Short: Microsoft Hints at MSE Support in WHS
I received an email today welcoming me to the Microsoft Security Essentials beta (which is odd, as I've been in the MSE beta since it was first launched), as the following paragraph jumped out at me as I skimmed it:
Notice to Windows® Home Server customers: Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is not supported on Windows Home Server (WHS). Beta testers who have installed Microsoft Security Essentials Beta on WHS should consider uninstalling Microsoft Security Essentials Beta to avoid potential incompatibility problems. Those who plan to beta test Microsoft Security Essentials Beta unsupported on WHS should wait until the next Windows Home Server update rollup currently scheduled to occur on or about September 1, 2010.
Emphasis mine. It's not a lot to go on, but Microsoft may finally be officially adding support for their own anti-virus product to Windows Home Server. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, "Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!"
Short: Microsoft Security Essentials Upgrade Error 0×80070050
I downloaded the Microsoft Security Essentials Ongoing Beta from Microsoft Connect this evening, and as before it installed normally. However, when I tried to update it to the latest version (the setup file on Connect is very out-of-date) the definitions came in fine but the core product refused to upgrade and only provided the error code 0x80070050.
Event viewer wasn't helpful, a reboot didn't fix it, and neither did uninstalling/reinstalling. On a whim, though, I decided to try to the upgrade through Windows Update (after enabling Microsoft Update) and what do you know, it worked!
TL;DR Version: If you get the 0x80070050 error code while trying to upgrade MSE through the MSE program itself, enable Microsoft Update via the Windows Update Control Panel and do the upgrade from there.
Non-Tech: Unintentional Humour from Valve
When Valve was first leaking details about Steam for Mac, they released a series of images parodying 'classic' Apple ads. This was one:
I get what they're trying to say - the PC is boxy and old-fashioned while the Mac is shiny and new. The unintentional humour is that while the Portal turret does it's job adequately in its game, it's easily defeated. The PC (or Team Fortress 2 turret) on the other hand starts out small and meek, but can be easily upgraded in to a massive powerhouse. That said, which would you rather have? Effective but locked down, or less-than-pretty but easily customizable?
Of course, I could just be reading too much in to things again.
Microsoft Launches “Canadian Open License for Government” Program
According to a letter I received in the mail today (I had no idea people still used 'letters' for communication anymore), Microsoft is launching a new 'Canadian Open License for Government' program.
The Post-It Note is for my own protection - click for a larger view
Details are rather scarce at the moment. The letter indicates that more information is available from http://www.microsoft.ca/licensing, but there isn't even a full article present, just the following text:
Government Open License Program Announcement
On June 1st, 2010, Microsoft is launching the Government Open License program in Canada, which will reduce the cost of Open Licenses for Government organizations by approximately 20 percent. This new Volume License Program will also provide flexibility to Canadian Government organizations as customers will now have a viable option to procure licenses from their reseller of choice at competitive prices.Eligibility
With an initial purchase of five or more licenses, customers can acquire products as needed over the term of their agreement. Government organizations will also have to meet the eligibility definition requirements in order to qualify for the Government Open License Program: English – French.For more information, or to find a Microsoft reseller near you, call the Microsoft Resource Centre at (877) 568-2495.
I called the number listed, and the lady I spoke with said that she had information that was passed to her, but she was unsure if she was allowed to give it out. What did tell me wasn't any different than what the text above said - qualifying Government organizations (definitions of 'qualifying' vary depending on if you are part of the government or how much funding you receive if you're a contractor).
So in short, if you meet Microsoft's definition of a Government organization in Canada, you can now obtain software at a 20% discount.
Rant: Microsoft Telephone Activation
I've blogged about Microsoft Telephone Action before, but now I'm off on a rant....
Click 'Continue Reading' for the wall-of-text!
Office Apps Stuck on Downloading Files from Network Shares
For a while now I was having problems opening Word and Excel (2007 and 2010) documents on my work computer. Most of the time everything would work, but every now-and-again I'd go to open something and Word or Excel would report that it was "Downloading <filename>", and simply get stuck. Although I could click the little 'X' to cancel and close the window, the process for either Word or Excel would stay active, and any attempts to kill it would fail. In the end, I'd have to hard power off the computer to get it to shutdown, and then do a cold boot.
Oh, 'Downloading' message, how I hate thee.
I wasn't really bothered by it until a few of my users started reporting the same problem. I had a look in to it, and after a lot of fiddling, came across two Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that eventually led me to a solution.
By adding the registry value from the first KB article linked above (EnableShellDataCaching), and by removing the Group Policy object that was creating a persistent drive mapping and replacing it with a login script (below) to map the drive, I haven't had any further reports of the problem.
REM Login Script - Paste these lines in to a batch file, and add that .bat file to a GPO
net use z: /deletenet use z: \\server\share
Excluding Multiple Paths with ROBOCOPY
ROBOCOPY is an excellent command line utility that Microsoft began bundling with Windows Vista, and has since been included in Windows 7 and Server 2008 (R2 as well). It makes it incredibly simple to mirror a directory tree, and is great for batch file backups. There are a few quirks with it, however.
When using the /MIR switch, ROBOCOPY overwrites the destination path with everything in the source path. To exclude folders, you're instructed to use the /XD switch. Below is a sample with the correct syntax:
robocopy d:\ n:\Data /MIR /Z /A-:R /R:1 /W:1 /LOG:n:\logs\data.log /XD d:\vms d:\wsus "d:\System Volume Information" d:\tmpbak d:\installs d:\RECYCLER
To break this down, we start with the ROBOCOPY command itself. Following that is the Source Path (D:\) and then the Destination Path (N:\Data). Next is the /MIR switch that tells ROBOCOPY to mirror the existing directory structure and copy everything. The /Z switch sets the job in Restartable Mode, and /A-:R removes any read-only attributes. /R:1 and /W:1 tell ROBOCOPY to Retry copying the file once if it encounters an error, and Wait one second between retries (I've set it this low as the backup runs late at night, as if someone has left a file open it doesn't matter how many retries are attempted).
Following this, the /LOG switch dumps the full output of the copy job to n:\logs\data.log. This includes information on the number of files copied, directories excluded, etc....
Finally, we get to the /XD switch. Note that this is the last included switch - although you can technically have it where ever you want in the command, it's cleaner, and less error-prone if you make it the last switch.
To exclude multiple directories, simply list them with spaces in between. If the path contains spaces (in the example above, I've excluded System Volume Information), wrap it in double-quotes ("). The most important thing, though, is DO NOT EVER, *EVER* include a trailing "\" in excluded paths!
For some reason, ROBOCOPY parses the trailing \ in an odd way. If included in the command, the log will list all of the excluded paths, however it will still copy the data. It won't provide any error messages or other output. For example, if you used the following command:
robocopy d:\ n:\Data /MIR /Z /A-:R /R:1 /W:1 /LOG:n:\logs\data.log /XD d:\vms d:\wsus "d:\System Volume Information\" d:\tmpbak d:\installs d:\RECYCLER
Because there is a trailing \ on "d:\System Volume Information\", the log will report that the excluded directories are d:\vms d:\wsus d:\System Volume Information d:\tmpbak d:\installs d:\RECYCLER, however it will still attempt to copy all of them.
However, if you simply omit the trailing \, ROBOCOPY will correctly parse the list of paths and will ignore them.
Exchange Sync With Android: Possible, But Not Pretty
One of the things I loved about my old iPhone was the built-in Exchange sync. I could sync my email, my calendar, and even my contacts (although I only did the first two). Life was good.
After moving to the Android platform, however, I was disappointed to discover that although an Exchange email app was included, it wouldn't allow you to directly sync an Exchanged-based calendar. A little searching provided a way, though.
- Make sure you're running Office 2003 or 2007 - if you have the Office 2010 Beta installed, it won't work. If you still want to sync, uninstall 2010 and install 2003 or 2007, then follow the Special Note at the end of the post.
- Download the Google Calendar Sync tool.
- Install, follow on-screen instructions.
- ???
- Profit!
Now it should be noted that I did this, and at first it didn't work as I was using Office 2010 Beta 2. Even after uninstalling it and installing Office 2007, I still couldn't sync and received this error:
Could not connect to Microsoft Outlook: error -2147319779
A little searching turned up this link, which contained a hint at the solution. When you install Office 2010, it creates the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\'{00062FFF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\9.4
In the same key, there should also be a '9.3' entry. With Office 2010 uninstalled, you can safely remove the '9.4' key. Now, restart Google Calendar Sync, and everything should work just fine.
One major caveat with this solution is that your computer has to be up-and-running for the calendar to actually synchronize - fortunately, this isn't much of a problem if you're the only one updating your calendar. With any luck, though, Google will eventually support full Exchange syncing with Android.
Edit: I probably should point out that this is for ROMs without official Exchange support (such as Cyanogenmod, which syncs Exchange mail, but not the calendar). Some official ROMs, like HTC's, actually include Exchange calendar syncing out-of-box.
Update: There's an APK floating around that gives you the Exchange (Corporate) Calendar. I won't link it here, but a Google search for "CorpCal.apk" should give you what you need.
Further Update: Froyo will feature native Exchange Calendar sync, so CorpCal will be rendered moot when the update finally hits.
Even Further Update: Froyo, which has been released OTA for the Nexus One, does in fact feature native Calendar syncing with Exchange. This article is handy if you're stuck on an older ROM, but if not, just use the official method.
Short Rant: WSUS
I'm running WSUS 3.0 SP2, and it really helps to not only track the update status of my machines, but also because we're only on a DSL connection, and the update caching is a lifesaver. My main complaint with WSUS, though, is the update filtering.
In WSUS, you can tell it what products you want to get updates for, what classification (driver, critical update, service pack, etc...), and even whether to auto-approve them or not, but for some unknown reason, WSUS doesn't let you specify the damn architecture that you want.
Our organization doesn't have any Intanium hardware - why doesn't WSUS let me specifically block that architecture? I only want x86 and x86_64 updates. Is that so hard? Instead, my auto-approve rules happily let those updates download, and then sit and take up space until I run the cleanup wizard.
Come on, Microsoft. Think this one through, please? Maybe introduce it in the 4.0 update?
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