Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog: 2013

Archive for 2013

Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is available worldwide in 95 languages for download today. We will begin automatically updating Windows 7 customers to IE11 in the weeks ahead, starting today with customers running the IE11 Developer and Release Previews. With this final release, IE11 brings the same leading standards support--with improved performance, security, privacy, and reliability that consumers enjoy on Windows 8.1—to Windows 7 customers.

Source : IEBog

Windows Management Framework 4.0 is now downloadable from Microsoft.

Windows Management Framework 4.0 includes updates to Windows PowerShell, Windows PowerShell ISE, Windows PowerShell Web Services (Management OData IIS Extension), Windows Remote Management (WinRM), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Server Manager WMI provider, and a new feature for 4.0, Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC).

Link : Windows Management Framework 4.0 on Download Center

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog that was titled "How to create an HTML Application to configure your WebDAV Redirector settings", where I showed how to use HTMLA to create a simple editor for most of the WebDAV Redirector settings. These settings have no other user interface, so prior to my blog post users had to manually edit the registry in order to modify their WebDAV Redirector settings.

Source : Robert McMurray : The Official Microsoft IIS Site

Is Microsoft about to go to war with its long-time virtualization partner Citrix? It sure looks that way, given the imminent arrival of new Microsoft remote desktop apps for iOS, Android, and OS X.

Source : Mary-Jo Foley @ ZdNet

According to an announcement from Adobe (via MacRumors), hackers have obtained customer information from 2.9 million accounts. The information obtained includes encrypted passwords, encrypted credit and debit card numbers with expiration dates, and customer names. Anyone that has downloaded software from Adobe could be a victim.

Source : AppAdvice

File History was introduced in Windows 8, and gives you a new way to protect your files. It supersedes the existing Windows Backup and Restore features of Windows 7 because it was never a very popular application. This leaves your personal data and digital memories quite vulnerable, as any accident can lead to data loss.

Source : TechNet Magazine

If you’re running Java SE 6, we have some news for you: Oracle stopped providing public updates to it after February 2013.

Source : Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Source : joyoftech.com

If you haven’t seen the news, PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio is now available on the Visual Studio Gallery! The first beta brings with it many enhancements from alphas past and supports VS2013 RC. Here’s a quick overview of the current state of the extension.

Source : Adam Driscoll's Blog

With Windows Server 2012 or below, domain privileges were essentially on or off. Devices were either members of your domain or not. Windows Server 2012 R2 introduces a new middle ground called WorkPlace Join.

Source : 4sysops

At Microsoft TechEd Australia 2013 a couple of weeks ago, my good friend Alan Burchill told me about a sneaky new feature in Windows 8.1 that should make a lot of business users very happy. Built in to every Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 is “Work Folders“, a free and managed synced-storage alternative to Dropbox or SkyDrive that any business can self-host for their staff. Soon it’ll also work with Windows 7, iOS and even possibly Android."

Source : istartedsomething

Lost in all the excitement around Apple's iPhone 5C/5S announcement this week is news that the Cupertino consumer electronics giant will no longer charge for its iWork mobile productivity apps. Is this a serious threat to Microsoft's Office juggernaut?

Source : Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

It is a great pleasure to be able let you know that v1 of the Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL) for .NET has reached General Availability! You can add the library to your projects directly from Visual Studio (search for ADAL) or you can download the NuGet package directly from here

source : Active Directory Blog

Apple unveiled their new line of iPhones today, and there were absolutely no surprises. Both the iPhone 5S and 5C each have their own merits and new features. But many of those features seemed all too familiar to us Android users. Did Apple source all their inspiration from other companies?

source : Android and Me

OffCAT, a free tool, is advertised as a “quick and easy method to analyze several Microsoft Office programs for common configurations that may cause problems.” According to Microsoft, it “can be very useful for busy Help Desk personnel when end-users call for help with Office programs or when you want to proactively identify possible issues.” Always interested in being proactive, I decided to check it out.

Source : 4sysops

Just when I was thinking that there is a need for a nice regular expression helper for PowerShell, SAPIEN Technologies announced the community preview of their new product called PowerRegEx. PowerRegEx is a regular expression building tool that provides help and real-time testing.

Source : PowerShell Magazine

Here’s another cool project created by PowerShell MVP Doug Finke. PSharp is a tool designed for PowerShell’s Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) editor. Its fast navigation capabilities allows you to quickly identify the functions, variables and commands in the current file, with a simple key stroke.

Source : PowerShell Magazine

Ever wondered why isn’t there support for writing PowerShell scripts in Visual Studio? I have had several projects where I needed to integrate PowerShell scripts into a C# solution I created in Visual Studio. For this, I needed to use multiple editors – one for C# and another for PowerShell scripts. I am sure that I am not the only one looking for such integration between Visual Studio and PowerShell.
Adam Driscoll, a fellow PowerShell MVP, announced that he is working on PoshTools - a reincarnation ofPowerGUIVSX. PoshTools is a Visual Studio extension to enable writing PowerShell scripts and supports full IntelliSense capabilities for PowerShell inside the Visual Studio Editor. This new integration has no dependency on PowerGUI editor.

Source : PowerShell Magazine

Because DISM is a command-line utility, learning its syntax can take some time. For instance, you’d need the following syntax to install three custom device drivers into a mounted WIM image.
Mike Celone‘s wonderful CodePlex project DISM GUI is a graphical front-end to DISM, and makes it much quicker to accomplish the simplest to the most complicated image maintenance and servicing tasks.

Source : 4sysops.com

You might want to think twice before you let someone borrow your computer.
The most obvious risk of allowing someone else access to your desktop is that they can impersonate you, using any app where you’re already signed in. They could send prank messages using your default email client, or profess your undying love for Justin Bieber using your logged-in Twitter account.
That’s annoying, but far from fatal.
But the situation becomes considerably worse if you use Google Chrome to save and sync passwords for easy logins at your favorite websites. An intruder who has unrestricted access to your computer for even a minute can view and copy all of your saved passwords just by visiting an easy-to-remember settings page: chrome://settings/passwords.

The Ed Boot Report

Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 comes with a completely redesigned and enhanced suite of in-browser developer tools that help developers build, diagnose, and optimize modern Web sites and apps across multiple devices. The new tools, which we call F12 for short, enable Web developers to work quickly and efficiently.
The Visual Studio and IE teams have worked together to build F12 with a core principle of helping you get from problem to solution quickly with actionable data. The new F12 enables you to deliver fast and fluid Web experiences with tools for diagnosing and fixing performance issues and tools that give you deeper insight into how IE is laying out and rendering your app. F12 supports the fast, iterative workflow used by modern Web developers.

Source : IEBlog

Kerberos is becoming increasingly mandatory for really cool features such as Protocol Transition. Moreover, as you might be painfully aware, managing Service Principal Names (SPN’s) for the use of Kerberos by applications can be daunting at times.
In this blog, we will not be going into the gory details of SPNs and how applications are using them. In fact, I’m assuming you already have some basic knowledge about SPN’s and how they are used.

Source : Ask the Directory Services Team Blog

In today’s blog I am going to discuss how to handle booting from a USB drive on a UEFI system so you can deploy Windows

Article : Ask the Core Team

Did you know there are 5 places where ASP.NET requests can become queued on an IIS server?
Not all these queues are documented, and it can be very difficult to tell when and where requests are queued.
As part of LeanSentry's automatic hang detection and troubleshooting, we had to figure out the IIS/ASP.NET request queueing behavior. So, we wanted to share the knowledge with everyone so you can properly track down queued requests.
Read on to learn all about these queues, how to tell when requests are queued, and how to identify the exact requests that are actually queued!

Source : blog.leansentry.com

With Windows 8.1 we will receive a new Powershell. Read all about it.

Windows PowerShell 4.0 includes several significant features that extend its use, improve its usability, and allow you to control and manage Windows-based environments more easily and comprehensively.

Windows PowerShell 4.0 is backward-compatible. Cmdlets, providers, modules, snap-ins, scripts, functions, and profiles that were designed for Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Windows PowerShell 2.0 work in Windows PowerShell 4.0 without changes.

Continue reading : technet.microsoft.com

Did you know you could customize the "Windows 8 Win X Menu" ?
Yes you can !
Check out this great article by Joseph Moody on DeployHapiness :
Windows 8 Win X Menu: Editing

At long last, Microsoft has released a version of its Office suite for iOS. The new app targets the iPhone and closely resembles the Office app that’s built into Windows Phone 8. Here's what you'll find in the new app, which is available from the App Store immediately.

Souce : The Ed Bott Report

Today at Computex 2013, Tami Reller, CFO and CMO of Microsoft's Windows Division, announced that Outlook 2013 RT will be available on Windows RT tablets as part of the free Windows 8.1 update coming later this year. This means that if you have a Microsoft Surface or a Windows RT tablet made by one of our hardware partners, or you are planning to buy one, you'll soon have access to the familiar tools in Outlook that help you communicate with others, manage your contacts and appointments, and find information fast.

bink.nu

There is a ‘must read’ chapter in ASP.NET documentation on MSDN about security :

ASP.NET Security Content Map

Well, it only took three years, but Microsoft has finally taken on the iPad in the place that needs the most work: Public perception. A new ad, designed to mimic the sickly sweet iPad ads of late, pits Apple’s tablet against a Windows 8 tablet. And it is awesome.

Source : winsupersite.com

Samsung's new flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, is packed with a ton of extras –– almost to a fault.

When the phone first came out, reviewers criticized Samsung for shoving too many complex and glitchy extras in the phone.

But there are some features in the GS4 that do work well and could be useful, and you won't find them in the GS4's chief rival, the iPhone.

Let's take a look at some of the best features in the GS4 that you won't find in the iPhone.

Step 1 : Create the file Register-ScheduledTasksEx.ps1

Create a new file named Register-ScheduledTasksEx.ps1 in the directory where the taskscheduler module is installed (generally %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules) and paste the following code in it.

function Register-ScheduledTaskEx 
{
    <#
    .Synopsis
        Registers a scheduled task.
    .Description
        Registers a scheduled task.
        Modified to support Folders (path)
    #>
    param(
    # The name of the scheduled task to register
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,Position=0)]
    [string]
    $name,

    # The path of the scheduled task to register
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)]
    [ValidateNotNull()]
    [string]
    $path="",
        
    # The Scheduled Task to Register
    [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,
        Mandatory=$true)]
    [__ComObject]
    $Task,
        
    # The name of the computer to connect to.
    [string[]]
    $ComputerName,
    
    # The credential used to connect
    [Management.Automation.PSCredential]
    $Credential    
    )  
    
    begin {
        Set-StrictMode -Off
    }
    process {
        if ($task.Definition) { $Task = $task.Definition } 
        foreach ($c in $computerName) {
            $scheduler = Connect-ToTaskScheduler -ComputerName $c -Credential $Credential            
            if ($scheduler -and $scheduler.Connected) {
                $folder = $scheduler.GetFolder($path)
                if ($Credential) {
                    $folder.RegisterTaskDefinition($Name, 
                        $Task, 
                        6,
                        $credential.UserName,
                        $credentail.GetNetworkCredential().Password,
                        6,
                        $null)
                } else {
                    $folder.RegisterTaskDefinition($Name, 
                        $Task, 
                        6,
                        "",
                        "",
                        3,
                        $null)                
                }                
            } 
        }
    }
}

Step 2 : Modify TaskScheduler.psm1 file

Add the following line to the TaskScheduler.psm1 file (In the TaskScheduler module directory).

. $psScriptRoot\Register-ScheduledTaskEx.ps1

Example

Here’s how to use the new cmdlet :

import-module TaskScheduler
$ScheduledTask = New-Task
$ScheduledTask | add-TaskAction -path "Notepad.exe" -Arguments "" -WorkingDirectory ""| out-null
# Note : The folder "\MyCustomFolder" must already  exist in the TaskScheduler
$ScheduledTask | Register-ScheduledTaskEx -Name "MyCustomScheduledTask" -path "\MyCustomFolder" -ComputerName Localhost | out-null

Source : powershelleverydayfaq.blogspot.ca

Robert McMurray has started an excellent series of posts about Log Parser.

The first 6 posts in his series are available :

Source : blogs.msdn.com

The Galaxy S IV is going to be announced March 15th with the device being available in Europe and Asia beginning in April. The U.S., Australia and Africa will be able to get their hands on the Galaxy device in the May / June time frame.

Source : Life On My Mobile

If you followed security experts' advice and manually updated Java this week to fix a critical vulnerability, you might have gotten more than you asked for. Oracle probably makes tens of millions of dollars a year from crapware, and big venture capitalists see it as a growth business.

Source : The Ed Boot Report

In Windows 8 and especially on Windows RT, your ability to run Flash programs hosted on the web depends on whether a site is included on Microsoft's Compatibility View list. So what does it take to get added to that list? And what can you do if a favorite Flash-based site won't work?

Source : The Ed Bott Report

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is a server role available in Windows Server 2012 that enables administrators to install Windows client and server operating system software remotely. WDS is aimed at small to mid-sized businesses who may not have the budget for enterprise-class OS deployment technologies.

In this blog post I’d like to highlight the new features and enhancements that Microsoft made to WDS in Windows Server 2012 as compared to Windows Server 2008 R2. We can summarize the new features succinctly as follows, after which we’ll provide more detail on each one:

Support for ARM devices

Greater control over deployment payload

Standalone mode

Expected Deployment Results wizard

Source : 4sysops.com

Bink.nu has put up a nice list of links to find what's new in Office 2003 applications :

Source : bink.nu - What’s new in Office 2013

Jean-Pierre Paradis's Blog

Step 1 : Create the file Register-ScheduledTasksEx.ps1

Step 2 : Modify TaskScheduler.psm1 file

Example

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