x(perts)64

·      A new executable name – PowerShell.exe

·      A new prompt – ps>

·      A new extension - .ps1

·      A new web home – www.microsoft.com/PowerShell

·      And soon, a new newsgroup – stay tuned for that link! 

The other important announcement this morning is an official ship timeframe – Q4 of 2006 will be the official release of Windows PowerShell.

If you're not excited, you should be. This is a really cool new scripting language and shell that has amazing power while still being friendly and interactive. The next version of Microsoft Exchange - Exchange 2007 - will use the Windows PowerShell for all administrative functions. All.

Charlie.

Windows x64 Edition is one year old today. It's been an interesting year, I must say.

So how has my x64 experience been? Solid. I work in x64 Edition full time, and haven't booted any of my main workstations or servers over to 32-bit Windows in months and months. When I get a moment, I'm going to go clean off those old dual boots and recover some disk space. The only server still running 32-bit Windows is my main SBS 2003 server - SBS isn't supported on x64 yet, and won't be until the Longhorn time frame.

The one thing that hasn't been as successful for x64 Edition as I expected has been the level of driver support. While I personally have been able to find drivers for pretty much everything I cared about, that hasn't been the experience for a lot of folks. If you'd asked me a year ago what the situation would be, I'd probably have been a bit more optimistic than exerience has warranted. But the reality is that there are drivers out there, as my experience shows. It's just that sometimes you need to make purchasing decisions with driver issues in mind. So my printer (an HP 1200 series), was bought several years ago, but it was bought with compatibility in mind. It supports both PCL and Postscript, and is connected via the network. If I'd bought an HP 1100 series, which uses "host based printing" and doesn't directly support either of the major printer control languages, I would still be trying to find a driver and complaining about how there weren't any printer drivers for XP x64. Whose fault is that? Well, HP gets some of the blame, certainly. They've been woefully late with drivers. But I think I'd have to take part of the hit too. If you're going to be an early adopter, you need to make intelligent purchasing decisions that take compatibility into account.

So, what are your experiences? What do you think about x64 Windows?

Charlie.

Just ran across a great whitepaper about how Microsoft.com moved their entire IIS operation to x64 Editions of Windows Server 2003 R2. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/msit/operations/mscom64bitarchi.mspx.

In the Windows Server blog post on TechNet, they also point to a case study and a note covering the transition. Compelling stuff, and if you are tasked with deploying mission critical web services, these three whitepapers should be mandatory reading.

Charlie.

I've been saying for quite a while that all those folks who worry that there isn't much in the way of released firewall products for Windows x64 should stop worrying and use the really quite good Windows Firewall that comes with the OS. Well, I ran across this blog entry today, and I think it makes some very interesting points. http://www.rockyh.net/Posts/Post.aspx?postId=245dbabb-a525-47aa-b6cb-8823af001ab3 

Charlie.

OK, this has nothing to do with x64, or even computers. But what a great use of computers.

http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wildlife/default.asp

Live bald eagle nest webcam, here in BC.

Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition is now a free download from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6DBA2278-B022-4F56-AF96-7B95975DB13B&displaylang=en.

One suspects that the upcoming release (and present public beta) of VMWare Server, which VMWare announced would be free (see my earlier blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/xperts64/archive/2006/02/07/82724.aspx) might have had something to do with this. Just a hunch, mind you.

The good news is that both products provide real value for those looking to consolidate servers, or do testing and simulation, or deploy "safe" environments, simply.

Charlie.