The Windows 7 Tech Update that we delivered a few weeks back is now ready as a On-Demand Live Meeting.  Details below:

Title:  Windows 7 – Technical Update
Abstract: The Windows 7 beta is here and everyone’s talking about it.  In this session we’ll discuss what Windows 7 means for the IT Pro and enterprises and mid-market customers in general.  Technologies covered include DirectAccess, BranchCache, Federated Search, Bitlocker to Go and the ways in which Windows 7 streamlines PC management.  Demo’s include DirectAccess, BranchCache, Bitlocker to Go, User Account Control changes and many of the management changes.

Click here to view the On-Demand Live Meeting

Don't forget to register for the Windows 7 – The Security Story Live Meeting which is happening on April 3rd.

Original article at TechNet Edge.

Final build (RTW) of IE 8 is released! Why as an IT Pro should you upgrade now from IE 6 or 7 or switch from a competing browser? Here are the top 5 reasons why you should upgrade to IE 8 now:

1. More Productivity – Get things done and browse faster and easier.  Microsoft gathered a huge amount of data to understand how people use the browser and the tasks they accomplish. IE 8 is designed out-of-the-box to help get tasks accomplished quicker along with an overall increase in browser performance and reliability.  Webslices and Accelerators are innovations you’ll want which no other browser have.

   • Performance – Overall page load times are faster than IE 6/7.  Also, IE performs faster than Chrome or Firefox loading the entire page on half of the top 25 websites.

   • Reliability – If a tab crashes, only the tab will crash – not the entire browser.  Easily recover all of your tabs/sessions in the unlikely event of the entire browser crashing.  Chrome does tab isolation, Firefox does session recovery, IE 8 is the only one to do both.

   • Search – Automatically get more than just text visual search suggestions while you type along with a history of your previous searches for your favorite search plug-in such as Live search, Google,  Facebook, or Wikipedia.  Additionally, get a history of your previously visited websites and favorite sites as you type in the address bar.

   • Accelerators – Highlight text on a webpage and in one click do things like get a map of an address, define a word, send an email, do a search, share on a social networking site, or translate text into another language.  Your company might develop a custom accelerator or find one of the existing ~100 which help your users.

   • Webslices – Get a small “slice” visual update for frequently updating content such as stock quotes, traffic, ebay auctions, and weather - dropped down from the browser favorites bar.  Your company might also develop a custom webslice or find one of the existing ~30 which might help your users.

2. Better Security – Don’t let leave your company at a higher risk by using a competing browser or an older version of IE.  IE is the best browser at protection from malware and were the 1st to innovate with far more security and privacy enhancements than I can list below.

   • Smart Screen Filter – protects you against evolving threats.  Cross Site Scripting (XSS) is the most common class of software vulnerability and IE 8 protects you against type 1 “reflective” XSS attacks. Phishing and malware protection is enhanced to be more effective over IE 7. IE 8 is currently the only browser on the market to protect you against click-jacking vulnerabilities.

   • In-Private Filtering – gives an added level of control and choice about the information 3rd- party websites can potentially use to track browsing activity.

   • Per-Site and Per-User Active X controls – allows the lockdown of individual Active-X controls to a specific site or user(s), therefore significantly reducing the attack surface for Active-X controls, minimizing your risk.

   • Domain Highlighting – automatically highlights the owning domain of whatever site you’re currently viewing. This helps users identify the real site they’re on when a website attempts to deceive them.

3. Granular Management – IE is the only browser which gives you the complete control to lockdown and fine tune features via group policy.  There have been over 100 group policy settings added, bringing the total to ~1,400 policies (xlsx file) which allow you to easily control how you'd like to run IE in your environment. 

4. Easy to Deploy – IE is the only browser on the market which allows the customization of the initial install package and gives you the support to deploy with so many options.  IE 8 can be easily deployed using Windows Update, WSUS, SMS, SCCM, group policy, a network folder or even quickly slipstreamed into your existing Vista images. Furthermore, the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) 8 allows customization of the installation package and builds upon the functionality and feedback received from IEAK 7. 

5. Easy to Migrate – With the capability to emulate IE7 on the browser and websites having the capability to force IE 8 into IE 7 mode with a simple piece of HTML code, there should be little reason to not move from IE 7 to IE 8 while maintaining compatability with your existing sites.  IE 8 is embracing open standards for browsing and will continue to do so; in the long run making it easier for developers and IT Pros to do fewer testing with their web applications and upgrades, such as future generations of IE.  Additionally, there are some great resources to help with your migration:

   • Application compatibility toolkit (ACT) 5.0 – enables you to test your applications and websites to identify compatibility issues with IE 8 and Vista.

   • IE 8 Add-on to report compatibility issues – This allows Microsoft to collect data you submit for public websites which you believe are having problems displaying.  Microsoft works with or notifies the website owner or identifies and resolves potential IE 8 issues.

   • IE 8 Developer tools – There is capability built-in to pass to your developers to fix your site

   • VPC images to download for testing – images for: IE6 with XPSP3, IE7 with XPSP2, IE8 RC1 with XPSP3, and IE 7 with Vista.

Download IE 8 RTM

IE8 is ready for download for Windows Vista 32-bit and 64 bit, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 32-bit and 64-bit and Windows Server 2008 32-bit and 64-bit.



For Windows 7 Beta Users
Windows 7 Beta already includes a pre-release candidate version of Internet Explorer 8 that is optimized for that release. Windows 7 enables unique features and functionality in Internet Explorer 8 including Windows Touch and Jump Lists which require additional product tests to ensure we are providing the best Windows experience for our customers. We will continue to update the version of Internet Explorer 8 running on Windows 7 as the development cycles of Windows 7 progress and plan to include the final version of Internet Explorer 8 in the release candidate version of Windows 7 later this year.

Check out some of these Web Slices and Accelerators
Windows Live Hotmail


ESPN Top Headlines
 

We also have some cool local Web Slices and Accelerators
Rugby Australia


National Geographic Australia TV Schedule


OzBargain


StaticICE Search Accelerator



For more Web Slices and Accelerators check out the IE8 Add-ons gallery

Registration for our next Live Meeting on Windows 7 is ready.

Language(s):  English. 
Product(s):  Other,Security. 
Audience(s):  IT Manager,IT Professional.  
Duration:  75 Minutes 

Start Date:  Friday, 3 April 2009 11:00 AM Australia (East) 

Event Overview 
Windows 7 has many features for the consumer, developer and IT Pro.  But what about Security?  In this session we’ll talk about and show some of the important security features that are coming as part of Windows 7.  These include Applocker™, Bitlocker™ and Bitlocker To Go™, DirectAcess™, User Account Control and the security changes to Internet Explorer 8.  There will be demo’s on all these technologies so you can see firsthand how Windows 7 security has been improved!

Speaker - Jeff Alexander, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft
Jeff Alexander is a IT Pro Evangelist for Microsoft and travels across Australia speaking to customers and partners about the latest technologies.  Jeff can be seen speaking at Security events, TechEd and other recognised Industry Tech events.  Jeff started as employee number 27 at Microsoft Australia and has been with the company for 21 years.  Jeff’s blog is http://blogs.technet.com/jeffa36

Twitter Hashtag #win7live
Click here to Register for the Live Meeting Event

If you have any questions prior to the event that you would like us to address please Twitter it with the hashtag #win7live

Windows Server 2008 SP2 RC and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 RC is prerelease code offered to the public through our Customer Preview Program. Please see the Windows Server SP2/Windows Vista SP2 Customer Preview Program page on TechNet/MSDN for additional details, documentation, and forums.

Windows Vista SP2 TechNet
Windows Server 2008 SP2 TechNet

Windows Server 2008 SP2 RC and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 RC apply to people, organizations, and technical enthusiasts who are comfortable evaluating prerelease software. This prerelease software is provided for testing only. Installation of Service Pack 2 RC will result in Microsoft collecting information about the installation process, even if the installation is not completed. We do not recommend installing this software on primary or mission-critical systems. We recommend that you have a backup of your data before you install any prerelease software.

SP2 is an update to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista that addresses feedback from our customers and partners. By providing these fixes integrated into a single service pack, Microsoft provides a single high-quality update that minimizes deployment and testing complexity for customers. In addition to all previously released updates, SP2 will contain changes focused on addressing reliability and performance issues, supporting new kinds of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. SP2 will also continue to make it easier for IT administrators to deploy and manage large installations of Windows Server 2008.

Service Pack 1 is a prerequisite for installing Service Pack 2. Please make sure that your system is running Service Pack 1 before you install Service Pack 2. Windows Server 2008 SP2 Release Candidate and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Release Candidate - Five Language Standalone version can be installed on systems with any of the following language versions: English, French, German, Japanese, or Spanish.

Support for Windows Server 2008 SP2 Beta and Windows Vista SP2 Beta can be received by visiting the Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 TechNet forum.