Somewhere out there!

Detailed look at OpenOffice vs MS Office on a Terminal Server by Bernhard Tritsch:

The results show that roughly 30 to 40% more users can sign on to the platform with Microsoft Office 2003 than with OpenOffice.org 2.1 with identical hardware and an identical configuration of the terminal server on Windows Server 2003 SP1. Even for terminal servers with Microsoft Office 2007, one can expect that the system resources can be used roughly 20% more efficiently than is possible on a system with OpenOffice.org. This applies both for the 32-bit and the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 when used as the primary platform.

Memory requirements of all three Office Suites on 64-bit Windows Server 2003 are increased by the factor 1.1 to 1.5 if compared to the 32-bit platform.

From Brian Madden – Login Consultants releases a massive framework that can automate pretty much everything. Oh, and it’s free:

It’s called the Solution4 Framework (or “S4 Framework” for short), and it’s basically a huge set of scripts, scripts, tools, and more scripts that you can use to completely manage your Terminal Server or Citrix Presentation Server farm.

Read the rest of this entry »

I did a quick test install of Windows 2008 Standard Server Beta2 onto my XenEnterprise server. Requires the PV drivers in order for the network interfaces to works correctly, but otherwise seems to work with XE 3.2. I didn’t test much; at this stage I just wanted to see if I could get it going.

Billy Gates is a clever business person, this article from CNN discusses How Microsoft conquered China.

Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft’s best long-term strategy. That’s why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China’s 120 million PCs. “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not,” Gates says. “Are you kidding? You can get the real thing, and you get the same price.” Indeed, in China’s back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks. And Microsoft’s own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students.

A basic desktop computer in China now can be had for about 200-300USD, with a Chinese version of windows pre-installed. Funnily enough if you can find it only full retail (priced) versions of English Windows are available.

From infoworld.

By default Windows Terminal Server is quite annoying when dealing with shortcuts and applications mount from a local file server. A per usual with Windows there is quite a lot of documentation out there with information, although it not all clear.

1. “Site to Zone Assignment List” GPO = trusted site?
2. Site to Zone Assignment List – best method here
3. Behavior of Site to Zone Assignment List
4. The Site to Zone Assignment List policy prevents Internet Explorer from using other zone configuration settings when the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration feature is enabled on a Windows Server 2003 SP1-based computer
5. How to lock down a Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Terminal Server session

Regardless of the above I found the best way to deal in Windows 2003R2 with the GPO was:

Edit the GPO object you wish to apply these settings too. Select [User Configuration\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maintenance\Security]. Then double click [Security Zones and Content Ratings], click [Import the current security zones and privacy settings], and then click [Modify Settings]. It should be pretty straight-forward from there. I added my file server sites into Local Intranet, using the form file://uncserver. I found this easy than the “Site to Zone Assignment List” GPO method.

Couple useful articles on running windows with an existing install.