Browse by Tags

If you read this blog, you know about the TechNet Wiki I helped start a while ago. The wiki represents many kinds of awesome. The best of which is the people who care enough about technology, and the wiki, to contribute content. The wiki has been nominated for an internal Microsoft Engineering Excellence...

Bill Laing's blog post today announces Windows Server 8 Beta availability . Some other tidbits to add to your IT Pro reading list include: Download Windows Server "8" Beta http://aka.ms/wdjd5y Win8 Keyboard Shortcuts http://aka.ms/hlagp4 Free-as-in-beer version of Hyper-V Server...

According to our IT Pro customer feedback the number one dis-satisfier is finding the technical information they need. When they find technical content from Microsoft, they general review it favorably. Finding it is the chief frustration. I was taught that one strategy for improving performance is...

The new www.answerdesk.com service offers free support 24/7/365 with the option to upgrade to paid support right there if the free session does not suffice. * *Currently for English-speaking customers, however some Answer Techs do speak other languages, and you can filter/select those ones if you...

Symptoms and error messages for corrupted Hyper-V VHD files are numerous, from the VM refusing to start, to failures to attach the VHD with messages like "Failed to open attachment 'C:\ directory \MyVHD.vhd'. Error: 'The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.'” There are many possible...

We have seen a decline in support cases from Hyper-V customers reporting issues that involve the error message “0x0000001” and “Stop 0x0000001a since the release of SP1 for Windows Server Hyper-V R2. Our advice for Hyper-V users, the solution is to install SP1. This TechNet Wiki article...

Like a lot of people in technology, I call myself an auto-didact . This means I like to fool myself into believing that I am largely “self-taught.” It is part of the mythical life of Americans in particular that the individual can succeed as a lone-wolf. I say mythical not in the sense that it doesn...

Some folks on the TechNet Wiki have started a wiki topic to assist IT Pros in Japan who may have to do some unplanned server take-downs. Check out http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/windows-server-emergency-management-resources.aspx and add your useful links for: Backup/restore...

Wouldn’t it be great if you had a visual representation of all the event IDs for a service, let’s say for example the Microsoft Windows Active Directory Domain Service, and when you clicked on one of the IDs, you could “drill down” into more info on that event? Let me wiki that for you . Kudos to colleague...

My gear-fixation probably started when I was a Boy Scout. There was a tool called the Woodsman’s Pal that I *had* to have. It just looked, well, way more Ninja than the puny “hatchet” I used for years. Turns out, the hatchet worked just fine, still does today. And as an adult...

If you don’t read French, I can explain that the title of this post “ordinateur virtuel stocké “ translated into English (according to the Microsoft Language Portal ) is: “ An inactive virtual machine that has been saved to the Virtual Machine Manager library. The virtual machine's virtual hard disks...

Problem: Hyper-V VM guest (Windows Server 2003) on a Windows Server 2008 R2 host “randomly” loses network connection. Symptom: Unable to ping the VM from the host. On login to the VM error message “The system cannot log you on now because the domain <domainname> is not available.” Restarting the...

Some Hotmail users have recently been confused by fake login pages, like this one: How to spot a fake Hotmail log in page: 1. The real Hotmail sign-n page does NOT host Ads. 2. The URL of the login page MUST be login.live.com and nothing else Please drive awareness so that folks do not get taken in by...

One wishes that what the SQL Server Tech Center has done would be replicated throughout TechNet, no? An updated list of answers to top support calls, with and RSS Feed! If you’d like to see more TechCenters on TechNet offer this – let them know through your favorite feedback channels. Here’s wishing...

Hackers, such as the one that posted this YouTube video “ How to Hack any Hotmail, ” are going after your Hotmail account in increasing numbers. NOTE: You SHOULD NOT click on links on video pages, especially this one, as they often do bad things . In this case, the link downloads malware...

The case of the pending merge. Guest post from reader Jeremy Hagan Recently I had a virtual machine stop responding. Upon investigation I noticed that the machine was paused. This usually happens when the underlying disk has run out of space and it was the case in this instance as well. I thought this...

In ancient days (back in the 1970s) the Hershey Company ran a series of tv commercials for Reese’s, like this one , that showed what happened when “ You got your chocolate in my peanut butter…” ending with “Two great tastes that taste great together." Interesting...

One of the things customers asked of us when we met at TechEd 2010 is summarized as: “ It would be really useful if you would give me a table of <thing> and how it changes from version to version.” The most frequent request was for <GPO>, but it really applies to a lot of <things> of...

One of the things a wiki should enable is great collaboration on troubleshooting. This kind of content greatly profits from many perspectives and contributors. The TechNet Wiki (Beta) also supports useful things not available in the TN/MSND library troubleshooting topics, like video, screenshots and...

It is “no cost to you as long as you first watch this ad…and log in every 30 minutes…and watch the ad again every time…and give up the top 1/5th or so of your screen to an ad rotator that you cannot close…” Just thought you should know. Oh, and, it is all well and good to give up your seat for a traveler...

Sometimes you need to identify if something is running inside a virtual machine before you take action. This sample VBScript uses the same logic found in the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit to show if a deployment is running in a VM. If IsVM Then     WScript.Quit 1 Else    ...

There is a happy-time-waster out there called thereifixedit.com that details some amazing hacked fixes: The new TechNet Wiki is the equivalent for technical content. Find an error or an omission on TechNet content? Now, on the wiki, you can fix it. Check it out http://technet.com/wiki .

Colleague Thomas Willingham has released a short video showing how we collected feedback from TechNet. Check it out:   http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/872bb469-4a79-4934-8287-9d16ac9ead1d

Have you heard? TechNet has launched a wiki for IT Pros and Devs – the TechNet Wiki (Beta). Why does this matter? If you think about the content development and distribution business in terms of the software business, then you can consider every un-met customer expectation as a “bug”. As relates to content...

Ever wanted to help write a KB? Perhaps get the info a little faster? Now you can on the TechNet Wiki (Beta). Here’s an interesting ground-breaking example: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/biztalk-server-backup-job-does-not-delete-backup-files.aspx