Blogs

Managing users and their computers In this chapter we will cover the tasks required to add and manage users as well as the tasks to add and manage their desktop and notebook computers. This is done using the standard SBS 2008 tools, but discussing the customising of settings to give you a solution that meets both the administrator’s and the user’s needs. This includes: Managing roles Adding Users Managing users storage Adding computers to the network Ensuring computers are up to date with updates To order the book, go to http://davidoverton.com/r.ashx?1M . To find out more about my SBS 2008 BOOK - SBS 2008, Installation, Migration and Configuration click here thanks David Technorati Tags: SBS 2008 , Book , Microsoft , Migration , Installation , Configuration

Following a bit of a discussion on the user groups around this area, I thought I would add my thoughts here. Many home PC users will be getting Windows Vista Home Premium and then potentially discovering that they really wanted the business edition ( SKU ) as they are not just home users. The problem we have is that if you look at the Windows Vista product feature matrix you will notice item like those to the left (click to see larger image) where features are available in the Home edition, but not the business edition. When people "upgrade" within the same release of the OS they expect to not loose features and some of those features include items that Microsoft potentially pays licensing for. Because of these reasons, home users can either "upgrade" to Ultimate, or buy Business in retail and do a full clean install. Now, if someone has any version of Windows XP or Windows 2000 then they can "upgrade" to any of the Windows Vista editions, however the key item to note here is that if someone will loose functionality...

I have just posted a blog item about the latest SB Ignite tour event - hurray I hear you all say, but the thing that got my attention was I went to local.live.com to get a map and it offered me 3 views - road, aerial view (using satellite imagery) and then Birds' eye view. This is just an awesome, awesome, way to see where you are going - have a look at the blog entry - Nottingham, England, 7th September - be there to learn so much more - Small Business Partner Ign and click on picture then play around or click the concord map above - get your personal driving instructions, look at the hotel that is the destination for 8 different angles - makes it so, so, so much easier. I was just blown away by this. Not every location has a birds eye view yet, but the aerial images, routing and the occasional birds eye views are amazing. For more information on Birds' eye images, go to http://www.birdseyetourist.com or to see the local.live.com blog have a look at http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/PersonalSpace.... ttfn David

Service Pack 4 for Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update and for Small Business Accounting 2006 fixes the following issues that were not previously documented in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Application compatibility with Windows Vista Application compatibility between Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update and Office Accounting 2007 Source: Description of Service Pack 4 for Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update and for Small Business Accounting 2006 ttfn David Technorati tags: BCM , Business Contact Manager , Small business , CRM , Service Pack

Again, something I have been asked before - how to get data into and out of BCM - have a look at Import and export business data in Business Contact Manager 2007 - Outlook with Business Contact Manager - Microsoft Office Online Import and export business data in Business Contact Manager 2007 You can use the Business Data Import and Export wizard to import (import: To bring information from one system or program into another. The system or program receiving the data must somehow support the internal format or structure of the data.) data into or export (export: To copy your Business Contact Manager for Outlook business data to a file of a different format for use in a database, a spreadsheet, or another program.) data from Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2007. What do you want to do? Import data Export data Use the wizard to update an existing database with information from another database ttfn David Technorati Tags: Microsoft , BCM , Business Contact Manager , Office 2007 , Office System , CRM , Small Business

I need to take my hat off to the PSS guys in India. I "met" Girish on the Microsoft internal aliases and then delivering a Technet chat. I've since seen him post some great blog posts, but also answer key questions in various SBS forums. Alex recently asked the question: They (well I) think it is time to virtualise the three SBS servers that support their three micro businesses (plus a terminal server each). Lower energy costs (down to 1 server from 3), quieter in their office. Girish has recently blogged something that would help implement this: Content Released: Deploying Terminal Services in a Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Environment Deploying Terminal Services in a Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Environment This document updates and replaces both "Deploying Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server to Host User Desktops in a Windows Small Business Server Environment" and "Installing Virtual Server 2005 R2 on Windows Small Business Server 2003 with SP1." Kudos to...

Hi, I’ve always been open and honest on my blog and it is time to share broadly the news that I’ve left Microsoft.  I’ve been considering my career and a few things became apparent. I wanted a break .  When I joined Microsoft over 12 years ago, a sabbatical was part of the deal.  While this changed during my employment, I’ve decided to take one anyway, so I’ve been putting my feet up over the last few weeks and will continue to do so into the new year.  Obviously, I’m not sitting at home completely idle, but it does mean that I’m generally here when my girls get home from school and cannot say a pressing piece of work is keeping me from spending time with them.  This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but not been able to do so while in full time employment.  Playing The Gunstringer (includes Fruit Ninja Kinect) with Lizzy or visiting the Royal Institute with Molly tonight for the filming of the Christmas Lectures are just two highlights. Finding a new passion .  Looking...

I saw this on the Small Business site in the US and thought it was an excellent tool as to what has changed between the versions of Office from XP through to Office 2007. Simply go to http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/wowpc/CompareOffice.aspx and click out the tabs to get the details. Ttfn David Technorati Tags: Office System , Office 2007 , Office 2003 , Office XP , Comparison , Small Business

For those who have ISOs (eg the ones from MSDN or Vista downloads) and you want to mount them under Vista, Daemon have said they are up to the task. I use the tools and like them too :-) ttfn David DAEMON TOOLS V4.0.6 released! Dear Community, today we release the new V4.0.6 of both, X64 and X86(32bit) version of DaemonTools. There's also a new SPTD-Driver included. Please check out our download-section Changelog: - randomizer (partially also drivernames) enhanced - some AntiBlacklist countermeasures - bugfixes - full vista support Source: THE DAEMONS HOME

So it has been a while since I last dropped out a blog, but this one was useful to me at work, so I thought I would share. Office 2016 (or 2013 and 365) has some lovely functions, one of them being conditional formatting. I use this quite a lot, but one thing stumped me. Below is what I wanted to get to: When I wanted to compare to tables of data and put in place icons to show if the data had moved up or down, I could not do it. Excel would politely tell me that “This type of reference cannot be used in a Conditional Formatting formula” Now, not being one to like these limitations, I realised that I could do it cell by cell, but that would be an awful lots of mouse clicks, so I’ve written this short piece of VBA to do it for you. To open the VBA environment, press-Alt-F11 then right click your VBAProject and select Insert Module. You can then paste the code from below into that window and modify the CompareIcons sub to match your needs. The “CompareIcons” sub makes a call GenericIconsComparison...

I saw a blog entry at Susan Bradley's blog about her now deploying Office 2007 with a classic menu . It was worth of a blog link for all those who want to stick to the old, old ways where you search for items over multiple menus (especially if you turn on personalised menus which hide all the things you don't use regularly). The tool looks slick, but then I found a 2nd one are realised that some cunning ISVs had seen this as their great opportunity to fill a gap that is very unlikely to be filled by Microsoft. The Two solutions are shown below and can be linked to from pschmid.net - RibbonCustomizer™ Feature Tour - Part 3: Classic UI Tabs and Show Classic Menus and Toolbars on Ribbon of Office 2007 : V1.1 Feature Tour - Part 3: Classic UI Tabs RibbonCustomizer™ V1.1 ships with a set of Classic UI tabs for Excel, PowerPoint and Word 2007. Those tabs emulate the Office 2003 menus and toolbars in Office 2007. We provide these tabs to help you familiarize yourself faster with the new Ribbon User Interface...

Just a final one before I go to bed (been at home ill today, so fired off some blogs while I was bed bound) - It is funny how much noise Saas and applications like Office suites online get in the IT press, yet go to your average consumer and you are down with 26% who are aware of them and just 6% who have tried them - and most of these are not regular users. Just reminds us to keep our feet firmly on the same planet as those of our customers, or help them very carefully to step to the new planet. A new study by the NPD Group doesn't paint a great picture for the current state of online productivity suites. If the numbers from a survey of 600 US residents are to be believed, most of us have never heard of, let alone tried, products such as Google Docs or Zoho . Considering various factors such as visibility and the industry's untested waters though, these numbers could be due for a significant shift in the coming years. According to NPD Group numbers, 73 percent of the 600 Americans surveyed have never...

The Video I have delivered a number of Vista and Office demos over my time, so I decided to record a number of them for others to borrow, use, learn from or anything else they choose. This video covers the following subjects in enough detail for people to hopefully understand what they need to know on how to use Outlook via a web browser and via an internet connection: Outlook Web Access with recent browser (IE5 or above) Outlook Web Access basic or lite edition for low speed internet connections Configure Outlook to use RPC over HTTP To see the video played using Silverlight (just try it) click here *. I am hoping that in the near future that the WMV file will be available at new bCentral - the UK Small Business Center on MS.com. At the moment it is not available there, but a copy can be found here * it will take a few moments to open if you have Silverlight installed and require you to download Silverlight if you don't, but it is a 1MB download How I made it I simply ran through part of my normal demo talking...