Windows Server - Technology

Internet Explorer 8 slow TAB opening after installing Java

Richard — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:32:00 GMT

I got slow tab opening in IE8 after installing the new Java to my Windows 7.
The soluton is:

Open IE8 -> Goto- Tools->Manage Add-ons-> higlight "Java Plug-In's SSV Helper 2" -> Disable it.

Win7 Overview of Key Features by SKU

Richard — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:38:00 GMT

Key Features	Windows® 7 Starter	Windows® 7 Home Basic (EM only)	Windows® 7 Home Premium	Windows ® 7 Professional	Windows® 7 Enterprise/ Windows® 7 Ultimate
Windows® Taskbar & Jump Lists	√	√	√	√	√
Windows® Search	√	√	√	√	√
Join a HomeGroup	√	√	√	√	√
Windows Media® Player	√	√	√	√	√
Backup and Restore	√	√	√	√	√
Enhanced Media Playback	√	√	√	√	√
Action Center	√	√	√	√	√
Device Stage™	√	√	√	√	√
Home media streaming, including Play To	√	√	√	√	√
Bluetooth Support	√	√	√	√	√
Fax and Scan	√	√	√	√	√
Basic games including Solitaire and Minesweeper	√	√	√	√	√
Credentials Manager	√	√	√	√	√
Personalization Support		√	√	√	√
Live Taskbar Thumbnails		√	√	√	√
Switch between users without having to log in and out		√	√	√	√
Connect to other PCs in your vicinity without a network access device		√	√	√	√
Use your PC’s internet connection to allow the other PCs in your home to connect without a router		√	√	√	√
Location and Other Sensors		√	√	√	√
Multi Monitor Support (screen extension)		√	√	√	√
Windows Mobility Center (w/o presentation settings) *		√	√	√	√
Aero® Glass & simpler window navigation			√	√	√
Aero® Background			√	√	√
Windows® Touch			√	√	√
Create a HomeGroup			√	√	√
Windows® Media Center			√	√	√
Create and Play DVDs			√	√	√
Remote Media Streaming**			√	√	√
Premium games including Chess Titans and Internet Backgammon			√	√	√
Snipping Tool, Sticky Notes, Windows® Journal			√	√	√
Windows® Sideshow (Auxiliary Display)			√	√	√
Windows XP Mode: Run many existing Windows XP programs seamlessly in Windows 7				√	√
Location Aware Printing				√	√
Join a Domain & Group Policy Controls				√	√
Remote Desktop Host				√	√
Advanced Backup and Restore (Network & Group Policy)				√	√
Encrypting File System				√	√
Windows® Mobility Center* (with Presentation Mode )				√	√
Offline Folders				√	√
BitLocker™ & BitLocker To Go™					√
AppLocker™					√
DirectAccess					√
BranchCache™					√
Multilingual User Interface Packs					√
Enterprise Search Scopes					√
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Enhancements^					√
Direct Boot from VHD					√

Windows 7 RTM Download time

Richard — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:41:00 GMT

ISV (Independent software vendor) and IHV (Independent hardware vendor) Partners will be able to download Windows 7 RTM from Microsoft Connect or MSDN on August 6th.

Microsoft Partner Program Gold/Certified Members will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English through the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) Portal on August 16th. By October 1st, the remaining languages will become available to download.

Microsoft Action Pack Subscribers will be about to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 23rd. By October 1st, the remaining languages will become available to download.

OEMs will receive Windows 7 RTM software images beginning approximately 2 days after we officially RTM, as a little time is required to release and distribute these images.

Volume License (VL) customer with an existing Software Assurance (SA) license you will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English starting August 7th via the Volume License Service Center (VLSC). The rest of the languages for Windows 7 RTM should be available within a couple of weeks after that.

Volume License customers without a SA license will be able to purchase Windows 7 through Volume Licensing on September 1st as we announced last week at WPC09.

IT Professionals with TechNet Subscriptions will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English on August 6th and remaining languages by October 1st.

Developers with MSDN Subscriptions will be able to download Windows 7 RTM in English on August 6th and remaining languages by October 1st.

and last: Windows 7 will be in retail stores and shipping on new PCs starting October 22nd.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM'd!!!

Richard — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:22:00 GMT

It's real! Win7 and W2K8 R2 RTM'd!

Windows 7 Build 7600 appear on the net!

Richard — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:28:00 GMT

wooh! Is that RTM? How come the others on the internet can get more latest build than MVP?

New Windows Server 2008 R2 Build7268 appear on the internet..

Richard — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:12:00 GMT

New Windows Server 2008 R2 Build appear on the net..
I hope MS can make RTM avaliable to MVPs and Partner earlier so that we can test and give report on it.

Windows Server 2008 Licensing Information

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:47:00 GMT

As too many students asking me for the licensing information on WIndows Server 2008, I suggest all of you to take a look at the following link first:

Sites regarding Windows Server 2008 licensing.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/client-licensing.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303695.aspx

For licensing questions, I suggest contacting Microsoft Licensing Center for detailed explanation.

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/contact-us.aspx

For licensing questions, please call 1-800-426-9400 (select option 4), Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. (PST) to speak directly to a Microsoft licensing specialist.

Worldwide customers can use the Guide to Worldwide Microsoft Licensing Sites http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/index/worldwide.asp to find contact information in their locations.

“Respond to all (known and unknown) client computers” setting behaviour

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:30:00 GMT

If you select “Respond to all (known and unknown) client computers”, and check the box “For unknown clients, notify administrator and respond after approval”, the result is:

When PXE booting a client, it will wait for you to approve it. Click Pending Devices in the WDS console, right-click the pending devices in the right pane and click Approve. The client computer continues with the network boot operation and a computer account object is created in AD DS to represent the physical device. Press F12 on the client and boot into a boot image. Before loading install images, you will be prompted to enter a domain user account name and password. This domain user account does not need to belong to a domain administrator groups.

Configuring When DHCP is on the Same Server

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:57:00 GMT

Configuring When DHCP is on the Same Server

The method of communication between the booting client and the server uses data fields (known as options) in DHCP packets. The Windows Deployment Services solution for booting over the network works well in many configurations. It works well when Windows Deployment Services is located on the same physical computer or on a different physical computer than the DHCP server. However, the default installation is that Windows Deployment Services and a DCHP server (Microsoft or non-Microsoft) are located on different physical computers. In this scenario, no additional configuration steps are required for interoperability between Windows Deployment Services and the DHCP server.

However, if you are running Windows Deployment Services and DHCP on the same computer, in addition to configuring the server to not listen on port 67, you will need to use your DHCP tools to add Option 60 to their DHCP scopes. This allows booting clients to learn about the Windows Deployment Services PXE server from the DHCP response that is generated by the DHCP server. Setting DHCP option tag 60 has one side effect: clients booting from the network are always notified that the Windows Deployment Services PXE server is available, even if the server is not operational or has stopped. For instructions on configuring these options, see the DHCP section of How to Manage Your Server.

Note

There are some scenarios (particularly those that require running a DHCP server) that do not support adding custom DHCP option 60 on the same physical computer as the Windows Deployment Services server. In these circumstances, it is possible to configure the server to bind to UDP Port 67 in non-exclusive mode by passing the SO_REUSEADDR option. For more information, see Using SO_REUSEADDR and SO_EXCLUSIVEADDRUSE (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=82387).

If DHCP is installed on a server that is located in a different subnet, then you will need to do one of the following configure your IP Helper tables (recommended) or add DHCP options 66 and 67. For more information, see Managing Network Boot Programs.

And here are some procedures:

To configure Windows Deployment Services to run on the same computer as Microsoft DHCP


Right-click the server and click Properties. On the DHCP tab, select Do not listen on port 67 and Configure DHCP Option #60 Tag to PXEClient.

This procedure does the following:

Sets HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WDSServer\Parameters\UseDhcpPorts to 0.
Adds the option 60 PXEClient tag to all of your DHCP scopes.

To configure Windows Deployment Services to run on the same computer as non-Microsoft DHCP


Right-click the server and click Properties. On the DHCP tab, select the Do not listen on port 67. Use your DHCP server tools to set Option #60 Tag to PXEClient.

This procedure sets HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WDSServer\Parameters\UseDhcpPorts to 0.

WDS documentation link:

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:55:00 GMT

WDS in Windows Server 2003:

WDS 2003 Step by Step Guide - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=66145
Deploying and Managing the Windows Deployment Services Update on Windows Server 2003 - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=81031

WDS in Windows Server 2008

You can download this content at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=89381, or you can browse it using the following links:

WDS 2008 Step by Step Guide - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84628
Deployment content - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=81873
Technical Reference content - http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/80e4c10d-bb4b-4337-81dd-aa98fe6db7351033.mspx?mfr=true

Good articles on WDS Automating Setup and Sample Unattend Files

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:52:00 GMT

I found two useful articles from MS on WDS:

Automating Setup

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730695(WS.10).aspx

Sample Unattend Files

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732280(WS.10).aspx#Combined

Image group in Windows Deployment

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:49:00 GMT

An image group is a collection of .wim files that share common file resources and security. Servicing an image within an image group (such as applying a hotfix or a service pack or updating files) requires exclusive access to the entire image group. File resources are shared across the image group (single-instanced) even though the metadata of each image resides in a separate physical .wim file. Image groups contain two file types:

l Res.rwm. Contains the file streams for images as defined in Install.wim, Install2.wim, and WinXP.wim. Note that each image group has its own Res.rwm file.

l Install.wim. Contains image metadata that describes the content of an operating system image. The actual file resources for the image reside in Res.rwm.

Each image group will have a Res.rwm file created when the first image is added to the image group. All resources for all files reside in Res.rwm. The Res.rwm file is a .wim file that is renamed to differentiate the resource-only .wim file from the metadata .wim files and to speed up image enumeration. Because image enumeration only works on .wim files, the Res.rwm file will be skipped.

The .wim file format uses single-instancing technology, so the disk storage requirements for images within an image group are significantly reduced.

Problem on installing Windows Server 2008 on Dell Poweredge machine

Richard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:27:00 GMT

Just saw a soluton on installation problem when installing WIndows Server 2008 on Dell Poweeedge machine:

When you find the installation process stop and display the following error:

"windows could not update the computer's boot configuration"

Try:
First, if your Installation and Maintenance DVD isn't version 5.4, get that ISO and make your new DVD.
Second, when you use that disk to prepare your array for Windows 2008, do not install a utility partition!
Third, the installation that the disk does left you with a splash screen and it never moved beyond that, so I hit F11 on bootup and chose to boot from the Windows 2008 DVD.
Fourth, please also check the BIOS settings and see if the boot hard disk has been set to the proper hard disk. Besides, you can try turning off all the boot devices from the BIOS except for the CD/DVD and the hard drive and see how it goes. It is reported that similar issues may occur when some boot devices interfere the installation.

Windows 7 RC download link.

Richard — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Finally, it arrived on Technet download:

You can download the Windows 7 RC build from the Microsoft sites without a TechNet or MSDN subscription here.

Exchange 2007 new recipient / users not appear in GAL

Richard — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:46:00 GMT

The reason is Offline Address Book not being updated. By default, Exchange generates the Offline Address Book once a day at 5AM.
Besides, an Outlook 2007 client picks up the GAL entries using web distribution from the web based oab virtual directory. The OAB data is delivered to the directory every 8 hours by default.

To change this to 30 minutes, for example, use the following command:
Get-OABVirtualDirectory | Set-OabVirtualDirectory -PollInterval 30

To force a complete OAB update, you can use the following commands:

get-offlineaddressbook | update-offlineaddressbook

update-filedistributionservice %CAS server name%

Run the update-filedistributionservice command for each CAS server.
Of course Outlook 2007 cached-mode users still have to download the OAB again if they want the new information or simply wait 24 hours for it to happen automatically.

In Outlook:

- On the client go to Outlook 2003/2007 | Tools | Send/Receive | Download Address Book….
- Uncheck Download changes since last Send/Receive
- Make sure Download Full Details is checked
- Click OK, wait for the download to complete (depending on your bandwidth and size of OAL, this may be close to instant, or it may take a few minutes)
- Check if the user appears in the GAL

Windows 7 RC release in May?

Richard — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:12:00 GMT

Many internet blogs and websites stated Win7 RC will come out on May. Let's see!

IE 8 Release!

Richard — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:03:00 GMT

Download here:

http://www.microsoft.com/ie8

or

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx

Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager of the Internet Explorer, will be announcing the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8 at MIX09 in his keynote address on March 19. You can watch the keynote and other happenings live at MIX09 by visiting: http://live.visitmix.com/Default.aspx

Background

Internet Explorer 8 takes a big step forward in browser innovation focused on the way people use the web today. Faster, easier, safer and more reliable than ever before, Internet Explorer 8 is the best version of Internet Explorer we’ve released to date. For example, through Accelerators and Web Slices we are optimizing the browser experience by removing repetitive, time consuming actions, and Internet Explorer 8 offers protections against malware that are far superior to the protections in other browsers.

Some new features in Internet Explorer 8 include:

· Accelerators. Accelerators give people easy access to the online services they care about most from any page they visit and allow users to browse faster by eliminating most of the clicks required to access desired content and services.

· Web Slices. With Web Slices, people can see the information they want to see most often without going away from the page they are on. Appearing in the Favorite bar, users can identify Web Slices with updates when in bold and they can see a rich Web Slice visualization of their content with access back to the source Web page.

· Instant Search Box. The enhanced Instant Search Box in Internet Explorer 8 is more helpful, making it easier for people to find content of interest and increasing the relevancy of search results. As users type a search term, they can see real-time search suggestions, including images and rich text, from their chosen search provider.

· Smart Address Bar. Provides matches as the user types across History and Favorites searching against all parts of the URL string (and the page title) instead of just the beginning. Allows mistyped entries to be removed from the Address Bar.

· Enhanced Tabbed Browsing. Tabs are grouped and color-coded so people can quickly discern which are related. It is easy to group or ungroup tabs or reopen closed tabs.

· Performance improvements. We’ve reduced the time that people must wait when starting the browser, opening a “new tab” and loading a page.

· SmartScreen Filter. Built upon the Microsoft Phishing Filter, the SmartScreen Filter helps protect against a broader set of phishing threats and helps protect from sites that attempt to download malicious software. The SmartScreen Filter is now easier to use with enhanced user interface and warning messages to reduce users’ click-through to confirmed sites.

· Domain Highlighting. Internet Explorer 8 highlights the domain name of the URL string in the Address Bar in bold text, making it easier for people to tell which site they are on and aid them in identifying phishing sites and other deceptive sites. The domain name is in black, standing out from other characters in the URL, which are gray.

· Cross-Site Scripting filter. Helps protect users and systems from attacks that can lead to information disclosure, cookie stealing, account/identity theft or otherwise masquerading as the user without permission.

InPrivate. InPrivate helps to protect people’s data and privacy from being retained locally on the PC they are using. This protects against third parties who might be in a position to track their online activities. The consumer has the ability to use either of the features (InPrivate Browsing or InPrivate Filtering) independently.
- InPrivate Browsing. When activated, InPrivate Browsing helps ensure that History, temporary Internet files and cookies are not recorded on a PC after browsing. When in InPrivate Browsing, toolbars and extensions are automatically disabled and browsing History is automatically deleted when the browser is closed.
- InPrivate Filtering. InPrivate Filtering helps protect privacy by enabling the consumer to block content coming from third parties that are in a position to track and aggregate their online behavior. Users are provided with notice, choice and control of which third parties to allow and which ones to block.

For a comprehensive look at the features in Internet Explorer 8, please see the fact sheet available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/windows/factsheets/IE8FS.mspx

Get the facts: About Office 2007 File Format

Richard — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:37:00 GMT

Office 2007 uses new file format with extension name as .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, many users do not understand why Microsoft update the new format, and thought that only Office 2007 can open and edit those file format. Please see below.

Get the facts: About Office 2007 File Format

By installing “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats”, Office 2000-2003 can open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the new file formats of Office 2007.

.docx, .xlsx, .pptx is XML-based file format with compression of ZIP technology.

Open XML already is an international open standard. It’s certified by ISO (as ISO 29500) and ECMA (as ECMA-376)

Open XML is platform independent and easily coexists with other document file formats, including Open Document Format (ODF).

Open XML has important features supporting long-term document retention, preservation, and accessibility.

Free Hard Drive / Hard Disk wipe tool

Richard — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:28:00 GMT

Many students and friends keep asking me for a free hard drive wipe tool, I found this one may be useful for yours.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

CopyWipe™ is a utility for copying or securely overwriting (wiping/erasing) entire hard drives. CopyWipe can ease and expedite the transition to a new hard drive by copying the entire contents of one drive to another. CopyWipe can also help prevent confidential or private data from being recovered, by securely wiping the contents of a drive. A number of options are provided for wiping, most of which exceed governmental standards (such as DoD 5220.22-M, NAVSO P-5239-26, etc.); this allows the user to choose an optimal balance between security and duration of the wiping operation.

Windows 7 Wallpaper?

Richard — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:28:00 GMT

http://www.tech-exclusive.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/seven_shine_logo_1152_864.jpg