It is official!

Windows 7 will Release to Manufacturing (RTM) in the Second half of July 2009 and the general availability date is set at 22 October 2009.
Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available on the same dates also.

Now you can plan your rollouts!

The popular free Windows PowerShell v 1.0 Manual, written by Frank Koch is available on the following links:

English:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/7/1/47104ec6-410d-4492-890b-2a34900c9df2/Workshops-EN.zip

German:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/7/1/47104ec6-410d-4492-890b-2a34900c9df2/Workshops-DE.zip

There are a number of links on the Internet that are pointing to locations that are no longer valid.

A number of new white papers have been published relating to SQL Server and Microsoft or 3rd Party Applications:

• Configure disaster recovery across SharePoint farms by using SQL Server log shipping
  Create a disaster recovery farm in a geographically distributed data center for SharePoint
   
• Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server
  This paper documents performance for aligned and nonaligned storage and why nonaligned partitions can negatively impact I/O performance
   
• Data Compression: Strategy, Capacity Planning and Best Practices
  The data compression feature in SQL Server 2008 helps compress the data inside a database, and it can help reduce the size of the database. Apart from the space savings, data compression provides another benefit: Because compressed data is stored in fewer pages, queries need to read fewer pages from the disk, thereby improving the performance of I/O intensive workloads.
   
• Improving Microsoft CRM Performance and Securing Data with SQL Server 2008
  This paper provides an overview, benchmark results, and recommendations for implementing selected Microsoft SQL Server 2008 features that can improve the performance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and secure the CRM database.
   
• SQL Server 2008 with Siebel, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards Applications
  This white paper describes why SQL Server is the optimal data platform to use with JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Siebel applications that run on the Microsoft platform
   
• Competitive Review of Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
  This white paper examines the main reasons why customers might not want to implement Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) in their database solutions.

Update for DNS Devolution - Microsoft Security Advisory – 971888 has been published.

What is the article about?
A malicious user could host a system with a single-label name outside of an organization's boundary and due to DNS devolution may successfully get a Windows DNS client to connect to it as though it were internal to the organizational boundary.

Please ensure that you fully understand, and have tested the effects of this update before deploying it in your organization as the behavior of DNS resolution that you currently rely on may be affected.

After the update is installed, the DNS resolver will only perform devolution to a level based on the domain settings of the Windows client, potentially breaking any applications or configurations that rely on this behavior

The DNS update will not be published on Windows Update, and will only be available on the Download Center.

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