I get asked this question all the time and there are a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is included with a TechNet+ Subscription and how it can be used. So let’s clear this up! I copied the following from the TechNet+ Subscription page but I’ll try and go a little deeper in explaining things. Subscribe to TechNet Plus and receive: Full-version software for evaluation - without...

No it is not the end of August yet (sorry all you parents) but it is time to go back to school. I am heading off to Redmond for some in depth training and hands-on labs on Windows Compute Cluster Server, also know as HPC or high performance computing. HPC is a bit of a niche but it is huge in the academic and financial areas. Microsoft is also relatively new to HPC although CCS has been out for a while...

I am sure you have all heard of the Asus Eee PC series of netbooks.  They seem to be the hot gadget lately and not one to miss out on a gadget trend I picked up an Eee PC 901 the other day.  It arrived on Tuesday and I’ve been toying around with it all week.  Before I get any further the specs… 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU 1GB DDR2 (can be upgraded to 2GB) 20GB SSD drive (1x4GB and 1x16GB)...

With Office 2010 out the door more and more people are adding it to their deployment plans. Sean Kearney, aka the Energized Tech, put together this post on how to customize a silent install of Office 2010. Check it out and bookmark the page for when you are tasked with this job :) ------------------------ I Learned a neat trick I’d like to share with you all. It’s called “How...

I was chatting online the other week with Brian - an IT Pro friend of mine here in Ottawa. Brian is the president of TechDelta - a consulting company that has been delivering Microsoft solutions (technical architectures, implementations, migrations, etc.) for the past 15 years. He was working for a large government agency that wanted the abstraction of DFS for shares while also enabling the Access...

Happy New Year! Ok, not quite yet… or depending on when you read this it might be old news.  Either way, I look back on what we accomplished together in 2012 and am amazed… it was an incredible year for the IT Pro community in Canada.  We had several rounds of IT Camps (Virtualization, Private Cloud, Server 2012), A few Launch Events (System Center 2012, Windows Server 2012), and countless...

Looking for IT Camp registration links? We've created an updated post you should visit: IT Camps... come pitch your tent with Windows Server 2012! With Windows Server 2012 becoming generally available September 4, we want to make sure you get some hands on experience with this latest server offering. With new advances in virtualization, networking, storage and automation among other things, there...

I while back I got into a debate with a good friend of mine – Mitch Garvis – President of the Montreal IT Pro user-group . He’s a hands on Small Business Server guy with plenty of practical real world experience with the product and with various customer requirements. We were having a few drinks with a bunch of people after an event one night and I overheard him mention installing...

So this morning at 5:50AM PST Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 were released to manufacturing. Over the next few weeks and months you will see them become available through OEM and Volume license channels, retail channels and Windows Update (SP1 only). Our team will be out on the road soon with the Heroes Happen Here launch event where we will discuss and demo how to start using some of the new technologies...

When Microsoft released their iSCSI Software Target to general download in April they opened up a world of possibilities for smaller companies (as well as IT Pros and hobbyists) who use servers, but cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a Storage Area Network (SAN) device . In this article I will show you how to create a virtual SAN in your environment. Installing the iSCSI Software Target...

Robocopy is one of my top ten tools I have been using for years. I often recommend it to people asking how to migrate fileservers, copy files over the network, pretty much anytime you need to copy more than a few files. Now robocopy is pretty powerful but it is a command line tool and there are still a lot of people who prefer the point and click ease of the GUI. Well now Robocopy has a GUI! You can...

If there is one message that we have heard from you following each stop of the Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office System, and Exchange Server 2007 Business Value Launch , it is your cry for a copy of the software so that you can play and become familiar with it. Working in conjunction with the Product Managers, we are happy to say that we can now fulfill your request. Everyone who attended a Launch...

(Thought that title might get your attention) Over the last month or so – I’ve had my head in the clouds working away on creating a scenario based demo for EnergizeIT that leverages the scalability of the cloud and “transportability” of existing .net code and “n” tier architecture. I’ve been living the life of an IT Pro influenced in a “Dev” world for the most part. I don’t know how many...

In my last piece (Creating a Storage Area Network Using Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3) I showed you how to create software Logical Unit Numbers (LUN). In this article we are going to take what we have learned to leverage the benefits of a SAN device to create redundancy for our Hyper-V environment. We will: Create a failover cluster between two servers ( nodes ); Enable Cluster Shared Volume...

Daniel Sarfati (Winnipeg, Manitoba) Fix Exchange 2007 SMTP Connectors with ADSIEDIT Daniel Sarfati sent me an IM with an issue he had after he upgraded his Exchange 2003 organization to Exchange 2007 and removed the old Exchange server. I asked him to write it up so that we can all be aware of this. -------------------------------------------------- I just installed Exchange 2007 on my...

Storage Pools are a new feature in Windows Server 2012 that at first glance (at the terminology) may look like  software RAID arrays that have been around for years, but are really a new concept, or at least several generations of advancement on the old concept.  They give us the ability to use disks of different sizes and bus types and create a single ‘pooled disk.’ While Storage Pools are...

Jeff Woolsey, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft for Windows Server answers the question: Can USB devices (like smart cards and storage devices) be accessed within a Hyper-V virtual machine? The answer is “Yes” and here are two possible scenarios: Scenario #1 (Primary): Centralized Desktop (VDI) Deployment In this scenario, an end user logs into virtual machine which is running in a locked datacenter...

Good friend of mine, MVP and technical author Mitch Tulloch sent this post in and it could not be more timely.... -------------------------------------------------- Mitch Tulloch here as guest poster to the Canadian IT Pro Blog. Well, the word is out—at WinHEC today, as reported by Redmond Channel Partner , Bill Gates announced that the official name of Windows Server Code-Name "Longhorn" will...

So I managed to sneak into the Digital Ice House as it was open to media for a short period this afternoon and took some video (coming soon) and some pictures I thought I'd share right away. Living Room Master Bedroom Bathroom You can see all the pictures I took today at http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadian-it-pro-team/ Myself and the rest of the team will be there over...

In Windows Server 2008 we were introduced to a revolutionary way to install Windows Server: Server Core . Server Core may look boring – there’s nothing to it except the command prompt – but to an IT Pro it is really exciting for several reasons: It requires fewer resources, so in a virtualization environment you can optimize your environment even more than previously; It has a smaller attack surface...

If you remember way back - I posted the initial confirmation and tickler that Canada was having a major event on February 27th to mark the Launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008. As you have probably read online over the last little while or so, the US have stepped up their marketing activities talking about what's going on all over the States. We just opened our Canadian Launch...

Over the last few weeks I have received many emails from IT professionals across the country about their experience with Windows 8 Consumer Preview .  Overall, I have to admit that the switch to the Metro UI by a number of you has not been a happy one.  Looks like you’re having some challenges with the new UI and I hope sharing my own experience with Windows 8 Consumer Preview may help others...

A few weeks ago, I was surprised to get a call from Microsoft offering to help “fix my window”. This was surprising because: My window wasn’t broken and having worked at Microsoft for a while, I’m pretty sure we don’t do home repairs. Microsoft doesn’t call people out of the blue to offer technical support (I knew what he was really talking about)...

This time of year everyone is rushing to get things done both work and in their home life. As you rush to the get ready for the holidays – you might also be like a lot of IT folks who relish the time in-between December 25th and new years eve. This slower / quieter time at work could open up an opportunity – a brief window of time - where you can try some things out before the new year...

One of the cooler parts of my job is being able to take a look at different hardware and software that our partners provide us with and then share my impressions with you.  Recently, Bell provided me with an HTC Touch Windows Mobile 6 device to try out and use as my every day mobile phone.  I was very happy to receive the device as other members of the team purchased the HTC Touch, raved...