Mike Southby

If you are using your iPhone with Exchange 2007 you’ll notice that Exchange now forces a remote policy which requires you to have a passcode on your device (of course this also applies to other mobile devices and not just the iPhone).  I’m sure for some this is not an issue but for those users who do not need this security feature enabled and/or simply do not want to have to enter a passcode every time, there is of course a way to disable the feature.

Firstly, you’ll need to have administrative rights to the Exchange 2007 server, so if you do and you’re able to either access the box locally or remotely via RDP, read on.

Assuming you are now sat looking at the desktop on your server, do the following (I have based this guide on a standard installation of Small Business Server 2008, but of course still applies to a stand-alone build of Exchange 2007, just follow the same steps):

• Click through Start>All Programs>Microsoft Exchange Server 2007>Exchange Management Console
• You’ll be greeted with a Windows needs your permission to continue dialogue box, select Continue
• Once in the console, expand Organization Configuration and highlight Client Access
• There should only be one policy active, which is the Windows SBS Mobile Mailbox Policy <servername>, right click this and select Properties
• Click on the Password tab
• Next uncheck the Require password checkbox and hit Apply then OK
• You can now close all of the open windows

You should now find that the forced passcode is no longer required.

If you found this guide useful, please leave a comment below.  Remember you can also subscribe to any future posts via email by clicking here.

Love it or hate it, iTunes has become the de facto application for music handling on my machine; so much so that it has become one of those applications which I would say I couldn’t live without (OK, so perhaps that takes it a little too far but you see where I am going with this).

The problem is that iTunes is an application that Apple never intended to make for Windows; I guess you could say they became a victim of their own success and found themselves having to recode a Windows version as its popularity (and the popularity of the iPod range) grew.  It works much faster in Mac OS X, which translated could be written as saying iTunes for Windows is a complete bloat ware that takes up far too much RAM and runs slower than it should, certainly this has become more and more apparent as iTunes has been updated and updated.  The cynic in me would start to question whether Apple isn’t too serious about Windows and want to demonstrate to people that iTunes works much faster on Mac OS X because it is a better OS (thereby attempting to increase their sales of Mac hardware and OS X), but with a few simple steps it’s easy to speed things up a little and make iTunes for Windows a little more bearable:

Remove Smart Playlists

A lot of people will love the Smart Playlist feature, if you are one of them then you can skip this, otherwise removing them can make the application start-up speed up to 3 times quicker.  If you like me would give up almost anything for speed, then simply remove all the Smart Playlists (the ones with the purple icon) and restart iTunes to feel the improved performance.  If you don’t want to remove Smart Playlists altogether then editing them and disabling Live Updating will make a slight difference.

Disable Automatic Syncing

When a device is connected to a machine running iTunes, iTunes automatically starts syncing which I find quite annoying.  It can result in your iTunes getting frozen for up to 30 seconds or more.  Users don’t always connect devices such as iPods or iPhones for transferring songs; what if you only want to charge your device?  In such cases automatic launching of iTunes and syncing doesn’t make sense and isn’t needed.  To disable automatic syncing, simply select your connected device from the left sidebar and uncheck the Automatic Sync option.

Disable Options That Are Not Needed

A little bit of common sense if required here as there are various different options that you will come across in the Preferences menu and some may be needed depending on your individual setups, however a couple I would recommend would be to disable Crossfade Songs and Sound Enhancer under the Playback tab and Look for Remote Speakers Connected to AirTunes and Look for iPhone and iPod Touch Remotes under the devices tab.  You can also disable Look for Apple TV under the Apple TV tab unless of course you have one!  Most users will not need any of these options enabled and yet by default they are enabled adding to the burden, surely it would have made sense to ship iTunes in a more ‘lean’ configuration for the majority and allow the minority who own all these other devices (and let’s face it the kind of person who does is more than technically savvy enough to do this) to configure iTunes to their needs?

Reduce Clutter

While browsing your playlists, you will notice that unnecessary columns are displayed by default (yes, I know it’s a Pop song thanks).  Who wants to scroll all the way to the right and then back to the left to view all the columns?  It is better to reduce this clutter by hiding those columns that are not needed.  This can be done by right-clicking the column bar on top and then unchecking not-needed columns.  Not sure if this makes a huge difference to speed or not but it means that you can customise your view to exactly how you want to see it.

Finally, although I haven’t tried this myself I read somewhere that by keeping the Preferences window open whilst songs are converting, the whole process will be quicker!  Now there is logic to this; when you are converting a large collection of songs to ACC format, you will notice that after a few conversions the whole process slows down.  This is because after each change the iTunes User Interface gets updated (which takes forever when converting large collections).  So, how to speed up the conversion and disable the iTunes User Interface from getting updated?  Go to Edit and select Preferences; now let it remain open until all conversions are complete!

I’m sure there are other ways to speed things up too, if you know of any leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

There have been a lot of reports recently by numerous people around the internet, that there seems to be ongoing problems with people syncing their iPhone to iTunes in a Windows 7 environment.  The official Apple forums [Link] have got a number of threads related to the issue so it does appear that this is definitely a problem and this is not just a bunch of die hard Apple fans trying to add a negative taste to what has been otherwise, a successful launch for Microsoft’s latest operating system.

Now, looking at the problems people are facing, there does seem to be some common similarities; most people who are reporting the problem are using a motherboard with an Intel P55 chipset and the problem seems to be affecting more people using Windows 7 x64.  Both of these are not conclusive though, as it is also affecting people using other chipsets and Windows 7 x86, although certainly, less so.

The official advice – as always – seems to be a workaround, suggesting that you should use a USB hub or PCI USB card for connecting your iPhone, and disabling Power Management for each of the USB root hubs on your machine, but none of these seem to work universally for everyone which to me would suggest that neither Apple or Microsoft still really understand what the problem is and that there isn’t an imminent fix.

Fortunately, I don’t have an iPhone so am not affected by this, how about you?  Have you had problems with iPhone/iTunes syncing with Windows 7?  If so, have you been able to fix it or come up with a workaround?  Share your thoughts!

You all remember the Windows vs. Mac ads don’t you?  I guess in fairness Apple always knew they were on to a winner with those.  The humble pc and Windows may well be the winner in the corporate IT world but that’s not who the adverts were targeting, no they were targeting the average home user who wants an all in one solution that just works, and I have to admit the Mac does, and it does it very well.

So when it comes to marketing brilliance, it seems Apple are all over Microsoft.  But could it be that they have new competition?

Being an Android user and fan, I just had to smile when I came across this earlier today, further details can be found here.