For the occasional Microsoft updates and patches delivered via web browser….
This is the website *I’ve* always relied upon for OS updates. Up until last year, this URL provided a very obvious link to Microsoft Office updates. WIndows update web site:
<http://www.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us>
And this is the website I should have been using to grab Microsoft updates, including the updates for Microsoft OFFICE products:
<http://www.update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us>
Click through a few buttons and pop-up messages.
Windows
The hardware configuration I sought for my home lab server was a single server with 4 cores and 8 GB of RAM. All of these items were purchased at NewEgg.com for about $664, not including the shipping charges or sales tax.
- Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. Item #: N82E16811129042. Qty 1.
- AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDZ940XCGIBOX. Item #: N82E16819103471. Qty 1.
- CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5. Item #: N82E16820145184. Qty 2 (equals 8 GB).
- ASUS M4A78-EM AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard. Item #: N82E16813131384. Qty 1.
- Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU 500W ATX 12V 2.0 Power Supply. Item #: N82E16817153052. Qty 1.
- Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive. Item #: N82E16822136098. Qty 2.
The rest of the items typically needed to build a bare-bones computer such as a CD drive, keyboard, mouse and monitor were castoff items already at hand.
This setup currently hosts 2-64-bit guest operating systems using XenServer 5.5. No compatibility problems. It’s a quiet setup and I am very happy with its speed and performance.
Citrix, Hardware
A 1.0 document dated August 2009. Sheesh! Anyway, if you need help in determining which ports to open for lab and firewall issues, here’s a link to the Citrix document. Don’t forget about port 3389 for your RDP connections.
Citrix
My trusty Dell C640 laptop with Windows XP doesn’t have a built-in function key sequence for disabling the wireless LAN card.
On a Intel support forum, I ran across this thread and I followed the suggestions for installing the Microsoft DevCon utility and launching an on or off batch file. I’m now using an on and off batch file in conjunction with the free version of the Keybreeze utility
Laptop, Weekend Warrior, Windows
Record and report all Presentation Server configuration changes. Track changes made to the Presentation Server farm, by whom and at what time to simplify and accelerate troubleshooting. Configuration Logging is invaluable for auditing and ensuring accountability when multiple administrators are maintaining Presentation Server.
A very nice how-to article provided at alsolorzano.com
Citrix
The GPDBPA tool is a stand-alone program that an administrator can run
from a Windows Server 2003-based system or from a Windows XP-based
system. You can use the tool to do the following:
| • |
Perform
a proactive health check on the Group Policy environment to detect
common configuration errors that frequently generate support incidents. |
| • |
Collect diagnostic information and initial data from an environment, and then automate some analysis of that data. |
| • |
Obtain
a snapshot of the Group Policy configuration for archiving. This data
may be a useful reference if a future problem occurs. |
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940122
Active Directory, Windows
From the Start button, select -> Settings -> Control Panel
Select the -> Add or Remove Programs applet
Fromthe list of Currently install programs: click once on Citrix Presentation Server For Windows and click the -> Change button.
Make the changes you need.
Citrix
For simple off-line blog editing, from either a Mac or Windows platform, I really like the simplicity and efficiency of the ScribeFire add-on for the FireFox browser. I’ve tried Microsoft’s Live Writer beta on Windows and Ecto on the Macintosh.
Weekend Warrior
A very clean export from Wordpress.com and import to wordpress 2.2.2 blog hosted on A Small Orange.
Weekend Warrior
Meaningless technical tidbit, but if Computer Associates (CA) is good enough for Microsoft’s coders, why not the rest of us? Mark Russinovich in a recent blog posting.
Weekend Warrior, Windows
