Here in Canada we are blessed with a number of phenomenal MVPs (Microsoft Valued Professionals).  They are always there to present at user group events, help us out with IT Camps, and share their expertise with the broader IT pro community, and more.  Some of them are also authors,  such as Mitch Tulloch from Winnipeg , whose most recent title – Introducing Windows Server 2012 – can...

Avez-vous d’autres conseils utiles pour les personnes qui veulent éviter ce type de fraudes? À ma grande surprise, il y a quelques semaines, j’ai reçu un appel de Microsoft m’offrant de « réparer ma fenêtre ( window ) ». J’étais surpris parce que : Ma fenêtre n’était pas brisée et comme je...

Licensing. It’s the topic that we all love to hate, or to ignore at any rate . Based on the feedback we get through GRS (the Global Relationship Study) Survey that we send out twice a year, Licensing is a major pain point for many of you. We hear you loud and clear and we’re doing more to help make things easier to understand. In addition to the licensing content we’re sharing through...

Today, both the Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate (RC) and Windows 8 Release Preview were made available for public download. More information about Windows Server 2012 RC: Resources page for the RC More information about the Windows 8 Release Preview: Steven Sinofsky’s post about what’s been updated in this release

[UPDATE: The RC release of WMF 3.0 is now avaialble for use with Windows Server 2012 RC. You can download WMF 3.0 RC from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29939] Over the last few weeks while travelling across Canada for the Private Cloud Launch Tour , as well as the Windows Server 2012 Install Camps , I have often been asked whether or not it is possible to use Server Manager...

Last week we released a beta version of Microsoft Assessment & Planning (MAP) Toolkit 7.0.  The MAP Toolkit,  a free download , is an agentless, automated, multi-product planning and assessment tool for quicker and easier desktop, server and cloud migrations. MAP provides detailed readiness assessment reports and executive proposals with extensive hardware and software information, and...

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)...

Before joining Microsoft I spent many years working as an Oracle DBA, SQL Server DBA, consultant, trainer, and so on.  I got to see the differences in features and functionality between a wide variety of products.  I also saw that there was a different approach that Oracle and SQL Server used for incremental numbers in databases.  There are many applications that require incremental...

In SQL Server 2012 we have added the IIF() function to the SQL Server family of functions. It is a brand new logical function being introduced with SQL Server 2012 that allows you to perform IF..THEN..ELSE condition within a single function. This helps in simplified code and easy to read conditions.   In earlier versions of SQL Server, we have used IF..ELSE and CASE..ENDCASE to perform logical...

Continuing with our theme of how to make use of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 , here we have the third and final post of a 3-part series for our French-speaking readers on how to manage drivers using MDT 2010 to help ensure your deployment of Windows 7 on your new PCs works well. The series is written by Yannick Plavonil , a Microsoft MVP based in Quebec. You can find this and more on his own...

After 20 IT Camp events across Canada , if there is one thing that we have heard loud and clear from many of you out there, it is that you like to get hands-on with our technology . This just means that we need to do more of them, and we are. Over the next 6 weeks we will be coming to a city near you with a series of two events – Private Cloud Boot Camps and Windows Server 2012 Install Camps...

This week we have something for you to share with the SQL Server developers, as well as use in your DBA T-SQL scripts to make life easier when you re-use common code.  Saleem Hakani provides some guidance on new functionality in SQL Server 2012 to help make you more productive when creating T-SQL code. SQL Server 2012 introduces a new feature called T-SQL Snippets. T-SQL Snippets allow you to...

You don’t want to miss tomorrow’s TechDays TV episode.  A couple of weeks ago, we presented part 1 of Windows Server “8” Beta Getting Started:  What’s New in Hyper-V .  Since then the product name has been finalized – Windows Server 2012 – but all of the great features are still there. If you missed Part 1, you can watch it on-demand at the TechDays TV web site . That’s true for all...

Continuing with our theme of how to make use of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 , here we have the second post of a 3-part series for our French-speaking readers on how to manage drivers using MDT 2010 to help ensure your deployment of Windows 7 on your new PCs works well. The series is written by Yannick Plavonil , a Microsoft MVP based in Quebec. You can find this and more on his own blog ...

[ UPDATE: The final set of cities and dates for the Private Cloud Boot Camps has been announced. Learn more and register for the event in the city near you in this blog post . You will also find information on Windows Server 2012 Install Camps there as well. --- Damir] Last week in Las Vegas at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 (MMS2012) we launched our Private Cloud technologies, including...

SQL Server 2012 introduces brand new query hints that allow you to implement query paging solution. In the past, we have used TOP operator to return the top number of rows from a table. However, OFFSET & FETCH options of the ORDER BY clause can give you more benefits than just the TOP operator.   Assume you have 50,000 records in a table and you want to query 1200 rows starting from 25000...

As I wrote in an earlier post , there is no better time to write your exam for 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, than now and particularly before May 31, 2012. So to aid in that endeavour, Joseph Yedid, an IT specialist with Enhansoft in Ottawa, has put together a series of posts focused on getting IT folk ready to pass this exam. Joseph writes his blog at www.josephyedid.com but...

The cavalcade of virtual hands-on labs just keeps on going!  Not only can you try out the features and capabilities of Windows Server “8” beta (now Windows Server 2012) as I blogged about this morning, we have also just released a series of 14 guided labs to allow you to get you familiar with Microsoft’s Private Cloud platform , including System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 . ...

Last week at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 (MMS 2012) in Las Vegas, we announced the official product name and editions for Windows 8 client as well as the official name of the server counterpart - Windows Server 2012 (formerly Windows Server “8” ).  Now, we have not yet updated all of the web pages that say Windows Server “8” Beta to Windows Server 2012 but that is happening slowly but...

Continuing with our theme of how to make use of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 , here we have the first of a 3-part series for our French-speaking readers on how to manage drivers using MDT 2010 to help ensure your deployment of Windows 7 on your new PCs works well.  The series is written by Yannick Plavonil , a Microsoft MVP based in Quebec. You can find this and more on his own blog ...

This year I get the opportunity to connect with the sizeable contingent of customers, Partners and Microsoft Valued Professionals (MVPs) attending the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 (MMS 2012) in Las Vegas April 16-20. Each of the individuals I spoke to were very excited about what they will see and hear about Microsoft’s Private Cloud Platform , System Center 2012 , as well as upcoming technologies...

As I wrote in an earlier post , there is no better time to write your exam for 70-659 Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, than now and particularly before May 31, 2012. So to aid in that endeavour, Joseph Yedid, an IT specialist with Enhansoft in Ottawa, has put together a series of posts focused on getting IT folk ready to pass this exam. Joseph writes his blog at www.josephyedid.com but...

This year I get the opportunity to connect with the sizeable contingent of customers, Partners and Microsoft Valued Professionals (MVPs) attending the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 (MMS 2012) in Las Vegas April 16-20. Each of the individuals I spoke to were very excited about what they will see and hear about Microsoft’s Private Cloud Platform , System Center 2012 , as well as upcoming technologies...

SQL Server 2012 introduces a brand new string function called CONCAT() . CONCAT() string function allows you to concatenate up to 255 string or variable values in to one single string. It requires a minimum of two input values when calling the function and takes care of implicitly converting the data values to a string by following the data type conversion rules of SQL Server 2012. This function would...

These days around the Microsoft Canada office and particularly in my little corner of the world, everyone is laser focused on getting IT folks downloading, learning and certified on Microsoft technologies…specifically private cloud technologies. And just to give you a bit of incentive, we’ve come up with The Skyrocket Sweepstakes . Y’know…for anyone in IT who wants their career to “take off”. What...