The World According to Mitch

Connecting to Multiple Exchange Servers within Microsoft Office Outlook 2010

Mitch Garvis — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:52:02 GMT

I love Microsoft Office 2010. It’s not that I was not a big fan of the current Office 2007, but I feel that Microsoft has done its job – found ways to improve the new model.

My current ‘favorite’ improvement is with Microsoft Office Outlook. It solves a problem that has caused me inconvenience for years, and although I admit it is likely an issue only for a small minority of users, as one of those users I am glad to see it resolved in v.Next.

In the beginning most computer users had a single e-mail account; the world began to evolve, and soon people would begin having two – one for work and one for personal use. If they were smart they would keep these two account separate, storing messages from each separately. Of course since likely a vast majority of users’ personal accounts were with on-line services such as Hotmail, this was not a problem. For the rest of us, it might have taken a while to find the right path; I remember very foolishly pulling e-mail from both business and personal accounts on the same machine.

When Exchange Server became the prevalent mail server system many of us were introduced to push-type accounts; no longer was it up to the mail client to actively attempt to download mail from the server on a set schedule (as often as every five minutes), rather the mail server and the mail client (at least if you were using Outlook connected to an Exchange Server) would maintain a secure connection, and as soon as mail was received on the server it would immediately be pushed to the client. (This connection method would eventually be vastly improved with the advent of RPC over HTTPS, which allowed the mail client to maintain that connection even when it was not directly connected to the same network as the server)

The only problem some of us had with this system was that some of us maintained accounts on multiple Exchange Servers. The solution was to maintain multiple Outlook Profiles, which could then be configured to the different servers. Although this did indeed resolve the issue, it had its drawbacks – in order to check one Profile you would have to exit from all others. There were ways around this of course; configuring a single Profile connected to one Exchange Server, and then pulling e-mail from other accounts using either IMAP or POP3 was one, but that had the drawback of ‘mixing mail.’ It also did not allow one to leverage the other features of an Exchange Profile, such as Calendars, Contacts, Tasks, and Notes. Another solution would be to connect one account using Outlook Web Access which has gotten better over the versions, but had its own disadvantages as well (you need a persistent connection, for example).

Enter Office Outlook 2010.

I suppose the number of people who have a need to connect to multiple Exchange Servers has increased because beginning with the Technical Preview of Office 2010 we can now connect a single Outlook Profile to multiple Exchange Servers. Don’t worry, you do not lose the ability to create multiple profiles, you are just given a new way of doing business. Here’s how:

Firstly make sure Outlook 2010 is not running. Although the screens are available within Outlook, it will block you from adding an Exchange Server.

1) Within the Windows Control Panel open the Mail option.

2) In the Mail Setup – Outlook window click E-mail Accounts. You should see your already configured Exchange account listed.

3) Click New…

At this point you will be asked to configure your mail account. Do so as if you were configuring it as your first. Once you are done you will see both accounts listed.

You can now open Outlook normally. What you will see in your Navigation Pan is two completely separate – and segregated – Exchange accounts. While you can copy and move information between the two, there is no ‘blind intermingling’ of information between the two; so if you have multiple Exchange Servers configured for different organizations, each organization’s data integrity is ensured.

For contract workers connected to multiple organizations there are a lot of benefits, not the least of which has to do with scheduling. When clicking on the Calendar view in Office I will now see my calendars side by side or, if I choose, I can superimpose one onto the other, so I can see my overall availability, as well as what I have to do for each organization on a given day or week. This functionality is very similar to how Outlook handles Shared Calendars for teams.

Earlier this week my team got an e-mail from from the coordinator of one of the companies that I work with, essentially chastising us for communicating with our clients using alternate e-mail accounts; I understand that their clients are their clients, and they want to be able to manage those communications. Again, if I had to close my main Outlook Profile in order to open my contractor Outlook Profile it would be difficult to maintain fluid communications. By configuring Outlook with multiple Exchange Servers I no longer have that issue. When initiating an e-mail conversation I am given the option of selecting which account I want to send from. When responding to their e-mail it will automatically select the proper account to reply from, although (as shown) I could just as easily change the account with the new account selector in the e-mail window. (This feature was previously available if you had multiple e-mail accounts configured using POP3 or IMAP)

Overall I think this is a huge improvement for the consultant, and allows us to work smarter, not harder.

An Interesting Response to a NYTimes Article on Cell Phones

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:18:35 GMT

It seems that Apple is having issues selling phones to New York City, or rather AT&T is not selling their iPhones to New York City on-line (you can still purchase them at brick-and-mortar stores). This article (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/for-new-yorkers-trouble-buying-an-iphone-on-atts-site/) explores a little bit, but the following is a response from AAA in Central Pennsylvania. It sounds like he might either work for AT&T, or else have a similar relationship to them as I do with Microsoft. I am only editing his text for spacing and spelling. I should mention that I am a customer of AT&T and have never had an issue with their network (in New York City or elsewhere), but am not an intensive data user – I usually just pull my e-mail, not videos. -M

I am a partner in a very mobile (as it we go to a variety of job sites each year) specialty systems integration business, and in a year, we all travel to many points within the "lower 48"
Cell phone based technology is our life line, and very often in setting up a site, the land line data lines are not yet in place, let alone the land line telephone lines for our client, so very often we use cell phone based devices to get the projects started.

What we have found from experience is that, like last week's, NYT article spelled out, ATT has a better network. Especially for our business cell phone account, and yes, there are provisioning (provisioning affects how a cell phone device interacts with the cell tower network) differences between residential / consumer / individual cell accounts and business cell accounts.

Now I will point out, that there are some dead spots, in places like when using laptops when riding the DC Metro, or in a back seat of a car in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, or the NYC Lincoln Tunnel, or when on the NYC MTA, on the Elevated Sections in NYC or even on Amtrak (Boston to DC and Philadelphia to Harrisburg) where ATT does not always seem to work instantly, but that is a transitory event.

Within seconds the problem clears, ether by moving slightly, or waiting until the cell device grabs a new tower. Only in rural New Hampshire do we sometimes have a problem, and that is fixed by leaning on the roof of a parked car and resting the cell phone so the lower edge just touches the roof (greatly increases reception as the "ground plane" of he cell phone internal antenna is improved).

Though I will note, that nearly all cell phone based devices allow for the connection of an external antenna to improve reception and range.

Even in places like when crossing the Woodrow WiIson Bridge, south of DC, where you start out in Maryland, touch the DC and then end up in Virginia, all within less than a mile, ATT keeps the connection.

In terms of equipment, we use iPhones, Motorola Razors, HTC Advantages (paper back book sized cell phone with a 5 inch screen) and all manner of SIM card capable professional equipment (sourced from a variety of eBay based cell equipment vendors) that allows us to connect up regular telephone equipment on one side that, with the magic of the ATT SIM card installed in the device socket, is a cell phone on the other.

Thus we can carry our regular, (plug into the local phone line) credit card machine, fax machine, and even a back up hard wired telephone gear with us at all times, and can easily connect to ATT anywhere we do a project within the lower 48.

We have had the account since cell phones appeared in the 1980's and if there is anything to add, is that both ATT and Verizon started out poorly. But is has been ATT who has improved the most, and especially when ATT dropped analog cell technology.

Add to that improvement in coverage, even in odd ball Texas locations where the cows out number the people, the fact that the ATT technology of the SIM card allows for all manner of extra telephone / communication equipment to become a cell phone device.

The value of which is not to be underestimated, when coupled with the ATT signal. It is something that Verizon and its technology will not allow, so that means only with ATT technology can you put your 87 year old parent on the family cell account, and yet give them the desk telephone , so they don't have to fuss with a cell phone. (Secret is the box that accepts the ATT SIM card and connects to that old style phone.)

Or how on eBay we picked up unlocked European market netbooks that accepted ATT SIM cards so our entire staff has an instantly connected netbooks. No dongles, no USB plug ins, just turn on and go. Again only with ATT type technology, and certainly not Verizon with CDMA.

So, if your experience is only one tiny little iPhone, and you are not willing to walk down the hall or go to a window, I pity you, as, there are always going to be dead spots with any cell phone, and all you have to do is move.

If you still have a problem, call the carrier and check to see how your account is provisioned, and be prepared to get a business account and pay for it.

Like the days of hard wired phones, certain classes of service get the queue ahead of others which is why business cell accounts, always seem to have better service.

You get what you pay for.

Mitch & Friends Play Guitar Hero!

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:29:53 GMT

At TechEd NorAm 2009 in Los Angeles the Community Corner had an XBox 360 setup to play Guitar Hero… Some buddies and I played a couple of songs. Watch them now!

(I seem to recall we also did Hotel California with me on vocals… be glad that video appears to be lost forever!)

Smart Windows 7 Smartphones!

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:45:25 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918.

In June of 2009 I wrote an article about a feature of Windows 7 that I loved… but couldn’t at the time confirm would actually make it into the final release of Windows 7. In fact I was unable to find any documentation on it at all, which led me to believe, late one night, that I might have violated a non-disclosure agreement. The article was called Smartphones and Windows 7 – VERY Smart!

Fortunately the feature made it through, and here is how I set it up and access it.

Make sure your phone is properly paired to your computer.
Double-click on the Bluetooth icon in the Windows Notification Area.
Double-click on your Bluetooth Device (Alternately right-click on your device and click Control)
The Bluetooth Phone Operations and Settings window for your device will appear.
Under Phone Operations click the Connect button next to the line ‘Use this computer as a headset or speakerphone for calls on your phone (Model Number).
On the phone you will have to accept the connection attempt.

Once I did all of that my phone rang… complete coincidence of course, but the timing was great. I put on my headset (Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000) and answered the phone… the call came through over the headset.

I know that on the previous post the screen shot showed that I could enter a phone number to dial, hang up, and so on. I suspect this functionality will differ by phone model; I still have my old phone configured and the screen shot is slightly different; having said that the dial-from-computer functionality never worked on the old one – always said ‘not supported by this phone'.

Give this a shot… it is much easier to make calls without having to hold the phone to your ear for hours!

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918.

A Windows 2008 R2 Haiku!

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:44:29 GMT

I couldn’t believe it. There is actually a contest to write haiku about Windows Server 2008 R2. I used to write poetry, so I gave it a shot. Here are MY entries, based on the two technologies that I use most often:

Virtualize All / Hyper-V is the true path / Green are your servers

Server Core Simple / Command Line saves resources / Your footprint stays low

Think you can do better? Give it a shot at www.r2haiku.com!

eFolder… my first impressions of an automated on-line backup solution

Mitch Garvis — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:34:41 GMT

My files are bulletproof… or at least I think/hope/pray that they are. I have a 60GB file on my laptop that stores my documents (and another 10GB of pictures). For security reasons the partition on which those directories sit is encrypted with BitLocker, so if I lose my laptop my files are safe. Every night my laptop is configured to back up these files (along with the entire laptop) to my Windows Home Server… so as long as I am home I am protected.

Over time I thought of a number of ‘doomsday scenarios’ that worried me, that would leave me somewhat unprotected:

What if there was a fire in my home, and both my laptop and my Windows Home server were destroyed?
What if I was on the road and my laptop was stolen (or corrupted) and I needed access to my files quickly?

Now let me be clear, I use my Live SkyDrive all the time… and Live Mesh for other things. However when i started asking around I learned about a couple of tools that would install on my laptop, backup the files (directories, drives, etc…) that I selected, and then continue to do this automatically on a set schedule. I liked the idea. Their term for this is ‘Cloud Storage’.

I met Jan Spring at a number of events over the last couple of years, and because her company had a good community focus (they sponsored a meeting of user group leaders from around the world recently) I decided to give their product – eFolder – a try. They were more than happy to accommodate me with a trial license (which, I confess, took me ten weeks to getting around to trying).

Once I was registered I received an e-mail from the company with my account number, username, and password. I had to go on-line to change my password right away, because they want to be clear – once you are using their solution only you can use it to either back up or retrieve your files.

The next step was to download their tool – eFolder Backup Manager installed on my Windows 7 x64 laptop without any hassles or arguments. Its install base is just shy of 40MB, not at all intrusive. More importantly to me is that its Windows Process takes nearly zero CPU cycles and less than 6MB of RAM while running, so it does not affect my performance and I can continue to work normally.

I had to configure my account – Remote Server name is provided, and I have the option of backing up to a local server or local disk as well. I had to enter my account credentials, and once that was done I had to create a Pass Phrase that would be my encryption key. It tells you how secure the key is, which is based on the length rather than complexity.

By default it was set to back up my user profile, but as I store my document and picture libraries in non-standard locations I was easily able to add those locations in the Options tab. <a recommendation to them and anyone developing software: update your default locations to interact with Windows 7 libraries, and not only the default file locations>

I set my schedule, keeping in mind that I did not want the ‘Cloud Backup’ to interfere or clash with my Windows Home Server backup. I clicked ‘Backup Now’ to run my initial backup. Of course that takes a long time (and is dependent on how much data compared to how fast your Internet pipe is), but once the initial backup is done it searches for the deltas… in other words it backs up what has changed since the last backup was run.

One of the key features that separates eFolder from many other on-line solutions, and one that will appeal to many of its customers, is their partnership with a Canadian datacentre (in Calgary). The reason this is so critical is because US law states that the Federal Government can, if it perceives a possible threat, legally gain access to any data stored on US soil. If you are worried about this then storing the data in Canada ensures that this cannot happen. I want to be clear that you have to agree during configuration that you will not use their service to break the law, and because I am a law abiding citizen who is not terribly afraid of the government I do not worry about these things. If you are concerned, make sure you tell them you want your data stored in Canada when you register.

A great feature for consultants or resellers to consider is that their partner program will allow you to rebrand their service as your own and resell it. I am not going to play with that, but it can be a real value add for your clients!

Once the backup has completed you can (from within the eFolder Backup Manager) click on Manage Account. This will direct you to their secure on-line portal where you can access their partner center, view a log of your remote backups and disk usage, and see a summary of your account. It tells you when your last successful backup was, and when your service expires. As well it tells you what your disk usage quota is so you do not run out of space inadvertently, or go over. There is also a cool search feature which allows you to search for specific files (or files with specific criteria) in your backup.

To try it out for yourself check them out at http://www.efolder.net/.

A Rebuttal to Windows 7: Seven points of imperfection

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:24:44 GMT

In her recent article ‘Windows 7: Seven points of imperfection’ (posted on IT World Canada, and written for PC World US) Jacqueline Emigh calls out seven deficiencies in Microsoft’s new client operating system. While I understand that columnists have to find a hook to please their editors, I am beginning to find it boring with how far some people are reaching.

The hook here of course is the very common theme of Se7en. I’m sure that if pressed I could write an article outlining seventy-seven things I like about Windows, as easily as I could write an article on seven things I dislike about any version of any operating system on the market. In this article, a rebuttal but certainly not an official one, simply based on my impressions because remember… Windows 7 was my idea!

#1: Windows doesn’t include certain earlier components.

A theme we will probably return to a few times herein, you simply can’t please everyone. One of the biggest complaints against Windows Vista was its footprint… too big. Ms. Emigh acknowledges that all of the components that she called out can be downloaded for free anyways, but if you do install Windows 7 and are used to them being there you may be mystified as to where to find them.

Most of the removed components – including the three mentioned in the article (Messenger, Mail, and Movie Maker) are now Windows Live components, and because of that there are two important benefits. Firstly the same components can be leveraged by users running legacy operating systems, and secondly improvements can be made to the programs – more than simple patches but actual version changes – outside of the band of the OS.

#2: Windows 7 lacks support for older printers and other external devices

Microsoft does not write hardware drivers. if you have a six year old Canon printer that does not have a Windows 7 driver then you should be complaining to Canon. However in any case that I have come across if there was a Windows Vista driver it will work on Windows 7. She also claims that the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit can be more of an issue, but again as long as your hardware provider has a 64-bit driver available you shouldn’t have a problem.

#3: Windows 7 forces you to learn a new UI

I drive a Camry. Last week I rented an Impala, and the week before I rented a Prius. I had to figure out the slightly different controls in each, so I spent three minutes feeling around, figuring out the lights, windshield washers, and radios of each; then I was fine. From Windows Vista to Windows 7 that is precisely how different the UI is; for users who skipped Vista then it may be a little longer… 10 minutes max. I say this because if this is among the biggest complaints that detractors have against Windows 7 then people who are not actively looking for faults should be very pleased!

#4: Windows 7 isn’t impervious to viruses

For ten years I have been telling people that I can build a building that is perfectly secure and impenetrable; all I need are four walls, a roof and a floor of 10-inch steel welded together and I am done. The problem is it is equally secure against those who need access as those who don’t. WIndows 7 is extremely secure, but it is also extremely useable.

A few years ago there was discussion of including anti-virus software in the OS; that was quickly followed by discussions of decimating an eleven billion dollar per year industry. However Microsoft has made available extremely good anti-malware solutions for both home users and corporations, in Microsoft Security Essentials and Forefront Client Security. Either of these – or a healthy dose of common sense – are enough to protect your Windows 7 from harm.

It should be noted that no operating system ever made was impervious to malware; it was simply a matter of the right hacker taking the time to write it.

#5: Installation of Windows 7 can be a real bear, especially in upgrades from XP

Firstly I should mention that Microsoft announced up front that there would be no upgrades from Windows XP to Windows 7; so of course upgrading would be tough. While I feel for the users who skipped Windows 7 only to find they are having problems upgrading I would like to remind them that Windows XP was released in October, 2001… and the fact that there is a way to perform the upgrade, even through workarounds, is a testament to the fact that Microsoft does care about all of its clients.

That being said, my experience with upgrading (which includes both my own and those of hundreds of clients, students, and readers) have not been that bad. The ‘endless reboot cycles’ that she mentions have not materialized for me or for anyone I have spoken to. As for some users being disappointed that they cannot upgrade from XP, there is a simple solution – upgrade your Windows XP system to Windows Vista, and then immediately upgrade your Windows Vista to Windows 7.

No matter whether you are wiping and starting fresh or trying any sort of upgrade it is a good point to mention you should perform your backup first. If you want the cleanest experience, the Windows Easy Transfer tool that is available on the Windows 7 DVD will backup your entire profile to disk, which allows you to wipe your disk clean and start with a truly clean environment.

#6: Windows 7 pricing is both too high and too complex

<There are two issues here, and I will address them individually>

<1>

Quote: ‘With family and business budgets pinched right now, why is Microsoft charging anywhere from about $100 to $300 for an upgrade disk for Windows 7, depending on the version?’

<For the record: Windows 7 Ultimate (Full Package Product) retails for $219.99>

I will now change a couple of words in this sentence to demonstrate my point:

With family and business budgets pinched right now, why is Toyota charging anywhere from about $10,00 to $30,000 to upgrade to a 2010 Camry, depending on the version?

Microsoft is in the business of selling software. Giving you new versions for free would hurt their business model, but it would also give them less incentive to make as good a product as they have. In reply to Mac OS costing less, may I remind you that this is after you have spent thousands of dollars on their hardware plus the OS, which is based on open source.

If people are upset that Microsoft offers cost benefits to people who beta test their software I invite them to spend the year before a product is released testing and troubleshooting and yes, finding bugs; it is not a fun experience, especially since once you find them you have to fill out paperwork on the bugs so they can be documented, tracked, and resolved.

As for Microsoft not advertising that OEM (original equipment manufacturer) software costs less than FPP (full-package product) it is simple; the cost savings for the license are definitely there, but for the privilege you have to purchase new hardware. If you know of anyone who went out last week and bought a brand new HP laptop but had them remove the OS license, then purchased the FPP license of Windows then that person wasted their money. OEM software is less expensive than FPP because Microsoft offloads the support requirements to the OEM; if my HP laptop with a Windows OEM license has a problem then I have to call HP, who are glad to help me with it. If I purchase FPP then I have to call Microsoft.

<2>

I agree that there are a few different editions of Windows 7. There were by the way six SKUs of Windows Vista, six of Windows XP. Depending on what your needs are you should purchase the right one; for example a home user who wants to use Media Center but would never need to join a domain would purchase Windows Home Premium Edition

I would posit that Microsoft has actually simplified their editions in Windows 7. In Windows Vista each edition had some features but not others; in Windows 7 the editions are cumulative – so Windows 7 Business will include all of the features of Windows Home Premium, and will not include any features that are excluded from Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.

If customers are too confused to decide what version they need, there are a number of simple questions that should help them decide:

1. Are you a home user or a business user?

<home: Home Basic or Home Premium>

<home 2>. Do you want the advanced graphics and media player?

<yes: Home Premium, no: Home Basic>

<business 2>. Do you have (or would you like) a volume license agreement with Microsoft? Do you need security features such as BitLocker, or multiple language packs?

<yes: Enterprise, no: Business Edition>

3. Do you want to have every feature of every edition, bar none?

<Windows 7 Ultimate Edition>

So if you ask ‘why don’t they simplify it so that there is only one edition?’ the simple answer is they are not asking people to pay for the features they do not need. My mother does not need to join a domain, run XP Mode, and protect her files using BitLocker to Go. She needs a plain and simple OS, which is what she paid for.

#7: Customer support for Windows 7 is too scanty

Microsoft released their much anticipated new OS on October 22, 2009. I am sure that in the days and weeks that followed their support calls were overloaded. Fortunately for many Microsoft does have a plethora of forums, newsgroups, and white papers that will guide customers through most problems they might encounter. Remember the complaint about beta testers getting rebates? Many of us wrote a lot of those papers, and still more of us man the forums and newsgroups to help out. Most companies not only don’t offer the same level of on-line support for their clients, but also do not have nearly the same ‘Influencer’ base that can offer that level of support on the day that a new product is released. People were asking questions, and we were answering them. Did every question get answered within an hour? No. Did most questions get answered in a reasonable delay? I think so.

‘In early sales, Windows 7 has been beating Vista by a wide margin. But does the company have enough customer support in place to handle the load?’

One of the problems that Ms. Emigh points to is that Microsoft does not have enough employees answering forum posts. This may be true, but if you include all of the influencers, the community members who answered so many of those questions, then the number of people working on this was truly staggering. Yes, it is true that there is no mechanism in the forums and newsgroups to make sure that questions did not fall through the cracks, but to say that the support was scanty is folly.

‘Still, when a user is facing a critical system error, just about nothing in the customer support realm beats the immediacy of a phone call.’

This is a true statement,… and there are premium support calls available through PSS to address issues that cannot wait; however immediacy does not always mean urgency, and more often than not it is worth the end user’s while to wait a few hours rather than paying for a support call.

---

I am the first to admit that Windows 7 is not perfect. Okay, that may not be true, since Jacqueline Emigh beat me to it. However if someone is going to write an article panning it I would suggest that they spend a little more time researching, rather than come up with such reaching real imperfections, and not issues that fall squarely on hardware manufacturers or upgrading an eight year old OS. Even someone like myself, who is on most products quite loyal to Microsoft, and tend to air my grievances directly to the product team and not in public, can come up with seven legitimate problems if I looked hard enough… which is indeed what she seems to be doing.

10 Dumb things you can do to your Cisco Router

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:07:32 GMT

This article came over my RSS feed from Global Knowledge; it is an article from January by David Davis which outlines 10 things you shouldn’t do with your Cisco router. If you were to turn it upside down, it is a really good reminder of ten tips you should always follow with your Cisco router… and with most any computer system!

http://www.globalknowledge.com/training/generic.asp?pageid=2308&country=United+States

Don’t Mess With Juju!

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:22:49 GMT

<Originally posted October, 2006> Earlier today someone referenced this article from my old blog which will, eventually, be migrated over to my new blog. However in the meantime I am reposting it. To be frank the perfect record no longer stands true. –MDG

Don’t Mess With Juju: Even if you are not superstitious it cannot hurt to appease the particular forces of nature!

I do not consider myself to be a superstitious person. I have never worried about breaking mirrors and I remember as a kid intentionally stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. I do not have a lucky number but if I did I would give serious thought to making it thirteen. I do not think I have ever thrown salt over my left shoulder (or right one for that matter) and though I am not a particular fan of cats (allergies) I think the black ones are the sleekest and would gladly let one cross my path.

That being said, there are two routines that I follow religiously when it comes to sitting for certification exams. I do not I will not I cannot change these, and am convinced that if I do I will fail. They are both so hard-wired into my brain that people look at me as if I am nuts.

Firstly, I will not wear a Microsoft shirt the day I am scheduled to sit for an exam. If you have ever met me (at least in the last year) chances are I was wearing a Microsoft shirt; whether it be just Microsoft-branded or a Microsoft Certified Something shirt, I have more of them than most Microsoft employees. I made a business decision that it was a good image as a consultant, so during the week I am almost always wearing logo-ware. Frankly it happens without thinking about it that I wear them on the week-end too; I have a number of clients who are that because they saw me wearing a shirt on the golf course and started talking to me. However if I know I am taking an exam on a given day I will intentionally put on a shirt from the other drawer or side of the closet. I have just always felt that it is tempting fate to flaunt my standing in the community.

The second thing I do is I always have a new package of Jolly Rancher hard candies on the desk. This may sound less weird than eccentric, until I mention that I usually do not even open the package. It is not to eat, but they have to be there. THAT makes it weird. I know it, I accept it, and frankly I do not make any bones about it. It can be argued that I am anal on this matter. An objective observer might think I suffer from OCD. I do not mind, but the bottom line is that I have never passed an exam where I did not have them, and I have never failed an exam where I did.

We all have our routines or patterns we must follow for certain things, and I have learned that these routines are not necessarily transferrable. I recently taught a course in Small Business Server and told the class about my JRs. One of my students met me at my favorite café some weeks later with a long face. He put a package of Jolly Ranchers on the table and said ‘They didn’t help, I still failed.’ I guess the company that makes the candies lost a huge market segment that day with that realization.

In June I was scheduled to take an exam at a strange testing centre. I was not running early by any means but I did show up about 20 minutes before I the scheduled time. I was about to get out of my car when, to my horror, I realized that I had forgotten to stop for Jolly Ranchers. My regular test centre has a convenience store downstairs so I am always good but this centre was new to me, and there was no store in sight. I got back into my car and must have stopped at seven stores, gas stations, whatnot before I found one place that had them. Free retake or not this was an upgrade exam and I was not ready to tempt fate – literally spit in the face of Juju – by changing my routine. I showed up late for the first time in my certification life but I did not care – I had my JRs, and all was right in the world. (To remind me not to tempt fate again Juju did not let me score too well, but well enough to pass.)

Today I sat for an exam that I had very little doubt I would ace. I later joked that my pet fish could have scored a 700 on this exam, and he died on Friday. It did not matter, whatever exam I was writing I am now convinced in the deepest reaches of my being that I need my Juju, so before going up one floor to the testing centre I first went into the basement where the lovely Korean woman knows that when she sees me I am taking an exam. Am I crazy? You can make your own decision about that; the truth is for the USD$125 that each exam costs I do not mind spending the extra $1.25 that the Ranchers cost me if I really believe they help me.

Who knows? Maybe I am out of my mind. Maybe I was just ill-prepared for the few exams I failed. Maybe Juju or Fate or superstition has nothing to do with it. My friend Steph says that it was her undying faith in my intelligence that helped me ace this exam. She says that her faith in me is so strong that it alone will push me over the line from failure into pass if need be… but faith or not she knows that tomorrow when I sit for my exam I will be wearing a golf shirt with no logo, and I will have a brand new pack of Jolly Ranchers on the desk next to me – it has to be a fresh pack because the Juju is drained from the pack to power the exam. Frankly she would probably be disappointed if I didn’t, even if she still takes credit for it.

Of course I go into each exam with the knowledge and belief that the combination of my studying, reviewing, and real world experience are sufficient to pass the exam, but it does not hurt to appease the unknown (and obviously quite particular if peculiar) forces that surround us. I suppose in the end it is not a question of Jolly Ranchers and logos but it is for me. Maybe for you it will be a breakfast of Corn Flakes with whipped cream and a particular pair of running shoes. If you are lucky you do not need anything but if you feel you do – if you think you might just might need that extra something to make it work, then do not feel embarrassed and do not neglect it. After all, even the best of us need all the Juju we can get!

Windows 7 and Family Guy

Mitch Garvis — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:23:29 GMT

The week Windows 7 released Microsoft was slated to sponsor a portion of the Fox TV animated(and rather colourful) show Family Guy. At the last minute they pulled the plug because someone realized that the show did not quite … well frankly it is crude and tasteless. Nonetheless the original clip has made it to YouTube, and here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/user/WindowsVideos

Of course although the sentence is true, I still think my Launch Party video (put together by Sean ‘Energized Funny Guy’ Kearney) is still a better video!

Mitch speaks with Stephen Ibaraki

Mitch Garvis — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:56:36 GMT

I can hardly believe it has been nearly a year since I sat down to speak with Stephen Ibaraki. Stephen is a very well respected professional, a past-president of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), Advisor to Chair of Culminis (now GITCA), and a 44-year-veteran of the technology field. Aside from all of that I am proud to call him a friend.

With all of that when Stephen asked me to sit down with him and talk about the industry I gladly got out of bed early in the morning last December to account for the time zones, and spent a good deal of time talking with him. Here is the transcript and podcast:

http://stephenibaraki.com/interviews_general/v19/mitch_garvis_podcast_nb.html

A Brief Discussion of Security with Regard to Resource Over-Commitment in VMware

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:45:10 GMT

There are two schools of thought when it comes to physical memory over-commitment between virtual machines.

The first school of thought is that it is a great way for virtual machines to leverage more memory than the host server actually has. the memory resources available to the Guest OS machines exceed the available resources of the host. So:

Host Server 64 GB RAM

10x VMs 2GB Reservation, 8GB Limit

Memory reserved for powered-on VMs: 16GB RAM

Memory available to each guest OS: 80GB RAM

Obviously our virtual machines cannot access what is not there, but most machines do not use all available resources at any given time; so each VM has 2GB permanently (as long as they are powered-on), and there are 44GB left for the VMs to ‘share’. This is called resource over-commitment, and is enabled by what VMware calls their balloon driver which, I must admit, is pretty cool. Because our guest operating systems would crash if the actual available memory constantly changed, a swap file is created on the data store that is equal to the total available memory minus the memory reservation, and when the VM does not have the physical memory available the swap file stands in its place for all or any part of the memory requirements.

(I should mention that I have severely oversimplified this scenario for the sake of simplicity. I am not including factors such as host resource requirements, priorities, and more; they are irrelevant to the point of the article.)

The second school of thought is that memory over-commitment (which obviously implies physical memory being shared or ‘traded’ between virtual machines) is a great and blaring security hole. For this reason Microsoft’s Hyper-V (including the original and the 2008 R2) do not support over-commitment. So:

Host Server 64 GB RAM

10x VMs Maximum 6.4 GB RAM each

In Hyper-V all allocated memory is protected from the others by virtual buses.

In VMware many workloads present opportunities for sharing memory across virtual machines. For example, several virtual machines may be running instances of the same guest OS, have the same applications or components loaded, or contain common data.

According to one Microsoft virtualization security expert, Microsoft’s position is that by sharing resources there is a potential that hackers could inject code into a driver or common application that would be used by multiple VMs, thus passing the malicious code from the [initially infected] virtual machine into others.

The expert goes on to say that this is all theoretical to this point, because to date there have been no known instances of hackers exploiting this hole in the wild.

The next layer to this issue is that there are applications that allow you to patch VMware guest machines ‘on the fly’ in memory. In other words a hacker who breaches the initial security now has a tool to inject malicious code into running VMs.

I have always said that the level of security of any system should take into account all reasonable threats, with a strong consideration for what the security system is protecting. In other words while both need a firewall, the solution I implement for my mother’s laptop will look nothing like the solution I implement for an enterprise client with sensitive data.

I think that both Microsoft’s Hyper-V and VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure are excellent virtualization solutions. While you can’t beat the price of Hyper-V, I would never tell a client that they should not implement an ESX 4.0 Server because of a hypothetical potential security flaw inherent in over-committing resources.

I will continue to keep my eyes open for this exploit. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that ‘if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door*;’ I do not believe that, and if one were to look at IT security as a baseline the phrase would be ‘Build a better mouse trap, and the world will make a better mouse.’ One of the unfortunate results of improvements in systems security over the years has been how much smarter hackers have become, and I suspect it is only a matter of time before this vulnerability is exploited.

ADDITION

Although memory over-commitment is a great way of maximizing and even extending past your actual available resources, it should be mentioned that even VMware does not recommend that it be used in a production environment. According to a document on their website entitled ‘Performance Tuning Best Practices for ESX Server 3’ (I have not been able to find a similar document for ESX Server 4, but this technology is similar):

Avoid frequent memory reclamation. Make sure the host has more physical memory than the total amount of memory that will be used by ESX plus the sum of the working set sizes that will be used by all the virtual machines running at any one time. (Note: ESX does, however, allow some memory overcommitment without impacting performance by using the memory management mechanisms described in “Resource Management Best Practices” on page 12 [of this document].

One colleague of mine, an employee of Microsoft, concedes that resource overcommitment is a great tool for a test/dev environment, but is adamant that he would not use it in production. I would not disagree with this. However like so many questions in our field the real answer is what I refer to as the Universal Consultants Answer (UCA): It depends.

*This phrase is apparently a misquote; the true quote is ‘If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten path to his house, though it be in the woods’

Wild for Windows 7!

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:23:28 GMT

I have seen a lot of contests recently… some promise cash, others cool prizes. This contest will actually help you to grow your business!

Microsoft Canada has a great contest for IT professionals and implementers. Do you have a story about how Windows 7 is helping you to expand your customer base? Have you developed an innovative Windows 7 application? How about a great customer deployment story? Tell Microsoft about it and you can win… big!

The Wild for Windows 7 contest winner will receive Seven Thousand Dollars (CDN$7,000) in professional marketing services from one of Microsoft’s most trusted marketing agencies. This could include anything from direct marketing campaigns to event planning.

You have to enter by December 11, 2009 so make sure you visit the site (http://www.microsoft.com/canada/partner/windows-7-partner-contest/default.aspx?lang=en-CA&wt.mc_id=can_win7-partnercontest-en_bulletin_sbsc) and sign up. Tell your friends about it too… and don’t forget to let me know that you entered! :)

Windows 7 Comes to the Sarnia Computer Users Group!

Mitch Garvis — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:05:28 GMT

On October 28 I was invited to present a STEP (Springboard Technical Experts Panel) Event for the Sarnia Computer Users Group in Sarnia, Ontario. Steve Syfuhs and I drove out there and had a great time, even though we were in for a surprise! I have to say that this group of retired hobbyists were every bit as knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and interested as many professional groups I have spoken to! Check out their site to see some of the pictures… http://scug.ca/michgarvis1028.html

Windows 7 Launch Event: OAKVILLE ROCKS!

Mitch Garvis — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:58:57 GMT

When Microsoft announced that rather than throwing large launch events in select cities they would enable Influencers to throw ‘House Parties’ there was a lot of ridicule; many said it wouldn’t work, others poked fun and even shot mocumentaries about them. Cameron McKay and I set out to prove that not only COULD they work, but we wanted to set the bar for what one of these parties should look like.

Some of our colleagues across the country (and around the globe) invited people into their homes; others leveraged their pull with local businesses (including Microsoft offices) to make the event look a lot like a user group meeting. We wanted to do something different.

We reserved Artisano’s Bakery Cafe in Oakville; they would cater hors d’oeuvres and deserts and we supplied drink tickets to everyone. At 4pm we starting setting up… five machines in all running Windows 7, a VERY powerful hi-def wide screen projector, a few KVM switch boxes, and a really powerful set of desktop speakers with sub-woofer. Thankfully the duct tape kept the wires down, and nobody got hurt!

We had five computers set up and running… two relatively new ones (my production laptop and my netbook – these would be for demos and PowerPoint respectively), a two year old laptop for people to play with, as well as what we called the Clunker Corner… machines that were previously thought to be ready for the junk heap, but that Windows 7 runs nicely on! One of those machines acted as the sound system, the other was another demo box for people to try out… and they did, in droves!

In total we had 52 guests show up. Most were local to the west end of the GTA but we also had a few people take the train from downtown, Scarborough, and Oshawa; we even had a couple of out-of-towners – from Montreal and Chicago!

The kit that Microsoft supplied included a jigsaw puzzle; As I set up the computers my beautiful wife Theresa put the puzzle together, and I had an idea; why not use the puzzle as a fundraiser? We sold pieces of the puzzle; for $2 each people could choose their piece and write their name on the back; the pieces then went into a wicker basket (borrowed from the restaurant). Not only did the puzzle pieces sell out, but one very generous attendee asked for 50 pieces. Rather than giving him the individual pieces I thanked him for his generosity and gave him two of our 15 prize bags. All in all we raised $250 for the Meadow Green Academy Gymnasium Fund! For the winners we handed out prize bags containing Windows 7 Ultimate (NFR) licenses, pens, stickers, and more.

People started coming in at 6:30 but we kicked off the formal presentation at 7:15. For the next hour Cam and I demonstrated many of the cool new features of Windows 7, ranging from the GUI and Aero Peek, new Windows key combinations, and more, BitLocker to Go, Location-aware devices, security (including the much improved UAC!), Windows XP Mode, and much more. As the saying goes, a good time was had by all.

After the official presentation someone asked if it was really an easier and faster install than Windows Vista and XP; I could have explained to him that it was but I decided to show him instead, popping my USB Deployment Stick into the 2-year-old laptop and redeploying Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials, and Microsoft Office 2007 from scratch in about 20 minutes. Everyone was amazed!

In the ‘Fireplace Corner’ we set up a video camera so that our team (Steve Syfuhs and Sean Kearney) could interview the attendees about the party, Windows 7, and asked them about what they hoped to see in Windows 7 (or what their experience was already) and what they were excited about; a few of the popular answers to that were XP Mode and BitLocker to Go, along with the faster interface and GUI functionality.

In case you missed it – or if you would like to reminisce about the great evening, our camera team had the video cameras rolling the whole evening. Sean ‘Friday Funny’ Kearney took all of that footage and did an incredible job compiling the event video, which you can see here!

I would like to take a moment to thank all of the people who made this event happen: First and foremost my beautiful wife Theresa, without whom I am not allowed to do anything! Despite being seven months pregnant she helped with the set-up, brought our son down for dinner, then took him to Tae Kwon Do and then back, where my boy was amazed that his dad really is a public speaker (every time I had tried to help him with that aspect of schoolwork he refused… I suspect that might change now!). My partner in crime, Cameron McKay, who joined in making it an incredible evening, and also picked up half of the bill (don’t forget that we paid for the food and drinks out of our own pockets!). Sean Kearney and Steve Syfuhs not only helped with setting up and breaking down, but also were our cameramen and videographers throughout the evening. Additionally Sean went above and beyond by taking the video footage and creating the incredible video you see here! Also I have to thank Sue and the crew at Artisano’s who not only make a mean pizza (PEPERONI!!) but went out of their way to make everything just right for the night. From Microsoft (and Microsoft Canada!) I want to thank Stephen Rose (STEP… absolute genius!) and the whole STEP program, Mark R. who showed me a few W7 tricks early on, Rob Gellar who contributed some of the prizes, Simran Chaudhry and the MVP Crew (LJUPCO!!), the DPE guys (Rodney came but Rick and Damir helped as ‘advisors’). I am probably forgetting a bunch of people because when an event goes this well and this smoothly there are so many people behind it. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CAME! Without them Cam, Sean, Steve, and I would have had a lot of celery and cookies!

What to do with a busted laptop?

Mitch Garvis — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:57:53 GMT

My wife’s 17” HP Pavillion laptop broke; when I say that it broke I do not mean that the OS crashed or that the hard disk was defective, or even that the motherboard fried, which are all legitimate reasons for computers to stop working. It seems that a couple of people liked to carry the open laptop from place to place by the screen, and eventually the hinge broke. The screen still works, the system itself is great, but it neither closes nor opens properly, and to top that off much of the plastic frame is broken and bits of wire and electronics are exposed where they should not be. Add to the damage caused by humans there is also damage done by dogs… Gingit at one point decided to learn to type, and when she got bored ATE the F3, F7, and T keys. _ry _yping a le__er wihou_ _he le__er _ and you will unders_and my frus_ration.

We looked into getting the damage fixed but the quotes were over $500… not worth it for a three year old laptop that is one of 5 laptops and 13 computers in the house. It has been sitting on a shelf in my office for months.

As I prepare for my Windows 7 Launch Party (http://www.houseparty.com/party/175335) this week I am planning all sorts of demos… Media Center, Deployment, and more. As I planned it out I realized I did not particularly want to use any of my primary machines lying around… although I can do a pretty good job of securing them I really don’t want just anyone playing with them; I plan to mingle and do not want to spend my time (or assign people to) watching my laptops for funny business. So I looked on the shelf to seek alternatives. I decided to spin up the HP and see how it worked… and of course it worked flawlessly.

I popped in the USB key that I created in my last article (Creating a Multi-OS Installation USB Key) and booted from it – I knew I had already moved all data off the disused laptop – and installed Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. Fifteen minutes later the only error message I received was that the Microsoft Security Essentials could not be installed because I had only included the x86 installation file… everything else worked flawlessly!

So what do we do with a busted laptop? It is certainly not worth paying to fix… but is it worth throwing out? Absolutely not.

The first question I asked myself is if the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts? Simply put, if I were to cannibalize it would the components be worth more to me than the unit as a whole? As the system itself is functioning perfectly (including the screen) the quick answer is no… the interchangeable components are just too inexpensive these days for them to be worth more separately.

So what is the real damage? The computer works fine, the screen is great, it is simply the hinge that is unusable. Thus the only part that does not work is the portability! What was once a portable laptop is now destined to be a stationary desktop. I should mention that if the screen was NOT working this would still be a good solution, only I would need an external monitor for it to work.

Next came the question of the keyboard… It made me think for a few minutes because I actually had a few options, now that I knew that the system would be stationary… I could add an external keyboard to it of course, but there are also a number of systems that do not require a keyboard… servers! I would never make a busted up laptop a full production server, but what about a test environment? A Terminal Server? A Home Server? I even briefly considered, knowing that it is how it started its life converting it into a Media Center PC to run my TV! All viable options, but as my wife and I just bought a PVR, and because I have a really good server already, that it was destined to become a desktop PC.

So I now have an extra demo unit for the launch party. But what should I do with it after the launch?

I do not spend a lot of time there but I actually do have an office… desk and all! The only thing I do not have there is a computer, because I always come and go with my laptop. Starting this week that will not be the case; I will install the former laptop there, set up remote access, a keyboard and mouse, and for about $60 in hardware I will have a perfectly functioning – though not necessarily pretty – desktop computer. I laugh not because of my ingenuity, but because no fewer than five people and charitable organizations refused it as a donation saying they didn’t want junk. What they call junk I now call a very reliable high-performance Windows 7 machine!

Creating a Multi-OS Installation USB Key

Mitch Garvis — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:14:23 GMT

Back when I was a computer support technician I used to carry a binder of CDs and DVDs, including (but certainly not limited to!) every version and edition of Windows client and server. This came in handy every time I replaced a hard drive because I could reinstall the OS without having to take it in to the lab.

Fast forward to 2009.

Earlier this year I wrote in an article that Tim Mintner and I created a USB key from which we could install several different versions of the Windows operating system. I know a lot of techs who liked the idea, so in this article I will explain how to do it.

My Tools

For the purpose of this article I will use my Windows 7 laptop, the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, and a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 16GB USB key that I borrowed brom Bradley Bird at TechEd and never returned (thanks Brad!).

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010

Although I usually install the MDT on a server I installed it on my laptop to demonstrate that a server is supported but is not required. My laptop is running the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 Ultimate so I downloaded the x64 version of MDT 2010… but there is a 32-bit version as well which works the same way.

MDT is one of those tools that is relatively small (9.76MB) and can be downloaded in seconds. One of the requirements for the MDT however is the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) which in its current iteration weighs in at 1.7GB. Make sure you have it ready when you want to start!

Once you have installed the MDT 2010 and the Windows AIK you have to create a Deployment Share. Being the imaginative guy that I am I called mine MDT Deployment Share. I linked it to the local directory D:\Deployment, and assigned it the UNC path of \\MDG-E6500\Deployment$. Even though it will never be a network deployment server it is necessary to assign a share, which by default and best practice should be an administrative share.

Now that my deployment share has been created I need to import my Operating System files.

Click on Operating Systems in the navigation bar.
In the Actions pane click Import Operating System. The Import Operating System Wizard will launch.
In the OS Type window ensure that Full set of source files is selected and click Next.
In the Source window click Browse and navigate to the directory where your OS is located. Normally this will be the root of your DVD drive; if you use .ISO files like me then mount the file (I use MagicISO) and then navigate to the root of the virtual DVD, and click OK. Back in the Source window click Next.
The wizard should automatically identify the OS version and edition; in the Destination window ensure the Destination directory name is appropriate (i.e.: Windows 7 x64) and click Next.
In the Summary window make sure that the details are correct, and click Next.

Once the import process is complete you should have a number of different OS editions in your MDT. That is because the .WIM file contains multiple editions. Although you can delete some of them for the sake of organization (I generally delete all of the Home editions for business deployment points) it is not necessary.

You have to repeat the above steps for all of the operating systems that you want to deploy. In the end you might have a list that looks like this:

Next you should import any applications that you install often:

right-click Applications under the deployment share in the navigation bar and click New Application. The New Application Wizard will open.
In the Application Type window select Application with source files and click Next.
In the Details window enter the appropriate information and click Next.
In the Sources window click Browse and navigate to the directory where your OS is located. Normally this will be the root of your DVD drive but it can also be the directory where the installation files are stored, and click OK. Back in the Source window click Next.
In the Destination window ensure that the name is correct (it is based on the information you specified in the Details window) and click Next.
In the Command Details window the Working directory should already be populated; for the Command line you should enter the command that you would use to install the application, including command-line switches. So you could either type setup.exe, or get fancier and enter setup.exe /adminfile Custom2.msp. When you are satisfied click Next.
On the Summary page ensure the details are correct and click Next to import the files.

When you are done importing your applications they will all be listed in the Applications list.

Now you might want to import Packages and Out-of-Box drivers, but that I will save for another time. Let’s move forward and create our task sequences.

A Task Sequence is a list of commands that must be performed by the deployment point. These are the instruction sets that make our deployment work.

In the navigation pane click on Task Sequences.
In the Actions pane click New Task Sequence. This will launch the New Task Sequence Wizard.
In the General Settings window enter a Task Sequence ID(3 unique characters) and a Task Sequence Name that you will recognize and understand. You can also enter comments if you wish. Click Next.
In the Select Template window select Standard Client Task Sequence from the drop-down list and click Next.
In the Select OS window choose the OS that you would like this TS to deploy. Only one OS version and edition can be installed by a single task sequence. Click Next.
In the Specify Product Key window ensure that Do not specify a product key at this time is selected and click Next. This will ensure that you are prompted for a unique key every time you deploy.
In the OS Settings window you must enter a name and organization name; if all of your deployment will be for you then use your own name, but some people may want to use more generic names like ‘IT Department’. Click Next.
In the Admin Password screen you should specify the local administrator password, although you have the option of selecting Do not specify an Administrator password at this time. Click Next.
On the Summary screen ensure the information is correct and click Next to create it.

You will have to repeat these steps for each OS that you would want to deploy from your USB key. In the end it might look like this:

Next you have to update your deployment share. In the navigation pane right-click on your deployment share and click Update Deployment Share. In the Options window for a first-time share you would leave the default; click Next. The Deployment Share will populate and you are in business! (This is actually a very time consuming step… expect to wait!)

Once your Deployment Share is updated all that is left is to create the media files. The wizard will create two sets of files (the files themselves and an ISO of the files), each one roughly equivalent to the total size of everything you have created – i.e.: really big. My first attempt exceeded not only my 16GB USB key, but also the free space on my hard drive! Remember that if your files come to 9GB then you need at least 18GB free on the Media Path drive.

Under your Deployment Share in the navigation pane expand Advanced Configuration and click Media.
In the Actions pane click New Media to launch the New Media Wizard.
In the General Settings window enter a Media path. The path must be an empty directory. Click Next.
In the Summary window make sure that all of your details are correct and then click Next to create the files.

Once the files have been created on your hard disk you can copy them to a bootable USB key. To create a bootable key follow the instructions I wrote in the article Bootable USB Media for Windows 7.

Conclusion

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 makes deployment simple. In this article I have essentially held your hand through the process of creating a USB deployment point… but that is only part of the magic of the MDT. Now that you have worked with it through this article you can expand on that and create network deployment points, capture existing images using MDT, and much more. Take what I have given you and run with it, and you too can be a deployment guru!

Meadow Green Academy: A Case Study of a Modern OS Deployment, Part 1

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:23:01 GMT

If a tool is cumbersome, unwieldy, inefficient, and difficult to use, would you use it? Would you look forward to the experience? Neither would I; so when at the end of last year my son’s Grade 5 homeroom teacher told me that the computers in the school were unreasonably slow, extremely cluttered, and that the students did not look forward to using them, I wanted to see for myself how bad they really were.

The school I’m describing is a small private school in Mississauga called Meadow Green Academy. Class sizes range from 12-20 students with one campus location for students in grades 4-8 and another campus for Junior Kindergarten – grade 3 about 7 kilometres away. The upper school has approximately seventy-five students, a staff of maybe ten teachers, and a handful of administration staff. With fewer than ninety bodies it is reasonable that their computer lab should consist of twenty workstations and a server.

Four years ago the school made an investment in its computers – a server running Windows Server 2003 that is both domain controller and file server, as well as brand new workstations running Windows XP. At the time, the 512MB of RAM in both the workstations and server were quite sufficient. In fact as they were still running Windows XP the specs as I saw them should have run reasonably well. However it would not be the first time computers that were supposed to perform well did not, so I decided to investigate further.

My first thought was a DNS issue; Nine years ago I administered a network where user logon took 10-15 minutes – unreasonable by any measure – and when the Domain Naming Service on the server was properly configured and the workstation network settings were tweaked that logon time dropped to under a minute. I started to doubt this as the cause when local operations (such as loading applications) took unreasonable time as well.

Because all twenty computers presented identical symptoms, I expected the cause would have been central but I was wrong and understood why reasonably quickly. Twenty identical computers with identical symptoms began to make sense when I discovered that none of them had been managed or monitored on an ongoing basis, and considering each was used similarly over an extended period of time it made sense that they were sluggish beyond comfort.

· The hard drives were all full, by which I do not mean reasonably full but rather the free space on each was counted in kilobytes;

· Although some of the systems did have Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, most did not. (Service Pack 3 had been released over a year earlier.)

· Although there was a centralized anti-virus solution in place it was not regularly monitored, and there were a number of infections of different sorts discovered in thirteen of the workstations.

I asked for a meeting with the school’s administration and laid out my findings. There is an old adage saying that the shoemaker’s children go barefoot. I don’t make shoes… but I know a thing or two about information technology. I asked if I could offer my help as a concerned parent, and went to work.

Although I spend most of my time writing and teaching, I am still a reasonably successful IT Professional; I have two principles that I live by when taking on projects:

1. Measure twice, cut once; and

2. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.

The first of these sayings originates in carpentry; simply put, a good measure of proper planning can save time, money, stress, and headaches. I knew that before I purchased a license or memory chip, cleaned out a machine, patched an operating system, I had to know what materials I had; based on that I could determine what we could do, and what we would need. I first heard the second philosophy from the owner of a security company where I used to work. By profession he was an accountant, and he said it at an otherwise boring and uneventful management meeting. I did not appreciate it until later.

This article is the first part of a series that will take the valiant IT department of Meadow Green Academy from zero to hero over the course of a summer. For the users – students and teachers alike – it is a true Cinderella story. It Is also a textbook case of transitioning the IT of a small business – possibly a small business just like yours, certainly with some of the same pains and needs as any small business – from a cost center, break-fix model to a rational, managed model that makes it a strategic asset to the organization.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that because it is a school it is somehow unique; it is unique, of course, because every small business is, but it also has users who produce work – ranging from reports, schedules, documents and spreadsheets to homework and class assignments. There is a boss that is at the same time responsible for all these users, but also responsible both to them and to their clients (parents). They have standards that have to be met, and, like you, want to get home to their families. Like most of us they want to use their computers as a means to an end, and not be hindered by them. They also want to learn the latest technology and not be stuck in the 90s with yesterday’s technology.

Over the course of the series, I will explain the goals we set, the hurdles we encountered, the opportunities we discovered, and the headaches we endured. I’m going to let you in on a secret right now; I know how the story ends, and it ends well. I will discuss many of the tools involved behind the scenes, as well as the operating systems (Windows 7) and applications that would be installed using those tools. I will even try to give you a glimpse into the discussions we had in trying to choose these tools.

The series is more about the process used than it is about Windows 7, although Windows 7 was the impetus for taking on the project. In the end, it is about how the right technology can help us all to work smarter and not harder with the minimum hardware purchases, the right consultant, and the right attitudes.

This is the story of how Meadow Green Academy became the first school in Canada to run completely on Windows 7, and how it has benefited them.

Creating a new Domain Forest on Server Core

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:04:27 GMT

This article explains how to install a new domain forest on Windows Server Core, or in the Windows Server CLI (Command Line Interpreter). I will not discuss any other option for RODCs, existing domains, child domains, and so on… there are a plethora of articles out there that describe those already.

It astounded me the first (several) times I tried to create a new domain using Windows Server Core installations as my first domain controller in the forest. There are, I should mention, copious articles on creating additional DCs in an existing domain, but I have not come across too many (any?) that explained creating the FIRST… i.e.: creating the forest FOR the trees :)

This evening Steve Syfuhs and I sat down and attempted to do just that. Actually our original intentions had very little to do with that, but as we discovered along the way we would have two choices:

Create a new physical server with Windows Server 2008 FULL install, create a new domain on GUI mode, join our Server Core machine to that domain, promote it to Domain Controller, transfer all Operations Master Roles to the Server Core machine, and continue on; or
Figure out once and for all how to create our domain in Server Core.

I should point out that between us we read several dozen articles (including some written by some very reputable IT Pros) that CLAIMED that it was possible, but none that elaborated.

So we started clawing our way through the tidbits we gleaned from various sources and came up with the following unattend file that did the job:

[DCInstall]
InstallDNS=yes
NewDomain=forest
NewDomainDNSName=swmi.ca
DomainNetBiosName=SWMI
SiteName=Default-First-Site-Name
ReplicaOrNewDomain=domain
ForestLevel=3
DomainLevel=3
DatabasePath="%systemroot%\ntds"
LogPath="%systemroot%\ntds"
RebootOnCompletion=yes
SYSVOLPath="%systemroot%\sysvol"
SafeModeAdminPassword=Pa$$w0rd

Now: Once the file was created we put it in the root of C: on the server core machine, and typed the following command:

dcpromo /unattend:c:\unattend.txt

The next user interaction was (after a reboot) a logon prompt for the SWMI\Administrator account.

I hope this helps the next group of IT Pros trying to claw their way through the process… Creating AD Forests and Domains is something I have done a thousand times but always in GUI mode; from now on I can do it either way… and so can you!

An Open Letter to the EBS Community From an Administrator

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:21:02 GMT

Although I spend a lot of my ‘MVP time’ talking about other technologies the product that I am actually awarded in is Essential Business Server, a product that I have believed in strongly since the day it was announced. The following is the text of an e-mail sent by the IT Professional at a company that uses it and loves it.

For those of you who have been following my posts, I just wanted to check in and let you know that EBS has been in production for almost two months now and has been working great and great to work with and, right now, is really saving my butt. The growth of our agency is simply amazing and I can't see how I could accommodate it all without EBS. I am now the single IT staff person for an non-profit organization with 150+ staff and 130+ computers at 17 sites in 3 counties. It seems nearly impossible to manage, but EBS is helping to make it possible. I'm about to implement our first site-to-site VPN and hoping to get TS thin clients integrated in the near future (anyone who wants to offer me free advice on this, you input would be most welcome). My main limitation right now is money, bandwidth and some time to think; but I am working on all that. Thanks largely to Microsoft's charity donation program, I have been able to do all of this while working with a severely limited budget. Our region is in an extreme economic downturn and we are seeing greater need than ever, and we have been able to expand to meet the need thanks, in large part, to EBS.

So, here’s a big shout-out to everyone who has helped me to implement this server system for our organization. I’m an accidental-tech turned career tech and I didn’t have the opportunity to get any real training or work with a partner for this project, and I really appreciate the time people took to help me with critical decisions, implementation and troubleshooting advice. I don't know how I would have done it without your help. Keep up the great work.

Michael Hensley
Systems Administrator,

Neighbor Impact (Redmond, Oregon)

Letters like this make me smile because it not only confirms to me that EBS is the right solution for a mid-sized organization without needing a large IT staff. It also shows the value of community for recommendations and support in times of need!

To learn more about Neighbor Impact or to make a donation to this worthwhile cause visit them on the web at

www.neighborimpact.org.

Why small businesses use Windows Small Business Server

Mitch Garvis — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:18:32 GMT

If you are a small business owner or consultant you must read this article! http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/09/10/why-small-businesses-use-windows-small-business-server.aspx

The Sad Plight of Joel Tenenbaum

Mitch Garvis — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:00:11 GMT

I want to start this article by stating that I do feel sorry for Joel… but I have no sympathy for him.

If you are unfamiliar with the case, here is the article written by none other than Joel Tenenbaum about his case: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jul/27/filesharing-music-industry.

To summarize: Mr. Tenenbaum downloaded music using one of the myriad file sharing programs that create peer-to-peer networks across the Internet, and allow you to download music (or videos, documents, and software) without paying for it. This is, of course, illegal, and tantamount to walking into a music store and stealing CDs and DVDs… with the exception that on-line you are much less likely to get caught.

I want to be clear, in this article I am not taking anything for granted; I am not assuming anything, filling in blanks, or making accusations. If I state that Mr. Tenenbaum stole that is because that information is written in his article. In the header of his article he does not say ‘I am accused of…’ he says ‘I shared music.’ Where I am speculating, I will call that out.

I first became familiar with this case because it was in the Toronto Star yesterday. I read the article with interest because I have heard for years of people being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, but had never heard of one first hand. I suppose before I realized the true nature of the crime I was guilty of downloading music from time to time, and suppose that this could just as easily have been me as him.

Actually that is not true… Had my parents received a letter from the RIAA telling me that I had been caught and to settle it after they chewed me out at full volume they would have told me to take my attorney’s advice and to make the best settlement possible. Let’s assume that as I am not a teenager living under my parents’ roof the letter would have come to me, and I would have immediately contacted my attorney (my father in this case) who would likely have chewed me out at full volume, asked me if I had done it, and then told me to make the best settlement possible. Somewhere in there he probably would have called me a *** and told me I should have known better.

Four years ago (when Joel’s parents got the first letter) I was not in the best financial shape – mostly unemployed and going through a divorce, most of my expendable income at the time went to… well, food and rent. I would have had to negotiate the best terms possible, and then borrowed the money.

Joel did not do this… although he claims he did try to settle for $500, which at least shows good intent. However the RIAA did not accept this settlement offer; <speculation> they may have wanted to make an example, or to show that there were real consequences for pirating music. Five Hundred Dollars may be a significant amount to a college student, but it is not a punishment for breaking the law… at least not one that the RIAA was willing to accept. They, being the injured party, have that right.

The article spends a lot of time portraying this as a David versus Goliath conflict, which might be a little more believable if in this case the David had not been raiding the camp of the Goliath and contributing to billions of dollars of losses. He laments the fact that the RIAA has a tremendous legal team; should we feel bad about that? If I had over the course of fifty years grown a business worth billions and then a new technology allowed people to steal from me nearly unchecked then I would throw whatever resources I had against the perpetrators in a (mostly vain) attempt to stop them.

Since the advent of music piracy over the Internet (I know piracy predates the Internet, but doubt that the RIAA was losing real market share to people dubbing cassettes) I have heard the recording industry portrayed as the evil giant out to make money. Isn’t that what industry is about? ‘They charge too much';’ or ‘music is the public domain!’ or such. I agree that music is not cheap to purchase… but nor is it cheap to make. When recording artists demand huge contracts for their product then they are no longer creating art for art’s sake, they are producing a product that happens to be creative. However that does not change the fact that they still own their material, and we as consumers have the option to NOT buy them. We can listen to them on our favorite radio station, we can go to clubs and bars and dance to them; we can even often listen to them on-line. But stealing them should not even be a consideration.

Of course since music is not necessarily something you can touch let’s put the same argument into a different context, but with very similar intent:

I love cars. However cars are much more expensive than they used to be… I can’t afford a car now, but still want one, so I am going to steal one. I also have friends who like cars so I am going to steal one today, give it to my friend tonight, and steal a new one tomorrow… and am going to continue doing this until I get caught, at which point instead of taking responsibility I am going to stand up for every man and show the car companies that they cannot push us around.

Does that sound absurd? Exaggerated? The only difference is that because a car is physical you can only steal it once… Steal a song once and you can replicate that to hundreds or thousands of people who suddenly don’t have to buy it.

So the Recording Industry Association of America, representing recording artists, starts suing people. Apparently (according to the article) there have been 40,000 people contacted, most of whom settled. <supposition> The ones the RIAA are going after are likely some of the biggest offenders… if I steal (sorry… download and then share) a hundred songs then I am probably not even on their radar. However people I know… people I speak to merrily boast that they have downloaded tens of thousands of songs at no cost to them! I was sitting at a cafe speaking with a professional consultant on Monday who said ‘yeah I am glad my daughter downloads all of her music because it gets so expensive to buy it!’ I was in shock.

It happens for software too by the way… people look at me and say ‘yeah I download all of my software… but don’t worry, I paid for my operating system.’ They assume that because of my affiliation to Microsoft that I care about pirating Microsoft’s product, but would gladly condone stealing from Adobe. ‘But software is so expensive! Do you know how much Microsoft Office costs?’ Yes I do… and you have alternatives… if you are a student or only use it for personal use purchase the Home and Student Edition at a fraction of the cost. You don’t get all of the applications you get in Office Pro, but you probably don’t need Access or InfoPath. If that is still too expensive for your tastes then there are Shareware and Freeware applications that do just about everything that commercial applications do. ‘But they are not as good and don’t have all of the features!’ If you want the best bread you have to pay the best baker.

So Joel is in court… I believe today is Day 3. His article, like the lawsuit, is meant to shock us. ‘How it feels to be sued for 4.5 Million Dollars.’ I am sure it feels terrible… however chances are if it goes to judgment the judge would not grant the whole amount, and if they did then he likely could never pay it all anyways. Of course, if past acts and lack of remorse are any indication then he might just steal it.

My opinion on this case is clear but that does not mean that I do not feel sorry for him, and by all means invite you to feel sorry for him too… but do not for one minute make the mistake of seeing him as the victim here; he perpetrated a criminal act, and was unlucky enough to do it against a very large organization with both the will and the means to pursue it vehemently… the RIAA may look like the Goliath here, but they are the victim in this case… the wronged party seeking justice.

I suspect that this case will become one for the books… Joel was fortunate enough to get pro-bono help from professors at the Harvard School of Law. I suspect that with them on one side of the table and the RIAA’s high powered attorneys on the other it will make for interesting (in one sense… let’s be clear that no court case has ever been riveting to watch except on TV) litigation but in the end I suspect it will still come down to the fact that Joel stole and enabled others to steal from the record companies. the settlement or judgment will likely be a fraction of what is being sought (that’s how it works). If Joel were to write a book I can’t see it being much more interesting than the article, and anyways the RIAA would probably sue for proceeds. If there is a confidentiality clause we may never know what the real figures are. However I hope that it finally convinces people that ‘sharing’ is stealing… as serious as walking into a store and taking it.

Get off your soapbox!

Mitch Garvis — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:34:05 GMT

If you either post or watch videos on-line then you know YouTube… but how about SoapBox? A couple of years ago MSN started a competing service to YouTube which I have found very convenient. I don’t use it often – I have posted precisely six videos on-line, and four of them were shot (and posted) the same day (they are all linked to from my blog or Facebook page).

I posted them on Soapbox instead of YouTube… but not because of loyalty to Microsoft. I did it for convenience; when I click on Publish in Live Writer (the application I use to write and post blog articles) it asked me ‘Do you want to store these videos on Soapbox? I did.

Yesterday I got the following e-mail (in 18 languages!):

Attention Soapbox Users,

MSN will no longer offer Soapbox, the user generated video service within MSN Video, as of August 31, 2009. Beginning on July 29, you will no longer be able to upload videos to Soapbox. People who have uploaded videos to Soapbox will have until August 31, 2009 to download them. Please make sure you download your videos by this date if you would like to keep them. We will have a notice running in the Soapbox service to remind you to download your videos. It is our goal that you download and keep all of the videos you uploaded that are important to you. Online video is a key part of the MSN experience and we will continue to offer a rich experience on MSN Video. We will also continue to invest in delivering great customer experiences, while keeping a keen eye on our business objectives during this tough economic climate. Thank you for your support of MSN Video. More details and download instructions are available at: http://video.msn.com/shutdown.html

Thank you for using Soapbox.

The MSN Video Team

I came to the video world late in the game… My first digital camera took lousy video and it wasn’t until the end of 2007 that I bought a decent one. I record video sparingly and am far from an expert; however I found that recording any videos – from ‘I’m a PC’ commercials to my wedding ceremony to my tae kwon do belt tests - can produce large files that are unruly. It was only when I realized what a great job Camtasia Studio (www.techsmith.com) does of editing down those files – including resolution, bit rate, and cutting off bits at either end, not to mention great editing functionality – that I really said ‘Ok, I can now start working with videos. Between Facebook and Soapbox I suppose there are now about a dozen videos of mine on-line.

I am not saddened that Soapbox is shutting down… possibly slightly inconvenienced, but not as much as if I had dozens or hundred of videos. I guess I will have to find another service that I can use to smoothly integrate videos into blog articles though, and that will take a little research.

Thanks for they time Soapbox… and thanks for the ample notice for me to take action!

What’s in Your laptop bag?

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:53:40 GMT

I have noticed of late a trend… a plethora of articles listing the contents of one’s laptop bag. Far be it from me to miss a writing bandwagon, so here it goes!

Laptop Bag: Firstly I should mention that I switch laptop bags with boring frequency; at present I have the Ogio VP Messenger which was a present… yes, it is branded Windows 7. However the reason I am so fond of it is because it is TSA-friendly; the main laptop pouch folds out for airport screening. You can check it out at http://www.ogio.com/product.php?product=637. It is probably my third or fourth Ogio laptop bag, and I am on my second Ogio golf bag (I gave the first to my father). They make a great product!

Laptop #1: My primary laptop is a Dell Latitude 6500, and as you can probably imagine it is pretty tricked out… 8GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, and so on. As it is my primary workstation I needed to be sure that it would do anything I needed… fast. http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop_latitude_e6500?c=ca&cs=cabsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

Laptop #2: I usually carry my netbook in the same bag; A Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with 2 GB RAM and a 64GB Solid State Drive. I like being able to pull that out and work on a plane, in a cafe, or wherever I might not need the full system. It also supports Bluetooth so I can tether my phone to it for Internet connectivity where there is none. It has its own neoprene case… the side pocket is replete with USB keys of sizes from 1 GB to 16GB.

Power: Back to the laptop bag proper, I have two power supplies – one for the E6500 and one for the netbook. I wish they were the same but alas… no. When I am traveling on car trips I also carry with me the car charger kit for the E6500; on a recent journey from Toronto to Montreal this paid off when my project manager called me and asked for urgent modifications to a series of documents; I sat in the parking lot of a Rest Area, plugged the laptop into the lighter plug, tethered my cell phone for connectivity, and worked for three hours. If this kit were 90W instead of 60W I would carry it exclusively… but it is not powerful enough to charge the laptop while using it, and it is relatively heavy so it is often left in the car. (I do have a spare 6-cell battery for my laptop which I would take if I knew I was going to be unable to charge for extended periods, such as on older aircraft)

Because power jacks are often sparse I took to carrying my own power bar with me, and was delighted to find the Monster Outlets To Go Power Strip with USB (http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=4646). It is compact and folds into itself, has three 3-prong jacks, plus a USB port for charging my phone.

Speaking of power I never leave North America without a universal prong adapter… I found myself coming back from Asia on an Air France A340 from Paris which supported neither the North American jacks that I am comfortable with, nor the asian jack which I had gotten used to over the previous month. Rather than watch their bad movies for the duration I purchased the World Travel Adapter (SWA1.1) by Swiss Travel Products (http://swisstravelproducts.com/index.php?site=productview&product_id=3) from the on-board duty free shop, and have been very happy with it – in several countries.

Mice: I have two mice in my laptop bag… an Arc Mouse (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=112) which is what I use most of the time, and a wireless notebook presenter mouse (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=085). I love the Arc Mouse, and only wish it were Bluetooth capable. I also prefer the black one to the red, but Gingit ate it… sigh.

External Hard Drives: Depending on where I am going I usually have between 1 and 5 portable USB hard drives in the bag, plus a mini-USB cable or three. Right now I have four drives in the bag for different purposes. The mini USB cable also serves to charge my phone when I am on the road.

Networking: Two years ago I came across a Linksys Wireless-G Travel Router which I understand is no longer available; it comes in handy for several purposes, whether I am in a hotel room with a single Ethernet jack, a conference room where I want to share Internet, and a dozen other ‘I never would have thought of that!’ moments.

Headset: No frequent air traveler wants to be without noise eliminating headsets… I smiled when I read David Pogue’s article ‘What’s in Pogue’s Travel Bag? Literally.’ in the New York Times recently (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/technology/personaltech/25pogue-email.html?_r=1). We agree on the Panasonic RP-HC500, which I picked up at Fry’s in Kirkland, Washington about two years ago… I have never looked back! Unlike David though I carry mine anywhere… you never know when you will find yourself working in a cafe with higher than average noise levels! (I used to carry the Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 headset & microphone, but decided it was extraneous, with a built-in microphone on the computer)

I should mention that I also carry a cute little speaker which I connect to my laptop for presentations requiring sound, or for my Zune when I don’t need the privacy. The ShoX mini speaker (http://shoxmini.com/) really does provide great sound quality!

Camera: My digital camera (Canon Digital IXUS 96015) is usually in the bag in its own case with an extra SD card… I remember getting to Hong Kong and realizing I didn’t have a camera; it was one of the best investments I have made, having since taken nearly 6,000 photos and 100 videos, many of which have found their way into articles here.

And then… Every professional presenter likely has them, or should – a package of lozenges. They have saved me on a number of occasions – most recently in Bracknell, England where I showed up but my voice didn’t!

A couple of extraneous cables (RJ-45, one proprietary cable for my secondary cell phone), pens, post-its, business cards, and a few stickers to give away. All in all my bag weighs in at about 25lbs, which is probably more than I would carry if I were taking the bus or walking… but as it is usually from the car to the office, or else attached to a suitcase on wheels, I don’t mind. My netbook case is less than 4lbs and is easier to grab and go when I don’t want to lug the whole thing… also when I am not traveling many of these pieces stay on my desk.

It is easy to get carried away and carry more than you need; it is equally easy to shed items that may not seem immediately necessary, but turn out to be indispensable. My experience has helped me to balance what stays and what goes, and when… as long as I am willing to lug it, who would argue with me? :)

We’re Moving… and it’s not July 1st!

Mitch Garvis — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:26:57 GMT

The World According to Mitch did not start out as a blog, but as e-mail blasts. When I decided to blog I started The President’s Blog at www.mitpro.ca. However when I stepped down as leader of that group in January, 2007 I needed to find a new home for it. For two years mitchgarvis.com hosted The World According to Mitch. Now as that server is retiring I have the opportunity to move to my new location… www.garvis.ca.

The content is being ported over from the old home, slowly… but it should be done within the week. I have done my best to set up the RSS feed so that if you are a subscriber then you will not experience any interruptions.

I hope you like the new look… and expect a few more changes coming soon, thanks to the great folks at Telligent… the makers of Community Server, and the new Telligent Community 5.0, which should grace our site shortly. I fell in love with the platform three years ago (Community Server 2007) and now, four versions later, keep loving the improvements!

As for the theme, I will keep playing until I find one that I like; if you know me you know that I am more about substance… just look at my wardrobe!

Another new feature in Outlook 2010

The World According to Mitch — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:47:56 GMT

I am sure you (like me) spend a lot of time in e-mail threads. Occasionally it can be embarrassing if you are not up to date. As I was composing an e-mail to a colleague a few minutes ago I noticed the following warning bar across the top: I was relieved that I caught this, else I could have embarrassed myself by seeming out of date. I closed the message, and found the more up-to-date messages, and replied appropriately. I know that this is a little thing… but those are often...(read more)

Microsoft Office 2010 – Coming soon!

Mitch Garvis — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:15:00 GMT

Since May I have been telling people that they would have to wait for details of the new Microsoft Office 2010 applications coming down the pipe. Yesterday the veil was lifted, as the beta program was made available to a wider audience. With that I would like to share some of my favorite improvements in Office 2010.

BackStage

In Office 2007 we were introduced to the Ribbon Toolbar, as well as the Office Pearl which replaced a great number of menus. The BackStage in Office 2010 is the new iteration of the Office Pearl; Click on the Office button in the top-left corner of your window and the back-stage appears, allowing us a host of tools to configure both your document and application. As this screen shot from my Outlook shows our top-level choices include account settings, automatic replies, mailbox clean-up, manage rules and alerts, and because Outlook 2010 is designed to work with Exchange 2010 including Unified Messaging, we can manage our voice mail from here, should you have that configured. We also find all of the options we traditionally found in the Office Pearl (or previously in the File Menu), such as Open, Save, Print, and Options.

One of the greatest complaints I have heard about Outlook has always been performance… depending on a number of factors (including but not limited to the size of your mailbox/profile) it could be relatively slow, taking at times anywhere from 20 seconds to over a minute to connect to my Exchange Server. That has certainly not been the case with Outlook 2010, connecting in under five seconds every time I load it up!

Speaking of loading it up, the Splash Screen on Office 2010 programs have the familiar minimize and close icons in the top corner, which can be helpful in some cases.

64-Bit… Welcome to the Future!

In Barcelona in 2006 Bill Gates announced that the future of Microsoft was 64-bit. The problem as many of us saw it was that most – if not all – of our applications (especially on the desktop) were still 32-bit, and the subsequent release of Office 2007 as a 32-bit application did not change that. Many of us hopped on the x64 bandwidth early on, and most of us found our way back to the more comfortable x86 operating system, at least for the time being. The announcement that Office 2010 would be released in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions offered hope… and in this writer’s experience the 64-bit version delivers on the performance, while the 32-bit version still shows great improvements over its predecessor. (My 32-bit Dell Inspiron Mini 9 has a Windows Experience Rating of 1.5 and still performs admirably).

Customize your Ribbon Toolbars!

I point out that the now familiar (and hopefully comfortable) Ribbon Toolbar has been expanded across the Office suite, including to Outlook. As was the case in Word and Excel three years ago it took me a little while to get used to it, but now that I have been using it for a few months I am definitely loathe to return to legacy menus.

I want to be clear that this is not something that I plan to do… For years applications have offered the ability to customize menus, but I have generally found that the toolbars are very intuitive as delivered; also I tend to uninstall and re-install, reformat, and redeploy on a very frequent basis, and even if I could export and re-import my custom toolbars every time I do that (yes you can! Woot!), I doubt that I would ever bother. However the ability to do that does give me as a deployment guy ideas about standardizing Just the Fact, Jack toolbars across departments and organizations!

Reviewing in PowerPoint

As a writer I spend a lot of time editing – and more importantly having others submit comments for me to edit – my own documents, as well as those from others. As such I spend a lot of time in the Review screen in Word, and have always been disturbed by the limitations of same in PowerPoint. While there are still some functions that I do not see in PowerPoint 2010 I am extremely excited by the improvements.

While on the subject of PowerPoint I should mention that I am not a big fan of fancy transitions in my own slides… however I have looked at some of the new transition options available in PowerPoint 2010 and am very impressed. I still doubt I will use them much…

Office on the Web

This is one of the features that I have not yet gotten my hands on, but am nevertheless extremely excited about. Having used Outlook Web Access for years, I am looking forward to trying Word and Excel in the same fashion. There will be, I am told, three ways that users can access this functionality:

Consumers will be able to access the tools via their Live accounts (there are apparently over 500 Million of us with Live accounts… wow!)
Enterprises can offer employees their own applications from their own SharePoint sites; and
Web providers will be able to offer customers the applications.

The one issue that I am not (and seldom am) clear on is how licensing for these tools will be set up, but with Google apps growing in popularity look for terms to be extremely competitive.

Open Document Compatibility

Recently I helped a friend install her new PC, and when I pointed out that her Office 2007 Home and Student Edition allowed her to install the application suite on up to three PCs, she told me she was considering installing OpenOffice instead; that is the suite that her company uses, so many of her documents were in that file format; she did not want to have to convert them all. As I much prefer Microsoft Office (and not simply to toe the line) I was pleased to see support for the Open file formats in Office 2010… load and save your .ODT files seamlessly.

Conclusion – Two Months On

I have been using parts of Office 2010 since mid-May. As with any pre-release version there were some bugs that have frustrated me, but overall I have been extremely pleased with what I have seen. I have been an Office user since Office 95, and am glad to see real improvements version over version… I have not seen any component that I feel is a step backwards. Look forward to hearing more about the steps forward as I continue to dive into the applications!

RunAs Radio – Mitch Discusses Virtual Machine Manager

The World According to Mitch — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:23:25 GMT

I can hardly believe that it has been nearly two years since my last interview with RunAs Radio… but when I sat down a few weeks with Richard Campbell and Greg Hughes I checked their Past Shows list, and sure enough the last show aired in October, 2007. A lot has happened since then. Listen to us discussing virtualization in the Enterprise, revolving around System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and how it can integrate all of your virtualization hosts into a cohesive, centrally...(read more)

Coffee and Code in Oakville

The World According to Mitch — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:23:40 GMT

Yesterday morning I was sitting in Artisano’s Bakery and Café in Oakville (as I am now) and twitted as much. Barry, a fellow Oakvillain whom I met in Seattle when I was living in Montreal replied that it was a great place, and would I be there in the afternoon… we could start our first Oakville Coffee and Code. I told him that I would not, but why not today? I posted something like ‘Coffee and Code in Oakville… come talk Windows 7’. Barry replied that he couldn’t be here, but a...(read more)

What happened to my computer’s rating in Windows 7?

The World According to Mitch — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:54:03 GMT

I got a frantic call from a friend this morning. ‘I installed Windows 7 last night; When I checked my System Rating the Windows Experience Index was 5.9, and now it’s only 4.1! Why is my system slower?’ This is not the first time I have gotten this question, and indeed noticed the same thing when I first installed Windows 7. Let me reassure you that your computer has not lost any of its oomph… in fact, it will have gained some, as Windows 7 is a more efficient OS than Vista...(read more)

Bootable USB media for Windows 7

The World According to Mitch — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:58:35 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918 . My first computer had a cassette drive; my next had two 5.25” floppy disk drives (which cost nearly as much as the computer). Going forward my next computers had both 5.25” and 3.5” drives, as well as a new invention called a hard drive. The floppy drives went HD, and soon CD and DVD drives came (and would progress from being read-only, to write once, to write many over the course...(read more)

Smartphones and Windows 7… VERY smart!

The World According to Mitch — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:06:05 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918 . I moved into my new office this week. I have a desk, a chair, a plethora of computer equipment, and a entire bookshelf. What I don’t have yet is an office phone, which frankly will come but is not really a priority right now. Everyone is still going to reach me on my mobile phone anyways, so there is nothing to worry about. Of course, because of the nature of my work I...(read more)

How do YOU want to be supported?

The World According to Mitch — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:54:01 GMT

Over the past six years I have had the honour of leading and participating in two major Canadian IT Pro user groups; I have spoken at scores of user groups across the country and around the world, and have been in touch with so many of the user group leaders from around the world, both as a speaker, and MVP, and a council member. I have heard a lot of the same complaints about the difficulties involved with running a group that I have experienced myself. We have tried to come up with the right equation...(read more)

A sad day in the toy industry…

The World According to Mitch — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:10:52 GMT

Firstly let me be clear: I have absolutely nothing against Toys ‘R’ Us. I have no hidden agenda, no miserable experience, and no repressed memories (at least none that I know of!). I have very fond memories of the Toys ‘R’ Us in Times Square, where in the summer of 2005 and again with my then fiancé Theresa I rode the indoor Ferris Wheel then walked around wishing I were still a kid. Having said that I was saddened by news today that the giant toy retailer acquired the New York City landmark...(read more)

The Quiet Demise of Truly Incredible Technology

The World According to Mitch — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:22:35 GMT

Of all of the innovative technologies I came face to face with at TechEd last month the most incredible of them all was a gentleman in a wheelchair. It wasn’t just any wheelchair of course… it was (I would later learn) an iBOT… a wheelchair designed to free the disabled from the shackles that truly bind them. It climbs stairs and does much more, including let users have an eye-level conversation with an average-sized adult male. I believe it was developed by Dean Kamen (of Segway fame...(read more)

Windows 7 Beta Beware :)

The World According to Mitch — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:27:16 GMT

I hope by now most of you are running Windows 7. I think it is important that IT Pros are up to speed before the actual product release! However if you are running the beta 2 release – that is Build 7000 it is time for you to upgrade! the Release Candidate ( Build 7100 ) has been available since the end of April, and has a plethora of bug fixes included. If that is not incentive enough then you should know that after June 1 your 7000 machines will be <revised> sending you...(read more)

Aliens have taken over my body!

The World According to Mitch — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:56:08 GMT

This is the first of many entries in this blog focused primarily on the fact the WE ARE PREGNANT!!! It will also be a general blog about the Garvis household from my perspective. To see Mitch’s perspective you just have to go see his blog and filter out the tech talk :) after we “officially” announce in 12 weeks. Those of you with the early announcement are the only ones who know about this link, but others can come back later and start from the beginning if they...(read more)

Test

The World According to Mitch — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:13:00 GMT

This is a test only!...(read more)

Preparing for the new laptops!

The World According to Mitch — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:52:36 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918 . A lot of people cannot understand how IT Professionals and enthusiasts can get excited about some things. I ordered my new laptops last week; however the most exciting part of that has nothing to do with new toys (ok, maybe a little) but how I will be setting them up when I receive them. At TechEd last week I spent most of my time at the Windows 7 Deployment booth. Among the people...(read more)

Springboard Buddies at TechEd

The World According to Mitch — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:47:25 GMT

Justin Rodino, Cem Erdal Ozkaya, and Daniel Nerenberg cornered me on the last day of TechEd with a video camera… I look like a dentist froze my face but trust me I was having a good time because they are all great guys! http://www.227volts.com/?p=867...(read more)

Kai Axford is Coming to Town!

The World According to Mitch — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:11:24 GMT

If you do not live in the Greater Toronto Area, or say between here and Niagara, this is probably not for you. However if you can get to Oakville next Tuesday and are interested in IT then this session is for you! **Special Event** Seminar with World Renowned Security Expert Kai Axford Sheridan College, Oakville, ON Tuesday May 26th 2009 Welcome time 6:00PM Event 6:30PM-9:00PM Click here for more details and to Register!. Location: Sheridan College - Trafalgar Road Campus J Wing - Sheldon Levy...(read more)

XP Compatibility Mode in Windows 7

The World According to Mitch — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:44:58 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918 . of all of the legitimate reasons I have heard why people and organizations have not upgraded to Windows Vista application compatibility has been a big one. I have been telling people for years that this is because of the improved security features, and that ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) were going to have to program around the hardened security. As it happens they have been...(read more)

Knock Knock… Who’s there? Office 2010!

The World According to Mitch — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:42:34 GMT

One of the reasons I like attending conferences like TechEd is that very often attendees get news first… either by design or occasionally by accident. An example of the latter, I learned last night, is that one presenter accidentally showed off SharePoint 2010 to a packed room without realizing that it was strictly embargoed. Oops! A better (or at least more positive) example is that it was announced today that attendees at TechEd 2009 will be the first invited to a Technical Preview...(read more)

User Account Control in Windows 7

The World According to Mitch — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:27:00 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918 . User Account Control (UAC) has been one of the big complaints about Windows Vista. It certainly was the butt of one of the cutest ‘I’m a Mac’ commercials. The truth is, as I have mentioned previously, Microsoft had to make some tough decisions in developing the new, modern operating system, and UAC was a way of protecting users from themselves… ‘Open virus-infected program… are you sure you want...(read more)

Windows 7… Catch It!

The World According to Mitch — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:24:18 GMT

For more information about the Windows Springboard Series visit http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8418918 . I was wondering out loud today if you were ready for Windows 7. Yes, you… and don’t look around because WE BOTH know who you are. You are an IT Professional, Developer, Partner, Consultant, Enthusiast, End-User. You have an above-average interest in computers, probably have more than one system between home and work, and know how to fix at least minor problems without calling Tech Support. You...(read more)

Picking my new laptop

The World According to Mitch — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:48:15 GMT

Over the past few weeks I have started shopping for my new laptop… and am still open to suggestions, although I am looking for something fairly specific in that I need a lot of power, but do not want to lug around a 10lb system (I travel a bit). This morning someone sent me a link to a tool on Microsoft’s website called Laptop Scout ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-laptop-scout/ ). I checked it out and granted it’s not bad, but unfortunately it does not seem to include the workhorses...(read more)

The next generation of Windows is here. Join the conversation…

The World According to Mitch — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:23:47 GMT

Take a behind- the-scenes look at the next generation of Windows at www.TalkingaboutWindows.com , a video blog offering IT professionals genuine insight on Windows 7 from the Microsoft engineers who helped build the product. Listen as engineers talk about why product decisions and feature tradeoffs were made. Get real-world commentary from IT professionals as they share their Windows deployment and adoption experiences. Participate in this forum to express your opinions and questions, and join...(read more)

Are you a Mac or a PC?

The World According to Mitch — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:03:19 GMT

I have long believed that a computer is a tool that should do what you need it to do. The whole Mac versus PC debate is interesting in that if you step back someone who has never used a either will have to learn one of them, and frankly both are pretty easy once you get to know them. So then what makes one better than the other? What you can do with it? I truly believe that in this day and age you can do anything with either of them. Of course everyone knows where I stand… my bread...(read more)

A Reply to a Trainer Who Knows His Students Cheat

The World According to Mitch — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:48:56 GMT

I am a member of a private community of Microsoft Certified Trainers on a well known networking site. In the last couple of days one of my colleagues complained that his students were passing their exams by using Brain Dumps, and that these tools diminished the value of the certifications. He opined that this would not change until Microsoft made the exams harder. What Brain Dumps are is simple; they are the actual exam questions. They are called Brain Dumps because it is...(read more)

We’re ALL a PC!

The World According to Mitch — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:05:43 GMT

During the 2009 MVP Global Summit we recorded a video of the lot of us – fifteen hundred MVPS! – proclaiming that we are PCs. Of course they recorded it, and here it is… the booming voice that you hear in the second run through is Steve Ballmer, a very energetic speaker! The MVPs are PCs!...(read more)

Host Server	64 GB RAM
10x VMs	2GB Reservation, 8GB Limit
Memory reserved for powered-on VMs:	16GB RAM
Memory available to each guest OS:	80GB RAM