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September 2005 - Posts

Microsoft Virtualisation Roadmap

Just spotted this publicly available webcast on 4th October 1PM-2PM PST (9PM-10PM UK) which should provide a great opportunity to ask questions about where we are heading with the Windows hypervisor technology. TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Read More
posted Friday, September 30, 2005 11:45 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Automated Deployment Services 1.1 (Including VSMT)

This truly is something I'd long since forgotten about a long while back - ADS 1.1 has been in Beta for quite some time, so it's good to see that it was released a couple of weeks ago on microsoft.com. Although I haven't spent a great deal of time looking Read More
posted Thursday, September 29, 2005 9:23 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Microsoft Codename Max

I've just about finished sorting and cataloging some 400 digital photos I took on holiday last week and the week before. Hence, my excuse for not having noticed Microsoft Codename "Max" being released to the web for trialling. What does it do....? Well, Read More
posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 10:12 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication in Windows Server 2003 R2

Here's a link to a great overview whitepaper describing the Distributed File System Solution in Windows Server 2003 R2. DFS-N and DFS-R when used together provide a relatively simple and fault tolerant mechanism to access file, and is WAN-friendly. Read More
posted Tuesday, September 27, 2005 3:39 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Virtual Server and TechNet Plus

OK, so I'm still going through 5,000,000 emails after 2 weeks away. So after me just posting about MSDN subscribers getting Virtual Server 2005 included in their subscription from December this year, I've now found more info that TechNet Plus subscribers Read More
posted Monday, September 26, 2005 11:09 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
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Virtual Server and MSDN

Not quite as applicable for IT Pro's, but I know many of you do have an MSDN subscription as well as a TechNet subscription. I can't remember exactly when, but Virtual Server used to be included in MSDN through the subscription download for a limited Read More
posted Monday, September 26, 2005 10:36 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Dilemmas, Upgrades and Decisions.

<Holiday Thoughts>Returning back to work mode. Holiday season for me now finally over this year (I've been whizzing, well as much as you can at 3 knots max, up and down the canal networks in the UK). Fantastic time, can't wait to go again. While Read More
posted Monday, September 26, 2005 5:32 AM by jhoward | 4 Comments
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Cheaper Windows Server solution for mid-sized businesses

Just noticed a promotional combination offer running in the UK for a Windows Server System Solution aimed at mid-sized businesses, combining a number of core technology components including Window Server 2003 Standard Edition,  Exchange 2003 Standard Read More
posted Friday, September 23, 2005 7:44 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Proxy server configuration

Always a co-incidence. I was writing a script a few days ago which essentially is a Technorati "pinger" for blog updates. I was writing it at home, and it was working fine. I forwarded it to a few colleagues, and wasn't expecting them to tell me that Read More
posted Thursday, September 22, 2005 1:38 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Windows Server 2003 R2 - Printer Management Console

The PMC (Printer Management Console) is another huge improvement in Windows Server 2003 R2. Tali Roth will be presenting a session on printer management at IT Forum this coming November (details below), but there's also a step-by-step whitepaper guide Read More
posted Wednesday, September 21, 2005 11:07 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Deploying WSUS on Small Business Server 2003

WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) is a great way to manage patching machines in environments, both big and small. However (and I myself and just as guilty as everyone else), often a lot of information you find on microsoft.com is geared towards the Read More
posted Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1:02 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Scripting with Monad

Monad is definitely a hot topic to watch in the future. I've just discovered that Jeffrey Snovers two webcasts about Monad are available for on-demand viewing. If you want to find out more about the future of command line scripting, these are a good place Read More
posted Monday, September 19, 2005 12:25 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Making Robocopy faster

I use Robocopy a great deal to copy stuff from corpnet in a reliable way onto my laptop. One huge advantage of robocopy is that you can set it to copy in restartable mode, and if the network connection fails, it can take off from where it got to. Therefore, Read More
posted Friday, September 16, 2005 7:29 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Part 11: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - OWA is SSL :-)

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. In this blogcast, we do a simple re-configuration to our ISA Server to start using the certificate already installed on that machine to allow encryption of traffic used by our external site, Read More
posted Thursday, September 15, 2005 5:48 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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ADFS in Windows Server 2003 R2

ADFS is "Active Directory Federation Services". ADFS is just one part of the R2 release coming at the end of this year. If you want to find out more, one place is IT Forum in Barcelona, November 15th to 17th, with a pre-conference day on 14th November. Read More
posted Wednesday, September 14, 2005 8:46 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Free Technet Magazine Subscription

...but only if you're US based. I know I get readers from all over the world, and know many of you are US based. I'm hoping to follow up with the powers that be to see if we can get some free subscriptions also in the UK too! The Technet Magazine, Microsofts Read More
posted Tuesday, September 13, 2005 10:32 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Part 10: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - OWA goes SSL (nearly)

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. To re-configure our Outlook Web Access which is currently available on the Internet using http into https, we need a way of configuring the external interface of the ISA server to do "SSL Termination". Read More
posted Monday, September 12, 2005 4:42 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Core Infrastructure at IT Forum in Barcelona this November

So it's been a hectic few weeks for me. I'm nearing the end of pulling together the line-up for the core infrastructure track, so here's a a taster of some of the breakout session content you're going to see (subject to change, just to cover myself!). Read More
posted Monday, September 12, 2005 7:45 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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ISA 2004 and Exchange 2003

Kind of timely to see that a new guide has been published on microsoft.com titled "Application Layer Firewall protection for Exchange 2003 with ISA Server 2004". It tells you much more than I've been demonstrating in the blogcast series on infrastructure Read More
posted Friday, September 09, 2005 1:22 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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TechNet improvements

Just came across this yesterday. If you are a TechNet subscriber, changes to the online site have been made which makes organising your subscription much easier through the introduction of the TechNet indexes. You can find this at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/index. Read More
posted Friday, September 09, 2005 10:22 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments
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Seperating web admin from the virtual server host

Clive picked up on this one last week - a new whitepaper was published which walks through how to seperate the web administration interface from the virtual server host, and that lovely subject called "Constrained Delegation". Almost all of this is explained Read More
posted Friday, September 09, 2005 9:33 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Virtual Server processor clarification

This continually comes up as a query, what the limitation is for installing Virtual Server 2005 standard edition? Standard edition supports up to four processors, and indeed won't install on a machine with more than 4 processors. But what is a processor? Read More
posted Thursday, September 08, 2005 4:27 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Business Desktop Deployment

I was following up a couple of queries with people about desktop deployment last week, and noticed that the Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment was updated a few weeks ago to version 2.5. Rather than re-gurgitate info that other people Read More
posted Wednesday, September 07, 2005 4:18 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Part 9: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - OWA /exchange path redirection

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. Yesterday, we got Outlook Web Access available on the Internet (albeit still using http rather than https - later this week we'll solve that). Our users are currently accessing Outlook Web Read More
posted Tuesday, September 06, 2005 8:11 AM by jhoward | 0 Comments
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Part 8: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Publishing Outlook Web Access

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. One step closer to making webmail available. In this blogcast, we publish our Outlook Web Access on the Internet, but initially using HTTP rather than HTTPS - the reason for this at this stage Read More
posted Monday, September 05, 2005 7:50 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Part 7: Infrastructure essentials Blogcast - Our first certificate authority

Continuing the blogcast series on infrastructure essentials. We're now moving towards making Outlook Web Access (OWA), Outlook via RPC/HTTP and ultimately VPN connectivity available from the Internet. To make access from the Internet secure, we Read More
posted Friday, September 02, 2005 2:29 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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Windows Vista Fast User Switching on domain joined machines

Woohoo!!! I'm suddenly one very happy person. The killer feature I've been hoping to see in Windows XP Pro is present in Windows Vista Beta 1. No guarantees for the future, but it shows the boys in Redmond have the capability. Here's what it Read More
posted Thursday, September 01, 2005 8:15 AM by jhoward | 13 Comments
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