Windows Server Backup – Send Email When Complete
In the days of tape backup it was easy to tell when a backup had completed because the tape could be configured to eject from the drive. A lot of our clients use a pool of USB backup drives which…
Office 365 – Outlook 2013 Autodiscover Problems
A client migrated themselves to Office 365 from an existing on-premise Exchange at the weekend and called us as they were having problems configuring Outlook 2013. Everytime they set it up it would auto-discover the existing Exchange server and not…
One for geeks only – Surface Pro + Hyper-V 2012 + Shared Nothing Live Migration
Okay, I admit, most people aren't going to be interested but... http://blogs.technet.com/b/building_clouds/archive/2013/02/21/surface-pro-hijinks-video.aspx "Question: What ridiculous things can 4 server geeks do with a sub-2lb tablet that has a Core i5 processor and a couple of free hours? Answer: Install Server 2012,…
Eliminating PST files
We recently migrated a client from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 and had to deal with over 200 PST files scattered around the network from various archives and ex-employees. Now that we aren't limited to the 75GB store size we…
Exchange 2010 SP3 Support for Windows 2012
Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 (SP3) has been released "Windows Server 2012 Support - This Service Pack enables you to deploy Exchange Server 2010 on WIndows Server 2012 platform." We love Windows 2012, but up until now we haven't…
Windows Multipoint Server in the Classroom
We've played with Multipoint Server before and know it to be a great product that reduces classroom costs and improves the student experience, well WMS 2012 has been released and it has got even better http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_in_education/archive/2013/02/08/windows-multipoint-server-in-the-classroom.aspx
Recruiting for two new members to add to the IT team
We're expanding our IT team and we're looking for a couple of people. You are expected to install, enhance, configure and support the network infrastructures offered by Focused IT to its customers, these mainly comprise of Microsoft Windows Server based…
Convert-WindowsImage – Should reduce my scripting
"Convert-WindowsImage is the new version of WIM2VHD designed specifically for Windows 8. Completely rewritten in PowerShell, this command-line tool allows you to rapidly create sysprepped VHD and VHDX images from setup media for Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 and Windows 8/Server…
Remotely connecting vCenter Server to ESXi hosts
When supporting a number of small businesses, it is quite useful to connect a local vCenter server to manage clients’ remote ESXi hosts. Setting this up for the first time can be frustrating, however, with the documentation being so comprehensive,…
Windows Server 2012 – Remote Control/Shadowing for RD Session Host
We love Windows Server 2012 and all the new features, SMB3, Hyper-V Replication, NIC Teaming but....There is one feature I'm sorry to see disappear and that's the ability to 'Remote Control' or 'Shadow' another session on a Remote Desktop Session…