New Virtual Machine Blog Cateogory and RSS Feed Thursday, November 10 2005 @ 01:39 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy We have added a new category and RSS feed to DesktopEngineer.com for news about Virtual Machines... read more Got Channel 9? - Coffee Talk with Microsoft Employees Tuesday, October 25 2005 @ 09:39 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft employees have banded together and built a video blog/wiki website on which to have personal, not marketing interaction directly with their customers.  It all seems very sincere, interesting and downright fun. read more Hoax Exposed: Memory Opimizer Utilities Monday, August 23 2004 @ 06:47 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Most of us have some Windows 9x (and Windows 3.1 - shhh don't tell anyone your age!) hangovers. One of them is the idea of needing to keep memory freed up - especially since under older versions of the OS we'd have application problems and system hangs... read more FREE: Windows 2003 Update Course if You Are a Microsoft Partner (Including ActionPack Subscribers) Thursday, August 14 2003 @ 05:59 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy If you purchased the Action Pack you have enough of a partner relationship with Microsoft to get this official Microsoft Online Cirriculum course for free. read more BOOK: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Delta Guide Monday, July 14 2003 @ 08:14 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy As a consultant it is constantly baffling why more information is not available on strictly the difference between two versions of any given technology products - especially something as massive as a Microsoft OS release. It can take months to "discover and devine" the differences that seem to be purposely obscured by marketing materials that want to make existing features sound like compelling new reasons to go with the most recent version. Not so with this book. read more FREE: First Chapter of "Mastering Windows 2003 Server" Thursday, April 17 2003 @ 08:32 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Mark Manasi's server book sounds like a home-runner. One of the coolest things is the first chapter (which outlines all the new stuff) can be downloaded for free! read more Microsoft Desktop Deployment Portal Friday, March 7 2003 @ 11:41 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has consolidated links to information on deploying their desktop OSes to a new Deployment portal. read more Windows Tech Tips MetaSearch Engine Thursday, March 6 2003 @ 08:32 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy There are many good Windows Tips sites that can get you out of your latest Windows Blue-screen - but who has time to check them all when you are in the middle of your fourth trouble ticket? You do - when you use Brian's Buzz handy meta-search! read more BOOK: The Book of WI-FI Wednesday, March 5 2003 @ 07:16 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This is my kind of read - covers the issues without belaboring the details. This book is great for administrators wanting to get start with wireless, home users setting up wireless, anyone setting up a neighborhood network and those looking to catch a little wireless while traveling. read more Microsoft Buys Virtual PC Products from Connectix Thursday, February 20 2003 @ 10:25 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has bought into virtualization in a big way. This article even hints at possible inclusion in future versions of Windows. read more BOOK: Definitive Guide to Desktop Administration (FREE) Thursday, February 6 2003 @ 02:13 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy The first chapter of the latest RealTime Publishers book is available. The Definitive Guide to Desktop Administration has an enterprise perspective on how to get things done right. read more BOOK: The Book of Visual Studio.NET Thursday, November 7 2002 @ 06:51 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Some admins use Visual Basic to put together utilities. .NET is the next step in the evolution of Microsoft Development technologies. This book helps you get started with .NET. read more OnDemand Buys Back Its Soul - WinINSTALL Thursday, August 15 2002 @ 08:32 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy OnDemand has "acquired" WinINSTALL from Veritas. The legacy of handoffs goes full circle. read more Microsoft On SMS and SUS Wednesday, August 7 2002 @ 01:57 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Are you doing an SOS trying to figure out whether to use SUS or SMS for updating your computers? Microsoft gives you a little guidance. read more Wise Black Belt Series: More Dates Added Friday, August 2 2002 @ 08:44 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Wise is offering new dates on their very successful Application Black Belt Series! read more Chapter 7 - Installation Tool Alternatives Tuesday, July 2 2002 @ 07:46 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Realtime Publishers and Lanovation released Chapter 7 of The Definitive Guide to Software Deployment. It should have been called "Windows Installer" read more Microsoft Webcast: Boot Options and Windows XP Recovery Console (06/25/02 @ 10am PST) Wednesday, June 5 2002 @ 12:11 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy If you've ever gotten Windows into a serious bind where it cannot boot, you may be wondering what tools are available to get you out. read more VBScript Primer Online by Microsoft Tuesday, May 7 2002 @ 11:10 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Not sure where to get started with VBScript? Here's an online primer by Microsoft. read more Chapter 5 - Deployment to Remote Users Thursday, April 25 2002 @ 08:09 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Chapter 5 of "The Definitive Guide to Deploying Software" has been published. It is focused the most challenging user community to service - the mobile users. read more Microsoft WMI Scripting Course Friday, April 5 2002 @ 07:21 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has a course on WMI scripting. The course focuses on VBScript, so it is great for administrators! read more Broadband Router Guide Thursday, April 4 2002 @ 08:31 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Got stuck with the telecommuter project? Which of the 250 broadband routers should you have folks get? Check out this guide for some help. read more Microsoft VBScript Course Wednesday, April 3 2002 @ 07:08 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy I don't know how many times I've been asked about a course on VBScript - but it has been many. Microsoft now has an offering. read more OfficeXP Killer? gobeProductive... Thursday, March 28 2002 @ 10:11 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Weighting in at a couple gigabytes of disk and a couple giga-dollars to deploy, Microsoft Office is bound to have competitors. read more VMWare Nitty Gritty from ExtremeTech Wednesday, March 27 2002 @ 10:51 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy ExtremeTech is running a great article on VMWare. If you don't have the time or money to pick up the book - this is a good summary. read more Instructions for Installing WMI on 95 & 98 Tuesday, March 26 2002 @ 06:04 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Getting WMI fully functional on Windows 95 and 98 is possible, but not much fun. Here is documentation that tells you how to do it. read more Group Policy Tips and Tricks eBook by Full Armor Wednesday, March 20 2002 @ 10:08 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Full Armor has partnered with Real Time Publishers to create an ebook on tips and tricks for group policy! read more BOOK: The Book of VMWare Friday, March 8 2002 @ 09:53 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy VMWare rocks. That's because you can do anything you can do with a hardware computer - and More! Finally a great book to help you learn and exploit the power of VMWare. read more Comprehensive W2K and XP Policy List Tuesday, March 5 2002 @ 11:51 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Windows XP added 212 new policies for managing desktops. Media player and IE have their own policies as well. Hmmmm.... now how do you know what new ones are available and which ones only apply to XP? read more Get it From the Expert: Sysinternals Windows NT/2000/ XP Internals Course Thursday, February 21 2002 @ 01:34 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy I think almost everyone has used at least one of the excellent free utilities from Sysinternals.com. Now they have an open enrollment course to make you the expert! read more FREE: Repackaging Chapter of Software Deployment eBook Just Published Thursday, January 17 2002 @ 09:19 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy The free eBook "The Definitive Guide to Windows Software Deployment" has just published a new chapter titled "Repackaging". read more Microsoft Management Operations Framework (MOF) Homepage Friday, December 7 2001 @ 06:38 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Quite some time ago Microsoft started an initiative known as the "Management Operations Framework" It is the equivalent to the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), but targeted at the deployment, management, administration and operations of information technology." read more WSH 5.6 Documentation Downloadable Friday, November 16 2001 @ 05:57 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy When WSH 5.6 finally went gold, the documentation had not been released. Here is the final release of the documentation. read more Whitepaper on XP's Compatibility Admin (XP) Tuesday, November 13 2001 @ 11:35 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy The application compatibility toolkit didn't get much attention on Windows 2000. However, in Windows XP Microsoft has made this a serious (and integrated) OS feature in an attempt to get everyone off Windows 9x forever. read more FREE: eBook - Definitive Guide to Active Directory Troubleshooting Friday, November 9 2001 @ 06:19 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Well it's free so it must be lightweight right? Think again. read more BOOK: Windows 2000 WITHOUT Active Directory Wednesday, November 7 2001 @ 09:14 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This topic is very needed! I predicted that we'd be implementing Windows 2000 without AD in October of 1999. The book wasn't quite organized how I had hoped - but it is solid. read more 14 Years of MSDN, MSJ and Internet Developer Indexes for $29.95 Thursday, October 4 2001 @ 09:49 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has put together a CD that contains an index to all the content and source code from their main development magazines from 1986-2000. The entire years content for 2000 is included as well. The CD is $29.95 shipped! Correction - this item originally stated 14 years of CONTENT - some astute readers pointed out that the 86-99 are only indexed on the CD. Sorry for the incorrect information. read more Microsoft Release Management Guide Tuesday, October 2 2001 @ 08:48 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy A while back Microsoft published a good guide on how to release a new version of your server or desktop. Although the text throughout mentions Windows 2000 - planning for an XP deployment would be the same. read more Microsoft Webcast: Windows XP Setup (7/24 @ 10am) Tuesday, September 11 2001 @ 06:16 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This webcast will be covering an overview of the XP setup process and common problems that occur during setup. read more How To (Why To) Put Linux on the Desktop Monday, August 27 2001 @ 04:45 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy XP takes WHAT hardware to run efficiently? How would you like to put those 1000's of Pentium 90's back into service instead? read more FREE: Windows 2000 Conference Friday, August 17 2001 @ 08:03 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy A free conference?? Yep. Windows Decisions 2002 is free. You must apply and qualify - but if you get in it's free. read more Microsoft Webcast: Troubleshooting SMS 2.0 Site Server Performance Problems (8/28 @ 10am) Thursday, August 2 2001 @ 06:53 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Constantly upgrading SMS Site server hardware to deal with slow performance is not only expensive and very difficult - you may be doing all this work to solve some very specific performance problems that can be solved with some tuning. read more Under the covers of the W2K Application Compatibility Toolkit Friday, July 27 2001 @ 12:51 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy I always wondered how Microsoft created Windows 2000 to be adaptable to create compatibility with older applications, AFTER the OS shipped! Now a little light is shed on this functionality. read more Great Windows Management Resource Site Tuesday, July 24 2001 @ 10:24 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This new site offers a link index that focuses on Windows Management content. The content covers the major management tools and many of the reference materials on Microsoft's site. read more Configuration Management Guide for Windows Friday, July 20 2001 @ 10:29 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has put together a good configuration guide. It covers the concepts of general configuration management and applies them specifically to Windows environments. read more FREE: Active Directory Best Practice Guides Friday, July 13 2001 @ 08:51 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has assembled some best practice guides on the design and deployment of Active Directory. These guides appear to have a much more practical tone to them than many previous "theoretical" guides to AD design and deployment. read more Microsoft Webcast: Installing and Deploying Microsoft Operations Manager (7/17 @ 10am PST) Thursday, July 5 2001 @ 08:55 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) enables monitoring and management of Windows based servers and services. This session discusses how to get it installed and running in your environment - including server sizing. read more VBScript/WSH Quick Reference Wednesday, June 27 2001 @ 04:39 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Always forgetting that last parameter on a seldom used VBScript function or object? This online quick reference comes to the rescue. read more Windows Automated Deployment Options Wednesday, June 20 2001 @ 08:22 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy With the introduction of Windows 2000, many new deployment options were introduced. This guide from Microsoft helps you sort it all out. read more Microsoft Eliminates MCSP Fees on Some Enterprise Service Offerings (MCSP Secure Site) Thursday, May 31 2001 @ 10:17 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has eliminated their fees on some of their enterprise service offerings. read more Microsoft Product Lifecycle - It's Official! Friday, May 25 2001 @ 07:33 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Figuring out when the support for a Microsoft product will end has been a difficult chore. In the past it seems like Microsoft's motto has been "Great software never dies, it just fades away" read more