Many of you have attended our live TechNet events around the country and received the Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 Promotional Kit.  Inside the cover is a PIN number that has to be registered at www.registerwindowsvistasp1.com .  many of you have...

Just added the Translator Add-In to my blog. See the Translator button on the left, just above my TechNet Subscription Discount button. Simply click on " Translator " and you get a selection of languages in the drop-down menu. Select your desired language...

Many of you have attended our live TechNet events around the country and received the Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 Promotional Kit, which came with 32-bit media. You may recall I posted some information earlier this month talking about the Expired Pin Problems...

Want to help us out with the new Virtual Lab based exams!!! This is NOT a normal beta exam and so make sure you read the information in BLUE below. This is a pilot to test the exam experience only. Still interested? Then read on below!! Responding...

I decided for my first screencast that I would leverage the Windows Vista Help and How-to website.  After reviewing the content available there, I thought it would be useful to do a quick run through of Performance Information and Tools in the control...

I thought in the current economic climate this article has some good pointers, although I'm not sure I'd agree with all of them. I'd like to add some other steps you might want to take if you're a Microsoft Technologist: KNOWLEDGE: Have you updated...

Our TechNet Events team in the US have been talking about using BitLocker to encrypt and protect your data for the past year. During our sessions I always try to give examples of real-life scenarios of data loss or theft of laptops and drives and have...

Looks like Congress is trying to get the law changed regarding search and seizure of peoples laptops coming back into the country. I didn't know, and I'm sure most of us didn't, that "..the government could demand the password to their laptop, hold it...

   Whether you're configuring a home or a small office workgroup, if you have Windows XP and Windows Vista machines in the workgroup you might have had problems getting them to see each other and access shared resources.  This short screencast...

There are a lot of phishing scams out there at the moment. The reason I decided to post this is because I almost fell for one of the social networking scams. I was in Facebook the other day and what appeared to be an instant message from a friend popped...

Get Hands-On With Virtualization—On Us!!! Attend the event that lets you touch, talk about, and experience Microsoft® virtualization solutions. Hear from Microsoft virtualization experts on how Microsoft uses virtualization in its own data...

This has got to be the most crazy or most impressive project I've ever seen. Mr. Ken Imhoff saw the movie Cannonball Run seventeen years ago, I saw that same movie and in my case it nearly took away my will to live J , in his case, he fell in love with...

On Monday Microsoft announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. This is the next generation of Microsoft’s solution for managing the virtualized infrastructure. Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 is...

I haven't done any posts recently on Indian restaurants as I've not been on the road as much as I usually am. Since I was out to dinner the other night at one of my favorite Indian Restaurants in the Atlanta area, the Bombay Grill , I thought it was time...

Thought this was an amusing picture.  I was driving past my local mall the other night and saw the information display showing their system has just finished running CHKDSK, successfully I might add, the C: volume is CLEAN!!! OK folks, its time to...

Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 is a new management solution in the System Center family of IT systems management products specifically designed for midsize businesses (up to 500 PCs and 30 servers). Essentials provides: monitoring and alert resolution...

The Windows Small Business Server 2008 Best Practices Analyzer was just published last week.  What exactly do the analyzer do?  It will examine a server running Windows Small Business Server 2008 and provide a list of information and any errors...

What is NPS? Network Policy Server (NPS) is a networking component of Windows Server® 2008 that allows you to create and enforce organization-wide network access policies for client health , connection request authentication , and connection request...

Overview The security update MS08-067 resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows...

I had a few comments and some emails this weekend that many of you were having problems registering the PIN from the Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 Promotional Kit. I have been informed there were some system problems this weekend. If you tried, and failed...

Are You Deploying System Center Configuration Manager? If you are, then you'll find this NEW Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guide for Configuration Manager will be an invaluable resource. The guide enables you to quickly select which features...

What Is This Guide? The IT Compliance Management Guide is a Solution Accelerator that can save you time and money by shifting your governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) efforts from people to technology. Using the configuration guidance can help you...

I was up in South Carolina with my daughter last weekend visiting with my ex-in-laws at their condo on the lake. I hadn't been up in a few months and was shocked at how low the lake had dropped. They had been out of town for a few weeks during which time...

Join us at a TechNet event for some great sessions on Windows Vista, PowerShell and Group Policy Preferences!! Where Are The Events? COLORADO - Denver - 11/18/2008 CONNECTICUT - Waterbury - 11/5/2008 FLORIDA - Orlando - 11/18/2008 FLORIDA...

My teammate, Chris Henley , put together this screencast on Group Policy Preferences.  So John, What Are Group Policy Preferences?  So glad I asked myself that J .  Group Policy preferences gives IT professionals, that's you and me, ...

Last week I was looking for a quick bite early one evening and decided for some reason to go to McD's. I don't know why, maybe it was a burger and fries craving and I just didn't want to drive anywhere. It's probably the first time I've been to one in...

Interesting article on how students expect wireless connectivity at the college or university that they attend. There's a quote in the article that says "Young adults expect access to information with unprecedented immediacy" that really resonates with...

If you haven't looked at the TechNet Virtual Labs site then you're really missing out on a great resource!! Today I want to point out whats available for the System Center family in particular. if you want to "kick the tires" without having to go through...

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is an integrated platform with tools and guidance that make it easier for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs. It offers easy...

Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 introduce a new format for displaying registry-based policy settings. Registry-based policy settings (located under the Administrative Templates category in the Group Policy Object Editor) are defined using...

Register now for the SQL Server 2008 Roadshow starting in October!!! Come and learn more about SQL Server 2008 and the new enhanced capabilities of the product.  We will be exploring security and database management, how to best manage your data...

This is a great interview with Alan McBurney of New Horizons in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He discusses how and why they used System Center Configuration Manager to deploy Windows Vista SP1 in their environment. Its about 10 minutes, but well worth the...

If you're doing any kind of Active Directory® directory service or Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) upgrade, you might want to look at restructuring your environment. And if you do, the tool you need is the Active Directory Migration Tool v3.1...

If you're doing any kind of virtualization work with Hyper-V Server 2008, then you might be interested in downloading the Hyper-V Server 2008 Setup and Configuration Tool Guide . The guide has all the information you need to setup and configure Hyper...

Are you working with System Center Operations Manager? Then download the Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 Documentation . The download includes the following System Center Operations Manager 2007 guides: Operations Manager 2007 Operations...