Kirkian Computing

Tag: Microsoft

  • LUA part 4 (of 5): Changes in Windows Vista/7

    This post is part 4 of a series about using a limited (standard) account in Windows for everyday activities rather than logging in as a computer administrator all the time. (You may want to read parts 1, 2, and 3 before continuing.)

    When Microsoft released Windows Vista, they introduced a new feature: User Account Control (UAC). This basically meant that when you ran certain programs, you would get a message popping up, asking “Are you sure about this?” It’s fair to say that this wasn’t very popular; lots of people acted as though it was the return of Clippy. Quoting from one of Apple’s “I’m a Mac” adverts (YouTube): “He asks me to authorise pretty much anything I do.” However, if you actually understand what UAC is for then it’s quite useful, and I think that Vista is a definite improvement over Windows XP.

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  • LUA part 3 (of 5): Compatibility problems

    This post is part 3 of a series about using a limited (standard) account in Windows for everyday activities rather than logging in as a computer administrator all the time. (You may want to read part 1 and part 2 before continuing.)

    If you follow my advice and switch to a limited account, you may find that some of your programs stop working. This is annoying, but there are various ways to deal with it.

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  • LUA part 2 (of 5): Setting up separate accounts

    In part 1 of this series, I explained why it’s a good idea to have separate accounts on your computer: a standard account for day to day stuff (e.g. reading email), and an administrator account for making system changes (e.g. installing new software).

    In this part, I’m going to provide step by step instructions for setting this up on Windows XP. (The process is pretty similar for other versions of Windows.) There are lots of pictures here, to make it as simple as possible. This all applies to a home computer; it’s a bit different for a workplace, since all the accounts will be set up centrally by your IT department, and by default they will just be standard users on each PC.

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  • LUA part 1 (of 5): Why you shouldn’t always log into Windows as an administrator

    The German government have advised people to stop using Internet Explorer and switch to an alternate browser, as reported at the BBC and Mashable. Microsoft have published a security advisory about the problem, and they’ve discussed it on their Security Research & Defense blog. Personally, I’m using IE8 (Protected Mode) on Windows Vista with DEP enabled, so this doesn’t affect me, and switching to a different browser would be an overreaction.

    However, this seems like a good time to mention the advantages of “LUA” (Limited User Access). Basically, rather than logging into Windows with full control over the computer, it’s better to have two accounts: one for installing software and one for everyday use. That way, if you run some dodgy code by mistake, you limit how much damage it can do.

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  • Gantt charts in Excel

    I’ve been fiddling around in Excel today, so that I can display a timeline of various activities in a chart. (I think this counts as a Gantt chart, although there are no dependency arrows between the bars like you would see in MS Project.) I got the basic instructions from the help file, but there were a few extra steps that aren’t immediately obvious, so I’m documenting it here for my future reference; hopefully someone else will find it useful too. I’m using Excel 2007; the process will be similar for older versions of Excel, but I don’t know about other spreadsheet applications (e.g. OpenOffice).

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  • Microsoft exams

    Last August, I did a beta exam for Microsoft. I didn’t pay for it, but I didn’t get a score either; the idea was just to test out their new software for doing simulations in the exam (rather than multiple choice questions). As a “thank you”, Microsoft then sent me three vouchers, each one corresponding to a free exam. These expire at the end of June, so I’ve finally had to stop procrastinating and start studying.

    Today I did two exams: 70-236 (MCTS: Configuring Exchange Server 2007) and 70-431 (MCTS: SQL Server 2005 – Implementation and Maintenance). According to the booking website, the Exchange exam lasts 4½ hours, and the SQL exam lasts 4 hours, so this looked like quite a long day! Fortunately, I didn’t need all the time that was allocated, so I ended both exams early, and I was at the test centre for about 3 hours altogether.

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  • Exchange 2007 – firewall problems on Windows 2008

    In Windows 2003, the local firewall was turned off by default. You could enable it, but you had to be careful about defining all your exceptions; unlike a PC running Windows XP, you presumably want people to be able to connect to your server! Finding a list of all the relevant ports/protocols could be difficult, and Microsoft sometimes advised people not to enable the firewall at all. SP1 introduced the Security Configuration Wizard (SCW), which helps you to configure the firewall, but you have to specifically install this as an extra component.

    In Windows 2008, this changed: the firewall is turned on by default, and the SCW is installed automatically. You can still turn the firewall off, but that’s not ideal from a security point of view: it’s better to configure it so that only certain traffic can get through.

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  • 70-621

    On Monday morning I took the Vista upgrade exam (70-621). I passed it with a healthy margin (pass mark was 700/900 and I scored 820/900), so I’m happy with that, and it gives me two extra certifications:

    • Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (Microsoft Windows Vista: Configuration)
    • Microsoft Certified IT Professional (Enterprise Support Technician)
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  • Vista boot menu

    I’ve been dual-booting between Windows XP and Windows Vista for a while, so the boot menu gave two choices:

    • Earlier Version of Windows
    • Microsoft Windows Vista

    I decided that it would be a bit neater if the first option referred to Windows XP specifically. In Windows 2000/XP, this information was stored in a “boot.ini” file, so you could modify it with a text editor as long as you were careful. However, it’s now stored in a binary file, a bit like the registry hive. Steve Lamb posted an entry about this recently, recommending the (free) application VistaBootPRO. That program does look quite user friendly, but since I’m getting ready for my Vista exam I decided that I’d be better off figuring out how to change the display name with the built-in tools.

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  • Exchange 2007

    I’ve been doing some upgrades this weekend, including the new version of Microsoft Exchange (mail server). This has a couple of small quirks, which it’s useful to be aware of:

    1. If you want to use Outlook Web Access, and your server is “mail.example.com”, the address is now:
    https://mail.example.com/owa/
    Previously (in Exchange 2003), it was:
    https://mail.example.com/exchange/
    but that address will no longer work.

    2. Microsoft’s advice is that you should have two Exchange servers per organisation, with different “roles”. One will be the edge transport server, that sits outside the domain and talks to the internet. The other is the hub server, which receives email from the edge server, and integrates with Active Directory. You don’t have to follow this advice, but if you choose not to then you need to allow anonymous users to connect to your “Receive connector”, as explained here. Otherwise, computers that try to send you mail will get error “530 5.7.1 Client was not authenticated.” Since you can’t make this change until after installation, I’d recommend that you block port 25 on your firewall until you’re ready to start receiving email. My normal approach is to map port 26 on the router to port 25 on the server – that way, I can simulate SMTP via telnet until I’m satisfied that it works correctly, while the rest of the world will just think “Oh, that server’s unavailable, I’ll try again later”, and their messages are just delayed rather than bounced. When you’re happy, then put port 25 back to normal.