... that a Microsoft Product Key never contains a the letters I, O and the numbers 0 (zero) and 1 (one). This is probably done to prevent users from getting confused!

It's been some time since I've written new articles on shijaz.com :)

I have added two new articles on Remote Desktop:

• How to enable Remote Desktop "remotely"
  Discusses how to enable Remote Desktop on a machine that you do not have physical access to. Needs administrator privileges (of course!)
  
• How to enable Remote Desktop on Windows Server 2008 Server Core
  Discusses how to enable Remote Desktop on Windows Server 2008 Server Core, the installation mode in which there is no GUI!

There is a great script on Windows IT Pro that helps you get a list of all workstations/servers/domain controllers in a domain and then list the Scheduled Tasks that have been configured on these machines.

The script, written by Bill Stewart, can be downloaded from the Windows IT Pro website.

Essentially, this is how it can be put to use:

1. To get a list of DC's and dump it to a text file, type cscript enumcomputers.js /dc > dclist.txt
2. Next, feed this list of DC's to enumtasks.cmd and ask it to dump a list of scheduled tasks for each DC to another text file: enumtasks dclist.txt >dctasklist.txt
3. Open dctasklist.txt in Notepad, any word processor or even Microsoft Excel.

Microsoft conducted a presentation on Windows Server 2008 for business decision makers, IT staff, faculty and students at Higher Colleges of Technology. The event was held on 14th February, 2007 at Abu Dhabi Men's College.

Desmond Lee presented an interesting view of Windows Server 2008, with live demos and shared some exciting information about the new features. Through his humorous, yet effective, mode of presentation he was an instant hit with the students :-)

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) issued the following statement on February 11 in response to the announcement by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) that its Board of Directors has rejected Microsoft’s previously announced proposal to acquire Yahoo!:

It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.

We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.

A Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. Furthermore, the combination will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.

The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

On February 1, 2008, Microsoft announced a proposal to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion and a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock based on the closing prices of the stocks of both companies on Jan. 31, 2008, the last day of trading prior to Microsoft’s announcement. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. [Read more]

Microsoft and Seagate have launched a blog-style comics page, Heroes Happen Here, with one comic being released each day. The comics are IT-related. You can subscribe to it by RSS for your daily share of IT humour.

If you have already have ISA Server 2006 Enterprise Edition installed and you are trying to installing ISA Server on another server and configuring it as a replica of the Configuration store, you may get the following error on Windows Server 2003 R2:




Setup then exits and you are unable to complete the installation. This usually happens if there was a previous failed installation from the machine that you're trying to join to the array. You will need to cleanup the values related to the server you're installing from the ADAM installed on your first configuration store, which stores config information for the array.

A simple solution to this is to ensure that both nodes are running Windows Server 2003 R2 and then edit the ADAM to remove the orphaned server on which installation is failing:

1. Open \Windows\ADAM\ADAM-ADSIEDIT.msc on the existing ISA Config Storage server.
2. Navigate to CN=Configuration, CN=Sites, CN=Default-First-Site-Name,CN=Servers.
3. Delete the server on which you have the installation problem.

Re-run the installation, it should succeed now.