Microsoft’s implementation of commenting in Active Directory has always amazed me. In Windows Server 2003, everywhere you look you find wizards and tabs and configuration screens with a location for adding comments. It seems like every little setting in Active Directory could tell its own story through its attached comments.
Full Post – http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid1_gci1293745,00.html?track=sy540&asrc=RSS_RSS-11_540
These release notes provide important information you should know prior to installing and testing Hyper-V, including hardware and software requirements and known issues. You should familiarize yourself with all of the information prior to installing the software.
Tuesday, I described how to convert the outline of a Word document into a Powerpoint presentation automatically. I stated that this feature was missing in Word 2007, but Tim Anderson explained in his ITWriting blog that the function was still there, though you had to dig a little to find it: Click the Office icon in the top-left corner, choose Word Options at the bottom of the dialog, click Customize in the left pane, select All Commands in the Choose Commands From drop-down menu, scroll to and select Send to Microsoft Office Powerpoint, and click Add to place this option in Word’s Quick Access toolbar, which appears just to the right of the Office icon.
That got me thinking about the other useful features that Word makes difficult to find. Here are five neat tricks in Word 2003 and 2007 that you may not know about.
Full Post – http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9849372-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog
Tuesday, I described how to convert the outline of a Word document into a Powerpoint presentation automatically. I stated that this feature was missing in Word 2007, but Tim Anderson explained in his ITWriting blog that the function was still there, though you had to dig a little to find it: Click the Office icon in the top-left corner, choose Word Options at the bottom of the dialog, click Customize in the left pane, select All Commands in the Choose Commands From drop-down menu, scroll to and select Send to Microsoft Office Powerpoint, and click Add to place this option in Word’s Quick Access toolbar, which appears just to the right of the Office icon.
That got me thinking about the other useful features that Word makes difficult to find. Here are five neat tricks in Word 2003 and 2007 that you may not know about.
Full Post – http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9849372-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog
When you take your first look at Windows Server 2008, you’ll find that many of the traditional tools that graced Server 2003 are still around: the Computer Management console; the System Information utility; the Services console; and so forth. Administrative Tools are still in a Start menu folder named “Administrative Tools,” and you can start feeling fairly comfortable with the GUI if you have background with prior versions of Windows.
If you have logged some flight time with Windows Vista, things will look even more familiar. Windows Server 2008 has the look and feel of Windows Vista. (Which makes sense, when you consider that both products were developed under the “Longhorn” moniker, and share many megabytes of code.) The new collapsible Startmenu, the Vista-style search facilities, as well as some of the tools (such as Windows Firewall with Advanced Security) look just as they do in the Vista GUI.
Where things change a bit is in the Server Manager console (ServerManager.msc, typically under C:\Windows\System32), which is really the “nerve center” of Server 2008. Parts of this console are simply convenient pointers to other administrative tools. However, the “Roles” and “Features” nodes may be unfamiliar to you. I’ll explore both of these aspects of Server 2008 and more in future blog posts.
he core of Windows is in a process of perpetual evolution, as an integer part of the growth of the operating system itself. Of course that the core of the operating system is a reference pointing to the kernel, the central unit of the platform providing low-level functions. And as Microsoft prepares to deliver the third and final service pack for Windows XP and the first service pack for Windows Vista, the heart of the platform will also move ahead. The Redmond company has already introduced major changes with the Vista and Windows Server 2008 kernel, in comparison to XP and Windows Server 2003.
The latest versions of the Windows operating systems, both client and server, brought to the table enhancements impacting memory and heap handling, the overall management mechanisms for application support and power consumption, but also added security mitigations and the Hardware Abstraction Layer. In early 2008, Microsoft is getting ready to release XP SP3 and Vista SP1. Now, SP3 is just a standard refresh for XP and, in this respect, the kernel will remain virtually untouched. The Vista kernel is an entirely different matter altogether. The kernel of the latest Windows operating system is a snapshot of the Windows Server core. In this context, Vista SP1 will almost completely align the Vista kernel to that of Windows Server 2008. Both Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are planned for RTM in February 2008.
“Kernel changes – enhancements in Server 2008 and Vista. Security – service hardening has evolved a little bit from Vista into Server 2008 – least privileges; mew networking protocol in SMB 2 which requires Vista and Server 2008 to work; overcomes limitations of original SMB protocol which was developed 15 years ago e.g. It assumes certain data transmission characteristics which don’t make sense any more like small buffers – 60k packet size; WAN optimisation where there is latency between hosts – batching now takes place to reduce the number of round trips required”, revealed James Senior
http://blogs.technet.com/james/archive/2008/01/09/mark-russinovich-talks-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-and-windows-vista.aspx
, Microsoft U.K Partner Technical Specialist.
But Senior went on to also describe the changes affecting the Transactional File System and Transactional Registry: “Used by Windows Update to apply patches, so the update is protected in a transaction. When it makes some changes to files and registry these are recorded by the transactions which provides guarantees that even if there is power interruption the files and registry will not be corrupted by the update being only partially written. Changes go into a log and when the transaction is committed all the changes are applied in one go rather than incrementally.”
In parallel with the development of Vista SP1 and XP SP3, Microsoft is also working on MinWin. Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut presented MinWin in 2007 as a stripped down version of the current Windows Kernel. MinWin weighs in at just 25 MB and is capable of running with just 4g MB of RAM. But, Traut promised that MinWin will get even slimmer. At this point in time, MinWin is the smallest version of Windows in existence, and the true core-component of the Windows operating system. MinWin will be reduced to a minimum independent footprint that will have absolutely no dependencies in the rest of Windows. And of course, MinWin will act as the kernel of Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista.
http://my.opera.com/reza.com/blog/the-core-of-windows-from-xp-sp3-and-vista-sp1-to-windows-7
Vista Service Pack 1 comes with an important update for gamers – DirectX 10.1. The catch? You need brand new hardware to support it, and NVIDIA enthusiasts are left totally out in the cold.
One of the benefit Windows Vista brought to the gaming table was the next version of DirectX – version 10. With the potential improvements to 3D gaming potentially outweighing the anticipated performance drop in running games on a more resource-hungry operating system, most hardcore gamers waited until ATI and NVIDIA released their DirectX 10-capable GPUs before taking the plunge and upgrading to Vista.
Well, it looks like those early adopters might be left somewhat in the lurch, as Microsoft has recently announced that Windows Vista SP1 will include a minor version upgrade to DirectX – DirectX 10.1. This includes some features originally intended for DirectX 10 but which had to be left to one side, and as such DirectX 10.1 is a superset of DirectX 10 – supporting all of DirectX 10’s features with some additions and enhancements of its own.
DirectX 10.1 offers greater application control of the GPU’s shading and filtering resources, especially multi-sampled and super-sampled antialiasing. The shader model is updated from 4.0 to 4.1, and floating point technology is beefed up from 16-bit to full 32-bit, which should demonstrate a direct improvement in quality for HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting effects. In addition, all DirectX 10.1-capable hardware should be able to run 4xAA (antialiasing) as a mandatory setting.
So all this is great news, right? If you lashed out on a DirectX 10 card, then perhaps not. Although DirectX 10.1 is fully backwards-compatible with DirectX 10 features and hardware, the reverse isn’t true. Neither NVIDIA’s GeForce 8 series nor ATI’s Radeon HD 2x series of GPUs support DirectX 10.1. ATI’s new products – the Radeon 3870 and 3850 – do support DirectX 10.1, but NVIDIA apparently has no plans to release a DirectX 10.1-capable GPU. Their next product range, codenamed GT200, will support DirectX 11, but as this is due for release before DirectX 11 itself it will be interesting to see how well early products based on this GPU will support the new DirectX technology.
So gamers have a difficult choice to make – go with NVIDIA and be restricted to DirectX 10, or travel the ATI path and get enhanced gaming visuals. And as for those unlucky users who have alreadyt upgraded their graphics cards as a prelude to migrating to Vista, and are now facing even more financial outlay to get the full benefits of a simple service pack…you have a our deepest sympathy.
This trial guide walks you through a step by step creation of a Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 system including the Sequencing of two applications. Once you have completed these setup steps, you will be able to test the benefits of Microsoft Application Virtualization in your own environment.
Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) Corp.’s forthcoming Windows Server 2008 provides a two-for-one bonus: virtualization software with the operating system itself and potentially closer integration with some Linux operating systems than it has ever offered before, according to an early, initial look at the server’s Release Candidate 1 (RC1).
New technology allows for closer interoperability between Windows and Linux than we’ve seen in the past, and also puts it at loggerheads with technology offered by VMware, whose virtualization technology has been taking the industry by storm.
The early release of Windows Server 2008’s Hyper-V Beta signals that Microsoft is well ahead of schedule in a key area of development. But that’s no big surprise: Hyper-V technology started with the Xen source code, so the company had a big head start.
Microsoft partially funded the Xen project, which suggests why the beta release supports Linux interoperability. The Redmond, Wash., industry giant plans to support some enterprise Linux distros in the long term—the first one being SUSE Enterprise 10 with SP1. Fedora Core 8 now works with Hyper-V.
To expand its integration capabilities with other Linux distros, the Windows Server 2008 group is opening up a testing program through Microsoft Connect’s site. (Solution providers have to apply to get into the testing program.)
Xen shares a communication layer with Hyper-V. Hyper-V provides components for a synthetic network adapter, synthetic storage controller and Xen’s Hypercall adapter. When running a Linux virtual machine, Xen calls are translated into Hyper-V hypercalls. Though the Xen hypervisor runs in Ring 0, it still has to communicate with Hyper-V.
The Hyper-V layer will execute instructions at the lowest service provided by Windows Server 2008. The Hyper-V layer requires a root-level partition to run, so the Windows Server 2008 kernel is treated almost equally with other Windows and non-Windows kernels. “Almost equal” means that Windows Server 2008 will be the constant in the new architecture.
Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) Corp.’s forthcoming Windows Server 2008 provides a two-for-one bonus: virtualization software with the operating system itself and potentially closer integration with some Linux operating systems than it has ever offered before, according to an early, initial look at the server’s Release Candidate 1 (RC1).
New technology allows for closer interoperability between Windows and Linux than we’ve seen in the past, and also puts it at loggerheads with technology offered by VMware, whose virtualization technology has been taking the industry by storm.
The early release of Windows Server 2008’s Hyper-V Beta signals that Microsoft is well ahead of schedule in a key area of development. But that’s no big surprise: Hyper-V technology started with the Xen source code, so the company had a big head start.
Microsoft partially funded the Xen project, which suggests why the beta release supports Linux interoperability. The Redmond, Wash., industry giant plans to support some enterprise Linux distros in the long term—the first one being SUSE Enterprise 10 with SP1. Fedora Core 8 now works with Hyper-V.
To expand its integration capabilities with other Linux distros, the Windows Server 2008 group is opening up a testing program through Microsoft Connect’s site. (Solution providers have to apply to get into the testing program.)
Xen shares a communication layer with Hyper-V. Hyper-V provides components for a synthetic network adapter, synthetic storage controller and Xen’s Hypercall adapter. When running a Linux virtual machine, Xen calls are translated into Hyper-V hypercalls. Though the Xen hypervisor runs in Ring 0, it still has to communicate with Hyper-V.
The Hyper-V layer will execute instructions at the lowest service provided by Windows Server 2008. The Hyper-V layer requires a root-level partition to run, so the Windows Server 2008 kernel is treated almost equally with other Windows and non-Windows kernels. “Almost equal” means that Windows Server 2008 will be the constant in the new architecture.
What better way to show off your skills on a brand new technology than with a Microsoft Certification? Get ready to be a hero on Windows Server 2008, right from the start.
Availability of Microsoft Certification exams will closely follow the release of Windows Server 2008. We would like you to be the first to know when these exams are available—helping you to be among the first to certify and be noticed by organizations that are eager to evaluate and deploy Windows Server 2008.
To thank you for your interest in keeping up with the latest technology from Microsoft, we invite you to register with us to receive:
•Same-day notification when the three Windows Server 2008 technology exams are available, plus a 40 percent savings code to use on any one of these three exams
•Same-day notification when the two Windows Server 2008 professional-series exams are available, plus a second 40 percent savings code to use on one of these two exams
What better way to show off your skills on a brand new technology than with a Microsoft Certification? Get ready to be a hero on Windows Server 2008, right from the start.
Availability of Microsoft Certification exams will closely follow the release of Windows Server 2008. We would like you to be the first to know when these exams are available—helping you to be among the first to certify and be noticed by organizations that are eager to evaluate and deploy Windows Server 2008.
To thank you for your interest in keeping up with the latest technology from Microsoft, we invite you to register with us to receive:
•Same-day notification when the three Windows Server 2008 technology exams are available, plus a 40 percent savings code to use on any one of these three exams
•Same-day notification when the two Windows Server 2008 professional-series exams are available, plus a second 40 percent savings code to use on one of these two exams
•Register now
Hi there Windows Ultimate Extras,
This is an automated message to remind you it has been 81 days since your last activity on October 23, 2007 when you announced 19 languages packs for Windows Vista. Très Bien!
We’d like to remind you we’ve been eagerly awaiting more “cutting-edge programs“, “innovative services” and “unique publications” from you.
As a reminder, here is your current contribution so far in the last 12 months since Windows Vista Ultimate has been on the market.
– Windows DreamScene
– Hold’ Em Poker Game
– BitLocker and EFS Tools
– 35 Language Packs
In case you’re running a little short on ideas, here’s a few simple ones to help you get back on track.
– Premium high-resolution wallpapers pack
– Premium DreamScene videos
– Arcade or puzzle games (ex. Peggle)
– Windows Media Player 11 skins or visualizations
– Windows DVD Maker menu themes
– Windows Photo Gallery slideshow themes
– Extended free trials of Windows Live OneCare
– Premium Internet Explorer 7 add-ons
If you have forgotten how to get in touch with us, your customers, we’d like to remind you of your blog at www.windowsultimate.com which you can write on to keep us in-the-loop of any ideas or progress you’re making. Don’t be afraid to post smaller but more frequent updates.
Thanks, passionate Windows Vista Ultimate users.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080109/ultimate-extras-inactive-reminder/
Hi there Windows Ultimate Extras,
This is an automated message to remind you it has been 81 days since your last activity on October 23, 2007 when you announced 19 languages packs for Windows Vista. Très Bien!
We’d like to remind you we’ve been eagerly awaiting more “cutting-edge programs“, “innovative services†and “unique publications†from you.
As a reminder, here is your current contribution so far in the last 12 months since Windows Vista Ultimate has been on the market.
– Windows DreamScene
– Hold’ Em Poker Game
– BitLocker and EFS Tools
– 35 Language Packs
In case you’re running a little short on ideas, here’s a few simple ones to help you get back on track.
– Premium high-resolution wallpapers pack
– Premium DreamScene videos
– Arcade or puzzle games (ex. Peggle)
– Windows Media Player 11 skins or visualizations
– Windows DVD Maker menu themes
– Windows Photo Gallery slideshow themes
– Extended free trials of Windows Live OneCare
– Premium Internet Explorer 7 add-ons
If you have forgotten how to get in touch with us, your customers, we’d like to remind you of your blog at www.windowsultimate.com which you can write on to keep us in-the-loop of any ideas or progress you’re making. Don’t be afraid to post smaller but more frequent updates.
Thanks, passionate Windows Vista Ultimate users.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080109/ultimate-extras-inactive-reminder/
January 09, 2008 (Computerworld) — A rootkit that hides from Windows on the hard drive’s boot sector is infecting PCs, security researchers said today. Once installed, the cloaking software is undetectable by most current antivirus programs.
The rootkit overwrites the hard drive’s master boot record (MBR), the first sector — sector 0 — where code is stored to bootstrap the operating system after the computer’s BIOS does its start-up checks. Because it hides on the MBR, the rootkit is effectively invisible to the operating system and security software installed on that operating system.
“A traditional rootkit installs as a driver, just as when you install any hardware or software,” said Oliver Friedrichs, director of Symantec Corp.‘s security response team. “Those drivers are loaded at or after the boot process. But this new rootkit installs itself before the operating system loads. It starts executing before the main operating system has a chance to execute.” Control the MBR, Friedrichs continued, and you control the operating system, and thus the computer.
