MVP Global Summit 2011

Sunday, February 27, 2011
Today, I'm leaving for the Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2011 at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA. This is one of the benefits of being an MVP and is held every year about this time.  This will be my first time attending the Summit, and I'm really looking forward to it.  Last year I was on vacation in Hawaii during the Summit,...
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Script to Force Download of the Lync 2010 Address Book

Thursday, February 24, 2011
I wrote a script (batch file, really) that users can run to force a download of the Lync address book.  The Lync address book is generated automatically on the Lync server every 24 hours at 1:30AM, local server time.  You can use the Update-CsAddressBook cmdlet on the Lync server to force the server to update the address book. ...
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New Server Virtualization in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Whitepaper

Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Microsoft has released a new whitepaper on Server Virtualization in Microsoft Lync Server 2010.  This document outlines a series of best practice recommendations for running Lync Server 2010 in a virtualized environment. The document replaces the first virtualization support whitepaper with new sizing guidelines, as shown above. ...
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The Lync Server 2010, Best Practices Analyzer

Thursday, February 17, 2011
In the tradition of the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer tool, Microsoft has released the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (and Lync) Best Practices Analyzer. You can use Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Best Practices Analyzer to identify and resolve problems with your Lync Server deployment. The Lync Server 2010, Best Practices...
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Installing Lync 2010 Without Domain Admin Rights

Wednesday, February 16, 2011
I recently installed Lync Server 2010 at a customer where I did not have Domain Admin rights.  This presents a challenge, since setting up Lync Server requires various updates to Active Directory.  The online documentation isn't very clear on on this, so that's the purpose of this article. Before you get started installing Lync, you will need to update the schema and prepare both the forest and the domains.  The...
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Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 SP1 Releases to Manufacturing Today

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Microsoft Windows Server Team announced today that Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 was released to manufacturing (RTM) today.  Along with numerous bug fixes and security improvements, SP1 offers two significant new features: Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX. Dynamic Memory pools all the memory available on a...
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Lync 2010 Visio Stencils

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Creating visual representations of your Microsoft Lync Server 2010 topology is a helpful way to communicate your Lync Server 2010 deployment. Using standard Microsoft Visio stencils helps those in your organization to better understand how you architect your Microsoft Lync 2010 by experiencing your deployment visually. Together, Lync Server...
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Deploying the Lync 2010 Client to different architectures

Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Lync Server 2010 client is a single unified communications client that replaces both the Office Communicator and Live Meeting clients.  This single client performs all the functions of the previous clients, including instant messaging (IM), web conferencing, white boarding, desktop sharing, and enterprise voice. There are two versions...
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Adding users to local security groups using Group Policy

Thursday, February 3, 2011
You may find that you need to add users to one or more local groups, such as Power Users or Administrators, on their computer.  While you can do this fairly easily on a case by case basis, it's a lot more difficult to do in a large distributed environment.  This can be accomplished much easier using the Restricted Groups GPO...
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