Courtesy of Dom Gill, here’s details of a Microsoft Partner Training Event taking place in Coventry next week. Places are still available at time of writing, but hurry, they’re going quickly!

To register or for more information, please go to https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/40088421 and then the EVENTS tab (bottom right hand of page).

How Microsoft Technologies can deliver ‘Simple Savvy Savings’

Date:     30^th March 2009

Venue:                 Trinity Expert Systems, The Oaks, Westwood Way, Westwood Business Park, Coventry CV4 8JB (http://www.tesl.com/TESL/About+us/Locations.htm)

Timings:               09:00 for 09:30 start to 12:30

Synopsis:             Aimed at Sales People, this session will equip Partners in demonstrating how a resource focused on specific projects, and in some cases select incremental investments in IT can help your customers drive business costs down and boost profitability, especially through the economic downturn.  We will cover three practice areas and several projects using Microsoft Technologies to yield the most tangible cost savings from the least amount of effort and investment. 

Please note: places are available on a first come, first served basis however if demand is high Microsoft might need to limit the number of places per organisation.  If this is the case they will look to run further sessions.

Here’s a frustrating issue we came across – I thought I’d share it as in our research we didn’t find anything else on-line that could point to the true issue of the issue that we found.

The problem centred around a generic PC build (I can already feel you seasoned techies groaning as you read this…) with an Asus P5V-VM DH Motherboard. None too old – purchased possibly 18 months to 2 years ago. The issue was with a corrupt Operating System, but one which we had an Acronis TrueImage Workstation image created for recovery from this exact situation. The problem? The Acronis Boot Disk would not boot up – despite having been demonstrated working in the past on the same system.

On each occasion, the recovery disk booted but then went to a black screen with no progress. We created a new Acronis Boot Disk from the latest downloaded TrueImage Workstation build – same result. We created a “Safe Mode” boot disk – same result.

We then tried booting from good old Barts PE – at which point we received the following error:-

“STOP: 0x000000A5 (Parameter1, Parameter2, Parameter3, Parameter4)
The ACPI Bios in this system is not fully compliant to the specification. Please read the Readme.txt for possible workarounds, or contact your system vendor for an updated bios.
The bios in this system is not fully ACPI compliant. Please contact your system vendor for an updated bios.”

This issue is well documented on the Microsoft Knowledgebase, but was surprising to find on a modern PC with an up-to date BIOS.

To test this theory, we booted from a Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and even Windows 7 Install disks – all threw up exactly the same error – the BIOS in the system was not ACPI compliant.

So off we trundled to the Asus web-site and downloaded the latest beta BIOS for the system. Flash the BIOS, reboot – same error.

We tried re-flashing to earlier stable versions of the BIOS – same result - “The ACPI BIOS in this system in not fully compliant”.

Frustration turned to anger at Asustek. Who produces a non-ACPI compliant BIOS nowadays? Strangely though, all the documentation for the Motherboard suggested the BIOS *was* ACPI compliant – and we could see ACPI turned on in the BIOS menu. So what gives?

At this point the veteran geek in me came out and started looking at the issue through a series of deductions. If the Acronis Boot CD had worked before, what had changed since then? Then the realisation then hit that this PC had received a memory upgrade recently!

Checking the DIMM slots showed 2 x DIMMS – 1 x 1GB DDR2 533, and 1 x 2GB DDR 640. I removed the 1GB chip and voila! The PC sprang into life from the boot disk with no further problems.

The moral of the story? Don’t become so focused on what the error message is in situations like this, that you skip tried and tested troubleshooting steps. It’s been a while since I’ve done any Motherboard level troubleshooting like this, but back when I did this often, the problem was more often than not memory based.

Sadly my short run pretending to be a Technician again has to end, and I’ve got to go back to pretending to be a business owner again. It was fun whilst it lasted though! :-)

I’ve got to thank Zenith InfoTech – apart from being a fantastic resource for Netlink IT as a Managed Services Provider over the past 12+ months, they’re indirectly responsible for me being the recipient of more free beers than any other supplier on the face of the planet (although Microsoft do come a close second). No, they don’t pay for those beers by offering a free bar, but at every gathering of geeks and business owners that I’ve been lucky enough to attend within the last six months I’ have, without fail, been asked the question - “So tell me… how do you use Zenith InfoTech?”

My answer is always - “Buy me a beer, grab a seat and I’ll tell you”.

So I’m probably talking myself out of further free beers at Conferences and get-togethers here – but a heads-up that Karl Palachuk, himself a strong advocate of Zenith InfoTech, is hosting Clint Gatewood, Vice-President of Zenith InfoTech, for an SMB Conference Call entitled “Update on Zenith and Partner Best Practices” this Wednesday 18th March at 1600 GMT.

Whether you’re toying with the idea of using Zenith, have started using them but want to learn how to get more from that new relationship, or are just wondering who on earth Zenith are… You can register for the Conference Call here.

I’ll be listening in as to be perfectly honest, however long you’ve been working with Zenith InfoTech, there’s always new things you can learn from listening to other people talk about how they work with Zenith (see, there’s my hook for you to continue buying me beers…)

More on the promised Windows 7 Deployment notes I took in Munich next post!

I'm currently in Munich, Germany at the invitation of Microsoft for their Windows 7 Ignite Program.

What is Windows 7 Ignite? Well it's a through partner program that provides a select group of Microsoft's most innovative and supportive partners and their small business customers an opportunity to experience Microsoft's next Operating System, Windows 7. Netlink IT were fortunate enough to be one of 4 UK Microsoft Partners to be asked to participate, alongside 26 other EMEA (European, Middle East, Asia) partners here in Munich, and another 30 partners worldwide who had their Ignite event in Miami, Florida last week. In all cases the partners involved work primarily with Small Business clients, and the whole program is focused on how Windows 7 will work in the SMB sector.

Once the two day Windows 7 training for partners is over, we'll be deploying loan hardware to selected clients who have agreed to work with us with Windows 7 as their man day-to-day O/S and then both helping them understand how Windows 7 might be a good fit for them, and asking for their feedback on their experiences of using Windows 7.

I met with two of the other UK partners involved, Steve Wright of BMS and Guy Gregory of Peak Support (who also happen to be fellow AMITPRO members) at Birmingham International Airport, and we had a perfectly relaxing trip, arriving in Munich on Tuesday afternoon. Later we also met fellow Brit Neil Crowther of NCI Technologies, who had rather a more stressful trip. Naturally, as good Community members we did our best to crow about how our trip had been  flaw-free, just to make him feel better...

Tuesday evening saw a Reception event where we got to meet the organisers, Wanda Sommer, Ivonne Perrig, author Jerry Honeycutt and their colleagues. We also met the other partners involved, and yes, rather stereotypically, the Brits were the last left at the bar...

We've been treated fantastically well during our stay, Wanda and co really looking after us. The Conference and Hotel facilities are also top notch, with the exception of Internet Access outside the Conference area. 22 Euros for a days Wi-Fi access? Surely not! But that's a rant for another time!

Wednesday morning saw us begin the training with Ivonne explaining how the program would work, and Jerry taking over for most of the technical content. Both Ivonne and Jerry are engaging personalities and good speakers, so I've enjoyed listening to them speak.

So onto my impressions of Windows 7, based on the content delivered to us during training.

Windows 7 Boot-Up times seem to have been dramatically improved, Jerry explaining to us that whereas Vista would boot-up services and applications sequentially, with the boot-up process pausing if say, a service hung or crashed, where instead Windows 7 runs Services in Parallel. Additionally, Windows 7 uses a "Trigger Start Services" scheme wherein instead of loading all required services at start-up, Services (such as Bluetooth) are started the first time they are required. All of this means some demonstrated boot-up times of around 50 seconds. Impressive and bound to give a great first impression to new users.

Compatibility was a bug-bear of Windows Vista deployments, 3rd Party applications and Drivers often failing. The reality of the situation is that by SP1 most of these issues were sorted within Vista, but by then the damage had been done, and Vista had acquired a reputation. For Windows 7, Microsoft are working closer with ISV's to make sure things work well. In our own situation, where a LOB (Line of Business) application fails to work with Windows 7, Microsoft will work with us and the vendor involved to correct that issue for our clients. The reality of the situation would seem that anything that works under Windows Vista will definitely work under Windows 7 (I understand the Windows 7 Developers had to work to strict guidelines to ensure this fact) and anything that didn't work under Vista now has a better chance of working under Windows 7.

Device Driver Support is also improved, and Vista Drivers will work under Windows 7. Two nice touches I picked up on were the fact that when searching for drivers for new hardware, Windows 7 automatically checks Windows Update before requesting any input from the user, thus ensuring the user has the latest driver, and additionally drivers for devices such as USB Key Disks are kept in memory so that users get a faster experience after the first insert.

There was also a nice Projector Option - Windows Key+P - to allow ease of use of connected Projectors. I'm sure anyone who has ever used a Projector has experienced issues with it, so this feature should minimise that.

Onto some of the other new features...

Homegroup is the ability to set up a secure ad-hoc network between multiple PC's connected via a Wi-Fi or Wired network. Simply, the network connection is set to "Home" within the Network Connections Control Panel, and you are then given the option to Share your Printer, Files, Music, etc. A password is generated and then other PC's searching for a Homegroup will connect and share resources in this fashion. Whilst a nice feature for, well, home users - I'm not sold on this feature for two reasons. Firstly, the whole naming of the feature feels wrong. "Homegroup"? Setting network connections to "Home" even if a user is at "Work"? This will no doubt confuse users as to the feature involved. Secondly, if a PC is joined to a domain, even if not connected to said domain whilst outside the office, then the "Homegroup" feature is cut back to a read-only experience. You can just hear the Support calls involved here. A "meh" feature for me.

Search is improved within Windows 7. Building on the Vista instant search, Windows 7 now automatically searches documents from other Windows 7 machines on the network (where security allows) and also searches the Control Panel. For instance, type "Turn on Aero Interface" into Windows 7 Search, and you'll be given the Control Panel Wizard to do just that. Additionally, new definable searches called "Search Scopes" are available for repetitive searches. This should make finding documents easier.

And whilst on the subject of finding documents, Windows 7 includes a feature known as "Libraries". A library is a collection of documents or folders from multiple locations, be they local or on the network. For example, you're working on a project and the docs are scattered across your HDD and the server. Create a Library and include these file and folder locations, and they are now available for you to access quickly. I like this feature!

On the interface/GUI front, there have been several changes. The first is the "Jump List" facility where you can "pin" applications to the toolbar in a similar manner to the old "Quick Launch". However once pinned and then loaded, the Jump List gives you an easy way to get a full screen preview of the app, and also allows you to pull up recently opened documents for the app directly from the taskbar. You can also "pin" documents within the app - so if you often work on a set of files, then they are just a click away in the taskbar. Neat!

The Sidebar from Vista has now gone, and you can drop Gadgets anywhere on the Desktop. This, along with a keyboard shortcut to quickly show you the Desktop without minimising all applications, should mean a bigger uptake of cool Gadgets such as stock tickers and the like.

Finally, two Aero Interface improvements I'm smitten with. The first is Aero Snap, where you can drag two windows to the left and right side of the screen and they automatically show side by side for comparison work. No synchronised scrolling yet, but this is still a cool feature! Also, Aero Shake I love - this is where if you're getting a bit overwhelmed with all the windows open on a screen, you click on the window you want to work on, wiggle your mouse from side to side, and Windows 7 minimises all windows bar your active window. Loving it!

Moving on to Security, and there's no doubt that the biggest complaint around Windows Vista was User Access Control, or UAC. Whilst the idea to improve security within Vista was sound, the constant UAC nags meant that many users and administrators simply turned the feature off altogether. I was therefore delighted to see that UAC has been improved greatly in Windows 7 on a more granular scale. Basically, UAC will now automatically allow certain actions if they are user initiated, but still throw up UAC if an application or device driver tries to make changes itself. This option is configurable, but I suspect that out of the box the default setting will be good enough for most. Great change.

There's an improved Backup facility which includes Scheduled Backup to DVD-R, USB or Network Share, and the Windows Recovery Environment is now automatically installed at the time of build. This is a good move to make life easier for road warriors.

We also saw that the "Previous Versions" feature, wherein you could recover a deleted document or roll-back to an earlier version of the document on a network share, is now included as standard within Windows 7 for local drives too. It just works and should be another saver when needed!

A neat feature is the new "Location Awareness" wherein Windows 7 will change the IP address and Default Printer based on where the user is working. Working from home and need DHCP and a nearby Printer? Windows 7 automatically does this. When you return to work with a Static IP and the Office Printer, Windows 7 makes those changes without you needing to.

The final features I'll mention are the Troubleshooting Guide and the Problem Steps Recorder. The Troubleshooting Guide are a series of almost wizard like options that will allow the end-user to automatically fix common Windows 7 problems such as printing and display issues. The idea is to make the end-user more self-sufficient, and 3rd Party Developers can also write Troubleshooting Guides for their own applications. In theory this is a good idea, but I don't like the name of the feature (Wouldn't "Fix this for me" be simpler?) and I can't see many end users embracing it instead of calling their IT department. We'll see. The feature that did catch my eye was the Problem Steps Recorder. Once loaded, an end-user can click a button and Windows 7 will then record all their mouse clicks and actions including any errors, and when finish recording, bundle this up into a nice step-by-step HTML document that can be used by a Support department or 3rd Party Supplier to re-create the user error and deal with it. I can see this being a great feature for IT Support providers such as Netlink IT when we liaise with 3rd Party LoB App Vendors to work on a client issue and need to easily explain the route to finding the problem.

So there you have it, plenty of new Windows 7 features to digest!

Anyone who knows me will know I, much like the majority of people, was no fan of Vista and I felt it "got in the way" of me doing a days work. Having seen Windows 7 up-close, I don't feel the same way and am looking forward to using it as my main O/S. Windows 7 seems to include all the features that weren't included in Vista, but with no fundamental changes to security which could cause issues and embraces my mantra of "it just works".

I'm also impressed by the fact that much of the hardware that wouldn't run Windows Vista, may well run Windows 7. Microsoft won't publicise this fact for fear of end-user complaints with really low powered hardware specs, but I've seen Microsoft's own Matt McSpirit running Windows 7 on his Samsung NC-10 Atom based Netbook without issue when we met up recently - and it's smaller footprint leads me to believe it'll work much better than Vista in a lot of similar scenarios.

I'm still undecided about the vast range of SKU's available (Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional and Enterprise) as I'd prefer to have seen a simplified range and Professional being left named as "Business", and I'd also like to have seen Bit-Locker To-Go, the encryption service for USB devices, included in Professional rather than just Enterprise - but as they say, you'll not please all of the people all of the time.

Day 2 of our training focuses on the deployment of Windows 7 - I'll be back with another posting when I'm done!

SMB “Man of the Year” candidate James Baker has dropped me an e-mail to let me know about the Symantec Small Business Technical Training Roadshow that is taking place across the UK this month.

If you’re a Symantec SMB Partner, or are considering their products, it’d be well worth your while getting along to one of these events to meet James and his team and get to know the products a little better. Here at Netlink IT we use both Symantec Backup Exec and Backup Exec System Recovery and found the last Symantec SMB Roadshow we attended in October 2008 was a great resource for learning how to get more out of the products.

Interested in learning more or would like to attend? Drop James Baker at Symantec an e-mail directly.

Symantec is Everywhere

Small Business Technical Training Roadshow - coming to a town near you!

Symantec invites you to attend one of our free technical training events on Symantec Endpoint Protection, Symantec Network Access Control, Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery and Symantec Multi Tier Protection.

Symantec products continue to experience strong levels of revenue growth. By attending this training you will gain in depth technical knowledge and learn how you can turn this into huge sales opportunities.

This training offers you:

Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Network Access Control:

• Interactive hands on workshop available at your convenience
• Detailing Symantec Network Access Control options for maintaining integrity of customers environment
• Easy to follow steps and working examples

Symantec Multi Tier Protection:

• Learn how Symantec Multi-tier Protection can help your customer
• What is delivered above and beyond Symantec Endpoint Protection
• Find out how this cost effective solution can assist your customer

Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery:

• Find out why Backup Exec System Recovery is ideally suited to your Small Business and SBS customers
• Learn how Backup Exec and Backup Exec System Recovery differ. When they both fit and when to choose one or the other
• Experience a live restore of an entire system to totally different hardware
• Understand how implement and install to provide a service to your customers and consider on-going services to deliver additional revenue

Now, Symantec invites you to attend this free training targeted specifically at Small Business resellers- and see the opportunities that it creates for you!

Dates:

Friday 6th March

London

Strand Palace Hotel

Friday 13th March

Birmingham

City Inn Hotel

Friday 20th March

Manchester

Midland Hotel

Tuesday 7th April

Dublin

The Burlington Hotel

Thursday 30th April

Reading

Symantec Executive Briefing Center

***

Agenda

Registration and breakfast
iServ images and Access
Symantec Network Access Control, foundation stones, within Symantec and demo of capabilities out of the box
Break
Differences between Backup Exec and backup Exec System Recovery, what BESR does above and beyond, demo of recovery
Symantec Multi Tier Protection: Added value, Premium Antispam and the Symantec email protection network
Q and A
Buffet lunch and finish

Times: 9am- 1pm

At the danger of incurring the wrath of my buddy “Angry” Andy Parkes again by being too techie three blog posts in a row – we had an “interesting” problem reported by a client this morning that I thought I’d share.

Despite having a fully up-to date and working Trend Worry Free Business Security client in place, they’d “somehow” got themselves infected with what they thought was a virus.

We won’t investigate the events leading up to the “somehow” but instead concentrate on what effect the infection had on the laptop.

In a nutshell the problem was that Internet Explorer kept intermittently re-directing their web-browsing to the dodgy search engine web-site windowsclick(dot)com.

We advised the client we could deal with the problem, and so grabbed our AV tools and went to work. Except non of our usual toolkit did work – both Trend and Symantec didn’t find any infections during Live Scans, and every time we went to visit Windows Update, Trend or Symantec sites or run any other AV tools – nothing – the site or application simply failed to run at all. We got 404 Errors or simply no GUI appearing.

We’d normally turn to some live tools such as Bart’s PE to help kill the virus outside of an active Windows session, but in this case I was intrigued to what was happening to prevent any AV tools running.

A bit of research later and we found some reports of success using the tools provided by http://www.malwarebytes.org/ to clean this threat – and so off we went and grabbed a copy of their Anti-Malware application to see what it could find.

It installed ok on the infected laptop – but then failed to run, just like the other AV tools we had tried. So I tried something different – I renamed the Anti-Malware executable file slightly. Voila! This time the software loaded and allowed me to run an update, do a malware scan, find the baddies (in this case, a Virus called Rogue.XPPoliceAntiVirus) and remove them successfully.

So - I’m unsure whether any other tools would work in the same way, but in this particular case, simply installing Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and after installation re-naming the executable mbam.exe within C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (in this case to mbyam.exe) worked a treat!

And another addition to the AV Toolkit here at Netlink IT - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware.