Confessions of a Microsoft Consultant
Daniel Oxley is an Infrastucture Consultant working for Microsoft Consulting Services in Madrid, Spain. He specialises, amongst other things, in large-scale deployments of Microsoft Windows using technologies such as BDD2007 and the Microsoft Deployment
Job/Life/Reputation protector 2.0
Back in January I posted some simple VBA code for adding an “are you sure?” type question to the...
Author: doxley Date: 11/10/2008
A good and bad end to the Formula 1 season
Yesterday the Formula 1 season finished with quite a nail-biting last 20 seconds, I really thought...
Author: doxley Date: 11/03/2008
Self-healing NTFS
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 contain an often overlooked feature called NTFS...
Author: doxley Date: 10/29/2008
Hyper-V going from strength to strength
I saw an interesting article this morning regarding how Hyper-V is doing in the virtualization...
Author: doxley Date: 10/21/2008
Decorating Windows Explorer
This is a tip that someone recently showed me that I really liked. It allows you to display in...
Author: doxley Date: 10/19/2008
Getting your own personal translation service
I was using Windows Live Translator the other day when I noticed that the page had been subtly...
Author: doxley Date: 09/29/2008
HTAMount – Simplifying the mounting of Hyper-V VHD files to your computer
HTAMount is a HTML application that I wrote a while ago that provides a no-nonsense interface...
Author: doxley Date: 09/24/2008
Windows Vista, please can you stop changing the view of my folders without asking me?
Something that really bugs me with Windows Vista is that it ‘decides’ all by itself what view you...
Author: doxley Date: 09/22/2008
Mark Russinovich presents...
Mark Russinovich is presenting another live virtual conference over the Internet, this time titled...
Author: doxley Date: 09/15/2008
Letting Hyper-V get some sleep
I blogged a few months ago about how activating Hyper-V on a laptop that is running Windows Server...
Author: doxley Date: 09/05/2008
Portable Applications with Live Mesh
I really like Live Mesh. I had been hoping/waiting a long time for Microsoft to bring out a...
Author: doxley Date: 09/01/2008
Just leave me alone! (for another 6 minutes and 52 seconds anyway)
Ever get that feeling where you can't get anything done because the arrival of new e-mail keeps...
Author: doxley Date: 08/21/2008
Notepad - The preferred tool of the I.T. Professional
Notepad is without a doubt my favourite work tool, I use it countless times during the day for all...
Author: doxley Date: 08/12/2008
Photo sharing - The Next Generation
I have been wanting to buy a digital photo frame for a while now, mostly because I never get to...
Author: doxley Date: 08/08/2008
Doesn't this thing go any faster?
A Knowledge Base (KB) article and related software update was released on the May 20th 2008 that...
Author: doxley Date: 08/05/2008
Booting up the I.T. part of my brain
Content has been a bit scarce on this blog this month, this is because I have just spent the last 2...
Author: doxley Date: 08/04/2008
The final nail in VMWare's coffin?
Warning, this post may offend some of the diehard VMWare fans, especially my brother... I have...
Author: doxley Date: 07/14/2008
Closing time for the bar
If you run Outlook 2007 on a Windows Server 2008 machine, then you may have noticed that your...
Author: doxley Date: 07/08/2008
Disconnecting Hyper-V
My work laptop runs Windows Server 2008 for one main reason, Hyper-V. I have a 64 bit CPU with 4 Gb...
Author: doxley Date: 07/07/2008
Hyper-V causing a negative effect on...
A colleague of mine sent me this image, and I just could not resist posting it in my blog. I...
Author: doxley Date: 06/30/2008
VMWare working great on my computer
I was at a conference a while ago and got talking to someone about virtualisation. When the...
Author: doxley Date: 06/25/2008
Hyper-V on the side
I noticed today that someone has written a new cool gadget for the Windows Sidebar that lets you...
Author: doxley Date: 06/24/2008
Getting my bits in a twist
This week I installed a new Windows Vista virtual machine in Hyper-V. I installed the OS,...
Author: doxley Date: 06/17/2008
Uninstalling the uninstall
Windows Vista is a pretty big install, and then when you add to it the install of Service Pack 1, it...
Author: doxley Date: 05/28/2008
SkyDrive - making the sky better
The cool SkyDrive site has been upgraded with some new features. The first big feature, which...
Author: doxley Date: 05/22/2008
Unravelling the Office Ribbon
At last! Microsoft has made public the super useful Search Commands tool for Microsoft Office 2007!...
Author: doxley Date: 04/29/2008
Group Policy migration, without the headache
Someone asked me recently if it was possible to import GPOs created in a laboratory into a...
Author: doxley Date: 04/22/2008
Trigger happy events
The new Task Scheduler functionality that was introduced with Windows Vista is superb, it knocks...
Author: doxley Date: 04/10/2008
Dude, where's my GUI?
A colleague of mine, Daniel Matey, recently blogged about the efforts of another Microsoft person...
Author: doxley Date: 04/09/2008
I want that text, and I want it now!
How often have you had an error pop up in a dialog box full of useful error numbers, filenames,...
Author: doxley Date: 03/25/2008
Everything you ever wanted to know about Internet Explorer 8 (but were afraid to ask)
We have a nice shiny new website available with tons of information about Internet Explorer 8,...
Author: doxley Date: 03/06/2008
Server Unleashed - "more than meets the eye"
I stumbled across this website today (yes I know, I should have been aware of it since the launch...
Author: doxley Date: 03/05/2008
Windows Live Installer - without the installer??!?!?
To install a Windows Live product(s) you need to download and install the WLInstaller.exe file,...
Author: doxley Date: 03/04/2008
Rap to Silverlight
The rap artist Ice Cube will be doing a free live concert on March 15th, 6 PM PST (UTC -8) at South...
Author: doxley Date: 03/03/2008
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Virtual 'Roundtable'
Do you want to join in with an interactive live virtual roundtable session with Mark Russinovich...
Author: doxley Date: 02/21/2008
Insomnia-causing Hyper-V
I am in Seattle at the moment at an internal Microsoft conference. Yesterday I attended a...
Author: doxley Date: 02/12/2008
Hyper-V - Hooray!
I am sure that this has been blogged about at least a trillion times, so I am going to make it a...
Author: doxley Date: 02/06/2008
In the immortal words of Homer, "Doh!"
I use Bitlocker on my work laptop to ensure that all my data is safe as I would not want any...
Author: doxley Date: 01/30/2008
Windows 2008 Certification
I often get asked about the changes to the certification roadmap for Windows 2008, but I have never...
Author: doxley Date: 01/29/2008
Gulp! Did I really just send that to the entire company...?
I am sure that it has happened to everyone in some way or another. You receive an e-mail from a...
Author: doxley Date: 01/23/2008
Data theft and why are we not doing anything about it?
It seems that there has been a lot of incidents lately regarding data theft, particularly in the...
Author: doxley Date: 01/21/2008
Free Office 2007 training!
I am working on a project to deploy Windows Vista and Office 2007 at the moment in a large...
Author: doxley Date: 01/18/2008
Windows Update - Why 3 am? & Help! I can't update anymore!
By default, Windows XP downloads and installs updates from Windows Update nightly at 3 a.m; why did...
Author: doxley Date: 01/10/2008
Bill Gates' Last Day
I was sent the link to this video yesterday about Bill Gates' last day in the office......
Author: doxley Date: 01/09/2008
Updating your deployment point programmatically
I was asked recently if it was possible to launch an "Update" and/or an "Update...
Author: doxley Date: 01/08/2008