Welcome to TechNet Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

April 2005 - Posts

Remote Desktop Assistant 1.0

Sometimes the most blindingly obvious and simple utility become a weapon of choice in your toolbox arsenal. Here's one such example I stumbled across a few days ago and am now wondering how I ever coped before. Over on longhornblogs.com, Robert (who Read More
posted Thursday, April 28, 2005 3:23 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

VM and the VM Community: Past, Present, and Future

Just to show that I'm not completely biased towards Microsoft Technology (although I do passionately believe most of it is really great), here's a blog entry which may possible raise some eyebrows. With the huge talk around the future of virtualisation, Read More
posted Wednesday, April 27, 2005 12:57 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Virtual Server 2005 comparison with Virtual PC 2004

I am currently updating my slidedeck for the webcast I'm doing this Friday on Virtual Server bringing it up to date in terms of the recent MMS (Microsoft Management Summit) announcements. I got to the slides comparing the differences between Read More
posted Wednesday, April 27, 2005 8:10 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

MSDTC Event ID 4143 and 53258 on Windows Server 2003 SP1 Domain Controller

I got hit by a problem on a freshly installed virtual machine using a slipstreamed SP1 installation and promoted to a domain controller. Two events were appearing in the event log which were unexpected. Source: MSDTC Event ID: 4143 InformationMS DTC Read More
posted Tuesday, April 26, 2005 6:25 AM by jhoward | 40 Comments
Filed Under:

Watch those group policy settings carefully

Many people get caught out with group policy - I stand up and tell people all about some of the gotchas on a regular basis. You know, things like making sure you understand the double negatives such as Disabling "Do not keep history of Read More
posted Tuesday, April 26, 2005 6:25 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Virtual Server - cautionary tale about configuration files.

Do you ever have one of those evening where you dig yourself a deeper and deeper hole, and end up going to bed hoping the problem will sort itself out on a reboot in the morning and thinking about avoiding a re-install? Well, the morning is now here for Read More
posted Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:39 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Would you change your PC for $125,000? I would.

If you want to make a difference, now is your chance. Just launched at the WinHEC (Windows Hardware & Engineering) conference is a competition running until October this year open to design teams, students and individual designers alike, to envision Read More
posted Monday, April 25, 2005 2:27 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Minimising VHD size for WS2003 Enterprise SP1 in Virtual Server

I was playing this weekend trying to get the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) size down to the barest minimum. I thought I did OK - WS2003 SP1 with Support Tools, Admin Pack, Group Policy Management Console, Small Office 2003 installation running Word+Excel patched Read More
posted Sunday, April 24, 2005 1:21 PM by jhoward | 8 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Add notepad to your send-to options

I was setting up a new virtual machine (for playing with Windows Server 2003 R2 as it happens, but that's for another day) this morning and getting frustrated when you double-click files which have no application associated with them. On most machines, Read More
posted Friday, April 22, 2005 9:02 AM by jhoward | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Listen to what Steve Ballmer had to say about Virtualisation first hand

Following the HUGE Virtual Server announcements made by Steve Ballmer a couple of days ago at the MMS conference, if you want to here what Steve had to say first hand, click here to hear his keynote speech streamed directly over the Internet. On Read More
posted Friday, April 22, 2005 3:27 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Small Business Server (SBS2003) Webcasts and User Group

Small Business Server (SBS2003) is a really great product for (unsurprisingly) small and medium businesses to operate a one-stop server shop comprising most of the major server components from Microsoft. For example, email, firewall, remote access, collaboration Read More
posted Friday, April 22, 2005 3:09 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit - UK Promotion Offer....

The Windows Server 2003 resource kit will be hitting the streets next month. This is a fabulous resource to have to hand, and is now a full seven volumes covering the entire Windows Server family. The good news for UK people is that by pre-ordering Read More
posted Thursday, April 21, 2005 5:23 AM by jhoward | 3 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

How to sign up for the Virtual Server 2005 SP1 Beta

To participate in the beta program, you need to: Go to http://beta.microsoft.com. (Note: You need a Passport account to sign in.  If you don’t have one, BetaPlace will help you create one.)   Once logged into Beta Place with a Passport account, Read More
posted Wednesday, April 20, 2005 3:17 PM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Virtual Server MMS Announcement (2 of 2) - Vision and Strategy of Virtual Computing Environments

The second of my blog entries about the MMS announcements made only minutes ago by Steve Ballmer relate to the longer term strategy for Virtualisation within Microsoft. You can see my commentary highlighting the shorter term vision for Virtual Read More
posted Wednesday, April 20, 2005 12:29 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

Virtual Server MMS Announcement (1 of 2) - VS2005 SP1. Linux is OK :-)

I've just been listening to Steve Ballmer give his keynote session at the MMS (Microsoft Management Summit) and in particular wanted to tell you about some really significant changes to Virtual Server and Virtualisation in general which are happening Read More
posted Wednesday, April 20, 2005 12:08 PM by jhoward | 5 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

Resolving Event ID 40961 LSASRV - DNS/prisoner.iana.org

This was an interesting problem I was discussing with a customer today. The customer had a concerning looking error appearing periodically in the event log: Event ID: 40961Source: LSASRVVersion: 5.2Symbolic Name: NEGOTIATE_INVALID_SERVERMessage: The Read More
posted Wednesday, April 20, 2005 11:26 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Virtual Server 2005 eLearning Course is now available

A new self-paced on-line course (also available offline) is now available entitled "Using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005". The course takes around 5 hours to complete and prepares students to migrate legacy applications and consolidate server functions Read More
posted Wednesday, April 20, 2005 11:03 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Access Based Directory Enumeration - Download now on microsoft.com

Following my blogcast in February and subsequently posting the markShareforABDE tool for download a few days later, the official download is now available. There's a GUI thrown in as well for good measure for those who try to steer clear of the command Read More
posted Tuesday, April 19, 2005 9:33 AM by jhoward | 5 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

How-to install windows to an external USB drive

Part of the ongoing saga with my backup solution (see earlier posts today) was a seemingly fantasic way of ensuring that out on the road, should my laptop hard-disk fail, I'd still be able to continue working. The theory was simple. Install a base Read More
posted Tuesday, April 19, 2005 9:09 AM by jhoward | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Do you use blogging software?

Something which cropped up internally over the past couple of days has been a discussion about how many people at Microsoft must have moved on beyond using the standard HTML interface to their blog engine for posting. I kept quiet at this point once discussions Read More
posted Tuesday, April 19, 2005 9:01 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

WS-RM (WS-ReliableMessaging) specification has been submitted to OASIS

A significant press release was made this morning regarding WS-ReliableMessaging or WS-RM moving one step closer to being an industry standard. WS-ReliableMessaging (WS-RM) is the first specification to pass through the full WS-* Workshop Process and Read More
posted Tuesday, April 19, 2005 8:40 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Virtual Server 2005 Solution Accelerator - a 'must read'

So what else good has come out of my "downtime"  (yes, the restore is still running - 13% and counting slowly so far). Well, one thing which I really recommend you take a look at is the Solution Accelerator for Consolidating and Migrating LOB Applications which Read More
posted Tuesday, April 19, 2005 7:46 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

My reason for not backing up

Somewhat of a cynical post, but there's always a bright side to even the darkest of corners. So here's a "glass half full" reason why not to do a backup, or at least not to do a backup in the way I tried yesterday. I run Windows Server 2003 on my main Read More
posted Tuesday, April 19, 2005 7:32 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Changing default number of machines users can add to a domain

Most of you know the limit of 10 times authenticated users can join machines to a domain. Upping the limit, or removing it is a very simple thing to do, however everytime someone asks me, I have to go back to look it up again.  At least if I have Read More
posted Monday, April 18, 2005 12:02 PM by jhoward | 3 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Microsoft Knowledgebase is now available as an RSS feed

It had to happen - RSS everywhere, and this is another great example. The Help and Support site (http://support.microsoft.com) can now provide an RSS feed to your favorite RSS reader program with daily feeds of new articles relating to the products you Read More
posted Saturday, April 16, 2005 5:56 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

Virtual Server Deployment Manager

Virtual Server Deployment Manager (VSDM) provides a streamlined way to manage and deploy Virtual Machines. Using this tool, regular users (not just administrators) will be able to create and manage their own machines, without impacting other users' machines.Thanks Read More
posted Friday, April 15, 2005 1:54 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Announcements

Yesterday was significant for two reasons. Two related announcements were made on microsoft.com regarding the support policy for those of you running microsoft applications in virtual environments. I am asked about this so often, and am frustrated by Read More
posted Thursday, April 14, 2005 5:27 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: , , , ,

Managing Virtual Server 2005 just got easier

As I mentioned at the Technical Roadshow yesterday in the Virtual Server session, the VSMP or Virtual Server Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 was released just a few days ago. This is a really great way to monitor your virtual environment. Read More
posted Wednesday, April 13, 2005 4:13 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Backing out overdone Software Restriction Policies

One of the things about playing with Software Restriction Policies is that you can go too far and end up not being able to do anything to rectify the situation. Active Directory Group Policy applied through a link to an OU is easy enough to fix - simply Read More
posted Wednesday, April 06, 2005 8:11 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Tablet PC Experience Pack Download and Release Information

For those of you using Tablet PCs, The "Experience Pack" has just been released to the web for free download through the Windows Genuine Advantage programme. The Experience Pack extends how you use the great pen and ink capabilities of the Tablet PC. Read More
posted Monday, April 04, 2005 6:26 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Windows Server System Reference Architecture (WSSRA)

Version 1.1 of the WSSRA was released to the web for download this morning. The WSSRA deliver architectural guidance on enterprise level IT infrastructure. Download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d44e34ec-b4e2-49a1-9f40-9ed4ba3765df&displaylang=en Read More
posted Monday, April 04, 2005 6:17 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,