West Region News for Education : ATS Newsletter

HiEDW ATS Newsletter - July 2007

jolumia — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 01:39:00 GMT

HiED West ATU ATS Newsletter – July 2007 Microsoft News and Product Information Security · Protect Your Data - Everything Else Is Just Plumbing Take a few moments and indulge in a thought exercise with me. Consider your company’s complete collection of...(read more)

HiED West ATU: ATS Newsletter - June 2007

jolumia — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:45:00 GMT

Microsoft U.S. Education

HiED West ATS Newsletter – June 2007

Microsoft News and Product Information

Security

· The Windows Server 2008 Security Guide helps organizations efficiently create, deploy, and maintain a secure environment for a variety of servers running Windows Server 2008, the next major release of Windows Server.

· Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs You've seen the headlines. Mobile PCs are easy targets for theft. And news stories are appearing with increasing regularity about companies whose employees have either misplaced their mobile PCs, or had them stolen – laptops filled with sensitive employee or customer information. Losing confidential data can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost business, and a damaged reputation. The Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs is the newest in a suite of Windows Vista Solution Accelerators, and provides tested guidance and powerful tools to help you protect your most vulnerable information – the data residing on your mobile PCs. The Toolkit’s strategies are easy to understand, and show you how to use two key encryption technologies: BitLocker Drive Encryption, which is included with specific versions of Windows Vista, and the Encrypting File System, which is included with Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista. And be sure to check out the other Solution Accelerators in the Windows Vista suite, including the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool, Business Desktop Deployment 2007, and the Windows Vista Security Guide.

How Microsoft Does IT

· How Microsoft IT Uses SQL Server 2005 to Power a Global Forensic Data Security Tool The Microsoft Information Security team uses an internal tool called Information Security Consolidated Event Management (ICE) version 3.0 to gather forensic data from more than 85 proxy servers around the world. Powered by Microsoft SQL Server 2005, this 27-terabyte data management system collects different types of global evidence, such as inbound and outbound e-mail traffic, log-on events, and Web browsing, into a single database.

· Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Hosting This white paper is for Microsoft customers who plan to deploy Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 on their networks. It shares the experience of Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) in expanding the hosted team site and portal offerings at Microsoft and upgrading them from Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Office SharePoint Server 2007.

· Centralizing and Sharing Business Intelligence This technical white paper features the myBI portal as the context to discuss how Microsoft IT uses Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft business intelligence products to help business units within Microsoft to make better and faster decisions. Although myBI is an internal Microsoft solution, the underlying technologies and products are publicly available to customers who want to achieve similar results.

· Optimizing Client Security by Using Windows Vista The purpose of this white paper is to share design, planning, and deployment best practices that Microsoft IT identified during its planning and deployment of Windows Vista. This paper reviews past, present, and future security considerations addressed within the global Microsoft infrastructure. The basis for the information in this paper is the experience of Microsoft IT, which is at the forefront of rolling out the new features and technologies in the latest Microsoft operating systems and server products.

Windows Desktop and Server - Vista / 2003 / XP / 2000

· Vista: Putting advanced searches to work for you From the Vista Team blog, we'll introduce you to some of the advanced search operators, show you how to create a Search Folder, and finally introduce you to a new Windows Vista-only search feature: the "SearchMelt."

· Windows PowerShell Graphical Help File View the Windows PowerShell 1.0 help (including cmdlet help and the About topics) in a fully-searchable, graphical format (a standard Windows .chm file). Also included in the help file is the VBScript to Windows PowerShell Conversion Guide. See also the Windows PowerShell Quick Reference

· Inside Windows Vista User Account Control In this article I discuss the problems UAC solves and describe the architecture and implementation of its component technologies. These technologies include the refactoring of operations that previously required administrative rights, lightweight virtualization to help programs run correctly without administrative rights, the ability for programs to explicitly request administrative rights, and isolation of administrative processes from non-administrative processes running on the same user desktop.

· Keys to Protecting Data with BitLocker Drive Encryption In this article, I introduce you to the basics of BitLocker so that you can evaluate its potential and include it in your upgrade planning. I will begin with some background and conceptual information, and then I take a look at enabling BitLocker, data recovery, administration, and how BitLocker can help at the end of a computer’s life.

· Exploring The Windows Firewall Many computers carry sensitive information stored locally, and they spend a lot of time away from the corporate network (that is, outside the edge). Therefore, the firewall must evolve into an individual client protection mechanism. Make no mistake: client firewalls are no longer optional. To protect your computers from your own corpnet and from the Internet, client firewalls are required.

· New ACLs Improve Security in Windows Vista The fundamental structure of access control lists (ACLs) has not changed much for Windows Vista, but there are a number of small yet important changes you need to be aware of.

· EAPHost in Windows EAPHost in Windows Server "Longhorn" and Windows Vista updates the EAP implementation in Windows for the latest Internet standards and provides a new modular architecture to extend Windows with EAP authentication methods and supplicants. Networking vendors can extend the existing user experience in Windows without replacing the entire Windows EAP implementation by developing new supplicants written to the EAPHost API and new authentication methods written to the EAPHost Method API. EAPHost also supports existing EAP methods developed for Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

· The Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol Virtual private network (VPN) support in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 allows you to connect to your private intranet across the Internet, just as if your computer was plugged into a local Ethernet port. However, the VPN protocols in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 don’t work for some firewall configurations and for some indirect configurations—such as when your computer is behind a Network Address Translator (NAT) or Web proxy server—in which the traffic for VPN connections is being blocked. To resolve these difficulties, Windows Server 2008 (now in beta testing) includes support for the new Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP).

· Security: Managing Hardware Restrictions via Group Policy USB thumb-disk keys and other removable devices can make your personal life easier but your professional life harder. For improved security, you need a way to control what hardware devices your users are installing on their work systems. Now you can use Group Policy to control which devices they can use and which ones they can’t.

· TechNet Webcast Series for Windows Server 2008

· Windows Server 2008 Technical library Deploy Windows Server 2008 by using Server Manager to install multiple server roles and features in a single session, manage a server's identity and system information, display server status, identify problems with role configuration, and manage the roles installed on a server.

Exchange Server

· Exchange Server TechCenter Updates - May 2007

· Deep Dive into Windows Mobile 6.0 and Exchange Server 2007 In this post I'll provide an overview of the features available when using Exchange 2007 and Windows Mobile 6.0. For comparison, I'll also provide some information about the capabilities of Windows Mobile 5.0.

· Performance issues due to connector restrictions Connector restriction checking is turned off by default because it can significantly affect performance to expand distribution groups and check the restrictions for each message that passes through the system. If needed, turn on this setting only where it is necessary.

· Exchange 2007 Autodiscover and certificates With Exchange 2007 we introduce the idea of the Autodiscover service. This service allows your Outlook 2007 clients to retrieve the URLs that it needs to gain access to the new web services offered by Exchange 2007.

· See these Exchange articles and more at the Exchange Team Blog

Microsoft Management Products

· Three Issues to bring to your attention impacting SMS 2003 This blog is an attempt to alert the community, educate, and disentangle these three items so you can keep your eye on the prize of a healthy site and clients.

· System Center Operations Manager 2007 Active Directory Management Pack Guide This guide includes an overview, deployment procedures, and monitoring scenarios for the Active Directory Management Packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.

· Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 Documentation This download contains documentation for System Center Operations Manager 2007

· System Center Essentials 2007 Operations Guide This guide discusses best practices for everyday use of System Center Essentials 2007. See also the System Center Essentials 2007 Migration Guide.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

· Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog The official blog of the SharePoint Product Group – This is an active blog with the latest information and links to more SharePoint technical info.

· More recently published MOSS content

Microsoft Office System

· MOSS 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 This Management Pack quickly brings any failures or configuration problems to your attention, which increases the availability and performance of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

· Excel 2007 Add-in: Synchronizing Tables with SharePoint Lists This add-in accompanies the MSDN article "Publishing and Synchronizing Excel 2007 Tables to SharePoint Lists", available in the Related Links section. The add-in allows you to publish a read-write list to Windows SharePoint Services.

Other Information

· MIIS 2003 Getting Started Collection The Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 Getting Started Collection is a set of documents that are designed to walk you through various features within MIIS 2003. This document set is designed to be a learning aid for users that would like to learn or expand their MIIS 2003 skills.

· VBScript Quick Reference Quick reference guide to commonly-used VBScript commands.

· Hosting Core Infrastructure Production Workloads Using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Virtual Server 2005 R2 allows enterprises to host some production workloads in virtual machines reducing hardware and provisioning costs. Virtual machines allow multiple operating systems to run on a single physical computer. See also High Availability Solutions Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2

· Windows Server Update Services 3.0 WSUS 3.0 delivers new features that enable administrators to more easily manage and deploy updates across the organization. This package installs both the WSUS 3.0 Server and WSUS 3.0 Administration Console components, for all Windows Server 2003 SP1 supported languages. Additionally, the WSUS 3.0 client is included in all supported client platform languages. You must install the server components on a computer running Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later. You may install the Administration Console on a remote computer running Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, or Windows Vista. See also: Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with Microsoft WSUS 3.0

· Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop and Virtual Server 2005 R2 This white paper introduces Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, a way of licensing Windows Vista for deployment in a centralized, virtualized setting.

· Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0 Technical Guidance Technical documentation focusing on planning, deployment, and operational guidance. It includes the Volume Activation 2.0 Step-by-Step Guide, Volume Activation 2.0 FAQ, Volume Activation 2.0 Technical Attributes List, and Standard User Product Activation zip file.

Microsoft Developer Information

· Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 Beta Software Development Kit (SDK) contains documentation, samples, quickstarts and tools for developing Silverlight applications.

· Interop Forms Toolkit Allows developers to incorporate VB.NET Forms and Controls into their VB6 applications.

· Enterprise Library 3.1 - May 2007 The patterns & practices Enterprise Library is a library of application blocks designed to assist developers with common enterprise development challenges. Application blocks are a type of guidance, provided as source code that can be used "as is," extended, or modified by developers to use on enterprise development projects. This release of Enterprise Library includes application blocks for Caching, Cryptography, Data Access, Exception Handling, Logging, Policy Injection, Security and Validation.

· Smart Client Software Factory - May 2007 The Smart Client Software Factory provides an integrated set of guidance that assists architects and developers in creating composite smart client applications. The software factory includes: QuickStarts, reference implementations, how to's, patterns, and Visual Studio .NET extensions.

· Hands-on Labs for Windows Workflow Foundation in C# and VB.NET Windows Workflow Foundation is the programming model, engine and tools for quickly building workflow enabled applications on Windows. This download is a set of 10 Hands-on Labs for Windows Workflow Foundation in C# and VB.NET versions. These labs are suitable for a .NET developer with 6 months experience who wants to learn about Windows Workflow Foundation. Each lab is approximately 60 minutes of work.

· The Evolution Of LINQ And Its Impact On The Design Of C# In simple terms, LINQ is a series of language extensions that supports data querying in a type-safe way; it will be released with the next version Visual Studio, code-named "Orcas." The data to be queried can take the form of XML (LINQ to XML), databases (LINQ-enabled ADO.NET, which includes LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Dataset and LINQ to Entities), objects (LINQ to Objects), and so on.

· Item-Level Auditing with SharePoint Server 2007 Learn about the auditing support built into Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and how to extend this support with the custom Item-Level Auditing solution.

· 8 Tips And Tricks For Better BizTalk Programming Given the number of applications organizations develop today, it’s critical to use good tools and techniques to produce working solutions as quickly as possible. BizTalk will help you efficiently move from concept to working prototype and we hope these tips will save you some time in your efforts.

Monthly Reminders of Good Information Sources:

Security Page – Links to Key Information
HotFix & Security Bulletin Search
Tackle Common Tasks With These How To Resources
Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle policy provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability at the time of product release.

Support WebCasts

List of Upcoming WebCasts: http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/upcoming.mspx

List of Previous WebCasts for on demand viewing: http://www.microsoft.com/usa/webcasts/ondemand/

See the Top Ten List of the most popular webcasts.

Recent Security Bulletins (Security Bulletin Archives)

Last 5 Published or Updated Security Advisories:

Microsoft Security Advisory (927891)
Update for Windows Installer (MSI)
Published or Last Updated: 5/24/2007

Microsoft Security Advisory (937696)
Release of Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) and File Block Functionality for Microsoft Office
Published or Last Updated: 5/21/2007

Microsoft Security Advisory (933052)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 5/9/2007

Microsoft Security Advisory (935964)
Vulnerability in RPC on Windows DNS Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 5/8/2007

Microsoft Security Advisory (935423)
Vulnerability in Windows Animated Cursor Handling
Published or Last Updated: 4/3/2007

For the entire list of published Security Advisories, visit the Security Advisory Archive Web site.

Security Guidance Center for Developer and IT Pros Get prescriptive guidance tools, training, and updates you need to assist you in planning and managing a security strategy that’s right for your organization.

HiED West ATU: ATS Newsletter – May 2007

jolumia — Fri, 04 May 2007 21:17:00 GMT

Microsoft News and Product Information

Security

· Improving the Intelligence of Your Gateway Security If you want to build a comprehensive SSL-secured access platform that will help you extend and manage the reach of your information systems, check out these resources and get in-depth guidance on edge solutions, including Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 and the Whale Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG).

· Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (July – December 2006) This Security Intelligence Report focuses on the second half of the 2006 calendar year (from July to December) and builds upon the data published in the first volume of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report that covers the first half of 2006. (http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6543860). Using data derived from several hundred million Windows users, this report provides an in-depth perspective of trends in the malicious and potentially unwanted software landscape. The scope of this second volume of the report has been expanded to include trends on software vulnerabilities disclosed in the second half of 2006.

How Microsoft Does IT

· Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) helps companies extend their authentication infrastructure across enterprise and organizational boundaries. Find out how the engineer who was responsible for the internal deployment of ADFS at Microsoft discuss ways to configure the ADFS components, including the federation server, federation server proxies, ADFS Web agents, and deployment challenges. We look at this real-world deployment of ADFS, explore both the business and technical scenarios that ADFS can help you solve, and describe the challenges you may face.

· How Microsoft IT Deploys Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging Join us to discover how Microsoft IT uses Unified Messaging to integrate voice messaging with an internal e-mail messaging environment. In this webcast, we detail the technical implementation and deployment strategy for deploying Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging features in the Microsoft enterprise messaging environment.

· How Microsoft IT Deploys and Manages Windows Mobile Options Since Windows CE emerged in the 1990s, Microsoft employees have continuously adopted and improved the Windows Mobile platforms. Currently, 75 percent of Microsoft employees use Windows Mobile powered devices to speed the pace of their business and information workflow. Details on Microsoft IT operational disciplines of device standardization; Windows Mobile and Microsoft Exchange Server application service extensions and Market procurement strategies and future service expansion objectives.

Windows Desktop and Server - Vista / 2003 / XP / 2000

· Simplify Group Policy Administration with Windows PowerShell In this article, I show how the Microsoft® Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) APIs written for Windows Scripting Host languages like VBScript (and COM-based scripting languages in general) can be consumed directly from Windows PowerShell to simplify the way you manage Group Policy in your environment.

· Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs The Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs provides tested guidance and powerful tools to help you protect your organization’s most vulnerable data. The strategies outlined in this Toolkit are easy to understand, and the guidance shows you how to optimize two key encryption technologies already available to you in Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista: the Encrypting File System (EFS) and Microsoft BitLocker Drive Encryption (BitLocker).

· Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Partner Solutions Microsoft is dedicated to partnering with world-class organizations to deliver optimal solutions to our customers. Individuals and organizations seeking to get the most out of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 can choose from a wide range of offerings from independent software vendors (ISVs), independent hardware vendors (IHVs), and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Learn how our partners are using Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 today.

· Wireless Group Policy Settings for Windows Vista As an administrator, your job would probably be a bit easier if you could centrally configure and distribute wireless network settings to all the computers in your Active Directory network. Fortunately, Windows supports a special Group Policy extension for Computer Configuration that lets you do just that.

· Evaluate the Windows Server Code Name "Longhorn" Public Beta The next generation of the Windows Server operating system gives you more control, greater flexibility, and increased protection for your server infrastructure while reducing time and costs. And when you download or order the beta software, you're automatically registered to access valuable beta resources assembled in one convenient Beta Central location. See also: What’s New in Windows Server “Longhorn” Webcast

· A Guide to Deploying Terminal Services In this article, I show you how to enable Terminal Services on an existing Windows Server 2003 installation, how to apply Terminal Services Group Policies, and how to use the Custom Installation Wizard to automate Microsoft Outlook profile settings. When we're finished, you will have a fully deployed Terminal Server to serve up applications to your users.

· Network Access Protection Platform Architecture The NAP platform provides enforcement for Internet Protocol security (IPsec)-based communications, IEEE 802.1X authenticated network connections, virtual private network (VPN)-based network connections, and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) address configuration and an architecture through which policy validation, network restriction, remediation, and ongoing compliance can occur via additional components supplied by third-party software vendors or Microsoft.

· Internet Protocol Security Enforcement in the Network Access Protection Platform Network Access Protection is a platform for Microsoft Windows Server "Longhorn" (now in beta testing) and Windows Vista that provides policy enforcement components to help ensure that computers connecting to a network meet administrator-defined requirements for system health. Internet Protocol security (IPsec) is a set of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards that provides cryptographic protection for IP-based traffic. This document provides an overview of the Network Access Protection platform and IPsec, and how IPsec Enforcement in the Network Access Protection platform works to provide system health policy enforcement for IPsec-protected communication.

· Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) Version 3.0.1 Microsoft Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) version 3.0.1 migrates user files and settings during deployments of Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista. You can use USMT to perform unattended migrations and to migrate files and settings for computers with multiple users. Also, with USMT you have the ability to encrypt and compress the store. USMT 3.0.1 is intended for administrators who are performing automated deployments.

Exchange Server

· Overview of Exchange Server 2007 White Paper This whitepaper provides an overview of the new capabilities of Exchange that help executives, business users and IT professionals do more with less.

· Explore New Mobile Messaging Capabilities with Exchange 2007 Exchange Server 2007, together with Windows Mobile 6.0, ease the creation and targeting of policies for Windows Mobile devices that can help mitigate problems as well as provide a foundation for new capabilities for remote workers.

· White Paper: Domain Security in Exchange 2007 This white paper explains how to plan for and deploy the Domain Security feature set in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

· For more of the latest Exchange articles, see The Exchange Team Blog – you might make it a favorite link!

Microsoft Management

· Microsoft Windows Server 2000/2003 Terminal Services Management Pack The Terminal Services Management Pack for Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 monitors the health and performance of Terminal Services components. It includes a rich set of views, tasks, and reports, and provides monitoring for Terminal Services, the Licensing Server, and the Session Directory.

· Information Worker Management Pack The Microsoft Information Worker Management Pack monitors the health, reliability, and performance of Microsoft Office applications and certain Microsoft Windows applications.

· System Center Operations Manager 2007 Overview (white paper) System Center Operations Manager 2007 is the next step in the evolution of Microsoft operational event and performance monitoring solutions. This paper will provide an overview of the features and functionality included in System Center Operations Manager 2007. See Also: What's New? Why Upgrade to System Center Operations Manager 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

· Microsoft Office Programs and SharePoint Products and Technologies Integration – Fair, Good, Better, Best This white paper describes how different versions of Microsoft Office programs work together with the 2003 and 2007 versions of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.

· Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System programmatically collects settings and values from data repositories such as MS SQL, registry, metabase and performance monitor. Once collected, a set of comprehensive ‘best practice’ rules are applied to the topology.

· A Fresh Look at Compliance in SharePoint Server 2007 Whether you’re building a secure intranet library with sensitive documents, a DMZ-based extranet deployment, or a high-scale Internet environment, you’ll be pleased to find SharePoint Server is a rock solid platform with open authentication and membership providers and rich and flexible auditing and compliance capabilities.

· Reliable Repositories: Using Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint to Defend Collaboration When utilizing a Web application, such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), to facilitate such a core data repository while fostering a collaboration platform to unite virtual teams, the first thing that comes to mind when analyzing information warehouse security is the Web layer. However, there are numerous planes of security that must be inspected when assessing the inclusive threat background.

· Change passwords used for administration accounts (Office SharePoint Server) You can use this article to change the password information for several features, services, and Web applications in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Domain policies often require that domain account passwords be updated periodically. This change provides additional security if one of the passwords might have been compromised. Because you can configure the various features, services, and Web applications of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to run as a domain account, the passwords for these accounts must be updated for these features, services, and Web applications to continue to function properly.

· Design extranet farm topology (Office SharePoint Server) This article discusses specific extranet topologies that have been tested with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The topologies that are discussed in this article can help you to understand the options that are available with Office SharePoint Server 2007, including requirements and tradeoffs.

· More recently published MOSS content

Microsoft Office System

· Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack With the XPS Essentials Pack you can quickly begin reading and generating XPS Documents. It contains XPS Viewer EP to read XPS Documents and the Microsoft XPS Document Writer to output files to the XPS Document format. Additionally, the XPS Essentials Pack download includes providers to enable the iPreview and iFilter capabilities found in many Windows applications. Windows shell handlers are also included to enable thumbnail views and file properties for XPS Documents.

Other Information

· Microsoft Network Monitor 3 Network Monitor 3.0 is a protocol analyzer. It allows you to capture network traffic, view and analyze it. This version is a complete overhaul of the previous Network Monitor 2.x version.

· Live Search Maps Add-In for Microsoft Office Outlook Live Search Maps Add-In for Microsoft Office Outlook adds maps, driving directions, traffic information, and travel time to the scheduling capabilities of Outlook

· User Profile Hive Cleanup Service The User Profile Hive Cleanup service helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. System processes and applications occasionally maintain connections to registry keys in the user profile after a user logs off. In those cases the user session is prevented from completely ending. This can result in problems when using Roaming User Profiles in a server environment or when using locked profiles as implemented through the Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP.

Microsoft Developer Information

· Microsoft Pre-Release Software Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Beta 1.NET Framework 3.5 is planned to release at the end of 2007 and will ship with Visual Studio code name ”Orcas” and will also continue to be available for separate download from MSDN.

· Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard 1.1 The SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard provides a way to publish databases to T-SQL scripts or directly to supporting hosting service providers.

· Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 Beta Software Development Kit (SDK) contains documentation, samples, quickstarts and tools for developing Silverlight applications.

· Expression Studio Overview Introducing Microsoft Expression Studio, a suite of tools for creative designers that gives you the freedom to bring your vision to reality and boosts developer collaboration in the delivery of rich user experiences for the Web, Windows Vista applications and beyond. Expression Studio is now an essential part of the overall workflow for adding compelling user interfaces to the underlying power of the Microsoft technology platform. See also the FAQ

· The Windows Vista Developer Story: Developing for Windows Shell The Windows Shell is the container in which the entire Windows Vista user interface is presented, including the taskbar, the Desktop, Windows Explorer, and many dialog boxes and interface controls. New features and interfaces enable developers to build applications that fully use and extend the capabilities of the Windows Vista Shell as a programming environment.

· Windows Communication Foundation Messaging Fundamentals When you start pulling the layers away from Windows Communication Foundation, you find a sophisticated XML-based messaging framework that offers a world of possibilities when connecting systems using a variety of protocols and formats. In this month's column, I am highlighting some of the key messaging features we can thank for such flexibility.

· Improve Debugging And Performance Tuning With ETW Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) is a general-purpose, high-speed tracing facility provided by the operating system. Using a buffering and logging mechanism implemented in the kernel, ETW provides a tracing mechanism for events raised by both user-mode applications and kernel-mode device drivers.

· 3D Mesh Geometries Among the classes that contribute to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation, those in the System.Windows.Media.Media3D namespace stand out. These are the classes that are intended to bring three-dimensional graphics to mainstream Windows applications.

· Data Storage Architecture with SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (SSCE) provides a powerful yet lightweight data storage engine for building a variety of application types. This paper introduces data storage concerns for client applications and small-scale server applications.

· Developer Introduction to Workflows for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 Get a high-level overview of how Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 implements the workflow capabilities of the Windows Workflow Foundation, and how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 extends those capabilities with symmetrical Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 forms.

· What's New for Developers in Windows Mobile 6 This paper explains the new Windows Mobile 6 features and their purpose from a developer's perspective. This paper also explains the many new tools provided by the Windows Mobile 6 Software Development Kit (SDK), and provides some guidance on getting started developing Windows Mobile 6 applications.

Monthly Reminders of Good Information Sources:

Security Page – Links to Key Information
HotFix & Security Bulletin Search
Tackle Common Tasks With These How To Resources
Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle policy provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability at the time of product release.

Support WebCasts

List of Upcoming WebCasts: http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/upcoming.mspx

List of Previous WebCasts for on demand viewing: http://www.microsoft.com/usa/webcasts/ondemand/

See the Top Ten List of the most popular webcasts.

Recent Security Bulletins (Security Bulletin Archives)

Last 5 Published or Updated Security Advisories:

· Microsoft Security Advisory (935964)
Vulnerability in RPC on Windows DNS Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution.
Published or Last Updated: 4/19/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (935423)
Vulnerability in Windows Animated Cursor Handling
Published or Last Updated: 4/3/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (933052)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/14/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (932553)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/13/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (932114)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2000 Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/13/2007

For the entire list of published Security Advisories, visit the Security Advisory Archive Web site.

HiED West ATU: ATS Newsletter - April 2007

jolumia — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:28:00 GMT

Microsoft News and Product Information

Security

· Malware Revolution: A Change in Target Today’s malware focus is no longer a battle to dominate the computer; it is increasingly a battle for control of the user’s assets. With money as the motive and the user as the target, we can expect to see an even greater number of cleverly disguised scams, phishing, and other socially engineered attacks in the future.

How Microsoft Does IT

· Managing Line of Business Applications using Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 provides the foundation for the Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) group to increase operational efficiency and advance the alignment of IT services with the needs of Microsoft. Microsoft IT achieves these goals by providing business units with greater control over line-of-business (LOB) applications based on a new generation of end-to-end service management solutions.

· How Microsoft IT Deployed Windows Vista Wireless Group Policy (audio) New features in Windows Vista Wireless group policy provided the Microsoft Identity and Access Management (IAM) team with the ability to deploy a group policy object to automatically configure wireless network settings for Windows Vista and Windows XP clients. The team was able to leverage the new interoperability feature to configure wireless network settings for both Windows Vista and Windows XP within a single group policy object in each domain.

· Implementing System Center Operations Manager 2007 at Microsoft Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) is responsible for monitoring the health of nearly 11,000 servers that are running over 2,000 corporate applications. Until the development of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007, Microsoft IT used several individual installments of Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 for monitoring. Using multiple installations of MOM 2005 sometimes resulted in duplication of effort and redundant data. This technical white paper describes how Microsoft IT created a centralized monitoring solution by deploying OpsMgr 2007 in its corporate network environment.

· Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Edge Transport and Messaging Protection In deploying the Exchange 2007 based messaging protection solution, Microsoft IT used all messaging protection features of the Edge Transport server role and Forefront Security for Exchange Server to block, delete, reject, or quarantine unwanted messages. To further increase security, servers were hardened and audited for vulnerabilities to ensure readiness for Internet visibility.

Windows Desktop and Server - Vista / 2003 / XP / 2000

· Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Whitepapers

o Wolfram Research's gridMathematica2

o ANSYS Solution Brief

· Windows Administration: Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 3 In this issue, we wrap up our in-depth discussion about what’s new in the Windows Vista kernel. In this final installment, we look at changes and new features pertaining to reliability, recovery, and security.

· Windows Administration: Disaster Recovery: Active Directory Users and Groups Data recovery in Active Directory can be very complex, yet it’s essential that you have a recovery plan in order. We show you how Active Directory stores, deletes, restores, and replicates objects so you can be prepared the next time a user or group membership is accidentally deleted.

· When I’m x64 Take a look at an implementation of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 on x64 systems, examining some of the deployment benefits and hurdles you can expect to run into. And get familiar with Windows Vista x64 support, migration, and deployment.

· Wireless Group Policy Settings for Windows Vista Discover how you can use Group Policy to centrally configure and distribute wireless network settings to all the computers in your Active Directory network.

· Windows Vista Policy-based Quality of Service (QoS) This white paper describes how to prioritize network traffic by configuring Policy-based QoS on Windows Vista. Provides a business-based scenario. Also provides reference for QoS error and event messages.

· Microsoft-Intel Virtualization Whitepaper Reducing Technology Costs with Intel Virtualization Technology and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

· Deploying and Managing the Windows Deployment Services Update on Windows Server 2003 Windows Deployment Services is the updated and redesigned version of Remote Installation Services (RIS). Windows Deployment Services assists with the rapid adoption and deployment of Microsoft Windows operating systems. You can use it to set up new computers through a network-based installation without having to be physically present at each computer

· Technology Overview: Internet Explorer 7 for the Enterprise This technology overview of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 describes how improvements in the new browser will help IT professionals deploy and manage IE7 in an enterprise environment. Whether your support a large, medium, or small business, deploying Internet Explorer 7 will benefit your organization.

Exchange Server

· Getting Started with Outlook Voice Access Outlook Voice Access is a feature in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging (UM) that enables users to retrieve e-mail messages from their mailbox by using an analog, digital, or cellular telephone. They can then interact with their mailbox by using touchtone or voice commands.

· For more of the latest Exchange articles, see The Exchange Team Blog – you might make it a favorite link!

Microsoft Management

· TechNet Webcast: System Center Reporting Manager Overview Join us as we demonstrate the power of Microsoft System Center Reporting Manager and illustrate how it can unlock valuable data stored within Microsoft System Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM).

· Management: Plan Ahead with System Center Capacity Planner Insufficient hardware leads to poor response times while too much hardware is a waste of budget and administration resources. Learn how you can use the System Center Capacity Planner to model your network and accurately estimate your infrastructure needs.

· Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Evaluation Edition System Center Operations Manager provides an easy-to-use monitoring environment that includes thousands of event and performance monitors across hundreds of operating systems and applications to provide a single view of the health of an organization’s IT environment.

· Management: Advanced Client Inventories with SMS Out of the box, Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 collects a lot of information, but it doesn’t collect nearly as much as you may need. Find out how the right combination of scripting, WMI, and SMS knowledge can help you expand SMS inventories to collect and report almost any morsel of information.

· Management: Deploying Custom Software Updates with SMS 2003 R2 Systems Management Server 2003 R2 lets you use managed update features to deploy custom updates. Explore two new tools—the Inventory Tool for Custom Updates and the Custom Updates Publishing Tool—and see how they can help you deploy your own updates as well as updates from third party developers.

· Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 documentation

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

· White papers: Excel Services step-by-step guides These guides help you learn about Excel Services functionality and understand the relationships among various components of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The procedures in these guides take you step by step through the process of configuring and using Excel Services to build fully functional PivotTable reports, charts, and a variety of other reports.

· Plan e-mail message records retention This article describes planning tasks related to retaining e-mail message records by using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, with emphasis on using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Office SharePoint Server 2007 to manage message classification, retention, and expiration.

· Design logical architecture for collaboration sites Use this article to decide how to incorporate collaboration sites into your overall intranet solution. Understand the design recommendations for collaboration sites, estimate the number of site collections you can support and the number of content databases you need, and plan settings for managing your collaboration site collections.

· More recently published MOSS content

Microsoft Office System

· Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server Public Beta Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server enables you to develop and deploy interactive voice response (IVR) applications. Speech Server combines speech technologies, Voice over IP (VoIP), and telephony capabilities into a single system and a single code base. See also the documentation for the beta.

· Deploying Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager in a Remote Database Configuration Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager uses a SQL Server 2005 database for storing its data. By default, configuring Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager with any Outlook profile creates a SQL database on the local computer. Instead of creating a database on the local computer, you can choose to connect to an existing database on a remote server.

· Microsoft Office Groove and SharePoint Integration This document discusses how you can integrate Groove and SharePoint to enhance and facilitate collaboration in your enterprise.

· How to Help Secure a Groove Manager Web Site Securing a Groove Manager Web site involves choosing an administrative authentication system, configuring network settings, implenting SSL, and enabling role-based access control.

Other Information

· Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance - Wipro TCO White Paper The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) whitepaper focuses on the IO model and how MDOP can reduce the cost of implementing the core IO best practices by up to $150/PC/best practice and then how it can help an organization realize a sustained annual savings of up to $50/PC/year/best practice implemented. Wipro estimates the savings for use of MDOP will range from $200-$500/PC/Yr .

· BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta 2 Installation and Upgrade Guides The installation instructions explain how to install BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta 2 and RFID on Windows Server 2003 in a single server environment. The upgrade guides explain how to upgrade from BizTalk Server 2004 and BizTalk Server 2006 to BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

· Optimizing the Performance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 White Paper This white paper discusses how to optimize the performance of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 system. You’ll learn how re-indexing, de-fragmenting, and regularly maintaining your databases can increase the speed with which Microsoft Dynamics CRM accesses your data. The white paper includes more advanced techniques as well, such as improving report performance, configuring Microsoft SQL Server, and optimizing Microsoft Internet Information Services and the .NET Framework.

· Microsoft Forefront Overview The Microsoft Forefront comprehensive line of business security products provides greater protection and control through integration with your existing IT infrastructure and through simplified deployment, management, and analysis.

Microsoft Developer Information

· Beginner Developer Lessons – with Visual Studio Express

· Building Sustainable Banking Architectures In this article, we will use a banking scenario to focus on some of the specific needs for financial services. This scenario will provide means for partners and customers to integrate banking applications and establish consistency in this integration. This article describes the Loan-Origination Reference Architecture Pack.

· InfoPath 2007 Sample: Training Labs Step-by-step training and downloadable samples illustrating Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 features.

· Explore The Web Server For Windows Vista And Beyond In this article, the author takes the opportunity to present the major reasons why the next-generation IIS 7.0 Web server makes such a big difference to developers and administrators alike-and give you a head start in using many of its new features.

· Add Video To Controls And 3D Surfaces With WPF This article will get you up to speed with Windows Presentation Foundation media integration and give you the knowledge you need to add media files and that optional visual interest to your own applications.

· Automate Releases With MSBuild And Windows Installer XML In this article, I'll show you how to achieve an automated and repeatable build and release process in your organization using the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) and the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset.

· Scalable Apps with Asynchronous Programming in ASP.NET Asynchronous programming is an excellent way to build more scalable applications by using the ASP.NET thread pool as efficiently as possible.

· Improving a Graphics Application with Tablet APIs Demonstrates how to write an application for colorizing digital photos using the inking support provided by Tablet PC APIs.

· Feature Changes in ASP.NET 2.0 If you are considering migrating from ASP or ASP.NET 1.x, you should definitely consider the advantages provided by the new features in ASP.NET 2.0. This article provides a feature-based overview of ASP.NET 2.0 for developers familiar with ASP or ASP.NET 1.1.

· Extending SQL Server Reporting Services with SQL CLR Table-Valued Functions This article describes how to take advantage of SQL CLR table-valued functions to combine different types of data sources to create rich and exciting SQL Server Reporting Services reports.

Monthly Reminders of Good Information Sources:

Security Page – Links to Key Information
HotFix & Security Bulletin Search
Tackle Common Tasks With These How To Resources
Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle policy provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability at the time of product release.

Support WebCasts

List of Upcoming WebCasts: http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/upcoming.mspx

List of Previous WebCasts for on demand viewing: http://www.microsoft.com/usa/webcasts/ondemand/

See the Top Ten List of the most popular webcasts.

Recent Security Bulletins (Security Bulletin Archives)

Last 5 Published or Updated Security Advisories

· Microsoft Security Advisory (935423)
Vulnerability in Windows Animated Cursor Handling
Published or Last Updated: 3/31/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (933052)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/14/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (932553)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/13/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (932114)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word 2000 Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/13/2007

· Microsoft Security Advisory (929433)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 2/13/2007

For the entire list of published Security Advisories, visit the Security Advisory Archive Web site.

HiED West ATU: ATS Newsletter - October 2006

jolumia — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:02:00 GMT

Microsoft U.S. HIED West Account Technology Briefing Newsletter

ATS Newsletter – October 2006

Microsoft News and Product Information

Security

· Microsoft Is Committed to Interoperability with its Network Access Protection Solution Microsoft and Cisco have been collaborating for two years to achieve interoperability between Microsoft NAP and Cisco NAC. Earlier this month, they delivered on their promise to interoperate. The companies unveiled a joint NAP-NAC interoperable architecture, which allows communication and policy enforcement across each company’s solution. With this architecture, a multi-vendor, end-to-end solution can be built around the Cisco-Microsoft interoperability.

· Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7 To help customers become more secure and up-to-date, Microsoft will distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites shortly after the final version of Internet Explorer 7 is released (planned for the 4th quarter of 2006).

· Securing Critical and Service Accounts This paper will help midsized businesses understand the risks associated with administrative, service, application-related, and default accounts. This paper discusses the nature of these accounts, how to identify them, how to determine the appropriate permissions that they require to function, and how to mitigate the risks inherent in elevated service accounts and administrator level accounts.

How Microsoft Does IT

· How Microsoft IT Secures Access to Corporate Resources Using Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 In this webcast, we explain how Microsoft IT adopted Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 for secure Web publishing as an alternative to remote access. Join this presentation to learn how Microsoft IT’s deployment of ISA Server 2006, with its many new features, saves the company millions in hardware and personnel resources.

· How Microsoft IT Designs Its 64-bit Exchange Server 2007 Infrastructure In this webcast, find out how Microsoft IT was able to take advantage of 64-bit architecture to fully deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 in its production environment.

· Improving an IT Self-Help Portal User Experience Learn how Microsoft improved the user experience, reduced the help desk costs, and published more engaging and timelier information by migrating their IT support portal to SharePoint Server 2007.

· Implementing Visual Studio Team System in the Microsoft OEM Division's IT Center of Excellence The Microsoft OEM Division's IT Center of Excellence (OEM IT), a global IT engineering organization within Microsoft, deployed Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System. OEM IT now enjoys a fully integrated software development platform, realizes substantial and measurable savings, and is able to focus more on development and delivery of high-quality software and less on project administrative tasks.

Windows Desktop and Server - Vista / 2003 / XP / 2000

· Windows Vista Trusted Platform Module Services Step by Step Guide This Step-by-Step Guide provides the instructions necessary to use Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Services in a test lab environment.

· BitLocker Drive Encryption: Executive Overview This paper provides an introduction to BitLocker Drive Encryption; an exciting new data protection feature available in Microsoft Windows Vista that addresses a growing concern: the theft or unwanted disclosure of data made available through physical loss of computer devices. See also the BitLocker FAQ.

· Microsoft Windows Vista Security: Setting a New Standard for Security and Privacy Through Innovation and Collaboration With the forthcoming release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is empowering businesses and consumers to address mounting security threats. Through Microsoft’s “defense-in-depth” approach to technology innovation — involving fundamental protections in the platform, threat and vulnerability mitigation, and identity and access control — the operating system will enable end users to remain more secure and will protect the privacy of their information. Windows Vista will also provide IT administrators with effective ways to make networks resistant to attacks, while preserving data confidentiality, integrity and availability. Lastly, these changes will enable new solutions for both security and non-security ISVs to address the challenges currently facing the entire industry.

· Windows Update, Microsoft Update, and Automatic Updates for IT Professionals The information on this page is intended primarily for IT professionals who may be using Windows Update or Microsoft Update and the Automatic Updates feature in their organizations. It provides an overview of these services and announcements of developments that may affect IT professionals.

· Group Policy Settings Reference Windows Vista RC1 This spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the administrative template files (admx/adml) delivered with Windows Vista RC1 (build 5600).

· Microsoft Windows Security Center: The Voice of Security for Windows Vista A White Paper highlighting the enhancements to Windows Security Center for Windows Vista.

· Network Location Types in Windows Vista Microsoft Windows Vista (now in beta testing) has the ability to automatically configure security and other settings based on the type of network to which the computer is connected. This new feature makes computing more secure and easier for users because they no longer have to be aware of the type of network that they are connected to and configure security settings to prevent unwanted access.

· Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5 Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 provides a full range of supported and fully integrated cross-platform network services for enterprise customers to use in integrating Windows into their existing UNIX-based environments. See also technical resources for Services for Unix.

· Windows Security and Directory Services for UNIX v1.0 The guidance covers evaluating, planning, building, deploying, and operating a security and directory infrastructure based on Windows Server 2003. It includes configuring both the Windows and UNIX/Linux settings and configuring the requisite Windows services. Technical guidance has been thoroughly lab tested with Windows Server 2003 SP1, Red Hat Linux 9, and Sun Microsystems Solaris 9.

Exchange Server

· Step-by-Step Guide to Deploying Windows Mobile-based Devices with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 This document is designed primarily for Information Technology (IT) professionals who are responsible for planning and deploying mobile messaging systems that use Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Microsoft Windows Mobile-based devices that have the Messaging and Security Feature Pack.

· Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Technical Documentation See also: Additional resources for Exchange 2007

· Choosing Exchange Server 2003 Hardware for Reuse with Exchange Server 2007 This article provides rough guidelines for processor and memory configurations that provide good performance for Exchange Server 2003 while also providing a strong platform for Exchange Server 2007. Recommendations will also be made on how server hardware deployed for Exchange 2003 roles can be reused for Exchange 2007 on a per-server role basis.

· User Guide for Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server Forefront Security for Exchange protects organizations against the latest threats by managing multiple antivirus scan engines at multiple layers throughout the e-mail infrastructure. This approach allows Forefront for Exchange to minimize the average window of exposure for emerging e-mail threats by providing continual signature updates from multiple antivirus labs around the world.

Microsoft Management

· Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Desired Configuration Monitoring 2.0 now supports configuration monitoring of desktops and servers. The accelerator allows the user to define desired hardware, operating system, and application configuration settings in multiple configuration data sources. Then, using the supplied auditing engine, DCM compares desired settings with actual settings and finally reports configuration compliance.

· Microsoft Availability Reporting Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 collects and analyzes data from the event logs of your servers, and generates reports that you can study to improve server availability and reliability. You can identify the causes for planned and unplanned downtime and take preemptive actions to decrease downtime in the future.

Microsoft Office System

· Get into the Groove: Solutions for Secure and Dynamic Collaboration Microsoft Office Groove 2007 is a new collaboration tool in the 2007 Microsoft Office system that enables teams to collaborate dynamically, effectively, and with advanced security, even when team members work for different organizations, work remotely, or need to work offline. The author will introduce you to Office Groove 2007 and explain the architectural underpinnings that make it an ideal tool for dynamic team collaboration.

· Microsoft Office Migration Planning Manager (Preview) The Office Migration Planning Manager is a group of tools designed to help administrators during the planning and testing phases of a 2007 Microsoft Office system deployment.

· Differences between the 2007 Office system and Office 2003 Many features have been changed, removed, or replaced in 2007 Microsoft Office system. Also: Collaborating with previous versions of Office and other programs

· Live Communications Server 2005 Document: Supportability Guide An overview of the supported configurations for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, Live Communications Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), and Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access.

· Live Meeting 2005 Intranet Portal SP2 Administrator’s Guide provides information to help administrators to deploy and use the Live Meeting Intranet Portal.

Beta, Technology Assessment Program (TAP) and Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) Information

· System Center Data Protection Manager Version 2 Beta 1 Data Protection Manager (DPM) is the new standard for Windows backup and recovery—delivering continuous data protection for Microsoft application and file servers using seamlessly integrated disk and tape media. DPM enables rapid and reliable recovery through advanced technology for enterprises of all sizes.

· Microsoft Launches Forefront Security for SharePoint Beta
Microsoft Corp. launched the public beta of Forefront Security for SharePoint. This latest release of Microsoft Forefront security products for businesses is based on Antigen for SharePoint Server, the multi-engine security solution acquired by Microsoft as part of the acquisition of Sybari Software Inc. in 2005. Forefront Security for SharePoint is optimized to provide advanced protection for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The launch of Forefront Security for SharePoint will coincide with the general availability of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which are scheduled to be available to businesses by the end of 2006 and generally available in early 2007. It will be available through Microsoft’s global channel of Security Solutions Competency partners. Companies can download the beta release at http://www.microsoft.com/forefront.

· Microsoft Releases First Broad Beta Developer Kit for .NET Micro Framework

Microsoft Corp. released a beta developer kit for the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework, a new development platform for use with devices that are typically constrained by cost, memory, processor and/or power consumption. Announced at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, the .NET Micro Framework broad beta extends the advantages of .NET and the Visual Studio toolset into a class of the smallest of devices. The .NET Micro Framework grew out of the Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) initiative at Microsoft. Though it is used on very small devices, the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework provides a managed code environment that brings a strong degree of efficiency and reliability to the realm of embedded software development. More information can be found at http://www.aboutnetmf.com.

Other Information

· Check out the TechNet Virtual Labs Quickly evaluate and test Microsoft's newest server products through a series of guided, hands-on labs which can be completed in 90 minutes or less. The best part is, TechNet Virtual Labs can be accessed online immediately.

· Microsoft Operations Framework Self-Assessment Tool 2.0 Now Available

The Microsoft Operations Framework Self-Assessment Tool recently updated to version 2.0 is based on the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices. It guides you through the development of a detailed problem-and-impact analysis of a targeted IT service or operational process. This tool is designed to enable you to:

· Better understand the effectiveness of the IT services and processes in your organization.

· Define a specific problem or opportunity regarding your IT services and/or processes

· Identify a variety of follow-up actions based on information you provide.

Once you complete a 15- to 20-minute assessment, you receive a detailed report including the assessment data, a problem statement, a summary of impacts on the organization, and a customized next-step list of recommendations.

Latest/Greatest Tools from Microsoft

· XML Notepad 2006 XML Notepad 2006 provides a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML documents.

· Word 2007 Redaction Add-in Use Microsoft Office Word 2007 Redaction Add-in to hide text within Microsoft Office Word 2007 documents. You can mark text to redact and then create a new, redacted version of the document in which the marked text is replaced with a black bar that cannot be converted back to text.

· Outlook 2007 Calendar Views Add-in With the Outlook Calendar Views Add-in, you can easily create and manage filters to display subsets of appointments in Outlook Calendar. Filtered views are based on categories that you apply to appointments.

· 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF This download allows you to export and save to the PDF format in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows you to send files as e-mail attachments in the PDF format in a subset of these programs.

· 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as XPS This download allows you to export and save to the XPS format in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows you to send files as e-mail attachments in the XPS format in a subset of these programs.

· Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server Help protect your Exchange server from viruses and other malware.

· Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 SP1 Agent Prerequisite Component for Windows XP Embedded The MOM 2005 SP1 Agent Prerequisite Component for Windows XP Embedded extracts the components required for the MOM 2005 SP1 Agent to work on Windows XP Embedded.

· MapPoint Streets and Trips 2006 Construction Update

· MapPoint 2006 Construction Update

· MapPoint 2004 and Streets and Trips 2004 Construction Update

· MapPoint Streets and Trips 2005 Construction Update

· Windows Mobile Network Analyzer PowerToy Network Analyzer for Windows Mobile runs network utilities (e.g., ping and ipconfig) on a Windows Mobile powered device. Network Analyzer for Windows Mobile facilitates the troubleshooting of network connectivity issues.

· Max Microsoft Codename Max is your opportunity to try a new, exciting and constantly evolving experience from Microsoft. Max lets you make beautiful photo slideshows to share with your family and friends.

· Update for Windows 2000 (KB922582)

· Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB922582)

· Update for Windows XP (KB922582)

· Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB922582)

· Update for Windows XP x64 Edition (KB922582)

· Update for Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems (KB922582)

· A problem has been identified in Filter Manager that can prevent you from installing updates from Windows update.

· Live Meeting 2005 Add-in Pack With the Live Meeting Add-in Pack, you can perform conferencing tasks directly from Microsoft Office Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, as well as from Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Office Communicator 2005.

· Security Update for Publisher 2000 (KB894540), Security Update for Publisher 2002 (KB894541) and Security Update for Publisher 2003 (KB894542)

· A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Publisher that could allow arbitrary code to run when you open a maliciously modified document.

· Windows Live Local for Outlook Windows Live Local for Outlook adds maps, routes, traffic updates, driving directions, and travel time to your Microsoft Office Outlook meeting requests.

· Microsoft ISA Server 2000, 2004, and 2006 Management Pack for MOM 2005

· The ISA Server Management Pack for MOM enables you to effectively monitor and maintain your ISA Server infrastructure.

· Project Server 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005

· This download contains a Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) management pack and associated documentation for Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh.

· Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager (Beta) Update: Software and Instructions for Updating to Outlook 2007 with BCM Beta 2 Technical Refresh

· This is the Beta 2 Technical Refresh of Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager.

· Firewall Client Installs ISA Server Firewall Client software on 32-bit and 64-bit computers.

· Visio 2007: Software Development Kit (Beta 2 Technical Refresh update) This Beta 2 Technical Refresh update to the Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Software Development Kit (Beta 2) provides various improvements and enhancements to the Beta 2 SDK.

· Media Transfer Protocol Porting Kit The new Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) enables you to manage content on any portable device with storage.

· Update for Internet Explorer for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (KB923996)

· Update for Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 x64 Edition (KB923996)

· Update for Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 64-bit Itanium Edition (KB923996)

· Update for Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (KB923996)

· When visiting a Web page that uses a custom pop-up object, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 can close unexpectedly and generate an error in the Mshtml.dll file.

· ActiveSync 4.5 Beta 2 Microsoft ActiveSync 4.5 is the latest sync software release for Windows Mobile-powered devices. ActiveSync provides a great synchronization experience with Windows-powered PCs and Microsoft Outlook right out of the box.

· User Agent String Utility 2 A utility that opens an Internet Explorer 7.0 window that is configured to report its identity to websites as being Internet Explorer 6.0.

· Windows Base Operating System Management Pack for MOM 2005 Monitors for conditions that adversely affect the availability, reliability, performance, configuration, and security of Windows Server 4.0, 2000, 2003, and 2003 R2 operating systems. The events detected indicate exceptional conditions associated with various components of Windows operations. Assists with proactive management of Windows Server 2000, 2003, and 2003 R2 systems.

· Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB922772)

· Update for Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems (KB922772)

· Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB922772) Install this update to resolve a situation where inconsistent data is returned when you use the TargetMapping function together with the HBA API for an MPIO-compatible storage device in Windows Server 2003.

· Update for Windows Vista RC1 (x64 Editions) (KB925028)

· Update for Windows Vista RC1 (KB925028) Install this update to prevent an issue where selecting text in Microsoft Word 2003 on a Tablet PC may cause the application to become unresponsive when you are using Vista RC1.

· Update for Windows 2000 (KB925308) Install this update to prevent an issue in which, after you install security update 920958 (MS06-049) on a computer that is using NTFS file system compression, compressed files that are larger than 4 kilobytes may be corrupted when you create or update the files.

· Microsoft IPTV WES Adapter 3.0 Management Pack for MOM 2005

· Microsoft OLM WES Adapter 3.0 Management Pack for MOM 2005

· Microsoft BTS WSE Adapter 3.0 Management Pack for MOM 2005

· Microsoft Connected Services Framework 3.0 Management Pack for MOM 2005

· Microsoft OH-SBE 3.0 Management Pack for MOM 2005

· Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5

· Microsoft Availability Reporting Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005

· This management pack monitors availability and reliability for SQL, Exchange, IIS, AD and Windows and allows you to determine whether the availability and reliability objectives are met.

· MIIS Host Access MA Feature Pack 2

· Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 Host Access Management Agent Feature Pack 2 enables Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) identity management integration with IBM and eTrust Computer Associates host security systems.

· Security Update for Windows 2000 (KB920958) A security issue has been identified in the Windows Kernel that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it.

· 2007 Office System Document: Lists of Control IDs This download contains files that list the control IDs for built-in controls in all applications that use the Ribbon.

· Update for Windows XP (KB924941) Install this update to resolve timing issues resulting in race conditions when using Bluetooth devices connected via USB.

· XMLLite for Windows XP (KB915865)

· XMLLite for Windows XP x64 Edition (KB915865)

· XMLLite for Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems (KB914783)

· XMLLite for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB914783)

· XMLLite for Windows Server 2003 (KB914783)

· XmlLite is a lightweight component for parsing and writing XML files.

· Windows Media Player Type 1 Online Store Wizard A Windows Media Player Type 1 Online Store must provide a plug-in that implements the IWMPContentPartner interface. The type 1 online store wizard allows you to quickly create a plug-in that serves as a starting point.

· Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Uninstall Tool This article describes how to uninstall pre-release versions of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 if the typical uninstall process is unsuccessful.

· Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Desired Configuration Monitoring 2.0 This accelerator automates the configuration management audits between desired or defined configuration settings and actual configuration settings.

· Microsoft Standard User Analyzer This application compatibility tool helps developers and IT professionals diagnose issues that would prevent a program from running properly as a standard user.

· Microsoft Antigen 9.0 MOM Pack The new Microsoft Antigen Management Pack for MOM supports the 9.0 versions of Microsoft Antigen for Exchange, Microsoft Antigen for SMTP Gateways, and Microsoft Antigen Spam Manager.

· Update for Windows Embedded for Point of Service (KB905876) Resolves the issue of not being able to open .hlp files in Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WePOS).

· Update for Windows Embedded for Point of Service (KB903937) Resolves issues that might occur with Remote Assistance.

· Update for Windows Embedded for Point of Service (KB903089) Resolves the issue of IIS's FTP functionality not functioning in WePOS.

· Windows Embedded for Point of Service Unattended Generator Utility The Microsoft Windows Embedded for Point of Service Unattended Generator Utility creates and edits Windows Embedded for Point of Service unattended files.

· Update for WEPOS (KB918233) Resolve issues that might occur with NTFS encryption function

· Update for Windows Embedded for Point of Service (KB903896) Resolves issues that might occur with crash dumps and hibernation.

· Update for Windows Embedded for Point of Service (KB903897) Resolves issues that might occur with text not being localized even when MUI Packs are installed.

Whitepapers and Documentation

· Podcasts: How Microsoft IT Monitors and Manages the Exchange Messaging Infrastructure as a Service Managing Exchange Messaging Services by Using Metrics discusses how Microsoft IT improved its messaging services using targeted metrics and process.

· Cisco Network Admission Control and Microsoft Network Access Protection Interoperability Architecture This white paper describes the interoperability architecture for Cisco Systems, Inc.'s Network Admission Control (NAC) platform and Microsoft's Network Access Protection (NAP) Platform.

· Media Transfer Protocol Enhanced Specification This specification is intended to define the transport-independent portion of MTP in a way that is agnostic to both device type and OS.

· User Guide for Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server

Help protect your Exchange server from viruses and other malware.

· Live Meeting 2005 Intranet Portal SP2 Administrator’s Guide The Live Meeting 2005 Intranet Portal SP2 Administrator’s Guide provides information to help administrators to deploy and use the Live Meeting Intranet Portal.

· Introduction to Data-Aware Windows Mobile Applications, Pt. 2 Rory Blyth looks at how to perform data synchronization between a Pocket PC and SQL Server using RDA (Remote Data Access).

· MIIS 2003 Design Concepts The MIIS 2003 Design Concepts document set provides discussions and recommended solutions for specific challenges that are encountered during the design phase of MIIS 2003.

· Business Scorecard Manager 2005 Data Sheet Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 allows users to optimize business performance through strategic decision making. The download includes a product data sheet.

· Windows Security and Directory Services for UNIX v1.0 Technical and process guidance for consolidating security and directory services to provide authentication and authorization in heterogeneous UNIX and Windows environments using Windows Server 2003.

· IT Showcase: Implementing Visual Studio Team System in the Microsoft OEM Division's IT Center of Excellence This technical case study describes that by deploying Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the Microsoft OEM Division's IT Center of Excellence enjoys a fully-integrated software development platform, realizes substantial, measurable savings, and is able to focus more on developing and delivering quality software and less on project administrative tasks.

· Installing Microsoft CRM 3.0 on Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2

· This document contains instructions about how to install Microsoft CRM 3.0 on Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2

· Project Server 2007 Document: Updating Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 for Beta 2 Technical Refresh Updates are available for the Beta 2 Technical Refresh of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. This guide addresses how to obtain and install the update for Office Project Server 2007 Beta 2. The update includes two phases: a binary update and a database upgrade. This downloadable document guides you through both phases.

· Forms Server 2007 Document: Updating Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 for Beta 2 Technical Refresh This guide addresses how to obtain and install the update for Office Forms Server 2007 Beta 2.

· Project Portfolio Server 2006 Document: Installation Guide This installation guide will walk you through the required steps to successfully install the Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2006 on your local machine.

· A Look at Windows Embedded Operating Systems and Building a Windows CE 6 OS Image

· Mike Hall looks at the different Windows Embedded operating systems.

· Live Communications Server 2005 Document: Supportability Guide This document identifies supported configurations for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, Live Communications Server 2005with Service Pack 1 (SP1), and Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access.

· Upgrading Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to Use a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database

· Describes how to upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on your Microsoft CRM 3.0 installation.

· Securing Critical and Service Accounts Gain knowledge about application, service, and administrator-level accounts. This paper addresses the need to protect against internal threats, both deliberate and accidental, including employee data theft and efforts to work around security policies and procedures.

· BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorials The BizTalk Server 2006 tutorials contain detailed steps for implementing simple scenarios to give new users an experience of using a variety of BizTalk tools while creating compiled, testable solutions.

· BizTalk 2006 Documentation Update Updated Documentation - CHM format

· Xbox.com Prima Guides Prima has you covered with guides for all your favorite Xbox titles. The world's leading publisher of official game guides and the exclusive guide publisher for Microsoft®, Prima continues to dominate the field it created in 1990 by providing the highest quality game guides available.

· Commerce Server 2007 Documentation Update September 2006

· The Commerce Server 2007 documentation download includes updates to Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Help.

Microsoft Developer Information

· Creating a Business Logic Layer In this tutorial we'll see how to centralize these business rules into a Business Logic Layer (BLL) that serves as an intermediary for data exchange between the presentation layer and the DAL. In a real-world application, the BLL should be implemented as a separate Class Library project; however, for these tutorials we'll implement the BLL as a series of classes in our App_Code folder in order to simplify the project structure.

· Master Pages and Site Navigation One common characteristic of user-friendly websites is that they have a consistent, site-wide page layout and navigation scheme. ASP.NET 2.0 introduces two new features that greatly simplify implementing both a site-wide page layout and navigation scheme: master pages and site navigation.

· Harness The Power Of P2P Communication In Windows Vista And WCF P2P development in Windows Vista is a huge topic, and no single article can cover it fully. So instead of attempting the impossible, I'll introduce some of the different P2P technologies in Windows Vista, and provide background for your P2P development efforts.

· Simplify Task Progress with ASP.NET "Atlas" In this column, I'll rebuild using Atlas all the examples discussed in the last installment of Cutting Edge. You'll see how to implement static and context-sensitive progress bars in a significantly simpler and neater way.

· Control Adapters In this column I'll introduce the control adapter architecture and explain how it can be used to completely change control renderings based on the User Agent string. I'll then discuss the CSS Control Adapter Toolkit and how you can integrate its features into your sites today.

· Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation The primary goal of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is to help developers create attractive and effective user interfaces. Learn how the WPF unified platform helps make designers active participants in creating user interfaces, and provides a common programming model for standalone and browser applications.

· Smart Clients: Essential Requirements and Candidate Services The architecture and design of smart client solutions begins with a comprehensive understanding of the unique requirements for this versatile model that leverages the rich and dedicated resources of the user's own computer and, when connected, the far reaches of the network.

· Monitoring and Analyzing a Load Test Result Microsoft Visual Studio Team Test Edition provides tools for running, monitoring, and analyzing load tests. The load test result viewer is capable of monitoring a running test or analyzing a completed test. This document describes the features of the load test result viewer.

· Using Settings in C# Learn how to use the new features in Visual C# 2005 to work with application and user settings.

Developer Downloads

· Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation Release Candidate 5 Provides developers with support for building workflow-enabled applications using Windows Workflow Foundation.

· Web Service Development Guide for Outlook 2007 Mobile Service This white paper will show you how to build and host Web Services for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Mobile Service (Beta 2).

· Application Analysis Envisioning Process This guide discusses the Application Analysis Envisioning Process (AAEP) for Lotus Notes applications.

· Team Foundation Power Toys Team Foundation Power Toys is a collection of command-line and Visual Studio integrated tools for users of version control and work item tracking in Team Foundation Server.

· Behind the Scenes: Improvements to Windows Forms Data Binding in the .NET Framework 2.0, Part 2 Sample Code Windows Forms sample code for demonstrating improvements to Windows Forms data binding in the .NET Framework 2.0. This sample code is associated with part two of a two part series of white papers on this topic.

· Microsoft Provisioning System SDK Beta 2 ISVs and Hosters can use this MPS SDK to develop applications that are enabled for multi-tenancy capability. Beta version.

· Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Sample: Developing Workflows Using Visual Studio 2005

This download provides sample files that accompany the MSDN Webcast: Developing SharePoint Workflows Using Visual Studio 2005 (Level 200).

· Team Foundation Administrator's Guide A comprehensive guide that covers procedures for administering Team Foundation Server.

· Windows Media Center Software Development Kit for Windows Vista RC1 Documentation, tools, and sample code for developing Windows Media Center applications and services for Windows Vista.

· Team Foundation Server Language Change Packages The Language Change package provides international customers with the instructions and tools necessary to convert an existing Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (English) to a localized version of Team Foundation Server.

· Utilities and SDK for SUA Utilities and SDK for Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications is an add-on to the Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications (referred to as SUA, hence forth) component that ships in Microsoft Windows Vista RC1 / Longhorn Server IDS_C release.

· VSTO SE Runtime Beta Install the beta version of the runtime for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta (VSTO 2005 SE Beta). This runtime beta is required for testing VSTO 2005 SE Beta solutions on computers other than the development computer.

· Groove 2007: Software Development Kit This download contains the Beta 2 TR version of Microsoft Office Groove 2007 Software Development Kit.

· Using IOLECommands with the InfoPath Form Control This download contains the full C# source code of a Windows application containing multiple toolbars and the Form Control object. It demonstrates how to use IOLECommands to mirror functionality of the Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 form editing environment.

· Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: SDK This SDK contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, samples, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on Microsoft® Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

· Project 2007: Software Development Kit The Microsoft Office Project 2007 (Beta) SDK contains documentation, code samples, "How to" articles, and programming references to help customize and integrate the Project 2007 clients and Project Server 2007 with other applications for enterprise project management.

· Visual Studio 2005 SDK version 3.0 The Visual Studio 2005 Software Development Kit (SDK) version 3.0 includes tools, documentation and samples for developers to write, build, test and deploy extensions for Visual Studio 2005.

· Ink Analysis and Input Supplement for the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Development Kit 1.7

The Ink Analysis and Input Supplement for Windows XP Tablet PC Platform SDK adds two new components to the Tablet PC development kit

· SharePoint Server 2007: SDK The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Beta) SDK contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, code samples, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

· Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals CTP 5 Update

Update for CTP5 that addresses reported performance issues.

· Robotics Studio September 2006 CTP The Microsoft Robotics Studio is a Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. This installation package installs the Microsoft Robotics Studio along with samples and tutorials.

· Microsoft Presence Sample for Smart Client Applications The Microsoft Presence Sample for Smart Client Applications illustrates how to display presence status and provide real-time collaboration options in smart client applications using the interfaces provided by Microsoft Office Communicator 2005.

· Windows Vista Application Development Requirements for User Account Control Compatibility

Details how to develop User Account Control (UAC) compliant applications for Windows Vista.

· OBA Reference Application for Supply Chain Management Reference application pack of an OBA for supply chain management (SCM), which covers various collaboration scenarios across organizational boundaries.

· DHTML Editing Control for Applications Redistributable Package (x86) DHTML Editing Control for Applications is a redistributable component that is available for Windows Vista to enable compatibility for MS Access 2003, and other applications which previously relied on this control in Windows XP and Windows 2003.

· MSN Messenger Activity SDK Download the latest reference material and code samples to build Activities that plug into MSN Messenger.

· POS for .NET 1.1

· POS for .NET 1.1 SDK

· Microsoft POS for .NET version 1.1 is a class library that provides .NET applications with a simple and consistent interface for communicating with Point of Service (POS) peripheral devices, and includes everything needed to run Point of Service peripherals.

· Sample Code Generator 1.4.2.1 Download this tool to generate sample C# & VB classes from an XSD schema.

· SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition Tools for Visual Studio 2005 Beta The download is installed after the installation of Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Beta and updates the Smart Device Development components in Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Beta with the SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition design time UI/Dialogs, device CAB files, and provides new features - Click Once support etc.

· ADO.NET vNext Entity Data Model Designer Prototype

Monthly Reminders of Good Information Sources:

· Microsoft Podcasts! (in both MP3 and WMA)

· Security Page – Links to Key Information

· The Script Center Script Repository The Script Repository categorizes the best sample scripts designed to run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. The Repository contains hundreds of sample scripts that do everything from start and stop services to backup and clear event logs.

· IT Professional Community Find answers in Microsoft newsgroups, locate non-Microsoft IT professional (IT pro) communities, join in chats, and share best practices and tips with your peers. If you are new to Community, visit the Getting Started page.

· HotFix & Security Bulletin Search

· Tackle Common Tasks With These How To Resources

· Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle policy provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability at the time of product release.

· Windows Hardware Compatibility List

Support Web Casts

· List of Upcoming Web Casts: http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/upcoming.mspx

· List of Previous Web Casts for on demand viewing: http://www.microsoft.com/usa/webcasts/ondemand/

· See the Top Ten List of the most popular webcasts.

Recent Security Bulletins (Security Bulletin Archives)

· Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for October, 2006

· Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for September, 2006

· Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for August, 2006

· Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July, 2006

Last 5 Published or Updated Security Advisories:

· Microsoft Security Advisory (917021)
Description of the Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 support for Wireless Group Policy in Windows XP Service Pack 2
Published or Last Updated: 10/17/2006

· Microsoft Security Advisory (926043)
Vulnerability in Windows Shell Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 10/10/2006

· Microsoft Security Advisory (925984)
Vulnerability in PowerPoint Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 10/10/2006

· Microsoft Security Advisory (925059)
Vulnerability in Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 10/10/2006

· Microsoft Security Advisory (925444)
Vulnerability in the Microsoft DirectAnimation Path ActiveX Control Could Allow Remote Code Execution
Published or Last Updated: 9/27/2006

For the entire list of published Security Advisories, visit the Security Advisory Archive Web site.

Special Thanks to the Following Contributors: Laura Payne, Jose Wall and Mike Mitchell.