windows – TechVirtuoso

Russia planning to create ‘Windows rival’

October 27th, 2010 at 6:13 PM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

Remember back in 2000 when Steve Ballmer called Linux communist? Turns out it’s not that far from the truth.

Russia plans to break it’s dependence on Microsoft technology and revamp its computer services with a Windows rival, to better monitor computer security. According to Russian lawmaker Ilia Ponomarev, the state has committed 150 million rubles (3.5 million euros, 4.9 million dollars) to develop a new operating system based on Linux.

By monitoring computer security, maybe what they mean is better monitor all the Russian anti-government groups who recently got a free pass by Microsoft to use as much of their software as they want. The government had been arresting members and shutting down these groups for “anti-piracy enforcement” but Microsoft reaffirmed it’s commitment to provide non-profit NGOs in Russia with it for free.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 get RC of SP1

October 26th, 2010 at 8:41 PM No Comments Michael Stanclift

Microsoft has unleashed the release candidate bits to Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Since they’re both based on the same kernel and code base they get most of their major patches together.

Weighing in at 514MB for the 32-bit version and 865MB for 64-bit, these are not light updates. It includes all hotfixes and patches released in the last year. You also have the option of installing a small patch to tell Windows Update to automagically do the downloading for you, but the effect on your Internet connection will be the same.

A couple of new features introduced in Service Pack 1 include:

RemoteFX introduces a new set of remote user experience capabilities that enable a media-rich user environment for virtual and session-based desktops. RemoteFX can be deployed to a range of thick and thin client devices, enabling cost-effective, local-like access to graphics-intensive applications. RemoteFX also supports a broad array of USB peripherals to improve the productivity of users of virtual desktops.

SP1 also includes Dynamic Memory, which enables servers running Hyper-V for server virtualization, to be more efficient in the use of memory. Dynamic Memory pools and distributes memory among the virtual machines running on a physical host, enabling higher consolidation ratios, increasing server utilization rates, and providing more flexible workload management.

It’s not recommended to run the RC on production systems, as you have to uninstall it prior to installing the final version and that just makes your system all kinds of unhappy. The final bits should be released in first quarter 2011.

via Windows Server Division Weblog

Apple posts DOS emulator to App Store, promptly pulls

October 26th, 2010 at 3:53 PM 2 Comments Michael Stanclift

For a brief moment in time today, Apple allowed an app called iDOS through their approval gauntlet and into the walled garden of the iTunes App Store. Problem is, the App Store doesn’t allow emulators. As such it was promptly removed. If you were lucky enough to grab it for just under a buck, you can now use your non-jailbroken iPhone to run DOS.

Why would you want to run a 30 year old text based operating system on your fancy new iPhone/iPad/iPod? Why not?

As it is, there have already been a few tweets across the Internet of people installing Windows inside their DOS box, and playing old school games.

(more…)

Melinda Gates: Only Zune for you!

October 26th, 2010 at 9:44 AM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

It seems like this was news last year (it was) but in an interview with The New York Times, Melinda Gates confirmed that Apple products are forbidden in the Gates household. Want an iPod? Zune for you. Want an iPhone? How about a shiny HTC 7 Pro instead?

Do you own an iPod, which is made by Apple?
No, I have a Zune.

What if one of your children says, “Mom, I have to have an iPod?”
I have gotten that argument — “You may have a Zune.”

Do you have an iPad?
Of course not.

Is it true that Bill works on an Apple laptop?
False. Nothing crosses the threshold of our doorstep.

Isn’t there room in this world for both Apple and Microsoft?
Microsoft certainly makes products for the Macintosh. Go talk to Bill.

Also, if you were concerned for Bill’s mental health with the news that he’s no longer the richest man in the world (partly because he’s giving most of his fortune away, and partly because Microsoft’s stock has gone south) you have no reason to worry. The only person it really bothers is his daughter.

By the way, I see he fell this year back to No. 2 on the list of the world’s wealthiest people. How did he feel when the Mexican businessman Carlos Slim overtook him?
The only person that teases him about that is our youngest daughter, our 8-year-old. He couldn’t care less.

Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac released in beta

October 25th, 2010 at 8:17 PM 2 Comments Michael Stanclift

Microsoft has delivered on a promise to allow Mac OS X users to sync their Windows Phone 7 devices today by releasing the beta of the Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac. This software will sync your WP7 device with your iTunes and iPhoto library, using Apple’s public APIs. According to Tom Warren at Winrumors, Microsoft did not need to consult with Apple in order to implement the connector. Here’s to hoping Apple doesn’t find a way to break it just because. Hopefully Microsoft will deliver a full blown Zune client for Mac users in the future.

The connector requires at least OS X 10.5. You can download the beta, weighing in at a light 1.5MB, directly from Microsoft’s website.

via winrumors.com

Windows Phone 7 going CDMA sooner than expected?

October 25th, 2010 at 7:49 PM 3 Comments Michael Stanclift

From the good people at Engadget:

So, here’s what we know: a Windows Phone from HTC just earned its FCC wings, it’s production (meaning non-prototype) hardware… and it’s a CDMA device. … Anyhow, if we had to guess, this is probably the tilt-sliding HTC 7 Pro, seeing how that’s the only CDMA Windows Phone 7 device to bow so far, equipped with 802.11b / g / n alongside Bluetooth + EDR. Sprint, let’s make this happen.

Microsoft had originally said that Windows Phone 7 would be GSM only at first. Hopefully this will mean a change of heart and that our Sprint and Verizon friends will get their hands on Windows Phone 7 sooner then expected.

Two great tools for the low/no budget sysadmin

April 7th, 2010 at 11:30 AM 4 Comments Michael Stanclift

We all know how in our struggling economy, finding effective tools that help us do our jobs, and not breaking our shrinking budgets, is getting harder and harder. A fellow in Ireland by the name of Dan Cunningham (his website is here, follow him on Twitter here), who just happened to post in post in the comments of our previous articles, has written two very excellent looking tools for the low/no budget systems administrator. Both of these will be going straight into production in my office ASAP.

Dan also has some useful tools for encoding video content on his blog, both of which are worth taking a look at.

Workstation Migration Assistant

wma_main The Workstation Migration Assistant is a visual wrapper for Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool, designed to simplify the capture / restore process for your end-users, and at the same time being highly configurable so that it can be customised to suit your organisations needs.

Some of it’s features include:

Migrate via a pre-defined network storage location, external USB drive, or user-specified location. USB drive detection is automatic, and you can decide whether drives below a certain size are ignored (ie, memory sticks)
Optional Hard Disk Health Check will run a CHKDSK prior to capture and fix errors if any are found
Optional Encryption using a pre-defined company encryption key, or per-user customised encryption (for highly sensitive data that can’t be stored on a server without being encrypted)
Use different configurations for “XP Only” (XP > XP) migrations via Standard (XP > Vista and Vista > Vista)
Automatically run pre and post-capture / restore scripts and programs (very useful to further configure machine settings)
Migrate domain only accounts, or domain and local
Automatically exclude certain domain or local accounts from the migration
Automatically send log files to an e-mail address via SMTP after the migration
On-screen status during every stage of the migration, including ETA
Option to limit migrations to a certain size, i.e. if over 20GB of data to backup, then fail and inform user. This is also overridable
Automatic checks for USMT installation and optional download
Command-line automation

It requires .NET Framework 2.0 on both the capture and target machines | Download

Software Compliance Tool

The Software Compliance Tool is a small application designed to reduce the overhead in managing unwanted applications in a business environment. While Windows Vista and Windows 7 have made a lot of headway in easing reduced user rights into the Enterprise, it’s still very common that Local Administrator rights are given to end users. The reasoning for this is usually to work around application compatibility (both external and in-house). However, this introduces the ability for end users to install whatever they want on their computers, including games, peer-to-peer software and security vulnerable applications. It is the company’s responsibility to ensure that copyrights are not infringed, and that their network is secure.

The Software Compliance Tool will try to automatically remove any applications which are contained on your custom-built “blacklisted applications” policy.

Some of the features include:

Can automatically remove most Windows Installer (MSI) based installations
Uninstall Strings for non MSI-based installs can be supplemented with switches (ie, “/S” for silent)
Blacklist allows partial name matches (ie, “Mozilla” will blacklist all Mozilla applications)
Blacklist allows version matches (ie, allow all versions greater than v1.6.5, remove all previous versions)
Blacklist, but allow exclusions based on Active Directory Users or Groups
Blacklist policy is encrypted to prevent tampering or reading by users
AD Exclusions list is cached and encrypted, to allow running SCT off-domain
Simple SQL logging to allow tracking of policy breaches (and potentially further action for repeated breaches)
Extremely fast execution. Can be run from your Active Director login scripts

It requires .NET 3.5 to run, and must be run as a local administrator to successfully uninstall applications. | Download

TV Guide for April 7

April 7th, 2010 at 11:15 AM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

The folks over at the ISO group are none too happy with Microsoft’s implementation of the OOXML document specification in the upcoming version of Microsoft Office 2010. Due to delays in the final approval and recent changes to the strict specification, Microsoft was not able to include full support for creating new OOXML documents in 2010, and will only include transitional support. However, Redmond has stated that they intend to have full support for the creation of OOXML-Strict documents by the next version of office… what is not clear is if that means Office 2010 will be patched for full support or it will not be 2010 at all and users will need to wait until Office “15” for support.

Microsoft has released MED-V 1.0 SP1 and App-V 4.6. The big update to MED-V is full support for 32-bit & 64-bit Windows 7 hosts, but it also includes support for Japanese versions of Windows. Chances to App-V are mostly centered around language support. MED-V is an enterprise desktop virtualization management system that allows administrators to deploy and control Windows XP or Windows 2000 deployments running inside Windows 7 or Windows Vista host operating systems.

For all five of our readers with a Zune HD, you’ll be happy to know the Zune 4.5 firmware was released last week. It features an new Smart DJ mix with personalized recommendations, Zune Marketplace for TV, and better video codec support. Microsoft will also be releasing a new Zune HD 64GB model soon. To get the update, plug it in and sync with the Zune software on your desktop.

For all five of our readers running Windows Server on Itanium processors, you’ll be disappointed to know that after Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft will no longer be releasing versions for Itanium processors, and will focus on the x64 platform going forward. There was no 2008 R2 version released for 32-bit processors, either. Microsoft will no longer develop other software for Itanium, and SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 are also the last versions to support it. Mainstream support for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems (and R2) will end, in accordance with that policy, on July 9, 2013, while extended support will continue until July 10, 2018. That’s roughly eight more years of support.

Just so that our entire update isn’t focused on Microsoft today… If you’ve been living under a rock since last week, we just wanted to remind you that the iPad came out on Saturday. It’s magical, especially when you watch Harry Potter on it.

Why lazy sysadmins and IE 6 make the net unsafe

January 16th, 2010 at 11:14 AM 3 Comments Michael Stanclift

The number of businesses still using Internet Explorer 6 is painful to see. Coupled with the fact that all of them are on Windows XP or Windows 2000, it turns from pain into terror, especially when it comes to security.

For a lot of system administrators, the reasons to stay outweigh the reasons to upgrade. Websites that break, plugins that won’t load, old software that isn’t updated anymore. Trust me, I’ve been there. However, a lot of it boils down to lazy and poor practices of system administration.

Yes, you’re lazy and you’re bad at your job. Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001. Yes, 2001, most of us don’t even drive cars that old, let alone unleash people on the “information superhighway” with a browser that old. It was designed at a time when security was not the issue it is today. It was designed to work on operating systems like Windows 98 and Windows ME. Would you let people use Windows ME on your network? No! So why are you letting them use a browser that was built for it?! (more…)

End of life for Windows 2000 is coming sooner then you think

January 15th, 2010 at 5:57 PM No Comments Michael Stanclift

Just a reminder, Windows 2000 will reach it’s end of life in July. Microsoft has outlined July 13, 2010 as the date Windows 2000 will no longer be supported by Microsoft. There are already a variety of security threats in the wild where Microsoft has said they will not be releasing updates to protect Windows 2000 because they say it is not feasible. After next July, no support or new updates (except for online self-help) will be available.

In a related bit of news, Microsoft is addressing an issue latest Forefront antimalware client update won’t install on Windows 2000 when the installation is run via Automatic Updates. When this issue occurs, the update uninstalls the previous version of the antimalware client, and then tries to install the new version and fails, leaving the system without the antimalware service. Microsoft’s published workarounds are to decline the updates for Windows 2000 systems (976669 is the FCS slipstream client) and make sure that the previous FCS antimalware updates are approved (971026 and original FCS client), or run the install interactively as a logged on user.

My workaround… stop using a 11 year old operating system and upgrade to at least Windows 2003.

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