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Welcome to OUR GLOBAL IT COMMUNITY.

Bringing together top IT experts, IT professionals and you to find solutions to today's biggest IT challenges. Ask for expert advice, post a solution and surround yourself with IT knowledge.

MEET THE EXPERTS

Brian Milne
Brian Milne
Daniel Petri
Daniel Petri
Debra Shinder
Debra Shinder
Lawrence Abrams
Lawrence Abrams
Lowell Heddings
Lowell Heddings
Jenny Stout
Jenny Stout

Expert Profile

Andrew Edney

Andrew Edney

I’M ANDREW EDNEY, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, USINGWINDOWSHOMESERVER.COM
I’ve been an IT professional for more than 13 years and have worked for high-tech companies, such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Fujitsu Services. I’ve been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional status two years running for Windows Home Server. I’m the author of 11 books on topics ranging from Windows Home Server to Windows 7. I hold MSc in Network Technologies and Management, an MCSE, and numerous MCPs. I’m also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Certified Ethical Hacker.

Contributions

8

My Answers

Question:

Will Internet Explorer implement established web standards?

November 29, 2009 at 11:11 PM
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Answer:
Michel

Thats a very good question.

Unfortunately it is not a question that can be answered. My guess is that eventually future versions of Internet Explorer will make it easier for web site developers to do more with, but until such time that information is released about future versions it is really a case of waiting.

Information about Internet Explorer 9 should start appearing now that PDC has happened, so I think it is a case of keep your eyes open on information about IE9 and see if that is any better for you.

Andrew Edney
UsingWindowsHomeServer.com
Question:

32-bit software on 64-bit system?

November 29, 2009 at 11:11 PM
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Answer:
Michael

Good question - my first piece of advice would be to go straight to WIndows 7 and skip Vista. I have nothing against Vista but if you are upgrading anyway you may as well get as much out of your investment as possible, and Windows is just that bit better than Vista.

As for your 32 bit issue - there are a couple of different possibilities.

Firstly, the software will work fine. I am currently running a number of 32 bit applications on my Windows 7 64 bit machine.

Secondly, you could look at using the Windows Compatibility mode if they dont run correctly.

And your other option, as you have mentioned, is XP mode.

I would suggest trying them in that order.

Andrew Edney
UsingWindowsHomeServer.com
Question:

Preventing data leakage in a corporate environment?

November 23, 2009 at 5:11 AM
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Answer:
I havent looked much at the new version of RMS, but I did look quite a lot at the previous version for a project I was involved in at the time.

RMS certainly has some really great features, but there were a couple of things that put the client off at the time:

1 - it worked great with MS file types, everything else needed another product and the client wanted a single solution, which just didnt exist

2 - the information about who could do what which each file was added, per person, to each file. Now this information only added a very small amount of size to the file, but if you are talking about a lot of users the file size would go up a lot (not sure if that is still the case or not)

3 - the remote access side of things was not very nice (again, at the time).

Sorry I cant be of much more help, this was a few years ago!

Andrew Edney
UsingWindowsHomeServer.com
Question:

Keeping our laptops patched, updated and secure?

November 22, 2009 at 1:11 AM
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Answer:
I have to agree with Lawrence. The only real way you can do anything close to what you want to do would be to implement group policies on each of the machines, and really lock them down to stop each user from doing whatever they want.
You can also implement something like WSUS (the Windows Software Update Service) to ensure that all the machines get the latest updates and patches.
You should also consider standardising on one operating system rather than having two different ones - in the long run it will make your support life easier and updating the software easier.

The bottom line is that you want it to be easy without being too restrictive - well heres the problem! In order to do what you want and to make sure it stays that way it has to be restrictive.

And as Lawrence suggested, there are many programs out there that do disk encryption. BitLocker is a good example if you are running the correct version of Vista, otherwise something I really like is TryeCrypt.

Sorry I couldnt give you a more easy solution!

Andrew Edney
UsingWindowsHomeServer.com
Question:

How can we rid our network of a worm outbreak without taking our PCs out of commission?

December 8, 2009 at 1:12 PM
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Answer:
Howard

Lowell beat me to the response, and he pretty much said exactly what I would have said.

It worries me that you are being repeatedly hit by worms the "sneak" past your security. Zero Day attacks do happen, but not that often to well protected networks so you really should look at stopping the attacks from happening rather than trying to come up with an easy way to fix it when it does happen.

Andrew Edney
UsingWindowsHomeServer.com