Eileen Brown's WebLog

Bill Gates stepping down

There's a webcast going on at the moment over in Redmond with some significant news.  Bill Gates has decided to step down from his current position and work part time, concentrating on his charities.  I can see the headlines bouncing all over the blogosphere announcing that Bill has actually resigned.  No he hasn't.  He's transitioning to a part time role.  I said a part time role.  And he's not going yet.  He's not even thinking of doing this until July 2008, 2 years from now.(and even then he will continue as Chairman). 

I was walking back to my hotel room when I heard that there was going to be a joint announcement hosted by both Bill and Steve, and guessed that it would be that Bill would be stepping down to focus more on his charities - especially those concerning vaccines.  So How did I know in advance?   A month or so ago, I'd read a really interesting article about the work that Melinda Gates had been doing for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and the key things that made them move into their charity work.  They'd been on holiday to Africa a couple of years ago, and had gone on safari, and both of them were horrifed that children were dying of easily treated diseases like diarrhoea and they both decided there and then that this was a cause really worth pursuing.  So their immunisation program for children was created.  It was really really obvious from reading this article about Melinda that both Bill and her were incredibly compassionate and caring people who wanted to use their wealth for improving the quality of life for those who need it most.  The children.

So, amidst all of the hype and the hysteria that will be reported on the business impacts to Microsoft (which may or may not happen over the next two years).  I for one, am happy that Bill and Melinda have followed their heart and are doing something fantastic and worthwhile, and I, for one, salute them...

Active sync, Windows mobile and certificates

Brett, (he of the interesting blog on Exchange) came up with some excellent resources on active sync the other day in an email that I thought I'd pass them around.  I get asked about these regularly and have blogged about similar resources before in a previous post, so I thought I'd include these too...

308205  XCCC: Valid SSL Certificate Is Required When You Use Server ActiveSync
915438  Error message when you use ActiveSync to synchronize a Windows Mobile 5.0-based device: "The security certificate on the server is invalid"
915152  Information about Microsoft ActiveSync 4.0 error codes, error messages, and how to troubleshoot the error codes
915840  How to install root certificates on a Windows Mobile-based device
841060 How to add root certificates to Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone and to Windows Mobile 2002 Smartphone
 

Thanks Brett - you've saved me quite a bit of research!

ITForum and TechEd merge in Europe

Well the IT forum site is now live on the web - but it's now called TechEd-ITForum.  I think it's a really good idea that the 2 events have merged in Europe.  For one thing, it's only one trip across the pond for presenters from corp, so less disruption for them and their families and they get to go back home in time for Thanksgiving too.  Actually, now I come to think of it, they also get to be at home for 4th July celebrations, so they'll be doubly pleased.  TechEd Europe has almost always been on during the wek of July 4th :-)

Having 2 conferences back to back also gives appropriate focus to both sides (Dev and IT Pro) when you think of up and coming product releases.  With TechEd in the middle of the year, these focus areas sometimes get totally out of step with the product launches, but with the Office launch fosusing across IT Pro and Developer space, and Vista launch spanning both sections too, it just seems more logical to hold these together.  I'm sure that there are lots of other benefits too, as well as the associated cost savings.

There's a registration link on the home page as well as the opportunity to submit your blog URL and have it included on the TechEdITForum site.  Oh, and you get a discount too if you register early - as well as the opportunity to have a private technical session with a TechEd speaker.  Hmmm - I wonder who that is then?...

SMS R2 - available to download

I noticed today on Blakes blog   and Rod's blog that  Systems Management Server 2003 R2 is now available for download. Omar pointed out all of the features included in the release and Anthony talked very coprehensively about upgrading his systems. These guys certainly have their fingers right on the button whereas I'm so far behind in my technical reading that sometines I just want to give everything the finger with the delete key and start again!  Anyway, here's the info from our internal newsletter about the release...

Microsoft announces RTM of the R2 release of SMS 2003.  Included in SMS 2003 R2 is the ability to update custom line-of-business and third party applications as well as to provide scanning for almost 100 critical system vulnerabilities. Together, this new functionality promises to help simplify the process of keeping systems updated and more secure.

***edited links***

Getting started with Software updates

I sent lot of information out about our update services the other day.  I'd been researching some information for a question that I'd received at the Roadshow on Tuesday and thought I'd pass it on.  I was a bit surprised actually to hear that this company had never heard of WSUS at all.  Being immersed in technology here at work I naturally assume that everyone else has access to the same information.  I tend to forget that this "is" my day job after all, and doesn't have the same level of priority for other businesses.   So I sent a few links out by email, then thought I'd reproduce them here too.

Getting Started with Microsoft WSUS on Windows SBS 2003 
This step-by-step document tells you how to deploy WSUS on your network, including installing it on computers running Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003, configuring it to obtain updates, configuring client computers to install updates, and approving and distributing updates.

A Hands-On Guide to Hands-Off Updates with WSUS 
Learn everything you need to know to install, configure, and start using WSUS to manage updates throughout your organization. This article examines the various configurations that WSUS supports and looks at the features that will help you get WSUS up and running quickly.

Windows Server Update Services with SP1

Microsoft Windows Server Update Services with Service Pack 1 (WSUS SP1) enables information technology administrators to deploy many of the latest Microsoft product updates published to the Microsoft Update site. By using WSUS SP1, your customers can fully manage the distribution of updates released through Microsoft Update to clients in their environments, after their testing, and on their schedule.

Maximize the Power of SMS with New Tools for Managing Updates 
Does your boss wants proof that updates were actually installed on every system? This article outlines the Software Update Management features in SMS 2003 and how to use these features to do controlled, phased deployments of updates to a large number of computers and prove compliance through status messages and reporting.

Managing the WSUS Automatic Updates Client Download, Install, and Reboot Behavior with Group Policy 
By Bobbie Harder, Program Manager, Windows Server Update Services, Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) clients can be configured to provide update installation and reboot behavior best suited to your environment and your business needs. This article focuses on configuration options that define update notification, download, installation, and post-install reboot. It also discusses how you can use Group Policy or Local Group Policy to modify Automatic Update configuration on your WSUS clients to determine what notification, download, install, and reboot behavior your WSUS managed clients will experience in updating from WSUS.

Acronym hell in conference calls

James has been nagging me to have a look at this video that he found on Jasons blog.  He practically forced me to watch it the other day.

The scary thing is - I understand almost all of the acronyms and buzzwords that they used during the video.  in fact I use a lot of them myself.  Aargh... Oh heck.  Is James (who hasn't been in my team very long) trying to tell me something?   Have I been a Microsoft manager for too long already... I'm so glad it's Friday and I can get out of acronym hell and into the garden ...

Exchange 2003 synchronisation with Outlook 2003

You know, sometimes I'm really glad that I'm not an Exchange admin any more.  Sometimes life is just too hard... I got a mail from Paul with this challenge:

We have a user that is at the end of a slow link in Africa. We continually have problems with him syncronizing his email. Do you know of any articles or resources that would explain exactly how the Outlook 2003 offline sync works (ie nuts and bolts) I have not been able to find anything that really explains the process in depth. Of course it does not help that his mailbox is 4GB and he absolutly has to sync nearly all of hie email into a folder structure that would fear even the most hardened Email Admin.

Yikes... I'd certainly recommend the mailbox cleanup tool or the mailbox manager to get rid of old mails and suffer the political backlash.  But that's not what I actually sent back to him:

Outlook 2003 talking to Exchange 2003 only synchronises things that have changed - It doesn't do a full sync.  there are a couple of resources that explain things quite well 

Improvements in Client Server synchronisation 

Client Network Traffic with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003:

Detail regarding the compression technique

(I still prefer the ruthless option though)  Good job I'm not an Exchange admin any more... 

64 bit Exchange really does rock!

Tour date 3 of the TechNet roadshow and we were in Manchester.  I was expecting to sail through the session, and all of the demos, and hoping that the UM demo went off without a hitch.  I mean, it wasn't as if it was the first time I'd done this was it?  But I didn't allow for the email telling me about the upgrade to the Unified Messaging server (and the associated downtime) on the day before the roadshow did I?

So I sent a mail to the wonderful Richard basically begging him to leave the old 32 bit server up and running whilst I did the rehearsal the evening before.  There were a couple of issues with the 64 bit server at the time, so after the rehearsal finished, we agreed that I'd do the UM demo on 32 bit kit the next day.  fine and dandy.  Well an hour before my session started, I had another quick run through the UM demo, and I found that I couldn't even login to the system!  Oh panic.... I called Richard at his office number (as I assumed he'd be in the office doing the upgrade in the middle of the night) and got him out of bed instead.  Aargh!  He'd assumed that my demo would be 11am Redmond time, not UK time.  More panic.  (I was at the silent screaming stage by then).  Richard gave me a new login account (from the new server) and I went through the steps of provisioning the mailbox and creating the auto respnse for voicemail and email. (30 minutes before I was due on stage).

Well, by the time I got to the UM demo section of the presentation, I was totally terrified.  This version has all of the bells and whistles that you'll all be gettng in Beta 2 soon, and I hadn't actually played with any of the additional pieces, let alone in front of 300 people... Oh heck.  There's a first time for everything though so off I went.

A perfect performance (if i say so myself).  The UM assistant behaved magnificantly, listened to everything I said and responded first time.  OWA updated automatically as it was supposed to, and everything went like clockwork.  Phew! Such a relief.

So a major thank you to the Exchange team for rolling out such a stonking piece of 64-bit Exchange, and my undying gratitude to Richard in the UM team for responding in an un-groggy way at 2:15AM redmond time.  So to use a totally US based phrase... You rock!

Thank you...

Open your Outlook Calendar in any view you want...

Now this is something that I think that even the great Allister hasn't mentioned on his blog.. If you want to look at your Microsoft Office Outlook calendar a day, a week, or a week and a half at a time.

With your calendar open press ALT+ the number of days you want to show (for example, ALT+3).

I'm impressed...

System Center Virtual Machine manager

We announced this last week at WinHEC.  Bill Gates and Bob Muglia talked about this product and where we are going with our overall virtualization strategy.  I'll leave it to James to go into the Virtualisation technicalities in more detail, but this product falls within my area and is certainly worth a mention if you have a nightmare managing all of your .vhd's in the organisation.  The product overview talks about a few useful features, like the Central library of .vhd files (really useful for your development teams and support resources) and the ability to create a self service provisioning environment.  This is going to save shedloads of disk space as the resources are managed centrally and provisioned and managed in a structured way.  A long overdue feature.  So if you're interested, here are the details from the web... 
System Center Virtual Machine Manager is a standalone server application used to manage a virtualized datacenter running either Virtual Server or Windows Server Virtualization. Virtual Machine Manager is tightly integrated in the System Center family of products and together they provide comprehensive management of physical and virtual environments.

By the way - you can register for the beta version of SCVMM here...

User groups leaders for user groups

We're hosting a community leaders day today on campus, where we invite all of the people in the UK who run User groups, either online or offline.  They come from all technology areas, but in the IT Pto space, there are a number of gaps.

In the UK there is an Access user group, but not an Office User group, a SQL User group, but not a Windows user group (or a Vista group, or a virtualisation user group come to think of it).  There's a Sharerpoint User group, but not an Exchange User group (yet). There's even a Windows Management User group, and one for Unified Communications just starting up.  There are more developer groups that IT Pro groups (do developers need user groups more than IT Pro's?).

So I asked the question to the User group leaders.  What possessed you to start up a user group?  I asked this in the hope that we could get some insight to share with others who may want to start up a user group, or those that haven't even thought of it yet?

I'll share their answers soon.  But what do you think?  Are there any volunteers who would like to start up a user group? If so, I can put you in touch with some user group leaders wih some very different ideas on how these things work.  But they all do. And that's what matters...

Sharepoint 2007 resources

You may have been playing with the Beta of Office 2007, and it may have inspired you to start looking at SharePoint 2007.  I use this quite a bit internally at Microsoft - especially the wiki software and the blogging software. Yes I have an internal blog too, where I chat about up and coming stuff that I can't yet talk about externally.

Now SharePoint is one of those products that bridges the Developer and IT Pro areas: in fact, there are so many things you can do to extend sharepoint especially with the new search facility, and the workflow capability.  So here are a list of Microsoft resources you can go to for information and I'd also recommend that you have a look at Shanes blog too... 

Whats new for Developers

How do I?...

Download Sharepoint Server 2007 SDK

Sharepoint Services SDK

Searching in Sharepoint

Windows Live Local addin for Outlook

I really had high hopes for this.  What a fantastic idea.  Windows Live Local for Outlook.  Just the thing to add maps and directions to my meeting requests.  One of the most useful things is that I'll now be able to calculate the travel distance between the start location and my appointment location and then adjust my departure time based on the estimated travel time.

Well I tried to install it onto my Outlook 2007 and it failed.  GRRRR! It only works with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2000.  I supose I'll have to do a registry hack to get this installed at all and have a play with it (or go back to using Outlook 2003 on my main machine...no chance!) 

Come on guys.  This is a new and funky beta product which adds in to Outlook.  Can't it work with another beta product (Outlook 2007)?  It's only a small change to the beta install program.  So if you've actually managed to install it - let me know if its any good, and worth the tweaks to this machine?  I'd love to know...

Watch out: Another Instant messaging worm

This IM worm has been affecting Yahoo Messenger users, and installs a "Safety Browser" onto the desktop (hiding behind an Internet Explorer logo).  This leads the user to sites which could install spyware on PC's.  Have a look at the news article and press release for more information

So - install Windows Defender to stop any malware arriving on your machines

Use Office Communicator within your company boundaries.

Don't click on any suspicious links.... but I really don't need to tell you that do I?...

Beta 2 of Office 2007 now available

Ok, so I missed this announcement when it came out last week (I was having a break scuba diving, looking at wrecks in the northern Red Sea).  But lots of other bloggers picked this announcement up and passed this arround so I thought I'd follow suit...

You can download the beta 2 bits of 2007 Office System here.  So go and have a look at it and give us some feedback.  I've already had a mail from the product team asking me why I hate Powerpoint 2007 (more on that later) so I can assure you that we do listen to your feedback.  You can give feedback on the product here by the way.

Great product - the best yet I think.  So give it a whirl...