Download Windows Easy Transfer for your Windows XP or Windows 2000 based PC so you can automatically copy your files, photos, music, email, settings, and more to your new Windows Vista based PC. This software enables you to transfer data with Easy Transfer Cables (Windows 2000 not supported) or across a network, external drive, or CD/DVD. Source : Microsoft.com/downloads
In order to address time zone changes, this tool will help adjust calendar items in Outlook after the operating system has been updated with new time zone definitions. While this tool is being released in advance of the U.S. Daylight saving time rules change in 2007, it can be used for general adjustments of calendar items based on changes in time zone definitions saved in Windows or by the user making a permanent move to another time zone. Download : Microsoft.com/downloads
Microsoft Windows Live Messenger 8.1 is no more in beta. The final version is out. Download it at Microsoft.com/downloads
The Windows PowerShell team just announced the availability of PowerShell for Windows Vista. Download Windows PowerShell 1.0 Installation for Windows Vista x86 Download Windows PowerShell 1.0 Installation for Windows Vista x64
If you like to try Windows Vista on a virtual machine, Microsoft has just put up a new service for you, and it's free. http://vistatestdrive.com/
Now that it's released, you want to play with Vista in a virtual machine? Here is a good article with tips and tricks for getting Vista loaded into a VMWare or Virtual PC virtual machine Source : searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com
This download allows you to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows you to send as e-mail attachment in the PDF and XPS formats in a subset of these programs. This download works with the following Office programs: Microsoft Office Access 2007 Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Microsoft Office Word 2007 Source : Microsoft.com/downloads
Feeds Plus is an Internet Explorer 7 add-on that makes your feed reading experience easy and efficient. You can read your feeds in a combined view (aggregate feeds) and get pop-up notifications when there are new items to read. This add on was developed by members of the IE RSS team at Microsoft. Note that Feeds Plus is not an official product and hence is not supported by Microsoft. Source : www.enhanceie.com/ie
DownloadCENTER for IIS.net has been released! DownloadCENTER is a community hotspot for discovering, sharing, reviewing and promoting IIS-related solutions in a single place. Dozens of existing downloads, for all versions of IIS – both from Microsoft and the community – are already available in DownloadCENTER today. Source : IIS.net
It's like a quick ref card of essentials commands. Many thanks to Ben Pearce who was gracious enough to put together this good looking cheat sheet. Source : blogs.msdn.com/powershell
Download : PDF, DOCX
Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will help you determine if your current PC is ready for an upgrade to Windows Vista. It will also help you to choose the edition of Windows Vista that's right for you. Download the Upgrade Advisor to run an analysis of your current PC and use the detailed feedback to ensure that your PC is ready for the edition of Windows Vista that you want. Source : Microsoft.com/downloads
The Windows NT Backup – Restore Utility runs on Windows Vista and Microsoft® Windows Server® code name “Longhorn” (currently in beta testing) to restore backups (saved as files with the .BKF extension) that were created on Windows XP or Windows 2003. Source : microsoft.com/downloads
Microsoft Mike Torres talkes about Natural Language Search option in Windows Vista. This brilliant little option gives Vista the ability to understand more human search queries like, "Pictures of Sampy," or "email about nerf weapons from last week." For some reason this little gem is turned off by default, so be sure to get into your control panels and enable it. Source: mike.spaces.live.com
ASP.NET AJAX is a free framework for quickly creating a new generation of more efficient, more interactive and highly-personalized Web experiences that work across all the most popular browsers. Many of the most popular ASP.NET component and solution vendors have also released new versions of their products with ASP.NET AJAX support. Ajax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity,
Microsoft is pleased to announce the Fundamental Computer Investigation Guide for Windows, which is now available for downloading. This new guide provides you with information about the best practices and tools you need to investigate suspicious use of your organization’s computers and networks. The guide helps you determine when to turn an investigation over to law enforcement. And it provides you with guidance on how to collect, preserve, analyze, and report on key data you uncover in your investigation—using methods that will stand up in a court of law.
In his "Security Watch" column (january 2007), Wole Moses writes about services and security in Windows Vista. Services have been hardened and secured in Windows Vista in four ways: running services with Least Privilege, Service Isolation, Restricted Network Access, and Session 0 Isolation. It's a good read, so head over and check it out. Source : Technet Magazine
This pack is designed to bring a Windows XP CD with SP2 integrated fully up to date with all of the latest hotfixes released by Microsoft since SP2's release. It accomplishes this task via direct integration, where files on the CD are directly overwritten by the updated files. This is THE best way to slipstream your XP install point/CD to the latest patch level. This is the way Microsoft should have implemented hotfix slipstreaming. Works great with nLite.
Latest release ads the January patches. Source : www.ryanvm.net
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.
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
