Windows Power Essentials Tips & Tricks
November 11, 2013 5 Comments
A question came up in the Essentials Forum recently which prompted me to build quite a large lab, and not even manage to repro the issue. The issue affects both the Essentials Role and the SKU., but it does not appear to affect R1.
The symptoms were, that a user of the Domain Admins was unable to open the Dashboard, being greeted instead with this error..
October 25, 2013 Leave a comment
Have you ever needed to find a driver for something, when you have not actually known what the device is?
It sounds silly i know, but if you ever reinstall a PC you may end up with a tonne of ‘unknown’ devices in Device Manager and having exhausted the available drivers on the manufacturers website, may be scratching your head as to what the device even is, let alone what driver to try. Read more of this post
October 1, 2013 5 Comments
Just a very quick post, i was installing a new x64 Windows 7 machine today, and needed to install a shared printer from an x86 Windows 7 pc. I could only download a generic x64 bit driver for the printer which we will get to in a moment, but first let’s remember that we need to install the x64 driver, on the 32bit pc first.
I am going to use x86 or 32bit interchangeably, so try to keep up!
I found the relevant driver from the manufacturer website, and downloaded it. When adding that as an additional driver, through Devices and Printers (print server properties), it was asking me to locate ‘ntprint.inf’ from the Windows x64 media. Read more of this post
September 17, 2013 45 Comments
In conversation with some Microsoft folks recently we found out about some, what ill call, small print, in the EULA of Essentials and Essentials R2.
If you had previously purchased Server 2012 Standard, and exercised down grade rights to install a copy of Essentials, you may be surprised to learn that ‘to the letter of the law’ you would therefore be required to purchase Server CALs and more expensively RDS CALs if you intended to use the RWA feature to remote access client computers.
August 30, 2013 3 Comments
I am writing this post in order to try and highlight the issues people are having with DA, and suggest a course of action. Rather than simply reply to comments about various bits not working.
It was October last year when i posted my process for enabling DA on Essentials 2012, and at the time i was really excited about the new OS and the possibilities that having a supported DA configuration for SMB would bring. If you are not on-board with DA and what it can bring your customers – you need to consider it. Just like PowerShell i think DA is a really important technology for people to be picking up and deploying for small businesses.
Unfortunately, it is not working as smoothly as i had hoped, and, Microsofts response so far has not been ideal and has sapped a lot of the passion i had for this product.
June 17, 2013 31 Comments
Probably the best title for a blog post ever right? Having seen and read about a lot of people struggling with DNS resolution problems with their clients on Essentials (2011/2012) networks, and also some dubious advice being given out for how to ‘resolve’ these problems i thought i would try and get into some deep level explanation of how, and why Essentials does what it does.
June 13, 2013 2 Comments
So, you might have heard through my facebook page or twitter i am putting on an event at Microsoft on Tuesday the 18th of June. It starts at 6pm and all are welcome….
However due to the security restrictions on the building i need to provide Microsoft with a list of names of those attending… given my lack of experience organising events i had overlooked this rather large detail.
So, are you coming?
I intend it to be an informal event where we just have a bit of a chat about the future of SMB IT with our special guests Amy Babinchak and Marina Roos.
Amy is currently running the SMB Kitchen project , as well as Third Tier and amongs many other things is an SBSC PAL in the US.
Marina, you may remember visited the UK with the SMB MVP Community Roadshow and expertly demonstrated Windows Multipoint Server. Marina also works with Jeff Middleton at SBSMigration.com / ITPROExperts
If you do intend to come along, we are kicking off at 6pm at Cardinal Place, near Victoria Station please drop me an email or register your interest on my facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/events/205381456276850/
Thanking you!
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