Craig Bush

Consultant
A Microsoft consultant with nearing 20 years experience working in the Windows desktop and server arena more recently specialising in deploying the Microsoft collaboration suite of products (Active Directory / Exchange & SharePoint).

Exchange and SharePoint 2010 only available in 64bit
Server Hardware has been available with 64bit processors for some time, however in our experience the majority of people have been still installing operating systems (Windows server) with the 32bit version even though 64bit versions have been available. Only in the last 6 to 12 months have we seen the uptake of 64bit server products accelerating as more and more server products become available with 64bit versions and support from hardware and software vendors has increased. The next phase of Microsoft server based products (Exchange 2010 / SharePoint 2010 ) will only be available in 64bit versions which will only install on 64Bit versions of Windows, So if you haven't already considered, each time you buy a server product always check to see it has a 64bit processor. I have say I haven't seen a server on the market for sometime which doesn't, but it always worth checking. If you have 64bit hardware, then a 64bit operating system can be installed. If any further tools are installed (Hardware monitoring, anti-virus, system agents etc) always use the 64bit version if it is available. The 32bit version *may* work but I'd always advise using a 64bit version. Once you have a stable Server / Windows 64bit platform , you are able to start utilising the 64bit versions of the server products and reap the benefits 64bits provide. Craig Published: Tuesday, January 19, 2010
BPOS and Blackberry – Part 1 of 2
As marketing of the Microsoft BPOS solution continues to accelerate and uptake increases I’m sure Applicable will be see more migrations from Domino and previous versions of Exchange. One of the questions which I’ve seen asked over and over again is “What about support for mobile devices?” especially support for BlackBerry devices, so I’d thought I’d write a quick blog on what it currently supported. Before I go any further, Yes, Apple iPhones are supported and we have seen quite a bit of demand for corporate moving to iPhones. The iPhone needs no introduction or explanation however I can add it does work very well with BPOS and requires no extra licences from Apple or Microsoft. If you have an iPhone and BPOS email account you have everything you need to get up and running with mobile access to your email/calendar and contacts. Microsoft sort handheld mobile devices into 3 categories.. • Windows Mobile Devices • ActiveSync Licences Devices • Blackberry You might not be surprised to hear that Windows Mobile devices are supported and all you need is a BPOS email account and a Windows Mobile device and you have everything you need. ActiveSync licence devices such as Nokia N series support the ActiveSync protocol and therefore can be connected to a BPOS email account in the same way as Windows Mobile Device. Blackberry handhelds are also supported but this is where it gets a little more complicated and this will be discussed in part of my blog next week. Published: Monday, November 02, 2009
Windows 7 Upgrades
For those of you wanting to take a backup of your desktop/laptop prior to upgrading to Windows7 there is a migration tool which you can run which will backup your documents and settings to a file (which can be located on a usb drive/network drive etc). There are many advantages to installing a fresh copy of Windows, I always find a fresh copy results in a healthier laptop. The executable is migwiz.exe and there are two options to chose from which are fairly self explanatory, the first being where to backup the data (I suggest a network drive) and the second being what data to backup, I suggest everything. The migration wizard creates a single backup, so ensure you've got enough space for it. After backing up your machine you can safely blank your machine and install a fresh copy of Windows 7. Once you have a working Windows7 machine you can just double click the backup file and Windows7 will restore the data. This is exactly the process I used to upgrade my laptop from Vista to Windows7 and it worked flawlessly. Craig Published: Friday, October 23, 2009
Hello. My blog is to follow soon. Watch this space.
Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009