Filed under: Technical Support, Technology
The Windows 7 Release Candidate is now available to the public for download. I have been using this as my primary workstation operating system since it was available for download via MSDN. So far, I am more impressed by this operating system over Windows Vista. It is more user friendly than Vista now that I don’t get prompted for administrative rights. Internet Explorer 8 does have its issues as it indicates that a page is not responding when it actually is still download and rendering content. Overall, it seems pretty solid and looks promising for the future.
However that being said, I would still prefer a Mac with its multimedia capabilities over a PC!
Filed under: Technical Support, Technology
Anyone who is using Windows Vista had better be forewarned. If you think that the security restrictions around Windows Vista and Windows 2008 server are harsh, things are only going to get tougher with Service Pack 1. It appears that Service Pack 1 can break common third-party apps which includes anti virus, firewalls and shock detection software to name a few. InfoWorld also reports that Vista SP1 can run up to 40% slower than Windows XP SP3. With all of the interoperability and performance issues, I am now wondering if it is better to wait until Windows Vista SP2 before I even consider an upgrade from Windows XP.
Filed under: Notes/Domino, Sametime, Technical Support, Technology
The Windows Server 2008 package for x86 architectures finally showed up on the MSDN site last week. I finally got some time over the weekend to install this in a VMWare environment. Since Windows Server 2008 had adopted many of the features available in Microsoft Windows Vista and there is definitely a learning curve. Some of the aspects which have been adopted are the security architecture and the Windows Activation wizard. Overall, the operating system seems to startup quicker and run quicker. However once you get into the operating system, everything changes.
Activation Wizard
The Windows activation wizard has chanced and Microsoft has assigned a product key which is valid for three days. This prevents users from having to provide a product key immediately during the installation process. One tip when activating windows is to go into the Server Configuration option to Change Product Key before you try and activate. This was the only way I was able to activate Windows.
Notes/Domino/Sametime
Now being a person that always wants to try the latest toys out, I decided to attempt an install of Domino and Sametime on Windows 2008 Server. This is configuration is NOT SUPPORTED, and based on the results of my attempt, I would not recommend that anyone try to install Notes, Domino or Sametime on Windows 2008 Server until it is officially supported by IBM. That being said, let me describe my results to you. Since Windows 2008 server adopted many of the security features, this means that changes will need to be made to the way Domino and Sametime operate.
When attempting to install Domino, the installer went through smoothly however launching the server configuration application was problematic. It appears that even as the administrator of the machine, Windows still requires the application to be launched manually. After launching Domino server configuration application with Administrator rights, I was able to complete the Domino configuration and carry onto the next step….launching the server. So the moment of truth comes, will the Domino server launch? The answer is yes. To launch the Domino server I had to run some of the modules in Windows 2003 compatibility mode and also set the “Run as Administrator” option. Also, once the server launches I was unable to use the “Interact with Desktop” option to see the Domino server console on the OS level. However the server console could be accessed via the Domino Administrator client.
Sametime components
After the Domino server was installed, I started my testing on the Sametime server. The Sametime install went through flawlessly again to my relief. I did get the “operating system you are installing on is not supported” message, however it did not prevent the install from proceeding. After the server was installed, I fired up domino and after several minutes all services appeared to be started. When testing, it appears that there were problems accessing meetings directly from the Windows 2008 server with Sun Java 1.5. I still need to do some additional testing to verify the other functionality.
To conclude, I would strongly recommend that any administrator out there think twice before installing Domino and Sametime on a Windows 2008 Server. It is not supported and there are definitely a few kinks (which I’m sure our development team is aware of) which need to be worked out.
Filed under: Sametime, Technical Support, Technology
Recently our support center has received a flurry of calls regarding performance of Sametime Meetings. After some in-depth investigations by our development team and network engineer, we have found something can really boost performance. Windows 2003 SP1 introduced the scalable network pack. Sound impressive doesn’t it? Actually this feature can reduce the performance of the network to a point where network apps will run slower and meetings may sporatically disconnect. We have found that after disabling this feature, network app performance improves dramatically.
So how do you disable it?
To Disable TCP Chimney, navigate to the following registry key and set the value to 0. (Note: You have to reboot the server after this registry change)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesTcpipParameters]
”EnableTCPChimney”=dword:00000000
If that does help with the situation, you could also try disabling the following offloading keys under the above registry hive to disable the RSS features.
”EnableTCPA”= dword:00000000
”EnableRSS”= dword:00000000
Filed under: Technology
Windows 2008 is coming and coming very very soon. Anyone who has access to MSDN will see that Windows 2008 x64 edition has been released and the 32-bit edition should be coming out shortly. Right now the worldwide launch of the operating system is scheduled for February 28th. Now everyone remembers what was said about Vista being the most secure operating system ever. Microsoft is making the same claim about Windows 2008. According to the documentation, Windows 2008 should have some new benefits which will make the OS run faster and more efficiently. I’m still waiting to get my grubby little hands on the 32-bit gold code. I’ll post my opinions once I have a chance to take it for a test drive.
Posted on May 5th, 2009 by Andy Yiu
No Comments »