A Very Basic IT Blog

Windows 7 is two days from launching. Since I don’t have a contract with Microsoft let me talk about what I feel about this new Operative System from Microsoft. I’ve been using Windows 7 since their beta. I’ve tested it with old applications, new applications, portable applications, open source and commercial applications, desktops and laptops. Here’s what I like and don’t like about Windows 7.

The Good

1. Hardware on steroids?

I’m running 7 Ultimate on machines that previously ran Windows Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium). I have different kinds of installs: the one that preserves your previous system and partitions on a machine with Windows Experience Index of 4.0 and a clean install on a machine with WEI of 3,3 . In both of them I feel I gained a new computer for Christmas, specially in the one with most RAM. I notice an outstanding improvement in performance. You can feel the difference in disk and memory usage. This new OS is more lightweight leaving more resources for applications. Those who have to rely on professional applications like Photoshop, Draw, Freehand, Flash, CAD, 3D Modelling and animation, professional usage of Outlook, SPSS and such will enjoy the new Microsoft OS.

2. Stability

With the improved performance comes a new found stability. SP2 of Windows XP was already a stable environment, Vista was stable, but this one is awesome. You really have to mess it on purpose to make its behavior unreliable.

The difference in memory management is huge and the way this operative system works with hard drives is excellent.

3. Compatibility

The new system is a huge improvement in terms of compatibility, hardware and software wise.

From the first launch the driver nightmares are reduced to a minimum. The OS connects to a web repository (from Microsoft and vendors) if it doesn’t find the driver for a certain piece of hardware. That way it can get and install updated drivers if they are available. I’ve tried it with NVIDIA drivers, Sony drivers, ASUS, Dell, ATI. All functioned pretty well except for those more specific stuff from Sony. Even so, the system pointed to the right place in the Sony website. In terms of software, Microsoft took care t make this OS backward compatible so companies and individual users wouldn’t have to deal with huge messes application wise.

The feeling you get is that Windows went through a severe diet but Windows 7 also means you get PowerShell 2.0, Internet Explorer 8, and .NET 3.5. Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Microsoft Agent are not present in this new OS. For me this is a plus. One of the things I hated in Vista is the way it was filled with rubbish. For someone who uses applications or develops applications that depend on these it will be a bommer. As for me, the diet was pretty welcomed.

Since Macs are Intel powered these days, a great friend of mine installed the 7 as a dual boot in a MacAir. Know what? He’s using Windows most of the time. Now Windows and Mac are one beautiful creature when playing together. Seriously, you won’t believe the way the new Windows “plays” with Mac hardware.

4. Intuition and fast learning curve

The new taskbar and Windows Explorer works like a charm. It really does accelerate my work. Some folks don’t like it mainly because they have to click more than once to pop a minimized window. Personally I feel that previewing the windows before restoring saves you time when you work with a lot of them in the same application.

Learning how to use this baby is also very fast and easy. Just go to Microsoft’s web site, follow their series of videos, articles and tutorials and in less than an hour you’ll be ready to explore the system. This is also true for those who work in systems and operative areas. The documentation Microsoft has cared to provide is extensive and helpful.

One of the things that improves the usability of this system is someone got rid of those annoying and constant warnings for administrative credentials everytime you needed to do something like letting an application writing a file to your disk. UAC… as in well… BUac!! It has a lot more sense put into it now.

Connection management: try and install/manage multiple connections (wireless and LAN) with this OS. Easy. Need to connect to an FTP server without using third party applications? Easy.

Help is improved in language and in topics. It’s easier now to find what you are looking for. On top of that, when you do find what you are looking the text is presented in a way that let’s you understand. I don’t know if that’s because of the language used or because they include more background knowledge in the help files but I think it’s better than before.

The Bad

1. Cost. Microsoft’s OS are still too expensive. Let’s face it, with the bonus of a pre-order the Ultimate version will cost you around 299 USD. If you need your system to do more than using office you won’t need the home ultra light basic version. If you’re looking for a cheap OS this is not the answer. Workaround: try one of the many flavours of Linux for desktops. There are some systems out there that work beautifully and will make you very productive.

2. It would be nice to see a default policy for portioning where you would get system and data in different partitions. Not implemented.

3. I’d like to see a multiple RDP session management application built from scratch on the system. But then again, I don’t know any system that comes with that.

The Ugly

1. Internet Explorer is one heavy browser. But you’ll need it. There are a lot of applications for Windows that depend on IE bits of code. Workaround? Leave it where it is and install Chrome and you’ll have a superfast internet browsing experience. Each tab in Chrome is a different process. That way, everytime you close a tab you are really freeing up memory. Note: there are some issues with Firefox security after the latest changes to the .NET framework. Microsoft is working on it but for the time being use firefox on windows at your own risk.

This case would be strange in 1886. Multiple personality is one of the day-to-day joys of sys admins.

It is a best-practice and you better follow it as your precious guideline. Remember the article on Conficker? There are worms and trojans who just love admin rights. Always use a non-administrative credential when performing usual tasks. For security reasons it is usual for an IT guy or gal to have a standard-privileged user that he or she uses to perform the usual jobs such as using applications and answering e-mails. However, for administrative purposes you’ll want a user with the necessary privileges to get the job done. This way, you can be logged and working with a standard-privileged user, which if grabbed by some malicious worm won’t affect anything vital (hopefully), and use the admin user only at the time when you’ll be performing the admin task.

To do that you’ll work normally with your regular user and launch the command prompt or management console with different credentials. You probably heard about this as “run as administrator”. “Run as…” is the way you have to run some application with different credentials than those you are using at a certain moment. PC users who have Windows Vista or Windows 7 know the drill because these two operating systems are more secure in this sense.

You have 4 ways to start an application with elevated credentials, that is to say four different ways to use “Run As…”.

Using the secondary mouse button

This is the most intuitive way but also the least productive. It’s useful when you use the Run as… feature once in a while. Not very useful if you use it all the time.

1. Just navigate to the shortcut of the application you wish to use (a management console or any other application);

2. Right-click the shortcut;

3. On the context menu you’ll see the Run as… command. Click it. On the image below I’m starting Quest’s Power GUI with Run as…

Using the secondary mouse button to access the Run as... command.

4. After you click Run as… you’ll be prompted to enter the credentials (i.e., your username and password) you wish to use.

Change the Shortcut Properties

1. Right-click the application shortcut;

2. Click on the Properties command.

Click on the Properties command of the shortcut.

3. This will open the Properties dialog box of the application. Click to select the Shortcut tab.

4. Click the Advanced… button.

Click on the Advanced... button

5. This will open the Advanced Properties. Check the Run with different credentials checkbox;

6. Click the OK button to save the changes.

7. Now open the application as you normally would. At this point the application won’t run at once. Instead, a Run As dialog box will appear asking for your credentials. The dialog box should look like the one below.

8. To run an application as a different user (an administrator, for example) just check The following user radio button and enter your username and password. The username should be in the “DOMAIN\User” or “User@domain” notation.

9. Click the OK button. If all goes well, you are logged on as John Smith and now you are runnig some application as Administrator.

Run As… DOS way

For those of you who feel a real admin always use the command line interface, or command prompt, or command shell (call it whatever you like) here’s how you do it.

1. Click Start -> Run;

2. Type cmd on the text field (this will open the shell;

3. The command you use is runas. If you want to know all about the runas command type runas /?.

runas /?

3. To use the command type runas /user:DOMAIN\Username “application.ext”. After that you’ll be prompted for the password. Example: runas /user:DOMAIN\pjlourenco “dsa.msc”. In the example you would open the Active Directory Users and Computers with the credentials provided.

The Run Way

1. Click Start - > Run;

2. On the text field type the runas command exactly as you would in the command shell (runas /user:DOMAIN\Username “application.ext”)

The Command-line reference A-Z

Now you have all you need to become Mr. Hyde. I’ll leave you with the Command-line reference A-Z from Microsoft. There you can find the usage of a bunch of commands, including runas. Check it out:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490890.aspx

Remember the movie? Douglas Quaid couldn’t trust his memories and from that it all turned into hell each step of the movie. What is reality when you can’t trust your memory? Well, the same happens with e-mails.

Sometimes you send an e-mail message to your co-workers bragging about how you arrived first on that company running challenge last weekend with an annoying photo of you crossing the line. If being an a** wasn’t bad enough you forgot to attach the photo. See? Told you you can’t trust your memory (even if you win running challenges). The usual scenario is receiving a dozen or more replies with the remark “You forgot the attachement!” – this would be the nice version of the replies you would get, in most companies people are not that nice, of course. Now, you’re in that Douglas Quaid moment. Is it possible to recover from that memory loss?

You can if you are using a Microsoft Exchange 2000, 2003, 2007 or 2010 account and Microsoft Office Outlook along with it. By the way, this works well enough if:

a) you are fast enough and don’t wait until your folks open the message;

b) it helps if the recipients of the message have Outlook open.

You can replace the original message with another one that contains that wretched photo of yours. This is also useful if you want to change something vitally important in the message text. For example, instead of bragging about your performance as a runner you could be nicer and replace that content saying they were great sports, it was a lot of fun, etc, etc.

You do that replacement by using the Recall function. In the scenario we are dealing with you would Recall and Replace the message (by another one with the attachment). There is a better scenario here: recall the message altogether and not sending another one. This is the difference between “Recall” and “Recall and Replace”.

To Recall and Replace follow these steps:

1. In Mail, in the Navigation Pane, click Sent Items.

2. Open the message that you want to recall and replace.

3. On the Message tab, in the Actions group, click Other Actions, and then click Recall This Message.

4. Click Delete unread copies and replace with a new message.

NOTE If you are sending the message to a large number of people, you may want to clear the Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient check box.

5. Click OK, and then type a new message and include the attachment.

6. Click Send.

In this next scenario, you want to recall the message but not to send another one with the photo or with changes.

To Recall follow these steps:

Do the following:

1. In Mail, in the Navigation Pane, click Sent Items.

2. Open the message that you want to recall.

3. On the Message tab, in the Actions group, click Other Actions, and then click Recall This Message.

4. Click Delete unread copies of this message.

NOTE If you are sending the message to a large number of people, you may want to clear the Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient check box.

Sometimes you use a certain uncommon command very often and that command has no button in no toolbar. Sometimes very often is often enough for you not wanting to be clicking like a maniac on the menu bar, and on the menu, and on the submenu and on… Aaarrgh!

Okay, remember when we created the Microsoft Outlook Templates (the easy way!)? Sure it was easy they said, sure it was great, they said… but do I have to click on the menu bar, on the menu and on the submenu everytime I wish to use my templates? (they asked in a distinguishable bored tone). Okay, it’s 3 clicks, it wouldn’t kill you. Anyway, if you perfom that operation 3 times a gazallion times over a year it might kill your carpal tunnel.

So, for you carpal tunnels reading this, let’s avoid getting you nasty syndromes. Let’s pick up from the previous post and add a button to Outlook’s standard toolbar so you can click it and access your templates… the fast way. Remember: the templates are accessible using the Choose form… command. So what we need to do is to add a button to our standard toolbar that calls that command.

1. Open Microsoft Office Outlook if you haven’t already done so and click Tools -> Customize. This will open the Customize dialog box.

The Customize command

2. On the Customize dialog box, click to select the Commands tab.

3. When you call the Customize command your application enters a different state where the commands and actions usually available on your toolbars cease to function. In this mode you can change (ence customize) your toolbars, shortcut keys and so on. To do so, you drag the command from the Customize dialog box to the exact location where you want it to be. You have two panes: Categories and Commands. Choose form… is available on the Tools menu so it’s a good idea to look in that categorie. Select the Tools categorie, then. On the Commands pane you’ll find the Choose form… command.

4.  Now click and drag the Choose form… command to the standard toolbar in the place you want it. Drop the button when you are at the right position.

Selecting the command from the customize dialog box

5. Here, I dropped the button right beside the New button on the standard toolbar.

You just saved a lot of wrist trouble

6. Click on the Close button of the Customize dialog box. Go and grab a cup of coffee (disregard the last instruction if you suffer from a heart condition will you?;). You’re done here.

Now, do experiment with other commands. Try, for instance, rearranging them. The sad, sad news? This is the fast way. Not the faster way. If you want to get things done really fast you’re better off if you create a shortcut key or combination of keystrokes.

Sometimes you need to periodically send repetitive e-mail messages. This is true specially if you’re using Microsoft Outlook in a large organization that uses e-mail as a way to register confirmations and to track the start and finish of workflows of business processes.

Some examples of this type of messages include a standard welcome to new employees, a standard thank you note, a confirmation of some sort and so on. If your work envolves sending many of these messages you might want to have a standard e-mail template for each occasion where you’ll change only what varies in the message and not the entire message.

One workaround to this is to store a message with the desire characteristics in a folder and forward that message each time you need to use it. It’s a way to solve some problems but it’s not the most reliable. Folders and messages get accidentally deleted, messages moved or archived. Not the easy way to do it.

If your company doesn’t use Outlook Templates my advice is that you use them. It saves you time and it’s a great way to prevent mistakes because your forgot something in the e-mail text, or to attach that file that always must be sent along with the message. So, let’s see how to create and use Microsoft Office Outlook Templates:

1. Start Microsoft Office Outlook. If you don’t see it when you open the Start Menu try Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Office -> Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

Open Microsoft Outlook

Creating the Template

2. Be sure to select your Inbox. This will put the focus on your e-mail messages.

3. Click the button New to create a new blank message.

Create New Message Window

4. Compose the message you would send. This should be an exact match to the type of message you regularly send except the areas that will vary. On the variable areas I usually put something like “[WRITE HERE THE NAME OF THE CUSTOMER]“. Something that reminds you that you need to fill in that area and what is expected to be in that place.

5. Click the Windows Button and select Save As…

Compose the message substituting the variable portions with a note to fill in that area.

6. This will show the Save As dialog box

The Save As dialog Box. Save your template...

7. On the Save as type combo box, select Outlook Template (*.oft)

... by choosing the document type. Select Outlook Template (*.oft)...

8. On the File name combo box write a descriptive name to your file.

... and the document name.

Reusing the Template

1. On Outlook’s menu bar choose Tools -> Forms… -> Choose Form…

To use the template choose Tools -> Forms... -> Choose form...

2. This will open the Choose form dialog box.

The Choose form dialog box.

3. In Look in combo box choose User Templates in File System.

4. Select the file you wish (you have just named it, no difficulties here, right?)

Select the appropriate file.

5. This opens a new message window with all the characteristics you created. Now you just have to fill in the blanks you created.

This will bring a new message window with the template you created. Now just fill in the blanks.

This way you’ll never forget a certain item you should have included in your message, a certain person that must always receive the message, to put the right flag on the message, etc.

… – … don’t mention it.

Microsoft has released the Update Rollup 8 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB968012). Update Rollup 8 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2007 SP1 customers.

For a description of this package go here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;968012&x=7&y=12

To install:

1. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E1F5C8B2-C4F2-4EBA-849B-E464D4F2869C&displaylang=en

2. Read the Overview, Systems Requirements, Instructions and other relevant information. Choose the distribution that applies to you and download the file.

Below, a short version of the installation (it may take a while installing this KB):

If you like to use earlier versions of Dreamweaver to code your pages and applications you probably noticed a problem using it with Vista and Windows 7. In a working session, the first time you open the code inspector it opens smoothly but slow and the next time you’ll try and open it it will open awfully slowly showing a dotted pattern line where the window should be.

This is caused by incompatibility between the GUI of Dreamweaver and the visual effects of the newest operating systems from Microsoft. The solution is to activate the compatibility mode for Dreamweaver.

1. Right-click the Dreamweaver shortcut. This will open the Properties dialog-box:

Properties Dialog Box - General tab

2. Select the Compatibility tab. Define the compability mode as illustrated:

Defining compatibility mode

More on this on the previous article about compatibility mode.