In Internet Explorer 8, you might wonder how to reopen/restore your last browsing session – especially when you had multiple tabs opened. In IE 7, when you closed the browser with multiple tabs, you’d get this window prompt:
This is very similar to what you currently see with Firefox’s solution when you close the browser with multiple tabs open:
In IE 8, we do have a way to restore your last browsing session, but it is not intuitive. When you close IE 8, you no longer get a similar prompt to what you see above. Instead, you just see the following prompt:
After you close all tabs, and then re-open IE 8 you have to do two things to restore your last session.
- Go to “about:tabs” in the browser address bar
- Click on the “Restore last browsing session” link
I’ve been asked this (or complained to about) this numerous times, so I thought I’d turn it into a blog post. I’ve already submitted feedback to the product team that we should have a “smarter” default page (like about:tabs) and/or make the process to restore tabs more intuitive.
Just letting you know there is updated localized guidance for IE 8 in Simplified Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish (Traditional). Unless noted, you use the “Change Language” pop-up menu in the Quick Details blue block to choose the language for downloading the paper.
Here are the following documents which are available:
- Internet Explorer 8 Deployment Guide (link)
- Use the menu in the upper-right corner of the page to change the language
- The guide is also available in Hindi. Given TechNet does not support Hindi, we have created a CHM (Compiled HTML Help File) that you can download or distribute to customers. To access, open the “IE8Deploy” CHM file stored here. Note: the Table of Contents is in English due to CHM limitations.
- Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) 8 documentation (link)
- Previously localized as part of IEAK download, and now available on the Web. (No IEAK documentation in Hindi because there is no Hindi IEAK.)
- “Techniques for Preinstalling Windows Internet Explorer 8” whitepaper (link)
- “Windows Internet Explorer 8 FAQ for Business” whitepaper (link)
- “Windows Internet Explorer 8 Technology Overview for Enterprise and IT Pros” whitepaper (link)
I interviewed Mark Russinovich again (see my 1st interview with him in his office the future of Sysinternals, Security, Windows) at TechEd EMEA in Berlin. This time we chatted about the new tools coming out from Sysinternals like the Disk2VHD tool, what features in Windows 7 are security and which ones are not, and Windows 7 performance enhancements.
The original post to download the various file formats (Zune, iPod, etc) can be found at:
Mark Russinovich interview at TechEd EMEA 09
Windows Mobile 6.5 launched today, now being referred to in short as “Windows phone” moving forward. Some of the key benefits I see from the consumer side are listed below. I posted a detailed text post on TechNet Edge which describes the business value of Windows Mobile phones for IT Pros.
Microsoft My Phone - a new service that offers free automatic backup and online access to phone contacts, calendar, texts, photos, browser favorites and more. In select markets, My Phone also offers a Premium Package that helps users find, lock or erase a lost device. Windows Marketplace for Mobile - a new marketplace with fun and useful high-quality mobile applications to install right from your phone. Upgraded touch user interface - that was designed for finger touch and the ability to cut through clutter to accomplish what you want. In my experience using WM 6.5, it is much better at touch gestures, but the shortfall is some of the menu items were not designed optimally with fingers in mind. The “Today” and “Start Menu” pages work great with and were clearly designed for your finger. Updated web browser – Internet Explorer mobile has been updated to allow easier operation using touch gestures with an enhanced pan/zoom and also has Adobe Flash for watching videos on the web. I’ve been using my HTC Fuze with WM 6.5 on it since March 2009 and have overall been pretty happy with it. I’m looking forward to what we come up with for Windows Mobile 7, which I imagine will be an even better for usability and “fun” as a consumer.
I did an interview with Chris Bryant who gave me a cool tour of the new Office Web applications. Finally an answer to Google Docs. I’m looking forward to using these!
On September 18th you can attend locally or interact live via Live Meeting to learn about some of the core information you want to know about the next wave of Windows products – Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2. I will presenting a session on IE 8 focused on IT Pros and consumer (since us IT Pros are consumers too). I look forward to seeing or hearing from you!
To see the agenda and register for the event, go to this website:
http://www.technetevents.com/firestarter/index.html
In this interview with Mike Chan, I help clarify when you might want to utilize Forefront Protection for Exchange versus Forefront Online Protection for Exchange – or use both. Most of the video is spent white boarding out how things work between FPE / FOPE and Exchange 2010’s security.
I couldn't find any good search results on how to remove an active partition on a Windows system (and this is not in the disk management GUI) and eventually figured this out on my own, so I thought I'd share. Of course, this is only useful if you have a drive which no longer contains an operating system / boot files and you just want to remove the flag. The solution is simply the command-line tool "diskpart" which resides in the windows\system32 directory and the Inactive command. the active command marks it for active, which can also easily be done in the disk management UI.
DISKPART> help inactive
On disks with master boot record (MBR) disk formatting, marks
the partition with focus as inactive.
Syntax: INACTIVE
The computer may start from the next option specified in the BIOS such as a
CD-ROM drive or a Pre-Boot eXecution Environment (PXE)-based boot
environment (such as Remote Installation Services (RIS)) when you restart
the computer.
A partition must be selected for this operation to succeed.
Caution:
Your computer might not start without an active partition. Do not mark
a system or boot partition as inactive unless you are an experienced
user with a thorough understanding of Windows storage management.
Ever wanted to not have to scroll through endless expansions of bite-sized content on the TechNet library and just download a document of only the content you want instead? I know this has been frustrating for me in the past and when I brought it up to a TechNet manager he said “you can already do this”. To my shock, I asked how since it isn’t visible anywhere within the TechNet library…
The ”Package This” tool is a piece of software you can download from CodePlex which will allow you to accomplish this. You have to make sure you have the .Net 2.0 framework and MS Help installed, but it is well worth the time to have offline searchable files.
This is a picture of the user interface where you select the content you want to package:
After you select what you want, you can then Export it into a CHM file!
There are so many virtualization options available from Microsoft, which one do you use when? We cleared this up in a short interview and addressed how these options might help you remediate your legacy applications over to Windows 7. Also, we just launched the XP to Windows 7 Migration process guide with the announcement of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 RTM yesterday which will further clarify these options and give you links to deeper resources on each subject.
Visit the original post on TechNet Edge which has links to the other 4 videos in the series
I interviewed Ralf on the Office 2010 team who showed a demo of some of the cool new features in Word and Outlook 2010 as well as answered some relevant questions for IT Pros – now that the Technical Preview is out there we can show it. The full breakdown of the interview is at the original post text on Edge. Check it out.
I finished creating the Silverlight deployment guide awhile ago, but after a number of reviews, revisions, and updates it is finally available for download. This guide is applicable to all versions of Silverlight, including Silverlight 3. The idea was that the guide would have a long life beyond SL 3 without revisions, while areas needing updated (i.e. version history, group policy settings) will continue to evolve on the Silverlight administration page.
Version 1 of the Silverlight deployment guide was geared at only the 1st release of Silverlight and didn’t include all of the improved windows update methods included with Silverlight 2. Some of the changes I’ve made to this document are:
- New sections for deployment using WSUS, SCCM, and manual advertisement
- Version table with the update ID numbers for Update rollup / Feature pack
- Updated text surrounding making a choice for deployment
- Updated logic and text around Silverlight’s built-in auto-updater
- Updated add-on section for IE 8
Download Silverlight Deployment Guide v2
When you create a policy with a custom ADMX template which uses a registry key outside of the standard 4 recommended locations (below) and open up your group policy editor using gpedit.msc, the policy will not be listed and you will get no error. The workaround is to use the group policy editor which comes with the group policy management console (i.e. right click on a policy in the GPMC.msc and choose edit). This one wasted a bunch of my time wasted, so hopefully you don’t have to go through the same.
Recommended Group policy locations:
HKLM\Software\Policies (computer settings, the preferred location)
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies (computer settings, an alternative location)
HKCU\Software\Policies (user settings, the preferred location)
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies (user settings, an alternative location)
One other note - this bug appears to have already been fixed in Win7 & Server 2008 R2.
Below is a list of all of the Silverlight 1, 2, and 3 installation switches available and their description. This will be included in the Silverlight Enterprise Deployment guide v2 which I’m writing - to be released soon. In the mean time, here they are for your assistance:
The Silverlight install executable file has a number of different switches to customize the installation. The syntax of the setup file is as follows:
Silverlight<version>.exe
/q = quiet install or upgrade. This installs or upgrades Silverlight without seeing the GUI. When Silverlight is installed quietly, by default privacy related features such as DRM protected media playback and the Silverlight auto-update feature will be configured to prompt the user for permission on 1st use of the respective features. The Silverlight auto-update feature requires administrative rights so non-admin users will not be prompted.
/doNotRequireDRMPrompt = turns off the 1st use prompt allowing DRM Playback without requiring any end-user intervention. This setting is automatically included when the quiet install switch is used. By default, DRM Playback is set to prompt on 1st use.
/ignorewarnings = non-fatal warnings will not be reflected in the quiet installer return code but will instead return zero indicating success. This is useful if in testing or custom installation software requires a zero return code.
/noupdate = disables the Silverlight internal auto-updater. The Silverlight auto-updater requires administrative rights, so in environments where users have admin rights this switch may be used to prevent administrative users from being prompted to install updates if you want to control when updates to Silverlight are distributed. Group policy can also be used to implement this setting via a custom ADMX (see Silverlight Deployment Guide)
/qu = quiet uninstall. This uninstalls Silverlight without seeing the GUI. Note: This will only uninstall the exact same version that it installed, so is typically only useful for testing scenarios.
Note: The /doNotRequireDRMPrompt and /ignorewarnings switches are only available with the version of Silverlight 2 GDR 2 (KB 960353 / 2.0.40115.0) or later.
I interviewed Kymberlee Price, IE security PM responsible for future research with ClickJacking. She gives us insight into what research the team is doing in this area as well other great insights into IE security.
For a complete breakdown of the contents of the interview, please view this post on TechNet Edge. Also, you can check out a great post Kymberlee wrote about ClickJacking on the IE blog.
