Operating Systems

Here are two Outlook migration tips I thought readers might want to know about. The first tip has to do with upgrading ANSI .pst files to UNICODE files.

Attaching a remote drive or directory on a Windows box is called "drive mapping" though the process is essentially the same as what we call mounting in the Unix world. While I rarely spend any significant time working on the Windows end of a Samba connection, I recently had an opportunity to assist a user who was tired of repeatedly having to manually connect directories from a couple of Solaris servers equipped with samba for sharing directories with select Windows desktops. The solution was to whip up a batch file that mapped the drives on login. Batch files, though far less sophisticated than their Unix shell script counterparts, nonetheless have many of the important features that I have become accustomed to working with on my Unix systems. These include such things as redirection, testable return codes, the ability to test for the existence of a file and the equivalent of /dev/null for discarding command output, errors and all.

While Wednesday marked the official unveiling of Oracle Corp.'s 11g database and a look at its new features, pricing and availability information was pretty thin on the ground. All the vendor would confirm is that the Linux version of 11g will ship this quarter, probably in August.

So last week we took the plunge and migrated our workstations to Office 2007, mainly so we could take advantage of the new Outlook and the cool ribbon bar or ribbon or whatever you want to call it. Very nice, but after only a few days, I found myself in trouble. I was trying to do something , and accidentally deleted the Unread Mail folder under my Favorite Folders. This raised the question of how to get it back. It's easy to create a new favorite by dragging a folder from the Mail Folders pane into the Favorite Folders pane, but unfortunately there's no Unread Mail folder in the Mail Folders pane

Google Inc. still hopes to influence changes that Microsoft Corp. plans to make in Vista's desktop search function, even after the parties involved in Microsoft's 2002 antitrust settlement agreed to alterations to the search system.

About 2,600 Web sites are already running Microsoft Corp.'s forthcoming Windows Server 2008, a small but increasing number that indicates rising interest in the OS, according to new statistics from Netcraft Ltd.

Microsoft Corp. has forced developers to close down a project aimed at reviving the original Windows client code-named "Longhorn."

The latest status report on Microsoft Corp.'s compliance with an antitrust settlement in the U.S. has cleared the company of a separate accusation of not complying with orders to disclose information to make its products more interoperable.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Tuesday that Microsoft Corp. has agreed to make "significant changes" in its new Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case.

There are lots of different ways you can approach building an enterprise Windows network. Some of these ways are supportable though while others aren't. A supportable network is one you can administer easily and where you can get help from Microsoft Customer Support Services (which was formerly called and still frequently referred to as Product Support Services or PSS). An unsupportable network however is one that has become difficult to administer, and if it gets really bad then CSS may tell you that your only option is to flatten and rebuild everything from scratch. Clearly it's better to keep your Windows-based network supportable than let it become unsupportable. How do you do that?