The newly released Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 Beta 2 will help you prepare for your Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments. MDT 2010 is the next version of the Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment. New features such as flexible driver management, optimized user interface work flow, and Windows PowerShell will help simplify deployment and make your job easier. As a member of the Beta review program, you will be asked to provide feedback about the tools that the Solution Accelerator includes. If you are not a member, click here to join the Beta program. For members, click here.
More to come,
Mitch
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Windows 7 is coming on October 22, 2009 and you can pre-order Windows 7 today at the Microsoft Store. You'll get it for at least half off and that translates into $49.99 for the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade and $99.99 for the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade. But hurry, the offer runs until July 11, 2009 or until supplies run out, whichever comes first.
Whether you're just getting started with enterprise search or need the scale to support the most demanding search challenges, the Microsoft Enterprise Search site has put together a great comparison table outlining the three enterprise search products: Fast ESP, Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express.
Heading toward general availability on October 22, Microsoft today revealed some great news in the pricing for Windows 7; the most popular retail product, the Home Premium Upgrade, will be reduced by approximately 10% (depending on the market), compared to its Windows Vista predecessor. For more on the pricing and more details on the Windows 7 Upgrade Option, see the Windows Team Blog post.
Here’s the quick rundown:
The estimated retail prices for upgrade packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:
And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:
In the U.S., you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for $99.99. You can take advantage of this special offer online via select retail partners such as Best Buy or Amazon, or the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets).
It’s not an enterprise app but, hey, it’s summer and that AC at home could be spiking your energy costs more than you think. Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator group has brought out a free online beta application called Hohm, which gives you personalized energy savings recommendations. Hohm uses advanced analytics licensed from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy and provides relevant suggestions for energy conservation when you input specific household circumstances.
Join the beta and help contribute to improvements to the site and analytics.
Also check out the 20 minute demo of the service in action over on Channel 9.
The Microsoft Security Essentials Beta is now available for download. You’ll get protection against viruses and spyware, including Trojans, worms and other malicious software. And best of all, there are no costs or annoying subscriptions to keep track of. This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).
Also check out the Security Essentials Beta Community site where experts are available to help with issues and answer general questions.
Just a reminder that the Windows 7 Beta trial is winding down fast. The trail period ends July 1, 2009, at which time your beta will start to reboot every 2 hours and expire completely on August 1, 2009. There is still time to get the Windows 7 RC download. The program closes on August 15, 2009, but if you download the bits before then, you still have plenty of time to get a product key and install the RC after August 15. To stay up to date on the RC program, check the Springboard Blog.
Now available via the Downloads Center, the Windows Server Hyper-V Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 supports monitoring of Windows Server Hyper-V systems. This includes monitoring coverage of Hyper-V host servers, including critical services and disks, and Hyper-V virtual machines, including virtual components and virtual hardware. This management pack provides:
This Solution Accelerator includes the following components:
The new version of this Solution Accelerator updates both the guide and tool to reflect the additional functionalities provided by Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Download the Infrastructure Planning and Design assessment guide and scenario selection tool for Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios.v1.1.
Take advantage of this offer while it lasts. Microsoft Press is offering
Programming for Unified Communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for free until June 24, 2009. The step-by-step programming scenarios show you how to deliver high-quality VoIP, presence, click-to-communicate, and contextual collaboration across the enterprise and across time zones.
Download this comparison chart that shows the features that IT pros care about across the three latest versions of the client operating system. This handy charted categorizes the features around file organization and search, remote access, security and compliance, management, and deployment. More to come,
Download this comparison chart that shows the features that IT pros care about across the three latest versions of the client operating system. This handy charted categorizes the features around file organization and search, remote access, security and compliance, management, and deployment.
The Bing Community Search Blog announced that potentially explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. This is invisible to the user, but allows for filtering of that content by domain which makes it much easier to block this content This is good news for companies concerned that employees could use the powerful search capabilities to return inappropriate content, or that video search result previews would include explicit images. In addition, Bing will begin returning source URL information in the query string for images and video content so that companies who already use this method of filtering will be able to catch explicit content on Bing along with everything else they are already blocking for their customers.
You can now download the new Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack and get an extensive set of monitoring, including synthetic transactions to effectively monitor Exchange 2007 and report on performance, availability, and reliability of its server roles. The Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack is designed to monitor Exchange 2007 key health indicators, collect Exchange component-specific performance counters in one central location, and raise alerts for operator intervention as necessary. The Management Pack monitors and provides alerts for automatic notification of events indicating service outages, performance degradation, health monitoring, and centralized management.
This Management Pack requires Operations Manager 2007 R2.
The Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway is a e secure Web gateway solution that helps protect employees from threats on the Web with enterprise-class anti-malware scanning and blocking, URL filtering (new in Forefront TMG Beta 3), web proxy and caching functionality. Microsoft Forefront TMG also helps to ensure that encrypted (SSL) Web sessions have the correct security policy applied and enforced according to organizational policy. In addition, it can also be used to manage unified perimeter security that protects networks from attacks with an integrated application and network-layer firewall, intrusion detection and response capabilities, VPN connectivity, and management of e-mail security. The newly added protection technologies will enable organizations to inspect e-mail traffic for spam and malware and enforce content policy compliance in your organization. Last, but not least, Microsoft Forefront TMG enables IT administrators to easily maximize existing information technology (IT) investments by improving network security and performance.
Try out the Forefront Threat Management Gateway Beta 3
The results of AV-Comparatives’ Anti-Virus Comparative test show that Microsoft’s anti-virus offering is one of the best for proactive detection. In the independent test, which measured 16 anti-virus vendors, Microsoft anti-virus received one of only three of Advanced+ ratings. Our detection rate was 60%, the second best among the participants, and we had the fewest false positive samples.
Check out the newly launched Microsoft Exchange Server Training Portal for training resources around both Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2007. Find a new suite of Exchange Server 2010 training resources designed to clearly differentiate technology skills and job-role skills, cover skills relevant to today's real-world IT functions, and streamline certification with simplified, specific learning roadmaps. And while you are there check out the special offers.
TechNet Flash US readers are being offered an incredible end-of-fiscal-year deal on a TechNet Plus Direct subscription. Get 12 months for just $249 (that’s an unbeatable $100 off the reg. $349 price) through July 3, 2009. Visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/renew.aspx and use the promo code TEYFY09 to get the special price (US Only). With TechNet Plus Direct you can still get your hands on the Windows 7 RC and other popular Microsoft commercial software.
If you haven’t given Windows Internet Explorer 8 a whirl yet, now would be great time. With its Browser for the Better program, Microsoft is donating eight meals to Feeding America for every download of IE8. Help accelerate an end to hunger in this country. The download, of course, is free. Only complete downloads of Internet Explorer 8 through http://www.browserforthebetter.com from June 8, 2009, through Aug. 8, 2009, qualify for the charitable donation to Feeding America.
Microsoft in the second half of 2009 will offer a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 R2. Sign up now to receive an email notification of the availability of the CTP and, while you are there, check out the new features planned for the R2 release.
This bulletin summary lists security bulletins released for June 2009.
The Infrastructure Planning and Design team has released a new guide: SharePoint Online—Evaluating Software-plus-Services. If you are considering an online solution for your organization’s collaboration services, this new guide presents a clear comparison of SharePoint collaboration technologies across on-premises, standard hosting, and dedicated hosting scenarios. It is designed to be used as a framework for evaluating the business and technical feasibility of moving to Microsoft SharePoint Online. It identifies key SharePoint workloads, and provides a customized assessment to help the organization determine which offering best meets the organization’s requirements. Download the guide by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/ipd and selecting “SharePoint Online–Evaluating Software-plus-Services” under the IPD One-click Downloads, listed on the bottom right of the page.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 R2 Release Candidate is now available for public download. The R2 is the latest upgrade to VMM 2008 and enables consolidation of physical servers, rapid provisioning of new virtual machines and unified management of physical and virtual infrastructure through one console. VMM 2008 R2 now manages many of the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, plus:
Read about the SCVMM R2 RC features on the System Center Virtual Machine Manager product team blog.
The bits are available via Connect https://connect.microsoft.com/.
This short video on TechNet Edge highlights some of the new backup features that arrive with the RC version of Windows Server 2008 R2 including:
Watch the video
Here’s a very handy new online service that could get you out of some jams, or just save you time fixing other people’s problems: The recently-launched Microsoft Automated Troubleshooting Services. With one click, Microsoft can detect problems on your machine and automatically fix any common problems that are found.
Here are some of the Fix it solutions available:
If you are a Web developer or administrator, improving your website’s relevance in search results is a big deal, and to aid in that endeavor, Microsoft is offering the IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit Beta. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps.
The IIS SEO Toolkit Beta can be installed with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta for use with IIS 7.0 and IIS 7.5. See other IIS Extensions from Microsoft.