One of our main roles in DevDiv Performance Engineering is to help other teams with performance investigations – that is, to help them understand why their code isn’t running fast enough. Recently we ran a little side project that was unusual in two respects...

Of all my blog posts, the one that generates the most reliable stream of comments is “ User comments about offline files ”. All my other blog topics get mild interest, but what people really, REALLY want to know is how to get offline files working again...

With the release of SCCP 2007 I've now been through two complete product cycles of what started out as a little research project called " Indy " -- and that seems like more than enough! So I've moved over to the Performance Engineering team...

Ironically I'm almost the last to blog it, but the SCCP team is really happy to announce the release of System Center Capacity Planner 2007 . You can get it now, it's totally free, and it'll help you size deployments for Exchange Server 2007. But wait...

It's common to use "funny characters" (i.e., non-alphabetic symbols) in Outlook folder names, so that the folders sort in a specific order: !!Super Important !Important All A's Basically B's ... Of course, the same principle can be applied to category...

We're pleased to announce the beta release of System Center Capacity Planner 2007! SCCP 2007 provides sizing, architectural guidance and best practices for customers to plan their deployments of Operations Manager 2007 and Exchange 2007. Essentially...

Lazy-blogging (verb): The act of letting a thought sit unblogged for long enough that someone else blogs about it instead, thereby saving you the effort. cf lazyweb. Case-in-point: Many of us OCD types find it impossible to sit with a non-empty recycle...

My apologies if you're seeing any of my old posts reappear as if freshly published. Comment spam has gotten so bad on some posts that I'm resorting to disabling comments completely. I think this triggers a republish by Community Server (at least, I have...

Or, " What is all this stuff doing on my computer ", part II. I've just finished switching my portable life over to a new Toshiba M400 Tablet PC. Gig of memory, Centrino Core Duo, life is good. At least, it was good until I looked at the process...

We’ve had these bits bouncing around for way too long, but now they’re finally linked to from the SCCP home page . So revel in the glossiness of An Introduction to Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner 2006 :)

The great thing about Microsoft webcasts is that they’re archived. So even if you miss the upcoming live webcast on “Implementing SCCP 2006”, you can still watch it at your leisure (well, as long as your leisure includes a broadband connection). This...

Just a quick note that in 3 weeks, Chris Henley will be hosting a public webcast about SCCP 2006. Click on the link to register - it’s free! Implementing System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Monday, June 26, 2006 11:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M. Pacific Time...

I’m easing back into blogging after taking 6 months off – the good news is this means I’ve got a big backlog of topics… I’d like to start off by thanking Neil Hobson for writing a great two-part overview of System Center Capacity Planner on MSExchange...

This is a catch-all post for user comments and questions about offline files, aka client-side caching. I’m turning off comments on all my previous posts in the Offline Files category , and redirecting readers here instead. Hopefully this will cut down...

Short answer: System Center Capacity Planner is on TechNet disc 0422, which went out this month. We’re actually “featured content” — I think this is what we get in return for exclusivity! System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) ships this month and...

I’ll be making lots of updates to the nonadmin wiki this week. Yesterday it was three months’ worth of press articles about running as a non-administrator , and today it’s two webcasts and two whitepapers for the other resources page*. This is also...

The Indy team just handed over our final bits for System Center Capacity Planner 2006 . Barring any last-minute mishaps or recall-class bugs – memorably defined by our test manager as “causing the death or permanent disfigurement of small furry animals...

I’m helping out on the SCCP booth at Exchange Connections in San Diego this week, and we’re handing out hundreds of CDs with our beta refresh bits . To give feedback after trying it out, you should be able to pull down the help menu and see a little ...

A week ago we updated the public beta of System Center Capacity Planner. This “beta refresh” of SCCP is now dependent on the release candidate of .NET Framework 2.0, instead of being dependent on their beta 2 release. Shipping this refresh took a lot...

Thanks to everyone who's blogged about our beta! Special kudos to Eileen Brown , Graham Chastney , Ian Blyth , and Marcus Oh for various combinations of "totally getting it", "kicking the tires", and "bugging us to do more", but I also want to thank Anderson...

The eagle-eyed will have noticed that the name of our product has changed from System Center Capacity Manager 2006 Express Edition — which is a classic example of a Type 2 Microsoft product name — to System Center Capacity Planner 2006 — which is still...

Marketing fluff follows. This is my baby. Grab the bits and kick the tires. Then tell us what to change :) System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Beta release is now available We are proud to announce public availably of the latest addition to the...

Raymond Chen complains about the pass colors for this year’s MVP summit. Specifically, since they were color-coded for products, it’s hard to tell MVPs from Microsoft employees. Luckily, I know the sekrit code — Raymond, look for the letters “MVP” at...

Just a quick note to say that, like many other product teams , we'll be at the MVP Summit here in Redmond this week. Specifically, we’ll be showing off the latest builds of System Center Capacity Manager to the Windows Server System MVPs at the RedWest...

Four years ago a wonderful application called Sideshow came out of Microsoft Research. It was the standard docking-bar-full-of-applets-on-the-side-of-your-screen (way before Apple Widgets and Konfabulator), but the part they really nailed was how natural...