New version of Exchange Server Profile Analyzer

March 7, 2010 by danbrinkmann

Use the Microsoft Exchange Server Profile Analyzer tool to collect estimated statistical information from a single mailbox store or across an Exchange Server organization. The collected data can be used for such tasks as analyzing the performance and health of a server that has mailboxes, improving capacity planning models, and improving testing methodologies and tools.

32 bit – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8F575F60-BD80-44AA-858B-A1F721108FAD&displaylang=en

64 bit – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C009C049-9F4C-4519-A389-69C281B2ABDA&displaylang=en

Exchange 2010 reduces disk IO even further, here’s how

March 7, 2010 by danbrinkmann

If you weren’t aware Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 saw a significant reduction in the amount of disk IO…well Exchange 2010 reduces that disk IO even further and here’s how.

http://blogs.technet.com/bobh/archive/2010/03/02/save-a-fortune-on-storage-with-exchange-2010.aspx

PXE Booting VMware ESX 4.0

March 7, 2010 by danbrinkmann

ICA SDK and .NET

March 7, 2010 by danbrinkmann

If you’re a developer and interested in Citrix maybe this article has some information for you.  I’d be curious if anyone has any needs that they think aren’t being addressed by the Citrix product suite and how this might help them overcome that…drop me a note if you are seriously looking at building your own app against the SDK.

http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2010/03/02/Fun+with+the+ICA+Client+Object+(ICO)+and+.Net+Console+Applications

Choosing a thin client OS for XenDesktop

March 6, 2010 by danbrinkmann
Feature Windows
XPe
Linux Wyse ThinOS with TCX Comments
Flash Redirection Yes No No Wyse ThinOS with TCX supports flash acceleration which is not as desirable as flash redirection.
Multimedia Redirection Yes Yes Yes All clients support multimedia redirection for video codecs such as wmv, mpeg and avi.
USB Remoting Yes Yes Yes All clients support isochronous USB remoting such as Webcams and offer USB PDA sycronization.  Wyse ThinOS utilizes the TCX software.
VOIP – Optimized Speech codec Yes Yes No XPe and Linux client support the new Citrix speech codec.  Wyse ThinOS uses TCX Rich Sound which is less desirable.
WAN – Branch Repeater Client Yes No No Only XPe clients support the Branch Repeater Client, but the Linux client supports HDX IntelliCache WAN Optimization.   Wyse has a Virtual Desktop Accelerator for software WAN acceleration. 
HDX 3D Graphics Yes Yes No The Linux client does not support decoding of GPU-compressed data streams.

http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2010/03/01/Choosing+a+Thin+Client+OS+for+XenDesktop

Lessons learned with XenDesktop and Hyper-V

March 6, 2010 by danbrinkmann

EMR, COWs and the iPad

March 6, 2010 by danbrinkmann

The iPad might be my first daily use device from Apple…and it’s going to make a huge impact in healthcare.

http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2010/03/03/Best+Practices+for+EMR+Delivery+to+Clinical+Staff

Remote Desktop Connection 7.0 client update

March 6, 2010 by danbrinkmann

Microsoft KB article for RDP 7.0 for Windows XP SP3, Vista SP1 and Vista SP2.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969084/en-us

Deploying printers with SBS 2008

March 4, 2010 by Todd Moore

There is a slight problem when trying to deploy printers using group policies in Small Business Server 2008. When following the steps for server 2008 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722179(WS.10).aspx ) you will find that the pushprinterconnections.exe file located on server 2008 is 64-bit. This can be a big problem because the executable is incompatible with any 32-bit machines.

James on www.activedir.org had posted a link (http://rapidshare.com/files/177770274/ppc.exe) to download the 32-bit version of the pushprinterconnections.exe. You can also obtain this by downloading the 32-bit demo of SBS2008 and extracting the pushprinterconnections.exe from that installation.

The following document will lead you through the process of installing Print Services and configuring the group policy to deploy the printers. All you need to do after that is download the ppc.exe file, rename it to pushprinterconnections.exe and follow the directions on placing it in GPO scripts folder.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755424(WS.10).aspx

Slow Outlook Performance

March 3, 2010 by danbrinkmann

Great article which describes slow Outlook startup and how it can be potentially related to caching of recently viewed calendars.

http://www.expta.com/2010/03/slow-outlook-startup-performance-part-2.html