Microsoft TechNet Edge has a great collection of videos. One that I would like to call your attention to is this Active Directory Best Practices: Ten Years Later. If you touch the AD at all, I'd encourage you to watch the 55 minute video. It's broken down into different sections like organizing OUs, managing sites, and extreme consoles. Even if you have been using the Active … [Read more...]
Microsoft certification program shaken up to align with “the cloud”, MCSE revived
Microsoft has announced a change to its certification program. It has evolved from MCSA & MCSE to MCITP and back to a new MCSE, Microsoft Certified Solution Expert. The change is meant to address the cloud and aligning IT skills to match where technology is heading. The change announced today is more than just a name change and both developers and IT professionals should … [Read more...]
Creating a WinPE LiveCD for WMI lookups
I'm currently reconfiguring my organization's deployment server to use the DriverGroup001 variable instead of just using PnP matching for driver injection. We have had too many models interfering with each other. Bad drivers or just bad driver matches will lead to a BSoD or a buggy computer that requires more time troubleshooting or reimaging. The DriverGroup variable I'm … [Read more...]
Windows Server 8 beta available for evaluation
Microsoft wants IT Professionals to dive into the Windows Server 8 beta, according to the Windows Server blog post that announced its availability today. You can download a 64-bit ISO or VHD to evaluate and provide feedback of the limited-time trial OS. You can find the download from TechNet behind a Windows Live login. The 64-bit ISO is 3.3GB in size. Server 8 is being called … [Read more...]
Use the HP SoftPaq Download Manager to simplify downloading drivers
Supporting a lot of computers can be a daunting task and it's even more daunting when the computers are a variety of brands and models. One tedious part of supporting multiple models is having to download the needed drivers. Dell has a pretty nice setup where you can download a single .cab file from their site that contains all of the latest drivers you might need for a model. … [Read more...]