Office Online

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Office Online Logo

An area that Microsoft have massively improved upon is their documentation for the Office suite. Office Online and the online version of the help within the Office 2007 applications is very impressive these days.

Sometimes it feels like reinventing the wheel for us to produce some forms of documentation as Microsoft have already produced demos, training and how-to documents to a high standard. It is surprising that it is not first port of call for needing to know how to do something within Office, perhaps it is because the Paperclip man (Office Assistant) from old versions of Office was so annoying.

I would in particular recommend the Outlook documentation at Office Online here.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/default.aspx

The Snipping Tool

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One of my favourite features (I’m easily pleased) of Windows Vista is the Snipping Tool. Fed up with the old print-screen/MS Paint/crop method of getting screen/window grabs and not wanting to use a 3rd party graphics application, I was happy to see that Microsoft introduced their Snipping Tool into Vista. It had previously only been available as a add-on for tablet PCs. You can find it under Accessories in Vista.

It seemlessly allows the creation of Window, Free-Form, rectangular or entire screen grabs that can be annotated and highlighted. It works with multiple monitors and remote desktop sessions and eases the creation of documentation or showing someone something. After all, a picture is supposed to speak a thousand words.

Snipping Tool IconSnipping Tool Interface

http://windowshelp.micros…e605b41033.mspx

Vista is the next Windows ME? The numbers don’t agree…

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Microsoft’s Annual Revenue Reaches $60 Billion
Fastest annual revenue growth since 1999 fuels 32% increase in earnings per share.

If you don’t think Vista is here to stay then think again.

This fiscal year marked the launch of Microsoft’s flagship server products: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. Revenue growth was primarily driven by continued customer demand for all products, including Windows Vista, which has sold over 180 million licenses since launch, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, server software, and Xbox 360 consoles and games.

Full release here.

http://www.microsoft.com/…Q4earnings.mspx

Vista is so protective…

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A bit of a gotcha with using the Active Directory Users and Computers tool on Vista is that it (very sensibly) protects the objects you create from accidental deletion but (very annoyingly) doesn’t inform you that it’s done this. If you are using the AD Tools on Vista and you suddenly find that you can’t delete something you created, then check the Object tab on the object in question. If the “Protect Object from Accidental Deletion” box is checked as shown here within the red circle:

Active Directory object

… you’ll need to uncheck it before you can delete or move it.

RSAT Part 3: Mapping network drives with Group Policy and without Scripts!

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One of most common scripts we write for users and groups of users is a simple drive map.

For example:

net use S: \\campus\software /persistent:yes

Now, Group Policy Preference Client Side Extensions & RSAT now allow for drive to be mapped without any extra work.

1. Create and name a new Policy.

2. User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Drive Maps

3. Right Click > New > Mapped Drive

Map1

4. Choose the behaviour (Create, Replace, Update or Delete) from the Action dropdown.

Map2

5. Enter a location e.g. \\campus\software\

6. Tick reconnect if you want the connection to persist (this replaces the /persistent:yes switch)

7. Choose a drive letter.

8. If you wish you can set the Connect as fields.

Map3

9. Make sure the permissions are correct for the target folder.

10. Save and apply your policy.