I am working on content for a troubleshooting guide for System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Windows Sysinternals has launched on Technet, and the new site includes some invaluable TS tools. For example, Process Monitor 1.0, an advanced monitoring tool showing file system, Registry and process/thread activity. "It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more."
Procmon 1.0 runs on Windows 2000 SP4 with Update Rollup 1, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1and Windows Vista as well as x64 versions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Vista.
Some other hand PS tools on this site include:
PsTools The PsTools suite includes command-line utilities for listing the processes running on local or remote computers, running processes remotely, rebooting computers, dumping event logs, and more.
Regjump Jump to the registry path you specify in Regedit.
MoveFile Schedule file rename and delete commands for the next reboot. This can be useful for cleaning stubborn or in-use malware files.
SDelete Securely overwrite your sensitive files and cleanse your free space of previously deleted files using this DoD-compliant secure delete program. Complete source code is included.
BgInfo This fully-configurable program automatically generates desktop backgrounds that include important information about the system including IP addresses, computer name, network adapters, and more.
Or, just get the 8 MB full-meal deal (Sysinternals Suite). Fits nicely on a keychain USB.
My old team - IT Showcase - packages up great information for IT Pros on how IT works at Microsoft. For the latest on how Microsoft IT does patch management, see:
The latest PPT presentation and the earlier SMS PPT. And/Or you can read the 1 pager. And finally http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/msit/security/mspatch.mspx
Windows PowerShell week has started. If you haven't signed up for the webcasts, you should run, not walk to the signup page.
Completed casts are available on-demand - for example, yesterday's Day 1 intro cast, and QnA transcript.
But wait, there's more. For example, you can find the tasy aforementioned Translating VBScript to Windows PowerShell Guide in the downloads.
Bon apetite.
In case you missed everyone screaming it earlier this week, Microsoft has sweetened the deal for those of you interested in Virtualization by making free VHDs available. Taking System Center Virtual Machine Manager Beta 1 for a test drive just got a whole lot easier.
I recently updated the SCVMM FAQ as follows (ital):
Virtual machines may be created from other virtual machines, virtual hard disks stored in the library, or templates stored in the library.
You can create a virtual machine from another virtual machine on a host or within the library, as long as the machine is stopped or stored in the library. You can create virtual machines from virtual hard disks and template stored in the library that meet the minimum requirements, including VM Additions installed, the operating system has been created with Sysprep, and other requirements detail in the Getting Started Guide.
For instructions on creating a virtual machine, see Getting Started with Virtual Machine Manager at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=69928.
For information about free virtual hard disks from Microsoft that contain evaluation versions of server software, see Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=77557. To download the free virtual hard disks, go to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=77556.
But what this means is - you can now:
1) Download free VHDs for Microsoft server products
2) Store those VHDs in your SVMM Beta 1 library
3) Make templates for VMs that use these VHDs
4) Assign some of your users (say dev and test folks) to the templates
5) Set up the SCVMM beta 1 Self-Service Portal.
6) Send your users the URL to the portal
Bingo. Your users now have self-service, on-demand, VMs running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006, or Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 - 32-bit version.
>sliced bread or what?
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