Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Certification: Pro-Level Exchange Server 2007 Training Kits Hit the Shelves, by Ken Jones, product planner, and Laura Sackerman, content development editor, Microsoft Press

It’s hard to remember how we did business before e-mail, voice mail, and instant messaging. For many organizations, Microsoft Exchange Server has become the mission-critical application. As methods of electronic communication have expanded, so has the demand for messaging specialists.

There are now more than 75,000 messaging specialists worldwide. This group’s growth in numbers and significance is a big reason we now offer two Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 credentials—MCTS: Exchange Server 2007 Configuration and MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator.

Earning the MCTS credential requires passing only one exam:

• 70-236: Configuring Exchange Server 2007

The Microsoft Press Training Kit supporting this exam was published last November and has enjoyed brisk sales.

After earning the MCTS credential, a candidate can go on to earn the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator certification by passing two more exams – the Pro-level:

• 70-237: Deploying Messaging Solutions with Exchange Server 2007
• 70-238: Designing Messaging Solutions with Exchange Server 2007.

This month, we’re introducing the first of two Training Kits supporting the Pro-level exams:

• MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-238): Deploying Messaging Solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, authored by Nelson Ruest and Danielle Ruest.

The new 70-238 Training Kit provides everything a candidate needs to understand the subject and to prepare for the exam. Topics covered include Exchange Server 2007 upgrade and migration implementations; backup and recovery solutions; antivirus, anti-spam, messaging compliance, and network layer security; and change management, monitoring and reporting, and patch and service pack installations.

All this plus the usual Training Kit benefits: real-world case studies and practices, hundreds of lesson review and practice test questions, a 15 percent discount voucher for the exam, and a trial version of Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition.

Although the exam doesn’t currently cover Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) content, the Training Kit includes an entire section on the new features in this service pack, as a bonus!
After you study for and pass the 70-238 exam, be sure to look for the second of the two MCITP Exchange Server 2007 Training Kits:

• MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-237): Designing Messaging Solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

…which will be released later this year.

The download for the brand new Public RC1 release of Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid Application Virtualization) 4.5 just hit the http://connect.microsoft.com web site. 

This download consists of five self-extracting executables (one for each RC product component), a Planning and Deployment Guide, and RC Release Notes. 

Major highlights include:

• HTTP streaming. We now support streaming virtual applications from an IIS server (v6 or v7). This will provide dramatic performance and scalability improvements for customers with large App-V deployments.
• Re-designed Sequencer.  Simplifies the process and reduces the complexity of creating virtual application packages. There is now a single wizard for creating a new package and advanced settings have been put into an optional screen.
• Dynamic Suite Composition (DSC) for MSI packages allows the flexibility to control virtual application interaction. Administrators wanting to consolidate virtual environments, and enable faster, easier administration, can use the product’s Dynamic Suite Composition, which sequences and manages packages for middleware applications separately from the main application.
• Seamless integration with SCCM 2007 R2. Allows customers to easily deploy virtual applications through the SCCM 2007 R2 infrastructure and scale their deployments.
• Client cache improvements. The maximum size of the client cache has been increased to 1 TB.
• Improved Manageability. Integration and support for VSS writer, MOM Pack, ADM template
• Accessibility. The product is now Section 508 compliant, bringing App-V in line with other Microsoft products.

Sign up for the Application Virtualization Beta at http://connect.microsoft.com to get enrolled and download the 105MB of software ot test.

You can provide feedback, make a suggestion, or report an issue with the Application Virtualization Management System via a community forum on the Microsoft Application Virtualization TechCenter
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=103677

A common question organizations need to answer is what the business value of Windows Vista is to them and what benefits an organization will see in deploying it as the primary operating system. Several organizations have started large‐scale deployments and others are fully deployed. So what inspired these organizations to make the leap from the Windows® XP or Windows 2000 operating systems to Windows Vista?

In this article we will focus on one of the key reasons why organizations are deploying Windows Vista: configuration management. There are many advantages Windows Vista brings to configuration management, and ultimately you can use Windows Vista to achieve more administrative control by ensuring standardization across your desktops. For many organizations, the ability to maintain a known state and fend off undesirable changes is more than enough reason to migrate to Windows Vista.

DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6e7a23cb-02c3-4804-a324-c3033697dae5&DisplayLang=en

Have you ever wanted to be able to “reset” a bunch of machines to a pristine state without reimaging?
Have you ever wanted to “undo” all the changes & installations that a previous person made to a PC?
Have you ever wished you could lock down a PC –really easily- to prevent changes in the first place?

INTRODUCING WINDOWS STEADYSTATE 2.5!
First of all, this only works on Windows XP & Windows Vista.  No Windows 2000 or 64-bit operating systems.  It is however available in 20 localized versions for everything from English to French & Japanese.

SteadyState essentially does 3 things:

1. WORKSTATION LOCKDOWN
2. WORKSTATION RESET
3. CENTRAL MANAGEMENT or PER-WORKSTATION MANAGEMENT

For a demonstration, click here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/install/demo_player.swf

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Basically, the software moves the settings, system modifications, and profile information to special partition which is cleared the next time the computer is rebooted. 

In fact, if you remotely reboot the workstation using something like SHUTDOWN.EXE, you essentially “remotely” reset the box to a pristine state eliminating all changes made to the box during the time in which is was used.

TESTING SOFTWARE WITH FULL ACCESS TO HARDWARE
Incidentally, besides providing an environment “safe for kiosking”, SteadyState also provides a good configuration for testing software in.  A lot of software needs access to local hardware and can’t be run in virtual machines – things like check scanning devices or special identification peripherals.  Imagine being able to test the installation of software on actual hardware – instead of virtual machines – and simply reset the machine once finished.

DOWNLOAD: (6.4MB)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d077a52d-93e9-4b02-bd95-9d770ccdb431&displaylang=en&tm

WEB SITE:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/worldwide.mspx

NEWSGROUP:
http://forums.microsoft.com/windowstoolsandutilities/default.aspx?siteid=69

DOCUMENTATION:

• Windows SteadyState 2.5 Installation Checklist
  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/install/default.mspx
• Windows SteadyState 2.5 Handbook
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F829BB8B-C7A9-426B-A7A4-2B504A6238D2&displaylang=en
• Windows SteadyState 2.5 Technical FAQ
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D130662-C084-4356-906F-426BC814582A&displaylang=en

On June 10, 2008, at TechEd USA, Microsoft announced the availability of Beta 3 for Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) “2”, which dramatically changes the identity management landscape by delivering powerful self-service capabilities via Office for end-users, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for IT professionals and .NET and WS-* based extensibility for developers.  

ILM “2” delivers agility and efficiency through integration, automation and self-service; and increasing security and compliance through tools for policy management and easier deployment and management of strong credentials such as smart cards and OTP devices. 

To learn more, please visit the ILM “2” Beta 3 page for content such as a whitepaper, a webcast or a podcast, or download the beta by visiting Microsoft Connect, scrolling down and selecting Identity Lifecycle Manager “2” Beta 3.  There, you will find additional resources to help you get hands on experience with the product.

We’re excited about this milestone, and hope you will take the opportunity to help us make ILM “2” a great success!

<stolen from the NetMon blog>
I’m excited to announce that the Network Monitor 3.2 Beta has released. There are some exiting new features listed below of which many I have already spoken about in this blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/netmon/archive/2007/12/28/santa-s-bag-was-full.aspx

One feature I didn’t mention is our new capture buffer to avoid dropping frames. After adding our drop frames counter, we found out under certain busy situations it would go above zero and we just couldn’t have that. We now buffer the frames before parsing and displaying them. While this does add some complexities to capturing, it insures that packets are more reliably captured which is obviously very important. I will blog about this feature specifically, but I wanted to call it out here.

Where are the bits?
As usual we are hosting our beta at http://connect.microsoft.com under the Network Monitor 3 Project. If you are already signed up, you should have it listed on the main page. If not, look for the project and join up with us to help us find bugs. There is also a web page forum front end to our newsgroup if you need to get support or ask general questions.

What’s New since Netmon 3.1

• Process Tracking: View all the processes on your machine generating network traffic (process name and PID).  Use the conversation tree to view frames associated with each process.
• PCAP capture file support*
• Capture engine re-architecture to improve capture rate in high-speed networks.   Network Monitor 3.2 drops significantly fewer frames that NM3.1
• Extensive parser set:  Parsers for over 300 protocols!  Parsers for the protocols covered by the Windows Open Protocol Specifications (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216517.aspx).
• NM API: Create your own applications that capture, parser and analyze network traffic!
• Find conversations:  Quickly isolate frames in the same network conversation.  Isolate TCP streams, HTTP flows etc.
• Better parser management:  By default only a subset of parsers are loaded.  You can load the full parser set by changing the parser search order in Tools>Options>Parser
• Support for frame truncation.  Go to Tools>Options and limit the number of bytes captured per frame to improve performance.
• More extensive documentation of the NPL which includes documentation on the new NMAPI.  Access the documentation from Help > NPL and API Documentation
• Enhanced filtering on items within NPL while loops or arrays.  You can specify an index into the array or while loop to filter on
• IA64 version now available.
• ContainsBin Plug-in:  Search frames for arbitrary byte sequences or strings. For example, ContainsBin(FrameData, ASCII, “msn”).



• More UI indications of conversation status, dropped frames and the number of frames in the capture buffer.

… and more.  See our Release Notes in the NM3.2 installation directory for a complete list of new features and known issues with the Beta.

Enjoy!

The Network Monitor Team

(or “A Quick Guide to Obtaining Electrical Rebates from SoCal Edison using Microsoft SCCM2007”)

UNITED STATES ELECTRICAL REBATE PROGRAMS
Many utility companies throughout the US have rebate programs for companies that reduce the power they use per desktop. (Here’s a list in case you’re interested in seeing other geographies other than Southern California)

For example, in Southern California, Southern California Edison (SCE) specifically has an initiative called the “Express Efficiency Program” that offers energy efficiency-related incentives for non-residential customers regardless of size and energy usage. Of importance is the fact that rebates for office technologies such as desktop computers are available.

Applicants need to complete the necessary forms on the SCE website – see below link. The rebate specifically for PC Network Software is $15 – however my understanding is that this requires centralized measurement per machine of how much power is saved. (i.e. guesstimates and averages per PC don’t cut it – the software has to be designed for this explicit purpose & reporting) In any case, these rebates are available on a first-come-first-served basis because apparently only a certain amount of cash is set aside for this at SCE.

• Express Efficiency Program Description & Overview:
  http://www.sce.com/RebatesandSavings/LargeBusiness/ExpressEfficiency/default.htm
• Express Efficiency Program Guide (Detailed documentation)
  http://www.sce.com/NR/rdonlyres/B5DC3FB2-6187-41BB-A2AA-A3D1504205E0/0/ExpressEfficiencyProgramGuideV23_091207.pdf
• Rebate Form:
  http://www.sce.com/NR/rdonlyres/9857354C-FC19-4BAC-BC46-4DAE34C30DB0/0/2008EdisonAppForms_013108.pdf
• To schedule an appointment with SCE:
  (800) 736-4777

Page 6 of the rebate form has the entry for a $15 per PC Network Software rebate

POWER MANAGEMENT & INSTRUMENTATION SOFTWARE
There are a number of products that integrate with SMS/SCCM to provide automated power management to minimize power utilization of systems.

For example, SCCMExpert’s product “Novaprise SMS Companion 3.0” not only integrates with your existing SCCM2007 infrastructure and provides power management capabilities (not to mention solving the Magic Packet relay problem) but it also produces reports on power utilization that are necessary to report back to SCE to maintain your rebate. “SMS Companion” is around $7-$8/desktop.

1e’s products Nightwatchman & WakeUp does a similar group of responsibilities and 1e certainly has been one of the longest standing SMS partners with Microsoft, however I know less information about their technologies.

• Novaprise SMS Companion 3.0 – Advanced Scheduling and Power Management for SMS / SCCM
  Price: $7-$8/desktop
  http://www.sccmexpert.com/Products/Companion.aspx
• 1e NightWatchman & WakeUp – Automated system wake up & shutdown
  Price: ~$15/desktop 
  (with volume discounting on pricing of 11.99GBP/desktop)
  http://www.1e.com/softwareproducts/nightwatchman/index.aspx

WARNING: The customer will need to contact SCE and schedule an appointment to verify that your implementation of Power Management qualifies and is in compliance with their requirements for the rebate. They’ll also need to make sure that there’s money left for the rebate because it is, like I said before, first-come-first-served and there’s a limited amount of rebate distributed to customers.

THE DISPARITY BETWEEN $15 REBATES vs $7 COSTS?
You will notice that there is a disparity between the cost associated with the software and the actual rebate attained. If you recognized this as a positive monetary return on investment at day 1, you’d be correct.

In addition to:

• The corporate PR benefits of the company “going green” & reducing the organizations carbon footprint
• The hard cost savings of using less electricity
• The exposure & recognition of IT as a strategic asset for the company
• The good feeling of knowing the company’s being environmentally friendly & “doing the right thing”

…there is effectively a profit of $7-$8 per desktop to be had making this project a ‘profit center’ for the company.  Yes, I realize that there are soft costs associated with a project like this however if the architecture for SMS/SCCM is already in place, most of that work has already been done making this project “ready to go”.

Holy crap!  How did I miss this?!?

PowerShell Scriptomatic is a utility that makes it easy to create WMI scripts using Windows PowerShell.  It was apparently (quietly) released last month and is incredibly useful in producing script code for what would otherwise be the laborious task of figuring out and hooking into WMI.

Look – this is how it works.  First, Powershell Scriptomatic conveniently gives you a listing of available WMI namespaces (aspects of your Windows environment) that you can access.  You select the WMI Namespace you want to access using the drop down box.

Then the next drop down list box is automatically populated with ‘classes’ from the particular namespace that you selected, making is easy for you to know what you have access to in that namespace.  You select the WMI Class (memory, CDROM drive, battery, etc) from that particular namespace:

And WALLA!  Instantly, Scriptomatic produces script code that allows you to access that part of WMI.  You didn’t have to look anything up, and you didn’t have to type anything in to generate that code.  It’s properly formatted and there aren’t any errors from your crappy typing.

Good stuff!

OVERVIEW:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/tools/psomatic.mspx

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d87daf50-e487-4b0b-995c-f36a2855016e&displaylang=en

Frank Koch, from Microsoft Switzerland put together two “books” on Windows PowerShell and I must say, I’m really impressed.  They’re both free for download in a single package and are quite thorough for the beginning script writer.

The first is a primarily and introduction to scripting using Powershell.  It’s 44 pages long and makes for a good primer.

The second is specifically targeted at the Server Administrator – learning how to automate mundane tasks and control, through scripts, how things are done.

Something that Frank did was include actual “exercises” for people to run through.  So you’re not just reading and hacking away at the keyboard and experimenting:  He gives you some sample files to work with and learn from.

• BOOK 1:  Introduction to Windows PowerShell for “people with no real background knowledge of scripting”
• BOOK 2:  Administrative Tasks using Windows PowerShell – Server Administration

DOWNLOAD:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/7/1/47104ec6-410d-4492-890b-2a34900c9df2/Workshops-EN.zip

FRANK’S TECHNET BLOG:
http://blogs.technet.com/chitpro-de/archive/2008/02/28/free-windows-powershell-workbook-server-administration.aspx

MORE ON POWERSHELL @ THE SCRIPT CENTER:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx

There’s a whitepaper published online that 6 pages long that goes through 10 things that you an do with Powershell that people might find cool.

Some of the things I agree with, others just seem a little weak sauce.  Nonetheless, it’s a free download and worth checking out.

1. Report All of the USB Devices installed
2. Perform your favorite CMD tasks
3. Kill a Process
4. Use PSDrive to view the registry
5. Export NTFS folder permissions
6. …

DOWNLOAD:
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tr/downloads/home/dl_10_cool_things_powershell.pdf