I finally took the plunge and upgraded my work laptop to Windows Vista. I opted for Windows Vista Business 64-bit when I ordered this laptop, tried it, and promptly downgraded to Windows XP 32-bit. Now 8 months and some change later, I’m back to Vista 64. Day one was mostly install and patch patch patch, but I was able to be productive. Wrote a pair of scripts to help with some things.
First one checks to see if my network home directory is available, and if so it launches SyncToy to sync my network home with my local files. I set it javascript:void(0)up as a scheduled task that runs at log on and then runs every hour. That's working well so far. Much better than Offline Files did in Windows XP. More SyncToy stuff in a forthcoming post...
The other script uses the same logic to check to see if my laptop is at work or if I’m out of the office. If it detects that I’m in the office it will launch Office Communicator. If I’m out of the office Office Communicator doesn’t start. This is handy as Office Communicator can’t do anything if if can’t reach the internal Live Communications Server. Before the script I was always closing Office Communicator when I wasn’t using the VPN. It’s much less annoying now. Download PersonalLogonScript.vbs
The other challenge so far is that a few applications are not 100% happy under 64-bit Windows. Specifically, Exchange 2003 admin tools and our helpdesk software. The helpdesk software mostly works, but has the occasional odd quirk. To work around the quirks I have Windows XP setup in a virtual machine. I’ll have the Exchange admin tools running under the VM soon, but getting the WinXP VM going was another install and patch fest.
Hopefully tomorrow goes well...
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