VT's Blog

The Blog of Viral Tarpara A Smart 27 year old's thoughts on Windows, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, and Productivity

Are You a School that’s Considering GMAIL? Outlook Live is Better and FREE!

Many of you have heard of Live@EDU from Microsoft which offers the below for FREE!: 10 GB Outlook...

Author: viralta Date: 04/22/2009

Sun Acquired by Oracle to Make “Apple of the Enterprise”

In a surprise move, Sun Microsystems has been bought by Oracle.  The details are still a little...

Author: viralta Date: 04/22/2009

Office 2003 and Windows XP Leave Mainstream Support on April 14th

Microsoft’s standard support policies dictate that mainstream support will provide free fixes for...

Author: viralta Date: 04/06/2009

Microsoft Drops SharePoint Designer Price – Free as in Beer

The SharePoint Team blog has detailed a great new announcement organizations looking to customize...

Author: viralta Date: 04/06/2009

Microsoft Open Sources ASP.NET MVC 1.0 with BSD-like MS-PL License

Scott Guthrie details one of Microsoft’s new foray’s into FOSS software.  For those of you...

Author: viralta Date: 04/06/2009

How My Stomach Was Gutted When Reading This April Fool’s Article

Today is April 2nd and I make it a habit to avoid the internet on April Fool’s Day because as a...

Author: viralta Date: 04/02/2009

From RedHat CEO: Linux Desktop is Irrelevant

I found this InfoWorld article very interesting because it validates Microsoft’s strategy for the...

Author: viralta Date: 03/31/2009

The New Face of Windows Mobile – Take 6.5

There were a lot of new interesting announcements at Mix09 in Las Vegas a few weeks ago.  One...

Author: viralta Date: 03/28/2009

Windows 7 Rookies – Adam, Age 8, vs Dave, Age 81

Watch who can make a slideshow faster?  Watch in HD download Live Photo Gallery at...

Author: viralta Date: 03/23/2009

Dealing with Error Code 1603 for .NET 3.5 Deployments

This blog post has some tips.  If you produce a verbose log file during the .NET 3.5 update, it...

Author: viralta Date: 03/19/2009

Windows 7 Rookies – Alexa, Age 7, vs Allen, Age 76

Talk about suspense.  Learn more about Rookies on the Microsoft website! As usual, check out...

Author: viralta Date: 03/16/2009

Running Windows 7 Beta on a Macbook

Ars Technica is one of my favorite online publications.  They consistently provide lightweight...

Author: viralta Date: 03/11/2009

How To: Open All Office Applications in 0.5 Seconds!

Did you ever wish you could defrag your workstation in 3 seconds?  Have you ever accidentally...

Author: viralta Date: 03/10/2009

How to Upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7 Using USMT

In my earlier article I discussed a strategy about how to upgrade Windows XP machines to Windows 7...

Author: viralta Date: 03/09/2009

Need to Validate Windows 7 Application Compatibility? Use ACT 5.0

Microsoft releases a lot of free tools and high quality documentation for IT Pros.  When I do...

Author: viralta Date: 03/09/2009

Windows 7 Rookies – Adam, Age 8, Creates a Music Slideshow

Watch this same video in HD (Silverlight required) on the Microsoft website It should be stated that...

Author: viralta Date: 03/09/2009

Windows 7 Cuts Cord to Internet Explorer

Windows 7 Engineering today confirmed that that Windows 7 will allows users and IT Pros the ability...

Author: viralta Date: 03/06/2009

Windows 7 Feedback Stats That Will Make Your Mind Explode

Many of you reading my blog may have heard about the Windows 7 Engineering Blog.  This is the...

Author: viralta Date: 03/04/2009

Tip of the Day - Outlook 2007: Minimize to Get More Usable Screen Space

People often comment how my Outlook screen looks so different from most peoples screens.  Most...

Author: viralta Date: 03/04/2009

Green Virtualization Consolidation Calculator. It’s Really Pretty!

Thanks to Emma, Lady Licensing, for posting about this really cool calculator.  Not only does...

Author: viralta Date: 03/03/2009

The Microsoft I Hope to Lead In 2019

Its not uncommon for the uninformed to accuse Microsoft of being free of innovative thought. ...

Author: viralta Date: 03/03/2009

Tip of the Day – Excel: Fill in Blanks in the Spreadsheets the Easy Way

Fill In the Blanks in Spreadsheets the Easy Way Select all the rows in your Microsoft Office Excel...

Author: viralta Date: 03/03/2009

Tips: ‘Group Policy Preferences’ are a Better Alternative to Logon Scripts

One great new feature in Windows Server 2008 is a feature called Group Policy Preferences. ...

Author: viralta Date: 03/02/2009

Windows 7 Rookies – Alexa, Age 7, Shows Off Photo Stitching

Following Kylie about the joys of using Windows Live Photo Gallery, Alexa shows off her...

Author: viralta Date: 03/02/2009

8 Tips for Improving Collaboration and Presentations with Twitter

Olivia Mitchell’s blog is dedicated to improving presentation skills. She has written a great post...

Author: viralta Date: 03/02/2009

Tip of the Day – Word 2007: Quick Line Count and Word Count

Quickly Know How Many Lines or Words You Have Typed One question I get from a lot of people who...

Author: viralta Date: 03/02/2009

Read About DirectAccess and How It Works!

Keith Combs has a great post providing a high-level technical overview of what DirectAccess in...

Author: viralta Date: 02/24/2009

How To Upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7 In-place

There has been a lot of noise about the fact that Microsoft is not providing an in-place upgrade for...

Author: viralta Date: 02/24/2009

How To: Join the Civil Disobedience Movement Against IE6

On Friday, I wrote about how some of the top sites in Norway decided to notify users that they were...

Author: viralta Date: 02/21/2009

Is Going to College Elitist?

    Rep J. Gresham Barrett           This is not a technical post...

Author: viralta Date: 02/20/2009

Is Dumbing Down IT Technology Concepts the Future of Marketing and Product Satisfaction?

There is a debate inside Microsoft around what IT Pros actually need in terms of content from...

Author: viralta Date: 02/10/2009

Google Licenses Microsoft ActiveSync for Windows Mobile and iPhone Support

At 7:35AM, Google announced that it would release a product called Google Sync for iPhones and...

Author: viralta Date: 02/09/2009

Windows 7 SKUs Not That Bad But I Want Bitlocker Lite

https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/feb09/02-03Win7SKU-QA.mspx My initial reaction to...

Author: viralta Date: 02/03/2009

Firefox and Live Search Finally Play Super Nice

One of the great features about IE8 is the way the search box is provider neutral allowing for a...

Author: viralta Date: 02/02/2009

Rob Weir Wants Students to Pay for Linux and Open Office

I have a really bad habit of occasionally reading Rob Weir’s blog.  For those of you who don’t...

Author: viralta Date: 01/29/2009

Windows Legend Mark Russinovich to Talk Windows 7 Feb 12th

It is funny that of all the cultural and literary references in society, a kid’s cartoon movie like...

Author: viralta Date: 01/29/2009

Microsoft Releases Web Sandbox Virtualization Source Code under Apache 2.0 License

Slashdot has posted one the more positive Microsoft posts I can remember in recent time discussing...

Author: viralta Date: 01/29/2009

How To: Capture Perfect Screenshots

I was reading the an article about the IE8 Blocker Toolkit and when reading the comments, someone...

Author: viralta Date: 01/26/2009

Microsoft Simplifies Virtualization Licensing on Windows Server 2008

In some scenarios, Microsoft found that the CAL policy surrounding Hyper-V use made the solution...

Author: viralta Date: 01/19/2009

Toshiba Announces Windows Media Center Extender Support in TVs

My buddy James Senior has a quick post highlighting the new features in Windows 7 Media Center that...

Author: viralta Date: 01/19/2009

How To: Deploy Office Compatibility Pack with an MSI package

KB 952273 The Office Compatibility Pack has been available for a long time as a free EXE download,...

Author: viralta Date: 01/16/2009

Windows 7 Hits it Off at BETT

Here at the BETT stand, day 2, working at the Microsoft Techdesk has been really rewarding. ...

Author: viralta Date: 01/15/2009

Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts for Power Users

I read Tim Sneath’s blog and he had a massive post on some secrets in Windows 7.  He had some...

Author: viralta Date: 01/14/2009

Windows 7 Training Videos

My good friend Jamie Burgess was kind enough to upload some great training videos around Windows 7...

Author: viralta Date: 01/12/2009

Where Is My Windows 7 Key?

  It has been reported that some MSDN and TechNet subscribers trying to activate Windows 7 Beta...

Author: viralta Date: 01/08/2009

Windows Hosted Virtualization Cheaper than Linux

As a Microsoft employee, this picture just makes my heart tingle.  It’s great to know that that...

Author: viralta Date: 01/08/2009

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