New Bumper Sticker Idea

While laying in bed reading the doom and gloom of April's XP-mageddom I wanted to type out a warning to friends and family about running the ancient OS.

I came up with a saying that even impressed me after saying it

"For the love of IT, dump XP"

Didn't even realize is kinda rhymes. Now to just find some place to make the bumper sticker I'll never use.  I've got a dislike of those things unless they are in your cubicle somewhere.

Office 365 Lync 2013 - Unable to Upload a Profile Image

I encountered this issue few weeks back and found it to be very perplexing, especially since the upgrade to O365 2013. Users who tried to change their profile picture in Lync 2013 or Exchange Online were greeted with a message that told them they did not have permissions to do so, even global admins got the error. After joining a community forum as well as starting a service request through the support portal I was able to get a resolution to the issue.

Turns out the upgrade has a few bugs (who knew) and that Microsoft has a hotfix they can apply if your service is showing a permission issue like mine. Ill include the link to the forum below so you can add to it and get your issue resolved as well.

Microsoft did get this resolved and fairly quick too. Good luck!



Community Link

An Outlook Quirk

I discovered a slight bug recently when designing a new signature for our company that I would never had caught in a million years of troubleshooting and is testament to how hard it is to make a perfect application/design.

After setting up tables, images, fighting outlooks lack of support for certain layouts in versions previous to 2013 I thought I had done it all. I checked, printed, sent and printed some more and everything was in great shape. Then I roll out to my first beta group, and man did something so strange happen.

Our CEO has multiple monitors and as such small print can definitely be hard to see way out in the corners, so he has increased the OS rendering 125%. I've seen people do this before, but I have never seen it effect Outlook like it has now. He runs 2013, and every time he sends an email out with the new signature 2 of the 4 images increase in size by 25%. We have compared them to the others, and can not find anything different. It's amazing but so frustrating at the same time. I have yet to find a solution to this issue other than changing the screen back to 100%, but there has to be something that's different....right?

Well after a few hours of prodding I was able to figure it out. The issue seems to only happen when the image has Inline Word Wrapping turned on. Setting it to Top/Bottom seems to fix the image blowup for good.

Windows 8.0 Review

After using Windows 8.0 for 2 months (this would be my second try at using this OS) I have come to somewhat of a conclusion about the state of the OS and its potential as well as drawbacks. My wife has also acquired a Windows 8.0 laptop (Dell brand) and her discussions and opinions on it have made me rethink many things as I have to face the coming of deploying it to users once Windows 7 becomes extinct.

I will focus on 5 items to make this post short, sweet and hopefully information.

1. Start Button - A lot can be said of this. I installed Classic Shell day 1 of trying this system out again and there hasn't been 1 time when I have said to myself, yes I would love to have a hot corner back to get to my programs. In fact I use it much like I did in windows 7 and before. The missing start menu is still an issue of frustration for my wife (whom will get Classic Start installed as soon as I get the chance). Why this was missing and waiting to 8.1 I will never know, and by then neither of us will care.

2. Start Screen - No, just no. The whole thing is confusing and I am in the IT field. For my wife it's even worse. There are times I can't even help her, I end up opening some random application and then constantly switching to it via another hot corner. It's a mess. Since Classic Start I have only ventured into the Start Screen when I get curious about an app, in fact I haven't really used any apps since then. When the computer is setup I could be able to pick Laptop or Tablet experience and have it optimized for my use.

3. Speed - Windows 8.0 is fast, there is no denying that. My wifes new Dell is not a power machine by any means but the speed at which Windows 8 runs vs Windows 7 is blinding. I love how a restart can take less than a minute. Startup time is even less. Keep this, at all costs.

4. Apps - Poor selection and the fact that on a laptop if I want netflix I can just bring up a web browser to do it negates any reason for the app store in the first place let alone the App like start screen. Are my apps taking up processing power and ram? Probably. Is it a lot? Probably not. But if I never get into it, id like that extra 5% please, especially on a budget machine.

5. Program compatibility - Great! In fact I have only come across 1 program that wouldn't run in Windows 8 due to a missing driver. Being able to run to old programs without the need for a virtual machine is a great thing.

Would I deploy it to my users? - Sure, If I had to. You could bet yourself that I would install Classic Shell and disable most Windows 8 features though. And my users are on their own signing up for a Live ID to purchase things if they really want into the App Store.

Set Office365 Password Expiration (Business Accounts) - 2013 Edition

Since Microsoft has started upgrading accounts under the Office 365 umbrella the Admin Center has changed a lot and might be a bit confusing for some simple operations. I will take you through the steps below to change your users password expiration policy.

The main dashbard for O365

1. Log into the Admin Portal HERE

2. On the left find Service Settings

3. Now on the top navigation bar, find Passwords

4. Edit the password expiration age, and notification options and click Save.


I know this is a simple operation, but I hope this helps.

For reference, the policy settings used to be under Users and Groups.

Office365 and SkyDrive....not compatible?

It seems silly that two products from the same company aren't compatible, worse yet they let you sign up for both with the same email before throwing you lots of nice errors to make it warm and cosy.

I am talking about Microsofts Office 365 Suite and Sky Drive.

Long story short, if you decide to log into Sky Drive with your Office 365 account, you will be unable to log into your Office 365 account until you log completely out of the web page and then proceed to O365. Not doing so prompts your Office 365 address to redirect to Outlook.com making things about as confusing and useless as my finger on an LCD monitor.


EDIT (1/3/2014) : Since posting this Microsoft has made big strides in Office 365 by adding SkyDrive Pro support and increasing its compatibility across all of its services (including One Note for Mobile)

Working in Windows 8 Preview for a Day

On friday I gave Windows 8 Preview a shot after setting up a dual boot environment on my laptop. I attempted to only use W8 and Office 2013 for the day without running back to Windows 7 to do necessary work. Unfortunately it flopped and I ended up making it through only 3/4 of the day. I will go over what made the test fail as well as my impressions of the OS as it is today.

Part 1 "Excuse me while i reboot" -

Trying to work in an SMB environment has its challenges for an OS built for home use, and in short it doesn't work. I am not quite sure what Microsoft has up its sleeve with W8 RP but unlike Office 2013 where SMB and Pro versions were available Windows 8 is a Home Premium install only. It makes it very tough then to test this OS with my programs, domain setup, administration tools and more without having to spend money on an OS that might not work. I struggled throughout the day using remote desktop to our servers to do simple administration tasks that I could have done natively, as well as logging into network shares and other machines using network file sharing. These issues were tough but did not cause me to reboot quite yet. I finally ran into a driver issue (I won't blame the OS for this fault however) and could not complete the task at hand with some software. Rebooting into Windows 7 solved this and I felt no desire to run through what is a lengthy reboot process for Windows 8 dual boot environments. In fact I have not quite sure why the bootup process has changed, yes I still get the choice to setup a 10 second choice screen for the OS I would like, but if I decide on Windows 7 the computer has to shut down, go through POST procedures again and then boot into Windows 7 adding another 20-30 seconds delay. A bit strange I do say.

Part 2 "Excuse me Sir, I seem to be lost" -

Windows 8 can be summed up in one word after Fridays immersing test, "confusing". I became quite frustrated trying to find simple programs or tasks using the Metro start screen, depending on which screen it would show up on. This problem baffled me, using a dual monitor setup I could get the desktop showing on both screens, and a task bar mirrored on each as well. This was great as I could bring up windows without having to run to the other monitor. This was not great as it felt like, depending on the operating systems mood when I would hit the Windows key the Metro Start screen would randomly pop up on one of the monitors. I think I saw the Start screen change positions over 5 times and could not for the life of me figure out why it chose the monitor it did. Then there is the all programs menu and lack of need for the Metro Start screen all together. Trying to find all the programs installed on the machine if the icon was not present in the Metro screen had you treck all the way to the corer of the screen before listing everything side by side instead of traditional list form like in previous Windows versions. I found this change more time consuming especially when Start changed monitors. Windows 7 search through the start menu which I have come to use for everything now needed me to use another function key set (Windows Key + F) to bring it up whereas before I could just hit the Windows Key and start typing, or click on the start menu in the corner. My last bone to pick on this post is the horrible App Switching interface. Trying to find the window you just had open was a flipping nightmare, I would have an App open on the left monitor then want to go back to the desktop I had before. Clicking on the desktop on the right would not bring it up, and trying to find Desktop in the Metro screen was a pain as well. This is where App Switching would be nice and efficient, but it isn't. To bring up the App Switching interface you have to go to the Start "hot" corner, then slide your mouse up the side of the screen...but dont move it out of the window that appears or it will disappear again leaving you to start from scratch. And for some dumb reason Microsoft felt the need to make your current window list start from the top, as far as virtually possible from the Start button. Because why make it close and easy and a second quicker to use?

Office 2013 First Thoughts

I have not used Office 2013 as much as I had hope by midweek, but seeing as I decided to reinstall windows and dual boot I am hoping it will have a better impact on fully immersing myself in Windows 8. In the mean time however I did get the chance to show the new Office to some co-workers and we have a short list of our first takes on the system.

1. Windows 8 integration is not as great as it should be - Live tiles, launching to the desktop, and no notifications on the lock screen just irk me the wrong way. If you can give us that Microsoft then its just Office 2013 running on Windows 7 (which is how I would rather have it)

2. WHITE! - Every office product is wrapped in a blinding white sheet of snow, or ice, or maybe a snow cone with no flavoring. I have not found any way to change the default color scheme rending my eyes blinded after a few minutes of use.

3. Missing shortcut keys - Ok so the touch things are pretty nifty I must admit, but it would be nice to be able to do some document interaction from a keyboard too. Seeing as how most companies do not hand out touch screens I would think it would be a little important to add (especially with most not moving to Windows 8)

Honestly the only big change I have noticed is in Outlook, and the movement of the task/calendar bar on the right to roll-over menus down below. Without that it really just looks like a 2010 facelift more than a complete rehab of Office.

Office 15 - Out in the "Wild"

The Microsoft Office 15 Preview was released to the public today to the collective cringe of System Administrators everywhere. Spouting a new look, tweaks to all interfaces and launching along a social storm with access to yet another completely redesigned SharePoint, this could be one of the most confusing office releases yet (based on my experience today with the preview on Windows 8). I will be testing the software piece by piece over the next week and will give my best neutral review of the software and services.