Activate Windows 7 Enterprise with a MAK Key
Update 10/25/2010: This article is superseded by Activate Windows 7 Enterprise with a MAK Key – GUI Method. A small customer purchased Software Assurance (SA) on their Windows desktop licenses. …
Go Daddy Email Too Smart for the Cloud
A small customer has an in-house mail server. After some recent DSL connection woes, I’m getting nervous about this single point of failure for their email service. The customer’s Go …
Thin Client vs. Desktop in the Small Business
A non-profit customer has an underutilized server and a desktop due and budgeted for replacement. Would it make sense to replace the desktop with a thin client, and run the …
Deploying Printers With Group Policy in Windows Server 2003 R2
I recently added a printer connection to a Windows Server 2003 R2 machine. In the past, this has meant re-training each user on how to connect to a network printer. …
Setting Up Dell OpenManage on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
One of my misconceptions about the Microsoft virtualization options was that if I wanted to have access to server management tools, I would need to run “regular” (paid) Window Server …
Setting Up Windows Server Backup on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
Part of my testing of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 will be the built-in backup solution. But although Windows Server Backup it is a built-in feature, it is not enabled …
Managing Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 from Windows 7
I'm testing Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 as a virtualization platform. This is the free version that only includes the Hyper-V role and a command-line interface. Here are a few …
Microsoft Desktop Virtualization Licensing for the SMB
I’ve been thinking about virtualizing a couple of desktops at a small non-profit customer site. The desktops are five years old, due and budgeted for replacement. There’s an under-utilized server …
Kon-Boot vs. Windows 7 BitLocker
I’ve been running Windows 7 with BitLocker for a couple months and am quite pleased with it. BitLocker encrypts the hard drive so that if my laptop is lost or …
NOD32 Error Downloading File from Update Server – retval 0x1105
I’m running ESET Remote Administrator (ERA) 3.0.105 as an update mirror on a Win2003 R2 server. There are six NOD32 3.0.684.0 clients that connect to that server (including one client …