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At TechEd Next Week

I'll be down in Orlando at TechEd IT Pro next week. I'm working a booth of some fashion in the Technical Learning Center most of the week I'm told, so feel free to drop in and say hello if you're in town as well. Share this post: email it! | digg it! Read More...
Posted Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:28 PM by Brian Desmond | 1 Comments

Updated Error Code Lookup Tool

The Microsoft error code lookup tool (which no Windows admin should be without) got updated today: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=be596899-7bb8-4208-b7fc-09e02a13696c&displaylang=en&tm . While it says it's for Exchange, Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008 11:19 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments

Getting Total Installed Memory with WMI

Getting the amount of memory installed in a machine with WMI is a bit confusing particuarly if you only read the docs partially. I was initially using Win32_ComputerSystem::TotalPhysicalMemory, but the documentation warns "Be aware that, under some circumstances, Read More...
Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008 4:24 PM by Brian Desmond | 3 Comments
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Impromptu Hard Drive Refresh - Thanks Acronis

I fix other people's computers and IT problems all day, so the last thing I really feel like doing is fixing my own computer problems at home. My personal workstation decided to blue screen earlier in the evening which was nice. It was one of those blue Read More...
Posted Monday, May 19, 2008 10:43 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Group Policy Editor Shortcuts

I came across these shortcuts today for navigating the group policy editor and thought they'd be worth sharing. They're holdovers from Windows Explorer that also work in the GPO editor. If you press * while targeting a folder in the console, the folder Read More...
Posted Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:50 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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Getting Rid of Apple Software Update

I had to load Quicktime on my PC for one reason or another in the past few months. It's not generally a package I load, but, apparently I needed it for some reason. I of course did the extra legwork to find the Quicktime installer that didn't include Read More...
Posted Friday, May 09, 2008 10:17 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Windows 2003 Forest Functional Level

Thought I'd post an informational post for folks who are moving an AD forest to Windows 2003 forest functional level (aka FFL2) as I realized today this piece of information might not be quite as well known as I might have thought. As an FYI, this change Read More...
Posted Friday, April 11, 2008 12:34 AM by Brian Desmond | 1 Comments
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Upgrading my MCSE

So I have an MCSE: Messaging 2003. Took something like 7 or 8 tests to get that way back when and it's still good. Being the good consultant that I am I decided I'd figure out what I need to do to get whatever the new equivelants are on Windows 2008 and Read More...
Posted Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:38 AM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments

Forcing a Blue Screen via iLO

Sometimes one of the most useful resources at your disposal when troubleshooting a hang or other issues is the memory dump file Windows will write out during a blue screen. If a system is hung and you are not able to get to it locally, pressing Ctrl+ScrollLock, Read More...
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008 12:03 AM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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Loading VMWare 6 Tools on 2008 Server Core

Normally in VMWare when you go "VM>Install VMWare Tools..." with a Windows guest, autorun kicks right in and the installer launches. On server core this isn't the case. You need to launch the MSI by hand. To do this, swich to your CD drive (e.g. "D:"), Read More...
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 11:37 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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How to Sysprep in Windows 2008

I thought I'd document how to setup the new sysprep process equivalent on Windows 2008 since the old setupmgr file for making sysprep.inf's doesn't exist anymore (and neither does sysprep.inf). The first step is acquiring the Windows Automated Installation Read More...
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 10:43 PM by Brian Desmond | 6 Comments
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Windows 2008 - Windows System Image Manager Error

I'm working on adding Windows 2008 to my lab and the first step of this for me anyway is making templates. The whole sysprep process in Vista and Windows 2008 has been completely re-engineered so I'm learning on the go here. Turns out you need to load Read More...
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 6:04 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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At DEC This Week

I'm heading downtown in a bit for DEC 2008 and will be around all week. Please do say stop by and say hello and join in the conversations if you're there! If you're looking for suggestions on local things I can try and help since I'm from Chicago too. Read More...
Posted Sunday, March 02, 2008 1:50 PM by Brian Desmond | 1 Comments
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Exchange 2007 SCC Install Error

Apparently when installing a new Exchange 2007 SCC cluster, you can't give the resource group containing the physical disks the same name as what the cluster virtual name will be. For example if your mailbox virtual server will accessible via shortname Read More...
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2008 3:47 PM by Brian Desmond | 0 Comments
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Active Directory Site Links – Naming & Costing

There are a few things that you really have to consider when you're setting up your site links – the naming convention, cost relative to the underlying WAN transport, frequency of replication, and schedule (that is when replication can even occur). Naming Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 29, 2007 9:04 PM by Brian Desmond | 2 Comments
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Attachment(s): Link Costs.xlsx
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