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• At this point, we’ve veered fairly far from the original purpose of the Windows 7/HTPC piece, but so be it. We’re on a mission now—a mission for the Holy Grail of audiophile/movie enthusiast playback. As we’ve just established, there are a number of different chipset/discrete graphics solutions able to output multi-channel LPCM audio (several Intel chipsets, a number of Nvidia chipsets, and ATI’s Radeon HD 4000-series cards), but none of them include the Protected Audio Path discussed on the preceding page. As a result, there’s no way to get Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio playback without those lossless codecs being down-sampled to 16-bit, 48 kHz. Ah, but reader bad_code asked about Asus’ Xonar HDAV 1.3—a card that has been in development and “under construction” for quite a while. Just when Asus got its Vista drivers squared away (after much frustration from the community, it’s worth noting), Windows 7 RC1 hits and I move to test it out. Fortunately, I was able to get the Xonar up and running under Windows 7—though not without a bit of tweaking around. First, bear in mind that all of Asus’ software is currently written for Vista. In order to bitstream DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD, you’ll want to install the most current drivers in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 compatibility mode. This will make it possible to go into the Xonar Control Center and set up the HDMI output settings, and then go into ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre (this is the only software decoder that’ll work with the Asus card to do this) to choose HDMI pass-through. You’re not out of the woods yet. I ran into two more challenges in the quest to get this working. The first was TMT3 telling me that my system was not HDCP-compliant the first time I loaded up a Blu-ray disc. This issue only cropped up once the Xonar was added to the system, so there’s a good chance that it can be traced back to a problem with the HDMI path. Think about it. The output is going from the software decoder to the Xonar HDAV to the Onkyo receiver (and to the Samsung TV for video). If, at any point, a link in that chain doesn’t re-encrypt HDCP content, sets its repeater bit to false, or doesn’t pass downstream info (BKSVs & Bcaps) to upstream devices, the HDCP system may fail. Somewhere in my setup this turned out to be the case. Getting around this failure required a step that the MPAA/AACS would probably prefer enthusiasts would not take. However, had DRM not failed at a very fundamental level it wouldn’t have been necessary. So, I installed Slysoft’s AnyDVD HD and circumvented the problem entirely by bypassing AACS. Shame on such a poorly-implemented rights management system for imposing itself on consumers and then having the gall to fail outright. The second problem was an incompatibility with certain discs. Despite sporting a TrueHD soundtrack, for instance The Dark Knight would only play back in Dolby Digital. The same went for Body of Lies. Resident Evil: Extinction (also in TrueHD) stuttered all the way through. Meanwhile, Transformers (TrueHD) and Live Free or Die Hard (DTS-HD MA) passed their respective encoded audio streams beautifully, lighting up the Onkyo receiver's corresponding indicators. Update: Asus says that it is not only on the verge of releasing Windows 7 drivers for the Xonar HDAV 1.3, but also about to release an update from ArcSoft’s TMT 2 to TMT 3 for existing customers. TMT 3 didn’t fix our media incompatibility issues, but that’s a major upgrade for the folks who’ve already purchased this card. Also, representatives at ArcSoft claim to have no trouble bitstreaming The Dark Knight or Resident Evil, so we're still trying to figure out why these titles aren't playing back their high-resolution formats.

• Can I Copy and Paste? Back in the early days of desktop virtualization, the guest OS was completely separated from the host. Let's say you need to complete a Web-based research project and input the data into an Excel-only spreadsheet. If you were on Linux years ago and tried to virtualize, you would need to do your research from within the VM (probably in IE) in order to use the copy and paste functions. The alternative was to manually type all of the research data you found Linux-based Web browser into Excel running in the VM. Neither option is appealing. If you run all your apps from within a VM, what's the point? Why not run that OS natively? Alternatively, why make more work for yourself by throwing out the nearly thirty year-old advent of cut and paste? With VirtualBox, we've already seen how the keyboard and mouse automatically bind and unbind themselves to the guest OS without the need for special keyboard commands. But how about cut, copy, and paste features? In the past, you would most likely be out of luck (or have had to jump through hoops to get something working). Fortuneately, VirtualBox has reached the point where these staple functions are built-in. Go ahead and give it a try. Copy something from the Web in your Linux-based browser and paste it into Internet Explorer in Windows, or vice versa. What about my USB Devices? On page two, we added ourselves to the vboxusers user group. We did this in order to use USB devices via Windows XP. However, the same USB device cannot be used by the guest and the host OS at the same time. Therefore, we need to specify which devices we want to show up in the guest OS. Go ahead and open up XP's VM settings. Make sure XP is shut down, highlight the VM in the VirtualBox main window, and select Settings from the navigation bar. When the Settings window appears, choose USB in the left pane. Under USB Device Filters, click on the Add Filter From Device icon (it's the little USB plug with a green plus sign). A list of your currently plugged-in USB devices will pop up with check boxes next to each. Simply check the device you want the XP guest OS to use and then click OK. For the example in my screenshots, I plugged in two USB sticks (128MB and 4GB), a Canon digital camera, and an HP printer, as well as my Logitech mouse and Altec Lansing speakers, which are always plugged in. Keep in mind that Mouse Integration from page six will handle USB mice, so there is no need to add a filter for that device. The same holds true for USB speakers, since you are using the audio driver from the host OS and it needs the speakers, not the guest OS. Remember that any device you add a filter for will not be usable in the host OS until the VM is shut down or the filter is removed. I selected one of the USB sticks and the HP printer. Special digital camera software, PDAs, iTunes? No problem. Just add a filter for the devices you want Windows to use and the next time that you start XP, they will be connected. Note that any device you use in the XP VM will need to be configured just as you would with any PC running XP natively. Can You Hear Me Now? One of the most common issues that people have with VirtualBox is garbled, or a total lack of, audio playback. Fortunately, this is relatively easy to troubleshoot. If you noticed sound issues when finalizing the XP installation or afterward, you need to go back to the Settings for the Windows XP VM. In the VirtualBox main window, highlight the XP VM, then click on the Settings button in the navigation bar. Click on the Audio page in the left pane. Make sure that the check box next to Enable Audio is checked. If it was already checked and you still have no audio, try another driver in the Host Audio Driver field. Boot up XP and test for sound. If necessary, repeat the process. Eventually one of these drivers should work for you. The Audio Controller field refers to the sound controller on your motherboard or on an installed card. If your sound is still not working properly, check the corresponding hardware manuals to be sure which controller you have.

• In addition to Skype 4.0, bundled software includes Sun Microsystem’s OpenOffice-based StarOffice. StarOffice includes word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation and drawing applications. StarOffice apps are able to save files in Microsoft Office 97-2003 format. If you and/or your users can overcome any Microsoft Office related biases, StarOffice or other free OpenOffice implementations will easily provide more than enough office computing functionality. Add Mozilla’s free Thunderbird implementation for email, and you’ve got a fully outfitted office computer for around $375 at the time of this writing. Well, there is one catch for business computing environments. The 1000HE comes with Windows XP, yes, but it’s XP Home. Computers running XP Home can’t log into or work easily within MS Windows domain networks. I have been able to access workstations and servers on my large, one segment test network, but I have to travel a tangled and winding road to get there. Because single domain logins are not possible, I’ve got to issue passwords for every device I connect to. Because netbook vendors, including ASUS, see netbooks as simple home computers, netbooks aren’t available with Windows business oriented operating systems, such as XP Professional, that give you full access to domain-based networks. Netbook vendors don’t even offer such operating systems as upgrades. I have installed and successfully used both XP Professional and Vista Business and Ultimate, on my ASUS 1000HA. So, it can be done. If you use OS and application image cloning techniques to setup new business computers, you can certainly get XP Pro or another OS on your netbooks with some ease. The cost of upgrading to a business oriented OS, of course, is another issue. If your company has licenses for your OS of choice, costs should be minimal. If not, upgrades could run you around $100 or more. That is, if you can find XP Pro, given that Microsoft has pretty much stopped selling it. Netbook vendors should work out a deal with Microsoft to make XP Pro available for their products, at least until Windows 7 is available. From my perspective, because its days are numbered, Vista isn’t an option for business-based netbooks. There is, of course, another OS option, Linux. With Windows XP grabbing most of the action, fewer and fewer netbooks are available with Linux. My Eee 701 runs KDE’s very nice windows-based Linux workstation client OS. The 701 is bundled with OpenOffice and a ton of other apps, including Firefox and Thunderbird. Its mini-keyboard and small display aside, you can do serious business computing with it. It’s even possible to access MS Windows network resources, but it’s not always easy. If yours is an MS Windows shop, you and your users will probably find Linux workstation clients a bit daunting, at least at first.