The colder months are here, and many families in our community are struggling to stay warm. 
Tech, Web, Cloud & Cabling Services
The colder months are here, and many families in our community are struggling to stay warm.
Windows10 Enterprise
Microsoft on Tuesday said that some 200 million enterprise workers now run Windows 10, a sign that corporations and other businesses are close to schedule to scrub Windows 7 from their machines before that older OS retires in about 20 months, an analyst argued.
“The 200 million resonates with me, based on what I’m hearing from clients,” said Stephen Kleynhans of Gartner Research. Migrations to Windows 10, he added, are progressing “pretty aggressively.”
Joe Belfiore, a corporate vice president who leads the Windows 10 team, revealed the number at Microsoft’s Build developers conference Tuesday. “Right now, there are over 200 million people in corporate accounts using Windows 10,” Belfiore said as he claimed deployment is “really ramping up” in the enterprise. “We’ve seen that [Windows 10] adoption rate increase now at 79% year-over-year growth.”
The day before, Microsoft contended that “nearly 700 million” devices are running Windows 10 worldwide. On that basis, enterprises accounted for less than 30% of all copies of Windows 10.
(Although the two numbers – Belfiore’s 200 million people using Windows 10 in corporate settings and Microsoft’s 700 million devices powered by the operating system – measured two different things, it’s not uncommon for Microsoft to obfuscate this way to prevent direct comparisons. In actuality, because Microsoft typically sells licenses on a per user basis, with multiple devices allowed for each user, 200 million people may be using more than that number of Windows 10 devices.)
While neither the percentage nor the 200 million are to be sneezed at, the former is significantly less than the average overall for commercial PCs, which have historically accounted for more than half – 55% has been an often-cited figure – of all personal computers.
And while Kleynhans did not dispute Microsoft’s claim of 200 people running Windows 10 in the enterprise, he sounded a bit disappointed in the number. “Is it a low number? It’s a little behind where I thought it would be,” Kleynhans said, noting that he expected it to be around 250 million by this point, perhaps even close to 300 million.
That 2009 operating system will fall off Microsoft’s support list on Jan. 14, 2020, meaning that while Windows 7 will continue to work as before, the Redmond, Wash. will stop distributing security updates to it.
It’s unrealistic to expect that all commercial customers will have purged Windows 7 by the retirement date, Kleynhans said, pointing out that he has recently spoken with clients who still run some instances of Windows XP (retired from support in 2014) and even Windows 98 (2006).
“What we [Gartner] expect is that enterprises will get to the 85%-90% level by the deadline,” Kleynhans said of the percentage of corporate devices shifted to Windows 7, “maybe even a little higher than that.” Nothing that’s happened has changed that estimate, he added.
“There are always laggards,” Kleynhans said.
According to other metrics, there may be a considerable number of them.
Estimates from analytics vendors, including U.S.-based Net Applications, which measure user and usage shares, signal that a large resorvoir of Windows 7 users will remain after the operating system’s retirement in 20 months. Net Applications’ latest data, for example, drove a Computerworld forecast that of the world’s Windows personal computers – all the PCs, not just those in the enterprise – 42% would still be running Windows 7 in January 2020, a much larger percentage than the 29% powered by Windows XP when that edition fell off the support list in April 2014.
In the end, large organizations will do what it takes to get off Windows 7 and onto Windows 10 by the former’s support cut-off date. The 200 million touted by Belfiore this week will be quite different a year from now, Kleynhans was certain.
“The speed with which I see Windows 10 moving now, it’s not going to be an issue,” he said.
Windows 10 deployment is, like previous iterations of the OS, on a timetable not of its own making. Instead, because of the vagarities of Microsoft’s historical release schedule and corporate acceptance (or rejection) of some editions, there is a clock ticking on Windows 10 because of the impending retirement of the current corporate standard, Windows 7.
Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/
South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.
Depending on how your Windows servers are configured, you may need to disable SSL v3.
Note that older versions of Internet Explorer may not have the TLS protocol enabled by default. If you disable SSL versions 2.0 and 3.0, the older versions of Internet Explorer will need to enable the TLS protocol before they can connect to your site.
DigiCert is not responsible for any complications or problems if you decide to use this .zip file to disable the SSL v3 protocol on your server.
If you prefer to do it yourself, follow the steps in the instruction below.
For instructions about disabling browser support for the SSL v3 protocol, see Disabling Browser Support for the SSL 3.0.
After performing an in-place upgrade on a Windows machine, you will find a WINDOWS.OLD folder in the root of C:. This folder will have a backup of your old program files, appdata and Windows folder… just in case you need to revert back or recover something that might have been lost during the upgrade. When you try to delete it though you are told you don’t have permissions. Just a small point here, it is generally not recommended to do in-place upgrades on servers. In fact there are some products (e.g. Exchange, ConfigMgr) that explicitly state they do not support upgrading the Operating System. There is of course a difference between “what works” and “what is supported”, but we do suggest where possible you do a clean Server install and migrate your application to the new server. Anyway, let’s assume you’ve understand all the risks and have done a successful in-place upgrade, you now find the old WINDOWS.OLD folder of several GB in size sitting there. If all is well, then you might as well just delete it.
On Desktop OS version, you can just use the disk cleanup tool to remove it, but that is not available (by default) on Servers, so there are a couple of approaches.
How can I delete the windows.old from an upgraded Windows Server?
For a client OS that’s upgraded, the Disk Cleanup utility can be used to delete the very large windows.old folder containing the old OS. This isn’t available on a server OS without installing the Desktop Experience feature.
To delete, it is necessary to take ownership of the folder, give administrators full control, then delete. This can be done with the commands below:
Step By Step Guide to Enabling “Disk Cleanup Utility”
To open the roes and feauture wizard. Lauch the “server manager” by pressing the Windows key
and clicking on the server manage please see Screenshot as shown.
Personally, the command line option is less messy and saves having to add features to your server that don’t really need to be there.
Click on add role and feture to launch the add role and feature wizard.
Choose rolebase or feature based installation to install to local machine.
Click “next” all the way to features. Locate “User Interface and Infrastructure”. Click on “Desktop Experience”
and install additional required feature.
Make it sure that you reboot the system
Ready to run diskcleanup. See screen shot below.
Below is a sample snapshot of disk cleanup in action.
What’s your company’s policy on employees using social media in the workplace?
Many companies today are still fearful of employees using social media, especially while at work. Employer concerns range from loss of productivity, industry espionage, confidentiality breaches, and public complaints about the company and/or its managers. As a result, some companies have requested access to employee (or potential employee) Facebook profiles, as well as blocked access to social networking sites while at the office.
In contrast, other companies — for example RingCentral — encourage employee engagement on social media. There are multiple benefits to embracing employees using social media in the workplace, as illustrated by the below infographic from SilkRoad, a cloud-based social talent management solution. At RingCentral, we prefer that employees get involved with our social media channels, and we encourage them to share news about the company through their personal social networks. To prevent any confusion, we implemented a social media corporate policy that clarifies the dos and don’ts of participating in social networks as a RingCentral employee. The net net? The benefits of employees on social networks far outweigh the negatives.
Is your company supportive of employees using social media?
Takeaway: Risks with staying with Windows XP after April 8, 2014.
Since being release worldwide on October 25, 2001, Windows XP has become one of the most popular versions of Windows. OEM and retail sales of Windows XP ended in June 2008, while smaller OEMs continued to sell the Operating System until January of 2009.
On April 10, 2012, Microsoft officially announced that as of April 8, 2014 they will end extended support for Windows XP and Office 2003, after which no new bug fixes or patches will be issued.
Organizations may be taking a spontaneous risk and assume that Window’s XP’s prolonged life means major vulnerabilities have been acknowledged and dealt with. If XP were secure, there still might be application-level vulnerabilities. Even the ranges of security breaches are inadequate to persuade some organizations that are still using Windows XP to upgrade. The dynamics that have safeguarded XP’s success are now working against the organizations that stuck by the operating system.
A major aspect attackers assess during their investigation is the operating system and the applications used within an organization. With Microsoft ending their support, the vendors for applications running on it will most likely end support.
On the other hand, those preparing to continue using XP after the cut-off date, are going to be in a unpleasant situation trying to protect their intellectual property, but can take certain steps to limit exposure to risk. There are specific technologies you could deploy that will permit you to remain using legacy systems. Mitigating technologies like Host-Based Intrusion Protection will be able to identify that a vulnerability exists and make that vulnerability difficult/impossible to exploit by applying a virtual patch to those non-supported environments.
However, XP’s acceptance is down to the technology itself and an operating system format that people are content with. The significant changes with Windows Vista, Windows 7 and especially Windows 8 are the reason people are resistant to change.
Long Emails Don’t Get ReadYou may take email for granted. However, effective email communication is as much a skill as anything else. When used effectively, email can be a powerful tool. However, one of the top email inefficiencies is message length. One of the top reasons your email isn’t getting read is because it is too long. Writing long emails doesn’t mean you are getting more work done. As people are fighting to get their inbox to empty, the last thing they want to do is read a multi-page rambling email.
Resist the urge to write long and drawn out messages. If you find yourself writing long responses, you probably should be having a conversation, not an email writing contest. The shorter and tighter your email messages, the better chance that they will be read, understood and acted upon.
In today’s high-speed communication, no one wants to read overly long email messages. If your emails are brief and to the point, your recipients will be more likely to get the point. Remember that short and sweet will beat the 3-page email every time.
Takeaway: From diagnostic tools to antivirus to backup utilities, this list of freebies will help you do more with less.
If you’re trying to stretch a thin IT budget, you probably can’t afford a lot of pricey tools. Luckily, a number of highly useful tools are available for free. Some of them even work better and are more efficient than their costlier alternatives.
When the standard antivirus/malware software can’t seem to find the problem, ComboFix almost always does. It also looks for and removes most rootkits and Trojans. To use this tool, you must completely disable all antivirus solutions (and you should completely remove AVG). Caution: If ComboFix is not used properly, it can wreak havoc on the machine you’re trying to fix.
ProduKey will help you get product keys from installed applications so that when you need to migrate to a new machine, you can continue using those costly licenses. ProduKey will recover keys from more than 1,000 software titles, including Microsoft Office, Adobe, and Symantec. When you use this tool, you will have both the product ID and the product key; the ID is important because it will tell you which version of the software is installed.
Hiren’s BootCD is a one-stop-shop Linux boot disk that can help you pull off a number of small miracles. Its tools include Antivir, ClamWin, ComboFix, Clonedisk, Image for Windows, BIOS Cracker, 7-Zip, Bulk Rename, Mini Windows XP, CCleaner, and Notepad++, among others. This single bootable disk could easily be the only tool you need.
Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the better free antivirus tools available. Its tagline, “The anti-annoying, anti-expensive, anti-virus program,” is true. When the firm I work with was looking for a new free solution, we tested Microsoft Security Essentials against AVG Free and Avast Free and found Microsoft Security Essentials to be superior, less intrusive, and less resource intensive.
Note: Microsoft Security Essentials can be used for free for up to 10 PCs. Beyond that, you can purchase the business version, System Center Endpoint Protection.
WinDirStat is the program you need when you must know what is taking up the space on a hard drive. When C drives begin to fill up, performance degrades rapidly. It’s essential to have a tool to help you discern what is gobbling up the precious space on a machine, and WinDirStat is the foremost app for getting this information quickly.
CCleaner gets rid of temporary files and Windows Registry problems faster than any other tool. When a machine is having problems, this is almost always the tool I use first. CCleaner also helps ensure privacy by getting rid of traces left behind (such as cookies) by Web browsers.
Note: It is legal to use CCleaner Free for business use. However, CCleaner Business Editioncomes with a few more features (including one-click cleaning) than the free version.
Defraggler blows away the defragmenting application in all Windows operating systems. It’s faster, more reliable, and more flexible than the built-in tools. With Defraggler, you can defrag a single file or an entire drive. Defraggler supports NTFS and FAT32 systems.
7-Zip is the best file archiver/compression tool (outside of Linux command-line tools). It’s open source and works on multiple platforms. Once you install it, you will find 7-Zip has Explorer support and a simple GUI tool that any level of user can manage.
SyncBack is a reliable, easy-to-use backup utility. No, you won’t be recovering from bare metal, but you can save your precious data. SyncBack can synchronize data to the same drive, a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc.), an FTP server, a network, or a zip archive.
FileZilla reminds you that the cloud has not made FTP useless. There are plenty of reasons you might need FTP, so why not use one of the best and most cost effective FTP clients? And if you need an easy-to-use FTP server to slap up on your Windows machines, FileZilla has one.
Configure PC for better Appearance
Start Windows 7 Themes Service
Problem: Themes Service Cannot Be Started
Often the reason why your Windows 7 theme could be stuck on classic is that your PC is configured to be optimized for better performance. I could imagine that some laptops are even pre-configured that way. Actually, it’s a good setting, but if you want a better appearance I can understand that it’s annoying to be stuck on “classic” theme. So, if you can’t change your Windows 7 theme, you might want to check your PC configuration first:
1. StepOpen the Control Panel
2. Click on “System and Security”:
3. Step Click on “System”.
4. Step In the sidebar, click on “Advanced System Settings”:
5. Go to the tab “Advanced” and click on “Settings”:
6. Step Scroll down the list, at the bottom double-check that the item “Use Visual Styles on Windows and Buttons” is checked. If this is not checked, your Windows 7 theme will be stuck on “classic” for a long time, because this completely disables your fancy visual Aero appearance.
This is also often the problem why people can’t seem to be able to active the Windows 7 Aero theme, because their PC is configured to be optimized for the best performance and not the best appearance.
If your Windows 7 themes service is not started your Windows 7 theme will be stuck on “classic”. You can’t change your Windows 7 theme when the theme service is disabled. So, let’s check if your themes service is up and running.
1. Step Click on “Start” and enter “services.msc” into the search field. Click on the item that appears.
2. Step Scroll down the list until you find the item “Themes” (or enter Themes while one item is selected)
3. StepYou will now see if the Themes service is running currently and what mode it is in (Automatic, Disabled, Manual):
If it’s currently “Disabled” or in “Manual” mode and not started, you have to start it manually and change the mode to “Automatic”.
4. StepDouble-click on “Themes” and from the dropdown select “Automatic”, click on “Start” and then on “Apply”.
Microsoft’s Cloud Solutions Partner are here to help.
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: http://southjerseytechies.net/
South Jersey Techies, LLC is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.
To read this article in its entirety click here.
5 things to do before giving an old iPhone or iPad to your kid
Don’t hand over an aging iOS device to your eager youngster before doing a little kid-proofing first.
Like it or not, little kids love iPhones and iPads. They love to look at them, they love to tap and swipe the screen, they love playing iPhone games, and most of all, they love watching videos on them. (“Curious George” is my daughter’s favorite—for this week at least.) Giving your little ones a hand-me-down iOS device is an easy way to satisfy their desire for a screen of their own—my kid is the proud owner of an iPhone 3GS and a third-generation iPad. That said, you shouldn’t hand over your old iPhone or iPad without doing some kid-proofing first. Read on for five ways to prep an aging iPhone or iPad for your youngster, from wiping your data and setting up a child’s iCloud account to blocking web access and keeping her from racking up in-app charges on your credit card.
Before you hand over your old iPhone to your kids, you’ll want to make sure any and all of your personal data has been wiped clean. The best way to do so is to perform a “factory” reset, which wipes the iPhone’s storage and returns it to its factory settings.
Naturally, you should first make sure you’ve backed up any old iPhone or iPad data you want to preserve. You may already have taken care of this step if you’ve previously upgraded to a new iPhone or iPad and restored your data from iCloud. If not, tap Settings, tap your iCloud profile, then tap iCloud > Backup > Back Up Now. You can also back up your old iPhone or iPad by connecting it to your Mac or PC and syncing it with iTunes.
Once you’re satisfied that your data is safe and sound, go ahead and wipe the device. Tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. Once the reset is complete, your old iPhone or iPad will return to its factory settings, just like the day it came out of the box.
While it may seem a little soon to, say, create an Apple ID for a toddler, take it from me: it won’t be long before your onesie-clad cutie is walking, talking and pleading for an iPhone upgrade—and when that happens, it’ll be easier to migrate her data and apps if she already has her own iCloud account.
Even if your kid is younger than 13 years old, she can still have her own iCloud account and Apple ID. All you need to do is create the account under iOS’s “Family Sharing” umbrella. With her iCloud account, your child will be able to sign in to an old iPhone or iPad, download apps, and even purchase items from the App Store—only with your approval, of course.
Also, keep in mind that just because she has an iCloud account, your daughter or son won’t be able to start web surfing, tweeting, or posting selfies on Instagram without your say-so. (More on iOS’s parental controls in a moment.)
You can create a child’s iCloud account directly on your own iPhone or iPad. Just tap Settings, tap your iCloud username, then tap Family Sharing > Add Family Member > Create an Apple ID for a child.
You’ll need to enter your kid’s birthday, agree to some disclosures and legalese, choose a payment method for App Store purchases (which, again, you can control and/or block), then choose an Apple ID username and password.
By default, your kid’s new iCloud account won’t let her make App Store purchases without your consent. To double-check the “Ask to Buy” setting, tap Settings, tap your iCloud account name, then tap Family Sharing and your kid’s name.
Once you’ve got your old iPhone or iPad set up with your child’s new iCloud account, it’s time to make some decisions on which iOS features will be fair game for your kid, and which will be off-limits.
Tap Settings > General > Restrictions > Enable Restrictions, then create a Restrictions passcode.
Next, scroll down and disable all the iOS features that you’d rather your kid not mess with. You’ll probably want to disable Safari and the iTunes store right away. You may also want to block your child from installing apps, and if you don’t want your little one snapping a million photos of their crib, you might want to nix the Camera app, too.
In the “Allowed Content” section, make sure to disable in-app purchases, as well as block music with explicit music and any grown-up movies, TV shows and books.
In the Privacy section, you can control which apps can access location services, contacts, the microphone, and more on your kid’s iPhone.
At the bottom of the Restrictions screen, you can also disable access to multiplayer games, friend adding, and screen recording for any Game Center-ready games.
Even after you’ve thoroughly managed all of iOS’s Restrictions settings, you may still see some home-screen icons on your kid’s iPhone or iPad that you’d rather she not mess with. For example, the Settings icon should probably stay out of her hands, as well as the Mail app, Game Center, and the App Store.
Here’s what I did before I gave my daughter my old iPhone: I hid all those various Apple apps in a “Hidden” folder in the very last iOS home screen. To create a home screen folder, drag one app icon on top of another, name the folder, then start dragging other app icons into the newly created folder.
Naturally, older kids who are a bit more iOS savvy may quickly sniff out the “Hidden” folder. My five-year-old, for example, knows exactly where I’ve tucked away the Settings icon, but she doesn’t really care—probably because tapping Settings won’t get her any closer to Curious George.
One way to make sure your little one doesn’t wander into a grown-up corner of the Internet on her iPhone is to cut off Internet access altogether, and the easiest way to do that is to turn on Airplane mode. (Of course, you can kiss Airplane mode goodbye once your children start clamoring for the streaming PBS Kids video app, which they’ll do once they hit about 3 or so.)
Just tap Settings, then flip on the Airplane Mode switch.
If your old iPhone or iPad is running on iOS 6 or later, you may also want to disable home-screen and in-app access to Control Center, the flip-up control panel that includes an Airplane Mode button, To do so, tap Settings > Control Center, then switch off the Access on Lock Screen and Access Within Apps settings. That won’t completely disable Control Center, but at least it’ll make it a tad more challenging to find.
Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/
South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.
To read this article in its entirety click here.
CALL US NOW!
