Windows Server 2008


How To Enable Snipping Tool, Windows Media Player and more Desktop Experience Tools on Windows Server 2008-2012 R2

Are you annoyed that you cannot play videos or use some of the cool windows tools like snipping tool with windows server?  Well, you can, they just have to be enabled before you can use them.  Below are instructions for enabling these features in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows […]


Microsoft Virtual Labs Available NOW! System Center, Windows, Virtualization, SharePoint, Exchange, SQL, And Lots More!


How to Solve Connectivity Issues Connecting To SCOM, SCVMM, AD or Any Other Service–Here is the Easy fix

I have been in the technology industry for more than 25 years now and I have dealt with my fair share of connectivity issues. In the last decade or so a good 85% or more of the issues I have encountered have been DNS issues. There is a very easy […]


How To Merge a Chained Differential VHD Disk So It Can Be Extended and Expanded

In my post Out of Disk Space on Drive C–How To Increase Space on Drive C of a Virtual Machine Running Windows Server 2003 I showed how to expand a drive but these instructions do not work if you have a differencing disk or chain of disks. If you want […]


Out of Disk Space on Drive C–How To Increase Space on Drive C of a Virtual Machine Running Windows Server 2003

Revised 4/2/2011 to add merge change instructions link and link to simple way to do this using diskpart. I documented the process at: How To Expand and Extend To Increase Capacity On A Virtual Hard Disk The Easy and Fast Way–Solve the problem of “Out of Disk Space on Drive […]


Hyper-V Security 101 – Virtualization Administration Delegation of Hyper-V and SCVMM

When running Hyper-V you do not need to be at the console to manage your virtualization platform.  In fact, it is strongly recommended that you delegate these rights.  If you let someone login to a server with administrative permissions they basically have the “keys to the kingdom”.  We do not […]


Allow Remote Desktop Services and Ping Through Firewall on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7

This post in in response to questions on how to turn maintain remote connectivity to a server running Hyper-V with the firewall enabled.  The first thing to consider is what inbound traffic you want to enable on the server.  If it is a Hyper-V server you should consider if you […]


iSCSI SAN for VERY Easy Storage Virtualization All About Storage From Virtualization Group Boston

A quick update on Virtualization Group Boston’s, “All About Storage” event. Thanks to our Community Sponsors: PerfectDisk, and StarWind Software. We had a great turnout with strong presentations from two big names in the industry, StarWind Software and PerfectDisk(Raxco Software).  One of the topics we discussed and I wanted to […]


DPM eLearning is now online – How to Backup SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange Server and Virtulized Environments (Hyper-V), Including Disaster Recovery

Announcing DPM eLearning is now online This week, I am very happy to announce the availability of eLearning for DPM 2007. This is a collection of 6 two-hour eLearning modules that include hands-on labs, much of the same courseware as our newly announced classroom-based DPM course, and is built for […]


How To Configure BitLocker on Windows 7 RC – Everything You Need To Know About BitLocker

I have had many questions about BitLocker so I thought I would answer them in this blog post.   What is BitLocker and Why Should I Care? BitLocker is a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) component that allows you to protect data on hard drives.  BitLocker is the name given to […]


Where To Download ISO Images For The Latest And Past Versions Of Microsoft Software Including SQL Server 2000 x64

I had a customer ask me today if it was possible to download SQL Server 2000 x64.  I am posting here so others can benefit from the answer.  If you have an MSDN or Technet subscription you can download the ISO image of the CD/DVD’s. If you do not have […]