Welcome to TechNet Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

October 2005 - Posts

Bizarre Weekend Stuff - Halloween came early

Ghosts in the machine. Literally. I'm helping out at the Oracle User Group in Birmingham tomorrow and Wednesday (yes, it's also running today), and was planning on demonstrating some of the features in the latest Windows Vista build. However, on Sat morning, Read More
posted Monday, October 31, 2005 12:21 PM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Part 19: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - RPC/HTTP for Outlook & Exchange - Completing internal config

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. This fourth part of configuring RPC over HTTP for Outlook 2003 moves us on to ensuring that RPC/HTTP works internally from our Outlook 2003 client to our Exchange 2003 Server. First though, Read More
posted Friday, October 28, 2005 1:07 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , , ,

Task manager additional network information

Living proof that no matter how much you use Windows on a daily basis, there's always something somewhere you find which strikes you as "wow, never knew that". Although I have a custom performance monitor MMC snap-in at home, for example, for monitoring Read More
posted Thursday, October 27, 2005 2:43 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Part 18: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - RPC/HTTP for Outlook & Exchange - Initial Setup

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. The third part of configuring RPC over HTTP for Outlook 2003 configures the registry on Exchange 2003 and ensures that IIS is correctly configured on our Exchange server. This is a critical Read More
posted Tuesday, October 25, 2005 9:09 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , , ,

Securely Publishing Exchange 2003 using ISA Server 2004 - "Zero to Hero"

Thanks for everyone who attended todays security event in London. I hope you got a lot out of the demonstration I ran through today, plus of course the other sessions. It was certainly the scariest and possibly "riskiest" session I've ever considered Read More
posted Monday, October 24, 2005 8:35 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , ,

Branch Office Technologies in R2

We IT Forum preparations almost complete and the Windows Server 2003 R2 launch fairly soon, now would be a good time to get up to speed on R2 technologies. There's a series of online chats over the next few months - I'll hold off for the moment for those Read More
posted Friday, October 21, 2005 8:12 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Why business travel isn't always the best option

I got sent this through earlier today and hadn't seen it before. However, it definitely goes down as the funniest thing I've seen or heard this week. Was trying to find somewhere to file it for safekeeping, and my blog seemed fairly appropriate. It's Read More
posted Thursday, October 20, 2005 8:15 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Part 17: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - RPC/HTTP for Outlook & Exchange - Initial Setup

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. The second part of configuring RPC over HTTP for Outlook 2003 connectivity to Exchange 2003 is covered in this blogcast. Now that we have the proxy component installed on the Exchange Server, Read More
posted Thursday, October 20, 2005 7:36 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , , ,

Exchange 2003 SP2 Released

Hot off the press, just spotted the release of Exchange Server 2003 SP2. Time to update my infrastructure blogcast series and think about throwing in some mobile devices to try out the new device-wipe functionality. Guess what I'll be installing at home Read More
posted Wednesday, October 19, 2005 6:14 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Part 16: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - RPC/HTTP for Outlook & Exchange - Initial Setup

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. By popular demand (so you can all stop emailing me now please!), we're going to tackle the subject of RPC over HTTP in the next 10 or 11 parts. First, I feel it important to set the scene to Read More
posted Tuesday, October 18, 2005 10:58 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , , ,

Non-standard Naming conventions - is your name too short?

Naming Conventions. Now there's an interesting topic - it crops up all the time in IT: Server Names, Site Names; Group Policies etc. Where am I headed - no, not into an in depth discussion of best practices in this area, but to add a new one to for the Read More
posted Tuesday, October 18, 2005 10:39 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Help - IE Keeps opening my spreadsheet. I want to save the darn thing...

I received an email yesterday from a user using Internet Explorer to attempt to download Excel Spreadsheets (.xls extension). They couldn't see an obvious way of stopping Internet Explorer from automatically opening the spreadsheet embedded in the browser, Read More
posted Tuesday, October 18, 2005 10:27 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Netware to Windows Server migration

So, apart from being a great showcase for using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to run online labs, this provides a great opportunity to learn about how to migrate from Novell to Windows in this brand new online lab. To sign up and for more information, Read More
posted Monday, October 17, 2005 8:43 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

Turning off differencing disks, and a Virtualisation Live and Uncut rerun anyone?

Thanks to everyone who attended the "Virtualisation Live & Uncut" TechNet evening at the Microsoft office in Reading last night - I had a fantastic time, and it was great to have such an interactive audience. I think I now understand a lot more about Read More
posted Friday, October 14, 2005 6:14 PM by jhoward | 5 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Part 15: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Completing email receiving through SMTP transfer

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. In this blogcast, we complete email retrieval configuration through SMTP transfer. Having seen the ISA logs and network analysis, we configure and apply an appropriate ISA firewall policy, Read More
posted Thursday, October 13, 2005 7:56 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , ,

New virtualisation and Self Managing Dynamic Systems content on microsoft.com

There's a few new and updated pages on microsoft.com following the announcments made earlier this week for the Self Managing Dynamic Systems initiative, and how virtualisation is coming to the forefront of technology. There's lots of info out there Read More
posted Thursday, October 13, 2005 7:16 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Windows Server 2003 R2 End-To-End Overview

If you missed yesterdays webcast exploring the three key areas of the upcoming Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2: Branch Office, Storage Management and Active Directory Federation Services, it is available "on demand" to listen at your leisure. If Read More
posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 1:02 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Part 14: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Preparing to receive mail through SMTP transfer

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. This next blogcast raises the bar in terms of email retrieval. In the previous part, we were using POP3 email retrieval, similar to many home users retrieve email from an ISP hosted mailbox. Read More
posted Wednesday, October 12, 2005 11:59 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , ,

Resolving SMTP error 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for user@domain.com Error 0x800CCC79

I was struggling with this error message today - everything I had found on the Internet suggested it related to security. Well, it does, of sorts, and a careful look at the configuration of your SMTP server without mis-interpreting a dialog box. If you Read More
posted Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:41 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: ,

Part 13: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Receive external email through POP3 polling

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. Unlucky 13 for some - it certainly was for me, I had to record it three times and still had problems along the way! Oh, the joys of real world "live" computing! Anyway, now that we can Read More
posted Tuesday, October 11, 2005 8:29 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , , , ,

Self Managing Dynamic Systems update

Following my last post, here's a few links on microsoft.com which provide more information. A brief on virtualisation is here, and a whitepaper on virtualisation can be found here. But wait... just found more. This is the official press release. There's Read More
posted Monday, October 10, 2005 9:45 PM by jhoward | 2 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

License changes for Windows Server - Virtualisation goes mainstream

BIG NEWS DAY FOR VIRTUALISATION TECHNOLOGY! As was just announced at SoftSummit in Santa Clara, CA today, Microsoft is making some big changes to licensing in from Windows Server 2003 R2 which launches very soon. As was announced at the Microsoft Read More
posted Monday, October 10, 2005 9:00 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,

Get TechNet Plus for half price

Thought you'd like this one if you live in the UK at least. Check out this page on microsoft.com, where there is a huge pricing discount for TechNet Plus subscriptions. If you purchase TechNet Plus directly through that site (ie not through a partner) Read More
posted Monday, October 10, 2005 3:09 PM by jhoward | 5 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

Part 12: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Configuring outbound SMTP

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. Hot off the headphones, so to speak - literally just recorded. This blogcast goes through a typical scenario in a small/medium organisation where an ISP's SMTP server is used to send outbound Read More
posted Friday, October 07, 2005 3:20 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: , , , ,

WMI for Windows Management

I just noticed this video posted up on Channel 9 from a number of members of the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) team at Microsoft show you how to use WMI to manage Windows better. WMI isn't the easiest thing to get the hang of, so it's worth Read More
posted Thursday, October 06, 2005 9:18 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

64-bit Rocks!

...for a few days anyway. I went out and bought an AMD 3400 64 bit machine yesterday for my son who started Uni a few weeks ago. It's a pretty basic machine, but I chose it for its expansion capability in the hope that with a few minor upgrades, it will Read More
posted Wednesday, October 05, 2005 9:31 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Silently Removing XP Games

I'm often sent questions by email about how to do x, how to do y, what does z do etc. This one was a common issue, so I felt it was worth sharing. During their installation, a particular company had included the standard XP games (minesweeper, solitaire Read More
posted Tuesday, October 04, 2005 8:48 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: , ,

ADS 1.1 + VSMT Followup

As I blogged at the end of last week, Automated Deployment Services, or ADS Version 1.1 was recently released. I spent a couple of hours upgrading my demonstration VSMT environment to see what was what. I can, as Dugie also confirmed, confirm Read More
posted Monday, October 03, 2005 10:31 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
Filed Under: ,