Moving the offline files cache (CSC folder) in Vista

May 1, 2007 1 Comment

I have found, as many others may have, that my old partitioning scheme which worked great for XP is simply not sufficient for Vista.

A 20Gb boot partition does not go very far on my Vista Ultimate laptop, and this is made a lot worse by my habit of having loads of files synchronised to work offline, which uses up even more space on this critical C: drive.

Of course, it was possible to move the CSC folder under XP (although the caveat seems to be that you can’t put it back in the original location). Under Vista it is a slightly more long-winded process, but here is a great step-by-step procedure for moving Vista’s client-side cache by changing the appropriate registry keys and using the Windows Easy Transfer wizard (migwiz.exe) to help move the files themselves.

Filed under Windows Vista

Owning Vista from the boot

April 29, 2007

An interesting article and interview about a proof-of-concept ‘bootkit’ which provides a means to run arbitrary code with raised privileges in Vista, despite all the protected mode security and inability to change the kernel

Vista Bootkit article on SecurityFocus

Filed under Security and Malware, Windows Vista

Fix Exchange 2003 to make sure OWA works for IE on Vista

April 10, 2007 2 Comments

Because of the way IE is implemented on Vista, you will find that the rich functionality of Outlook Web Access (OWA) no longer works as you are used to under XP.

As described in KB 911829 you may not be able to compose new or reply emails, create contacts or appointments, and other activities which are pretty essential. You can read your email, but you can do nothing else with them!

Read more of this post

Filed under Exchange, Patching + hotfixes, Windows Vista Tagged with , , , ,

Copying command-line results to the clipboard in Vista

March 27, 2007

In this month’s MCP magazine, Greg Shields wrote about using clip.exe to get command line output onto the clipboard where you can easily use it by pasting into your favourite app, such as Notepad, OneNote or Excel (if you need to parse the results down).

“Like you, I’ve struggled with the multistep process to get data from the results of a command into a text file. If you want to run the runme.bat script and capture the results, you’d launch the command and copy and paste the results into Notepad or another text editor. Or, you might pipe the results to a file using the > character. If you’re particularly skillful, you could redirect both stdout and stderr to a text file with the text string:

runme.bat 1> results.txt 2>&1

But what if you simply wanted to pipe the results to the clipboard?
Way back in the old days, the Windows NT and Windows 2000 Resource Kit had a tool called clip.exe that allowed for this. Just run:

runme.bat | clip

and use Ctrl+V to paste the results into your text file. With Windows 2003, the tool moved out of the Resource Kit and is now installed natively with the operating system. But there appeared to be nothing comparable for Windows XP, so I slowly forgot about it.
That is, until recently — when I realized that one could simply copy clip.exe from C:\Windows\Systems32 on any Windows 2003 Server to the same location on an XP workstation and rejoice for the happy return of Command Line Clippy!”

What Greg forgets to mention is that this functionality is also natively installed on Windows Vista, ready and available for easy use.

Filed under Scripting, Windows Vista

How much freedom does your wireless network give you?

February 7, 2007

I am happy that my wireless LAN gives me great coverage all around our house and garden. For some people this is not enough, and they get a more mobile device and an always-on data service to stay connected using 3G, for example.

Now these technologies begin to converge as at least one supplier is offering a cellular device which provides a wireless access router to allow you to use your regular laptop or other WiFi enabled gadgets to access the internet. This is designed to go in your car, so now you can blog about the downtown traffic, or reschedule your morning meetings when stuck in a jam.

Available in the US soon, more information about AutoNet Mobile here.

Filed under Gadgets, Wireless networking

Free WiFi access for Vista users with The Cloud

February 6, 2007

Similar to the offer in the US for T-Mobile hotspots, The Cloud have signed a deal with Microsoft in the UK to give early adopters of Vista a free trial of their WiFi services.

The Cloud operate a network of over 7,500 hotspots across the UK, ranging from BT payphones to cafes and pubs. You should not have to give any payment details to sign up for a the free trial period, which finishes at the end of April 2007 Read more of this post

Filed under Windows Vista

Turning the Pages software gives new meaning to ‘illuminated manuscript’

February 5, 2007

At the Vista launch in the UK it was also announced that a collaboration with the British Library and Bill Gates will mean that two of Da Vinci’s notebooks are available for online viewing, as reported in the Register.

These and a few other selected books and excerpts are available online here. The software required to get access to this material requires Vista or XP sp2 with .Net framework 3

As David Overton describes in his blog the Turning the Pages application gets as close to a real book experience as possible – pages actually apear to move like paper as you turn them, and gold-leaf even appears to reflect and glint as the sheet moves. Is this what is meant by an ‘illuminated manuscript’ in the 21st century?

Filed under Utilities + Tools, Windows Vista

Offlines files and folders improved in Vista

February 3, 2007 2 Comments

If you ever tried to use offline files and folders in Windows 2000 or XP to synchronise server-based files and use them when away from the network, you may have become frustrated that it never did exactly what you wanted.

There have been several improvements in the way Vista handles offline files, for me the most important being the simple separation of users so a user only ever gets to synch their own stuff. This simply makes sense, and certainly fixes lots of access denied errors. They also made it more bandwidth efficient and gave the user some control over whether to work online or offline (to check what is available offline before actually disconnecting).

One bug not mentioned in Jim Allchin’s article is the way XP would handle (or rather, not handle) new folders, as follows:

  • You synchronise a folder and choose “yes, include all subfolders and files”.
  • You happily create and edit folders and files and everything works just fine.
  • A colleague creates a new subfolder and it simply does not get synched on your machine. Not at all.
  • You have to un-synch and re-synch the parent folder of the new folder and waste several minutes, or worse still, you only realise when you are out of the office at the begining of a new month or year and don’t have the latest data to hand.

Basically the CSC database seemed to take a one-time snapchot list of all required folders, and would update this if you created something, but was not aware of anyone else’s actions. Ideally it should be scanning the actual folders you synch to look for new folder creation. I want to test this under Vista and see if it’s fixed, and post back when I do.

Filed under Windows Vista

Jim Allchin’s retirement plans

February 2, 2007

Jim Allchin is leaving Microsoft after more than 16 years. His recent work as head of the Windows team has finally delivered Vista, a good time to leave if ever there was one.

His last act as a Microsoft employee was to hit ‘submit’ on this post on the Vista Team blog, in which he outlines how he might see a typical day in the coming months. A great read, both thought provoking and laugh-out-loud funny.

Jim Allchin’s thoughts on retirement from MS

Filed under Industry News, Windows Vista

Managing Vista with Group Policy webinar

January 31, 2007

Over at GPanswers.com, Jeremy Moskowitz has added another webinar to the collection of webcasts by him and other experts on Group Policy, Active Directory and other windows management topics.

Page of links for GPanswers.com webinars.

This one is entitled “Managing your XP and Vista machines”.

Are you still running around to each machine to do a little tweak here or manage a little setting there? Wouldn’t it be better to be more efficient and run around less to get more done? That’s the power of Active Directory (AD) and Group Policy (GP). In this session, the GP Guru, Jeremy Moskowitz will introduce you to what’s possible with GP and introduce you to some new features that come with Vista.

Filed under Group Policy

Technet webcasts for Exchange 2007

January 19, 2007

Exchange 2007 Technet Webcasts

(first one is today, 19th Jan at 11:30 am Pacific Time)

Filed under Events, Exchange

Business Desktop Deployment 2007 released by MS

January 18, 2007

Microsoft’s BDD 2007 Workbench claims a host of features to help you create an inventory, create and manage system images and deploy these to your machine in a highly managed environment (“Zero Touch” using SMS) or less managed (“Lite Touch”, no SMS) manner.

The workbench includes all the tools you need for this in a single edition (so you get all the same features and guidance, you just choose whether to buy and use SMS) and one download, which also has self-updating features so you don’t miss out on future goodness.

You can create images for Windows XP and Vista, as well as Office 2003 and 2007
Read more on the MS desktop deployment homepage or go straight to the download for BDD 2007.

Filed under Utilities + Tools, Windows Vista

Exchange 2007 address policies behave as expected (unlike 2003)

January 16, 2007

This article over at the Exchange Team Blog describes how Exchange 2007 Email Address Policies (EAP) work. This is the replacement for Exchange 2000/2003 Recipient Policies and the way that the Recipient Update Service worked (or rather, did not).

Essentially, when you make policy changes in 2007, they get applied. This is what you would want out of a policy, hence the name. If accounts fall in or out of scope, their address list changes. If you change the primary address for a policy, it gets updated. You can still exempt accounts individually from being affected through ADUC (or use a script), but basically, it now does what it says on the tin.

Filed under Exchange

Sophos SBE: anti-virus and anti-spam for small businesses

January 14, 2007 1 Comment

Sophos Small Business Suite – Engineered for small businesses

  • Includes Sophos Anti-Virus Small Business Edition and Sophos Pure Message Small Business Edition
  • Detects and disinfects viruses at every potential access point, ensuring networks are fully protected
  • Blocks up to 98% of spam, keeping inboxes free of unsolicited bulk emails
  • Updates automatically, providing a complete defence against the latest virus and spam threats

Review

This product is squarely aimed at the small business IT administrator who wants a neat, simple solution to address their concerns about viruses, and the issues caused by the ever-increasing volume of spam email.

Read more of this post

Filed under Reviews, Security and Malware Tagged with , , ,

Shareware just means “free software”, right?

January 13, 2007 1 Comment

Myth: “Shareware is free software – if I can download it without having to pay I can use it at no cost.”

Debunking the myth – one in a series of several.

This is very rarely true in a business context. Ultimately, all software is subject to copyright, and the author can decide what rights they are prepared to give up in allowing you to use their product. These rights are usually described in a license, which may limit how you can use the software, conditions you must fulfil if you use it, and what costs you will have to pay. Smaller, independent publishers are more likely to provide their product for free or a very low price to encourage people to use it. However, many of these do so only for private use, and if you want to use the same product at work, they may want some payment from you. Read more of this post

Filed under IT myths debunked, Licensing

Passed Microsoft Exchange 70-284 exam

January 12, 2007 1 Comment

Today I passed 70-284 Exchange Admin exam after a judicious bit of self study (and several years of looking after Exchange 2000 and 2003).

I found one particularly useful site worthy of being given the credit for some great Microsoft exam cramming notes – all for free and completely altruistic. That in itself makes me feel there is still some good in the world, the fact that it helped me to pass is just a bonus.

Filed under Exchange, Training + certification

How Opera’s Desktop Team deal with security vulnerabilities

January 11, 2007

In an article entitled “Handling Security”, Claudio Santambrogio of the Opera Desktop Team discusses how they handle vulnerability reports, disclosure, patching and upgrades.

Recently, some of our users have asked why we chose to disclose a potential security issue only after the release of Opera 9.10. Let me try to give a short overview on how security issues get reported and disclosed – and not only at Opera, but in most applications: it might help some people to understand how this works.

Filed under Patching + hotfixes, Security and Malware

Slashdot clarifies(?) its position

January 10, 2007

In an article in PCPro magazine issue 148 titled “Democratic News” Rob Malda, the site editor of Slashdot gave his opinion about the differences between totally open, user-driven news sites (such as www.digg.com) and those where submitted material is still subject to quality control and editorial decisions. He is quoted as saying:

I think Slashdot’s uniqueness is largely determined by the people who make the final selection of content for the index. That’s not to say there aren’t ways we couldn’t get help from readers

(emphasis mine) It’s great to think that having editors helps to ensure that content is much clearer and less ambiguous for the reader! I couldn’t fail to disagree with him less.

Don’t misunderstand me; I have no issue with the content on Slashdot, I just think this kind of linguistic abuse is why peer review is useful to weed out this sort of gobbledegook.

Filed under Industry News

Bill Gates’ keynote at CES, Vegas

January 9, 2007

Watch the 1 hour, 11 minute show with Bill and his friends showing how much fun Vista is, and how cool it is that you can do all this really great fantastic wonderful stuff with a PC and an XBox controller. No real information for the business user, but I guess that would not have gone down well at this event. The whole thing can be streamed here:

Consumer Electronics Show 2007 keynote address

One of the interesting things they demonstrated was Microsoft Group Shot software – more on that here.

Filed under Events

GroupShot photo editing tool from MS

January 9, 2007 1 Comment

This is awesome. I do quite a lot of digital photography, and never quite find the time to go and re-touch those photos to get the perfect image, or to carefully cut, layer, alpha-channel and merge images to get stunning panoramas or remove that annoying tourist in the background.

Now I can get the power of the machine to do it all for me using the brilliant bit of software that is Microsoft’s GroupShot. This is being touted by MS as a free download to make Vista Ultimate even better (what’s better than Ulitmate?). However, I thought I’d give it a try and it seems to install and run just fine on my Windows XP sp2 system. Read more of this post

Filed under Utilities + Tools

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