Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog

All post

This paper provides a foundation of Internet standards-based IPv6 concepts and is intended for network engineers and support professionals who are already familiar with basic networking concepts and TCP/IP.

Source : Microsoft.com/downloads

ActiveWin has posted up a review of 3 Windows Vista capable ReadyBoost USB sticks.

We have been running a number of Windows ReadyBoost tests on various USB Drive Sticks that have come out recently. Not only do we have a list of those that work, and those that don't! We have also started to go in-depth with some of them. ReadyBoost is designed to improve small random I/O for people who lack the expansion slots, money, and or technical expertise to add additional RAM. This isn’t a replacement for RAM upgrades; it’s simply the chance to speed up your Vista machine very slightly and very easily.

Source : ActiveWin.com

IisShield is an IIS isapi filter preventing any known and unknown attacks from disrupting IIS. The preventive approach of IisShield is an added value preventing IIS from even trying to interpret requests trying to break-in. With a detailed logging engine, IisShield helps IIS administrators to know in advance and protect IIS from known or unknown HTTP attacks that flow over the Internet.

Comment : It's better than URLscan and it's Free

Source : www.kodeit.org

Wireless and wired clients running Microsoft® Windows Vista™ support enhancements that can be configured through Group Policy settings and are supported by domain controllers running Windows Server® Code Name "Longhorn" (now in beta testing).

To support these enhancements for an Active Directory® directory service environment consisting of domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 R2, the Active Directory schema must be extended. This article describes how to extend the Active Directory schema to support these new features for Windows Vista wireless and wired clients.

Source : www.microsoft.com/technet

If you are, you're not alone. If you're not...maybe you have already read the following post in the Windows Server Division Weblog: Administering Windows Server 2003 from Windows Vista.

To summarize, Microsoft has just released a new Knowledge Base article describing how to get the Admin Pack working on Windows Vista, and describing some of the limitations that will still exist.

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.0 (hereafter referred to as "NM3") was one of the first applications that worked on released version of Windows Vista, (both 32 and 64 bit).

Weeks after release MS uncovered an issue with NM3 running on Windows Vista. Specifically, MS had a new driver on Windows Vista that was forced to expire after a fixed period of time for our beta builds. Inadvertently, MS left this forced expiration code in our Release build. The NM3 driver on Windows Vista will stop working after April 2007.

If you are running NM3 version 3.0.0372.0000 on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, you will NOT encounter this issue and you DO NOT need to upgrade to this release.

If you are running NM3 version 3.0.0372.0000 on Windows Vista, it is advised that you DO upgrade to this release.

Source : Bink.nu

Version 6.0.142 is now on the connect site. Go get it.

The Release candidate includes one new feature, PXE boot. In addition it address a number of issues including installation on Windows 2003 as a host; Audio in Vista; DVD support for Vista installation; binding to wireless network cards etc.

Source : Bink.nu

FileASSASSIN can delete locked malware files on your system. It uses advanced techniques to unload modules, close remote handles, and terminate processes to allow the removal of the file.

No need to install anything

Source : malwarebytes.org

Can your computer run Windows Vista?

CNET and System Requirements Lab can analyze your computer for FREE in just seconds.

Just go to this page

The Junk E-mail Reporting Tool lets you directly report junk e-mail to Microsoft and its affiliates for analysis to help us improve the effectiveness of our junk e-mail filtering technologies.

Source : Microsoft.com/Downloads

Take a look at what the company does to protect itself from the continuous onslaught with this article from ComputerWorld.

Paul has been working hard on his Vista review, time to post the current status, check if you are up to date!

Windows Vista Review

Windows Vista Review, Part 1: Introduction
Windows Vista Review, Part 2: Windows Vista Product Editions
Windows Vista Review, Part 3: Installing Windows Vista
Windows Vista Review, Part 4: The Vista Experience
Windows Vista Review, Part 5: Windows Vista Features
- User Interface Features
- Security Features
- Performance Features
- Reliability Features
- Internet Features
- Bundled Applications New!
- Digital Media Features New!
- Networking Features (Soon!)
- Mobility Features (Soon!)
- Other Features (Soon!)
Windows Vista Review, Part 6: Compatibility (Soon!)
Windows Vista Review, Part 7: Where Windows Vista Fails (Soon!)
Windows Vista Review, Part 8: Wrapping Up

This Microsoft white paper describes the security, usability, and manageability improvements for Windows Vista wireless clients.

Download : microsoft.com/downloads

Are you a user of Windows Vista Enterprise or Business edition and would like to know the status of activation of a specific computer? Want to make sure that the computer connected properly to the Key Management Server (KMS) or used your Multiple Activation Key (MAK) properly? Or are you a home user and just want to make sure your computer is fully activated?

Included in Windows Vista is very useful utility that will help you check the status of activation of your computer:

Click on the Start Button and key in CMD and hit Enter to start up Command Prompt.
At the prompt, type in "slmgr.vbs -dli"
After a few seconds you will be presented with a pop-up message with your activation status.

Source : TweakVista

An awesome little tool called VMDK2VHD. VMDK2VHD converts VMware virtual hard disks (VMDK) into Microsoft VHDs for use with Virtual PC or Virtual Server. The download contains 3 files total 112K - you just run the VMDK2VHD.EXE ...nice!

Source : MSTN Blog
Download : vmtoolkit.com

You may also need the excellent guide How to migrate VMware virtual machines to Virtual Server from Chris Wolf to learn how to remove the unnecessary drivers and services and replace the existing Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) driver with a generic HAL.

Thanks to Andrew Dugdell who put up this list on his blog :

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 VPC , 3.2Gb
Internet Explorer 6 Application Compatibility VPC Image , 495Mb
Orcas - September Community Technology Preview (CTP) , 3.6Gb
Visual Studio 2005 Team System Basics Training , 5.2Gb
SQL Server 2005 TD VHD 2.4Gb
Windows Server 2003 R2 TD VHD 1.4 Gb
ISA Server 2006 TD VHD 1.5 Gb
Exchange Server 2007 TD VHD 1.4 Gb

Windows PowerShell Software Development Kit (SDK) is now available as part of Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows Vista. Microsoft Windows SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C2B1E300-F358-4523-B479-F53D234CDCCF&displaylang=en

Windows PowerShell SDK contains:

Samples in C#
Reference Assemblies
Tools – make-shell.exe
Templates – Format.ps1xml and Types.ps1xml
Documentation – Getting Started Guide, Programmer’s Guide, Conceptual Help and Managed Reference

The documentation can also be found on msdn at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa830112.aspx

To install Windows PowerShell components from Microsoft Windows SDK, please select the check-boxes as shown in the attached image.

Hemant Mahawar [MSFT]
Program Manager
Windows PowerShell

Source : Windows PowerShell Team Blog

From Window Recovery Environment Team Blog :

We have been getting many questions on how to create WinRE using the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). So I thought I would publish the updated instructions here. The instructions listed are accurate as of Windows Vista RTM.

A new article tailored for customers running ASP.NET 1.1 has been released on IIS.NET, and it should help ease the transition to Windows Vista™ and IIS7 for all these users. Written by multiple authors on the Microsoft ASP.NET and Ajax team, this article explains to ASP.NET users how best to upgrade to Windows Vista and how to handle the most common problems they might encounter after this upgrade.

Here’s an excerpt from this article:

For ASP.NET application developers who move to the Windows Vista™ operating system, IIS 7.0 represents a significant advance over earlier IIS versions because of increased security and the new application possibilities offered by IIS 7.0 Integrated mode. Most developers who move to Windows Vista will be upgrading from the Microsoft Windows® XP operating system to Windows Vista and will upgrade their ASP.NET applications in the process or else will install, on Windows Vista, ASP.NET applications that were developed on other Windows operating systems . This paper details important post-installation and post-upgrade configuration steps that must be performed for applications to work on the new operating system and also describes changes between Classic mode and IIS 7.0 Integrated mode that affect ASP.NET applications, and how to work around these known problems

Miscrosoft has udpated de KB article 897614, this article states that the folowwing Server software are not support within a Microsoft Virtual Server enviroment :

Microsoft Speech Server
Microsoft ISA Server 2000
Microsoft ISA Server 2004
Microsoft ISA Server 2006
Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003
Microsoft Identity Integration Feature Pack
Network Load Balancing (NLB)

Don't ask me what it means because I have used ISA server 2004, SharePoint Portal and NLB in a virtual machine before and everything worked fine.

Source : support.microsoft.com

PARIS — Dec. 11, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. and McLaren Electronic Systems (MES) today formally announced that they are to be the official suppliers of engine control units (ECUs) to the Fédèration Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) Formula One World Championship for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 racing seasons.

Source : Microsoft.com/presspass

There was a lot of bla bla about Windows Vista and Wireless power settings.

I you want to know why and what to do about it read this post from the Windows Vista Blog.

From Windows Vista Team blog :

... Of all of the calls that I monitor, the one that I find most frustrating (remember, I am in listen-only mode) is the call where the customer's PC just won’t boot. While I know I might be able to fix the PC if I had direct access to it, I know how hard it is for the user to follow a complex set of directions from even the most talented support engineer as they try to diagnose and correct the problem together. I also know that it's even more frustrating for the customer.

I knew we had to tackle this for Windows Vista and I am very proud of the progress we made with a new feature called Windows Recovery Environment or Windows RE. Windows RE is a combination runtime environment, diagnostic tool and repair system that basically tries to do about 80% of what one of the engineers in the Windows support team could do if they came to your home or office and hooked up a debugger up to your PC -- all without you having to do anything.

Read more at windowsvistablog.com

In comments confirming many of the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has claimed that the Linux OS (operating system) infringes on his firm's intellectual property.

Is this the reason behind the deal with Novell ?

source : PC ADVISOR

The Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 is a program that provides an easy way to print and customize Outlook 2007 calendar information. It puts you in control of the tools you need and helps you plan and create designer-quality output.

With this download you can:

Print dynamic calendar views
Customize and personalize your calendars
Adjust information to changing views

The RTM version of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows-AIK or WAIK) is now available for download from Microsoft downloads.

This download contains the production version of the tools necessary to create a Windows Vista image such as Windows System Image Manager, Windows PE 2.0, and Imagex. It also includes the production version of Windows Deployment Service so that you can upgreade your RIS boxes to WDS.

Download

Source : WindowsConnected.com

Administrative Template files are used to populate user interface settings in the Group Policy Object Editor, enabling administrators to manage registry-based policy settings.

This page provides access to the .adm file that ships with Internt Explorer 7 for Windows. The .adm file is included in a Microsoft Installer (MSI) package, available for download from this page.

Source : Microsoft.com

Administrative Template files are used to populate user interface settings in the Group Policy Object Editor, enabling administrators to manage registry-based policy settings.

This page provides access to the .adm file for PowerShell for Windows. The .adm file is included in a Microsoft Installer (MSI) package, available for download from this page.

source : Microsoft.com/downloads

Microsoft® Windows® User State Migration Tool (USMT) version 3.0 migrates user files and settings during deployments of Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista™. USMT captures files and settings from the source computer and then migrates them to a new Windows installation. Source : Microsoft.com

Today at the keynote at ITForum in Barcelona, we announced the official release of Windows PowerShell 1.0!

Source and more infos : Windows PowerShell Team blog

The ADMX Migrator is a snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) that simplifies the process of converting your existing Group Policy ADM Templates to the new ADMX format and provides a graphical user interface for creating and editing Administrative Templates.

Source : www.microsoft.com/downloads

Windows HyperVisor Public Beta available Q1 2007.

At the keynote here at TechEd we saw Virtual Machines running on Windows Hypervisor. 1 VM was a 64 bit guest, One VM had 8 (virtual processors) and even more cool, they added RAM on the fly. No downtime, real hot-add RAM.

Later in the demo we saw the System Center Virtual Machine Manager automaticly added RAM on the fly.

HyperVisor willl be available 180 days after Longhorn Server RTM's

Posted by Bink.nu

With Outlook Connector, you can use Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2002(XP), Outlook® 2003 or Outlook® 2007 to access and manage your Windows Live Mail or Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages, calendar, tasks, notes, and contacts.

Download : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads

Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Access is a tool for migrating databases from Microsoft Access to Microsoft SQL Server 2005. SSMA for Access converts Access database objects to SQL Server database objects, loads those objects into SQL Server, and then migrates data from Access to SQL Server.
SSMA for Access supports Access 97 - Access 2003 databases.

Download : www.microsoft.com/downloads

10TACLE Studios has just signed a license agreement with Ferrari for the development of racing games containing the Italian manufacturers models. A game is already in the works at Blimey! Games, the studio that brought us games like GTR, GT Legends and GTR 2.

Source : Techconnect Magazine
More : 10tacle Press release, Blimey Games site

Great news! Today we’re announcing the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Vista.

Yes, you read it right -- development of Windows Vista is complete.

Source : Windows Vista Team Blog

Sysinternals now have it's new web site online at Microsoft.

Check it : www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals

Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more. Its uniquely powerful features will make Process Monitor a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

More info and download : www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals

As Bink.nu readers commented in the zune theme article, the theme is installed incorrectly. The shellstyle.dll is placed in the wrong folder.

Source : Bink.nu

Royale Noir theme now officially available as Zune theme. The last week leaked theme is now a bit adjusted (orange start button)

Zone Theme download

From «WinInfo Short Takes» by Paul Thurrott :

Yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that his company had formed an alliance with SUSE Linux maker Novell and will work with Novell to build "an intellectual property bridge" between open-source software and the proprietary software world. More specifically, Microsoft and Novell are collaborating on technologies such as management software, document format compatibility, and virtualization and are working together to market a collaborative solution that will let enterprises combine Windows- and Linux-based servers in ways that are today difficult or impossible.

This "embrace" of Linux is, however, purely a pragmatic business decision. Parts of Microsoft, no doubt, still believe that Linux is Evil (with a capital E) and that its own solutions are better. The problem is that many of its customers actually own mixed environments now due to company purchases and mergers, and it makes sense for Microsoft to facilitate interoperability.

Frankly, most individuals will never see or understand the fruits of this relationship, and it's unclear to me how long Microsoft and SUSE will remain in bed together. (For example, if they succeed in knocking Red Hat Linux off its current perch atop the Linux world, will Microsoft lose interest in ailing Novell? My guess is yes.)

Official Press Release:
Microsoft and Novell Announce Broad Collaboration on Windows and Linux Interoperability and Support

This announcement provides an overview of the delivery process and options available to IT Administrators to prevent delivery of Internet Explorer 7 to their organization through Automatic Updates.

Source : Microsoft.com/Technet

Microsoft is excited to announce a technical preview release of FastCGI for IIS, a new component for Microsoft's Web server platform. This release is available immediately for download to Windows Vista, Longhorn Server and previous versions of IIS including IIS 6.0 in Windows 2003 Server and IIS 5.1 in Windows XP

Source : IIS.net

From istartedsomething.com blog :

Sometime after the launch of XP, somewhere in Redmond, someone on the Microsoft design team was in the progress of developing something for Media Center. It was believed to be too powerful for public consumption and forever archived in the servers at 1 Microsoft Way. Now 3 years later, a young ~~hobbit~~ man by the name of W3bbo saw light of this unheard of theme, and traveled far and wide to uncover its mysteries. One theme to find. One theme to upload. One theme to rule them all.

I'm not sure yet about what's new in these release. But I was a big user of WDS vers 2.06 so the upgrade seems natural to me.

More infos at support.microsoft.com

This is a community site for PC users who want to run without administrator privileges (also known as least-privileged user accounts or limited-user accounts ou LUA). Running as non-admin is a great way to improve your computer's security, and you don't need to buy any extra software to do it!

Source : nonadmin.editme.com

Yesterday Microsoft released the final version of Windows Defender. Don't wait to long to upgrade the BETA 2 will expires on december 21.

Read the Release Notes and Download at Microsoft.com

Microsoft Corp. today released to the public Windows^® Internet Explorer^® 7 for Windows XP, the latest version of the world’s most popular Web browser.

More info at www.microsoft.com/presspas

Download IE7 (in english only) :

From Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows :

In a recent showcase, I highlighted five things I really like about Windows Vista. That's a cute list, and certainly, I could easily come up with another 5, or 10, or 20. And you know, maybe I'll do just that. But first, I'd like to discuss a number of problems I have with Windows Vista. This, to be honest, is a long list. That doesn't mean that Windows Vista is a waste of time, or a product to be reviled. As a friend once noted, "it's good enough to criticize." Well, maybe. It certainly deserves to be criticized.

You see, Windows Vista isn't perfect. It's not even close to perfect. It's better than Windows XP is, of course, but it damn well should be: It benefits from five more years of experience and work. Being better is the minimum requirement. Whether Vista is enough of an improvement over XP to warrant your hard earned money is a subject I'm saving for my eventual review of the final shipping version of the product, but I'll give you a bit of preview now and say the answer may surprise you. In the meantime, let's harp a bit on the things I don't like about Vista as it now stands in RC1 form.

Read the complete article at www.winsupersite.com

This update enhances support for Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) options in Wireless Group Policy. This update helps prevent a Windows wireless client from advertising the wireless networks in its preferred networks list.

Read the complete description at support.microsoft.com
Download the update at www.microsoft.com/downloads

Note : This update is not distributed via Windows Update or WSUS.

Today Microsoft announced the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance. A desktop management solution designed to complement Windows Vista Enterprise to provide even higher levels of manageability for desktops and software assets.

Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance includes:

Microsoft SoftGrid, an application virtualization and streaming solution that can deliver applications to users in seconds, without being locally installed, on any PC they login to. Virtualization also resolves many application compatibility conflicts because each application can run with the version of a supporting file that it needs.
Microsoft Asset Inventory Services, which analyzes all programs on employee PCs, reducing the labor and guesswork that often stymies attempts to inventory the applications on the PCs within an organization and turns that into intelligent reports and analysis.
Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management, which provides versioning, history, and rollback of Group Policy settings, along with delegation and role based administration.
Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset, designed to help IT departments quickly pinpoint the causes of PC troubles, recover lost data, and reduce future downtime with post-crash analysis.

Unfortunately looks like you have to buy the Software Assurance for your PC if you want to use this pack. Anyway it is supposed to be available in january 2007.

What’s new in Virtual PC 2007 Beta

Hardware-assisted virtualization*

Virtual PC 2007 includes support for virtualization technology from Intel and AMD. By default, hardware-assisted virtualization is enabled if the feature is enabled on the physical computer. You can turn this assistance on or off for each virtual machine by modifying the virtual machine settings.

Support for Windows Vista as a host operating system

This beta release of Virtual PC 2007 introduces support for Windows Vista as a host operating system. The following versions of Windows Vista are supported: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate.

Support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system

This beta release of Virtual PC 2007 introduces support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system. The following versions of Windows Vista are supported: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate.

Support for 64-bit host operating system

This beta release of Virtual PC 2007 supports 64-bit host operating systems. However, there is no support for 64-bit guest operating systems.

* Installing Virtual PC 2007 Beta on a computer that has AMD hardware-assisted virtualization support and uses an x64 version of Windows as the host operating system may generate a bug check and shut down the operating system. This occurs because x64 versions of the Windows operating system protect a critical system register that Virtual PC 2007 modifies to enable hardware-assisted virtualization. You can resolve this issue by installing a hotfix prior to installing Virtual PC 2007. The hotfix is available and can be downloaded from this beta site by clicking on the ‘Downloads’ link on the left pane of this page.

So here are 10 deployment differences between Windows^® XP and Windows Vista™ that you'll be glad you discovered when it's time to make the move.

Source : TechNet Magazine / November 2006

Microsoft employee Robert Flaming has been publishing some excellent information about how Vista's UAC and MSI interact.

Read the post in the Setup Sense and Sensibility blog

The small Word & Excel online-apps from Google is released. Thanks to AJAX this is a neat application. Try it at docs.google.com

As students ignore their campus accounts, colleges try new ways of communicating

Interesting article by Dan Carnevale from THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Mary Jo Foley wrote on ZDNet All about Microsoft Blog :

For those who’ve yet to hear about it, Volume Activation is a new digital-license activation technology aimed at businesses. It’s part of the larger “Software Protection Platform” that Microsoft is constructing to combat piracy.

In short, Microsoft is not going to allow enterprises to operate on an honor system, when it comes to proving how many copies of Windows they’ve paid to license. Just like it does with individual Windows users, Microsoft is going to start requiring companies to authenticate their new versions of Windows within 30 days of installing.

There is an interesting artice in Technet Magazine's october issue about Microsoft Groove 2007.

Read the article

The following is a summary of the changes in the Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update (build 141) :

Tagging support
Support for Blogger Beta
Categories are sorted by name and support scrolling, plus improved support for reading categories from your blog
Improved startup performance
Paste is enabled for Title region and TAB/SHIFT+TAB navigation between title and body supported
Insert hyperlink added to context menu when text is selected
Title attribute in Insert Link dialog
Custom date support for Community Server
Improved keyboard shortcuts for switching views
Change spell-check shortcut key to F7
Add ‘png’ to insert image dialog file type filter
More robust image posting to Live Spaces
Improved style detection for blogs
Fixed issues with pasting URLs and links
Remember last window size and position when opening a new post
Open post dialog retrieves more than 25 old posts

Read the complete article and download at Writer Zone Blog

It is possible to write applications for OS X using Microsoft's Visual Basic, thanks to .NET Framework's Common Language Infrastructure and the open source Mono Framework and wx.NET. It turns out it is quite easy to do so, and this short tutorial tells you how.

Read the tutorial ar mac.sillydog.org

Ever wish you could start a second Windows Explorer with alternate credentials ? Well it is still impossible, but here's a little trick you could use to start Internet Explorer with an alternate credentials to explore any folder.

Read the article «Using Windows Explorer with Alternate Credentials» from Mitch Tulloch.

Note : It won't work with Internet Explorer 7

From the PowerShellTeam Blog :

Today Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Windows PowerShell RC2, the command line shell and scripting language that helps IT Professionals achieve greater productivity and control of system administration. Using a new admin-focused scripting language and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell accelerates automation. Windows PowerShell is easy to adopt, learn, and use, because it works with existing IT infrastructure and scripting tools.

This Release Candidate 2 of Windows PowerShell addresses numerous customer requests based on their evaluation of Beta3 and RC1 including:

Direct ADSI support to allow IT Pros to more easily administer Active Directory

Improved support for Windows Management Instrumentation through ability to change WMI properties via methods

Additional logical operators (XOR and binary XOR) that make it easier to write sophisticated scripts

Improved help content and help functionality including new views that make it easier to find the right information.

Windows PowerShell 1.0 will release-to-web in Q4 CY06

Windows PowerShell will be leveraged by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007.

Customers can download Windows PowerShell RC2 at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925228

This study was just released that compares the ten most popular BitTorrent sites. A great read if you are torn between what site to use, it has benchmark graphs and anaylsis. the finding are rather suprising.

Source : comparebt.blogspot.com

Many things have changed in Windows Vista that will significantly help ease the deployment processes. These include the new out-of-the-box imaging technologies, the XML-based migration scripts, new tools for image engineering (ImageX and System Image Manager), enhancements to the unattend.xml format, as well as an updated version of the Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD), known as BDD 2007 Beta 1, to provide guidance on deployments.

More infos : Microsoft.com

Long Zheng wrote in his i started someting blog :

Some of you may, and some of you may not, (so that’s everybody) know Windows Vista has 4 tiers of user interface experience, from the best to worst: Aero Glass, Vista Standard, Vista Basic and Windows Classic. So why so many? Who knows, graphics designers unemployment at an all time low in Redmond? But regardless of whether you like it or not, these are the choices that will be shipping with Vista so let’s understand it while we can.

I have taken the liberty (because no one else is as bored as I am) of taking 28 screenshots to compare the 4 different interfaces.

Runasspc starts programs under another user account than the logged-in user. The application and the account information will be read from a secured crypt file, which built on command line with runasspc or the administrator interface runasspcadmin.

Each encrypted file receives his own password on runtime, created by the file itself, like a finger mark. Before runasspc start the authorized application. The application will be checked on bit level.

Runasspc does not require an installation procedure. You only need to copy runasspc and a cryptfile on a computer to start it directly.

Runasspc can also be run without using a cyptfile. You can call runasspc with password in cleartext on commandline. It can be useful for tests.

Source : http://www.robotronic.de/runasspcEn.html

So what is WinRE?

Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a recovery platform based on Windows Preinstallation Encironment (WinPE). WinRE provides two main functionalities:

Automatic diagnosis and repair of boot problems using a tool called Startup Repair.
A centralized platform for advanced recovery tools.

WinRE is new for Windows Vista and completely replaces the recovery console in Windows XP. You should be able to perform most tasks of recovery console from WinRE.

Source : Windows RE Team's blog on MSDN

Each month Microsoft release an update to this tool via Windows Update. But did you know that :

The tool create a log file on your computer every time it runs. Check %WINDIR%\debug\mrt.log
You can run the tool from the web at Microsoft.com
You can check the complete list of malicious software cleaned by this tool at Microsoft.com
There is a support article that describe all functionalities and FAQ

SAPIEN Technologies (the creator of PrimalScript) has release a free help tool for PowerShell.

If you're using PowerShell RC1, then you might find this PowerShell Help tool to be useful. It's a Windows application that acts as a cmdlet reference - compliments of SAPIEN Technologies.

After many years the Microsoft network sniffer, Network Monitor (friendly called NetMon), is coming back.

Upcoming Network Monitor 3 will offer several new features and will finally be an uncapped, free, stand-alone application for Windows XP/2003/Vista/codename Longhorn (both 32 and 64bits):

Enroll for the beta at Microsoft Connect and check dedicated beta newsgroup

Source : Security Zero

Robocopy (from Microsoft Windows Resource Kit) is really a must have tool to copy files accross the network.

But it's a command line and has so many options that every time I use it I must open the documentation to remember witch switch to use.

Thanks to Derk A. Benisch and his team there is a great GUI wrapper that save me a lot a time.

More info and download at www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery

APC Magazaine just publish an interessting article about web browsers performance :

Oh sure, the following tests aren’t as scientific as putting all the browsers in a ring and seeing which one is left standing after the fight, but it’s close.

... Well there’s a nice surprise! Even the aging IE6 bundled with Windows XP is a fair bit faster at the testpage than Firefox and Opera.

Take the test yourself at scragz.com

If you are more interested in web standards throw your browser through the Acid2 test.

Read the article at www.apcstart.com

ADmitMac allows PowerPC and Intel Macintosh users running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, or Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (with the latest updates), to participate in and take advantage of all the directory services provided by Microsoft’s Active Directory.

BASIC ADmitMac FEATURES :

Administrators can easily manage Macintosh computers in their Microsoft Windows domain - without special training.
Installs on the Mac with no Active Directory schema changes required.
Provides secure access using Kerberos.
Provides bidirectional file and printer sharing.
Supports Windows login security restrictions.
Allows users to easily change passwords.
Support for Dfs - home directories can be mounted using Dfs, and Shares on the Mac support Dfs as well.
Supports NTFS file format - does not create “dot-underscore” files.
Supports Windows ACLs (Access Control Lists) under OS X v10.4.2 “Tiger.”
Supports long share names.
Preserves users’ custom desktop and documents no matter which computer they log into.
Offers complete interoperability with Services for Macintosh.
Works with older NT directory services.
Users can mount shared folders to which they are allowed access via the ADmitMac Browser or Connect to Server.

You can even join a Mac computer to a Windows domain.

More infos : www.thursby.com

Microsoft Expression Web, formley known as Expression Web Designer has moved from Community Technology Preview (TCP) to full-fledged beta status.

Read the excellent article "Microsoft Expression Web Designer drops FrontPage Support, goes Beta" by Steve Bryant's at eWeek weblog

More infos at Microsoft.com

Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog

What’s new in Virtual PC 2007 Beta

About

Techno Bla Bla

Popular Posts

Label Cloud

Blog Archive