August 2005 - Posts

31 August 2005
Edit VHD, VUD and VFD files directly
Gilles Vollant of WinImage fame contacted me a few weeks ago to have a look at the latest beta of WinImage. I've been playing with it for a while now and it's been acting flawlessly. Why would this be of particular interest to me? One very good reason Read More...
3 Comments  
30 August 2005
What days do spammers take off?
Kind of interesting this one. I was looking through some of the logs for my home-brewed spam system on my home hetwork. Not perfect, but a lot cheaper than commercial products - even as a Microsoft employee, I would still need to buy this stuff otherwise, Read More...
2 Comments  
29 August 2005
xyzzy
It's a long bank holiday long weekend over in the UK, so a quick blog entry which has absolutely nothing to do with work. You need to be over a certain age to have a clue what "xyzzy" has to do with anything. I first came across the term probably in the Read More...
3 Comments  
26 August 2005
Can the Virtual Server DHCP server be flagged as a rogue DHCP server?
This interesting question came up in a discussion recently. The answer is no, but you have to think very carefully before coming up with a definite answer. Understandly, you need to enable DHCP on virtual networks to simulate the environment you're configuring, Read More...
1 Comments  
25 August 2005
Can I run Virtual Machines when I'm not logged on?
I wanted to clarify this common problem - I was asked it a couple of times over at TechEd this year, and I got an email asking the same question last week. The answer is: It depends. If you are using Virtual PC, you must be logged on to the host machine Read More...
0 Comments  
24 August 2005
Part 6: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - 0x8004010F on Outlook send/receive
Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. At the end of the last infrastructure blogcast, you will have noticed the error 0x8004010F "The operation failed. An object could not be found" error. In this blogcast, we solve that problem. Read More...
2 Comments  
24 August 2005
Announcements for Virtual Server 2005 R2 (SP1) and more...
At the IDF (Intel Developers Forum) yesterday, Microsoft made the announcement I've been waiting to go public on for a couple of months now. Virtual Server 2005 SP1 is no more. Well, that isn't exactly true, the changes which are present for those of Read More...
7 Comments  
23 August 2005
Vista Beta 1 and Smartcard Readers - USB may be a better option?
For connecting to the Microsoft Corporate Network over VPN, we use connection manager and SmartCards. I've got two PCMCIA smartcard readers, one for each laptop, made by GemPlus. One is the standard GemPlus PC reader, and the other is a GemPlus 400 model. Read More...
1 Comments  
19 August 2005
Vista Beta 1 Internet Explorer 7 problems with some sites
This is fairly well publicised if you look around the Internet, but not in a single place that I could find. Hence, more for my own reference once I blow this beta build away, I'll want to get back to where I am. Certain sites don't recognise IE7 in the Read More...
2 Comments  
18 August 2005
Vista Beta 1 Sound Setting
I've been playing with Vista Beta 1 over the past few days, and although I can get it working reasonably well on my Dell Latitude D600, I've pretty much given up on my Dell 5160. Unfortunately, there's no LDDM drivers available to enable Aero Glass on Read More...
0 Comments  
17 August 2005
Part 5: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Exchange mailbox and Outlook Profile
Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. The next stage in our infrastructure is to extend our infrastructure by building in one of the most important infrastructure applications - email. Our configuration uses Exchange 2003, and the Read More...
3 Comments  
16 August 2005
The worlds most powerful gaming server?
So what do you do with a Unisys ES7000 32 CPU / 32 GB RAM Server with Microsoft Windows 2003 Datacenter Edition running on it? Have a look at this link to find out one highly constructive use which unfortunately you won't find active in most datacentres. Read More...
2 Comments  
15 August 2005
Lateral thinking - ADSI LDAP Provider to add users to groups
I've been meaning to blog this for a couple of weeks now. I was approached by Gagik with a query about ADSI scripting. Fortunately, I've certainly done a fair bit with ADSI given my background. The problem Gagik was having was adding a user to a group. Read More...
2 Comments  
12 August 2005
Network diagram correction
Well spotted to the people who noticed the deliberate mistake on my network diagram to support the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. The inet.external.net machine representing the Internet and my ISP should indeed by on IP address 172.16.8.1, Read More...
0 Comments  
11 August 2005
Part 4: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - ISA and WPAD configuration
Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. Where we left off, we were able to browse the Internet from clients connected to the intranet, but we had to manually configure the ISA Firewall Client application for the name of the ISA server Read More...
2 Comments  
10 August 2005
Windows Genuine Advantage
You may have noticed, if you've been downloading anything recently from microsoft.com, that with the exception of security updates, you now have to install an ActiveX control. Windows Genuine Advantage went live on 25th July after some 10 months of beta Read More...
1 Comments  
09 August 2005
Security management column
<wear type="flameproof"> Jeffrey R. Jones, the Director of the Microsoft Security Business Unit has recently completed the fourth and final part of his column on Security Management. It makes interesting reading and worth a spare 15 minutes for Read More...
0 Comments  
08 August 2005
How to upgrade from SUS to WSUS
Marc Shepard, a Program Manager for Microsoft in the US held a session at Tech·Ed Orlando this year about how to upgrade from SUS to Windows Server Update Services, the next version of SUS. I know this session was highly rated, and I've already listened Read More...
0 Comments  
05 August 2005
Using Virtual Server 2005 at Microsoft IT - the webcast
After posting up the link to the whitepaper about how Microsoft IT is using Virtual Server internally, I've now found out about a webcast on 16th August which will give the opportunity to ask the "what's and why's" about the implementation. I've included Read More...
0 Comments  
05 August 2005
IT Forum 2005 - Barcelona
The Microsoft IT Forum 2005 web-site is now live to take registrations. The agenda is being formulated now and will be going live in the next few weeks. This is a major event for IT Professionals in Europe (or even further in many cases) with many high-profile Read More...
4 Comments  
04 August 2005
Virtual Server 2005 usage by Microsoft IT
This really interesting white paper was published just over a week ago. It describes how Virtual Server 2005 is being used by Microsoft IT almost in a "commodity" capacity. Virtual Server 2005 provided Microsoft with the means to take consolidation to Read More...
2 Comments  
04 August 2005
Part 3: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - ISA Firewall client
Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. Part three of this blogcast series looks at how to install the ISA Server firewall client and updating the configuration of our ISA Server to detect who is browsing for what, rather than leaving Read More...
7 Comments  
03 August 2005
MOM SP1 is available for download
So hot off the heals of getting MOM 2005 installed with SQL 2004 SP4 , I find out that SP1 for MOM is now available. Now they tell me... quoting from the SP1 homepage (link at bottom) " Broader OS and database support, including <snip> and SQL 2000 Read More...
2 Comments  
03 August 2005
Part 2: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - ISA 2004 rules to allow web browsing
Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. Yesterday, we saw an overview of our network infrastructure and started diagnosing why Internet browsing from our corporate network was not working. In part 2 of this blogcast series on infrastructure Read More...
6 Comments  
02 August 2005
Installing MOM 2005 with SQL 2000 SP4
I was attempting to install Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 on my laptop a week or so ago, and struggling to work out why the MOM installed kept saying that the pre-requisites for installing MOM weren't up to scratch. Specificially, it was complaining Read More...
4 Comments  
02 August 2005
Part 1: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Getting started
Part 1. Starting with the basics .... (it does get more complex, a lot more complex, I assure you). In this blogcast , you see an overview of the infrastructure and browse the "emulated" Internet using a client machine connected directly to the Internet. Read More...
7 Comments  
01 August 2005
Blogcast Series: Infrastructure essentials
I've been busy over the past few days recording a series of blogcasts about setting up the essentials for a typical well-managed infrastructure. The network so far consists of six machines as shown in the diagram below. The intention of these blogcasts Read More...
10 Comments  
01 August 2005
Software Assurance Program Enhancements
On 15th September, there will be four global webcasts at different times throughout the day to cater for the time differences which will highlight some major announcments for the software assurance for Volume Licensing program enhancements. You can register Read More...
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