Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog: 2006

Archive for 2006

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.

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

Beta 2 of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 has been made available for public release. For more information, sign up at http://connect.microsoft.com

Beta 2 introduces support for AMD Virtualization Technology (formerly Pacifica) for hardware assisted vitualization. Beta 1 previously introduced this support for Intel VT.

Beta 2 also introduces VSS support, a long asked for capability to be able to perform snapshot backups, and support for mounting of Virtual Hard Disks.

Source : Bink.nu

Microsoft's MAC Business Unit (MBU) has launch its first official blog, wich is available on the company's website.

Called 'Mac Mojo', the blog is focus on the company's Office for Mac Development.

Joseph Edwards from WindowsIT Pro has written a good article on Rootkit Removal Tools.

He has produce the following list of tools :

BitDefender RootkitUncover beta, from SoftWin
DarkSpy, from DarkSpy Security Group
F-Secure BlackLight
GMER, from an unknown independent Polish developer
Helios, from MIEL e-Security
IceSword, by Xfocus Team
RKDetector, by Miguel Tarasco Acuna
RootKit Hook Analyzer, from Resplendence Software Projects
RootkitRevealer, from Sysinternals
Rootkit Unhooker, from UG North
Sophos Anti-Rootkit
System Virginity Verifier, FLISTER, and KLISTER, by Joanna Rutkowska
UnHackMe, from Greatis Software

To get info on each tool you must read the article.

Today, Microsoft is announcing the availability of Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) for Windows XP, available via free download at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx . With this release, Microsoft is strongly encouraging web developers, enthusiasts and IT professionals to finalize their testing and ready their environments for the final availability of IE7.

RoboIQ is a Job Scheduling and IT Automation Software great for network and server automation. And at only 209$ US it looks really interesting.

This could be a contender to Adtempus (from Arcana development) we are using.

source : ManageEngine.adventnet.com

As a systems administrator, you've probably had users complain that they can't access certain folders they see in Windows^® Explorer. The cause is often simple: the user doesn't have permission to open those resources. That's probably as it should be, but the result is often a frustrated user.

This is a problem that shouldn't exist—you should be able to hide shares the user doesn't have permission to access. Since the release of an add-in called Access-Based Enumeration (ABE) for Windows Server^® 2003 (SP1), you can do just that.

It's not new, I'm just sorry I didn't find about it sooner.

Download : Microsoft.com/Downloads
Source : TechNet Magazine Utility Spotlight

Sophos just release a free software that finds and removes any rootkit that is hidden on your computer.

Source : Sophos.com

You can pre-configure the option called "The following group or user can join this computer to a domain and this is by default Domain Admins group" available when you create a computer account.

To do so, add to the DELEGWIZ.INF file (%WINDIR%\INF) a NEW template (see below) you can use to delegate the task of JOINING COMPUTERS TO THE DOMAIN (not the creation of computer accounts). REPLACE THE X with an UNUSED NUMBER!


;----------------------------------------------------------
[templateX]
AppliesToClasses = domainDNS,organizationalUnit,container
Description = "Join a computer to the domain in an OU (computer account pre-created)"
ObjectTypes = computer
[templateX.computer]
;Right to join computers to domain
CONTROLRIGHT= "Reset Password","Validated write to DNS host name","Validated write to service principal name", "Account Restrictions"
;----------------------------------------------------------

Don't forguet to add your templateX id in the liste of the [DelegationTemplates] section.

Now you can start 'Active Directory Users and Computers', right-clic any OU, select ,Delegate Control...', chose a group and select the new 'Join a computer to the domain in an OU (computer account pre-created)' template.

Source : www.activedir.org

A utility that opens an Internet Explorer 7.0 window that is configured to report its identity to websites as being Internet Explorer 6.0.

Source : www.microsoft.com/downloads

Finally Microsoft released this fix to the public (without the need to call support first)

If you use a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, or Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, when you try to put the computer in hibernation, the computer occasionally does not hibernate.

Get more infos and the fix at Microsoft.com

Source : Bink.nu

This version has been re-built from the ground up to change the way applications think about material management and load balancing between the CPU and GPU. D3D10, as also DirectX10 is called, takes advantage of the improved communication between the CPU and GPU and efficiently manages the data transfer between them.

See for yourself (with screenshots) on the Vista Blog.

Have you ever found yourself wondering how Microsoft Internet Explorer interacts with your Web application? Have you encountered a strange performance bottleneck that you can't track down? Are you curious about which cookies are being sent, or what downloaded content is marked as cacheable?

Microsoft Fiddler can help you answer these questions, and many more. Fiddler is an HTTP debugging proxy that logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler enables you to inspect all HTTP traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler is much simpler to use than NetMon or other network debuggers because it exposes only HTTP traffic and does so in a user-friendly format. Fiddler includes a simple but powerful Microsoft JScript .NET event-based scripting subsystem flexible enough to support a broad array of HTTP debugging tasks. Written in C# on the Microsoft .NET Framework, Fiddler is available as an unsupported PowerToy for Internet Explorer.

Source : www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler

IIS 7 Beta is out since the end of june, sorry I mist that one (I was on vacation). From what I could tell it comes with the beta of Longhorn and Vista.

You can find more info about IIS 7 at those locations :

www.iis.net
Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 (Beta) on Technet
«IIS continues security push», an eWeek article by Jim Rapoza

Microsoft recently unveiled www.iis.net, a Web site dedicated to IIS. This site provides access to IIS 7 beta download as well as lots of FAQs.

Jeff's Connected Corner has an excellent first impression article on WSUS 3.0 There is a lot of new stuff, to name a few :

MMC interface, no more web interface (YES !)
‘WSUS Reporters’ Delegated Administration
Clients in Multiple Target Groups

I can't wait to see the final product.

A lot have been said about last week announcement of the New Mac OS by Steve Jobs at Apple's annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).

Paul thurrott's preview of Leopard is (as usual) pretty good and clarify some claims made by Jobs. A must read.

Read the article at Paul Thurrott's SuperSite

Cross site scripting (XSS) errors are generally considered nothing more than a nuisance — most people do not realize the inherent danger these types of bugs create. In this article Seth Fogie looks at a real life XSS attack and how it was used to bypass the authentication scheme of an online web application, leading to "shell" access to the web server.

Read the article at Informit.com

Microsoft has release a first public beta of a new blog-authoring tool, Windows Livre Writer. Il will allow user to post a veriety of blogging platforms, not just Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces.

Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog

What’s new in Virtual PC 2007 Beta

About

Techno Bla Bla

Popular Posts

Label Cloud

Blog Archive