Tag Archives: “Small Business Server 2011”

Poor Computer Performance due to Windows Power Management Settings

In an effort to be more “Green” you will often find that your shiny new computer, laptop or server have Power Management already set to “Balanced” or “Power Saver”.  This can be very useful for cutting your energy bills and saving the planet but sometimes you just get the need for speed.

It’s easy to check your current “Power Plan” in Microsoft Windows Vista, 7, Server 2008 or Server 2008 R2.  Simply click on the Windows Start Menu or Orb if you are using the Aero theme and then select “Control Panel”.  Once in “Control Panel” you can either find it under it’s category “Hardware and Sound” then “Power Options” or if you are in classic control panel mode then you will just need to click “Power Options”.

Once in Power Options you will usually only be presented with three options to choose from, most will find “High Performance” the best option if they want to avoid the occasional slowdowns that power management can introduce.  You will also find that on a laptop the screen brightness is usually increased in this mode and the laptop is not going to keep going to sleep if you walk away from your desk for a few minutes.

If you favour a nice balance between the two then your next best option is “Balanced”.

The “Power Saver” Plan which is the third option is really just for laptop users in my opinion, it’s great for a long flight or train ride where you just need to get some basic Word Documents typed up or reviewed.

[RESOLVED] You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console

After installing Internet Explorer 9 on your Microsoft Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010 mail servers you may have been noticing that the Exchange Management Console will refuse to close and simply state “You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console”.

This has been a long running issue but has finally been resolved by the Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Team.

Please note that this issue is now resolved by installing the latest cumulative security update for Internet Explorer, The fix was first included in security update 2618444 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2618444

Information on the scope of this issue can still be found here KB 2624899 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2624899

You can request the hotfix by visiting Microsofts website and searching for the following Knowledge Base article KB 2624899

Note: The hotfix is actually for Internet Explorer 9 rather than Microsoft Exchange but does actually resolve the issues with the Exchange Management Console not closing correctly.

Powershell Execution Policy

Are you having trouble creating or running you Powershell scripts in Windows, remember that you need to adjust the default Powershell Execution Policy to allow the running of your scripts.

You may otherwise receive an error like the one below

File scriptexample.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see “get-help about_signing” for more details.

It’s very easy to adjust so don’t panic, just find your Powershell shortcut and remember to open it by “Right Clicking” and selecting “Run as administrator”

Next simply paste the line below into powershell, hit enter and then press “Y” and hit Enter one final time.

set-executionpolicy remotesigned