Heavy on the Technical

Updated | Windows 7 version differences

robse — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Updated to reflect the “3 concurrent programs” for “Starter Edition”

Key Features	Windows 7 Starter	Windows 7 Home Basic (EM only)	Windows 7 Home Premium	Windows 7 Professional	Windows 7 Enterprise/ Windows 7 Ultimate
Improved Windows Taskbar & Jump Lists	√	√	√	√	√
Windows Search	√	√	√	√	√
Join a HomeGroup	√	√	√	√	√
Windows Media Player	√	√	√	√	√
Back-up & Restore	√	√	√	√	√
Enhanced Media Playback	√	√	√	√	√
Action Center	√	√	√	√	√
Device Stage	√	√	√	√	√
Enhanced home media streaming, including Play To	√	√	√	√	√
Bluetooth support	√	√	√	√	√
Fax & Scan	√	√	√	√	√
Basic "inbox" games	√	√	√	√	√
Credential Manager	√	√	√	√	√
Application Capabilities	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Live Thumbnail Previews from Taskbar		√	√	√	√
Fast User Switching		√	√	√	√
Create ad-hoc wireless networks		√	√	√	√
Internet Connection Sharing		√	√	√	√
Multi-monitor support		√	√	√	√
Windows Mobility Center (w/o presentation settings)		√	√	√	√
Aero Glass & advanced Windows navigation			√	√	√
Aero Background			√	√	√
Windows Touch (Multi-touch and handwriting support)			√	√	√
Create a HomeGroup			√	√	√
Windows Media Center			√	√	√
Remote Media Streaming			√	√	√
DVD Video playback and authoring			√	√	√
Premium “inbox” games			√	√	√
Snipping Tool, Sticky Notes, Windows Journal			√	√	√
Windows Sideshow (Auxiliary Display)			√	√	√
Location Aware Printing				√	√
Domain Join & Group Policy Controls				√	√
Remote Desktop Host				√	√
Advanced Back-up (Network & Group Policy)				√	√
Encrypting File System				√	√
Windows XP Mode				√	√
Windows Mobility Center – Presentation Mode				√	√
Offline Folders				√	√
BitLocker & BitLocker To Go					√
AppLocker					√
DirectAccess					√
BranchCache					√
MUI Language Packs					√
Enterprise Search Scopes					√
VDI Enhancements					√
Boot from VHD					√

Announcing System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3

robse — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:32:00 GMT

Today, the System Center team is excited to share with you our plan to release System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3. This new release of the ConfigMgr is packed with some extremely cool features, which over the coming months we plan to share with you in different ways.

Recent shifts in the world economy have brought new focus on IT departments, and also to technology investment. Organizations are being pressured to do more with less, while at the same time manage an increasing range of working scenarios, mobility requirements, and business demands. Through all of this, they need to maintain security levels, answer compliance challenges and address the growing Green IT landscape.

As organizations look to reduce financial costs and environmental impacts, power management is proving to be a successful approach. The payback for power management is clear – when a PC is using less power it translates directly into reduced operational costs – either directly through reduced energy consumption or from a growing number of electrical companies that offer rebates to companies that can prove enforcement of centralized power management policies. In addition, continuous PC power management pays environmental dividends measured in terms like Kwh, or CO2 emissions savings.

Forrester estimates that more than 90% of firms are implementing or considering PC power management. Despite the advanced capabilities provided in Windows Vista and Windows 7, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that no more than 10% of all enterprise PCs in use have their power management capabilities turned on today. Without centralized management power management simply doesn’t happen. Through research with our customers, partners, and industry experts, it became clear that System Center needed to deliver this capability in the box, with ‘R3’ as the release vehicle.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3

There are a few areas of focus for ConfigMgr R3, with the main engineering effort concentrating on Power Management. Here are the goals for this feature:

Power Management
The goal of this capability is to enable Configuration Manager to further reduce the operational costs of IT by providing basic power management features native to the product. Our approach is based on 3 primary areas:

A. Help the organization plan a power strategy by monitoring current power state and consumptions and reporting on machine utilization trends, current power settings and current energy consumption

B. Enable the Administrator to easily create, deploy and enforce specific power settings using the existing ConfigMgr infrastructure
   −Ability to set peak and non-peak schedules
   −Ability to remediate settings if changed
   −Ability to opt out machines from power policy

C. Provide the business meaningful report formats that are relevant to Power Management

Here is a quick video of some of the sample reports we plan to release. These are a ‘mockup’ and do not represent final calculations, views, values etc.

An effective approach to power management needs to maximize power policy deployment while minimizing the impact to the end-user. System Center Configuration Manager helps customers further reduce their operational costs by adding new in box capability to their ConfigMgr infrastructure, and by seamlessly enabling power management client agent services to their existing Collection landscape.

In addition to power management, ConfigMgr R3 will provide customers with enhanced scale and performance support above current numbers. In addition, further capabilities – in time for your Window 7 deployments – around Operating System Deployment will be enabled.

Configuration Manager 2007 R3 will release as a beta at the end of October 2009, with a targeted release of late Q1 calendar 2010. Continued blogging and product news, Twitter updates, interviews with key people on the project, and some videos and demos of the new code in action will be releasing over the coming months.

Configuration Manager 2007 R3 TAP Nominations now Open
Product feedback is very important to the success of any product. The nomination survey for ConfigMgr 2007 R3 TAP is now open. You can access this nomination survey here.

Look to the following resources in the coming months for more information on our plans:
System Center homepage
Configuration Manager homepage

Exchange 2007 Sp2 was released....

robse — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:23:00 GMT

Just giving you a heads up that Exchange 2007 Sp2 was released yesterday (version 08.02.0176.002). Below is some information regarding this release.

Exchange 2007 SP2 Download

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) has been designed specifically to help meet the challenges of any business and the needs of all the different groups with a stake in the messaging system. Exchange Server 2007 SP2 is a mission-critical communications tool that enables employees to be more productive and access their information anywhere and anytime while providing a messaging system that enables rich, efficient access to e-mail, calendar items, voice mail, and contacts. For the administrator, Exchange Server 2007 SP2 provides advanced protection options against e-mail security threats, such as spam and viruses, as well as the tools to help manage internal compliance and high availability needs. For an overview of the new features that are available in Exchange Server 2007 SP2, see "What's New in Exchange Server 2007 SP2" (not live at the time of this email).

Release Notes:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ee7829a3-0ae8-44de-822c-908cd1034523&displaylang=en

Active Directory Schema Changes:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee221142.aspx

Customer Benefits

Key new features of Exchange Server 2007 SP2 unveiled today include:

Enhanced Auditing – New Exchange auditing events and audit log repository enable Exchange administrators to more easily audit the activities occurring on their Exchange servers. It allows the right balance of granularity, performance, and easy access to audited events via a dedicated audit log repository. This simplifies the auditing process and makes review of audited events easier by segregating audited events in a dedicated location.

Exchange Volume Snapshot Backup Functionality – A new backup plug-in has been added to the product that will enable customers to create Exchange backups when a backup is invoked through the Windows Server 2008 Backup tool. Exchange Server 2007 didn’t have this capability on Windows Server 2008 and additional solutions were required to perform this task.

Dynamic Active Directory Schema Update and Validation – The dynamic AD schema update and validation feature allows for future schema updates to be dynamic deployed as well as proactively preventing conflicts whenever a new property is added to the AD schema. Once this capability is deployed it will enable easier management of future schema updates and will prevent support issues when adding properties that don’t exist in the AD schema.

Public Folder Quota Management – SP2 enables a consistent way to manage quotas by improving the current PowerShell cmdlets to perform quota management tasks.

Centralized Organizational Settings – SP2 introduces new PowerShell option that enable centralized management of many of the Exchange organization settings.

Named Properties cmdlets – SP2 enables Exchange administrators to monitor their named property usage per database.

New User Interface for Managing Diagnostic Logging– SP2 enables Exchange administrators to easily configure and manage diagnostic logging from within the Exchange Management Console.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Release Candidate Now Available

robse — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:56:00 GMT

Overview

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) is the recommended process and toolset to automate desktop and server deployment. MDT provides you with the following benefits:

Unified tools and processes required for desktop and server deployment in a common deployment console and collection of guidance.
Reduced deployment time and standardized desktop and server images, along with improved security and ongoing configuration management.

MDT 2010 includes new features like flexible driver management, optimized user interface workflow, and access to distribution shares from any location to simplify deployment and make your job easier. Deploy faster and easier with MDT 2010.

New in MDT 2010

Improvements in MDT 2010 will allow you to:

Access deployment shares from anywhere on the network and replicate files and settings across organizational boundaries or sites.
Organize and manage drivers, operating systems, applications, packages, and task sequences with an improved UI.
Automate UI functionality using the Windows PowerShell^TM command line interface.

Get the Download

To download the Release Candidate of the MDT 2010, click here.

https://connect.microsoft.com/content/content.aspx?ContentID=12463&SiteID=14

FYI: TechEd DVD's available on-line only / and to non-attendees

robse — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:05:00 GMT

TechEd DVD’s:

There aren’t any being published this year. They’ve moved to putting all the content online and having subscribers to the online content for those that didn’t pay to go to Teched.

The main site is here: http://www.msteched.com/online/home.aspx

Information about the subscription offering is here: http://www.msteched.com/online/about.aspx

Forgotten Attachment Detector

robse — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:04:00 GMT

For those who haven’t seen this tool from Office Labs it is pretty handy. It works with Office 2010 as well.

http://officelabs.com/projects/forgottenattachmentdetector/Pages/default.aspx

UPDATE: Ex2K10 RC released

robse — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:01:00 GMT

UPDATE: 2:20pm MST 8/18/2009

now live at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c6d27da1-ba2c-4570-a491-c0d7b39ede8b&displaylang=en

It is now public and can be downloaded from the following URL:

Ø Download Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 RC today

Release dates for W7 and W2K8R2

robse — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:08:00 GMT

Because I've been asked 1 million times (no exageration)

August 7, 2009

Volume License customers with an existing Software Assurance license will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English via the Volume License Service Center. The rest of the languages for Windows 7 RTM should be available within a couple of weeks after that. For more information you should checkout the Windows Team blog posting.

August 11, 2009

Customers will need to install the appropriate update on their existing KMS host and then install the new KMS host key for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 and activate. Once activated, the KMS host will be able to activate all products (depending on the KMS key that is used). KMS for Windows Sever 2003 v1.2 (the updates for KMS to support W7/R2) is expected to be posted to the download center. The follow links currently connect to v1.1, but will be updated when v1.2 is complete.

Key Management Service 1.1 (x86) for Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Later

Key Management Service 1.1 (x64) for Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Later

Note: Although the KMS update for Windows Server 2003 will not be available until after the release of Windows 7, the systems will silently attempt activations for 30 days. Provided that the KMS update is applied to Win2K3 within that time frame, this should be transparent to the end users. Also note that Windows 7 Enterprise / Professional can act as a KMS host right out of the box with no update needed.

August 14, 2009

IT Professionals with TechNet Subscriptions and Developers with MSDN Subscriptions will be able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM in English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish. For more information you should checkout the Windows Server blog posting.

August 19, 2009

Volume License customers, with an existing Software Assurance license, can download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM via the Volume License Service Center.

August 25, 2009

The KMS update for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 is expected to be available via Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services. Service Pack 2 will need to be installed on the KMS host systems as a prerequisite. KB968912 will eventually cover this release, and it will be published on or before the release of this update.

September 1, 2009

Volume License customers without a SA license will be able to purchase Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 through Volume Licensing as we announced last week at the Worldwide Partner Conference.

Finally, the prescriptive guidance has been updated on TechNet and IT Springboard.

Most of the above information came from the following blog, so please check it for updated information:

http://blogs.technet.com/hied_west_blog/archive/2009/07/27/windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-availability-kms-updates.aspx

Win7 Overview of Key Features by SKU

robse — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:12:00 GMT

Key Features	Windows® 7 Starter	Windows® 7 Home Basic (EM only)	Windows® 7 Home Premium	Windows ® 7 Professional	Windows® 7 Enterprise/ Windows® 7 Ultimate
Windows® Taskbar & Jump Lists	√	√	√	√	√
Windows® Search	√	√	√	√	√
Join a HomeGroup	√	√	√	√	√
Windows Media® Player	√	√	√	√	√
Backup and Restore	√	√	√	√	√
Enhanced Media Playback	√	√	√	√	√
Action Center	√	√	√	√	√
Device Stage™	√	√	√	√	√
Home media streaming, including Play To	√	√	√	√	√
Bluetooth Support	√	√	√	√	√
Fax and Scan	√	√	√	√	√
Basic games including Solitaire and Minesweeper	√	√	√	√	√
Credentials Manager	√	√	√	√	√
Personalization Support		√	√	√	√
Live Taskbar Thumbnails		√	√	√	√
Switch between users without having to log in and out		√	√	√	√
Connect to other PCs in your vicinity without a network access device		√	√	√	√
Use your PC’s internet connection to allow the other PCs in your home to connect without a router		√	√	√	√
Location and Other Sensors		√	√	√	√
Multi Monitor Support (screen extension)		√	√	√	√
Windows Mobility Center (w/o presentation settings) *		√	√	√	√
Aero® Glass & simpler window navigation			√	√	√
Aero® Background			√	√	√
Windows® Touch			√	√	√
Create a HomeGroup			√	√	√
Windows® Media Center			√	√	√
Create and Play DVDs			√	√	√
Remote Media Streaming**			√	√	√
Premium games including Chess Titans and Internet Backgammon			√	√	√
Snipping Tool, Sticky Notes, Windows® Journal			√	√	√
Windows® Sideshow (Auxiliary Display)			√	√	√
Windows XP Mode: Run many existing Windows XP programs seamlessly in Windows 7				√	√
Location Aware Printing				√	√
Join a Domain & Group Policy Controls				√	√
Remote Desktop Host				√	√
Advanced Backup and Restore (Network & Group Policy)				√	√
Encrypting File System				√	√
Windows® Mobility Center* (with Presentation Mode )				√	√
Offline Folders				√	√
BitLocker™ & BitLocker To Go™					√
AppLocker™					√
DirectAccess					√
BranchCache™					√
Multilingual User Interface Packs					√
Enterprise Search Scopes					√
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Enhancements^					√
Direct Boot from VHD					√

All subject to change w/o someone tell me about it...

Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode Release Candidate Announced

robse — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:33:00 GMT

Our Windows Team Blog has announce the availability of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP mode Release Candidate. RC is an important milestone in our path to final delivery of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode.

You can download the RC bits from Windows Virtual PC website.

Note: Beta to RC upgrade is not supported. You need to uninstall the Beta version of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP mode before installing the RC bits. Please read the install and setup instructions carefully before you install the RC bits.

The Release Notes contains important information for this release.

Bookmark Windows Virtual PC Engineering Blogs for further information on Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode

Thank you, for testing and giving us feedback during Windows Virtual PC Beta. Your inputs have helped us in achieving this important milestone. This release includes many fixes to improve functionality, reliability & robustness of the product some of the key changes made based on Beta feedback include:

· Manage USB devices with virtual applications: You can attach and detach USB devices while running virtual applications. The USB device management UI can be easily accessed form the right click context menu of the Virtual Applications icon, on task bar.

· Jump list for virtual applications: Right clicking on the virtual application icon, on Windows 7 taskbar, displays a jump list that allows one to easily launch virtual applications from the taskbar.

· Drive share settings: You can select the host computer drives that you would like to share with the virtual machine; in the virtual machine settings.

· Windows XP Mode tutorial: A tutorial that introduces the user to Windows XP Mode features is displayed during Windows XP Mode Setup.

· Faster Windows XP Mode setup: Improvements have been done to reduce the setup time for Windows XP Mode.

· Compact differencing disks: You can now compact the differencing virtual hard disk to reduce the size occupied on the disk.

· Support for optional components install in XP Mode: Windows XP optional components can be installed in Windows XP Mode.

Choose destination location for XP Mode files: You can choose the destination folder to store all virtual machine files for Windows XP Mode during XP Mode setup.

Update: x64 link corrected to

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/F/D/9FD8E857-EE64-48E2-89EC-EF120913FB2D/Windows6.1-KB958559-x64.msu

APP-V 4.6 Beta now available

robse — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:17:00 GMT

From the App-V group...

Today, we announced the immediate availability of Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6 Beta. At TechEd EMEA we announced our commitment to ship the next version of App-V in H1 2010. In March of this year, as part of the MDOP 2009 launch, we indicated that the development of App-V 4.6 was underway. Today, we have reached a major milestone and are a step closer to our goal.

This will be the first version of App-V to support both x64 and x86 Windows platforms. The primary focus of this release is to enable App-V to take advantage of 64-bit Windows platforms including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. We’ve also made some improvements in the App-V Sequencer such as simplifying the workflow for creating virtual applications and adding the ability to sequence true 64-bit applications, a first to market! For customers running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you can also use App-V 4.6 Beta and take advantage of the support for Office 2010, 64-bit platform support and additional features in the release.

Customers who want to get familiar App-V 4.6 Beta can register and download via Microsoft Connect. As always, we want to hear from you. We build great products by including feedback from our customers, so go ahead, test App-V 4.6 and give us feedback via Connect.

For customers who are currently using App-V 4.5 CU1 with their 32-bit Windows 7 systems, we will release an update to the 4.5 version of the product. App-V 4.5 SP1 will be available within 90 days of Windows 7 general availability and provide full support for running App-V 4.5 and Windows 7 (32-bit) in production. Enjoy!

Exchange 2K10 Training Links

robse — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:51:00 GMT

Category	RC Content Description	Location	Target	How to Use This Document
Training	Exchange 2010 Overview	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros as a general overview
Training	Mobility in Exchange Server 2010	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding Active Sync
Training	Exchange Server 2010 – Outlook Web Access	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding OWA
Training	Exchange Server 2010 -Voicemail enabled by Unified Messaging	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding UM
Training	Exchange Server 2010 – Archiving and Retention	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding archiving
Training	Exchange Server 2010 Information Protection and Control	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding security
Training	Exchange Server 2010 High Availability	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding HA
Training	Exchange 2010 Management Tools	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding the Management Tools
Training	Exchange 2010 Transition and Deployment	TechNet	Partner & Customer	Use this training for IT Pros regarding deployment

Linus on M$ hating...

robse — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:51:00 GMT

http://www.osnews.com/story/21887/Linus_Microsoft_Hatred_Is_a_Disease_

Great artical.

Windows 7 RTM Available August 6th on MSDN and TechNet

robse — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:24:00 GMT

Yes this is all over the place but I'm posting as well. Just finished the install of RTM.

When will Windows 7 RTM be available for download?

For Business Customers:

If you are a Volume License (VL) customer with an existing Software Assurance (SA) license you will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 7th via the Volume License Service Center (VLSC). The rest of the languages for Windows 7 RTM should be available within a couple of weeks after that.

Volume License customers without a SA license will be able to purchase Windows 7 through Volume Licensing on September 1st as we announced last week at WPC09. Mark these dates on your calendar and start making your deployment plans!

For IT Professionals:

There are a few ways you can get Windows 7 RTM. IT Professionals with TechNet Subscriptions will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English on August 6th and remaining languages by October 1st.

IT Professionals at companies with Volume Licensing see above on how you can get Windows 7 RTM.

We have quite a bit of resources for IT Professionals to use to become experts on Windows 7 and to aid in their deployments. Those resources can be found at the Springboard Series.

For Developers:

Developers with MSDN Subscriptions will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English on August 6th and remaining languages by October 1st.

To help developers who are developing applications for Windows 7 or updating existing applications to take advantage of new Windows 7 features, check out the Windows 7 for Developers Blog. Also, be sure to check out the Windows 7 Developers Guide on MSDN. Oh and there are also some fantastic videos on Channel 9 too!

Read here for more information

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/21/when-will-you-get-windows-7-rtm.aspx

Do you use strong passwords?

robse — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:20:00 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx

Password Checker does not collect, store, or transmit information beyond the computer that you use to access Password Checker. The image works on your computer desktop until you navigate away from the page.

The security of the passwords entered into Password Checker is similar to the security of the password you enter when you log into Windows. The password is checked and validated on your computer, but is not sent over the Internet.