Is your IT department busy? Of course they are.

Do you want your IT professionals to focus on the most important tasks? Of course you do.

And the IT Engineers at Microsoft are swamped too. They have to choose where they will devote their best talents, their money, and their resources – and Microsoft is funneling their efforts into Windows 8.1. Not Windows 7.

Do you want to be a step ahead of your competition? You have to take risks. And guess what, this isn’t a real risk – it is a perceived risk.

Let your competitors wimp out. Now is your chance to move ahead! Start testing Windows 8.1 today.

If you choose to upgrade to Windows 7, and not Windows 8.1, you are making a real mistake. Stay tuned for more next week. We’ll handle the objections then.

Driving my 6 year old son to school the day after Halloween, he told me that some kids in the class got into trouble because they used blue and pink crayons to color a picture of a pumpkin. The teacher made those kids redo their pictures. My son was proud because he “colored it right the first time!” How dare that teacher. Since then, and for the rest of his life, I’m going to urge him to be different. Most successful people are. His only restriction is to be nice to others. As long as he isn’t hurting anyone, it is essential for him to “get out of the box!”

My intent is to stir up some anxiety and influence you to “get out of the box!”

The post Do NOT Upgrade to Windows 7! appeared first on Foster Institute.

Your problems are over. Think of the Microsoft Surface Pro as being an extremely powerful laptop computer packed into a very small size. Because that’s what it is.

When you edit a Microsoft Office document on your Surface Pro, you are actually using the real live Microsoft Office.

While Drop Box is a phenomenally useful app and you’ll continue to use it for other purposes, there is no need to use Drop Box to transfer files between your non-Microsoft devices and your Windows machine that sits on your desk. Since the Surface Pro is running Windows, you’ll see all of your familiar folders including “My Documents,” your C: drive, and even the network drives you use when connected to your network.

In fact, why not get rid of your old computer and just use the Surface Pro at your desk from now on. You can connect large monitors, keyboards, printers, and just about everything you want via a USB hub that you plug into the Surface Pro. Nobody even needs to notice since you keep using your same screens and keyboard as before. Then, when you are ready to leave the office, just unplug the single USB cord and head out carrying everything you need—all in a small portable device that is a “big laptop” packed into a very small package.

The post When a Surface Pro Computer is Better than an iPad appeared first on Foster Institute.

Your IT professionals have a great deal of control over what is, and is not, allowed into your computers. Furthermore, there is a great deal of control over what information is allowed out of a machine. These advanced settings can make the difference between your network being infected or not.

In case you wonder, your IT professionals can keep those users from modifying the firewall settings on their own. And, because of robust support for something IT professionals call GPOs, your IT professionals can configure all or even a subset of the computers in your organization rapidly and with just a moment’s notice.

As an executive, unless you already have a robust firewall in place, the “already included with Windows 7” firewall is worth serious consideration.

Please post your comments on this blog.

The post A powerful Windows built-in firewall appeared first on Foster Institute.

There are plenty of tools such as Boot Camp, VMware Fusion, Parallels, etc. that allow you to run Windows along with Apple’s OSX operating system.

In case you ever want to convert an Apple to run only Windows, click here to discover the technical steps I use.

Depending on your experience with the nuts and bolts of computer setup, these instructions may be daunting for you; however, they may save your IT professionals a lot of time setting up your computer.

Please post your comments on this blog.

The post Would you use an Air as your next Windows laptop? appeared first on Foster Institute.

Get Mac Drivers for Windows (Apple Boot Camp Windows Drivers)

• Using a Mac with OS X to generate the Apple Boot Camp Windows Drivers
  • On the (or another) Mac with OS X, keep running apple update until the updates are all current
  • Make sure you have a place for the Boot Camp Assistant to save the Windows support software
    • blank CD, DVD or
    • An external drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT)
      • To format an external drive as MS-DOS (FAT), use: Applications folder > Utilities > Disk Utility
  • Open: Applications folder > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant
  • Follow the on-screen instructions
    • Ok to ignore warnings if you do not have the DVD connected
    • Download the Windows support software (takes a while)
    • Save the Apple Boot Camp Windows Drivers to a CD, DVD, or FAT 32 external disk
      • Used approximately 600 Meg on 3/30/11
    • Stop and exit before allowing Boot Camp Assistant to create a partition for Windows—you won’t need that because
      • You are not going to use Boot Camp
      • We are installing only Windows 7 on the computer
  • In a later step, we’ll install the Windows support software on your Windows partition.

Eliminate OS X and Install Windows 7

Note—I learned a lot from http://www.zdnet.com. I also copied and pasted, then modified to eliminate redundancy and add clarity, information from documentation at www.apple.com.

By the way, I did elect to purchase a full license of Windows 7 to use just on my Air.

Another important note: From the very beginning, and every time, when booting into windows expect to stare at a white screen for about 45 seconds.

At first, I thought there was something wrong. Just wait it out—after 45 seconds of the white screen Windows 7 will boot fine. I suspect the Air is looking for other boot devices.

• With the computer turned off, insert the Apple recovery USB rescue device that came with your system. Make sure the four copper connections are facing up.
• When powering up, hold down the C key to boot to the USB rescue device.
• Wipe out the drive partitions and create one new partition with a MBR boot sector instead of the Apple GUID one
  • Choose Utilities > Disk Utility
  • Choose the 251GB Apple SSID drive
  • Select the Partition tab
  • In volume scheme set to “1 partition”
  • Name: Windows7 (or whatever you want)
  • Format: FAT32
  • Size: 251GB
  • Options > MBR (Master Boot Record)
  • Choose Apply (and, when prompted, confirm you want to partition the drive)
  • Use the menu at the top of the screen to “quit the disk utility”
  • Use the menu at the top of the screen to “quit the mac OS X installer”
• Shut down the Mac
• Remove the USB rescue stick
• Plug in the external DVD drive with Windows 7 64 bit DVD installed
• Boot the system while holding down the Option key
• If you want to register Windows online during the installation:
  • Join a Wi-Fi network or
  • Plug in the USB to RJ45 converter and connect via an Ethernet cable
  • Neither is necessary
• Click on the arrow above the Wi-Fi and the CD “Windows”
• The computer will seem to turn off and then Windows install starts
  • You’ll be prompted to reformat the drive with NTFS
  • The installation process takes a long time and the computer may seems “frozen” at times but it is still going
• Install the Windows support software you created earlier:
  • Insert the CD or DVD or connect the external disk with the Windows support software
    • If the DVD drive is not recognized:
      • Shut down the Mac / Windows 7 machine
      • Turn on the Mac again
      • The turning on process may take more than 2 minutes, and the screen will flash, and the computer may seem like it went off
      • Eventually Windows will boot and be able to recognize the CD/DVD drive
    • If the installer doesn’t start automatically, browse the CD, DVD, or external disk using Windows Explorer and double-click the setup.exe file in the Boot Camp directory.
  • Follow the onscreen instructions
    • The dialog will say “Installing Boot Camp” but only the Win drivers are installed
    • Important: Do not click the Cancel button in any of the installer dialogs.
    • If a message appears that says the software you’re installing has not passed Windows Logo testing, click Continue Anyway.
    • You don’t need to respond to installer dialogs that appear only briefly during the installation
    • If nothing appears to be happening, there may be a prompt that you must respond to, but the prompt is in a window that is covered up (came up underneath). Check the taskbar and look behind open windows.
  • After your computer restarts, follow the instructions for any other installers that appear
  • Note: To eject the DVD from the drive
    • Open Windows Explorer
    • Right click (click with two fingers on the touch pad) on the DVD drive icon
    • Choose “Eject”
  • Check for updated Windows support software
    • Use the Apple Software Update inside of Windows (look under “All programs”)
• Configure Windows
  • Install all Microsoft patches
  • Install IE9
  • Install Microsoft Security Essentials
  • Microsoft patches again
  • Set patches to ask me before downloading or updating
• Then I used the Windows support software by using Apple Software Update inside of Windows (look under “All programs”) to check for updates again.
• You may want to search e-Bay for “windows 7 sticker.”

In Case You Ever Want to Go Back to Using OS X

• When powering up, hold down the C key to boot to the USB rescue device
• Follow the instructions

Test and Use

• USB Ethernet adapter
• Wi-Fi LAN adapter
• Video VGA port—MUST PLUG IN VGA ADAPTER PRIOR TO BOOTING WINDOWS
  • Command-P is like Windows-P
• External CD ROM

Microsoft Office

Note: If you install Microsoft Office, then PowerPoint will crash as soon as you type a key. The latest Boot camp update disables a keyboard setting in Windows. I found the answer at http://answers.microsoft.com.

• To fix, Open Control Panel
• In view mode “View by Category”, find the section “Clock, Language and Region”
• Click “Change Keyboards or other input methods”
• Press the button “Change Keyboards”
• Press the button “Add”
• Scroll down to “English (United States)” and expand
• Check box “US”
• Press OK
• Press OK—You’ll see two keyboards listed “US” and “United States (Apple)”
• Press OK

Shadow Protect

In case you use ShadowProtect image backup software on Windows 7 (I do) then note that the apple software updater may interfere with Shadow Protect.

For this reason, I removed the apple updater from my computer permanently. I will miss the updater; However, I would miss being able to perform and image restore even more than I will miss the updater.

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