Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Many organizations are tempted to skip Windows Vista entirely and wait for the next release, Windows 7, which Microsoft plans to release in late 2009 or early 2010.

“Most organizations shouldn’t skip Windows Vista entirely… Skipping versions of Windows entirely generally increases the risk of having unsupported applications running on the selected operating systems.”

– Taken from “Understand the Risks of Skipping Windows Vista”
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00158795, Michael A. Silver, 11 July 2008, RA2 04022009  (http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/gc/reprints/microsoft/
microsoft_vol2_article2.pdf)

(Note:  Document requires Gartner Group Subscription)

We’re giving away free individual copies of the Windows Vista Resource Kit eBook (2^nd Edition)!
Offer ends this month.

—————–

Windows Vista® Resource Kit, Second Edition
Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, Jerry Honeycutt, Windows Vista Team
July 16, 2008
1696 Pages
9780735625969

Your definitive resource for deployment and operations—straight from the experts.

In-depth, comprehensive, and fully updated for Service Pack 1, this RESOURCE KIT delivers the information you need to administer Windows Vista. You get authoritative technical guidance from those who know the technology best—Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals and the Windows Vista team—along with essential scripts and resources on the CD.

Get expert guidance on how to:

• Use Microsoft Deployment Toolkit best practices and tools
• Plan user-state migration and test application compatibility
• Exploit new Group Policy features, settings, and ADMX templates
• Configure software updates and client-security technologies
• Administer disks, file systems, file sharing, search, and Internet Explorer
• Install and troubleshoot printers, devices, and services
• Manage IPsec, IPv6, wireless, and remote connectivity
• Use performance monitoring and diagnostic tools to manage desktop health
• Resolve common startup, hardware, and networking issues

DOWNLOAD:
http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urws8un4p7

We’re giving away free individual copies of the eBook “Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!”.  Offer ends this month.

——————-

Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!
By Patrice Pelland
ISBN: 9780735625426
272 Pages

Make building new programming skills fun and fast with a quick-start, project-based approach!
In this lively, eye-opening, hands-on book, all you need is a computer and the desire to learn how to program with Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition. Featuring a full edition of the software, this fun and highly visual guide walks you through a complete programming project—a desktop weather-reporting application—from start to finish. You’ll get an introduction to the Microsoft Visual Studio® development environment and learn how to put the lightweight, easy-to-use tools in Visual C# Express Edition to work right away—creating, compiling, testing, and delivering your first ready-to-use program. You’ll get expert tips, coaching, and visual examples at each step of the way, along with pointers to additional learning resources.

DOWNLOAD:
http://csna01.libredigital.com/?urrs4gt63d

Technet & MSDN Events Unleashed: Windows Vista to Windows 7
Saturday, February 28, 2009 8:00 AM – Saturday, February 28, 2009 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
2/28/2009
8:00 AM – 1:30 PM
Welcome Time:  2/28/2009 7:45 AM Pacific Time

Recommended Audiences: IT Professionals, Developers
This event is taking place live in the Irvine, CA office.  For those who cannot attend in person, we are also simulcasting via Live Meeting.  We will be utilizing 2-Way Audio directly from Live Meeting so you shouldn’t need to dial into a conference bridge.  The Live Meeting link will be sent with your registration confirmation.

Is Vista Still Relevant? Windows Vista – The Path to 7
With Windows 7 on the horizon, is Vista still relevant? This presentation will cover why Vista is the best path to Windows 7 readiness as well as discuss the key underpinnings in the Windows 7 OS and product evolutions with Server 2008 R2, IPv6 and beyond. Focus will be around top 10 things IT Pros should know about Windows Vista and its evolution in Windows 7.

Welcome to Windows 7
This session will be an overview of the GUI and Feature improvements in Windows 7. This will include
  • Task Bar/System Tray Improvements
  • Aero Features
  • System Improvements
  • Control Panels and Features
  • Desktop Improvements
  • IE 8
  • Under The Hood

Windows 7 Deep Dive
Deep Dive One and Two will dig into Windows 7 and the new or redesigned under the hood features in the product.
The topics covered will be:
  • Microsoft’s understanding of the needs of IT Pros when designing Windows 7
  • Hardware Readiness
  • Improved Applications
  • Application Compatibility
  • AIK
  • VHD Images and Imaging
  • DISM
  • Dynamic Driver Provisioning
  • Multicast Multiple Stream Transfer
  • Streamlined Installation and File Migration
  • USMT
  • DHCP Hint
  • Enterprise Application Compatibility
  • Windows Troubleshooting Platform

Registration:
If you are a customer of mine, please contact me for details on how to register.

If you’ve ever worked with Windows Disk Image files, you know that the traditional tool used are the IMAGEX.EXE utility a.k.a. the WIM tools which are entirely command line executables available from the Windows Automated Installation Toolkit. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=94BB6E34-D890-4932-81A5-5B50C657DE08&displaylang=en)  In an operating system that made itself famous through GUI tools, it’s a little unusual to find there’s no graphical version of these utilities available from Microsoft.

Enter GImageX.  GImageX is a GUI overlay which orchestrates the WIM tools so that you don’t need to type out long command line arguments to get them to do what you want.  It’s a free tool that is being made available from the folks that brought you AUTOIT scripting tools… tools for automating repetitive actions on Windows.

The new version 2 of this utility’s been retrofitted for compatibility with Windows 7 and the new command line arguments for the new ImageX tools.

WEBSITE: http://www.autoitscript.com/gimagex/

MICROSOFT DEPLOYMENT GUYS BLOG: 
http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/02/04/gimagex-beta-for-windows-7-beta.aspx

<taken from the Windows Server blog>
Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 Beta is now available on the Microsoft Download Center. 

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 enables IT pros to manage roles and features that are installed on remote computers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2 (and, for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003) from a remote computer that is running Windows 7.

It includes support for remote management of computers that are running either the Server Core or full installation options of Windows Server 2008 R2, and for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008. Some roles and features on Windows Server 2003 can be managed remotely by using Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7, although the Server Core installation option is not available with the Windows Server 2003 operating system.

This is the next generation of the Admin Pack, aka Windows Server 2003 Administrative Tools Pack and Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Don’t forget, you’ll have to take all the old Admin Tools packs off your computer before you unleash Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 on it. And please, don’t try to run multiple copies of Remote Server Administration Tools on your computer, even if the copies are in different languages.

What’s included in this release? Read on, gentle user…

Server Administration Tools:

• Server Manager (thaaaat’s right! You can use Server Manager to manage Windows Server 2008 R2 computers from a computer that’s running Windows 7. You’re welcome.)

Role Administration Tools:

• Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) Tools
• Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools
• DHCP Server Tools
• DNS Server Tools
• File Services Tools
• Hyper-V Tools
• Remote Desktop Services Tools

Feature Administration Tools:

• BitLocker AD Password Recovery Viewer
• Failover Clustering Tools
• Group Policy Management Tools
• Network Load Balancing Tools
• SMTP Server Tools
• Storage Explorer Tools
• Storage Manager for SANs Tools
• Windows System Resource Manager Tools

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82516c35-c7dc-4652-b2ea-2df99ea83dbb&displaylang=en

Today, we announced that, on average, customers save $470,000 per year by using Windows Server Hyper-V. Not bad at all and very gratifying to see.  Here’s just one example provided today:

Saxo Bank had an average physical server utilization of just 20 percent and was deploying nearly 200 new servers per year before using server virtualization. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V allowed the bank to reduce the number of servers needed by 36 percent and realize savings equivalent to $1 million (U.S.), because of lower server hardware costs and associated reductions in space, power and cooling costs

Another interesting part were the videos seen at the site. You can see/hear from Saxo Bank, Banverket, Rand Morimoto (who wrote a book on Hyper-V), and a video featuring Santa Barbara Web Hosting and Microsoft’s Bob Muglia.

Colleagues over at Windows Virtualization team blog have blogged that Microsoft’s virtualization management stack is about 1/3 the cost of VMware’s comparable stack. And who can forget how they let the chips fall in Vegas.

I can’t wait to hear more from customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, and from those using live migration with a free product like the standalone Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.

 
Cost Savings with Microsoft Virtualization

Cost Savings with Microsoft Virtualization

Watch this video to see why the economic crunch is leading many businesses to choose Microsoft’s virtualization solution over the competition.

<taken from the Hotmail blog>

We are happy to announce that POP3 technology is now available to Hotmail users in the United States and Brazil in addition to the countries who rolled out the functionality last month (United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands). If you don’t see your country or region in this list, never fear, we’ll be rolling POP3 out to more parts of the world later this year.

What is POP3? It is a protocol that allows almost any e-mail software program that you’ve installed on your mobile phone or PC* to get messages from your e-mail inbox on the web and deliver them in the designated program.

Although you always could access Hotmail on your web-enabled mobile phone by going to mobile.live.com, now that Hotmail has POP3, you can get to it more conveniently using the e-mail software on your PC or mobile device* such as a Windows Mobile phone, iPhone, or BlackBerry.

When you set up Hotmail in the e-mail program on your PC or mobile device, you may be asked for the following information:

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)  
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)  
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

In addition to POP3, Microsoft offers additional technologies that can provide you with an even richer experience of your e-mail. Try viewing your Hotmail using Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Office Outlook via the Outlook Connector, or Windows Live for Windows Mobile phone.

Looking for help with Hotmail? Visit the Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center! The Solution Center has instructions on how to set up your e-mail software to send and receive Windows Live Hotmail messages using POP3. You’ll also find instructions on how to set up Hotmail on the web to give you POP3 access to a non-Windows Live e-mail account. If you have problems using POP3 access, Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center also has links to report a problem with Hotmail.

We hope you enjoy the many ways in which you can access your Windows Live Hotmail!

– The Windows Live Hotmail team

* If supported by your device and e-mail program

It’s a new era for radio. Personalized, mobile, and free.

Pandora Radio is your own FREE personalized radio now available to stream music on your Windows Mobile handset. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a "station" that plays their music and more music like it.

Already a Pandora user? Even easier. Just sign in. Pandora on Windows Mobile is fully integrated with Pandora on the web. Enjoy all your existing stations – and create new ones right from your Windows Mobile handset.

How to get it:
Point Pocket Internet Explorer on your Windows Mobile device to http://www.pandora.com.

Experience Microsoft technologies and products that influence the mobile industry—Windows Mobile, Windows Live for Mobile, MSN Mobile, Mobile Advertising and many more. 

Among the many announcements made: 
Windows Mobile 6.5

We’ve recorded the press conference hosted by Steve Ballmer: February 16th, 2009.

Watch the Video:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/business/cmpn/mwc2009/default.mspx?WT.mc_id=SF_BallmerWMC_Feb

Virtual Press Room:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/
mobileworldcongress/default.mspx