If you didn't attend TechEd IT Forum this year, it's worth knowing you can see a number of sessions from this years conference online through ITs Showtime. For Virtualization: An Overview of Microsoft's Vision for Virtualization (Rajiv Arunkundram) Transitioning...

I was faced this morning with a few dilemmas... First, several inches of snow. Now, just for the record, my idea of fun is absolutely not driving in snow wherever possible having totalled a car many years ago in black ice. No problem, I'll work from home...

A late christmas present ;) I signed on to MSDN subscriber downloads this morning and noticed that Exchange 2007 (combined standard and enterprise edition ISO) are now available for download. [Note - this probably means it's also on Technet subscriber...

Yes, slow on the blogging front, I know. I guess I didn't realize quite how much a change of country and job focus was going to detract from the habit. That, plus a 40th birthday, the massive storm in Washington state last Thursday (and being without...

Good news - as of a few hours ago, both Technet Plus and MSDN subscribers can download Windows Vista (both x86 and x64) from the relevant subscriber download site. If you weren't aware, Office 2007 (Professional, InfoPath, OneNote, Groove, Project Professional...

So now Windows Vista and Office 2007 are here, I've been upgrading to the RTM build on my home machines over the weekend. One little foible I've found is with running the UK edition of Microsoft Money 2005 under Windows Vista. Once Microsoft Money is...

Good news. I've just noticed the launch of the "VHD Test Drive Program". In a nutshell, this is a capability to be able to download evaluation enterprise software pre-configured in a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) to run under Virtual Server 2005 R2...

I apologise in advance - this is probably the *WORST* bit of scripting I have ever written. However, this is stage one and no doubt it will undergo many months of optimisation before I'm finished - it does the job, that's about it. As I alluded to a few...

Up to yesterday, the VHD format was available for licensing from Microsoft. Where as that still exists for those that have previously licensed the format, the VHD format is also now available to everyone under the Open Specification Promise. There's lots...

I meant to publish this earlier today, but I've been on a course with flakey Internet. Ben was on the ball though - for more info on how to sign up for the Virtual PC 2007 Beta, more details are on his blog . Cheers, John.

A problem I've been doing some headscratching with recently I managed to solve this evening - hopefully this will prove useful for others. And yes, before you ask about the subject line, I did have ISA 2006 installed at one point, but went back to ISA...

I've been meaning to try this for a while and finally got round to it at the weekend. Currently, on a monthly backup (or so - you know how things get in the way), I'll compact my Virtual Machine images running on my home domain, zip them up and burn them...

If you weren't aware, you can register for redistribution rights for Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition through this recently published link . Cheers, John.

Following on a previous entry in April, within the last hour, Beta 2 of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 has been made available for public release. For more information, sign up at http://connect.microsoft.com Beta 2 introduces support for AMD Virtualization...

Continuing the configuration of a secure wireless network, this part deals with configuring the IAS server to recognise authentication requests from your wireless device. The first part of configuring IAS is configuring a RADIUS client. In this case,...

So there's many tricks to optimising the size of a VHD. One which I always use, but appears not to be widely known about, is to turn of the system file checker. Of course, this has it's downsides and your mileage may vary. In practice you can reduce a...

So I've got a few blog posts which piece together something I've been trying to do (and finally got working) since moving to Seattle. Namely - set up a secure wireless network. Now, I did have a wireless network at home when I was in England, but it wasn...

This webcast coming up next week took my eye as I've recently put in a (hopefully) secure wireless network at home over the past few weeks since moving over to the US. There's a few blog posts about that and some of the pain which has been involved -...

A revised version of the VM Additions which supports current public builds of Windows Vista Beta 2 (5384, June Refresh Build 5465 and July Refresh Build 5472) in Virtual Machines is available. If you aren't already registered for the Virtual Server 2005...

I've just noticed that Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 will be available next month. Some of the more significant changes are the expanded Exchange mailbox limit to 75GB, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). In addition, SQL Server 2005 Workgroup...

Announced to day at the World Wide Partner Conference , Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition (DCE) has undergone some revisions effective from 1st October 2006: It will be available through Volume Licensing License rights allow an unlimited number...

I installed the trial of Windows Live OneCare on my childrens machine at home last week - the 90 day trial is available here . If you haven't seen it yet, OneCare can be thought of as an all-in-one tune up and peace of mind package including Antivirus...

Just seen that this is now available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx Cheers, John.

Effective immediately, you can now download Virtual PC 2004 SP1 from www.microsoft.com/virtualpc . When we release Virtual PC 2007 early next year, this too will be free. This brings parity with the changes for Virtual Server 2005 R2 earlier this year...

Mike's got all the info here . Cheers, John.