Windows OS

Transcript from the 9/24/2008 Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable, "Under the Hood: Windows Vista Performance...Need Answers?" hosted by Mark Russinovich. From boot times and applets to common "misconfigurations" and how to fix them. Mark and a panel of customer IT pros and subject matter experts discuss how to optimize Windows Vista and what IT pros can do to improve overall system performance.

I helped out on this webcast in Redmond and answered many questions behind the scenes during the actual event. Transcripts are now available for download of the RoundTable.

If you want to see a replay of the video/event, go to this Technet page here, or enter this address into your Windows Media Player or any other player than can handle mms:// links with streaming .WMV content.

I don't know if this is considered a 'backdoor' or not, but it has worked with every KB article I have tried it on so far.

Most of the time, if a KB article is available to the public, there will be a "Hotfix Download Available -
View and request hotfix downloads" message on the top of the screen like this:


If you have a particular KB article that you want to download, and the image above seems to be missing, try this link in your web browser:

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=[KBnumber]&kbln=[KB language]

Replace [KBnumber] with the number of the hotfix you want, and replace [KB language] with your build language.

For instance, requesting KB 940848 for US English, would look like this:

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=940848&kbln=en-us

If someone wanted to, you could create a little Javascript applet to ask for the language and KB article, and auto-generate the above link.

Update: As pointed out in the comments section, someone beat me to writing up a Javascript-esque script for automating the request process. It is called Hotfixr. Much like Flickr. We seem to be losing vowels on the Internet.

Your one stop for MMC 3.0 updates can be found in KB 940848. It is especially important for SCCM deployments because earlier versions had a knack for crashing your console without warning.

It is available for XP, Server 2003 and Vista.

You can download the update here.

There is nothing noteworthy in the KB article just yet, but keep it bookmarked to stay informed on the upcoming releases. Because Server 2008 and Vista SP1 are "built from the same tree" (for the most part), it makes sense that they will have a combined release.

Check out the article here.

Windows Server 2008 File Services

This guide provides the basic building blocks upon which many other infrastructure services are based. Enjoy peace of mind in knowing that all critical phases of the plan are included, allowing you to establish a good foundation for future expansion.

Windows Server 2008 Print Services

The goal of this guide is to enable you to strategically plan your print infrastructure. By analyzing your printing needs, you will be able to design print servers with sufficient memory and spooler capacity. Efficiently designing printer pools can help you avoid problems before they begin, erase performance bottlenecks, and serve your customers more reliably.

Originally spotted on Kevin Remde's excellent blog, here.