Rob Brooks-Bilson

I'm here in Chicago this week for the Adobe MAX 2007 conference. Following tradition (well, now that I've done it twice, it's a tradition), I've created a Flickr Group for posting pictures of the event. It's a public group, so feel free to post pics and share the group link:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/adobemax2007/

You can see pics from last year's Flickr group by following the related link below.

I've been having problems getting ColdFusion 8 installed on my laptop for months now. No matter how I tried installing it (stand alone, multi-server, j2ee), it caused my computer to Blue Screen during the install process. Everything would go ok right up until I launched the ColdFusion Administrator to complete the install process. After launching the CF Administrator, the computer would continue on for between 1 and 30 seconds before it would blue screen with a BAD_POOL_HEADER error.

I know others are having the problem as well as a Google search turns up several others with the problem but no satisfactory solution.

After a lot of off and on troubleshooting, I finally had a chance to sit down over the past two days and have figured out what the problem is and have come up with a workaround. It turns out that the issue is the JVM. More specifically, Java 6 (and on my machine Java 5 as well) causes the problem. I can cause the BSOD with Java 6 using both ColdFusion 8 and JBoss (without ColdFusion).

Since the ColdFusion 8 installer lays down the 1.6.0_01 jvm, you need a way to install ColdFusion 8 with an earlier jvm. Here's the workaround I've come up with. In my case, I chose to use the 1.4.2_14 version of the jdk:

1. Go through the entire CF install (doesn't matter which server method). However, don't launch the CF Administrator to complete the install. If you do this, you'll BSOD.
2. Download an older version of the Sun JDK. I happened to test with 1.4.2_14, which seems to be working for me. When I get time, I may test with earlier versions of 1.5, but the latest 1.5 still caused BSOD for me.
3. Install the JDK. you may have to reboot.
4. Open the jvm.config file (c:\jrun4\bin) and change java.home to point to the JDK you just installed. This will tell cf to use that jvm instead of the 1.6.0_01 version that installs with cf 8.
5. Start all CF services. If any are already started, restart them.
6. Open the CF Admin to complete the install process. It should complete without error, and without any BSOD.

At this point, you should be good to go. I should point out that the BSOD problem is most likely a problem with Java 6 and either my video card, or my NIC. I have an IBM T60 with an Intel Nic. Others in my office have the same laptop and nic, but aren't having the BSOD problem. They do, however have a different video card than I do (I have an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400). IBM OEM's the card in my case, so any resolution is going to have to come from them on my end. I have no idea if they will ever resolve the issue, so all I can do is continue to test new JVM versions with my setup as they come out to see if the problem has been resolved.

With the move from a dedicated listserv to Google Groups, many people are wondering if there's an archive available of old CFCDev posts. There is, and you can find it here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org/

Future archive posts will be handled by Google Groups.

For several years now, the CFCDev mailing list has provided a forum for the discussion of ColdFusion Components and other OO topics. During that time, Ray and I have had our ups and downs with various listserv packages, virus scanners, and spam filters. With the recent move of CFLib, CFCZone, and the ColdFusionCookbook to new servers, it's time for us to shut down the old box. Rather than go through the process of setting up an entire new listserv on the new machine, with all the associated issues, we've decided to migrate the CFCDev list over to Google Groups.

Several other popular ColdFusion lists are currently hosted on Google Groups, and the reaction has generally been positive. Although there is an automatic way to migrate your current CFCDev subscription over to Google Groups, I don't want to start switching people without their consent. So, to make the migration as painless as possible, we will be sending invites to everyone currently subscribed to the CFCDev list, inviting them to make the switch. Although the CFCDev traffic has lightened over the past year, there's still a lot of valuable discussion that takes place on the list, and the signal to noise ratio can't be beat.

To all of you whom have made the list a great meeting place over the years, we say "thanks", and hope that you'll continue to support the list at it's new home. The new list is already up and running - it's just waiting for subscribers and posts. I'll be putting together the invitation email shortly, but if you want to go ahead and sign-up on your own, the new list is located here:

http://groups.google.com/group/cfcdev

The email address for the group is: cfcdev@googlegroups.com (note you must be subscribed to post, but not to read)

UPDATE: an archive of old postings pre-Google Groups can be found here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org