Direct access to DirectAccess

My favourite  thing Windows 7 working together with Windows Server 2008 R2 is DirectAcess, not because of how cool the technology is nor because its just built in, but because it gets me out of jail on so many occasions.   If you aren’t aware of it, it’s the power of a VPN without all  the pain of it either for you or for your users.  I mention it now as I had to pull down decks from our team SharePoint  site  for UK TechDays Live while at this event just a few minutes a go.  Despite the appalling network speeds at the venue all but the ports for  http and https (80 & 443), I got what I needed.

Not only that but some of the Microsoft speakers at TechDays could leave their demos in the office and run them from the event over remote desktop services (albeit form a wired connection on stage to get the necessary speed).It has also just annoyed me – I typed “directaccess” into IE9 and it took me to an internal site rather than executing a search on Bing so I could put some resources into this post – doh!

This is not the only example where  Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 can be combined to create extra functionality, and these often get missed as they don’t  fall into specific discussion on desktops or data centres. To fix this Simon and I have decided to rectify this and do a specific session on this dynamic duo as part of TechDays Live. We also want to try out out more collaboration in the Live Meeting to make it more informative and collaborative so do register and join us live if you can to participate.