1) Install the game, if you run into problems at this stage, set the MafiaLauncher.exe and MafiaSetup.exe executables on CD1 to Compatibility Mode: Windows XP SP2. If it fails, execute it as an administrator.

2) Go into C:\Program Files\Mafia en set the executable Game.exe to Compatibility Mode: Windows XP SP2

3) Go out and search the web for an update to 1.2 (mafia_patch_1.2_eng.exe). On the web you will find sites which refer to patch 1.3 and 1.2, there is no difference. I found it here .

4) Go into C:\Program Files\Mafia en execute Setup.exe. Make sure you configure it as follows:

5) Now sometimes you might be able to play now, if not, follow the next step. You can test this by playing an intro.avi from the c:\program files\mafia folder. If you have video, your good to go!

6) In order to play the intro movies of Mafia (and play the game), you need and Indeo codec. This is unsupported on Vista (as a matter of fact, starting Windows XP SP1 and higher). Go out and fetch a freeware Indeo codec. I’ve got it from this site. Starting from version 5.2 you have to pay for it so make sure you find an older one

7) Open a command prompt with elevated right (hit the start button, type CMD, right click it and choose  ”Run as an administrator”. In the console type: regsvr32 ir50_32.dll

8 ) Try to play the game and please leave a comment if this guide helped you out (or not)! 

C: Partition of 1,5 GB (for boot files)
D: Partition of 148 GB (Windows and everything)

My BCD (former boot.ini) showed the right stuff but somehow my Windows still wouldn’t boot.
After starting up with a Windows Vista install CD and choosing “Repair my computer” I could access a command prompt.

After executing bootrec /fixboot my machine booted properly and my machines is bitlocker ready

1) Setting the following registry configuration:

Hive:  HKCU
Path:  Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Key:   ParseAutoexec
Value: 0 = autoexec.bat is not parsed
          1 = autoexec.bat is parsed

2) Create an autoexec.bat in the root of your system drive.

echo “@echo off”>>c:\autoexec.bat

Event ID 35
Source : WinMgmt
Category : None
Type : Warning
WMI ADAP was unable to load the ASP.NET_2.0.50727 performance library
because it returned invalid data: 0×0

and

Event ID 40
Source : WinMgmt
Category : None
Type : Warning
WMI ADAP was unable to create the object
Win32_PerfRawData_ASPNET_2050727_ASPNETAppsv2050727 for Performance Library
ASP.NET_2.0.50727 because error 0×80041001 was returned

Some internet forum posts tell you that there is a hotfix @ Microsoft CSS. This is not true.
This problem has been fixed in Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 SP1 which will be released somewhere summer 2008 (currently there this product is in beta).

If anyone has information on how to filter these events from the eventlog (which is a solution to some people), please let me know.

Edit - 4 June 2008
As mentioned in the comments below by Carloc, there is a hotfix available on request (no KB article yet, you have to mention the number 951683. See Carloc’s page for the full story.

You can remove this by following these steps:

1) Download and start a registry editor for you windows mobile device

2) Find and change the registry key: HKLM/Security/Policies/Policies/00001023 to value 1

3) Close the registry editor and on your mobile device navigate to start, settings, lock and disable the “Prompt if device unused for” checkbox

4) Most exchange servers push this policy every once and a while, so install download and install this .CAB file on your device to make this setting permanent.

Your device will never be locked again. Credits go out to XDA developers and Zenyee.

Please note that allthough Windows 2008 is RTM, Hyper-V is still beta. I think it will be released RTM shortly too.

To fix this please be sure that:
- You installed Windows 2008 with ENGLISH language (reinstall if you didn’t do this)
- Selected the ENGLISH-US local (follow instructions below on how to fix afterwards)

1) Open “Regional and Language Options” from the controll panel.

2) The tab “Formats” will be displayed, select “English (United States)

 
3) Click on the “Administrive” tab and click “Change System Locale”, select “English (United States)” in the popup

4)  Don’t restart YET after pressing OK

5) When returning to the “Administrive” tab, press “Copy to reserved accounts”

6) Select “Select both checkboxes” in the popup you will receive:

 7) Press “Ok”, followed by “Close” and reboot the box.

The Hyper-V service will start automaticly.

Im sorry to inform you, the data on your storage card is really gone. Microsoft did a good job on this one, it doesnt delete your data but it wipes it. So the data has been replaced by a different pattern.

It doesn’t matter if you had your storage card encrypted (if it was, a part of the key was stored on your device which is wiped as well).
Don’t try any recovery tools, thats what i did (being desperate) and the Microsoft documentation is right. 

Although ive seen this stuff at Microsoft IT Forum in Barcelone last december, i felt like playing around with it myself so i grabbed a HP DL360 with dual quad core and 16Gb mem to test this new toy. So i installed Windows Server Hyper-V RC1. Here’s a little impression with some screenshots.

Please note: Although Windows server 2008 will install on a 32bit CPU based computer, Hyper-V itself needs a 64bit CPU.After the installation i checked the system properties and ‘my computer properties’ dialog:

Next thing to do was install the Hyper-V role:

After succesfully installing the Hyper-V role, it was time to launch the management interface. Since i only have one physical host, i didn’t use “Microsoft System Center - Virtual Server Manager” which will give me much more management power, including hot stuff like “Live migration” (yes, thats the same as VMotion).

Here we go:

Now let’s create a virtual machine!

Now back to our management tool:

After starting the virtual machine, i received a nice error message. I didn’t enable the right virtualisation options in the HP BIOS:

So i adjusted the BIOS setting (picture will be available later) and now Hyper-V was happy and started:

In the end i installed the following virtual machines:

1. Windows XP SP2
2. Windows 2003 R2 SP2
3. Windows 2008 Core
4. Windows 2008 Enterprise Full
5. SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1

Then i download the latest MS DOS and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups but since i was out of time i couldnt install this, too bad

A few things about this beta:
- When adjusting the virtual memory for a virtual machine, the wizard would let me add a maximum of 16483Mb which is the exact amount of physical memory installed in the host system, doesn’t Windows 2008 and Hyper-V itself use any memory? Starting this experimental virtual machine resulted in an error (obviously)
- This beta required the VM to be off in order to add hardware. Only the mounted CD/ISO could be changed while the VM was running.
- Did you know the host operating system (windows 2008) on which Hyper-V is installed also use the hypervisor? I still don’t know how this works but it sounds interessting, anyone knows more about this cool idea?
- I had some spare minutes and tried to get the network card running in SuSE linux enterprise but yast didn’t find anything. The only way to communicate with this VM was to build an ISO and mount it in the Hyper-V manager and the virtual machine itself (mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cd)
- The snapshot technologie works really well. I started a filecopy, took a snapshot and during the filecopy i made the virtual machine crash (BSOD). After restoring the snapshot, the filecopy would just go on like nothing happend.. cool!

1) Download and install the approperiate decoder, my favorite is ffdshow. You’ll need the 64bit version: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=173941&package_id=229162&release_id=559173
2) Change Media center so it uses the 64bit version of media player instead of the 32bit one
- Open the registry using regedit
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\AppPaths\wmplayer.exe
- Remove the ‘x86′ items and make sure afterwards it looks like this: 

(Default) - “%ProgramFiles%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe”
Path - %ProgramFiles%\Windows Media Player

3) Close regedit
4) Open a command prompt and type this: %windir%\system32\unregmp2.exe /SwapTo:64
5) Reboot the media center box
6) Leave a reply if it worked

Now your good to go, Media Center will play your Divx and Xvid!

UPDATE: Somehow it doesn´t work at everyones Mediacenter, please have a look at the comment by FINN, it might help you!