During my recent upgrade, I moved to Vista and Outlook 2007.  I have to say, I LOVE the Outlook 2007 UI.  I'm much more productive, and it introduces some very, very nice features, like overlapping calendars and integrated searching (although I still prefer X1, since it is MUCH faster and has a better UI). 

Still, I ran into this problem...  I couldn't use it to connect to my email server hosted on Windows Server 2003.  The email downloads were WAY to slow.  Retrieving 15 emails with a total of 100 kb took several minutes, and if I had an attachment larger that 1.2 MB I physically couldn't download it, since it would time out every time (after 30 minutes or so).  Yuck.

It was so bad that we gave up hosting our email on our own servers and found a service that would host all our email addresses, giving us POP3, internet access to our email, calendar and many other features free.  I looked all over for a solution to the slowness problem, including contacting Microsoft.  No one could help.  So we moved, and are quite happy with the new service.

Anyway, I've found the solution.  It wasn't Outlook 2007, but Vista, and it's a very common problem (based on Live and Google searches), without a well publicized solution.  It's the same solution as the last post. 

Go to the command line as an Administrator (in your Vista client) and execute the following command:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable

Works like a champ!  Hopefully, this post will help a few people before they end up having to also migrate off of Windows Server 2003 to another solution. 

PS.  This problem doesn't affect all Windows Server 2003 (Win2K3) installs, only some.  Evidently it is a hardware issue.

UPDATE:  More information here:  Outlook is slow, RSS Broken from Tim Anderson's blog.  See comments 60-64 for more information and the solution presented here.

I recently "upgraded" to Vista on my laptop.  Immediately, I noticed a few things that were very annoying...  Primarily, it was the file transfer speed between my Vista box and our Windows Server 2003 box.  What used to take about 3 minutes to download now takes well over 4 hours.  In addition, the WSS portal we use takes over 1 minute for the home page to come up, versus less than 1 second.  Yuck.  So, I have to keep a copy of Windows XP around whenever I need to download stuff from our server.  I shut down Vista, swap hard drives (laptop) and boot into XP.  Then my speeds are nice and fast again.

Microsoft recommended that I run the following command as an Admin from my Vista command prompt:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

I wish I could report that it increased my performance, but, alas, I'm still stuck. 

I love the Vista experience, and there's so much to like about the OS, but I've run into so many "gotchas" that kill my productivity that I have to recommend staying with XP for now.  At least until the first Service Pack is released, or they solve the major interoperability issues.

UPDATE:  I did a reboot after the netsh command above and NOW I'm moving quickly!  It worked!  I've still got doubts about the wisdom of moving, at this time, to Vista, but my communication problem with the server is no longer one of them!

The next Ask An Expert Live Chat is scheduled for Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 12:00 PM PDT. 
  
Mark your calendars (or click this ICS link). For more information, visit Microsoft Technical Chats.

Here's a great tool for agile development that was mentioned in a blog post below.  Go get a stack of these!  Shuffle them, pass them around, put your use stories on them, and slap them up on the board when you're ready!  Here's one more link.

Post-it® Sortable Cards only stick when you want them to! Now you have the flexibility to visualize and organize when and how you want on many different surfaces. Cards also easily sort, shuffle and stack together so you can use them again, or store them for later.

Recently, Microsoft and IESC Geekcorps have teamed up to send Microsoft developer experts to participate as volunteers in the “Access to International Markets Through Information Technology” (AIM-IT) project in Lebanon. They are currently in search of volunteer experts with expertise in Visual Studio 2005 Team System & Team Foundation Server, as well as MS Solution Framework, and general software development project management.

Those that volunteer with Geekcorps on this project will receive airfare, accommodations, insurance and a living stipend – all paid for by Microsoft. Volunteers’ only out-of-pocket expenses come from any incidentals or personal purchases. Arrangements will be made for you to travel from home to Lebanon (a passport is required) and you will be met at the airport by a program representative. The project’s duration will be approximately 6 weeks.

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, visit this page.

If you are running Vista and VS 2005, you need to install this SP1 update.

It's referenced by KB929470, and you can download it here.

Thank you to my friends at Basta! for recommending me as an alternate speaker for the Frankfurt .NET User Group meeting last week. Thomas "Teddy" Sohnrey was the coordinator (and my interpreter at times).

The topic was Effective SCM using Visual Studio Team System, and I enjoyed sharing my approaches and best practices to the many software developers in the room.

Of course, what I will remember most about the evening is the venue: Microsoft's office in Bad Homburg, and the free beer in the break room!

As you know, Visual Studio Team System tracks many different work item types, such as requirements, tasks, and bugs. Many agile teams like to use "sticky notes" to post on the wall to organize their backlog of requirements and tasks and plan their iterations. Even Joel on Software's company is doing this.

Since I have no life when I travel, I wrote 3M yesterday to see if they manufacture Post-It note sheets that can be fed through a laser/inkjet printer ... and they do!

They come in 25, 100, 300 or 500 sheet quantities and I checked a couple of sites, such as CDW, #1 Online Catalog, and Computers Unlimited. The prices range from $0.40 to $0.85/sheet, which might be cost prohibitive. Another cool option might be to use the stackable/sortable cards from 3m, although they are not sheet-fed, some printers might be able to "grab them". They come in a few different sizes.

Occasionally I'm asked about the business value of VSTS and TFS. I think it's pretty obvious, but I guess others need more convincing than just my word.

I've pulled together some links below that will help with this.

• Case studies - contains many ROI as well as technical case studies
• Customer evidence - contains some more case studies and testimonials
• Business value whitepaper - SDLC pain points and VSTS benefits
• Software lifecycles - a collection of scenarios providing evidence of VSTS benefits
• TFS Evidence Booklet - a PDF that was handed out at some of the roadshows