Richard Siddaway's Blog : Microsoft

MVP renewal 2012

RichardSiddaway — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:50:58 GMT

My MVP award was renewed for another year today.

Thank you to Microsoft for bestowing the honour for the fifth year and thank you to all of the people who’ve helped me gain this award by posting questions, reading my blogs, listening to talks etc.

Windows 8 and PowerShell 3 betas

RichardSiddaway — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:42:18 GMT

If you haven’t already heard there are new toys available

Windows 8 beta is available from

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/download

Windows Server 8 beta is available from

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/v8-default.aspx

Most importantly PowerShell v3 beta is from

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28998

Windows Management Framework 3.0 makes some updated management functionality available to be installed on Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 & Windows Server 2008 SP2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 contains Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI & WinRM.

System Center engineering blogs

RichardSiddaway — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:18:22 GMT

The System Center family of products is getting a big make over in the 2012 release. The team blogs have just been rebranded to reflect this

System Center: Service Manager

System Center: Operations Manager

System Center: Virtual Machine Manager

System Center: Orchestrator

System Center: Data Protection Manager

SC Virtual Machine Manager

RichardSiddaway — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:40:55 GMT

Spent the last two evenings trying to install and configure SC VMM. Total failure. Kept getting an error about not being able to connect to the agent on the host – this is after the initial failure of trying to install SC VMM on the host.

Nothing worked for me – its odd as we’ve had it working at work.

Not worth anymore effort – I’ll stick with WMI and PowerShell.

Goodbye Windows Mail

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:18:21 GMT

When I installed Windows 7 I went looking for Windows Mail (Outlook Express replacement in Vista). Its not there – in fact you don’t get a mail client of any kind. Idea is to download and use the Live Mail client. I had been using that for hotmail access...(read more)

Windows 7 update

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:00:43 GMT

I have been running Windows 7 for a few days now & I like it. There are numerous improvements over Vista (which I have used for a few years now) that make the whole experience better. I am running on minimal hardware but the system is responsive enough...(read more)

Vista Application Incompatibility?

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:38:52 GMT

There has been a lot written about the issues of application incompatibility on Windows Vista. Application compatibility was given a good test this morning. My wife re-discovered an old program for Garden Design. When I say old the CD said © 1994-1995...(read more)

Windows 7

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:14:34 GMT

Just installed Windows 7 on an old laptop – 0.75GB RAM single core. It works a treat and is reasonably responsive. It is more than enough for Office type applications and Internet. Well impressed as Vista wouldn’t even look at this machine. Looks like...(read more)

Live Writer

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:05:26 GMT

I have been using Live Writer for a while now and it is pretty good. The latest version has some good improvements like a preview pane and the ability to see and work with the source. Major gripe is that I can’t set a default font. It keeps reverting...(read more)

ZoomIT

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:00:59 GMT

One thing I did see getting used quite a bit in presentations at TechEd was the ZoomIT tool. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx It enables you to zoom into a part of the screen. Very useful for presentations. The ability to...(read more)

TechEd Reflections

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:47:08 GMT

TechEd is over for another year. The journey home is done (not a bad flight - I slept for most of this one) and I've had some sleep. On the whole the conference was quieter than the last couple of years. A few of the big name exhibitors didn't...(read more)

TechEd Monday II

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:57:54 GMT

System Center and the management of the Windows environment is heavily featured this week. Expect a full refresh of the System Center family in 2010. SC Operations Manager R2 should release in Q2 2009 including SLA monitoring and the ability to manage...(read more)

TechEd: Monday

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:23:44 GMT

Apart from the highly irritating and overloud "entertainment" video playing before the key note started the conference start was OK. No major announcements - most already came through at PDC last week but new to me were: Application Virtualisation...(read more)

IE 8 Beta

Richard Siddaway's Blog — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:07:04 GMT

I've been using the IE8 beta for a week or so now and it works. I've not had any problems with it and the new stuff works as advertised. Its solid. Not much of a post but when everything works there's not much else to say :-) Download IE 8...(read more)