Microsoft

Tim, one of the community leads has a blog that I recommend people to subscribe too. He has said he has had to give up on Vista as it just fails to work . Susan Bradley then asks of Tim if he has logged a bug , but I also remember a long post by Tim on how hard it was to log bugs and being a beta tester. I then did a search of the internet and a few people have asked how to log a Vista bug and the answer appears to be to download a tool and then fill in the details. One thing to say is that things like 3rd party power management tools often break things, so try NOT loading them. Also, if your machine BSODs, let it upload the file to MS so we get the dump. If it BSODs on every boot, try doing a safeboot for it to upload the bugs. There is a great tool in Vista to upload BSODs and other info and it will auto fire when an admin logs in. that is it for tonight ttfn David

I was having a look at the site on OMPL shaing (mine is up there) and I noticed that my blog had been shared by a few people, so I looked around and came across this from Javier an MVP. This post from Javier is entitled "Create easier-to-remember URLs for OWA, RWW and even Sharepoint" and it made me realise how great an this idea is. Just to add to this, I have a 3rd tool to add, which is ISAPI Rewrite, which I use for this site. From Javier's site: If you are running SBS you must know by now that you need to type http://something.yourdomain.com/exchange or /remote to access OWA or RWW from the internet. One issue that I often encounter is that users forget those URLs are (specially if the are technologically-impaired J ). So, what about giving your users simpler URLs? Like http://webmail.yourdomain.com for OWA and/or http://remote.yourdomain.com for RWW It is all so simple, go read his blog entry for more. As I said, he gives two ways to do this, my 3rd is to use ISAPI_rewrite to have lots more control. For this...

I spoke to Matt in our team recently about the backup and disk image technology in Vista and lo and behold, off he went and wrote a whole blog article on it with some fantastic links. The backup in Vista has been critised by quite a few as it does not allow the user to perform granual backups, however I do think that most users who want to backup their documents are more than capable fo simply draging their documents to a CD or DVD and having it burn. For those who want a more robust backup, the Complete PC backup of Vista does a full system image backup. While some find the lack of control fustrating, every end user I have spoken to simply wants a reliable regular backup - nothing more - and this is delivered excellently. ttfn David

If you know anything about the Microsoft Partner organization then you should know that Allison Watson heads it up. Susanne Dansey comments on her blog that she recently met Allison at the UK Party in the evening at the Worldwide Partner Conference. A bit of background has just hit the press on Allison Watson and it shows how determined she is to improve the life of a Microsoft Partner. Further proof that some of us are human – really. Ttfn David

Many people ask me what I do and sometimes they are amazed with the answer "I help Microsoft Partners build solutions that deliver value to their small business partners – for free". This is a great job and part of it is to engage with as many partners as possible to improve the quality and knowledge around the solutions that can be built upon Microsoft technology. This year my role has a slightly different focus, but the way I achieve it will have many similarities. It has becoming important for me to ensure that partners are not just technically capable, but also selling solutions, sometimes even offering their customers alternative licensing options to suit their business needs. Some may see this as me selling out in some way, but while I love technology, if it is not applied correctly and you and I can't make money out of it, then there is a limit to the business value of the technology. I will still be blogging, posting on both business and technical ideas, but also be discussing how to...

Hopefully you have all heard of the Technology Assessment Toolkit – if not, it is a great set of tools, whitepapers, presentations and other "stuff" to enable you to quickly take your customer through the thought process as to what technology can do for them and how you can deliver the value their business needs. One award submission to the Worldwide Partner Conference awards stated – "We make great use of the Small Business Technology Assessment Toolkit we received from Microsoft. This has proved to be an invaluable tool for us and our clients in outlining their business / IT requirements & defining the solutions. We provide an excellent service to our clients & they recognise this from the hard work we put in for every installation—from sales, design, installation & post-installation support—they know they are in good hands and we would never let them down." As to the actual contents of the toolkit: Ready-to-use "Business Assessment" guide Comprehensive...

I should not poke fun at Tim - sorry mate. The Exchange 2007 beta 2 has released. It can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/beta2 and a nice news article about it can be found at http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3622081 . To find out more about the product, you need to go look at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/E2k7Help/e2715491-5b98-4d85-acc7-e038cf3f46ca.mspx?mfr=true The list of new features includes, however the unified messaging piece is key for me.: • Exchange Management Console The Exchange Management Console, one of two new administrative interfaces for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, is based on MMC 3.0, and is required to install and manage Exchange 2007. The Exchange Management Console combines all of your management tasks into one user interface. By using the Exchange Management Console, you can manage all Exchange servers, recipients and organizational components within your Exchange Server 2007 organization. • Exchange Management Shell...

This is not something for every Exchange / SBS user, but it might be interesting to some. We have released our "ForeFront" security technologies that includes mail clensing as an option. CNet gave it a small amoutn of coverage, but you can get more information from the Microsoft web site . It is worth noting that to buy ForeFront you need a volume license agreement, hence why I said it *might* not be ideal for smaller businesses. For most SBS customers, the Hosted Exchange Services may well be the right answer at the right price. ttfn David

Those guys at PTS-TV managed to secure an interview with Rajesh Jha who is GM for Office Live . He talks about how some partners are making "mash-ups" and others are building ontop of the solutions as it is a hosted web site and sharepoint. If you need a basic "What is Live", go to this page for more info The beta is coming officially the UK later this year as the US goes live and really provides an opportunity for those low hanging fruit customers who want a web domain and site, e-mail, calendar, contacts and some sharepoint functionality, but don't want a server. Will has put up a few thoughts on his blog . From the Link above, suggested reading includes: Office Live Developer Guide Preview and the Office Live Developer Portal on MSDN Stream (6 mins) Download (12.5mb) ttfn David

I was looking for a trickle of information that includes videos and podcasts on the technologies around Office 2007 and the Office System. The IW Center is just the right place to get this info - worh a look. ttfn David

Someone recently asked me my Myers-Briggs personality type and while I had taken this test a long time ago, I could not remember my type. I went to the Personality test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology and answered the 40 questions. It came back with the following information - always an interesting read. Purely for fun. Your Type is ENTP Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving Strength of the preferences % 22 12 38 22 ENTP type description by D.Keirsey ENTP type description by J. Butt and M.M. Heiss Qualitative analysis of your type formula You are: slightly expressed extrovert slightly expressed intuitive personality moderately expressed thinking personality slightly expressed perceiving personality ttfn David

Just a quick one to say that MS has discussed Vista Pricing in the US at CNet . While I have no idea how this translates to the UK, this is how it came out. More information is formally announced on the Microsoft site : Full retail versions of Vista Upgrades from XP Windows Vista Ultimate, $399 Windows Vista Ultimate, $259 Windows Vista Business, $299 Windows Vista Business, $199 Windows Vista Home Premium, $239 Windows Vista Home Premium, $159 Windows Vista Home Basic, $199 Windows Vista Home Basic, $99 A quick search of a US site showed XP Home @ $199, upgrade @ $99, Pro @ $299, upgrade @ $199 ttfn David

This one was a bit of a surprise to me, but my Dad, who is an IT Consultant phoned me up to explain that when he range business critical support for a customer down situation he was told that his registration had lapsed. He then had to go through a process to re-register before his call could be processed - and this all took valuable time. I put this down to my Dad's unique way of finding problems with systems, however the very next day I got a mail from another partner who hit exactly the same thing, so think of this as a warning, go give yourself the ability to call MS Support without them charging you when your customers are "down". To get more information and registration information (it is not a long process honest), go to Register for free- Business Critical Telephone Support for registration and http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/tech_support/b... for information. Once you are set up, you MUST note your Support ID - this is the magic that will make it work when you need it. ttfn David