software to not send you on a wild goose chase)

All in all though, as a portable web browser, it’s amazing. As a photo viewer, even my mom wants one. As a movie viewer, it’s locked down to Apple’s own format (My last device, a Creative Zen Vision:M, could play XviD, DivX, and a few other formats as well), but I’ve got a nice powerful desktop so I’m not that upset about having to reencode movies to take them with me to watch on the plane. As an iPod, well, I’m not so sure, I’ve really spent very little time actually listening to music, oddly enough, but it seems to do the job.

I’d give it one and a half thumbs up, and depending on how the warranty service goes, and the promised SDK, it might earn the rest of that second thumb.