On my personal Machine (and all other machines in my office, running Vista and Office 2007), Communicator 2007 has been demanding an Outlook update since i’ve installed it (Outlook-Update erforderlich). Clicking it leads to this empty Microsoft page.

I have no idea why it demands this, because i’ve installed all the Office 2007/Outlook Updates there are, and even more funny I only found a single reference to this problem (this newsgroup posting).

The suggestion in said post was to contact Microsoft Support, which i’m not allowed to do. The problem does not exist on the Windows XP machines running Office 2003 (we don’t have any machines running XP/Office 2007). As such, i’m stumped.

Does anyone else know this problem?

Update: According to this post in the OCServer Blog, this icon works in English Environments and should remind users to install KB936864. However, i do have this package installed (according to systeminfo).

A few months ago, i did beta exam 71-649.

Finally, Microsoft posted the results - and i passed. This is great

Recently, Microsoft released exam 70-638 (no official info page yet, but it’s all in Trika’s Blog).

As you might know, i’ve played with OCS 2007 in the past few days, and i’ve got a few leftover exam vouchers anyway. So yesterday, i decided to sign up for 70-638, and do the test this Saturday morning. This was possible because my favorite testing center (Digicomp in Zurich) is now offering Saturday testing.

I didn’t really expect to pass this exam, but i did (with more than 800 points). Okay, so what did happen at this exam?

First, the hard facts:

• 1.5 hours of time (didn’t even need half of that)
• 40 questions
• Only multiple choice questions, no PBT, no drag and drop, no nothing

What did i do to prepare myself for this exam? Not much, really. I’ve deployed OCS 2007 internally in the past few days, and crossread a few deployment guides.

First off, the exam was structured completely different than what i expected after taking the 70-236 Exchange 2007 MCTS. The exam varied widely from installing, to configuring and design. As such, it was a more classical approach, covering all topics of OCS 2007 use.

The questions were well written, and a few of them were more or less exact duplication of content from the available deployment guides, with even the same names and everything.

There also were several design questions, for which you need to understand the general architecture behind OCS 2007 - that isn’t as difficult as it might sound, because OCS 2007 is rather well structured, and the infrastructure design is easy to learn.

No talk about hardware requirements, some questions about upgrading from LCS 2005, etc.

This exam is easy - not as easy as 70-620, but also less difficult than the Exchange 2007 MCTS/MCITP exams.

I was researching some docs about call normalization rules in OCS 2007, when i looked at a Microsoft website with a really, really obnoxious ad.

I’ve always hated all those 100 smileys for free / Jamba Mobile ads. Usually they weren’t found on “serious” websites, but apparently this has changed.

I wonder how many IT professionals like to get some free Live Messenger Smileys…