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Windows Home Server PP1 Releases to Web!

Published 21 July 8 10:53 AM | Charlie Russel

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 is finally here ! Available for download if you're in a hurry, or wait and it will get pushed down via WU/MU, this is an essential upgrade for anyone using WHS. Or considering it. Not only does it add support for 64...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64, WHS, Home Server, TiVo

USB in Hyper-V Child?

Published 16 July 8 5:24 PM | Charlie Russel

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...

Filed under: Hardware, Software, General x64, SBS, Virtualization, Server 2008, Hyper-V

Windows Home Server - Public Beta Includes x64

Published 10 June 8 9:18 PM | Charlie Russel

The public beta of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 is now available on the Microsoft Connect site for download. This is a major update for WHS - not only does it fix the corruption issue that has plagued WHS in certain scenarios, but it also adds full...

Filed under: General x64, Vista x64, Ferrari, WHS, Home Server

MS Non-Support

Published 1 May 8 1:33 PM | Charlie Russel

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...

Filed under: Software, General x64, Vista x64

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

Published 3 April 8 10:52 AM | Charlie Russel

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.

Filed under: Software, General x64

32-bit Memory in x64 Windows

Published 18 March 8 8:55 AM | Charlie Russel

In the public 64-bit Windows newsgroup , we often get questions about memory usage, and a recent post there made me realize that there are some basic misunderstandings about the relationship between memory, virtual memory address space, and RAM. 32-bit...

Filed under: General x64, Memory

Arctic Cooling

Published 29 January 8 9:14 AM | Charlie Russel

Interesting review of Arctic Cooling's CPU heatsink/coolers on AnandTech today. I've been using and very much liking the Freezer Pro line of coolers from them for a while, finding them extremely quiet and very effective. Well, Anand agrees with...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64

Windows Server 2008 RemoteApps is COOL

Published 16 January 8 5:24 PM | Charlie Russel

Originally known as "TS Rail", the RemoteApps feature of Windows Server 2008 makes Terminal Servers an absolute essential on everyone's network. There is no way I won't have a TS running full time from here on out, and RemoteApps is...

Filed under: HowTo, General x64, Server, Longhorn, ML350, Virtualization, Server 2008, Hyper-V

iRotate Utility

Published 8 January 8 12:5 PM | Charlie Russel

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...

Filed under: Software, General x64, Vista x64

Windows Home Server - x64 Support Announced

Published 7 January 8 1:2 PM | Charlie Russel

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...

Filed under: Software, General x64, Vista x64, Server, WHS

Finding a Driver

Published 1 January 8 1:53 PM | Charlie Russel

There was a really useful post on the 64bit newsgroup today from Carlos about how to find a driver for a generic device. I'm going to paraphrase it here, but the basic process is to get the hardware ID from the device and use that to find the real...

Filed under: Hardware, Installation, General x64, Vista x64

The Multi-Core Fallacy

Published 11 November 7 10:49 AM | Charlie Russel

More is always better, right? Wrong! Before you start deciding that your life isn't complete without quad cores and multiple CPUs, it makes sense to understand how you use your computer. If you're like me, with currently Outlook, Word (6 different...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64, Vista x64, ML350, ProLiant

BIOS Update Workaround

Published 25 October 7 1:20 PM | Charlie Russel

Several manufacturers have provided 64-bit BIOS flash utilities, but there are still some holdouts. Acer, for one, can't seem to manage to create one for their Ferrari, even though there are a lot of Acer Ferrari owners out there running 64-bit Windows...

Filed under: Hardware, HowTo, General x64, Ferrari

EqualLogic SAN (Part 2)

Published 14 October 7 10:9 AM | Charlie Russel

So, in Part 1 I talked about the whole process of borrowing and setting up my EqualLogic PS3800XV SAN. Now that I've got it powered up, I needed to add IP addresses for it, and connect to it. Setting IP addresses is straightforward - you can let DHCP...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64, Server, Longhorn, Virtualization

EqualLogic SAN (Part 1)

Published 8 October 7 1:21 AM | Charlie Russel

In order to write about Storage Area Networks (SANs), you really need to have access to a SAN. Now if I had an unlimited budget, I'd happily have set up a SAN here in my office, if only for the simplicity and the ability to centralize storage across...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64, Server, Longhorn, Virtualization

WSv (Viridian) Now Available!

Published 25 September 7 10:40 PM | Charlie Russel

The Preview Release ("pre-beta" quality) of Windows Server Virtualization (WSv) is now available as part of Windows Server 2008 RC0. See John Howard's Blog for details on installing the Virtualization Role in RC0 (US English ONLY at this...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64, ML350, Virtualization, ProLiant

SCSI Problems?

Published 24 August 7 4:41 PM | Charlie Russel

I've talked about Granite Digital before, when I commented on their USB to anydrive adapter, but I was working with someone recently who is having intermittent errors on a server and has been going nuts trying to sort it out. Turns out the server...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64

Design a Laptop

Published 14 August 7 4:12 PM | Charlie Russel

So, HP has asked fellow MVP and ExpertZone Columnist Barb Bowman to help them design their next laptop. If you want to have input, post a comment to her blog . I have! This is your chance to help HP out-do the Acer Ferrari, my current favourite laptops...

Filed under: Hardware, General x64, Vista x64, Ferrari, Tablet PC

Two Factor Authentication

Published 27 July 7 7:18 PM | Charlie Russel

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...

Filed under: Software, General x64, Vista x64, Security, SBS

Acronis True Image Enterprise

Published 2 July 7 6:16 AM | Charlie Russel

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...

Filed under: Software, General x64, Server, PowerShell, ML350, Virtualization, SP2