Virtualization, Cloud, Infrastructure and all that stuff in-between
My ramblings on the stuff that holds it all together
Category Archives: Windows
Shortcut key for CTRL-ALT-DEL on a Mac for a Fusion VM
Posted by on April 19, 2011
Apologies if this is old-hat or obvious but I didn’t realize you could do this until recently – if you have a Windows VM and want to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to logon or bring up the lock screen etc. there isn’t an obvious shortcut key as the Mac doesn’t have a physical DEL key like a [...]
Using Outlook 2010 with More than One Exchange Account Crashes Regularly
Posted by on February 24, 2011
I quite liked the idea of a new feature in Outlook 2010, the ability to use more than one Exchange account at a time. People have been asking for this for years and it looked promising, in the past there was a work-around using virtualization but it was very resource intensive for most people’s machines. [...]
Windows 7 Remote Desktop Client – Nice Touch
Posted by on May 19, 2010
You can download and install the new, updated RDC 7.0 client for free for any OS from Windows XP SP3 and later (it ships with Windows 7) known issues here and detailed feature comparison per OS here and downloads for various client OS’es are below Update for Windows Vista, x86-based versions Download the Update [...]
Redesigning Active Directory for 2010 and on..
Posted by on October 3, 2009
Active Directory has been implemented as part of Windows since approx 1998 when the betas of the initial Windows 2000 version were circulating. At the time directory services was Microsoft’s answer to all NT4 scalability woes and the superior management that Novell offered in Netware 4.x, that was a radically different IT world {cue [...]
Is your MS Application Supported under VMware, Hyper-V, Xen? – the DEFINITIVE Statement from Microsoft
Posted by on August 14, 2009
A colleague has just made me aware of a new tool on the Microsoft website, it is a wizard that can tell you if specific Microsoft App/OS/Architecture combinations are supported under the SVVP (Server Virtualization Validation Programme) – I previously wrote about the SVVP here, which promised to resolve many of the pains we [...]
ExPrep – Script to Automate Exchange 2007 Pre-Requisite Installation
Posted by on May 13, 2009
If you have ever had to install Exchange 2007 on a Windows 2008 (and 2003) server you will know that there are a number of pre-requisites that need to be installed from the OS for each role; for example IIS web services and metabase compatibility components. You have two choices, do this via the [...]
Windows 7 and the Intel 855GM Video Driver "Solution"
Posted by on January 12, 2009
I’ve been playing about with Windows 7 in a VM for a while now in a VM, but now the beta is out I wanted to install it on a physical machine, I’m not ready yet to upgrade my main laptop to Windows 7 (although I have a cunning plan to p2v my Vista [...]
Windows OS Code Patching
Posted by on October 22, 2008
Interesting article here from the ntdebug blog on how hotfixes get integrated into the windows code-base and update mechanism. There have been some excellent posts recently on this blog offering detailed insight into the internals of Windows, if you’re interested in this kind of thing (like me) and general innards of Microsoft I’d also [...]
Cloud Wars: VMWare vs Microsoft vs Google vs Amazon Clouds
Posted by on October 1, 2008
A short time ago in a data centre, far far away….. All the big players are setting out their cloud pitches, Microsoft are set to make some big announcements at their Professional Developer Conference at the end of October and VMWare made their VDC-OS announcements at VMWorld a couple of weeks ago, Google have [...]
Mapping a drive to a VSS Snapshot & General DFS-R woes
Posted by on September 14, 2008
Microsoft’s volume snapshot service is pretty handy right? quick hardware independent snaps of a file system – all free and out of the box, well it’s now officially saved my bacon…. whilst it’s a bit klunky (more on this in a bit) it was damned useful. I had a pain of a problem to [...]
