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 :
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 :
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 :
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.
Read more at the Writer Zone Blog
Download at Microsoft.com
No more info then that this is Beta 2 and that the program starts today and ends in 27th of Februari 2007.
Visit connect.microsoft.com for more info.Source : Bink.nu
And you will be able to do all that even if you server is down or crash.
You will find the documentation of CSCMD at Microsoft.com
Now the bad news : Miscrosoft hasn't release CSCCMD v1.1 to the pulic yet (don't ask me why), so you wont be able to find it in Microsoft downloads. But your lucky, someone gently put the file on MegaUpload for us (big thanks).
The goal of this document is to collect instructions for performing unattended / silent installations of many popular application installers. Such instructions are useful for automating these installations.It's a good source of information, read it.
InstallSite.org is a collection of tips, technical articles, sample code, tools, discussion forums, and the like for developers creating setups with Microsoft's Windows Installer (MSI) technology or InstallShield products. It also has information for System Administrators and IT Professionals repackaging and deploying MSI packages. InstallSite maintains a list of MSI authoring tools (including commercial tools, freeware and open source) and a list of books about Windows Installer and other setup related topics.
If you ever thought about making an installer for your application this is the place to start. You'll also find a complete list of authoring tools.
Extending its support for scripting and dynamic languages, Microsoft is hosting a project on its CodePlex site to deliver a PHP language compiler for the .Net Framework.
Known as Phalanger, the project reached Version 2.0 Beta 2 on July 30.
The primary goal of the project, released under Microsoft Shared Source Permissive License, is to enable full functionality of existing PHP scripts on .Net without any modification, Microsoft said.
Source : eweek.com
This is a new Community Project for Windows PowerShell
PowerShell Community Extensions or PowerShellCX is aimed at providing a useful set of additional functions, script, cmdlets and providers for PowerShell that members of the community have expressed interest in.
You can access the project at http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=PowerShellCX
Security vulnerabilities exist in the Microsoft* Windows* drivers for the Intel® 2200BG and 2915ABG PRO/Wireless Network Connection Hardware because of the way that they currently handle certain frames. An attacker could potentially exploit these vulnerabilities which could potentially lead to remote code execution and system control.
Source : Intel.com
Peter Wayner wrote in InfoWorld :
If you want to add AJAX to the magic collection of buzzwords supported by your Web site (and who can resist the siren call of the latest buzzword?), then you have two major options: purchase a proprietary package or experiment with open source libraries.
InfoWorld has covered a number of excellent proprietary AJAX toolkits in the past, and now we’re turning our attention to some of their open source rivals. Are they worth exploring for enterprise use?
In his article Peter examined these toolkits : Dojo, Google Web Toolkit, Microsoft Atlas, Open Rico, Yahoo AJAX Library, Zimbra Kabuki AJAX Toolkit
ASP.NET codename "Atlas" is a set of technologies to add Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) support to ASP.NET. It consists of a client-side script framework, server controls, and more.
Read more and download it at atlas.asp.net
Yes it is possible !
With 2X ThinClientServer PXES edition you change you PC into a ThinClient that will boot teh free Linux thin client OS from the 2X ThinClientServer. It can then connect with RDP to a VMWare virtual machine.
You can do all that almost for free, you only need a Windows Server box. You can download 2X ThinClientServer PXES edition and VMWare Server for free.
There have been a few articles floating around on the Internet since we released the private beta of Windows Server 2003 SP2 a couple of weeks ago. To remove any mystery or speculation about what this Service Pack 2 is about, I thought I would take a couple of minutes to lay it out.
Read this article on the Windows Server Division Weblog.Microsoft has over 150 FREE Windows Programs available for download -- but finding them all is extremely difficult. Until now, thanks to the Road to Know Where!
The first two years (almost) of Hey, Scripting Guy! articles are now available in a downloadable Help file. What's the big deal about that? How about the fact that you can now search close to 500 articles for just the script you're looking for? Not only that, but, because it's a download, you can take it with you just about anywhere - the beach, the top of Mount Whitney, a carriage ride through Central Park ... the possibilities are endless.
Don't waste your time trying to understand what this blog is about or why is there so many unrelated news in it (from Formula 1 to computer programming). It's simply my own personal blog where I can put any information I like.