Top posts of 2009

So to summarize the past year I would like to highlight the most popular posts. It is pretty clear that how-tos are without doubt the most popular posts…

#1 How to clean out the Installer directory correctly
MSI and MSP files are stored in the %SYSTEMROOT%\Windows\Installer directory and to free disk space and to clean out this folder you can use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to remove orphaned objects.

#2 How to install Nvidia video drivers on laptops when all else fails
For instance Sony do not provide 64-bit drivers for a large range of their (older) laptops which makes Windows 7 use a Standard VGA adapter. Nvidias official mobile drivers will not install on many systems but the solution to get those drivers to install is quiet simple and makes graphics on laptops run as smooth as it should.

#3 Troubleshooting blue screen of deaths
This is simply a guide on how to manually debug what a blue screen of death is caused by. Very handy!

Mailbox moved to Exchange 2010

Been home from TechEd for a couple of days and getting back to speed on everything at home. This morning I moved my mailbox to Exchange 2010. The Outlook Web App (previously known as Outlook Web Access) is real slick and now I am just waiting for Office 2010 beta to be released to take full functionality with Exchange 2010 with the new Outlook 2010. Well, the Technical Preview has been out since this summer and although it is promising it contains quite a few bugs and therefore I have reverted to Office 2007 until the beta of 2010 is here. There are a lot of changes coming in the beta compared to the Tech Preview so I hope it will be here soon.

Sessions from TechEd viewable online

All sessions, techtalks and more is recorded and is available to view online at http://www.msteched.com/online/search.aspx?cname=track&channel=Europe

TechEd recap – so far so good!

Halfway through TechEd Europe and so far it has been great! Long days attending sessions and walking around talking to people and long nights with social activities. The sessions I have been to have had high standards and I have not (yet) been to a bad session so far. I finished off yesterday with watching fellow country man Marcus Murray do a session about hack proofing Windows 7, quite interesting and it is always fun to watch Marcus in action. I guess all sessions will be available online some time after the conference and I will get back on that later on. Now a new day with lots of sessions await. So long!

IPv6 – learn it today!

I’ve just watched Mark Minasi doing an interesting presentation on IPv6. He is indeed a great speaker by the way. I’m not going to get into details on what the presentation was all about but instead I’m going to sum it up with a few words. Do not be frightened by IPv6 and do not disable IPv6 on your machines. Instead go on and learn it, today! You will have to learn it sooner or later anyway and the sooner the better I would say :)

What the heck is “the new efficiency”?

Microsoft it talking a lot about something called “the new efficiency” but what in the world does this mean? Basically it means cost savings but at the same time gaining new enhancements and features which helps the end-users becoming more productive, using new products such as Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and Office 2010.

A couple of examples from the ITPRO  view on “the new efficiency” is the fact the Exchange 2010 reduces storage costs to a minimum and cost savings using new power savings feature called core parking in Windows Server 2008 R2.

From the end-user perspective there are for example the new feature called “mailtips” in the mail client (Outlook and Outlook Web app) which beforehand tells us for example if he or she is about to send an email to a user which is out-of-office or, allowing the user to take action based on knowing this information. Another example on how the new products work together on the client side is “DirectAccess”. This feature as you probably already know makes the users constantly connected to the corporate network regardless of where they are in the world as long as they have an internet connection.

Now, enough with the “sales talk”! :)

General availability for Exchange 2010 announced!

At TechEd today Microsoft eventually announced that Exchange Server 2010 is now available for general availability. It doesn’t show in the download list at TechNet yet but I guess it will be out during the day or evening.

SharePoint 2010 brings many new features!

First session at TechEd is completed! It was a really interesting session about SharePoint 2010 which seems to be a huge improvement over previous versions of SharePoint and WSS. Everything is made easier and more user friendly but there also seems to improvements on patching SharePoint 2010.

Some of the improvements and changes:

•  Better browser support (Firefox & IE of course)
•  Ribbon interface (AJAX) with live formatting of text etc.
•  Groove is renamed to SharePoint workspace
•  WSS 4.0 is renamed to SharePoint Foundation 2010
• Editing of Office documents within the SharePoint interface.
•  Many many more improvements :)

Installing Windows 7 on HP nc4400, “completing installation”…

When installing Windows 7 on the HP nc4400 range of laptops it will likely hang at “completing installation”. Microsoft says it is a known compatibility issue with this particular model and HP are working on getting a BIOS upgrade out the door. Stay tuned!

Berlin here I come!

So in one week from now I will be in Berlin participating in TechEd Europe 2009. I’m really looking forward to it and I am convinced it will be a blast!