Installing Vista (Longhorn) Beta 1 on Virtual PC

I was just trying to fire up my Windows Vista (Longhorn) Beta 1 into a copy of Microsoft Virtual PC and ran into a similar problem that I had with some of the previous Alpha builds. The built in formatting/partitioning tools couldn't create a proper partition for Virtual PC. In the past this required me to start with a Virtual PC image from an XP system that already had a partition on it. Then reformat this existing partition and continue with the Longhorn install.

But luckily this time around, i found a handy blog entry with some steps on how to get this partition created from scratch on a blank VPC image using DISKPART from the command prompt during the install. Check it out.

It seems to have worked for me. Looks like Beta 1 is installing as I type.

Next OS from Microsoft will be called Vista

Just announced today, the previously code-named "Longhorn" operating system, will be called "Microsoft Vista". The Microsoft Vista webpage is already up.

I'm already enrolled to receive the first beta release and i'm very much looking forward to it. Hopefully its a few steps beyond some of the alpha builds that i've had. Sounds like Beta 1 will be out in a few weeks. I'll post my thoughts once i've had a chance to play with it.

Release dates set for SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005

At Microsoft's Tech Ed conference this week, they have finally announced the release date for Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006. They will be launched the week of November 7, 2005. You can click here to visit the official launch site on MSDN for future news and updates.

Great Plains now supports SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4

Recently Microsoft released Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2000. Now Microsoft Business Solutions has announced that Great Plains 7.5 and 8.0 will support SQL 2000 SP4.

Customers and Partners can hit this link to view the latest list of requirements for Great Plains 8.0.

Great Plains Extender and SmartList Builder now available for download

Two of the most anticipated products in the "Great Plains 8.0 Extensions" release are now available for download. These are Extender and SmartList Builder. They are both OEM'd products from eOne Solutions. Extender allows you to customize your Great Plains windows and add additional fields to the system without the need to write any Dexterity code. SmartList Builder allows you to create custom SmartLists that can address modules not typically available in the out-of-the-box SmartLists and you can also build SmartLists for third party products.

Customers and Partners can download them from these links:

Great Plains Extender
Great Plains SmartList Builder

Also, Customers and Partners can go to this site and get all sort of info on Great Plains 8.0 Extensions and links to download the other new modules.

Great Plains "Report Pack" now available for SQL Reporting Services

Just released is a collection SQL Reporting Services reports for Great Plains 8.0. You can download the new report pack right here. Below is a list of the reports that are included. Also just released is a new report pack to run against your IIS log files to get all sorts of info on the activity of your web servers.

• Commissions Report - Shows sales commissions by territory, salesperson, and year. Expand a territory to view sales commissions by a salesperson, or expand a year to view quarterly commissions by territory.
• Customer Profitability Report - Shows sales, total profit, and gross margin percentage per customer for the selected year. Expand customer ID to view the sales, total profit, and gross margin percentage by document number.
• Inventory Value by Site Report - Shows a bar graph of the value of inventory by site and the total inventory value for the company. Click an inventory site bar to display the Inventory Value by Site. Use the Item Number Report to view items and their total value for that site.
• Item Quantity Back Order Report - Shows the quantity of items that are back ordered, quantities that are allocated to purchase orders, and item quantities available for all sites. Expand each item number to view item quantities for all sites.
• Open Purchase Orders Report - Shows purchase orders that have not been closed or canceled per vendor or for all vendors. The report also displays in a list view the number, status, and date of each purchase order, along with the vendor assigned to the purchase order. Expand each purchase order to display the line items and the status of each line item.
• Open Sales Orders Report - Shows a list of unposted sales orders for a range of customers. The report displays in a list view the sales order number, the date of each sales order, customer information, the requested ship date, and the amount remaining on the order, as well as the salesperson assigned to the order. Expand each purchase order to display the line items and specific information about each line item.
• Work Center by Weeks - Employee Capacity Report - Shows the available work centers and the employee capacity of each work center by weeks.
• Work Center by Weeks - Machine Capacity Report - Shows the available work centers and the machine capacity of each work center by weeks.

I'm glad to see MBS start taking advantage of SQL Reporting Services. Also, the word on the street is that the next release of Microsoft CRM (CRM 2.0? CRM 2005?) will be yanking out Crystal Reports Enterprise and instead converting to SQL Reporting Services.

Microsoft Data Protection Server

Microsoft has a new product in the works. It's called Data Protection Server. It's a disk-based backup solution. It's a separate service like SQL or Exchange that would run on top of Windows 2003 Server. It sounds like Volume Shadow Copy on steroids. It takes snapshots of your files periodically throughout the day and stores them on the Data Protection Server. And like VSC, it will have a mechanism for allowing the users to restore their own backups, if they have accidentally overwritten or deleted a file for example.

You'll still need your tape backup solution, such as Backup Exec. DPS isn't intended to replace that just yet. It's just meant to provide a quicker, simpler way to recover your data for the majority of problems. Tapes will still be needed for long-term backups and the ability to move data out of the server itself and offsite of the facility in case of disasters.

The first release will be intended primarily to backup your file servers. Future versions should have the ability to target specific applications such as SQL and Exchange.

Sounds pretty interesting. It's still in development but you can go the DPS website and signup to be notified when the beta is released.