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  • More on Vista vs XP performance - why doesn't everyone want a racing car, but instead do they opt for safety, comfort or even the ability to have more than one passenger?

    Having been quotes by Vlad and others (or was this others? ), some more views worth reading here and some Windows Blog stuff here I thought I had better make myself a bit clearer. 1st off, this is MY opinion, not something that is sanctioned or designed by anyone else in Microsoft. I did benchmarking for 5 years and won plenty of business by it, but I also understand when a test is Apples to Apples and not Apples to Oranges. If the purpose of Vista was to be the fastest engine for Office 2003 (as was the test), then there is a lot that can be done to the product to make that happen, but that was not the goal, so testing it on that one goal and then saying it fails is a bit poor. You can turn off the new features that "slow" it down if you want, but then you don't get the feature. My car accelerates faster with the air-con turned off, but on hot days, being comfortable is more important that the acceleration, so I opt to go slightly slower rather than get there just a bit quicker. There is more to...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Dec 3 2007

  • New SQL 2008 training for UK partners

    Hi, I know I’ve been away a lot recently (closing the year end and then doing some travelling for work), but while cleaning my inbox (ohh, 2500 mails processed, replied too, filed and actioned – yee har!) I came across this and it is bang up to date. SQL 2008 is going to be the hot, hot, hot product for a few months, along with how it sits with other BI solutions, such as SharePoint and PerformancePoint. To help you get started, here are some training opportunities : SQL Server 2008 Database Infrastructure and Scalability This three-day training course will help database administrators understand how to exploit the new performance, scalability, manageability and high-availability enhancements introduced in SQL Server 2008. They will also learn how to exploit these capabilities, ensure application scalability and how to manage a database using the new features. Click here Introduction to SQL Server 2008 BI Solution Development This three day course is designed to give developers the confidence to tackle a BI project...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Jul 15 2008

  • What is going on in the world of Virtualisation with Virtual Server and Virtual PC on licensing, Vista, x64 and more

    There are a couple of recent announcements with regard to the current range of products that I thought I would cover off. One is about licensing and has been written up by Matt McSpirit at http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit/archive/2007/06/22/microsoft-virtualisation-licensing-client-and-server.aspx and covers how many licenses you get when. The other is Virtual Server SP1: Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Is Now Available Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 is the server virtualization technology engineered for the Windows Server operating system to increase hardware utilization and enable IT staff to rapidly configure and deploy new servers. Register to download the free software and you will receive relevant resources that are strategically assembled to address the challenges you will face as you discover, assess, and deploy the software. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7042993 The What is New page shows (plus more on the page) - note the x64 support for more memory. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/virtualserver/evaluation...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Jul 4 2007

  • Finally the internal mail arrives announcing two new SBS MVPs in the UK

    You saw it here last folks. Congratulations to both Susanne and Tim and to the existing peeps of Scott, Steve and Nick (since he works the UK patch sometimes). If you know of these two then you know they are hard working people in the SBS community and have probably already read that they have been honoured with the MVP award. They join the ranks previously blazed by Steve, Scott and Nick. I also think that Susanne might have decided that since at least 50% of the photos from the MVP site look scary, she would forgo one just now :-). Their comments about this on there blogs can be found here for Susanne and here for Tim - both humble, but the links to other pages shows what others think. New MVPs in UK Susanne Dansey: Windows Server System - Small Business Server Susanne Dansey has spent her entire career in business development in the IT industry & recognizes that the key to successful customer relationships is empathy, trust and under... Tim Long: Windows Server System - Small Business Server Tim has been...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Jul 24 2007

  • Do you sell Microsoft product and went something to make it easier to understand our licensing and products? Something that will help you up-sell and cross-sell to your customers? If so, then the Gear Up book is for you

    In a recent mail it announced: The Microsoft Sales Toolkit is your source for driving sales. It is the licensing and sales 'product handbook' that will help you generate up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, giving you and your Partners information on the full portfolio of Microsoft products and services. You can find information on what the product is, how to sell it, relevant SKU numbers and FAQs. The toolkit is produced twice a year and is available as a hardcopy, to keep on your desk, or to download as a pdf, to take out with you to meet customers. Visit www.microsoft.com/uk/gearup for more details or to download the pdf version. Go get it, it might just answer one or two of those questions you have!! ttfn David Technorati tags: Gear Up , licensing , sales , Microsoft
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, May 30 2007

  • Using Vista and getting a slower performing network? Perhaps with SBS or other network equipment? Then you need to read Kevin's post at Neoblog.

    We all know that sometimes things sloooowwwwwiiinnnngggg down can be a real drag. Some people have seen this sort of thing with Vista and while sometimes it is to do with drivers (do I need to say wireless here??), others it could be one of the "nice" new features in Vista. In the latter example I can give you a good pointer to help. Susanne Dansey pointed this out to me, which is a posting by Kevin Higerty on this very problem - pop along to his blog to get the low down. I’ve been running Vista on my SBS network for a while, well since the January Action Pack, and have noticed resource access to the SBS box getting slower and slower over the last few days. At the same time I had issues like log on’s taking 2 minutes, explorer time outs and generally the whole system running like a dog. The two symptoms have turned out to be seperate, but combined they are a ‘throw the sodding pc outa the window’ type scenario. Slow networking is due to the auto tuning of TCP/IP in Vista which is turned on by default. Source:...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Mar 14 2007

  • London 2008 - SMB Nation – 5th December 2008

    It has been a while since I’ve spoken about Harry Brelsford, but he was one of the founding lights in SBS and partners.  I’ve attended and presented at several of his events and he is back in the UK on the 5th December.  If you have the time, given the cost is $200, so not a huge amount, come along. London 2008 SMB Nation Europe 2008 - Conference Information Featuring an ''independent'' Small Business Server 2008 event! Speakers: • Harry Brelsford (Bio at www.smbnation.com) • Jeff Middleton (Bio at www.sbsmigration.com) Location: Microsoft London (Cardinal Place) 100 Victoria Street London SW1E 5JL Delegate Registration HERE for SMB Nation Europe Agenda: December 5, 2008 – Microsoft Central London 8:30am-9:30am Delegate Registration 9:30am – 10:00am Microsoft Introduction 10am – Noon How SBS 2008 Saved The Economy (Brelsford) Noon – 1:30pm Lunch and HP (Essential Business Server, HP Partner Program) 1:30pm – 3:00pm Migration Techniques for 2008 (Middleton) 3:00-3:30 Come see how Autotask...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Nov 21 2008
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  • Speed issues with large OSTs & PSTs patch for Outlook 2007 Available

    I saw this over at the The Official SBS Blog and thought I had better tell everyone about it given the traffic on the web page. Once you apply this patch you might get an BCM (Business Contact Manager) error if you have installed it - to fix this, go look at My BCM Updates Post and grab the one about "Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager: Prevent error message about version mismatch when certain Office 2007 applications are launched". [Today's post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] There is a new patch available for Outlook 2007 that fixes performance issues with large PSTs/OSTs. We highly recommend applying this patch on all systems with Outlook 2007 installed. If you are preparing a new installation, this patch should be applied in addition to the steps outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;926505 . Direct Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c262bcfd-1e09-49b6-9003-c4c47539df66&DisplayLang=en KB article: http://support...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, May 4 2007

  • Remote Web Workplace after the updates of 11/08/2009 (that's 11th August)

    Had calls from two of our client's staff this morning who are working from home and connecting to an SBS 2003 server from their own PCs. Both had had this month's security updates downloaded to their PC last night and could not connect to RWW this morning. It turned out that we had to place the URL for their company's SBS box in Trusted Sites in IE. Why it wasn't already there and why it had worked before (they both were running SP3) is a mystery.

  • Security Vulnerability Research & Defence blog - worth a read for sure - eg MS08-001 - The case of the Moderate, Important, and Critical network vulnerabilities

    My background covers security and I've started reading this blog ( Security Vulnerability Research & Defense ) - it is excellent and definitely worth a read to understand how vulnerabilities work and how to mitigate them!! MS08-001 - The case of the Moderate, Important, and Critical network vulnerabilities Security bulletin MS08-001 addresses vulnerabilities described by two separate CVE numbers, as you can see in the bulletin. This post provides an overview of the two issues, the affected platforms and notes on the severity. We’ll be following this post up with two further entries that look at each issue in more detail. CVE-2007-0066 describes a vulnerability in parsing ICMP router advertisement packets. These packets are not processed by default on any supported version of Windows. If a computer is configured to process router discovery protocol packets and encounters this type of malformed packet, the Windows kernel will bugcheck (blue screen of death) and reboot. A separate blog post goes into more...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Feb 8 2008

  • For once a balanced review of the market and Windows Vista

    I am used to seeing reports that come from one end or another of the spectrum - either Vista is amazing and everyone else is stupid, or 70%+ of the worlds computers are still not running Vista, so it is an obvious flop. Obviously, given the view that there are now something like a billion PCs in the world, you can't expect them all to be running Vista. At the same time, Microsoft announcing that 88m people were now with Vista is a pretty strong indication that things are going the right way. The article at The balance sheet on Windows Vista | CNET News.com is very balanced on both sides. I thought that it could and would be useful to anyone discussing who should and should not run Windows Vista. Here is a except that hopefully gives you a flavour of both sides (much more by clicking the above link). I should point out that recently I have been contacted by NT4 and Windows 98 users :-) The company said it is seeing some positive signs on the business front, notably a rise in the number of businesses signing...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Oct 30 2007

  • SQL Server Web casts (Preparing for SQL Server 2008, New T-SQL features, migrating from Access, Policy based management framework, BI, certifications, reducing hardware and maintenance costs)

    From the TRM Blog at November 2007 - Technical Rollup Mail - SQL SQL 2005 Webcasts and Virtual Labs SQL Server 2005 is data management and analysis software that delivers enhanced security, availability, and scalability to mission-critical data applications—while making them easier to develop, deploy, and manage. Choose from a wide range of live and on-demand webcasts. Or take part in a virtual lab, which allows you to cut your teeth on the new platform by experimenting with its different capabilities. SQL Server 2005 Webcasts TechNet Webcast: Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 1 of 8): Product Workload Scenarios (Level 300) – Monday, December 03, 2007 9:30 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) In this first session of our series, we discuss how Windows Server 2008 addresses key deployment scenarios for customers. We start with an overview of the key product workload scenarios for Windows Server 2008. We cover as many as 10 different scenarios, and we discuss how each scenario can be categorized into one...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Dec 6 2007

  • Do you want to ask Microsoft the hard questions on Vista and Office before you sell them to your customers - well now you can in June - Live!!

    Your Office and Vista questions answered We are offering UK partners the opportunity to talk directly to one of Microsoft Europe's leading technology specialists in a series of online Q&A sessions. These sessions will seek to answer the nitty gritty questions you need to answer to transition your customers over to Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. Book your place now. Register for 4 June Register for 5 June Register for 6 June Register for 7 June Register for 8 June ttfn David Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Vista , Office , Partners
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, May 30 2007

  • Explore Web Development with ASP.NET 2.0 webcasts and virtual labs

    In my new role I find I need to get up to speed on the MS Dev technologies. I found the page Explore Web Development with ASP.NET 2.0 which seems to have lots of education for me in the ASP.Net 2.0 world. Microsoft ASP.NET is a set of Web application development technologies that enables programmers to build dynamic Web sites, web applications, and XML Web services. Whether you already use ASP.NET 2.0 or want to start, watch our webcasts and participate in our virtual labs to see what it can do for you. This series will help you learn about the improvements in ASP.NET 2.0 and better understand how you can utilize ASP.NET 2.0 to create faster, more secure Web applications. Webcasts During this series, learn how you can use membership and personalization to build rich Web sites, use the new provider model to customize ASP.NET for your enterprise, and more. Virtual Labs Take part in these virtual labs to learn about the major improvements introduced with ASP.NET 2.0 and see how you can create richer Web applications...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Aug 14 2007

  • Using companyweb or Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) with Surveys to get feedback or approval

    We now have documentation stored in the system, but often we want more than just documents, we need feedback and discussions. SharePoint has many facilities around this. The options are: Discussions Lists Surveys Discussion areas are a very simple way for people to either add comment to a document or in a forum . I don’t consider this anything special, difficult to understand or especially great as far the built in functionality goes. Also, from a business point of view, the only solution that solve is when an owner manager says “I need a solution that permanently records the views people express around a specific area and I do NOT want it to be based on e-mail” – why not e-mail, well a good old public folder will do this for e-mail. Discussions DO work if this is based around a document, but I do not find many businesses asking for this. Lists are special and will be covered in the next WSS posting. Surveys are a special form of list, so lets look at what the surveys will do for us. Whenever a customer asks ...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Jun 20 2006

  • An amazing deal for UK Students to get Office 2007 ULTIMATE for £39 to own or £13 per year to "rent it" - tell them all about it!

    This offer is called "The Ultimate Steal" and I have to say I can see why. Microsoft is now offering Office 2007 to university students for the sort of price that would normally suggest this was a con or stolen software, although as Steve Clayton has already verified, it is real . The Offer is simple "Get Microsoft® Office Ultimate 2007 for just £38.95 to own or £12.95 to use for one year" As I said this is only open for people in education, but if you go to The Ultimate Steal presented by Microsoft you can get lots more info. A summary, but not complete, eligibility requirements are: You must hold a valid email address at a U.K. educational institution ending in .ac.uk (for example, [email protected]) Be actively enrolled with at least 0.5 course load. You must be able to provide proof of enrollment status (ie, student card) upon request by Microsoft. If you are unable to provide proof of enrollment, you will be required to pay the full retail price of Office Ultimate 2007 (approximate...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Sep 21 2007

  • Developer Events in September and October in the UK

    I just saw this, so thought I would pass it on: Join other developers at free regional Microsoft Technical Events to receive technical know-how demos from Microsoft experts, insights into our latest technologies and a chance to meet and talk to other developers. Events nearest to you MSDN Event: Rich Internet Applications with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Location: Reading Date: 2 September 2008 MSDN Event: Rich Internet Applications with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Location: London Date: 4 September 2008 MSDN Event: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1? Location: Reading Date: 2 October 2008 MSDN: What's New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1? Location: Bristol Date: 22 October 2008 MSDN Roadshow Re-Run Location: London Date: 24 October 2008 ttfn David Technorati Tags: Developer , RIA , Rich Internet Applications , Visual Studio 2008 and .Net 3.5 , Service Pack 1 , Microsoft , Events
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Aug 7 2008

  • Internet Explorer 7: RC1

    I have often debated the quality of IE over firefox and I'm not about to stop now, however this is just a simple note (as I am still a 4 fingered typist at the moment) to say that the latest build of IE is out there. To get more info on what this build has, go have a look at " What's new in RC1 " however they key paragraph for those not after the toolkit etc is: improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support, and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of Internet Explorer 7, making installing the new build even easier ttfn David
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Aug 25 2006

  • Sharepoint Utility Suite - v2.5 released

    If youuse sharepoint, then this set of tools might be right up your street. You can download them from http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/downloads/components/detail.asp?a1=724 and the tools are as follows: Folder Tool Version Description SPS\SPSAddCS SharePoint Portal Server Content Source Add tool 1.1 Updated in Release 2.5 An example of how to add Content Sources programmatically in SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Added READ option to read current content sources SPS\SPSPropCheck SharePoint Portal Server Indexer Property Sequence Number Checker 1.0 This tool will check the PropSeqNum values for indexes on the index server, and compare the values on all related Search Servers SPS\SPSPropConfig 1.0 NEW to Release 2!! SPS\SPSProtocolHanlder SharePoint Portal Server Protocol Handler 1.0 NEW to Release 2.5!! Writing a Protocol Handler for SPS was a tedious task, possible done by seasoned developers who were fluent in C++. This project example demonstrates creating SharePoint Portal Server 2003 protocol handlers...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Jul 3 2006

  • SQL Server 2005 SP2 for Vista and Longhorn

    If you have SQL based apps, they will have to upgrade to SQL 2005 SP2 (that includes the MSDE replacement SQL Express). e-Week noted ( SQL Server 2005 SP1 Users Face Vista, Longhorn Glitches ): These two operating systems will only support SQL Server 2005 SP2 "or later when it becomes available," according to Microsoft's SQL Server support Web pages. But there is no indication on these sites of how soon it will deliver SP2 or whether it will deliver the service pack at about the same time Vista and Longhorn are released. the CTP of SP2 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/ctp.mspx More information on the problems users experience when not running SP2 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/sqlonvista.mspx with support information at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/windowsvistasupport.mspx which notes: Known Issues This section describes known issues that relate to installing and running SQL Server 2005 on Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn." Issues Related to User Account Control...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Nov 9 2006

  • What's In A 'Small-Business' Label? - Forbes.com

    I saw this and thought I would share it. As small business partners we need to decide what the "Small Business" means and tell our partners and customers. It is not about sticking a label on something that fits everything, but actually customising it for the real small business customer. And I don't mean the less than 1,000 person business, but the sub 100, sub 50 and even sub 10. It is worth reading the rest of the article to see what is said about brand and laptops. What's In A 'Small-Business' Label? Lisa LaMotta , 09.12.07, 6:00 AM ET It's one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book: Make the same product, but sell it to a new audience. That's what large retailers and manufactures have been doing lately to tap the lucrative small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) segment. Last month, for example, Best Buy (nyse: BBY - news - people ) added a Professional Series label, which signifies products putatively geared for small businesses, though many have mass appeal as well. Dell...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Oct 9 2007

  • Windows Server 2008 'The Last 32-bit Operating System' - unless you have SBS in which case it is SBS 2003 R2

    Read this carefully and repeat after me "64-bit is the future, 64-bit is the future". If you are playing (testing) Longhorn (Windows Server 2008) then use the 64-bit version. Why, well SBS & Centro (I guess) will be 64-bit only, Windows 2008 will have a 32-bit version primarily to enable people to migrate (since it is the last version it will not be the most future proofed version IMHO). This is a great way to prepare for the future, so just do it!! "Windows Server 2008 is the last 32-bit operating system that we'll produce," Laing then pronounced. "Post-2008, we will transition to 64-bit. Many Microsoft products are becoming 64-bit only today, because they're realizing the benefits of 64-bit computing. Exchange Server 2007, Windows Compute Cluster Server, and Windows Server Virtualization are all 64-bit only today, because they give significant benefits." Source: BetaNews | Windows Server 2008 'The Last 32-bit Operating System' ttfn David Technorati tags: Cougar...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, May 29 2007

  • Installing WSS v3 on a Member Server in an SBS Network

    I have spoken before about how to install WSS on the SBS box, so it was quite nice to see the article on how to install on a member server - much simpler to do many less problems. Installing WSS v3 on a Member Server in an SBS Network If you’ve got a member server in your SBS network (especially if that server is a beefy SQL box) it may make sense from a performance standpoint to install Windows SharePoint Services version 3 on the member server instead of directly on the SBS box. This is actually a pretty straight-forward process, but in case you’re not totally comfortable with WSS v3 yet, the procedure is documented below using a combination of a Microsoft e-book and the WSS on SBS instructions Chad came up with for SBS. Installing WSS v3 on a Member Server in an SBS Network | NoGeekLeftBehind.com ttfn David Technorati Tags: WSS v3 , SharePoint , SBS 2003
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Oct 11 2007

  • Windows 7 and VHDs – it can mount them and can even be installed into one and booted from!

    Windows 7 is the theme while I am away and thought I would share this little nugget with you. Windows 7 has a lovely feature where it can mount and read / write VHD virtual hard disks. Now this is good, but you can create one and install Windows 7 inside it. You can then boot it up as normal, but it is portable at this point, so it is easy to backup, copy or examine on another system. How to do this… well, look here - http://www.iishacks.com/index.php/2009/01/11/install-and-boot-windows-7-beta-or-windows-server-2008-r2-beta-on-vhd ttfn David Technorati Tags: Windows 7 , VHD , Windows Server 2008 R2 , Microsoft
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Feb 12 2009

  • How to speed up displaying other peoples calendar in Outlook 2007

    If you have Exchange in use then Outlook 2007 may well have the caching of people's calendars turned on. This means that when you open a calendar you have to wait for the cache to populate, which can slow things down a bit sometimes. This is how to turn it back to how it was with Outlook 2003. 1. Go to the Tools Menu and select Account Settings 2. Select your Exchange Account and press the change button 3. Press the more settings button 4. Select the 2nd tab (Advanced) 5. Un-tick the "Download shared folders" option. Note that this will stop cached Sharepoint folders from downloading into Outlook too. 6. Press OK until all options are saved. ttfn David Technorati tags: Outlook 2007 , calendar , Office 2007 performance
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sun, Mar 4 2007
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