Core OS

This will be much easier to deploy once Windows 2008 is more widespread, and don't confuse Windows Deployment Services (WDS) with Windows Desktop Search (WDS), because they are not the same thing. Unfortunately the buzzword bingo namespace has a collision with these two technologies.

Windows Desktop Search is famous the past few days for the unfortunate WSUS incident.

WDS, in deployment terms, is the updated/revamped/retooled RIS of Windows 2000. Wait, don't run away screaming yet, because WDS actually scales well and is an image based deployment technology. If you have installed Vista, you have used WDS without even knowing it.

With Server 2008 around the corner, WDS gains multicast support, which is very handy for blasting out images across a network to any properly configured client that is listening. I know, Ghost and other programs have had this for a long time, but it is nice to see this as a built-in feature. I am hoping that this catches on in a big way and finally retires most of the network switches and routers out there that fall over once multicast packets hit the wire. I've seen way too many no-name/OEM network infrastructure components lock up in the past with multicast traffic.

You can use WDS today with Windows 2003 SP1/SP2 and start migrating off your RIS infrastructure, if you have one. There is a very nice step-by-step guide from the Server Core team here that shows you how to get it up and running today.

Want to get a head start on Microsoft Deployment (the renamed BDD), Windows 2008, and the chosen deployment method for Compute Cluster 2003 SP1? Learn WDS inside and out. It seems to be getting used in more and more products as time goes on.

I've been absent for a bit for various reasons, some good, some bad, but in the meantime, BDD Development 4 became Microsoft Deployment. It is at RC1 level now. You can read more about it here.

Multicast WDS support - sounds very Windows 2008-esque.

Just in case anyone runs into this out in the field, because it can be a bit puzzling until you read KB article 923218.

Previously, if you had SNMP Status enabled for the printer in question, with 2000/2003 RTM/SP1, and the printer never responded to the SNMP request, it still listed the printer as Online.

If the printer is not listening for SNMP traffic *or* a firewall is in the way, the printer will get marked as Offline even though it will happily take requests from any other non-SP2 print spooler.

It isn’t terribly well documented, but it has bitten some people with their remote printers. Most people end up rolling back to SP1, but you don’t need to if you configure your servers and printers correctly!

Simple fix: Either enable SNMP on the printer and make sure you can snmpwalk the printer from the print server, or uncheck the SNMP Status for the printer on the SP2 print server.

Related links: here and here.

You can sum it up as:
PDANet (any version) plus Motorola Q plus Vista SP1 beta = failure after 10 seconds.

Very interesting problem that I have been fighting for a week or two.

I suspect there is something in SP1 (maybe related to SSTP or NAP?) that the PPP servers at Verizon do not like. I've even changed around all the normal PDANet PPP settings to not use LCP extensions and other settings but this always remains the same:

I can get a connection and browse with PDANet 1.80 and Vista SP1 for about 10 seconds and then the connection drops and disconnects rather harshly.

Rollback to RTM Vista and it works fine.

I've even disabled the SSTP IP Helper in Device Manager, no go.

For now when I am on the road and without a net connection, I've been booting up an XP SP3 virtual machine in VMWare using the USB-passthru and connecting that way. I use a loopback adapter on Vista that makes the host machine a client of the XP VM's ICS. It is a very esoteric setup I will admit, but I at least can get some network connectivity to my Vista host machine this way.

XP SP3 should be noted - it makes me think the SSTP/NAP stuff might not be the overall issue causing the connection failures.

Has anyone else seen this or have a work around?

If you've downloaded KB 941649 previously and did not experience any issues, you don't need v2.
If you had Serial ATA/AHCI issues, typically in combination with optical drives, with the original KB 941649, grab v2 and give it a try.

Technical differences between the two
This package has been updated to version 2. An issue was identified in which certain computers that have specific combinations of older AHCI USB chipsets and CD or DVD drives that use the SerialATA interconnection bus may not start after the installation of the original version of this package. Version 2 of this package has removed the fix that caused this problem. If you are using a computer that experienced this issue, you can restart the computer by using a bootable Windows Vista DVD and by selecting the Repair/System Recovery options. If your computer has already installed the original version of this update and has successfully restarted, you do not have to install version 2 of this update.

By the way, unrelated to this, Service Pack 1 for Vista will include all of these fixes, and boot time, at least for my test boxes with early versions of SP1, is dramatically sped up. Ditto for the duration between entering your user credentials and getting a usable desktop.

The following languages shipped out this week:
Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

You can read more about the announcement here.

Translating program code for various countries can be very tricky. You always have to worry about slang terms and other potentially embarrassing mix ups, so it doesn't surprise me that it took this long.

I am hoping, and have been promised, more Windows Ultimate Extras in the future. It is a sore spot with many users that MS is very aware of.

I spotted this over at NeoWin and will be giving it a whirl sometime soon. Very cool concept, I am just not sure how efficient it is. The homepage is located here.

Now Microsoft just needs to do something like this for Live SkyDrive and I will be a happy camper.

I'm back in Michigan for a week so hopefully I'll be posting more again. I have a lot to catch up on.

2007 seems to be the year of the Best Practice Analyzer. Exchange was the first that I am aware of, and ever since then, they have released more BPAs for other products.

This one has been needed for a long time because I've been called into fix many improperly configured SBS boxes in my day, dating back to SBS 2000. SBS servers only used for file and print services, but everything is installed and running? Yep, I've seen it.

Anyway, here is the description of the new SBS tool:
The Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Analyzer examines a server that is running Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Windows SBS) and presents a list of information and errors that administrators should review.

A great tool for any SBS'r.

The Terminal Services NAP client configuration command (Tsgqecclientconfig.cmd) helps configure Terminal Services clients as NAP enforcement clients for TS Gateway.

This command performs the following tasks to configure the Terminal Services client as a NAP enforcement client for TS Gateway:

1. Adds the TS Gateway server name that you specify to the list of trusted TS Gateway servers on the client.

2. Starts the Network Access Protection Agent service and sets the service startup type to Automatic.

3. Enables the TS Gateway Quarantine Enforcement client.

Note: You will need to rename the file from .txt to .cmd for it to work.

This past week I spent some time in Redmond sitting down with various Microsoft PMs and developers. All in all, a very cool experience for anyone that has a chance to do so.

99% of what was discussed I can't talk about or else the Microsoft lawyer SWAT team will come after me. I can say that I was amazed how open, honest and passionate everyone was. Even if it wasn't positive at times, everyone was open to questions and feedback from the group.

The Home Server group were especially gracious and rather comedic at times, and so was Jeff Sigman of the NAP team.

Thanks again to everyone who hosted the event. Wendy, Jessep, Patrick and everyone else pulled out all the stops to make us feel welcome and occupied. Needless to say, I can't wait to go again next year. It was also great to meet up with some familiar faces from the 2004 R2 trip.

I'll be out here a few more days working on stuff you will see on Microsoft.com in the future, if things go as planned!

After an install or an upgrade of Windows Live OneCare, the antivirus and spyware component may not start properly. Users are shown a red action item entitled: "Urgent, Contact Help Center - OneCare virus and spyware protection encountered a problem and cannot start".

This tool will attempt to repair the virus and spyware protection component of OneCare on this computer.

This download includes updated Group Policy Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool OPA files for use with the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs; an \Admin folder with an updated Office Customization Tool; and ADMX and ADML versions of the 2007 Microsoft Office system Administrative Template files for Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

Download virtualization cookbooks to help you deploy solutions today.

Cookbooks offered:
Backup and Recovery using Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 and Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Edition

Branch Office - System Center Virtual Machine Manager with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

High Availability with Virtual Server Host Clustering

Hosted Backup - System Center DPM 2007 with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

Offsite Backup - System Center DPM 2007 with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP 1

Onsite Backup - System Center DPM 2007 with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP 1

System Center DPM 2007 with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP 1 and System Center VMM

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 with System Center VMM

Mobile User Access of Applications - Terminal Server running on virtual machines using Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP 1

Quick Migration with Virtual Server Host Clustering on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP 1

Download them here.

Virtual Machine Manager Configuration Analyzer (VMMCA) is a diagnostic tool that verifies configuration settings and minimum system requirements for your computer that are important to running Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM). VMMCA scans your environment and reports common configuration issues and suggests best practices. You can run VMMCA before or after installing VMM.

Note: Runs on 64-bit only, but can scan 32-bit and 64-bit computers.

Download it here.

Exam 71-400: TS: Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager, Configuring
Registration begins: October 4, 2007
Beta exam period runs: October 4, 2007– October 26, 2007
Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: TSCCM

The promo code makes it free, except for your time.

Read more about it on Trika's blog here.