Yung Chou is a Windows 7 PC : Vista

Windows Vista SP2 Beta

yungc — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:42:00 GMT

Upcoming beta release of Windows Vista SP2 has been announced. It will be available to a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers on Wednesday, October 29, and we anticipate broad availability for Windows Vista SP2 in the first half of 2009....(read more)

The Nortorious 9 Blocked by UAC

yungc — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:46:00 GMT

User Account Control (UAC) , a technology introduced in Vista, is to prevent an application or process making changes to your computer without your explicit consent. Minasi's book, Administering Windows Vista Security: The Big Surprises , listed out the...(read more)

Dual Boot with BitLocker

yungc — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:30:00 GMT

Originally I configured my laptop as a dual-boot with Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 and total two partitions on the hard drive. So this is a configuring BitLocker with existing operating system scenario. The following are the high level steps which I did to put BitLocker on the machine. A follow-up screencast of this post is coming soon.

Boot into Vista SP1, download and install the BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool.
Run the tool from All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/BitLocker to create a system drive (1.5 GB) for BitLocker.
In Control Panel, turn on BitLocker on C drive by following the process to enable TPM, reboot, etc. and let it finish the encryption. In my scenario, I stored the BitLocker recovery password in a USB stick. The encryption is likely to take hours, so plan accordingly.
Power off ad on, and re-boot a few times to test it out and make sure the system behaves in a consistently manner.
Boot into Windows Server 2008.
In Control Panel, turn on BitLocker on C drive by following the process to reboot, etc. and let it finish the encryption. In my scenario, I stored the BitLocker recovery password in a USB stick. The encryption is likely to take hours, so plan accordingly.
Power off and on, and re-boot in toVista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, and back and forth a few times to test it out and make sure the system behaves in a consistently manner.

When it’s all said and done, the included screen captures are what I see from either operating system. Notice when booting into Vista SP1, due to the encryption, I don’t see the drive information of the partition hosting Windows Server 2008. Similarly when booting into Widows Server 2008, the Vista Sp1 partition becomes not accessible. I also have a 2^nd hard disk mapped to the “data” drive which also becomes BitLocker aware.

Make no mistake about it. Keep the BitLocker recovery password safe and readily available. And very importantly, one should consider based on the dual-boot usage scenario, which partition BitLocker will be configured with first. There may be times we may also inadvertently change the hardware configuration without realizing it, and the system will come up with a black and white screen asking for the recovery password which is a set of 8 6-digit numbers. What has been happening to me is when booting from the partition that was not the first of the two to configure with BitLocker, apparently the on-board Trust Platform Module (TPM) thinks it's a change of system configuration and requests the recovery password. In my case, Windows Server 2008 was configured with BitLocker first and Vista (Enterprise SP1) later. So booting with Windows Server 2008 is business as usual, while whenever booting with Vista, TPM will intercept the process and request the recovery password for this drive.

Dual Boot with BitLocker - Vista SP1

System and drive information, and BitLocker configuration and Disk Management

Dual Boot with BitLocker – Windows Server 2008

System and drive information, and BitLocker configuration and Disk Management

Microsoft Windows Vista – Application Compatibility Training Via TechNet Webcasts

yungc — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:39:00 GMT

The long-waited application compatibility webcast series has just been shceduled. The presenters are all well recognized subject matter experts within Microsoft and in the IT industry. This is in my view the most cost-effective way regarding both time and money to get your deployment team trained on VIsta applicaiton compatiility in a short period of time. I recommend, as your team finishing a session, using the following few days to review your Vista deployment scenario with what is discussed in the session, and setting your goal to develop and execute your "Application Compatibility in 90 Days" plan.

Session Title	Broadcast Date
Making Windows Vista Application Compatibility Testing More Predictable with Effective Project Management (Level 300)	Thursday, April 10, 2008
Mitigating Application Issues Using Shims (Level 400)	Thursday, April 17, 2008
Application Compatibility Toolkit (Level 300)	Thursday, April 24, 2008
LUA Buglight (Level 400)	Thursday, May 1, 2008
Application Compatibility in 90 Days (Level 300)	Thursday, May 8, 2008