Dan Thomson at myITforum.com

SMSMOM.com appears to be offline now

Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:46 AM by dthomson | 2 comment(s)

A fix for not being able to sign in to Windows Live Messenger

I had not been able to login to Windows Live Messenger for a few days now and decided to do some digging around and see if I could find anything to help me get connected.

I found the following instructions at the page referenced at the end of this post.

Messenger 8.0:
     delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies
Messenger 8.1:
     delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WindowsLive\CommunicationsClient\Shared

Be sure to log out, EXIT Messenger then restart for the keys to be refreshed. 

I have version 8.0.0812.00 and went ahead and deleted both keys (saving them first just in case!). I noticed that the first key didn't get refreshed, but I am back online again

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.live.messenger&tid=082fb708-4bd5-465e-b8b4-b43bb2985553&p=1

Posted Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:34 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Need SMS add-ons for WOL and Reboot/Power off

Hi All,

I need to implement two COTS tools to complement my SMS 2003 infrastructure. I need WakeOnLAN and a tool that can handle automatic reboots/power offs of systems.

The WOL must integrate with SMS 2003, not perform directed broadcasts, and not require changes to the routers. I would prefer no client agents.

The reboot/power off tool must provide the user with a notification, must safely close all open user applications in a manner that does not cause data loss, and allows the user to postpone for a period of time. I would prefer that this integrate with SMS 2003 and have no client agents.

The products that I have found that kind of match some of the criteria are listed below. Do any of you have anything that can be added to the list? I have one or more products that I’m leaning to, but I must perform an appropriate business/technical analysis on three or more products.

Thanks,

Dan

Edit on 1-21-2007: I was informed by the SMS Expert guys that the SMS Companion product does have the capability to reboot systems.  Somehow I missed this during my initial product review. 

The entry in the table for SMS Companion has been updated.  I also edited the table to have hyperlinks on the items in the Product column instead of having a URL column.

Posted Wednesday, October 18, 2006 11:22 PM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

Is Windows XP Service Pack 1 supported or not?

I went to www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com today and noticed this graphic on the page. I know it has been there for a long time, but I would have thought it would be updated now that XP SP 2 is the only supported release of XP. Or, are new updates still being made available for XP SP1?

Posted Sunday, October 15, 2006 9:49 PM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

Microsoft products which have recently or are about to enter end of life

Here is a list of Microsoft products that have recently expired or are about to expire.

This list was gathered by reviewing Microsoft's Lifecycle pages. Other products are listed with the following caveat "Support ends either 12 months after the next service pack releases or at the end of the product's support lifecycle, whichever comes first. Visit the Lifecycle page to find the support timelines for your particular product.". It would be in your best interest to review the following pages and determine when support for your installed products will expire.

Microsoft Support Lifecycle

Lifecycle Supported Service Packs

Additional Products

Obsolete Products

Posted Saturday, October 14, 2006 5:22 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Are you reviewing when your Microsoft products enter end of life?

As pointed out by a few posts on the SMS email list, the forums, and blogs, some Microsoft products entered end of life Oct 10th and are no longer supported. I recall that there was a lot of noise about Windows XP Service Pack 1 and 1a entering end of life Oct 10th, but not much about other products such as Office 2003 Service Pack 1. This caused a few people to be caught off guard about Office.

There are a few pages Microsoft has setup where you can review the support status of your products. The information presented will allow you to adequately plan for service pack deployments or for full product upgrades.

The first page to take note of is the Microsoft Support Lifecycle page. Here you will be informed of how long the product will receive mainstream and extended support. 

The second page is the Lifecycle Supported Service Packs page. Here you can drill down to your specific product/service pack and determine when its support will end. You should also check the Additional Products and Obsolete Products pages if you do not find your product listed here.

I am curious if other vendors have similar pages available. If you know of some, please forward to dethomson@hotmail.com.

Posted Saturday, October 14, 2006 3:49 PM by dthomson | with no comments