So, if you couldn't make it to the Gold Coast in September, or even if you did make it but found you had to miss a session due to a scheduling conflict, go to

TechEd Australia 2012
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Australia/2012

One of my favourites was presented by Ben Armstrong, owner of the “Virtual PC Guy" blog and a Senior Program Manager in the Windows team.

Hyper-V Performance, Scale & Architecture Changes
https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Australia/2012/VIR413

In my role, I see a lot of different issues that customers face. Not just my customers past and present, but through talking to my colleagues about their customers.

Over time, you do start to see some issues that occur time and again... and again... and again. Sometimes this can be in the same customer, but as staff come and go, I'm the one that suffers deja vu as I have the same conversation for the nth time in the same customer.

One of these topics is Calendars. In particular, the sanctity of the calendar of an executive, with a PA/EA, and a mobile device... sometimes two (devices... not PAs).

These issues are always hard to resolve because it's commonly not a software issue, and sometimes not just people and/or process. It's usually a combination of factors.

Troubleshooting is hard because the impacted people are generally hard to pin down to get some troubleshooting time, but also have the loudest voices.

Is there a Silver Bullet? Sure. Ban mobile devices and delegated mailboxes and ensure the executive only uses Outlook or OWA. Yeah, good luck with that. But it would solve the problem. I guarantee it.

So, back to reality. What to do in this situation?

There are some really good articles that Microsoft and others have already written on this topic, so I won't attempt to re-write what has already been published.

The following articles are aimed at IT folks but they articulate the broad issue and solutions in great detail:

Comprehensive Guide on Addressing Exchange Calendaring Issues
Lost Appointments, Duplicate Appointments, Odd Delegate Issues, etc
http://www.networkworld.com/community/ExchangeCalendaringProblemSolutions

Exchange Outlook Calendaring Problems (lost meetings, delegate problems, etc)
Solving Exchange Outlook Calendaring Delegation Lost Meeting Problems
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/exchange-outlook-calendaring-problems-lost-me

The quintessential document that should be printed out and stuck in the cubicle of every EA/PA and Executive is this one:

If using Outlook 2000, Outlook 2002/XP, or Outlook 2003 (aside from the fact that you really, REALLY need to upgrade!):

Outlook meeting requests: Essential do’s and don’ts
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/outlook-meeting-requests-essential-dos-and-donts-HA001127678.aspx

If using Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010, or Outlook 2013:

Best practices when using the Outlook Calendar
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/best-practices-when-using-the-outlook-calendar-HA104004449.aspx

The following article very neatly consolidates much of our guidance that are in more in-depth KB articles and talks specifically to best practices when using mobile devices:

Exchange Calendaring Issues: Best Practices for Outlook and Mobile Device Users & their Delegates
http://ike.its.uiowa.edu/article/3521

and

Some best practices when working with Outlook Calendar
http://blogs.technet.com/b/outlooking/archive/2010/03/29/some-best-practices-when-working-with-outlook-calendar.aspx
 

Lastly, some Microsoft troubleshooting guides and general resources to stay on top of:

Description of common scenarios in which Calendar information may be removed from the Calendar or may be inaccurate
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899704

How to troubleshoot missing and duplicate appointments in Outlook
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890436

Current issues with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and third-party devices
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2563324

There were technical issues that contributed to an increase in calendaring issue when Apple released iOS6 and existed in iOS 6.0, 6.0.1 and 6.0.2. The issue is well documented on the internet and broadly called "meeting hijacking" so if you have iOS users, ensure they upgrade. References:

Meeting in Attendee’s Calendar Loses Track of the Meeting Organizer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2768774

So, what if nothing is working out and you need to call Microsoft for assistance? Firstly, get yourself some Premier Support if you don't have it already (see my earlier post about Premier Support). Now, in preparation, read the following TechNet article:

Working with support to troubleshoot the Outlook calendar in an Exchange environment
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc891495(v=Office.12).aspx

May your mobile devices and Exchange (and Executives and their Assistants) all play nicely together and let you get on with more important stuff!

P.S. A big thank you to my colleague Quoc Lai, a Senior Premier Field Engineer in the Messaging space here at Microsoft, who has done many Exchange Risk Assessments with me and my customers and drilled into me all of the above! I know he does it in the hope that I'll stop ringing him every 6 months saying "Hey Quoc, customer X are having a major calendaring issue. Do you think you could come on-site with me... Quoc? Hello? Huh... I seem to have strong mobile signal but the line went dead... Quoc?"

P.P.S. Hi Steve and thanks for reading my blog :)

This month a Technical Case Study was published on how Microsoft IT used a Windows Desktop Risk Assessment Program (WDRAP) engagement, delivered by Premier Field Engineering (PFE) to improve desktop performance of our own internal users. We have approximately 100,000 users around the globe. They (er... we) are generally very demanding on our internal IT Departments. Unlike most corporate environments, every user is a local Administrator on your machine (pretty much everyone has laptops) and we have a huge choice in the make and model of machines we can use. This makes for an interesting challenge in defining and optimizing a Windows 7 SOE.

Improving Desktop Performance with the Risk and Health Assessment Program for Windows Desktop

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh708771.aspx

In case you had seen it, first there was the 'Gmail Man' video (promoting Office 365 over Google Gmail):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXqrTfOWx60

and this week, to coincide with VMware's VMworld, we released this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hewedqvSWaI

which let's us follow the exploits of Tad from VMlimited who is stuck in the past (figureatively and literally) with his view on Private Clouds..

Yes, there will be people crying out that we're spreading FUD, and lies, and causing global warming, but still, it's damn funny and unlike the old Mac vs PC ads that Apple ran, not based on complete lies...

Premier Support - Animated Slideshow

http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/gb/details/2c708e45-71a7-46d3-81d6-88ab9c749d74

You'll find the article on the Microsoft Windows Virtualization Team Blog here - http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualization/archive/2011/08/01/beware-the-vmware-memory-vtax-plus-good-news-for-hyper-v.aspx

The problem arises because during the installation, driver-servicing will enumerate the driver information in the registry. There is a default time-out of 15 min for this process, however, on DPM servers where there is a large number of snapshots, it doesn't finish the enumeration process within the 15 min time period and therefore the SP1 install fails.

After engaging Premier Support, the work-around that my customers have successfully employed is as follows:

1. On the server open the registry by running regedit.exe
2. Navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TrustedInstaller
3. Find the registry value BlockTimeIncrement. By default this is set to 384 (15 min); change it to 2a30 (3 hours). If you receive an error while trying to change the value you may need to change the permissions on the TrustedInstaller key to Full Control for Users.
4. Reboot the server, then install SP1.

My customers found that it took anywhere between 25 mins and 1.5 hours for the SP1 install to complete depending on the number of snapshots. After the SP1 install is complete you can either revert the change or leave it in place.

Version and Edition Upgrades
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143393(v=SQL.90).aspx

Process to upgrade:

How to: Upgrade to a Different Edition of SQL Server 2008 (Setup)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc707783(v=SQL.100).aspx

How to: Upgrade to a Different Edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 (Setup)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc707783(v=SQL.105).aspx

Upgrade from SQL Server Evaluation Edition to full blown editions? (SQL Server 2005)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sanchan/archive/2006/07/27/681086.aspx

In 18 months time when I get asked again (although hopefully for Denali rather than SQL Server 2005), hopefully my Bing search will find this page!

So, which vendor has the most security vulnerabilities?

Apple.

Yep, that's right, Apple. and they were in second place 2007-2009.

Oracle was in top place from 2007-2009 but got lea-frogged by Apple in 2010.

Microsoft is in 3rd place 2007+

The big mover and shaker in this chart?

Adobe.

Adobe didn't even feature until 2008 (10th place) and have jumped up to 5th place in 2 years.

The report makes for some interesting reading and should dispel a few urban myths.

http://secunia.com/gfx/pdf/Secunia_Half_Year_Report_2010.pdf

Windows Live Essentials beta
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta