Don’t ask why, but I have my music and video files stored on my Windows 2008 server at home. I had initially planned on streaming these files up to my Xbox 360 in the living room, however I subsequently learnt that Media Player 11 on Server 2008 has it’s media sharing services disabled. So instead, I installed a Vista virtual machine on my XenServer (aren’t we all running Server 2008 and XenServers at home?), and tried to share them from a mapped drive instead. What I found however, was that the files didn’t appear on the Xbox - here is how to get it running… (more…)

I had a client ask me today how to redirect http request to their website hosted on IIS6 to HTTPS - so staff don’t have to remember that pesky “s”. The quickest way I found was as follows: (more…)

I remember once having a client who used their *recycle bin* as a bit of a filing system. Anything they didn’t want now, but might need later, they put in there for safe keeping. Safe keeping?!?! Well, we sure can’t let our lusers get away with that - lets teach them the error of their ways. Here is how to force an empty of the recycle bin at logoff via a vb script. (more…)

I had an issue today with Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange (phew) breaking my Windows Server 2008 / Exchange 2007 installation. It seems that Symantec inserts a registry key that Exchange doesn’t think much of… here is how to fix it. (more…)

In an effort to embrace xml-based file formats, Microsoft managed to make their new Office 2007 file formats unreadable by earlier versions of Office. Huzzah! Well, deploying the Office 2007 Compatibility pack is pretty darn easy - here is how… (more…)

Office 2007 offers a new feature which allows you to save a document as a PDF - however it doesn’t actually ship with the product (from memory, Adobe got a bit grumpy about this when Microsoft suggested it). Deploying it is suprisingly easy. (more…)

Well, I think “Microsoft changed things for (apparently) no reason other than to mess with us” might become a recurring theme around here…

In the old days, you’d deploy Office 2003 across a network using a combination of the Office 2003 Resource Kit, and Group Policy. Well, with Office 2007 things have changed a little… (more…)