This is really good info to have on hand. 

Source: Ohad's WebLog : Installing Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 on Vista

 Original Source: http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/robert/archive/2006/12/31/installing-adobe-reader-8-on-windows-vista.aspx

I know a few schools out there are working on custom credential providers for Vista.  I have heard of projects such as authenticating to third party kerb realms, etc.  The code samples for Vista RTM have been posted and may be of value. 

Link to Download details: Credential Provider Samples

[Updated 1/3/7 11:45 PM]

I just saw that MSDN magazine has published an article on this same topic.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/01/CredentialProviders/default.aspx

I know several members of my family have been waiting to buy a new desktop because they wanted Vista.  How do you go about copying all your data between the two machines and what if you want to use both until you get comfortable?  No problem.  First off, I've found the Easy Transfer Wizard is VERY easy and works really well.  It just copies all your settings and files to your new Vista machine, no problem.  Also if you are upgrading or installing on your old machine, either your settings and files will come along during the upgrade or if you do a new install you'll find your files in the Windows.old directory.  That's one of the many benefits of .WIM, it's nondestructive.

So what if you want to bring home a new machine?  You run the Easy Transfer Wizard and bring in all your wireless settings, files, Email, etc, but how do you go about using both machines until you're sure you have all your data and feel comfortable on the new computer?  No problem.  There's a great tool available for no cost to sync files between computers.  It's called FolderShare and is available at FolderShare.com.  It's one of the MANY Live services that I talk to customers about and it seems that only around 1 in 10 are aware of.  If you aren't taking advantage of these tools you're really missing out!

FolderShare puts a slim client on your machine and is managed mostly using the web.  I use it to sync our family photos to an external hard drive at one of the grandparent's homes and I sync their photos back to my Media Center.  It also is great for sync'ing home and work machines, two home machines, or in this case an XP machine and a Vista machine.  I'm running it on my 64-bit Vista machine and it works great.  In fact, you don't even have to worry about reconfiguring your home firewall or router because it operates as a client.  Your machine makes a request to the server to determine whether it needs to sync and then the server hands off your connection to the other client.  The server doesn't actually store anything, because both clients are making requests they take advantage of the same rules in your firewall that let you out when you surf the web.  Of course if you have two machines sitting next to each other you don't likely have to think about firewall issues except the local firewall in XP and Vista which get "unblocked" the first time you run the client.

Finally, because Vista has pointers in the file system for application compatibility that refer to old folder names in XP, even the links to places like "My Documents" in FolderShare go to the Documents folder in Vista.  If you want to sync to the Pictures or Music folders keep in mind it is no longer under "Documents" in Vista.  It is now in the root of your profile under your username.

I find this tool to be really useful and leverage it in many creative ways including sync'ing the desktop on my Tablet back to the desktop on my home office workstation. 

Link to FolderShare.com - sync files, sync folders, transfer files, share files, web download, access files anywhere

I just stumbled across this and it works like a charm.  In IE7 you can provide a custom search provider by copying and pasting the URL string from search results in to a form.  This assumes of course that the URL string includes the keyword you use to search.  I regularly order online and very often accept deliveries from shipping services.  I was just checking on the status of a package when it occurred to me you could easily search from IE7.  I tried it and yes, it worked! 

I simply went to the site where I track shipments, entered my tracking information and got the results.  I then replaced the tracking information in the URL with the word TEST and copied the URL string to the clipboard.  If your shipping service does not return results with the tracking information in the URL then this will not work.  In IE7 when you click on the drop down arrow to the right of the search field you can select "Find More Providers".  BTW, the "Fewer Retail" item you see here is a macro I'm working on...  More about that in the future.

The form on the right is a great tool I use all the time and love to demo.  I simply pasted the URL string in to the top input field and gave it a name in the bottom field.  Click Install and accept the new search item.  That's it!  Pay attention to what you paste in to the field.  You may be accepting legal terms when you execute the search so make sure you understand what you are pasting and what you are accepting. 

I had the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit poster hanging behind my door in college.  Sad, but true.

Link to Michael Kleef ::: MSFT : Active Directory Component Jigsaw - released to the web

This is pretty good too.

http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/archive/2006/11/16/expired.aspx

Almost 2 years ago I used this online training simulation to help a school district get their minds around a Novell migration project.  This URL has since eluded me and I've had several people ask about it.  I just stumbled upon it so I want to bookmark it here.

http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2003/evaluation/demos/sims/migrate/viewer.htm

Want to see for yourself?  Start by opening "Step 1" and then click the link to start the animation "Introduction to Terminology."  That session alone is worth marking as a favorite.  The remaining portion of the training walks through the various migration tools provided at no cost, how they work, how they differ from MIIS, and it references a few good third party tools.

Once you're ready to play around, try out the virtual lab on TechNet to rehearse migration objects on your own hosted instance of a virtual machine.  I've referenced this before but no harm in posting the link again.

 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/nwmigrate.mspx

Other good info: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/storage/default.mspx

So it's been weeks since I posted anything and I'm back!  I've been travelling pretty much nonstop to meet with Universities and talk about Vista.  I spoke at the launch event in Indianapolis on the public sector track.  That was really interesting because the night before I completely lost my voice.  It was still gone for the launch, I just turned up the microphone!

Some things to catch up on.  I'm hoping to find some lab time this week because BDD 2007 has released to web.  I've been running it in a virtual server since the day it came out and loving it.   It really is a pretty short leap to go from common practices today to an easy wizard-driven and much more mature procedure.  A lot of people today put images on a file share and then boot to a Windows 98 disk and apply the image to workstations.  If that is your practice I recomend you download BDD and read over the Computer Imaging System Feature Team Guide and the Lite Touch Installation Guide.  You will find it is right in line with what you put today except it will give you wizards to do things like migrate user data and configure all the settings that would otherwise require you to build an answer file.

Speaking of answer files, I'm hoping to build a template file this week to use for unattended deployment proof of concepts.  Once I have it working I'll take out obvious things like passwords and post it.

Paint.net is an absolute must-have.  It is the tool I use to build all the graphics for my site although that may not be saying that much...  :-)  Congrats on shipping the final build guys.  Great work.

In other news, did you see the Feeds Plus install for IE7?  I use IE and Outlook for reading RSS because I like the concept of the central OPML and both tools use it.  I'm a big fan of RSS Bandit and will switch back to it once it can use the Vista central OPML.

My Gadget on  Windows Live Gallery

Tell me what you think.  I'd like to add functionality to search Live services such as Virtual Earth.  Perhaps have two buttons or some type of checkbox.

Looking forward to more great technology innovation in 2007.