Kurt Shintaku's Blog

I’m excited to announce the new Media and Cable Industry external web site based on the “modern UI” and the new Microsoft design principles. The new site is optimized to give a single page view of Microsoft’s commitment to, engagement with, and solutions for the industry.  The top level page is designed to serve as a “dashboard view” for the industry with the reference architecture providing a strong framework for showcasing our partners and solutions.

Please take a tour:
Microsoft in Media and Cable
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/industry/communications-and-media/media-and-cable/default.aspx

p.s. We have other industry sites coming so stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks. 

The Internet Explorer Administration Kit 10 is now available.

IEAK 10 enables the most efficient way to deploy Internet Explorer 10 and manage Web-based solutions. Learn how to tailor a custom browser to meet your customers’ needs.

Please note: You must have Internet Explorer 10 installed on your computer in order for IEAK 10 to run successfully. Visit the IEAK 10 site on TechNet for more information on the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK).

• DOWNLOAD: Internet Explorer Administration Kit 10
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35713

We’ve released a new set of Office Visio Stencils for Lync, Exchange and Sharepoint.

Creating visual representations of your Microsoft Lync, Sharepoint and/or Exchange Server architectures is a helpful way to communicate your deployment. This Visio stencil provides more than 300 icons — many depicting servers, applications, and services — that you can use in architecture diagrams, charts, and posters. These icons are primarily centered on Lync, SharePoint, and Exchange technologies and features.

• DOWNLOAD: Office Visio Stencil for Lync, Exchange and Sharepoint (November 2012)
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35772

BizTalk Server 2013 Beta is an integration server that provides connectivity, Business Process Management (BPM), and SOA/ESB capabilities. It also includes Business to Business (B2B) integration capabilities, Adapters, Accelerators, and an RFID platform.

BizTalk Server 2013 includes data mapping & transformation tool to dramatically reduce the development time to mediate data exchange between disparate systems. It also provides various management interfaces to for managing BizTalk Server applications, managing performance parameters, and streamlining deployments from development to test to production. BizTalk Server 2013 includes the scalable Trading Partner Management (TPM) model with a graphical interface for flexible management of business partner relationships and efficient on-boarding process.

Note: The software is for evaluation and deployment planning purposes only. If you plan to install the software on your primary computer, we recommend that you back up your existing data prior to installation. See also the following related resources:

• BizTalk Server 2013 Beta Documentation
• BizTalk Server 2013 Beta Installation Guide

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• BETA: BizTalk Server 2013
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35553

By using Microsoft Visio 2013 Viewer, Visio users can freely distribute Visio drawings (files with a .vsdx, .vsdm, .vsd, .vdx, .vdw, .vstx, .vstm, .vst, or .vtx extension) to team members, partners, customers, or others, even if the recipients do not have Visio installed on their computers.

Internet Explorer also allows for printing, although this is limited to the portion of the drawing displayed. Viewing Visio drawings is as simple as double-clicking the drawing file in Windows Explorer. Internet Explorer will open, and Visio Viewer will render the drawing in the browser window. You can then pan and zoom in the drawing window by using toolbar buttons, keyboard shortcuts, or menu items in the shortcut menu. Also, you can see properties on any shape by opening the Properties dialog box and then selecting a shape. Some rendering and display settings are available in the Display tab of the Properties dialog box. Additionally, you can set drawing-layer visibility and colors in the Layers tab, and comment visibility and colors in the Comments tab.

Note: Visio Viewer is implemented as an ActiveX control that loads and renders Visio drawings inside Internet Explorer.

• DOWNLOAD:Microsoft Visio 2013 Viewer
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35811

This isn’t a Microsoft Press book but I thought this was cool so I decided to post it.

This is a book focused on System Center Endpoint Protection 2012.  Here’s some of what you can expect:

• Get up and running with a range of common tasks accomplished with the local SCEP client
• Learn how to design a SCEP architecture
• Create an effective SCEP client deployment plan
• Perform operational tasks via the SCCM console
• Take full advantage of the SCEP dashboard
• Prepare for Disaster Recovery scenarios using SCCM
• Understand how to fully configure and automate various reporting features
• Build effective and efficient SCEP client polices
• See these skills in action with a bonus appendix chapter: a complete SCEP walk-through covering the initial install, building the client package, deployment, policy and procedures

The eBook is only $13.  Go get it.

• BOOK: System Center Endpoint Protection Cookbook now available for purchase (3rd party)
  http://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-system-center-2012-endpoint-protection-cookbook/book

The OCT is part of the Setup program and is the recommended tool for most customizations. The OCT is available only with volume licensed versions of Windows Installer-based Office 2013, Office 2010, and the 2007 Office system.

To determine whether an Office 2013 installation is a volume licensed version, check the Office 2013 installation disk to see whether it contains a folder named Admin. If the Admin folder exists, the disk is a volume license edition.

This download includes Group Policy Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool files for use with Office 2013 applications. It also includes a \Admin folder with an Office Customization Tool, and ADMX and ADML versions of Office 2013 system Administrative Template files. For administrative template files, you may use the combination of ADMX and language-specific ADML files on computers running at least Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.

If you plan on using the Office Customization Tool (OCT), we recommend reading the Office Customization Tool in Office 2013 documentation beforehand.

• DOWNLOAD: Office 2013 Administrative Template files (ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool (OCT)
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx

Microsoft IT is uniquely positioned to share its knowledge of the business of IT. The IT Best Practice Series courses* will cover Microsoft IT’s deployment best practices, processes, design decision making, management strategies, system architecture, and more. Microsoft Redmond subject matter experts will present their individual areas of expertise throughout the course. The courses will be engaging, experiential and include visits to key Microsoft facilities on the Redmond campus!

For course schedules and more information please email msiti at microsoft dot com.

Note: The IT Best Practice Series are fee-based courses offered by the Microsoft IT Institute about how “Microsoft does IT”. Fees may be covered under your enterprise agreements (e.g., Premier Support, Enterprise Strategy Program (ESP)).

For more information, visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/microsoft-it/institute/default.aspx

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 service packs are cumulative updates and upgrade all editions and service levels of SQL Server 2012 to SP1. This service pack contains SQL Server 2012 Cumulative Update 1 (CU1) and Cumulative Update 2 (CU2). This download site contains the following packages and service patches for the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 release:

1. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 Update – this package contains the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 update to be applied to existing SQL Server 2012 installations.

2. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 Slipstream- This package provides the capability to perform new SQL Server 2012 instance installations (or SQL Server 2008/SQL Server 2008 R2 Upgrades) culminating with Service Pack 1 pre-installed. The slipstream installation package consists of a compressed self-extracting .exe and a ‘.box’ payload file that contains the original SQL Server 2012 release along with Service Pack 1. The .exe file can be directly executed, or utilized from the command prompt just as SQL Server 2012 Setup.exe would be (See Install SQL Server 2012 from the Command Prompt).

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35575

We released a massive update to BOTH SCCM 2007’s & SCCM 2012’s documentation.

The Documentation Library for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and Configuration Manager 2007 Documentation Library have been updated on the web and the latest content has Updated: November 1, 2012 at the top of the topic.

These updates include prerelease documentation to support System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1, updates for the release version of System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, and updates for Configuration Manager 2007.

This month sees three particularly important doc updates:

• The initial publication of the Windows PowerShell cmdlets for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1. Expect more to follow.
• Information about upgrading System Center 2012 Configuration Manager to Service Pack 1 and interoperability information. Upgrade remains unsupported until Service Pack 1 releases, but we’ve included information now to help you plan.
• Some planning information for the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) scenario that you’ve been hearing about for Service Pack 1, by using Windows Intune with Configuration Manager. Expect more “how to” information for this in our next publication. This functionality also remains unsupported until Service Pack 1 releases.

As always with our documentation, we write for the intended release version of the product, which might not match a prerelease version of Configuration Manager that you have for testing.

…

Read more about “What’s New in the Documentation Library for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, November 2012” at the SCCM blog:

• POST: Announcement: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for November 2012
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2012/11/30/announcement-configuration-manager-documentation-library-update-for-november-2012.aspx