VMware Workstation 7 and Server 2008 R2 Guests

I think I found my first bug.

 

Doing a Easy Install on Server 2008 R2 – first it complains that the key is wrong (though that could just be a copy/paste issue lol) then;

 

But the Easy Install has finished!! Powered the VM off and back on again, still the same.

 

Oh well, no VMware tools!

Office Outlook 2010 Reading Pane mode

 

It’s hidden away down at the bottom

 

 

But I like it.

 

It’s like a smaller, more compact Outlook. Everything is there (Clicking the Home / Send/Recieve / Folder / View buttons makes the Ribbon hover up until you click focus elsewhere), yet it feels cleaner and sharper than before.

Office 2010 and Laptop Sleep Issues

 

Now this may just be me, or it may be a beta2-ism.

 

But my Windows 7 laptop with Office 2010 beta installed will not stay asleep. No matter what I do (closing the obvious applications and even installing the “Microsoft Send a Smile” application) it wakes up, drains my battery, and makes Windows 7 complain about being dirtily shut down.

 

It could just be Windows 7, it could just be my laptop. It could be the copy of Office 2010 I have (can’t wait for the public beta!), but its darn annoying.

 

Hibernation seems to work fine though

VMware Workstation 7…..

So I downloaded it and tried it out.

 

I like it – a lot. And it’s the subtle differences that I like.

 

For instance – the added support for Windows 7 Taskbar

 

I have my taskbar vertical (as you can see) – and I like the way I get “Hover Previews” (what is their official name anyway?) of all my favourite Virtual Machines – even the suspended ones!

VMware tools under Linux seems (it may not be, but it “seems”) easier to install – less of the headaches and more “pre-compiled” modules for my Linux operating systems

 

Not found any real bugs yet (the first I thought I had turned out to be a corrupt ISO download – *sigh*), but will post anything up I can find as I get to using it

Now if only I had a Mac to try out VMware Fusion 3 – but I flattened my “Hack Mac” for Windows 7

Office 2010 First Thoughts….

I like it.

 

A lot.

 

Aside from;

Pointing the new “Social” side of Outlook 2010 at SharePoint 2007 SP2 tells me that “The server version is not supported”.

 

Why not Microsoft?

 

I would presume that either;

a) there will be a post-Office 2010 patch for SharePoint 2k7 to make it “supported”

b) Office 2010 users will have to use SharePoint 2010 to integrate into Outlook. Which is a real shame.

 

Aside from that, thumbs up from me to Microsoft. Only on Beta2 but I like it and cannot wait for RTM (whenever that is!)

Bug in Windows 7 RC1?

Having some issues recently with my RC1 laptop;

 

Whenever I try to open a program that has at some time accessed a network resource on my AD domain, my laptop hangs and I have to hard reboot

 

I will install RTM over the weekend and see if it persists

Email Size Limits in Exchange 2007

There are four places where Message size is set in Exchange – in 2003, these were all in the gui, in 2007 three are powershell (although MS supposedly are adding it back in) and one has no admin tool at all – you get to use ADSI Edit to set it in the "raw" Active Directory. You must however set the parameters in all four places to the same value – the *lowest* of all four is used, as each is applied to the message in turn to decide if it should be rejected.

So, from the top:

Global setting:

—————

The system wide default is held in Active Directory and is set to 10MB by default (this is 10240 K, the setting is just a number but is in K)

Using ADSI Edit, navigate to:

CN=Configuration, CN=Services, CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Domain Name,CN=Global Settings,CN=Message Delivery.

Hit the properties on the Message Delivery object and the attributes you want are:

msExchRecipLimit (default 5000)

submissionContLength (default 10240)

delivContLength (default 10240)

However in SP1 these are not set, and you must use PowerShell to set them;

 

Transport Setting

—————–

Site Default is set in powershell; use Get-TransportConfig to get current settings, then:

Set-TransportConfig -MaxRecipientEnvelopeLimit <nn> -MaxReceiveSize <nn>MB -MaxSendSize <nn>MB

current setting:

Set-TransportConfig -MaxRecipientEnvelopeLimit 5000 -MaxReceiveSize 20MB -MaxSendSize 20MB

Receive and Send Connectors

—————————

Again, we use Powershell. First to list the connectors, you can use the two following commands:

Get-ReceiveConnector

Get-SendConnector

you can get detailed information (including the current settings) by using the Format-List pipe:

Get-ReceiveConnector | Format-List

Get-SendConnector | Format-List

Now, for EACH connector you need to modify, use the following:

Set-ReceiveConnector "<connector name>" -MaxMessageSize <nn>MB

-or-

Set-SendConnector "<connector name>" -MaxMessageSize <nn>MB

Or;

get-recieveconnector | set-recieveconnector –MaxMessageSize <nn>MB

LogonHours

Below is a script to find any users who have logon hours restricted (i.e. not set to “Allow Any Time”)

 

Don’t forget to generate an objects.txt by doing a “dsquery –user –l 0 > objects.txt” as per any of my other scripts.

 

strtextfile = "objects.txt" Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set objTextFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strtextfile, 1, False, 0) On Error Resume Next Do strobject = objTextFile.ReadLine strobject = Mid(strobject,2,Len(strobject)-2) Set objObject = GetObject("LDAP://" & strObject) arrLogonHours = objObject.Get("logonHours") strName = objObject.Get("CN") If arrLogonHours <> "" Then ‘wscript.echo (strName & " has had Logon Hours defined – checking to see if they have any set currently") For i = 1 To LenB(arrLogonHours)     strLogonArray = AscB(MidB(arrLogonHours, i, 1)) arrLogonArray = arrLogonArray & strLogonArray strMidB = MidB(arrLogonHours, i, 1) Next if arrLogonArray <> "255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255255" then WScript.Echo (strName & " has Logon Hours defined – please investigate.") end if arrLogonArray = "" End If arrLogonHours = "" Loop Until objtextfile.AtEndOfStream = True

List Mailbox Sizes in Exchange 2007

http://gsexdev.blogspot.com/2008/05/version-5-of-mailbox-size-gui-script.html

 

Little PS Script (with GUI) to list mailbox sizes of all users in your Exchange organisation.

 

Will also view how many items in each subfolder, and list them out. Very cool indeed

Windows 7 RC1 initial thoughts

Well, since I left my charger at work last week (GRR) and wasn’t able to install it when it was first available, I’m probably about a week (or so) behind.

However, I have been using it all day now, and do have some observations.

Firstly, I’m glad MS fixed the RDP client

The new one looks slick and works well. It even remembers a history of connected servers, and gives you them listed when you mouse over (in the Start menu) or right click (on the Taskbar)

Graphically, it looks just a little nicer also. I can’t put my finger on it, but its just that little more polished.

However, I do have one bugbear. It feels slower. It may be me (or the fact that it seems to be indexing my laptop as we speak), but there is less memory available currently than in the beta, and I have about the same amount of application’s open.

I’ll persevere and post back any unusual findings