The Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guide for SQL Server 2008 has been released here.

This guide is one in a series of planning and design guides that clarify and streamline the planning and design process for Microsoft infrastructure technologies. ‘Each guide in the series addresses a unique infrastructure technology or scenario. These guides include the following topics:

• Defining the technical decision flow (flow chart) through the planning process.
• Describing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options to consider in making the decisions.
• Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
• Framing the decision in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the appropriate business landscape.

The guides in this series are intended to complement and augment the product documentation.

The series of guides cover Windows Server, to Virtualization, Desktop Optimization, System Center, Exchange and other mainstream Infrastructure products and technologies.

The existing Support Statement on the Visual Basic version 6 runtime for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 has been updated to include Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

So, the VB 6 runtime will continue to be shipped with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, exactly the same way it was with Windows Vista and Windows 2008 Server. Beyond that, there no plans to ship or support the VB6 runtime on future Operating Systems.

Overnight, a few updates for Windows 7 Beta build 7000 have been released on Microsoft Update and Windows Update.

One of the updates is a patch for Internet Explorer 8, to give it some of the stability updates that have been released in Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate (RC). The previously released IE 8 RC can not be installed on Windows 7 Beta. Windows 7 RC will have later version of Internet Explorer 8 in it when it is released. Further information on the IE 8 update can be found on the IEBlog.

The other updates (5 in total) are Windows 7 Test Updates, to verify that the various patching mechanisms work correctly. They do not fix anything, but will give the product team good telemetric data on the update experience. More information on the Microsoft Update Blog.

Whilst you are updating, you may notice a number of Optional Updates. These are generally updates to hardware drivers that 3rd party Manufacturers have released.

As part of the beta process, Microsoft does recommend you install all the updates so that good feedback can be collated on the improvements and the update processes.

An interesting community movement has started to take root: Stop Living in the Past. The movement wants users who are using Internet Explorer 6 to finally upgrade to the latest Microsoft browser and stop using the outdated “dinosaur” browsers. The movement was initially kicked off by Norwegian Newspapers who no longer wanted to support outdated site coding standards.

As they say: “And if you are in fact using Internet Explorer 6, you really are living in the dark ages where web browsing is concerned.”

http://www.stoplivinginthepast.com 

Are you still living in the past? Then upgrade now to the latest version of Internet Explorer for Free

You can get the code from Stop Living in the Past to add to your web site to display the following message on your web site:

The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including IIS, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.

The Web Application Installer Beta (Web AI) is designed to help get you up and running with the most widely used Web Applications freely available for your Windows Server. Web AI provides support for popular ASP.Net and PHP Web applications including Graffiti, DotNetNuke, WordPress, Drupal, OSCommerce and more. With just a few simple clicks, Web AI will check your machine for the necessary pre-requisites, download these applications from their source location in the community, walk you through basic configuration items and then install them on your computer