TechNet Magazine Blog

David Tesar recently posted an interview with Mark Russinovich. In the interview, Mark discusses joining Microsoft, the future of Sysinternals, what's in store for Security, and where Windows is headed.

Mark Russinovich, of course, has also written some fantastic articles for TechNet Magazine:

Windows Server 2008

In his third installment on Windows Deployment Services, Wes Miller explores features that enhance performance and scalability, logging, and command-line automation. Notable in this column are the powerful new command-line utility for management, WDSUtil.exe, and the WDS Image Store that uses WIM functionality to store OS images efficiently.

In case you missed the first two installments on WDS, here they are:

• The Desktop Files Network-Booting Windows (July 2008)
• The Desktop Files Windows Deployment Services 101 (August 2008)

In the September 2008

issue of TechNet Magazine, 

Raymond Chen reflects on

how some left over

diagnostic code unexpectedly

brought the Windows 95

build to a crawl.

Read the full column online now.

As the Scripting Guy notes, the old phrase "you can run but you can't hide" was never more true than it is today— when even your toaster can be Internet-enabled. But disconnection happens, and then what do you do? We—or rather the scripting guys—are here to tell you. Discover how you can use disconnected recordsets—virtual database tables—to work around VBScript limitations relating to data-sorting and working with large data sets.

Plus: Test your VBScript knowledge with the September 2008: Scripting Search

Pav Cherny discusses the limitations of the built-in Directory Management Service in SharePoint and explains how you can replace this component with a custom solution that lets you synchronize SharePoint recipient information with other directory solutions. In particular, he shows how to replace the built-in WSS 3.0 Email Integration Web Service with a custom version that exposes the same interface.

Find more Inside SharePoint columns here.

"One of the common things that administrators must deal with on an ever-increasing basis is the regular changing of the password for shared and privileged accounts, such as the built-in administrator or root account, a firecall account, or perhaps even a process account."

In the September 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Chris Stoneff examines shared and privileged accounts, he explains security vulnerabilities caused by these shared passwords, he discusses how these accounts complicate management, and ultimately he gives guidance on how you can better manage these accounts and improve security in your organization.

Read the full article online now.

Suppose one of the PCs you support is acting up—freezing, crashing, blue screening. Is some piece of hardware failing? Is some newly installed application causing trouble? Or could it be faulty memory? One way to find out for sure is with the free Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic utility. This tool will run a variety of tests on your PC's RAM to determine whether flaws exist in any of the modules. And, like all of the utilities presented in our Utility Spotlight column, it’s FREE!

Henrik Walther answers your questions about Microsoft Exchange. Here’s just a sample of the ones he tackles in the September issue of TechNet Magazine:

Q I'm currently planning a migration from Exchange Server 2003 to a new Exchange Server 2007 organization. To replicate public folders to the new organization, I plan to use the Microsoft® Inter-Organization Replication (IORepl) tool. But I've heard IORepl isn't supported with an Exchange 2007 target server and you instead must introduce an Exchange 2003 server into the target Exchange organization.

Q I'm doing an Exchange Server 2007 design for a large organization that consists of 150,000 seats, and I need to calculate the number of Global Catalog servers required by the Exchange 2007 messaging infrastructure. Can you help?

Q I've heard that installing more than 8 processor cores in an Exchange 2007 server is not recommended. Is this true, and, if so, why?

Q Is it possible to install an Exchange 2007 Client Access, Hub Transport, or Mailbox server in 1 Active Directory site such as the United States, and then ship the server to another Active Directory site, such as Denmark? If this is supported, would the Exchange 2007 server then discover the new Active Directory site membership automatically or would you need to intervene manually?

Q On an Exchange 2007 Mailbox server with Local Continuous Replication (LCR) enabled for the mailbox databases, can you use Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM 2007) to back up the mailbox data via the passive mailbox database copy?

Beyond traditional voice, messaging, and productivity functions, many businesses today want mobile professionals to have access to the same line of business systems they use in the office through mobile LOB applications, adding new considerations for those tasked with deploying and maintaining IT systems. In this article, Matt Fontaine shows how Windows Mobile and Mobile Device Manager work together to deliver an easy-to-manage platform for mLOB development and deployment, empowering IT pros to concentrate on how to use these applications most effectively—instead of how to get them working in the first place.

Back in the Winter 2005 issue of TechNet Magazine, when TechNet Magazine was still in its infancy, Jesper Johansson wrote a fantastic article called "Anatomy Of A Hack: How A Criminal Might Infiltrate Your Network".

Well, Jesper has written another must-read piece on hacking, called "Anatomy of a malware scam". It was published by The Register on Friday. 

In the article, Jesper details a recent scam, showing step-by-step how the scam is perpetrated. It's an excellent article that you should really check out.

Cheers,
matt

Over the past few months, Jesper Johansson has looked at how the IT security industry has been failing users at large. 

In Part 1 of this series (the July 2008 installment of Security watch, Jesper described at how common security-related advice and common "bes t" practices are outdated and actually end up hindering security efforts.

Then in Part 2 (the August 2008 installment), he explored the "Pseudo Multifactor Logon Process," misleading eye candy, and other practices that give a misleading sense of security while training users to rely on poor security-related habits.

In Part 3 (the September 2008 installment) Jesper looks at how software vendors, security suites, and marketing efforts hinder true security efforts and he wraps up the series with a warning about how these practices can lead to the collapse of the technology security ecosystem.

If you are a security expert or are just interested in the field of security, this is a must-read series. 

Don Jones has been known to proclaim that "If you're parsing a string in Windows PowerShell, you're doing something wrong."

Unfortunately, you sometimes have no choice but to work with strings. The good news is that while Windows PowerShell is an object oriented tool, it is also able to parse complicated strings.

In the September 2008 installment of his Windows PowerShell column, Don Jones demonstrates how you can use Select-String to parse strings.

Don has also provided a video demonstration, which you can watch online to see just how easy it is to parse complex strings with Windows PowerShell.

The latest release of IIS introduces a modular and extensible platform with improved support for common deployment and management scenarios, enabling significant performance improvements. In the latest issue of TechNet Magazine, Mike Volodarsky looks at 10 key areas in IIS 7.0 that provide these improvements.  He discusses these topics:

• Leaner Web Servers
• Build on a Lean OS
• Specialized Application Topologies
• Improved Application Support
• Increase Application Density
• Bandwidth Reduction from Compression
• Media Bit Rate Throttling
• Output Caching
• Converting ISAPI Code to IIS 7.0 Modules
• Server Extensibility

For an in-depth look at these 10 key areas of improvement, check out our article at TechNetMagazine.com.

"While many IT pros rely on ISA Server 2006 (Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006) to secure their technology assets, few take the extra step of securing ISA Server itself."

In the September 2008 issue of TechNet Magazine, Alan Maddison provides a step by step Guide to Securing ISA Server 2006. He covers best practices for securing your servers, gives an overview of setting up and using the Security Configuration Wizard (SCW), and provides advice for assigning administrative roles.

In today's world, you need to be able to connect from anywhere, without sacrificing either security or the user experience. And that’s what the new TS Gateway feature in Windows Server 2008 is all about—TS Gateway lets users access their desktops securely from anywhere, without using a VPN. Dr. Thomas W. Shinder and Yuri Diogenes show you how  you can publish the TS Gateway through ISA Server 2006 and extend the ISA Server 2006 publishing scenario to include client health enforcement.