Dan Stolts Blog

Community Certification Training Survey – Free Or Pay For Materials Only – What do you need training on?

At our community conference call last week a request came up for a community IT Pro Community Certification Gathering.

If we were to pilot a “Community Certification Program”, what should it look look?

Please fill out the survey at...

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7rwrMybNwuMJ_2bkHK5b3slQ_3d_3d 

or post a comment on this blog to answer the following questions. If you do not want to share the information with others, just let me know in the notes that you want your response to stay “private” and I will not publish.

1) Do you think this would be a valuable program?

2) If it were held in Waltham Ma,   would you attend?  What city do you work or live in and how far would you travel?

3) I am thinking that the first topic should probably something with wide appeal.  Perhaps Windows 7?  What do you think about this topic and what other topics might be of interest?

4) If we did the certification training based on a book, (MS Press Cert book for example) would you be able to purchase the book as part of the materials required? 

5) Would one evening a week be an acceptable schedule? 

6) Would you be interested in a bootcamp style course (in the future) where we do 2 nights a week or even more to get through the material very quickly?

7) What other thoughts or ideas do you have about this type of program?

8) Are you interested and qualified to teach any topics?  Do you know anyone that would be interested and qualified in teaching?

Please understand much has to happen to pull something like this off.  This message is not a statement that we will be doing this.  It is more a question of should we try to work out the logistics to make it happen.  As a new member of the MCT community I do not yet know about what I can and cannot do but i will find out.

Community Call Minutes 2009-06 Search Videos and Certification were the big topics

On June 25th we had a “North East Region IT Pro Monthly Community Conference Call with Dan Stolts”.  The purpose of the call was for me to reach out to the community to find out what I can do you you. 

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Comments and Questions from the field…

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1) Momentum is a great program! Love the interviews posted on my blog

2) Video training should be more accessible … we need some mechanism to catalog the video's. Search on AD or Remote Desktop or whatever and all the training comes up on that topic.

Internal search is not as good as external search. None of the search gets everything. Need to have all listed by category and a KB type of search through video's. Example given search RDS on http://edge.technet.com you get two video's… this is weak.

• Keep it simple but easy to find what you are looking for. Links to other things would be good.
• Certifications
• Community events (local based on zip of current person doing search)
• Podcasts 
• Video's
• Blog Posts
• Live events
• Webcasts
• Certification is also a key, having those video's also have a test that this topic might refer to.

3) Community certification programs should be available. Give the user group communities a way to have "certification classes" for their members.

Tues/Thurs evening training for three weeks or so to do cert prep?

• All the people looking for work need to have certs and they do not have the money to take classes.
• Abe at Jones Road is doing this for the developer community.

Action Items:

1. give update on searching video's at our next meeting
2. Blog post inquiry of certification class for IT Pro's for them to comment on what they would like to see and how far they are willing to drive

Thanks to all that joined me on this call.  I hope you will join me again next month and drive more excitement through the community by inviting others to this call as well.  Our next call will be on Friday July 24th at 1pm [note moved to Friday due to Thursday conflict].  The call in information is: Toll Free: 1-888-320-3585  Conference ID: 2230124.  How to hear from you then! 

The Stated Agenda / Purpose of the conference call was defined here…

Download ICS Calendar for July 2009 Conference

Wisdom From The Field Two Ten Systems on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 – Makes The OS Relevant - Momentum Interview

Company name: Two Ten Systems - Systems Integration Firm located in CT, Serving Greater CT and Manhattan area. Small to midsize vertical mainly in financial and real-estate industries. http://www.twotensystems.com

Your geographic location (country): USA

Project Name/Description: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Objectives of the project: Satisfy curiosity about the product. Determine security integration with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. In particular, understanding the Group Policy granularity capabilities. Also wanted to understand the other "features" that were available in the product. Also Remote App (RDS) and possibly using that as a replacement for Citrix.

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Piloting

Products used in project: Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes

Are you going to be saving money? Yes, We will very likely do away with Citrix licensing which will save us significant money. There will likely be increase in scalability and decrease in maintenance due to virtualization capabilities. Easier deployment means less hours which means less man hours which, will likely be significant.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program? It has been enormously helpful to me. We are a startup so it is an invaluable resource.

What do you think about the products? I think Windows 7 is really a huge step forward in making the operating system relevant … really for this decade and the coming years. Most of our fears of deploying Vista in the enterprise and Windows 7 has really made a dramatic step in making it relevant and really makes upgrading from XP a requirement. Aside from compatibility mode, being able to run things in XP Mode, incredible. Though I believe the only thing we will need that for is specific line of business applications that are very old. Performance benefits of Windows 7 are noticeable. It is much faster than Vista. Also the reduction in security and management overhead make it a big hit. 2008 R2 I am most impressed with the TS Apps Server components. In the past, I thought TS was a really overlooked part of the infrastructure. Scalability was not really addressed in 2003 and 2008 does that very nicely. Also the ability to encrypt non-system partitions and manage that through group policy is huge to me. The ability to encrypt removable media and most importantly to do it all through group policy is a big plus. Network Policy drastically reduces the reliance on third party devices. I feel we can build our systems pretty much exclusively with Microsoft products which I did not feel was the case before 2008 R2.

Any challenges with your pilot? Still in testing???

Anything else you care to share? Very Satisfied with the program and both OS's

Wisdom From The Field-Doug Cook on Windows 7 - Momentum Interview

Your name: Doug Cook

Company name: D.M.C. Enterprises - Computer Repair, system builds, phone support, etc. http://www.dmc2u.com

Your geographic location (country): USA

Public Disclosure of your name and Company name allowed, Yes

Project Name/Description: Windows 7 Pilot

Objectives of the project: Evaluate for usability. Should I recommend it to customers in terms of cost vs gain and compatibility

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Piloting

Products used in project: Windows 7

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes, and I will be recommending it to people that need to upgrade or get a new machine. I am telling people that are still using XP to go with Windows 7 when it comes out. I like Vista but with the additional resources that it uses, it makes it difficult for some people with small budgets.

What were the advantages of doing this deployment? Runs with using less resources. Still quite a learning curve over windows XP but the performance enhancement and some of the new features are great. There is plenty of fluff for the end users. I hooked it up to a Home Server and was very impressed with the simplicity if it auto-configuring for the network.

What do you think about the product? I Like it! It was easy to install. The update process does not require a bunch of interactivity. I really like the way UAC works now.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program. I love it. It is a great opportunity for people like me. A very small company that needs to keep up with technology and really do not have the money to buy all the new stuff that comes out. This gives me the opportunity to play with the new technologies so I can recommend them to my customers.

Any challenges with your deployment? None! I was initially turned on to Windows 7 by attending a community event so even if I would have had problems, there were plenty of people there to assist and I do not recall for sure.

Anything else you care to share? Able to be installed on a machine with less horsepower than Vista so I am very encouraged by ability for my customers to run on their computers.

Windows 7 Beta Is About To Expire! Download And Install RC Now To Avoid BIG Problems Later

Still on the Windows 7 Beta? You need to move to the RC and fast. Starting July 1^st, the Beta will start to reboot every 2 hrs and expire Aug 1^st.

Want to download the RC? . The RC download program closes August 15th. After that, you won’t be able to get the download, but you can still install the RC and get a key if you need one. (To get a key, just go to the Downloads page and follow the instructions.)

If you’re using the Windows 7 Release Candidate, we hope you like what you see. Let us know -- go to http://input.microsoft.com and tell us what you think. You’ll be able to give feedback on various aspects of the operating system.”

Dave Vantine on Windows Server 2008 - Momentum Wisdom from the Field

Your name: Dave Vantine

Company name: Creative Computing - Certified Microsoft Partner. Support Small Business customers mostly in the RI area. Installing and maintaining servers and desktops.

Your geographic location (country): USA

Public Disclosure of your name and Company name allowed, Yes

Project Name/Description: Windows Server 2008 Deployment with SQL 2005 and Terminal Services

Objectives of the project: Deploy SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 x64 for a third party application to be installed by the software vendor

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Deploying

Products used in project: Windows Server 2008 with Terminal Services and SQL 2005

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes

What were the advantages of doing this deployment? This was a project that was created due to a software requirement to implement a line of business system that was being deployed. We wanted to use the latest available technology including x64 to make sure we had plenty of room and time for expansion down the road. We also wanted to gain the advantages of administration that are inherent in Windows Server 2008 over other operating systems.

What do you think about the product? I Love it! I think it is much more stable and secure product. I love the interface. All the additional features in logging, performance, security, maintenance. It installs easily. It installs what you need and only what you need. What's not to like about it? It is great.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program. I think it is a great opportunity for people. I was well into the process when I stumbled on the opportunity but I think it is a great program. With small companies like mine, there often are not resources for labs but it is nice to have all the software and support forums available through the momentum program.

Any challenges with your deployment?

Anything else you care to share? My experience with Windows Server 2008 is that it takes much less time than other operating system to setup and deploy. The UAC stuff does not bother me. In fact, I kind of like it because I know I am being protected.

David Vantine on Exchange 2007 - Wisdom From The Field - Momentum

Your name: Dave Vantine

Company name: Creative Computing - Certified Microsoft Partner. Support Small Business customers mostly in the RI area. Installing and maintaining servers and desktops.

Your geographic location (country): USA

Public Disclosure of your name and Company name allowed, Yes

Project Name/Description: Exchange 2007 Deployment on Windows Server 2008

Objectives of the project: Migrate off of 2003 in order to take advantage of new features particularly those around web access improvements

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Deploying

Products used in project: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Exchange 2007

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes

Are you going to be saving money? No, but with the much better maintenance of the new system we will save time. The biggest benefit will be improved service to our users. Due to physical limitations on the prior server, users were limited on what they could have in terms of storage location and in terms of performance when working on the network.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program. I think it is a great opportunity for people. I was well into the process when I stumbled on the opportunity but I think it is a great program. With small companies like mine, there often are not resources to setup labs. It is nice to have all the software and support forums available through the momentum program.

What do you think about the product? I like Exchange. I was sold on the product long before I got involved with this project. With the new system there should be an increase in user satisfaction. Additionally, from a management standpoint, I can delegate administration of some areas to junior administrators without turning over the keys to the farm.

Anything else you care to share? I think with the standardized task panes and the consistent look and feel along with powershell and additional capabilities of automation will be a big savings as we use it more. It has already helped me on one project and having that power available to me is pretty exciting.

Wisdom From The Field - Windows 7 Is Quite Fast And Impressive - Momentum

Your geographic location (country): USA

Public Disclosure of your name and Company name allowed, NO

Unfortunately in order to give permission to publicly disclose our name with any interview we are required to have it go through public relations so I would much rather you just release the information anonymously.

Project Name/Description: Evaluate Viability of Windows 7

Objectives of the project: Find out if windows 7 would fit in our environment and find out if it was compatible with internal apps.

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Pilot

Products used in project: Windows 7

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes. The applications seem to work fine. Some of the LOB apps have not been tested yet. Even if we do have a problem with any of those, we hope that XPMode will resolve that problem. We could also virtualize applications if there is a problem with some applications.

Will you be Deploying Windows 7. Yes, When? Currently we are looking at mid next year. My company does not jump on new releases as soon as they come out. The way we do deployment is as we do refreshes, we do the refresh with the upgrade. We do not do a corp refresh on OS because it is too disruptive to the organization. Vista never got rolled out due to compatibility issues with LOB applications.

Are you going to be saving money? Have not really thought about it. Possibly due to not chasing our tails later. Being proactive generally speaking is cheaper than being reactive. This project allowed me to be proactive in evaluating the ability to deploy Windows 7. It allows us to understand the product before we have users using it and asking questions.

What do you think about the product? I am very impressed with the product overall. The machine I was using was not compatible with XP Mode so I could not do any testing with that. All applications that worked with Vista worked fine with Windows 7. There were a couple applications that would not work with vista that we were able to get working with Win7. Windows 7 is much more peppy than Vista and in some cases even faster than XP. Windows 7 is quite fast and impressive. Overall I am very impressed with Windows 7. Many less processes running than you see on other OS's. More processes means more potential for failure so I was please to see so much stuff turned off by default.

Anything else you care to share?

The whole 6 different versions really needs to go. I recommend simplifying to simply Home and Work versions. The price of operating systems in the past was too expensive. You need to bring the price down. In some cases people are paying as much for the OS as they are for the machine. I have been recommending to people to hold off on purchasing new machines until Windows 7 is released this Fall.  If they can’t afford to wait until Fall, I have been recommending getting Windows Vista sp1 and upgrading at release time to Windows 7.  I am also seeing a fair level of excitement around Windows 7. To date I like the product but will hold final decision until I see the final retail version released.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program.

I think it is really nice. It gives people that will be shaping the decisions of deployment the tools and resources needed to test and evaluate without any cost to us or to Microsoft. I just hope they continue the program to be honest.

Wisdom from the Field Dave Vantine on Exchange 2007 – Momentum Interview

Your name: Dave Vantine

Company name: Creative Computing - Certified Microsoft Partner. Support Small Business customers mostly in the RI area. Installing and maintaining servers and desktops.

Your geographic location (country): USA

Project Name/Description: Exchange 2007 Deployment on Windows Server 2008

Objectives of the project: Migrate off of 2003 in order to take advantage of new features particularly those around web access improvements

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Deploying

Products used in project: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Exchange 2007

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied? Yes

Are you going to be saving money? No, but with the much better maintenance of the new system will save time. The biggest benefit will be improved service to our users. Due to physical limitations on the prior server, users were limited on what they could have in terms of storage location and in terms of performance when working on the network.

What do you think about the product? I like Exchange. I was sold on the product long before I got involved with this project. With the new system there should be an increase in user satisfaction. Additionally, from a management standpoint, I can delegate administration of some areas to junior administrators without turning over the keys to the kingdom.

Anything else you care to share? I think with the standardized task panes and the consistent look and feel along with powershell and additional capabilities of automation will be a big savings as we use it more. It has already helped me on one project and having that power available to me is pretty exciting.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program? I think it is a great opportunity for people. I was well into the process when I stubled on the opportunity but I think it is a great program. With small companies like mine, there often are not resources for labs but it is nice to have all the software and support forums available through the momentum program.

Wisdom from the Field Dave Vantine on Windows Server 2008 – Momentum Interview

Your name: Dave Vantine

Company name: Creative Computing - Certified Microsoft Partner. Support Small Business customers mostly in the RI area. Installing and maintaining servers and desktops.

Your geographic location (country): USA

Project Name/Description: Windows Server 2008 Deployment with SQL 2005 and Terminal Services

Objectives of the project: Deploy SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 x64 for a third party application to be installed by the software vendor

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Deploying

Products used in project: Windows Server 2008 with Terminal Services and SQL 2005

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied? Yes

What were the advantages of doing this deployment? This was a project that was created due to a software requirement to implement a line of business system that was being deployed. We wanted to use the latest available technology including x64 to make sure we had plenty of room and time for expansion down the road. We also wanted to gain the advantages of administration that are inherent in Windows Server 2008 over other operating systems.

What do you think about the product? I Love it! I think it is much more stable and secure product. I love the interface. All the additional features in logging, performance, security, maintenance. It installs easily. It installs what you need and only what you need. What's not to like about it? It is great.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program? I think it is a great opportunity for people. I was well into the process when I stumbled on the opportunity but I think it is a great program. With small companies like mine, there often are not resources for labs but it is nice to have all the software and support forums available through the momentum program.

Anything else you care to share? My experience with Windows Server 2008 is that it takes much less time than other operating system to setup and deploy. The UAC stuff does not bother me. In fact, I kind of like it because I know I am being protected.

Help Me Help You... What Can Microsoft Do For You Today? North East Region IT Pro Monthly Community Conference Call

As my commitment to my blog audience, I will be starting a monthly Conference Call/Live Meeting that all subscribers are welcome to attend.  Not sure if you want to become a subscriber (it's Free) join the call and ask your questions.

I  hope the agenda will largely be driven by the attendees.  This is your opportunity to tell me and Microsoft what we can do to help you.  Especially in these tough economic times, companies and particularly IT Pro's need help and I would like to open a conduit for me to be able to help you and your company.  I really want to make your experiences with Microsoft positive. I hope this will be a step in that direction.  This is not going to be an ask the experts or technical support forum.  I think I will likely open up with some comments about what is on the horizon in terms of news that the community needs to know about (events coming up in the region, latest launch details, or breaking news) etc, and then turn the tables and have you answer questions like …

• What can Microsoft do to help you and/or your company be more successful?
• What can Microsoft do to help you in your community events?
• What is going on in the community this month?
• What is the word on the street on the latest and greatest technologies from Microsoft?
• What are others doing that Microsoft should be paying attention to?

My territory is NY/NJ->ME so if you live or work in that region, consider this a direct solicitation for you to join me.  If you are outside that territory and are interested in something like this for your region, please post a comment to my blog including your City/State and I will see what I can pull together for that region. 

After this initial get together, depending on the success and the types of questions we may find it better to have several calls with different audiences or focal points.  Let’s get together for this first call and see what happens.  Please join me and be heard.  The first meeting will be a phone meeting on June 25th at 1:00pm at 1:00pm [Eastern] and go for one hour.  To join this meeting dial into the conference at: 1-866-500-6738  and enter Participant Passcode: 3249711.  I have reserved 50 seats (though I expect it to be much smaller than that).  In the very unlikely event we do run out of capacity of have some other issues, check this blog post for details on next steps.  Please feel free to pass this information on to friends or associates if you think they are interested in attending.  Hope to hear from you!

ICS Calendar Item - Easily Add To Outlook

Subscribe To TechNet Flash So You Do Not Miss Out On Great Opportunities

Editor Notes on the TechNet Flash… Plus all the other great information that comes out on the flash…

If you do not know what the Flash is or if you are not subscribed to TechNet Flash…The TechNet Flash is full of pointers to in-depth technical information that we encourage subscribers to forward to friends and co-workers. If you would like to receive the free TechNet Flash newsletter biweekly, all you have to do is register.  See The Full National Flash HERE! The Flash is Localized for each region.  The following is the editors notes (that’s me for a bit anyway) for this weeks US – East  “Flash” it can also be found online.  

TechNet Flash, Volume 11, Issue 13 - June 17, 2009
TechNet Flash East Region IT Pro Extras from Evangelist Dan Stolts

Tech·Ed + Tough Economic Times + Microsoft Resources + Community + Windows 7 = Great Opportunities

There is a ton of content available from many sources including Tech·Ed 2009. Look at how this – plus help from Microsoft IT Pro Evangelists, literally hundreds of community meetings and events, and many community groups – adds up to great opportunities to expand your technical competence.

In the current economic climate, many of us have a job and many do not. All of us are finding it important to improve our value to current or perspective employers. This is the perfect time to make sure you’re aware of the vast opportunities available, live and online, for increasing the value you add to your employer or for adding bullets to your resume.

The Tech·Ed 2009 Conference in California had hundreds of presenters teaching and talking about the newest technologies available today, as well as the new technologies of tomorrow. You can download some of the content, and can also watch the keynote. While you are there, you will find there are many interviews with the product groups and other experts available to help you expand your technical prowess. In addition to Tech·Ed, Let’s take a look at the massive number of community opportunities available now.

The Microsoft IT Pro Evangelists are making themselves available to help with community events. There are many technology communities. One in particular you might want to look at is Boston User Groups, who have a great calendar of literally hundreds of events and meetings that take place in your local community. (Hint: they do not just serve Boston.) Notice that on the right hand side there is a long list of community groups. Find a topic of interest and show up to a meeting or two. The networking and learning opportunities are endless. Check out Microsoft’s User Group Community site. It has links to many other affiliate groups and community activity links. Mindshare User Groups is one of them. If just attending some of these events or viewing the webcasts is not enough to fill your needs, you may want to start your own user group so you can create and take maximum advantage of the networking and learning opportunities. Most of the time, who you know is far more important than what you know. If you do start your own group, make sure you contact your local Microsoft IT Pro Evangelist to get help and guidance.

With the many new products Microsoft will be releasing in the next 12 months (including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2), there will be a massive influx of online and live events taking place. The trick is finding out when and where these events are going to happen. In addition to the Boston User Groups calendar we discussed earlier, you might want to subscribe to my blog. I am pretty good about posting all events I am involved with. I sometimes post about other events that my team is doing as well. If you want to make sure you are aware of all of them, you can get links to all of their blogs from the TechNet Events Team page. Another really good events resource is the Microsoft Events and Webcasts page. On this site you can browse by type of event (live or online), location, topic, and more. Or, if you prefer, you can just search for events. Remember, this site includes only Microsoft official events so you still need to check out the community sites like Boston User Groups to make sure you do not miss some really good ones.

A few other good sites for getting great content are:

• TechNet Edge has many screencasts and presentations posted. This site is updated regularly so you will likely want to bookmark it.
• Thrive has several categories of technology training available. It also features a really cool online IT skills test/game called ServerQuest II.
• IT Manager Community Hub is for IT managers. If you are one or want to be one, this is the site for you.
• Microsoft.com is a pretty incredible site as well if you know how to use it. It has a vast amount of information. You want to learn about a topic that is Microsoft-related, just click All Products and select the product from the list. This will take you to the main page of that product. If you have not been there in a while, you will likely be amazed at how much content is available. You might want to try the other links from the home page as well. Training and Events as well as Security have some pretty impressive sites. There are more – too many to list.

OK, I know what you are thinking if you have gotten this far. “This is an overwhelming amount of information!” Am I right? So, what are you going to do about it? You have a few choices:

• You can do a small subset of these things and reap some rewards.
• You can bookmark this page for follow-up and never get back to it “because life happens.”
• You can skip it and gain nothing.
• You can mark your calendar to set some time aside for a daily or weekly recurring event to take advantage of these great resources and opportunities to put the full formula in play (Tech·Ed + Tough Economic Times + Microsoft Resources + Community + Windows 7= Great Opportunities) and reap the rewards of all the opportunities.

I hope you will opt to take full advantage of the opportunities around you. If you do, you will thank me for it in the future.

Before I let you go, let me just share some immediate topics with you that you might want to make a note of and/or mark on your calendar.

Bing!
If you have not heard yet about Bing.com, I strongly encourage you to take a look at this incredible engine. I have already made it my default search engine. If you have not seen these videos, you must take a couple minutes to see what is going on. This is clearly the future of Web searching.

How-Do-I Videos
Check out these short How-Do I Videos that focus on specific tasks and show you how to accomplish them, step-by-step. Subscribe to the TechNet videos RSS feed to learn about new videos.

Exchange 2010 Webcast Series

On demand: High Availability
On demand: Overview
On demand: Management Tools
On demand: Archiving and Retention
On demand: Outlook Web Access
June 17, 2009: Architecture
June 22, 2009: Federation
June 24, 2009: Voice Mail enabled by Unified Messaging
June 29, 2009: Information Protection and Control
July 1, 2009: Transition and Deployment

For those that you already missed, you can catch them on demand.

One more thing: if you can take a minute to give me some personal feedback about this newsletter and perhaps some ideas for other topics I would love to hear from you. Send me an e-mail. Also, keep in mind there will very likely be Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, and many other product webcasts series scheduled. Keep up with my blog to make sure you do not miss them.

Dan Stolts IT Pro Evangelist | IT Pro Community Lead - North East
Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/danstolts

Momentum – Project Wisdom from the Field on Windows 7 and XP Mode (Interview John Ross) Saved me $200 per machine

Your name: John Ross

Company Info: Bluefin Technical Services Consulting firm - Principles are CAD engineers and the also do IS consulting for their engineering customers.

Your geographic location (country): USA

Project Name/Description: Windows 7 Pilot

Objectives of the project: Easy way to virtualize legacy software Using XP Mode. Eliminate problems running some of the old legacy applications in Vista.

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Piloting

Products used in project: Windows 7 and XP Mode / Virtual PC

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes

Are you going to be saving money? Yes, Do not have to go out and pay 200 to VMWare desktop license for each customer.  More importantly than that though is that we now have  a very elegant solution for a compatibility problem.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program? I like it. Microsoft recently sent me a survey and I gave it very high marks.

What do you think about the product? Love it! I liked Vista but just had problems with compatibility with some applications. I understand Vista and Windows 7 have the same core but things that I could not run in Vista I can run in Windows 7 even without virtualizing. For the few things that I do have to run virtualized, I really like how it informs me that virtualizing it is a good approach for running that application.

Any challenges with your deployment? I had a problem with the initial releases but since RC it has been solid. I had driver issues with one machine but all those have gone away now that we have deployed RC.

Anything else you care to share? Microsoft has been very good to us and the community. We are very involved with the community and Microsoft goes so much further than other companies. They help us get up to speed on their products and they give us great programs like Momentum to give us the tools we need to improve our skills. I have had a strong relationship with many Microsoft employees over the years and I could not be happier with the people and what the people are willing to do to make sure I have the skills to succeed in my business. From TechNet, MSDN, and TS2 programs, to the many user group events and launch events etc. Microsoft really goes the extra mile to help us and I appreciate that very much. I sometimes here people asking for more from Microsoft and I really just do not get it. Microsoft already delivers so much more than everyone else. It is almost as if people ask for more just to see how much they can push Microsoft to get more. Microsoft does plenty and some of us, me and my partner included, appreciate it very much. I love the Momentum program and I hope it keeps moving forward.

Momentum – Wisdom from the Field on Windows Server 2008 (Interview Steve Hagerstrom)

Your name: Steven Hagerstrom

Company name: BocsDocs http://www.Bocsdocs.com   

Your geographic location (country): USA

Can you tell me a little about your company? We are a consulting firm. We do electronic content management and accounts payable imaging and workflow.  The projects I am profiling on Momentum are not for my company though. They are for work that I did with a current customer which I will leave nameless for now.

Project Name/Description: Windows Server 2008 Deployment - Brainware Application Server

Objectives of the project: Multithread application to take advantage of more physical memory. Application and workflow batches are very resource intense. Needed to take advantage of more resources on physical box.

Are you piloting or deploying the products: Deploying

Products used in project: Windows Server 2008 Standard

Were the objectives stated at the beginning satisfied. Yes

Are you going to be saving money? The throughput has been excellent allowing us to meet our stated delivery objectives. The primary objectives were primarily around time and workflow not money. The OCR of images is time consuming and resource intensive and the new hardware and OS gave us the capability to utilize more resource and therefore get more done in the same amount of time.

What do you think about the IT Pro Momentum Program? I think it is fantastic! It is a very interesting website. I have not taken advantage of all the benefits but very happy the program is available. Example, did not use the TechNet support incidents yet but I still have more time in the program. I expect that as I deploy more new technologies, I may still need to use more of the resources available to me.

What do you think about the product? I think it is a significant step forward from 2003. Security is much better. In some cases the default lockdown was over the top. What I mean by that is in 2003 people that did not know what they were doing could administer it because everything was running by default. In 2008 you have to know what you are doing to go in and enable the features that you need. I see this as a good thing but it is also an important distinction. It was important for the sake of security. Many third party companies have not written their applications to work with UAC and they are now requiring us to turn off UAC. Hopefully the third party vendors will jump on board soon and all will be better.

Any challenges with your deployment?

Anything else you care to share? Very positive about it. Looking forward to taking advantage of SMB 2.0 once we pilot Windows 7. That will likely happen in about 6 months.

Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable Windows 7 Application Compatibility - Your Questions Answered

Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable
Windows 7 Application Compatibility: Your Questions Answered (Part 1)
Date: Thursday, June 18
Time: 11:00am Pacific Time

https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard

Windows 7, is approaching fast and from the application standpoint is very similar to Windows Vista. We’re going to examine Windows 7 application compatibility not only from the perspective of moving from Windows Vista, but also for those coming from Windows XP. Join us to discuss the most common challenges around application compatibility when coming from a legacy operating system, why changes were made along the way, compatibility technologies inside the OS and methods for getting incompatible applications to run on Windows 7. Along the way we share tips and tricks, demonstrate free tools to analyze and fix applications and answer your specific questions about application compatibility live.

In Part 2 of this Virtual Round Table discussion (planned for later this Summer/Fall), we’ll discuss the options and approaches for using virtualization tools In depth to address application incompatibilities – including presentation virtualization, desktop virtualization and application virtualization. We’ll be sending out more details and posting information to www.microsoft.com/springboard for part 2 as the dates are finalized.

As part of the “virtual” experience, you may submit your questions about Windows 7 Application Compatibility to the panel live during the event—or submit questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

Springboard Series: The resource for Windows desktop IT professionals