Category: Windows 7
-
How Time Flies
It seems like such a short time ago that my son (the elder) was in elementary school. In 2010 I helped his school by upgrading their systems from an unmanaged Windows XP environment onto Windows 7… along with Office 365 for e-mail. The story was picked up by IT World Canada. While I was given…
-
Game Over… Soon.
Microsoft announced this week that they are going to shut down the servers that support on-line games for Windows 7, XP, and ME. These include: Internet Backgammon (Windows XP, ME, 7) Internet Checkers (Windows XP, ME, 7) Internet Spades (Windows XP, ME, 7) Internet Hearts (Windows XP, ME) Internet Reversi (Windows XP, ME) MSN Go…
-
Windows 7 End of Life and Extended Support
When Microsoft released Windows 7 in October, 2009 the vast majority of users (both corporate and home) were still running Windows XP. While they had released Windows Vista three years earlier, it was never widely accepted. The improvements over the then six-year-old operating system were revolutionary, especially for the vast majority of users who eschewed…
-
Deleting User Profiles
“How do I delete old users from a Windows 10 computer? I log in as an administrator, navigate to c:\Users\, and delete their tree.” NO! In fact, HELL NO! There are several reasons why you might want to delete a user profile from a computer. ranging from termination of employment to reallocation of systems to……
-
Offline File Cache Nightmares Resolved
Off-line files are a wonderful thing. The fact that my users can synchronize the files from a central server (where they are backed up) to their laptop is great. But what happens when things get out of hand? In theory, users can save a lot more onto a file server than they can their local…
-
Folder Redirection: Where’d these warnings come from?
Congratulations. You have decided to implement a Folder Redirection policy on your domain. There are real advantages to this, not the least of which is that all of your users’ profile folders will get backed up centrally… and that when they change computers their files and settings are just there. You have created a Group…
-
The Kobayashi Maru of Desktop Deployment
A couple of years ago I was asked to write an article on desktop deployment. Back then Windows 7 was reasonably new, and there was a lot of chatter about the fact that you could not upgrade from a Windows XP machine directly to Windows 7. Recently a lot of people have asked me about…
-
Actual Reality: Desktop Virtualization Solutions from Microsoft
In July I presented my first webcast with BrightTalk. They were putting together a series on virtualization, and asked if I would be able to speak about VDI and Desktop Virtualization strategies. It was my pleasure! The webcast is now available on-line. I encourage you to download it, and let me know what you think!…
-
A Great Response Regarding OEM/Upgrade Media
Earlier this week I wrote a piece called “For when you want to let go… but can’t completely.’ I got a few interesting responses to it, but one really well thought out one from H. Mertens. Here is his comment, and my responses to him. -M A clarification over the OEM/Upgrade media issue: A OEM…
-
For when you want to let go, but can’t completely.
Mitch, I have been using my Windows 7 laptop for nearly three years. It has all of my applications on it, and because of the custom dev work that I do a lot of what I have in there simply cannot be recreated – anywhere, let alone on another OS. I want to upgrade my…
-
The Benefits of Windows Intune
Last month I had the opportunity to sit down with Robert Crane, the host of the Need to Know Podcast, about Windows Intune. These podcasts are great for keeping IT professionals up to date on technologies that they may not know a great deal about, and Windows Intune is certainly one of those. Dubbed by…
-
Converting an SD Card to Permanent Storage in Windows Devices
So as you know I was all excited to buy the very first Microsoft Surface Pro. I bought the 128 GB model because I knew that despite the fact that I have all sorts of external hard drives I was even likely to ax out 128 GB pretty quick. Fortunately between Cloud-based storage (SkyDrive for…
-
What’s this new Cert? MCSA: Windows 7!
This post was originally written for the Canadian IT Pro Connection blog, and can be seen there at http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2012/09/12/what-s-this-new-cert-mcsa-windows-7.aspx. In April of this year Microsoft Learning announced its new generation of certifications. Many of us who had previously earned certain MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) credentials were automatically ported into a new certification category, the…
-
Managing Your SMB-IT Without Server
You have a small business. You have been running Windows Small Business Server 2003 for six years, and you know that it is time to retire it. The question is, what should replace it? Before you make any definitive decisions, why not review what you need your server to do: File Server Mail Server Internet…
The World According to Mitch 