x(perts)64 : Software

Moving (and we lost our "skin")

Charlie Russel — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:44:00 GMT

If you noticed that the blog suddenly went back to basic ugly, that was an unfortunate and unanticipated side effect of preparing to move my blogging to a new location . We'll be moving to http://msMVPs.com/blogs/russel shortly, but in the process...(read more)

SBS 2008 – a 64-bit OS to Love

Charlie Russel — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:53:17 GMT

As many of you know, I wrote the book on Windows Small Business Server 2008, as well as earlier editions. It’s an operating system and a good deal more, giving most small businesses (up to 75 users or devices) pretty much all the infrastructure and enterprise...(read more)

StarWind Software iSCSI Target

Charlie Russel — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:41:00 GMT

This is just going to be a quickie. I’m busy working on a new book for Microsoft Press, and as part of that I needed to set up a failover cluster to test Hyper-V’s new Live Migration. Well, the folks at StarWind Software were nice enough to send me an...(read more)

Connecting Your Zune

Charlie Russel — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:45:00 GMT

A few months ago, I wrote about how to connect your iPod to your TS RemoteApps Server running under Hyper-V , which really simplified my life and made it simpler to keep everything in one place. I made that even easier by running FabulaTech's USB...(read more)

iPods and iTunes with Hyper-V and TS RemoteApps

Charlie Russel — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:00:00 GMT

One of the problems I have working on many different computers and constantly rebuilding even my main workstation for whatever beta build of Windows happens to be available, is having a "stable" environment for some of the little things that...(read more)

Windows Home Server Saves Another User

Charlie Russel — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:10:00 GMT

As I was rebuilding my main workstation again (life running pre-beta OS's is always fun), I was very much appreciating the simplicity of Windows Home Server. I have my main workstation set up as an 80 GB OS drive (C:) and data drives of D: and E:...(read more)

DQSD 4.1 64-bit Beta Releases to Web!

Charlie Russel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Old timers here will know that I simply love Dave's Quick Search Deskbar (DQSD). And that there was a semi-custom solution to running it in 64-bit that I used. Well, with a lot of hard work and persistence, we now have 64-bit support built into the...(read more)

DQSD v4 - With Support for x64

Charlie Russel — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:39:00 GMT

As anyone who has known me for a while will tell you, I can be qute passionate about applications I really like. Well, one of those little gems is an opensource project called "Dave's Quick Search Deskbar" or DQSD as it's commonly known...(read more)

USB in Hyper-V Child?

Charlie Russel — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:24:00 GMT

It's still early days yet, but I think I've found a simple and very satisfactory solution to the problem of no USB support in Hyper-V. FabulaTech's USB Over Network product is simple to install - you install the Server side of it on whatever...(read more)

MS Non-Support

Charlie Russel — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:33:44 GMT

One of my favourite fellow MVPs, Barb Bowman , posted a rant today about the latest Microsoft product to ship with no support for 64-bit users. In this case, a "professional" photographic tools application, Pro Photo Tools v1 . For shame, Microsoft...(read more)

Finally - Adobe to support 64-bit in next version of PhotoShop

Charlie Russel — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:52:55 GMT

Adobe has finally announced that PhotoShop CS4 will have a 64-bit version. Gee, took them long enough. The C-Net article on this is here . Charlie....(read more)

Unwanted Services when installing iTunes (for SHAME, Apple!)

Charlie Russel — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:22:00 GMT

OK, we've all complained about unnecessary services and silent installs, but to give them credit, Microsoft has done a pretty good job of cutting back on that sort of thing. Heck, they even allow installing a server without a GUI, finally. So I recently...(read more)

Hyper-V Release Candidate Released

Charlie Russel — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:13:06 GMT

For those of you testing or using Hyper-V as your virtualization solution, the good news is that they appear to be on track for a final release by the end of the summer. Microsoft has just announced the release of the Hyper-V RC. This update adds Vista...(read more)

iRotate Utility

Charlie Russel — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:05:05 GMT

I've got a dual monitor setup, running off an ATI 1650 video card. Not exactly hot stuff, but adequate for most of my (non-gaming) needs. But the ATI software is the PITS. It keeps losing track of which monitor is which, turning off the older SGI...(read more)

Windows Home Server - x64 Support Announced

Charlie Russel — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:02:00 GMT

The Windows Home Server Team Blog announced that Microsoft will soon be releasing (H1, 2008) a free, automatic, upgrade to Windows Home Server called "PowerPack 1" (PP1 for short.) PP1 has lots of new features I think are important, including...(read more)

Disable UAC Prompt for a Single Application

Charlie Russel — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:33:00 GMT

A useful KB (946932) just got posted on support.microsoft.com. It describes how to disable the User Account Control (UAC) prompt for a specific application, without disabling it for the machine as a whole. Now THAT's useful. There's no way I'm...(read more)

PowerShell v2 CTP Is Here!

Charlie Russel — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:13:00 GMT

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm a big fan of PowerShell, the new shell and scripting language from Microsoft. Well, they've just released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of what the next version will look like. See the PowerShell...(read more)

HyperSnap

Charlie Russel — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:45:04 GMT

OK, we all have favourite little utilities that we would have trouble living without. As a computer writer, screen shots are my life, and I've been using HyperSnap for at least 12 years now. My original license cost $25, and at some point I paid for...(read more)

Two Factor Authentication

Charlie Russel — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:18:00 GMT

I spent last night installing the latest version of AuthAnvil and RWW-Guard on our network. Between the two, we now have a far more secure environment that enforces Two Factor Authentication (TFA) for access to critical accounts and resources. Normal...(read more)

Acronis True Image Enterprise

Charlie Russel — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:16:00 GMT

As some of you know, I've been fighting to live with Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Virtual Server - without much success, I might add. I strongly suspect it's related to networking, but whatever the cause, it's been a disaster here. After losing...(read more)