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I am holding Office Hours in the Microsoft Tempe Office (60 E. Rio Salado Pkwy., #1200, Tempe, AZ 85281) from 10 AM – 2 PM on the following Mondays in March: March 4, 2013: http://ohours.org/officehours/29244 March 11, 2013: http://ohours.org/officehours/29245 March 18, 2013: http://ohours.org/officehours...

I am a very strong believer that the IT Pro community thrives when everyone shares their knowledge and expertise with each other. In the Phoenix area, the Phoenix Unified Communications User Group have active members that don’t let competitive boundaries get in the way of helping each other out...

As techies, we tend to hunt around to find nifty tools and utilities that will help us do our job easier or better.  I think it is a GREAT idea to share the good finds with our friends.  In that vein, I wanted to share with you a nice tool that helps with provisioning of Active Directory, Exchange...

I have talked about Virtualization and how to configure Virtual Machines (VMs) for quite some time now.  I’m sure every IT Professional on the planet has played with some form of virtualization or other by now as well.  I think by now, we all understand the basics of virtualizing physical workloads...

In the West Region, Chris Avis and I are hosting a set of events in the March and May / June timeframe. In November 2011, we tried out a new format for events which we called IT Camps. This new format included the ability for the attendees to select the topics that would be discussed. We are evolving...

On October 17th, I wrote a blog post about upcoming TechNet Events taking place in the West Region in the November and December time frame ( http://blogs.technet.com/b/haroldwong/archive/2011/10/17/upcoming-west-region-technet-events-in-november-2011.aspx ).  I am now writing a follow up post to...

For all those IT Professionals who administer some aspect of Microsoft servers and desktops and live in Las Vegas, I wanted to let you know that I am holding a last minute event in Las Vegas on October 18, 2011 (that’s 5 days from now).  I do apologize for the short notice, but I am hoping you can...

There are pros and cons to every job in every company.  In my role as an IT Pro Evangelist (ITE) here at Microsoft, I get to use the latest and greatest versions of our software.  Since my role is a technical one, I also get paid to be technically adept at all the upcoming products and not...

I had the opportunity to attend Tech Ed 2011 in Atlanta, GA from May 16th through 19th.  I thought I would recap some of my experiences from the past week.  Tech Ed is one of the best opportunities for IT Pros to gather and get the latest and greatest information on a plethora of Microsoft...

On February 21st, I wrote a post about Backup Strategies for File Servers and Exchange ( http://blogs.technet.com/b/haroldwong/archive/2011/02/21/backup-applications-and-strategies-for-exchange-and-file-servers.aspx ) where I promised to evaluate some backup products. I already did a write up for Backup...

One of the common requests I receive from folks is around the Microsoft Technology Roadmap. Everyone wants to know what the future of a given product or platform will be so they can make better decisions around how to use (or buy) our technologies. I found out there is an event coming up on Thursday...

I just realized that I never posted about the upcoming Tech Ed 2011 in Atlanta, GA from May 16th through May 19th.  How could I have done that?  Either way, it is coming up fast and is the largest Microsoft led IT Pro conference that we put on in North America.  The Keynote starts at 9...

I finally got a chance to install Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2010 in my lab environment and test it out. I was quite happy with the interface and ease of use on configuring backups and restores (protection / recovery). The terminology was a bit different, but not totally confusing. This is...

Wow, I know the month of March so far seems like a month of “advertising” and “marketing” from me, but that is not my intent.  I do need to get the word out on the May series of TechNet Events that will be hitting 5 cities in the West Region.  I will have more technical posts coming soon, but...

I’ve had quite a few people ask me for help understanding the Microsoft licensing mechanisms for some of our Server products. Since these requests are coming from IT Pros, I thought I would start a series of blog posts where I cover some of the basics (and maybe more advanced options) of our licensing...

On Monday, February 21st, I posted a blog about Backup Strategies for File Servers and Exchange Servers .  Here’s my first follow on post based on my experience with Backup Exec 2010 R2.  This is not a super detailed “review”, but my first impressions of the product in my test environment....

Over the years, I’ve had many a discussion on Backup applications as well as strategies for how often to backup.  As a follow up to the series of posts I did regarding upgrading to current Microsoft technologies, I thought I would put forward my thoughts on Backup options as well. I will not be...

The final step of the upgrade process was to decommission all the old servers. The first thing I did was power off all the old servers to make sure nothing else in the environment was still referencing them. I had my friend test everything that they would normally do both locally and remotely (VPN, OWA...

The third phase of the upgrade involves Exchange. As with most small companies, Tailspin Toys uses a single Exchange server as well as Public Folders. They had been using the IMF along with the different filtering options available with Exchange 2003 along with other 3 rd party anti-virus and anti-spam...

Once the workstations were working decently well, we tackled the server side of the upgrade. Since we were only working during the weekends while I had time, we decided to break this into two components – Active Directory and File & Print Servers as the first phase and then Exchange Server as the...

I recently helped a friend of mine update his office network environment from some older outdated stuff to newer stuff. What am I referring to, you may ask? I helped them get from Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, Windows XP Professional and Office 2003 Professional to Windows Server 2008 R2...

Due to a family emergency, I have to cancel the remaining two TechNet Events on Exchange 2003 / 2007 Upgrade to Exchange 2010 scheduled for Irvine on October 21st and Bellevue on October 27th.  I also have to cancel my Office Hours in Orange on October 21st and in Phoenix on October 22nd. ...

I totally forgot to post that I just added a last minute Exchange 2003 / 2007 Upgrade to Exchange Server 2010 Event in Las Vegas, NV on October 19, 2010.  Unlike the rest of the cities, this event will be an afternoon event that takes place from 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM.  It will be held at the Stan...

Today, I had the TechNet Event in Denver Colorado that was co-delivered with Jason Sherry who happens to be an Exchange MVP out of Longmont, CO.  The event went very well today and there were lots of questions.  I wanted to follow up the event with some information for everyone. First, if you...

Exchange Server 2010 released last year in October 2009 and Service Pack 1 released on August 25 th . It is usually at this time during the product lifecycle that we find a large portion of our customers start down the upgrade planning path to get from their old version of Exchange to the current version...