I had a great week giving TS2 presentations in Auburn, WA on Tuesday and Portland, OR on Thursday. Perhaps since I started here by giving TechNet presentations in the Bay Area, I really appreciate highly technical audiences. These didn't disappoint, and asked a lot of great questions!
1. Where can I download a beta of Windows Vista?
From this Microsoft site: Windows Vista Beta 1 is an early build for IT administrators and developers in the Windows community. It will be available in English to select Beta 1 testers through the technical beta program, as well as to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. There will be other opportunities to test drive Windows Vista at a later date so please be sure to check back again later.
2. You mentioned that your team shares Virtual PC optimization tips. Can you share some with us?
Absolutely! Let me compile some information and add my own perspective, and I'll post this to my blog within a day or two. (I want to take the time to do this right, and not just give you some techno-platitudes like "use fast hard drives.")
3. Since Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 ("SBA")and Business Contact Manager Update ("BCM") both use Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine ("MSDE"), is the five-user recommendation a hard or soft limit?
I've gone through the SBA user guide and other documentation, and don't see that it's a hard limit. However, I did find a document which says "MSDE performance at five concurrent workloads or less matches SQL Server, and above five concurrent workloads is tuned to match Jet. Jet can support up to 255 users from a technical and licensing standpoint, but is recommended for less than 20 total users. As the user base increases, performance degrades significantly with file-based databases." So reading between the lines, five users is probably a limitation of MSDE more than anything. Performance after that is going to degrade, so SQL Server is recommended.
Obviously your next question is going to be "can we upgrade SBA and BCM to SQL Server?" Two suggestions here: First, SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is going to replace MSDE as the free database alternative, so SBA and BCM may be configured to use SQL Server Express in the future rather than MSDE. The features page doesn't mention user limits, but it seems to be a much more powerful database engine than MSDE. Second, you may be able to upgrade the MSDE database to SQL Server; here's a conversion document which can help. Please note that this configuration is not currently supported, although we do support running MSDE on Windows Small Business Server 2003.
4. Is the clipboard disabled in Small Business Accounting 2006?
No, you can cut/copy/paste information just like normal. However, I'm not sure you can cut/copy/paste transactions, which is probably what you meant. Service Pack 1 for Business Contact Manager Update and Small Business Accounting 2006 was released recently, so I'll take a look at that and see if it includes that functionality.
5. Do you have to run SBA with local administrative privileges?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. Why? Because Microsoft is making an honest attempt to remain true to the tenets of the Trustworthy Computing Initiative, and one of those tenets is that applications should be secure by design, secure by default, and secure in deployment. Until someone tells me differently, I'll err on the side of security when it comes to SBA or any new product.
However, just to make sure, I'll boot up the ol' VPC and give it a shot. [ . . . ] I just created a limited user account, logged in, and I seem to be able to do everything normally. Keep in mind that multi-user support allows you to configure specific users with certain roles, which sets their permission levels inside the application.
Also, I just discovered that I gave you guys the wrong answer to one question! The default database directory is actually under "My Documents\Small Business Accounting\Companies." Apparently this was changed to another directory for the demo user, but the default for new users is to use their own "My Documents" folder. That's certainly preferable!
6. Is there an upgrade path from Microsoft Money Small Business Edition?
Still checking on this one, but so far the answer seems to be a manual import.
7. How do I join the Microsoft Professional Accountants Network, and what benefits are available?
Go to the link above to learn more. The MPAN benefits look pretty good, and you can subscribe to the Action Pack to get even more!
Please let me know if I missed any questions, and I'll be happy to track those down as well. And thanks again for attending this week's events; I really enjoyed getting to present in the Great Northwest!