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  • What has happened in management over the last 2 months - downloads and information for System Center, MOM, SMS, Forefront and even a bit of ITIL

    This informaiton can be found (and more) at the TRM blog can be found here http://blogs.technet.com/trm/ . News SMS&MOM http://blogs.technet.com/smsandmom/default.aspx Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/ Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 International Client Packs released Two ICP packs for ConfigMgr have been released. ICP1 contains the following languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish ICP2 contains all languages from ICP1 plus the following: Chinese (Simplified),Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, Turkish Webcasts TechNet Webcast: Client Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200) - Friday, February 29, 11:30 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) In this session, we show you some of the new features that we have built into Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. By the end of this session, you will...

  • Security Vulnerability Research & Defence blog - worth a read for sure - eg MS08-001 - The case of the Moderate, Important, and Critical network vulnerabilities

    My background covers security and I've started reading this blog ( Security Vulnerability Research & Defense ) - it is excellent and definitely worth a read to understand how vulnerabilities work and how to mitigate them!! MS08-001 - The case of the Moderate, Important, and Critical network vulnerabilities Security bulletin MS08-001 addresses vulnerabilities described by two separate CVE numbers, as you can see in the bulletin. This post provides an overview of the two issues, the affected platforms and notes on the severity. We’ll be following this post up with two further entries that look at each issue in more detail. CVE-2007-0066 describes a vulnerability in parsing ICMP router advertisement packets. These packets are not processed by default on any supported version of Windows. If a computer is configured to process router discovery protocol packets and encounters this type of malformed packet, the Windows kernel will bugcheck (blue screen of death) and reboot. A separate blog post goes into more...

  • Where to go to study for SBSC exam 70-282 - help from the community by the community

    This comment was added to my blog the other day, but I think it deserves posting as a blog entry in it's own right: Hi Dave, We've worked up a 70-282 set of resources on a live.space. The effort is thorough and a good starting point for anyone looking at the 70-282 exam. Two particularly useful URL's are: http://wigital.spaces.live.com AND 70-282examteam.events.live.com You are welcome to contribute and/or comment if you have time. Warm Regards, Mark ttfn David Technorati Tags: SBSC , 70-282 , Exam , SBS Server , Community

  • Announcing the Retirement of the Partner TDT and Release of New Product Demos Resource

    Chris Parkes sent a mail round internally telling us about MORE resources & demos etc available to partners. Chris has written about it on his blog (discovered this after I wrote this - here , there may be some comments on his worth reading, so double check!!) The Demo Showcase has been extended to include Deep Dive/Product virtual environments *which are available to all partners * Only Demo Showcase remains as the Gold/Cert benefit moving forwards... The following are now available for immediate download: 2007 Microsoft Office System 47 Hands-on Labs 25 demonstrations Microsoft Forefront and System Center Demonstration Toolkit Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Intelligent Application Gateway Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server Forefront Client Security Microsoft Business Intelligence Demo (Data warehousing, reporting and analysis, performance management) Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007...

  • How does Home Server do Remote Access, Media Sharing, Drive Extending (Raid without Raid), Backup of desktop machines and networking without a domain

    For those who need to know: If you haven't seen them yet, there are now 5 technical briefs available on the Windows Home Server web site. They are: Remote Access Media Sharing Drive Extender Home Computer Backup Home Networking Windows Home Server Team Blog : More tech briefs ttfn David Technorati Tags: WHS , Windows Home Server

  • Heroes Happen Here - Where are you?

    If you don't know about the Heroes Happen Here :: Home campaign then you are very much behind the times. The Launch events for SQL Server 2008 (errrm), Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008 are fast approaching and so is your customers ability to buy and use them - do you understand what, why and when? If not, go to the website and see how your customers can benefit and why you should learn more about the product and what you can do to improve your business with these products. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Heroes happen here , Heroes happen {here} , Heroes , Windows Server 2008 , SQL Server 2008 , Visual Studio 2008

  • Get a Microsoft Certification - its easier and there is more on offer

    Why get Certifications? Customer satisfaction - Sixty-six percent of managers believe that certifications improve the level of service and support offered to customers. Revenue results - “Financially successful companies typically invest more in certifying their internal technical team.” Cushing Anderson, Vice President, IDC’s IT Education and Certification research. Project outcomes - High-level performance is achieved when 40% to 55% of a team are Microsoft Certified Professionals. Things that make getting a certification easier You can take advantage of partner-exclusive, training and certification offers available through Partner Skills Plus. These offers can benefit you by enabling you to become certified more quickly and do so at a savings. Here are some of the things I saw: Second Shot - pay for one exam at full price and get two chances to pass. Offer ends 30 th June 2008. IW Skills Accelerator – helping partners get skilled on the Office 2007 technologies. Offer ends 31 st July 2008. Start saving now...

  • New build of Vista SP1 RC Preview to load and rumour that Vista SP1 Confirmed for February 15

    I've been running Vista SP1 builds for a while and I like them. I don't like the process of changing builds which is "simply" a case of uninstalling the old build, letting it reboot twice, updating the registry, doing find updates in windows update, reboot, do it again, reboot, do it again, wait 15 mins, do it again, then let it install for a chunk of time, reboot twice more. Now, you won't have this fun when the "real" update comes out, but us testers simply enjoy this process!! To get the latest preview go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=529d992a-d69e-4c73-9213-7a7f3852c0ca&DisplayLang=en Vista SP1 Confirmed for February 15 – XP SP3 Too? Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is just around the corner. Despite the fact that Microsoft continues to point to the first quarter of 2008 as the deadline for the delivery of Vista's first service pack, it appears that the refresh will drop as early as next month. According to the Redmond company, Vista SP1 is...

  • Windows Small Business Server 2003 at risk from critical flaw

    Hopefully everyone has seen this, but if not: Windows Small Business Server at risk from critical flaw Microsoft initially omitted Small Business Server from its list of critically affected OSes, but is now offering patches via its automatic update services In an update to its MS08-001 security bulletin, Microsoft said that the latest release of Windows Small Business Server was also critically at risk from a bug in Windows' networking software. The flaw is also considered critical for Windows XP and Vista users. Microsoft did not say why it had initially omitted Small Business Server from its list of critically affected operating systems, but it said that the product's users were being offered patches via Microsoft's various automatic update services. "Customers with Windows Small Business Server 2003 Service Pack 2 should apply the update to remain secure," Microsoft said in its updated bulletin. The bug lies in the way Windows processes networking traffic that uses IGMP (Internet Group...

  • Got Lotus ... "Microsoft's ISVs Cashing In On Lotus Exodus" - CRN and VARBusiness - where are the tools

    It is always nice to see good news and SharePoint and Exchange are providing lots of it at the moment. I thought I would share this story and also some tools. Microsoft: ISVs Cashing In On Lotus Exodus Microsoft earlier this week released an updated version of its Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino, a set of tools that helps organizations migrate from IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to Microsoft products. As interest builds around unified communications, Microsoft in the last six months of 2007 saw more than 300 enterprise customers -- representing some 2.8 million users -- begin making the movie to Exchange Server, Office SharePoint Server and the Office suite, according to Clint Patterson, a director with the unified communications group at Microsoft. This groundswell of interest has spawned a whole ecosystem of Microsoft ISVs offering products that ease the migration process. For example, companies that have large amounts of information stored in a Notes database have found it difficult to capture that data and...

  • Simple Office / Excel information to share with customers

    This is a fab tool - for example, the page has: Inside Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Stop the Press -Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - making working with numbers easier than ever! Where minutes are kept and hours are wasted Well-planned and organised meetings can be very useful. However, not all meetings leave attendees feeling like their time has been well spent! ttfn David Technorati Tags: Excel , Tips

  • Unlocking my Windows Mobile 6 device (HTC / Virgin Lobster 700tv / Orange E650) to load non-signed applications

    I wanted to load Navizon onto my phone to give me GPS type capability even when I don't have a GPS using wireless access point and Mobile Phone Cell triangulation (and it pays me $$'s when I feed it information), however there was an issue with the locked down nature of my E650. Upon searching the web, this page was the one that had the real answer - note you need to sign up to the site to be able to download the magic program: xda-developers - View Single Post - Application unlock for HTC Monet (Virgin Lobster 700tv) Application unlock for HTC Monet (Virgin Lobster 700tv) Been trying everything on the Internet and managed to make some headway with Monet (Virgin Lobster 700tv) unlock (this might work for Meteor/C700 as well). 1. Firstly you need to get rid of the 'registry security policy' lock. Download cert install sp.zip: [see attachment] a. copy "SP_AllowCertificateInstall.cab" to the root of Monet memory or card b. Use file explorer on monet to navigate to file. Click to run. Should...

  • Want to make life easier developing databases apps against SQL, XML and other databases (Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL) - look at the Beginning LINQ development articles

    LINQ looks like another amazingly simple move for app developers (I've written a few DB apps myself over the years). While Microsoft provides support for Objects, SQL and XML, others provide for other platforms such as Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL ( http://code2code.net/DB_Linq/ ). The reason why it is so nice is because the gap between the process of writing SQL queries and then programming them into your code is considerably removed. For example, a query might now look like: var q = from p in db.Products where p.ProductName == "Pen" select p.ProductID; I think that looks very much like a SQL query, which is really good for developers and database peeps alike, especially since the underlying execution is very efficient. To make understanding all this easier there has been a number of articles written including... Beginning LINQ development, Part 1 Brian Eastwood, Site Editor The Language Integrated Query, or LINQ, is one of the most important of the new features afoot in VB 9.0 and C# 3.0.Developers...

  • App support could be the party pooper that spoils the virtualisation bash

    People ask me what I think of Virtualisation and whether I would virtualise SBS or Cougar or 10 desktops or more. If we are talking about OS virtualisation, rather than application virtualisation then many people miss what virtualisation is - the running of more operating systems on one single piece of hardware. This means that before you had, for example, 3 OSs to manage and now you have 4 (the OS running the virtualisation technology / layer and the 3 OSs that you now virtualise). Now you do have to manage less hardware, but a single hardware failure now will stop 4 OSs rather than 1, so you need to plan around this. Obviously virtualisation gives you benefits in portability and resources management as well as potentially increased hardware specs without the same increase in costs, but you also need to be aware of the issues. I see two major issues outside of those people often think about (as above): Not enough resources. The process of virtualising an OS costs some tax in terms of performance of CPUs, disk...

  • How to Disable Internet features of Office 2007

    I saw this go around on a thread at work and I have seen it requested for those security conscious partners, so here is the answer (courtesy of Eric Ellis): 1) Via the Office Customisation Tool (OCT) and a custom MSP: — or — 2) Via Group Policy: The difference between the two is that using the OCT will preset the desired configuration during the initial installation (or in a maintenance mode change), but users can change the settings if they desire. Group policy enforces the desired configuration, and if a user makes a change to the setting, they will revert back to the settings defined in the policy during the next application session. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Office 2007 , Security , Internet , Group Policy , Office Customisation Tool , OCT

  • Post Install Issues with MS07-069 (IE6 on XPSP2) - Internet Explorer 6 crashes on launch

    Just a quick one for those of you on XP SP2 with the latest security updates. There is a risk of seeing IE start crashing following this update. You have two choices: Don't install the security update - always a bad idea Install the update and deploy a registry fix to solve the problem. The IE team have documented it at Post Install Issues with MS07-069 (IE6 on XPSP2) After downloading the Internet Explorer Cumulative Security Update for December 2007, some customers using IE6 on Windows XP Service Pack 2 have experienced an unexpected crash or hang upon launching Internet Explorer. This might occur while navigating to a website hosting considerable media content (for example: http://msn.com ) resulting in Internet Explorer displaying a dialog that states “Internet Explorer has experienced a problem and needs to close”. If you experience this issue, implement the applicable workaround provided in the following knowledge base article: Microsoft Knowledge Base article 946627 For your security, we strongly recommend...

  • Mobile browsers and devices that are supported in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and in SharePoint Server 2007

    I saw this pointed out today and had to share. With SharePoint Service v3 & 2007 you can enable simple mobile access. This is covered in the Knowledge Base article Mobile browsers and devices that are supported in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and in SharePoint Server 2007 of which the key items are: INTRODUCTION This article discusses the mobile browsers and devices that are supported in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Mobile pages refer to the pages that you can access by using any of the following URLs: http://URL/m/ http://URL/_layouts/mobile/default.aspx Note To use the http://URL/m/ URL, you must enable it by using the following command: stsadm -o activatefeature -name MobilityRedirect -URL http://URL By default, the http://URL/_layouts/mobile/default.aspx URL works without any additional enabling. I saw this when David Copeland posted this to a question on an internal alias, so thanks to David for pointing it out. ttfn David Technorati Tags...

  • Service Availability and what it mean, or have a consumer broadband line and get consumer availability (10 hours downtime)

    The UKSBSGUY.com server is on my home broadband connection and this means it does not get business availability. Last night I had another 10 hours downtime and 8 hours earlier in the month. This all sounds bad, but here is where you need to understand SLAs and what availability statistics mean. If I have a 24x7 contract and I want high availability then this is how much downtime I can have through the year: Availability 365 days 31 days 1 day 99% 3.65 days 7.44 hours 14.4 minutes 99.9% 8.76 hours 44.64 minutes 1.44 minutes 99.99% 52.56 minutes 4.46 minutes 0.14 minutes 99.999% 5.26 minutes 0.45 minutes 0.01 minutes From this you can see that I am somewhere between 99% and 99.9%. If I assume 24 hours downtime this year then I am at about 99.7%, which on a consumer service is pretty amazing. Now, if someone offers you a service rebate then you need to consider the service period. For example, if someone offers 99.9% every day and you have a whole days outage, that is 1 day in 365 that they have failed, so any rebate...

  • Do you want a Microsoft Architecture Poster?

    I saw this at Chris's site and thought I would share: Chris Bowen's Blog : Got Tech Posters? There are plenty of technology posters and charts for developers available on MSDN. I didn't realize just how many until I searched for "poster" on MSDN downloads . Here's a list of the more recent ones: [Edited list by David - more on Chris's blog] .NET 3.5 Namespaces Poster The .NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster Exchange Component Architecture Poster This poster highlights the architecture and feature set of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Poster Printable wall poster containing list of useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual Basic 2008 developers Visual C++ 2008 Keybinding Poster List of keybindings for Visual C++ language within Visual Studio and Visual C++ Express 2008 Visual C# 2008 Poster Wall chart showing useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual C# programming language 2007 Office System: Developer Posters Download these posters to learn more...

  • If you are a developer, what can Windows 2008 do for your developments... lots maybe

    Sorry to sound so vague, but I have to start by saying that Windows Server 2008 is a server platform, not a cure for cancer, so lets put it in perspective and set our expectations high, but not stupidly high expecting it to be revolution. Server 2008 is a quality evolution of Windows Server 2003 and extends and enhanced the Server 2003 offerings. However, if you plan on building applications for the future then Server 2008 will be the place to be. Microsoft have released a document called the "Windows Server 2008 Developer Story" that has a wealth of information on Server 2008 developer directions and how they combine to offer something greater than the sum of the parts. The download site describes itself as: Windows Server 2008 Developer Story An executable containing the Windows Server 2008 Developer Story The Windows Server 2008 Developer Story introduces users to new features of the Windows Server 2008 operating system by providing a cohesive story about how the features fit together to make a compelling...

  • How to get Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC (legitimately) via the Public Availability Program

    I knew this was coming, but I've not seen it shouted too much. My machine feels more responsive and some operations as mentioned before are faster. If you read the Windows Vista team blog Windows Vista SP1 RC now available for public download you would think it is only available to MSDN and Technet customers. It does have some good pointers though. We're making available today the RC release of Windows Vista SP1, found here on MSDN and here on TechNet , with an FAQ here . I invite you to download, install and use the SP1 RC and let us know about your experience by providing your feedback here . Before you install SP1 RC, please bear in mind the following points of advice, detailed in this short article : If you have a prior version of SP1 Beta installed, you must uninstall it prior to installing RC. This is pre-release code and will change before the final release. This pre-release software is provided for testing purposes only. Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission...

  • Office 2007 SP1 is here and it does more than just update the desktop - SharePoint gets AJAX for example

    I'm sure you have heard that the Office 2007 Service Pack is here. Darren Strange has documented what is in it and how to get it at Office 2007 sp1 ready for download today and OfficeRocker! : More detail about sp1 . In answer to Susanne's post at here , hopefully this post has some more info in it One of the little things he puts that I like is: Some other factoids about sp1 There are roughly 2500 fixes in SP1. This an average size for a service pack, but the issues fixed are very important to our customers. Almost 20% of those fixes are direct result of customer requests. Over 500 of those fixes focused on security. There are a total of 24 different releases in 38 languages. There are 683 distinct packages. All have released simultaneously today. If you get the whitepaper then you would be keen to see the information below. Notice that SharePoint amongst other things a developer update to support Ajax and that other server products (Groove and Project Server) are also updated. Stability Microsoft continues...

  • Windows platform news (Hyper-V pricing, Technet Edge, HPC 2008)

    The TRM blog can be found here December 2007 - Technical Rollup Mail - Platforms Microsoft outlines pricing, packaging and licensing for Windows Server 2008, Including the new Microsoft Hyper-V Server product. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-12HyperVPR.mspx Microsoft announces new virtualization offerings, Windows Server 2008 details, System Center product availability at TechEd IT Forum 2007 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-12ITForumPR.mspx Solution Accelerators Take the guesswork out of your deployments. Use these tested and proven automation tools and guides to assess your network and confidently roll out new services employing architectures with baked-in security and manageability. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/default.aspx The TechNet Team have launched Technet Edge, a new community site where IT professionals can go to get the inside scoop on the latest and greatest technologies. http://edge.technet.com/Default.aspx Introducing Microsoft...

  • SQL Server Web casts (Preparing for SQL Server 2008, New T-SQL features, migrating from Access, Policy based management framework, BI, certifications, reducing hardware and maintenance costs)

    From the TRM Blog at November 2007 - Technical Rollup Mail - SQL SQL 2005 Webcasts and Virtual Labs SQL Server 2005 is data management and analysis software that delivers enhanced security, availability, and scalability to mission-critical data applications—while making them easier to develop, deploy, and manage. Choose from a wide range of live and on-demand webcasts. Or take part in a virtual lab, which allows you to cut your teeth on the new platform by experimenting with its different capabilities. SQL Server 2005 Webcasts TechNet Webcast: Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 1 of 8): Product Workload Scenarios (Level 300) – Monday, December 03, 2007 9:30 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) In this first session of our series, we discuss how Windows Server 2008 addresses key deployment scenarios for customers. We start with an overview of the key product workload scenarios for Windows Server 2008. We cover as many as 10 different scenarios, and we discuss how each scenario can be categorized into one...

  • Things that have fixed peoples problem running Office on Vista

    From the blog entry I published on How to get rid of the installer / configuration dialog when running Office 2007 and Office 2003 on the same system - for Vista and other versions of Windows I still get people e-mailing me with problems. While I have not been able to solve them all, but here are some solutions that I have seen success with: Problem: POP3 e-mail starts sending then gets stuck/hangs/stops: I have seen your blog at uksbsguy.com and it seems you are my only hope. Brand new laptop, small sized PST file, Vista Home Premium, Outlook 2007 Ultimate. I set up an account in Outlook 2007 to my bog standard POP3 account that has always worked. It starts to download my first email and slowly reaches 3 or 4KB then just hangs . Surprisingly I can sent (SMTP) absolutely fine. If I use another internet connection (dial up modem) instead of LAN then I can receive POP3 as well. But the same LAN connection works for my old laptop (XP/Outlook 2003) all settings same. I also tried the netsh command and the result is...
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(c)David Overton 2006-23