Thanks to David Nickason, my MVP buddy from New York, who informed me of a way to get 100GB of OneDrive storage. Microsoft s offering Bing Rewards, to earn credits when you search on Bing or MSN.
As part of this promotion, you can get 100GB of OneDrive storage for free for two years! Please note that this offer is only available until February 28, 2015.
What are you waiting for? Go to Bing Reward and request your storage!
I recently replaced my 8 year old workstation with a new Windows 8.1 system with an SSD drive. One of the software apps I use all the time is Windows Live Writer 2012 to post blogs to my website.
Thanks to Scott Hanselman for his post on where to download Live Writer 2012. I was glad to see that someone else also loves using Live Writer!
Here are the steps to installing it on your workstation:
Happy blogging!
I was attempting to install Office 2013 Professional Plus on a new workstation that had already been joined to the SBS 2011 domain. It kept crashing just a few minutes into the intallation with the error message: “Microsoft Setup Bootstrapper has stopped working”.
If you search the Microsoft forums, you will see several recommendations, including:
In my case, we were good in all those departments.
Then I came across a forum post that raised the question:
Have you implemented a Cryptolocker group policy at your site?
Oh, my, yes! I quickly logged onto the server, moved the new workstation out of its normal OU. Voila! Office 2013 installed immediately.
I’m working on a new Dell XPS 8700 that was just delivered, with Windows 8.1 pre-installed and a 1TB SATA drive. I ordered a Samsung SSD 850 Pro 500GB drive to use as the system drive. I’ve used the Samsung Data Migration cloning software successfully on a scratch install of Windows 8.1, but this is the first time to try it with Windows 8.1 pre-installed on the computer.
You install the Samsung Data Migration utility onto the computer to the existing hard drive. I then connected the SSD drive to a USB3 port using a USB3 data & power connector.
Note: Do not connect the SSD drive until the Samsung software has been installed.
After powering down the workstation, I unhooked the SATA drive and connected the SSD drive in its place. I powered up the system and it successfully started up Windows 8.1
After upgrading a Windows 7 computer to Windows 8.1, I discovered that Windows 8.1 Movie Maker does NOT offer the ability to burn movies to DVDs. Yes, it was there for Windows 7, but removed in Windows 8.1. Bummer!
If you need a FREE solution, the one I have been using successfully is called DVDStyler.
Quick steps:
In case you missed it, Microsoft rolled out version 5.0 of their Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) in July 2014. This follows on the heels of EMET 4.0 (Nov 2013) and EMET 4.1 (May 2014).
What is EMET?
You may be asking yourself What is EMET? Why should I install it? Where or when should I install it? Susan Bradley has written an in-depth article on EMET, covering all of these questions. I highly recommend reading her article.
EMET helps defend against zero-day threats. It is a standalone security application, but that does not mean that it should be installed on every workstation. The basic guideline is to install EMET on this systems where you do any online tasks that involve sensitive personal information, purchases and online banking.
EMET: A Customer’s Perspective
Installing EMET
EMET can be installed standalone, which is what I am showing here. The EMET manual offers additional information and guidance for businesses and domain-based networks.
If you have a previous version of EMET installed, you will need to uninstall it first and reboot before installing EMET 5.0.
If you wish, go ahead and download and install EMET 5.0 now! Installation is straightforward, and does not require a reboot of the workstation. EMET 5.0 supports Window clients Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8/8.1, as well as Windows Server 2008 SP2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2012 and 2012 R2.
The only suggestion I would make when installing EMET 5.0 is to select “Use Recommended Settings”:
After installing EMET 5.0, you will find a new Padlock icon in your list of notification-area icons in your taskbar.
Right click on the Padlock icon, and select Open EMET to view the EMET Settings.
I’m often asking customers to send me the message headers of an email when diagnosing an email issue. With Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013, the ability to quickly display the message headers is no longer there, by default. But, we can quickly add it to Outlook’s Quick Access Toolbar. Once we are done, viewing message headers in the future will be a “one click” process.
So, let’s get to work!
To view message headers, select a message and then click on the Message Options button from the toolbar!
Last week Microsoft rolled out a large set of updates that cover both the Windows operating system and Microsoft Outlook. In my testing, the updates have installed fine. However, Microsoft has indicated that they have since removed some of the Windows OS updates from distribution on Friday – based on early feedback from users that they may cause a “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) situation.
The most sever case is with MS14-045. For details on the updates in question, check out this ZDNet article.
For I.T. personnel, Ed Langley (Naked PowerShell) has written a series of PowerShell scripts (click here) to determine if any of the relevant updates are installed on a system.
There is nothing you need to do as a response to this email. This is simply an advisory – unless of course you have encountered a workstation that has had a BSOD.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms14-045.aspx
StorageCraft and Netgear are teaming up to release a new set of products called ReadyRECOVER Backup Appliance. It’s designed for small and medium-sized businesses, and leverages the legendary reliability of StorageCraft ShadowProtect to simplify backup and recovery of Windows systems.
With ReadyRECOVER, incremental snapshots, taken as often as every 15 minutes, generate full backups instantly. Each point in time backup is ready to quickly and reliably recover Windows systems, including Microsoft SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint servers, into production mode on any platform – physical or virtual. Each backup is also ready for fast, simple recovery of files or folders.
GFI recently rolled out their new Web Protection solution allowing KW Support & Consulting to deliver web security, web filtering and web bandwidth monitoring to its clients. Web Protection is integrated into the GFI RemoteManagement dashboard and is based on GFI’s award-winning GFI WebMonitor product.
Features include:
With Web Protection integrated into the GFI RemoteManagement platform, there is no software to install at the client site, no DNS name records to create or modify, and all settings and policies are managed right from the RMM dashboard.
If a user goes to a malicious web site, this is the type of warning screen they will receive:
