November 10, 2008 6:20 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
MCDST,
MCITP,
MCTS,
MS Exam 70-621,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista troubleshootingThis exam applies only to those who've earned the Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician, or MCDST, credential for Windows XP who wish to upgrade their coverage to include Windows Vista. As such, it is probably of little interest to anyone except the nearly 50,000 individuals who have...
November 7, 2008 8:55 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
Enterprise desktop,
MCITP,
MCSA,
MCSE,
MCTS,
Microsoft e-courses,
Microsoft e-Learning,
MS Exam 70-620,
Windows Vista In digging up the info on this, the first in my series of four MCTS and MCITP Vista-related exams that I'll be covering over the next week or so, I discovered that Microsoft has finally changed the format for its exam pages. I've been tuning into these documents since the late 1990s and it's nice...
November 3, 2008 7:06 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
Enterprise desktop,
Microsoft Windows,
Windows VistaDespite all the recent news and hoopla about Windows Vista's failure in the enterprise marketplace, it's by no means the case that the response to Microsoft's Windows Vista related certification exams has been completely nugatory. As of 10/27/2008, in fact, the total number of individuals who've...
October 30, 2008 3:16 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
KB953155,
KB957200,
Microsoft e-courses,
Microsoft e-Learning,
Patch Tuesday,
Windows Update,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista troubleshootingOn Tuesday, October 28, as I was knocking off for the day, after 11 PM, I noticed that the autoupdate function in Windows Update had posted two more items to my primary production Vista PC. Both look interesting, but so far I've had some trouble trying to ferret out more details about one of these...
October 24, 2008 10:38 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
Enterprise desktop,
vsp1cln.exe,
Windows Update,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista SP1,
Windows Vista troubleshootingWhenever you install a service pack on a Windows machine, it’s not unusual for it to leave plenty of files strewn about the system disk in its wake. What’s unusual about Windows Vista SP1, however, is that it includes its own clean-up utility.
If you run it after performing an SP1 install it...
October 24, 2008 10:29 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
KB958644,
MS08-067,
Patch Tuesday,
Windows Server service,
Windows Update,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista troubleshooting,
Windows Vista Upgrade AdvisorNormally, Microsoft reserves its security patches, fixes, updates, and other software tweaks and maneuvers for the second Tuesday in each month, aka "Patch Tuesday." Yesterday afternoon I was somewhat surprised to see various sources trumpeting the release of an out-of-schedule security patch...
October 15, 2008 8:11 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
Enterprise desktop,
KB290301,
Revo Uninstaller,
Windows Installer Cleanup Utility,
Windows uninstaller,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista SP1,
Windows Vista troubleshootingLike it or not, sometimes applications wind up on Vista desktops that have to go. Either they've been replaced with something different, newer, or better, or they never should have been there in the first place. Count yourself lucky if a program's uninstall utility does a thorough job of removing...
October 13, 2008 3:29 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
Enterprise desktop,
Spyware Doctor,
Vista System Health Report,
Vista System Reliability Monitor,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista SP1,
Windows Vista troubleshootingI recently stumbled across a hitherto unknown gem inside Windows Vista--to me, anyway. It's called a "System Health Report" and it provides a pretty comprehensive view of a Vista system's state, status, and current behavior. To my surprise it comes from the same facilities that support the System...
October 9, 2008 9:10 PM
Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops,
Enterprise desktop,
Vista ACT,
Vista ACT resources,
Vista application compatibility,
Vista Application Compatibility Toolkit,
Windows Vista,
Windows Vista SP1,
Windows Vista troubleshootingFor the next couple of weeks, I'll be digging into issues related to application compatibility for organizations and enterprises considering the move to Windows Vista. For such outfits, one of the most important and pressing concerns that surround a migration has to be application compatibility,...
