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Windows PowerShell 1.0 for Windows Vista released

Microsoft Windows PowerShell is a new command-line shell and scripting language designed for system administration and automation. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell allows IT professionals to manage computers via commands or scripts, improving productivity through system automation.

Windows PowerShell includes:

• One hundred and twenty-nine command-line tools (called "cmdlets") for performing common system administration tasks, such as managing services, processes, event logs, certificates, the registry, and using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).


• Command-line tools are easy to learn and easy to use with standard naming conventions and common parameters, and simple tools for sorting, filtering, and formatting data and objects.


• Support for existing scripting languages and existing command-line tools, and multiple versions of Windows, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server code name "Longhorn".


• Feature that allows users to navigate data stores, like the registry and certificate stores, as if they were a file system.


• Standard utilities for managing Windows data in different stores and formats, including Active Directory (ADSI), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Component Object Model (COM) objects, Active X Data Objects (ADO), HTML and XML.


• Sophisticated expression parsing and .NET object manipulation at the command line, including pipelining of objects, make IT professionals more efficient and productive.


• Extensible interface that allows independent software vendors and enterprise developers to build custom cmdlets to meet their unique application and system administration requirements.

Download Windows PowerShell 1.0 Installation Package for Windows Vista

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Released

There are no final prizes for testers this time round, and work on Windows Live Messenger 9.0 has already begun (there will be no more interim releases, or at least if there are, there won’t be any beta programs for it). Current testers of Windows Live Messenger 8.1 who have access to the Microsoft Connect pages will be automatically transferred to the next beta (9.0) so don’t you worry - plenty more to come. In the meanwhile, Microsoft has quietly rolled out Windows Live Messenger 8.1.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Final

Microsoft Windows Vista Review

Windows Vista is finally here for everyone and is soon to be made available on store shelves and pre-loaded on new PC’s. Windows Vista has been five years in the making; throughout that time we have witnessed Microsoft reschedule the release of this “major upgrade” over and over and over again. Microsoft, however, throughout that tumultuous time did manage to pick up the pieces and move forward.

Activewin has posted it's Windows Vista Review (more)

Accessible UAC Prompts

When a user attempts to access an application or setting that requires elevated privileges to run, they are presented with a UAC prompt, the appearance of which will vary depending on the type of user they are or the type of application that is trying to run. This diagram shows the types of dialog boxes that you might see and the process flow that triggers each type:

Windows Vista Starter

Windows XP Starter Edition was released in 24 languages and was sold in more than 130 countries, but with the launch of Vista Starter Edition, were are expanding our initiative to make our products accessible to lower-income families in developing countries. It will therefore be available in 70 languages, and also feature an option that allows use of the operating system in different languages so, if, for example, a parent wants to use the computer in his or her native language but the household's children want to use it in English. Personally, I think that is an absolutely belting feature. As far as I'm aware, this is possible in the other versions too - I have the Spanish Language Pack installed on my machine too - and because I'm currently learning Spanish, it really is a useful thing to have, and best of all, it costs nothing more!

What kind of spec can you expect Vista Starter to run on? Well, get this: Vista will be able to run on a wider variety of processors than its XP predecessor, ranging from Intel's Celerons and older Pentiums to AMD's Duron! Retro or what! That means that Vista will run on a recommended minimum of 300mhz, but it is thought that it will even run on a 233MHz! It will run on a standard SVGA graphics card, and will require a great deal less RAM than the other versions. Now that's crazy! (more)

Operations Manager 2007: Agent Health

As you know, Operations Manager 2007 focusses on Health. An object can be healthy, in an error state or not be monitored yet. When adding an agent or during discovery of objects, the initial status is called "Not monitored". Normally, this goes to the red, yellow or green status within a short time, reflecting the Health.

With the RC2 milestone, sometimes objects or agent computers stay in the "Not monitored" status. While there is no way to force discovery, you can delete the Health Store to force the agent to collect all data again. Please use this procedure to allow for a new discovery of the Health status:

Go to the affected agent and stop the health service

Delete the files in the Health Service State \ Health Service Store folder (normally under %Program Files%)

Start the health service again on the agent

OpsMgr Powershell: Export Overrides

While there will be a report at RTM timeframe that will show all overrides set within System Center Operations Manager, as opposed to MOM 2005 there currently is no easy way to display all overrides in the GUI. Fortunately, there is a Powershell cmdlet that can be used to do just that:

get-managementpack | get-override | format-list name,parameter,value

Xian IO for Operations Manager 2007

Arnold Hagens, marketing director at Jalasoft, held a Livemeeting today showing their new flagship product Xian IO. Their new solution will fully integrate with the upcoming System Center Operations Manager 2007 product, adding monitoring support for networking devices such as Cisco routers and switches. A key feature is the deep integration with OpsMgr 2007.

Not only do they provide in-line tasks (example: view device information) but also allow wizard-based configuration of alerting thresholds (example: alert above 70% usage of the connection). My personal favorite, and probably the feature most customers really will want for their Line of Business monitoring, is that fact that Xian IO will discover objects and allow them to be used in the Application Designer of OpsMgr:

Xian IO will be available to selected testers as a private beta release in the first half of february. While a RTM date is not yet available, it will probably coincide with the RTM release of Operations Manager 2007.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Jeff Wettlaufer presented a session on System Center Configuration Manager 2007 today at the System Center Airlift. While the session only had information on an overview level of the new product, Jeff was able to comment on the release schedule. First a little history; the beta 1 milestone was release in February 2006 and contained all SMS 2003 functionality and added some new features. The beta 1 refresh release from july 2006 contained extra features like OS deployment of Vista beta 2 and added NAP integration with Longhorn Server. This week, TAP members will receive the beta 2 package, which will be feature complete. At the end of february, beta 2 will also be made publicly avaiable. System Center Configuration Manager 2007 will RTM coming summer and be generally available, some months before Longhorn Servers will see the light.

Enable System Restore on Windows 2003

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where after installing some particularly appealing application, a new video driver which promises astonishing effects with your new PC game, and after a reboot the system simply refuses to start? Or maybe you enter your credentials as you already did probably a million times, and you then end up watching a box which tells "Applying computer settings" but this lasts forever?

As you may know System Restore is not available in Windows Server 2003, Carlo shows you how to set up System Restore on a Windows 2003 server (more)

System Center "Service Desk"

Ben Srour presented the System Center Airlift session about their product codenamed "Service Desk". One of the key features are the Solution Packs, which work much like Operations Manager' Management Packs. Importing a Solution Pack will add extra functionality. At RTM there will be an Incident Management SP, Asset Management SP, Change Management SP and more. Along with the full console called Analyst Console, there will be a self-service portal fully built on Office Sharepoint Server 2007 which enables the end-user to get information about their current ticket and check a knowledgebase. Another key feature is the workflow, where you - for instance - can define that a change must be emailed to a Change Manager which uses the Outlook voting buttons to decided and where afterwards a SMS package can be run.

Microsoft-IT will deploy the Incident Management SP and Change Management SP in their production environment to convince future customers that the product is ready for enterprise use. "Service Desk" v1 will have deep integration with Configuration Manager 2007 (for discovery and inventory), Operations Manager 2007 (for incident and problem management), Office 2007 (for collaboration and authoring), Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (self-service portal) and VS Team Services (for increased operational awareness). Their new ITL and MOF based product will have easy ways of customization for MS Partners, who can provide a familiar tool and customize forms and workflows.

Ben disclosed that the v1 version of the new product will not contain a GUI based drag-and-drop editor for the workflow but is on the roadmap for v2. He commented on the release schedule, noting that TAP customers have gotten the Beta 1 milestone several weeks ago with a Technical Release a few weeks ago. He also said that Beta 2 will be publicly available right after the Microsoft Management Summit in April. Release candidate will follow in the second half of 2007 and RTM is slated for H1 2008 (won't make it this year, anymore). More information on System Center "Service Desk " can be found in these articles, earlier on Techlog:

Microsoft ServiceDesk: timeframe

Service Desk v1 Screenshots

First Screenshots System Center “Service Desk”

Forefront: Intelligent Application Gateway 2007

Mark Hassall presented a session on the Microsoft Forefront brand of products on the System Center Airlift. While the information presented on the current set of products was useful, Mark talked about a new member of the family called "Intelligent Application Gateway 2007". Microsoft aquired Whale Communications last year and will bring out a new product based on their solutions. The new solution, part of Forefront, will build on ISA Server 2006.

Essentially it is a SSL VPN solution and will bring secure publishing of applications. Microsoft as well as non-Microsoft applications can be published, for example: Citrix. Clientless users can access these applications using their web browsers. Systems Administrators can control who can access information and how. For instance, when a user goes to a kiosk and accesses the application, the SysAdmin can configure read-only access and/or time limits. Mark had no information on beta availability or RTM date.

System Center Essentials 2007

David Mills did a session on System Center Essentials 2007 today, at the Airlift. Essentials will replace the former Operations Manager 2007 Workgroup edition and is targeted at the Small Business Server (SBS) and upcoming Codename "Centro" server customers. There will be a hard support limit, supporting up to 30 servers and a maximum of 500 clients. One of the great new features is a Daily Health Report, delivered by email, telling the administrator status about update compliance, problems in their infrastructure, etcetera. Upgrades will be available from the OpsMgr 2005 full and Workgroup product and also supported from the current Windows Server Updates Services v2 and upcoming v3 products.

David also hinted at a System Center Update Tool which could add extra support for software installation on the area of adding Transforms to MSI packages. SC Update Tool might be delivered after the Essentials RTM release. Both Vista RTM and the upcoming Longhorn Server will be supported as clients. A very cool feature is the fact that Management Packs that are written for Operations Manager 2007 will work in Essentials. Licensing was not really disclosed, but will focus more on the platform than on a fee per server. Currently, the product is at the beta 2 milestone publicly available, but the Release Candidate will see the light this quarter (Q1 2007). General availability and RTM will be before the summer, in the first half of 2007.

For Services providers, there will be a Management Pack connecting the downstream Essentials installation to an upstream full Operations Manager 2007 installation. Services provides will be provided with all-ready reports and tools to facilitate customers with a managed solution. This "Connected Services Provider Framework" is currently under way as a TAP program with selected partners. David also said that the next version of Office Sharepoint Server, codenamed "Cougar" will bring tighter integration for the reports.

System Center Capacity Planner 2007

During the System Center Capacity Planner session on the System Center Airlift, Fergus Stewart disclosed some information on the next release, version 2007. You can expect the following changes:

Support for Exhange 2007

- New server roles and Clustering

Support for Operations Manager 2007

- Audit Collection Services
- Trusted & untrusted agents and Gateway servers
- Backup servers for Ops DB, Root Mgmt Server and Datawarehouse

Support for 64-bit hardware

Support for background load

- Including antivirus and antispam

Enhanced pre-deployment wizard

- Changes based on customer and MS services feedback
- More granular: different branch configurations
- Role based: hardware presence

The first beta version will be available during the Microsoft Management Summit in March and RTM is slated for May 2007. There was one slide about the release following 2007. There are three key new features that will be introduced; Operations Manager 2007 R2 "live" integration, Trending & Forecasting and Models for SQL, IIS and ASP.NET.

"Katmai" is Operations Manager 2007 R2

During the System Center Capacity Planner session on the Airlift, Fergus Stewart confirmed that the next release of Operations Manager - currently codenamed "Katmai" - indeed will be named System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. One of the new features of the R2 release combined with the next version of Capacity Planner (not 2007, but the one planned after that) will bring integration; SCCP can read live information and plan on that. Availability of that SCCP version will coincide with the R2 release of Operations Manager 2007.

Data Protection Manager "v2"

Jason Buffington presented a session on Sytem Center Data Protection Manager, codename "v2" this morning at the System Center Airlift. While DPM currently is at the Beta 1 milestone, Jason talked about the next development milestone, Beta 2. While he wouldn't comment on the final name, Techlog has reported late last year that it will probably be called Data Protection Manager 2008. Besides the current support for SQL and Exchange protection in Beta 1, the next milestone - Beta 2 - will bring the following:

Agent can be deployed using cmd line, Powershell cmdlet, SMS and SCCM and SUS

Manual seed for intial copy (for example: external HDD from remote location to DPM server)

Support for protecting servers across trusted domains

Media encryption support

File & folder exclusions, encrypted files

Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape support (along with D2D and D2T support)

Adding support for Virtual Server 2005 R2; this way you can protect non-Windows servers (as VM) !

Adding support for Sharepoint !

Adding support for System State & Bare Metal Recovery !

Support for database on a separate (existing) SQL server

Jason stated that beta 2 will be generally available at the Microsoft Management Summit 2007, held in San Diego. RTM is slated for early fall (end of Q3 ?).

Audit Collection Services: Change Retention

When you setup Audit Collection Services (ACS) - a part of Operations Manager 2007 - you configure the ACS database. One of the options is how long you want to store the collected data. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to change this. However, there is a table in the ACS database that holds this configuration options. Using the following query, you can specify - afterwards - for how many days ACS should maintain the data:

You can see current config by doing:

USE OperationsManagerAC
SELECT * FROM dtConfig

To update the data retention period:

USE OperationsManagerAC
Update dtConfig
SET Value = -- (number of days to retent data + 1), e.g. to retain 7 days of data, you need to set Value = 8
WHERE Id = 6

Use SQL management studio to execute this query against the ACS database.
Important: please handle this table with care! (Otherwise, ACS will break)

Operations Manager 2007: Export Management Packs

In Operations Manager 2005, there was a executable called "ManagementModeUtil.exe" to export management packs to file, using the command line. This was especially useful in situations where you would wanna do a separate backup of your management packs, instead of the whole OnePoint database. At first sight, in Operations Manager 2007, there is no tool available to do just that. Fortunately, you can use PowerShell for this. Here you find a sample Powershell script that exports all management packs that have SQL in their name:

param ($serverName)

add-pssnapin "Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.Client";

set-location "OperationsManagerMonitoring::";

new-managementGroupConnection -ConnectionString:$serverName;

set-location $serverName;

$sql_mps = Get-ManagementPack | where{$_.Name -match 'SQL'}

foreach($mp in $sql_mps)
{
export-managementpack -ManagementPack:$mp -Path:"c:\"
}

Copy this contents to a file called "ExportManagementPacks.ps1" and run the following command to start the actual script:

Powershell.exe ExportManagementPacks.ps1 -ServerName:localhost

Operations Manager "Katmai"

Today, at the System Center Airlift, Thomas Theiner - an Operations Manager product team program manager - revealed that the next version of System Center Operations Manager has been code named "Katmai". Baelson Duque, another program manager of the Operations Manager team confirmed that this is the correct code name, but did not confirm that it would be named Operations Manager 2007 R2.

While the release will not happen this year anymore, there is a good chance that it will follow-up the SCOM 2007 product next year. Unfortunately I cannot comment on the major changes (I am under NDA for this), but they certainly focus on key areas like Notification and Network Monitoring. Thomas did mention one thing that will be fixed in the next release; editting of the reports outside of the Console (using the SRS website) will not break the reporting functionality anymore.

System Center Airlift: Operations Manager 2007

Here are some details that the Operations Manager product team mentioned during the Operations Manager 2007 sessions on monday during the System Center Airlift:

Always use the splash screen to install OpsMgr 2007, because that detects the system architecture (x86 or x64) and installs the correct MSI

RC2 currently supports 50 Operations Console connections and this number will even be bigger at RTM

System Center Capacity Planner v2 (with models for OpsMgr 2007) will be released to coincide with the OpsMgr 2007 RTM

Exchange 2007 Management Pack will be converted from MOM 2005 and provided as a web release directly after OpsMgr 2007 RTM's

A native OpsMgr 2007 Management Pack for Exchange 2007 will be released when Service Pack 1 for Exchange 2007 will be available

The native Exchange 2007 Management Pack will merge both the Exchange BPA MP and Exchange MP and form one MP

There will be a new report in the RTM build, giving an overview of all Overide Rules that have been set

RTM release will have an option called "Display all as box" for the Diagram Views

Future of Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM): integration with Service Desk

AEM reports (Top N Applications crashing, etc) will be available for the RTM build and available for TAP partners 1st week of February

Reliability Reports for the Vista Management Pack will be released when Service Pack 1 for Vista will be available

Today, tuesday, will be another day filled with deep technical sessions of Operations Manager 2007. Later this week, Ken van Hyning will also disclose some more details on the upcoming "Service Desk" product. Techlog will keep you informed!

System Center Airlift: Keynote

From monday 22 January through friday 26 January, Microsoft is organizing the System Center Airlift in Bellevue, WA. Microsoft Partners will get level 300 and level 400 sessions from the various product teams as the launch of the new 2007 versions of the System Center products are coming closer. During the keynote on monday, Larry Orecklin, general manager for the Windows Enterprise and Management Division at Microsoft, gave some deeper insight in the coming System Center portfolio of products. Larry noted that Operations Manager 2007 will RTM on the Microsoft Management Summit in San Diego in the last week of March.

Larry also told that System Center Virtual Machine Manager is slated to RTM at the end of Q3 and that their new product codenamed "Service Desk" will have a public beta at the end of this quarter. One of the things that showed from his keynote is that System Center will be a brand-name and not so much one giant integrated product. Larry told that Microsoft will launch a $30 million System Center brand campaign starting February 4th worldwide, called "Designed for Big". The supporting website will be http://designedforbig.com. One other new detail Larry mentioned, was that Microsoft will start focussing on Remote Managed Services and will be providing a framework to partners to manage client environments smaller than 500 clients as a "hosted solution". Larry closed the keynote by explaining that "System Center Online Services" will be an addition to the current product portfolio, where the former AssetMetrix' web portal is the first to go under the new System Center title.

Daylight Saving Time - Windows Mobile Fix

Daylight Saving Time change for 2007 is going to cause problems for unpatched technologies. Most vendors, including Microsoft, have released patches. One big area that is lacking is Windows Mobile smartphones & PDAs. Microsoft release a registry fix and instructed the carriers to push out a patch. Most of the carriers, in their infinite wisdom, have neglected to do so. If you rely on your Windows smartphone, you need this fix. Microsoft published the registry fix here. This fix requires you to build a CAB file and then install it. To save you the trouble, I have bundled the CAB file for you:

Microsoft Windows Mobile Daylight Saving Time Patch

What is the maximum number of Virtual Machines I can run?

Ben has all the information in his post "How many virtual machines can Virtual PC run at the same time", a modified snippet is below:

You can have up to 255 configured VMs and registered, but usually only 32 running at the same time:

Virtual PC 2004 = 32
Virtual PC 2007 = 32
Virtual Server = 64
Virtual Server R2 SP1 = 128

SSL VPN and NAP

There is some exciting news being announced on the RRAS blog around a new technology in Longhorn Server and Vista SP1 that enables SSL based VPN connectivity. The technology is called Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) and you can read about it here, here and here.

With SSTP, a user can use the built-in VPN client and server in Windows to create Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections over SSL. And, of course, SSTP will support NAP which means that those connections can be authorized based on compliance of the client to corporate security policy. In addition to SSTP, we are working with the ecosystem to achieve NAP support from the major SSL VPN vendors. At RSA this year, several 3rd party VPN providers will demonstrate NAP interoperability.

View BitLocker recovery passwords stored in Active Directory

One drawback to storing BitLocker recovery passwords in Active Directory is that there's no good way to retrieve the recovery password when you need it, or so I thought. I suggested to the BitLocker team that they consider writing an extension to AD Users & Computers to make it easy for authorized admins to get a recovery password for a given computer-- turns out they'd already done it and were deep into the signoff process!

The tool is officially documented in KB 928202. It's an AD U&C extension that makes the BitLocker recovery information visible; you need to get it from PSS, but it's a free call, so why not?

ISA Server: Decoding Error Messages

Sometimes you get an error message in the ISA Server logs for which you can’t find any information, not in a KB, not on MSDN, not in the ISA Server SDK, or even in your favorite search engine. If the error code looks something like 0x80074E23 – the key here being that it starts with 0x8007 – you can make something useful out of it. Take the last four characters in the error message, 4E23 in our example, open the Windows Calculator (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Calculator). From the View menu, select Scientific, click Hex and enter the characters. Then, switch back to Dec. In our example you will get 20003. Take the result, go to http://support.microsoft.com and search for it. If you get too many results, narrow it down by adding ISA and/or winsock to your search.

This example error code in hex can be found in http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms812624.aspx. You may get an error message that you just cannot find. However, this process still enables you to get a better understanding of what is happening and may help you determine if the error message you see in the log actually is caused by ISA Server or some other device on the network.

For those who thinks this is too cumbersome, download err.exe (a tool that was developed for Exchange Server) from Microsoft.com and check if that particular error message is indexed. To use err.exe, launch a command prompt, navigate to the folder where err.exe exists and type “err errornumber”, where errornumber is the number of the error, such as 80074E23. In our example, the result would not be that useful from an ISA Server perspective, but in some cases you will obtain useful information about the error.

Longhorn M5 Aurora Moving Screensaver (WPF)

This is a screensaver which uses the aurora XAML file. To install, extract the SCR file, right-click, and press install.

Longhorn M5 Aurora Moving Screensaver (WPF)

How to get rid of the Windows Welcome Center at FIRST boot

If you’re like me, you have custom scripts you run after you install Windows to get everything “just right”. You may have noticed, you don’t see a checkbox to “Show Windows Welcome Center” until you’ve logged on twice, and that’s by design.
With a simple .reg file though, you can kill Windows Welcome Center dead on first boot — simply put the following into your .reg file and save it, run it, or add it to your scripts:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"WindowsWelcomeCenter"=-

And like magic, it will not bother you again.

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition (seriously)

You have to be seriously freaking into Vista if you're even thinking about the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Limited Numbered Signature Edition (seriously, we didn't even think Microsoft was capable of a title like that), but at least the price is on target ($259) and they claim it's signed by the man himself, Billy G. Something tells us it's just an embossed signature print or something along those lines, but either way it's down to you and 19,999 others prepared to get their fanboy on with the latest, greatest version of Windows.

Microsoft to Make Vista Easier to Buy Online

The first program, Windows Anytime Upgrade, lets customers in North America, Japan and Europe who already have a version of Vista installed on their PC upgrade to a premium version of the product at a significant discount, told Bill Manion, the director of marketing for consumer and small business on the Windows client team.

The Windows Anytime Upgrade option is included in the Vista Start menu, which customers can use to buy and download a digital key for the premium edition of Vista that they want to use. They then insert the Vista DVD that came with their PC or retail purchase to complete the upgrade process. So, say a customer with a low-price PC that has Vista Home Basic installed wants the additional features and functionality available in Vista Home Premium. Under the Windows Anytime Upgrade program, they could buy this upgrade for $79—about half of the $159 retail cost for the same boxed upgrade software. (more)

Windows Server Virtualization Calculator

Short Answer: Check out the Windows Server Virtualization Calculator, fill in how many servers, VMs and Processors you own; and it will tell you which server licenses you should buy.

Long Answer: Ok, so we all know licensing is a lot of pain. The question on everybody's lips is "What point does a license for Datacenter become more cost effective than multiple copies of R2?"

Enter the Windows Server Virtualization Calculator hereby referred to as WSVC -- and using the defaults the answer: 16x VMs on a quad CPU box is the break even.

There is no hard and fast rule (enter the Blades vs Beefy Boxes debate) but the WSVC does a very nice job of crunching some of the numbers. The costs are in RRP USD.

Lab Tests: Vista's Fast If You Have the Hardware

With Microsoft's Windows Vista finally released to manufacturers and on the verge of making its way to retail, we can at last get down to the business of examining precisely how well the new OS performs. In our first tests, we discovered that while Vista's hardware requirements may be steep, it should run just fine--even with the Aero bells and whistles active--on machines that meet Microsoft's Premium Ready specifications (1GB of RAM, and a DirectX 9-capable graphics board with at least 128MB of dedicated memory).

We installed the RTM (release to manufacturing) Vista Ultimate code on desktop and notebook systems of varying specs and ages, and then we ran a series of benchmarks to answer several key questions about Vista's impact on performance. Our main findings:

• Vista is generally slower than XP, but it's better at multitasking on dual-core PCs.
• Your PC should have 1GB of RAM at the bare minimum.
• Aero won't slow you down if you use a discrete graphics processor and enough memory.
• Apps run slower on the 64-bit version of Vista, but adding RAM closes the gap.

Our conclusions here aren't the last word on Vista performance, however: When we conducted our tests in November, graphics companies were still fine-tuning their drivers (for example, we decided to drop our Doom 3 gaming tests because ATI's drivers didn't yet support that game's OpenGL graphics API). (Continue at source)

Inside the Windows Vista kernel

Mark Russinovich goes inside the Windows Vista kernel in the February edition of Technet Magazine to explain the new thread and process performance measurement algorithms that give you a more accurate picture of how your CPU time is spent. He also discusses the Multimedia Class Scheduler Service that provides users with a more seamless playback experience by better managing background tasks such as anti-virus and content indexing.

Read the article "Inside the Windows Vista Kernel Part 1"

Internet Explorer Administration Kit 7

The new release of IEAK offers a few changes over prior versions, with some options added and some retired. You now can add default RSS Web feeds to your Internet Explorer build, point to more than one home page and search page, and add support for an anti-phishing filter. You can also set the Microsoft® Windows® Malicious Software Removal Tool to run and update. However, you can no longer customize Outlook® Express and Windows Media® Player with IEAK as those applicationss aren't included with Internet Explorer 7.

You can create an Internet Explorer package for 32-bit or 64-bit platforms-Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server® 2003 with SP1, or Windows Vista™-x86-based, x64-based, or Itanium-based. Before you run IEAK 7, Internet Explorer 7 must be installed on the PC you use to create your package. For compatibility, you should run IEAK on a computer with the same OS as the computers on which you'll apply the build.

This article from Technet Magazine will discuss how to use IEAK to create your Internet Explorer 7 installation build and maintain or update your browser settings.(more)

RTM Exchange Server 2007 Setup GUI Walkthrough

Exchange 2007 introduces a completely rewritten Setup GUI experience, designed to match the Administrative experience you'll get with Exchange 2007 Management Console once the installation is completed. Like the Exchange 2007 Management Console, the new Exchange Setup is written on top of the Windows PowerShell cmdlets and is therefore completely scriptable with one-liners!

The people from the MS Exchange Team will show you the new GUI and talk about the various options available throughout the setup process.(more)

Converting Dynamic Disks Back to Basic Disks

Windows 2000, XP and 2003 provide a feature called Dynamic Disks. A dynamic disk can contain simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. When using dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without the need to restart the computer.

Once the change has been made to Dynamic Disks, they cannot be changed back to Basic Disks without deleting the partitions and rebuilding the disk. This can be troublesome, thankfully there is a way to hack it back to a Basic Disk.(more)

Business Desktop Deployment 2007

The Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) is best-practice guidance for desktop deployment. BDD is targeted at companies that want to reduce deployment time, effort, and cost by increasing the level of automation. It allows administrators to deploy desktops with Zero Touch and Lite Touch interaction at the target PCs. This solution also helps organizations move to a managed environment with standardized desktop images.


BDD 2007 is offered in two versions to support Solution Accelerator component installation on x64 or x86 hosts. Select the version that corresponds with your host hardware type. Both versions of BDD 2007 support deployment of x86 and x64 client operating systems.


To view this solution online at TechNet, click here.

Download the Business Desktop Deployment 2007

Longhorn Server to Be Named Windows Server 2007

An unnamed Microsoft official just confirmed to ActiveWin.com that the new Windows server succeeding Windows Server 2003 will be named Windows Server 2007, now known in its beta form as Windows Server "Longhorn". Windows Server 2007 is currently slated to be released in the second half of 2007, culminating a long beta process which began in early 2005. In addition, development has begun on the next series of MSCE certification tests geared for Windows Server 2007.

Unlocker utility for ejecting USB drives

Paul Andrew, Windows Workflow Foundation Technical Product Manager at Microsoft writes:

When I head home for the evening I shut down my computer. When I do this I have to unplug any USB drives that I might have been using. Frequently I request to remove the device from Windows and it pops up a little message saying that I can't remove the device just now because something is using it.

 This is frustrating because I'm the computer user and I'm not using the drive. I found this little utility the other day which works a charm. Just right click on the drive to be removed and choose unlocker. It will tell you what processes have locked the drive and offer to unlock them or kill them.

Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

In order to assist customers in designing their storage layout for Exchange 2007 (especially after publishing this blog post), we have put together a calculator that focuses on driving the storage requirements (I/O performance and capacity) and what the optimal LUN layout should be based on a set of input factors.

The calculator uses all the recommendations outlined in the following articles, and thus we recommend you read them before utilizing the calculator:

• Storage Requirements Blog - http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432199.aspx
  
• Processor & Memory Requirements Blog - http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/11/27/431644.aspx
  
• Understanding Exchange Server 2007 I/O improvements from 64 bit - http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/08/428860.aspx

The calculator does not make any recommendations toward storage design (RAID parity, number of disks, etc) as the storage design is largely dependent on the type of storage array being utilized. For more information on some basic requirements around storage design, see the Storage Requirements Blog post listed above.

Download the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

Allowing Exchange Activesync by Device ID in Exchange 2007

Here is how to limit access to Exchange Activesync service to a specific device denoted by the DEVICE ID.

This feature allows the IT Professional to restrict access by Device ID to a particular user.  This feature would prevent devices to be transferred to another user if that device was not specifically added to that new user's allowable device ID list.

The basic model how restriction is done is:

· If a user is disabled for sync they can’t sync with any device

· If a user is enabled for sync…

o If the deviceID restriction is null, the user can sync with any device

o If the deviceID restriction is populated using the task, the user can only sync with that device

To configure this feature you use the Exchange Management Shell and run the Set-CASMailbox task.  See example below:

Set-CASMailbox -identity:<user> -ActiveSynAllowedDeviceIDs:"<deviceID_1>", "<deviceID_2>"

Retrieving the Device ID

There is currently no built in functionality for retrieving the device ID in advance before the user syncs with Exchange.  You will need to use System Management Server or other solution to get the device ID.  For testing purposes, you can quickly retrieve the device ID by running this command.

Get-ActiveSyncDeviceStatistics –mailbox:<username> |fl DeviceID

Microsoft Office 2007 Beta Expiration Information

The purpose of this note is to remind you that the 2007 Microsoft® Office beta 2 release will expire soon. Depending on whether or not you implemented the beta 2 technical refresh, you will not be able to use the 2007 Office beta 2 release after one of the following dates:

For the 2007 Office beta 2 release with no update: 02/01/2007

For the 2007 Office beta 2 release updated with the beta 2 technical refresh: 03/31/2007

For the 2007 Office beta 2 release server products updated with the beta 2 technical refresh: 05/15/2007

If you would like to continue using the 2007 Office release to create, open, or modify files, you may:

1. Receive a FREE copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 when you attend a launch event for the new versions of Microsoft's most popular software. Register for an event near you.
2. Sign up for a FREE 60-day trial of the new 2007 Office release by visiting Microsoft Office Online.
3. Sign up to be notified when the new 2007 Office suites will be available by clicking here.

If you would like to use Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003 to open and modify Microsoft Office Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint® files that have been saved using the 2007 Office release file formats, please download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

Storing BitLocker recovery information in Active Directory

Windows Vista's new BitLocker encryption technology is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it offers excellent protection because it encrypts the entire OS volume with AES-256. On the other hand, if you lose the volume master key (VMK), you're screwed-- there's no way for you to unlock and recover data from the volume. To make this less of a danger, Microsoft allows you to create a recovery password that you can use to decrypt the disk. More precisely, the technical overview says:

In BitLocker, recovery consists of decrypting a copy of the volume master key blob that has been encrypted with a recovery key stored on a pluggable USB flash drive or with a cryptographic key derived from a recovery password. The TPM is not involved in any recovery scenarios, so recovery is possible if the TPM fails boot component validation, malfunctions, or disappears.

However, you still have to be very, very careful not to lose the recovery password! Vista includes the ability to back up the recovery password to Active Directory, but Microsoft hasn't released the public details of exactly how to do this... until today, that is. The new BitLocker AD Guide describes how to enable AD backup of BitLocker recovery information (including the TPM owner password and the BitLocker recovery password for each protected volume).

You'll need to extend your AD schema to enable this recovery mode. Don't use the schema extension files on the Vista product DVD to do this. They don't contain the correct schema properties. Instead, use the schema extension included with the AD Guide itself.

Apple launches it's iPhone

Yesterday on MacWorld 2007 Apple unveiled its IPhone.

The iPhone features a 3.5-inch display with a resolution density of 160 dpi. It combines three products: a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a Internet communications device with email, web browsing, maps, and searching.

The name iPhone is a registered trademark of Linksys, a division of Cisco. It looks like Apple and Cisco came to a deal concerning the use of the name iPhone.

Microsoft responded to the launch of the iPhone with the comment that: Apple Computer faces some tough hurdles if it decides to launch a mobile phone built around its popular iPod music player.

Personal Note: I think the iPhone looks really cool and has some interesting features, and i'm curious how it will be adopted, in particular in the enterprise market. In europe we have to wait untill 2008 to find out.

Credential Providers for Vista

Have you ever wondered how third parties were able to change the Windows Logon? It was via the GINA (Graphical Identification and Authentication). Well, in Windows Vista... the logon architecture was reworked to make it much easier to implement new user authentication scenarios and more importantly... the GINA was killed.

Windows Vista offers developers many new opportunities for integrating with the platform. The new Credential Provider model represents one of the most dramatic changes, making it much easier to implement new user authentication scenarios that are supported by the OS. This has replaced the GINA (Graphical Identification and Authentication) model-a model that, put bluntly, is known for being difficult for developers to understand and implement as well as being expensive for Microsoft to support.

So why is a change to the Windows® logon plug-in interface so exciting? The logon screen is the first thing users see when they turn on the computer. Now that the experience is driven by credential providers, it's much easier to customize the logon experience and integrate the authentication methods that best meet an organization's needs. Simply put, credential providers offer an easier way to develop and implement better, more robust security.(more)

Microsoft releases January patches

Microsoft has released its January 2007 security bulletin, which includes four updates. Three are listed as "critical," the company's highest risk rating, and one is listed as "important," the next step down.

Three of the updates this month are specific to Microsoft Office, and one includes Mac versions of Office. Microsoft no longer offers technical support for Windows 98 and Windows Me, nor does it continue to provide technical support for users of Windows XP SP1.

Join the ISA Server 2007 beta TAP

The Microsoft ISA Product Team is working on the next version of ISA. As part of the work, the team is currently recruiting customers for its internal customer programs namely TAP (Technology Adoption Program) and the Advisory Group). Interested customers, consultants, solution provides and others can contact ngtprcrt@microsoft.com to start the nomination process.
Please note: The information about these specific programs is Microsoft-confidential. Therefore, nomination to these programs requires the nominees to already have or sign a non-disclosure-agreement (NDA) with Microsoft.

Office 2008 for Mac

SAN FRANCISCO — Jan. 9, 2007 — Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today revealed at Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 the news Mac fans have been waiting to hear: A new version of Office for Mac is on its way. The Mac BU announced its intent to deliver the first Universal version of Office for Mac for PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs — Microsoft® Office 2008 for Mac. Scheduled to be available in the second half of 2007, Office 2008 for Mac will allow Mac users to work smarter and more efficiently with new and enhanced tools that are simple, intuitive and easily discovered.

“For more than two decades, Microsoft has been committed to delivering quality and innovation on the Macintosh platform while retaining unparalleled compatibility with PCs,” said Roz Ho, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft. “Office 2008 is, by far, the most comprehensive, Mac-complementary productivity suite we’ve developed to date. I’ve witnessed firsthand the progression of this product, and am excited to think about the possibilities that soon will be available to our customers when Office 2008 launches later this year.” (more)

Full Motion Desktop Demo

Full motion Desktop Demo

Windows Vista Ultimate Website

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) microsoft announced the availability of Windows Vista Ultimate Extras. Windows Vista Ultimate Extras will only be available to customers who have a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate (as the name describes) and will be made available through the automatic update feature in Windows Vista.

Microsoft launched a new website especially for Windows Vista Ultimate owners which you can find on WindowsUltimate.com. Here you can slo fin more information about the Windows Vista Ultimate Extras, like Windows DreamScene, Bitlocker and EFS enhancements and the Hold 'em poker game.

Ultimate Extras won’t be available until January 30th

Windows Home Server Demo

Video: Windows Home Server CES 2007

Note: As far as i can see, the pictures shown in the slideshow demo are pictures of Amsterdam, some dutch influence after all ;)

Windows Home Server Preview

At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft previewed its long-awaited Windows Home Server (WHS) product, a Windows Server 2003 R2-based server for consumers that dispenses with the complexities of most Windows Server versions and provides the core storage, sharing, and remote access functionality that digital media and home networking enthusiasts require. It's an innovative and exciting product, and I'm happy to finally be able to discuss it. Chances are, if you read this site regularly, you're going to want Windows Home Server.

Codenamed "Q" (and previously codenamed "Quattro"), Windows Home Server is designed to be almost diabolically simple, and after two and a half years of active development, Microsoft feels like it's arrived at an interface that is simple enough "even for mom" while being powerful enough for even the most jaded power user. The only downside to WHS, from what I can tell, is that there won't be a public beta. Instead, Microsoft will open up the product to an outside private beta test in late February and then ship it in late 2007. But if you can bear the wait, take heart: WHS will be available via both standalone software and pre-made servers. In short, it's all good news. Let's take a look.(continue at source)

Building Search for Your Web Site with the MSN Search Service

Adding search capabilities to a Web site can be daunting—Complex problems such as indexing, relevance logic, and hosting issues such as CPU and storage can all be difficult issues to solve. As a potential solution to these issues, Microsoft offers Web site developers the ability to implement the MSN Search Service on their sites.

This article explains how site search capabilities were implemented for dev.live.com, and at the same time offers a starting point for you to add site search to your Web site.

Quickly Searching KB Articles

You can modify the registry to add the capability to quickly search the KB articles (formerly referred to as Q articles) in Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Here's the procedure:

1. Run regedit.exe.


2. Go to
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl.


3. From the Edit menu, select New, Key and name it KB.


4. Select the new KB folder that you just created under the
   SearchUrl folder, and in the right-hand pane double-click Default.


5. For Value data, enter http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=%s.


6. Click OK and close the registry editor.

To test this procedure, open Internet Explorer and type KB followed
by the name of the KB article number (for example, to search for
article number 832980, type "kb 823980"). It should take you directly
to the article in your browser.

Exchange Server Stress and Performance Tool

Use Microsoft Exchange Server Stress and Performance (ESP), a highly scalable stress and performance tool for Exchange, to simulate large numbers of client sessions by concurrently accessing one or more protocol servers. ESP includes multiple modules that you can use to simulate a wide variety of protocols and loads. You can run modules concurrently from multiple hosts, thereby more realistically simulating physically separate client machines. There is no limit to the number of computers on your network that can host ESP modules.

Note: The ESP tool does not have the capability of creating users. Therefore, if you want to create a test that involves simulating actual individual users, and not simply client sessions, it is recommended that you use ESP in conjunction with other tools that create users (for example, Exchange Load Generator).

Download the Exchange Server Stress and Performance Tool

Microsoft unveils Windows DreamScene

Tonight at CES Microsoft introduced users to Windows DreamScene (code-name Motion Desktop). DreamScene is a Windows Vista Ultimate Extra designed to enable users to use high-definition video content as their desktop background:

During the demonstration, Microsoft showed how little CPU DreamScene uses thanks to its utiliziation of the Desktop Windows Manager (DWM). Microsoft tapped WinCustomize.com (a Neowin.net partner) to host third-party created content on a new site called Dream.WinCustomize.com. Microsoft also worked closely with Stardock during the development of DreamScene and to produce the 3D rendered content including Aurora. (more)

CES 2007: Windows Home Server

Home Server is where your family will store all of its important files. All music, video, photos, documents and even some software will sit on the Home Server, and all the computers in the home will be able to access it over your network (wired or wireless) as if they were on the computers themselves. You will even be able to access your files over the internet (don’t worry, everything is protected), and the killer feature: Home Server streams to the Xbox 360 and other Media Center Extenders. There are three primary purposes of Home Server:

Automated Computer Backup - Home Server will sit in the middle of your house and completely backup the entire hard drives of every computer connected to it, automatically. Lose anything, even an entire computer, and you will be able to restore it. You will even be able to restore older versions of files, taking advantage of a valuable feature in Windows Vista.

Access Everything From Anywhere - With a Home Server, you will be able to access all of your files from any computer, inside or outside your home, as well as accessing your home computers from outside the home. You will centrally store your files to make them easier to access at all times.

Grows With You - Home Server will be designed to make it easier for users to expand its capabilities, especially making it easy to add more hard drives.

Home Server will be sold in two forms, just like Windows XP Media Center used to be: As a full hardware/software package by manufacturers, and as a software package to system builders. Home Server is designed as a “headless” system, which means that it is not designed to be accessed with a mouse, keyboard or monitor. In fact, the integrated hardware/software solutions are designed to be built without a monitor port! (more)

First Windows Vista SP1 hotfixes appear on Microsoft’s site

vistasp1.net has posted links to six hotfixes set to appear in Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) codenamed Fiji. The site links directly to Microsoft KB articles that describe each problem in Vista, these KB articles cover a wide range of issues that were found just after Vista RTM’ed. Apparently, all six fixes can be obtained via Microsoft Support if you can prove that you are indeed having the problem listed. The Following KB articles apply to Vista Sp1:

KB929734 - You may experience problems after you resume a Windows Vista-based computer from sleep or from hibernation

KB929191 - IBM and Lenovo computers may take longer to start Windows Vista than computers from other manufacturers

KB929550 - When you connect a PCI ExpressCard device to a portable Windows Vista-based computer, the device may not work correctly

KB928188 - Ink programs may not work correctly on a digitizer in Windows Vista

KB929478 - After you use the Safely Remove Hardware option to remove a built-in optical drive from a portable Windows Vista-based computer, you may be unable to reconnect the drive

KB929577 - A Bluetooth device may no longer work correctly when you wake a Windows Vista-based computer from sleep

KB928253 - SATA optical drives are not available after you start a Windows Vista-based computer

Vista Ultimate Extra: Hold'Em Poker

Long Zheng has the first pictures of Windows Hold'Em, a poker game that will be released as a Windows Vista "Ultimate Extra":

I'm tagged!

Sooner or later, this would happen. I'm tagged! My good friend Stefan Stranger hands me, and four other bloggers, the "tag"-stick. The purpose of this tagging game is to name five things relative few people know about you. So here are my little secrets:

I used to be a Novell "lover" until 2002, but turned to Microsoft-based solutions after that (and started Techlog in 2004, to write about it).

I went to the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, three times already!

I'm addicted to Sudoku puzzles

I never finished high school and started working without a degree when I was 18, as a systems administrator at a local construction company. (Luckily for me, that turned out just fine)

I'm notorious for exceeding speed limits, which led me to a "settlement" with the dutch Justice department in 2004, when I speeded 54 kmh and got a fine of 450 euro's.

Now it's my turn to tag! I'm handing over the stick to Arlindo Alves, Steven Bink, Miel van Opstal, Michel Kamp and John Howard.

Microsoft ServiceDesk: timeframe

Omar van der Hoeven writes:

Microsoft Service Desk is Microsofts first helpdesk application, fully based on ITIL principles. It will host it's one database that can be 'fed' with information from SMS and MOM. I came across some info that the SD product team is concidering to make it possible to use SMS 2003 SPx in combination with SD. Here is some info on the release schedule. SD is planned to go RTM at the end of this year, so for some techies this will be 'the most wonderfull time of the year'!

Beta 1: December 2006 (TAP is running)

Beta 2: end of April 2007

Release candidate: beginning of July 2007

RTM: December 2007

Techlog: ServiceDesk, first screenshots
Techlog: ServiceDesk, IT Forum screenshot

Vista Takes Windows to New Heights

Review: Microsoft's Vista improves manageability and usability—not to mention takes on a slick new look—but corporations can squeeze much of the same capability out of Windows XP.

eWEEK has been testing Microsoft Windows Vista builds for more than three years, and our evaluation of the final code shows that the new operating system is a significant improvement over its predecessor, Windows XP—chiefly in terms of Vista's capacity for manageability and the tools it offers knowledge workers for juggling their data. What's more, with a raft of subsystem and driver model improvements, Microsoft has laid out in Vista a solid foundation for stability and usability gains in future Windows versions.

For enterprises running XP on their desktops and notebooks, however, a Vista upgrade is no slam-dunk. While Vista's new UAC (User Account Control) facilities can make it easier for companies to appropriately lock down their desktops, for instance, it's quite possible to run a well-managed shop of XP machines, either out of the box or with the aid of lockdown tools. (more)

Windows Vista Sideshow Remote Control?

James Senior writes: "Hot on the heels (due out in April) of the Asus will be this rather sexy looking remote control device which is going to have long range bluetooth (100m) which is going to make controlling your Media Center a dream."

"Things are really starting to get interesting with Windows Vista Sideshow (as I predicted) and I can't wait to see what innovations are going to come out of this space."

UPDATE: No information on the Asus website, yet.

World's First Sideshow Laptop Released

James Senior writes: "The world's first sideshow laptop has just been announced by Asus. The W5Fe is the production version of the prototype I was lucky enough to get my grubby paws on a few weeks ago to play around with. The specs are pretty impressive too:"

Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology

- Intel® Core™2 Duo Processors T7600/T7400/T7200/T5600/T5500
- Mobile Intel® 945GM Express Chipset
- Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

Genuine Windows® Vista

- Genuine Windows® Vista Home Premium

DDR2 533/667 MHz, up to 1536 MB

12.1" WXGA Color Shine & Crystal Shine LCD, ASUS Splendid Video Intelligence Technology

SATA 80/120/160 GB

1.3M pixel web-camera

802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth®V2.0+EDR

3x USB, 1x TV-Out, 1x Card-Reader, 1x Express Card, 1x VGA

30.5 x 22 x 3.1cm, 1.7kg (3-cell battery pack)

For more information and news about Sideshow devices be sure to check out the excellent Sideshowdevices.com website.

SideShow Auxiliary Display

Display: 2.8" QVGA TFT LCD

Flash: 1G NAND Flash

ASUS Press Release

Microsoft at CES

NVIDIA Releases WHQL Vista RTM Drivers

On January the 5th Nvidia finally released the long-awaited final graphics drivers for Windows Vista. "NVIDIA has released the following WHQL certified drivers for use with Windows Vista RTM that will enable you to test the basic features and capabilities of the new operating system."

Release Highlights:

These drivers are only compatible with Windows Vista RTM build 6000 and higher, and should not be used with other versions of Windows Vista.

Includes the new NVIDIA Control Panel. Please visit the NVIDIA Control Panel website for more information.

Includes OpenGL driver for compatibility testing.

Improved application compatibility and performance.

x86: Forceware 97.46 for Vista RTM
x64: Forceware 97.46 for Vista RTM

How To Remove The Search Box From Internet Explorer 7

Do you have no need for the search box in IE7? Do you run search toolbars like the Windows Live Search Toolbar or the Google Toolbar, and don’t want to be tempted by other search engines?

Then you’ll be happy that IntelliaAdmin has found a Registry edit that removes the search box from Internet Explorer 7. Just navigate to HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Infodelivery\Restrictions and add a DWORD value of “NoSearchBox” set to 1. If that’s too much for you to attempt, they’ve even created a small program that does the work for you.

Active Directory Component 'Jigsaw'

A little known resource, the Active Directory Component Jigsaw has finally released to the web as a PDF. Its about 8 Mb in size but should blow up to print out very nicely on A3 or right up to A1 posters. Its a poster that diagrams all the pieces of Active Directory and is accurate up to Windows Server 2003. It was designed and produced by a Microsoft Consulting Services couple (Martin and Astrid McClean) of Microsoft Australia.

Active Directory Component Jigsaw

Is the Hypervisor the new Virtual Server?

No. The Hypervisor is simply, hardware partitioning. Windows Virtualisation will use the Hypervisor to provide very fast, efficient, and secure access to the hardware. In the diagram below you can see that the Windows Hypervisor sits between the hardware and the operating system. It is a very small and efficient piece of code that uses Intel-VT or AMD-V to provide secure hardware partitioning - It does not contain any drivers, services, or applications.

Microsoft Virtualization (Server-based): Overview and Roadmap (Powerpoint)