Snow Problem What a winter! The long range weather forecasters got it wrong, traffic in south eastern England ground to a halt at the first sight of snow – my usual 25 minute journey home turned into a 4 hour drive battling against the elements - but Microsoft was ready! For several years now Microsoft...

I managed to finally import, edit, and clean up the video from The SharePoint EDU Conference that took place back in the Summer 2009 in Birmingham.  There is a heavy SharePoint focus as you can tell by the name.  The content below is one of six videos that were recorded so stay tuned for more...

I’ve been meeting a lot of open-source devs lately and most tend to be genuinely surprised about the ability to now use SQL Server 2005/2008 with PHP applications. The best PHP devs, especially those who own or run development houses, tend to be a platform neutral bunch even those that work almost exclusively...

TechNet Webcast: Network Considerations for Deploying Communications Server 2007 R2 (Level 300) Tuesday, February 02, 2010 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time Desmond Lee, Senior Consultant, Winworkers Switzerland http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032439126&Culture=en-US...

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Best Practices for SharePoint (Level 200) Wednesday, December 02, 2009 - 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Time Vipul Shah, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation Tom Brauch, President, Fpweb.net - SharePoint Hosting Pioneer Steve Laux, Product Manager, Fpweb...

I read a great list of free applications on TechRadar that really enhance the usability of Windows 7 especially if you’re a power-user.  Windows 7 is great, but some of these apps really take window management to the next level!  There is a good mix of freeware and open-source software. ...

Attend at Your Convenience! If you weren't able to make the SharePoint Live Virtual Conference & Expo live event on November 5th, you can now view the event On-Demand! They have got all the sessions you missed for you to peruse at your own pace and on your own schedule. Take a look at the complete...

Microsoft patterns & practices is excited to announce the release of: Developing SharePoint Applications Guidance for building collaborative applications that extend your LOB systems In this e-mail: | Customer Value | What’s in Developing SharePoint Applications | Goals | Getting Started | Videos...

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 is Now Available! With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 becoming available in the near future, the Solution Accelerators Team is offering customers and partners a head start on deployment planning with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit...

This blog post has some tips.  If you produce a verbose log file during the .NET 3.5 update, it would help in debugging the situation.  I have to state that for this issue, it would be best if you contact Microsoft Support through whatever support channels you typically use.  Until then...

In my earlier article I discussed a strategy about how to upgrade Windows XP machines to Windows 7 using an in-place method.  My method essentially used Windows Vista as an interim OS.  If done properly via automation and deployment tools, it would only add about an additional 30 minutes to...

Microsoft releases a lot of free tools and high quality documentation for IT Pros.  When I do presentations, I often urge people to refer to our TechNet database but more importantly to read our whitepapers.  Microsoft whitepapers are not only highly prescriptive but are pragmatic in the way...

Thanks to Emma, Lady Licensing , for posting about this really cool calculator.  Not only does it let inform your of how Microsoft virtualization products can help you save money but it can actually produce a report for you based on your own environment! Check out http://www.hyper-green.com

One great new feature in Windows Server 2008 is a feature called Group Policy Preferences .  Unlike Policies , Preferences are not enforced.  Before this feature was introduced, IT administrators would have to often write a whole bunch of logon scripts or tediously build the settings into an...

There has been a lot of noise about the fact that Microsoft is not providing an in-place upgrade for Windows XP users to Windows 7.  This is ironic considering that during the Vista launch, I got laughed at every presentation for actually recommending an in-place upgrade to Vista.  No one believed...

All IE users can now rejoice.  If you read my post , feel free to ignore the advice found there.  If you haven't run Windows Update and patched your machine, you can now download appropriate patches manually.  The patches are organized by OS with all applicable versions of IE in chronological...

This guidance helps architects and developers design, build, test, deploy, and upgrade SharePoint intranet applications. A reference implementation that is named the Contoso Training Management application demonstrates solutions to common architectural, development, and deployment challenges. This guidance...

Finally what the open-source community has been asking from Microsoft has come to fruition, we've released the Office Binary Format in it's entirety and put it under our IRREVOCABLE, GPL-compatible, legally binding Open Specification Promise .  This is an honest gesture by Microsoft to the developer...

I won't get into this whole SP1 mine field as I think there has been enough back and forth on the blogs.  The interesting blogs I've read have been Mike Nash's Windows Vista blog that has been showered with customer feedback to some of our popular evangelists in the field like Keith Combs . The...

  This is going to be one of those months.  Most of you all knew it was coming with the announcement a few months ago.  Be aware this only applies to WSUS customers who have changed the default setting.  What does this mean for your apps?  Well if you haven't tested all your...

  TechNet Resource for Windows Vista SP1  

Hello Everyone, For the next three days I will be talking with customers at the Microsoft booth. For those that do not know what BETT is, it is the largest Education-focused tradeshow in the UK. There are a lot of exciting technologies on showcase here so I want to share parts of the event as well...

During an internal discussion involving a secret plugin, an email was sent out basically giving a laundry list of training material for Office 2007.  Thanks Jessica for sending out this email! I particularly like the printable article and spreadsheets!  Web-based interactive command reference...

This is a public service announcement that by installing Office 2003 SP3, the ability to open and save older legacy file formats will be blocked. The reason for this decision is strictly for security reasons. Some older file formats including some from Microsoft are insecure and do not satisfy new attack...

For the non developers out there, you may be wondering what Acid2 is, but in the web developer world, its HUGE!  Slashdot's tagging of the article is actually quite hilarious.  Read about this historic milestone on the IE Team Blog .  Also Channel9 has an interesting interview regarding development around...