Microsoft technologies keep getting more and more powerful. In order to keep tempting you to upgrade to a new release, each new product version comes out with dozens of new features.
With so many features availabe, it becomes a challenge in having to correctly configure these feature-rich (and sometimes complex) products.
Microsoft keep trying their best to find the balance between the constant adding of new features vs trying to make each product easier to use at the same time.
Part of making programs easier to use comes down to issues such as: making the user interface more intuitive/friendly, better online help, task based access (vs just feature based access) to the main program functions, attractive GUI, wizards, etc.
I’ve read books which were 2 inches thick which dealt with just Active Directory, yet how many users out there think that they can successfully install Active Directory by running dcpromo, hitting the “next” button 5 times, hit the “finish” button and then hey presto, everything should work just fine! Yeah, right. Sometimes wizards are a good thing, but sometimes they can hide the underlying complexity and cause even larger problems.
It’s great to see Microsoft still working hard at supplying more and more tools to the IT administrator in order to help them install and correctly configure these complex technologies. Microsoft are doing so with the release of various Best Practices Analyzer tools for their main products.
Here’s a list of the main Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) tools which are currently available:
- SQL
- Here’s a link to a guide on using the SQL BPA
- Exchange.
- Here’s a link to a Microsoft webcast on using the Exchange BPA
- Here’s a tutorial on how to use it
- ISA
- Here’s a link to a tutorial on how to use the ISA BPA
- Sharepoint
- BizTalk
- ASP.NET
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