Resouce Guides

HOW TO: improve the performance of Vista Media Center

2007-11-01T11:33:25Z

I've been running Vista Media Center (VMC) on two machines for a while now, and so far I have to say that the experience has been pretty good, but not all smooth sailing. Just like XP MCE 2005, VMC is very dependent on the capabilities of the hardware platform, the setup of the operating system and any third-party software which has been installed.

So, I decided to put together a piece detailing the problems I encountered and how I got around them - what worked and what didn't.

System Hardware

Intel is positioning its Viiv technology (both hardware and software) to be the platform of choice for HTPCs. One of the machines I use, an Optima Viiv Media Center, is one such device. My experience so far is that it doesn't make a lick of difference whether your HTPC is Viiv or not. My second machine is an Asus P5N32-SLI-Deluxe-based system, without a whiff of Viiv in the air, and it performs just as well.

The only real advantage of Viiv is that it guarantees a certain base - you know pretty well what you're going to get and how it's going to work. This sometimes does help in taking the guesswork out of where to start troubleshooting any hardware problems. Also, Intel's product support is outstanding, so an Intel-centric system is no bad thing. But don't assume that just because a system is Viiv that it's going to handle VMC any better.

One thing though - Intel isn't exactly known for its graphics adaptors, and even though the latest 3000 and 3100 GMA adaptors are a damn sight better than their predecessors, you should get a dedicated ATI or NVIDIA GPU. The visual difference, especially with something like DVD playback, is so wide that it is always justifiable spending the extra dollars (both my systems are running ATI X1600 GPUs). You don't need anything especially powerful (in fact, the more low-power the better, because of the reduced heat output and fan noise), but the card itself is essential. You then get the added bonus of ATI/NVIDIA graphics driver support.

If you want to make sure that the card is up to scratch, a good way to test it is to download some HDTV content and test the playback. You can grab some for free from Microsoft's WMV HD Content Showcase site.

And finally, always always always have the latest BIOS release for your motherboard. This really can't be overstressed. VMC relies so heavily on the motherboard's capabilities, especially for features like sleep/resume, and BIOS updates tend to fix more problems than are specified in the README.TXT. On my Optima HTPC, there was a very nasty problem where if I put the system into sleep and then woke it up (using the MC Remote), the system would wake up but the PCI-E slot wouldn't. As a result, there would be no graphics until I hard powered the unit off AND pulled the power cord to flush the hibernation state. Highly irritating. A BIOS update not only fixed the problem, but the system's responsiveness to the remote commands improved out of sight.

All motherboard manufacturer maintain up-to-date BIOS releases for their products online. However, if you're unsure what model your board is, use a software probe to find out, rather than pulling the system apart. CPU-Z is a terrific utility which I use often, and will give you all the info you need.

Operating System

Drivers, drivers, drivers. Drivers. Absolutely the most important aspect of any stable Windows-based OS and especially so when considering HTPCs. When considering VMC, always use the most up-to-date manufacturer drivers available BUT it is worth reading the changelogs just to make sure that there are no caveats relevant to your system. Of course, this is worth doing no matter what, but sometimes there are unexpected omissions in a driver release, such as one of ATI's drivers not containing proper HDMI support or a particular LCD resolution, so they recommended using the earlier driver. Rolling back drivers is painful, so watch out for warnings like that.

The one exception I'd make to always using the latest manufacturer drivers is for TV capture cards. Microsoft has their own Unified AVStream driver and I have to say that it's remarkably good. I have a Dvico FusionHDTV DVB-T Plus card, and although the drivers were always stable enough, performance in XP MCE2005 and VMC were nothing short of woeful. When I built the Asus system using that card, I didn't install any of the drivers, but instead let Vista sort it out using Windows Update. Of the five hardware devices associated with the card, it installed the Unified AVStream on one, an “unused device function" on another, and ignored the other three completely (which I had to set to “Ignore" in Device Manager). TV playback on VMC using the DTV-B Plus is now the best I've ever experienced. Ever.

So try out Windows Update for your capture card first, and if Microsoft has an associated driver, try it out.

And finally, DirectX. You wouldn't think that DirectX has much impact on VMC, but apparently it does. I had one highly annoying problem where navigating the Video Library (or any library, really) caused a DLL crash and VMC to restart. Every single time. Not fun. Driver updates, OS patches…nothing worked. A full update of DirectX on the other hand (the machine was a bit behind in updates) and voilá, all problems gone.

So it seems that DirectX has quite a say in rendering the VMC screen, which makes it worth your while keeping it up-to-date. Of course, that's true of any Windows-based system, but as I don't play games on the HTPC, it just didn't occur to me. I find that the best way to update DirectX is to go to the Games For Windows website (the DirectX section) and click on “Download the latest DirectX". This takes you to the latest build of the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. I find this approach the best to take because DirectX builds change fairly often so you'll be guaranteed of getting the latest one, and because the web installer analyses your system and installs only what's required. Of course, if you're going to be doing this across a number of machines, then grabbing the latest DirectX runtime files is probably the way to go.

Third-Party Software

On an HTPC, third-party software usually means codecs, guides or add-ons. There's no real practical limit to how many extras you can install, but bear in mind that when you launch VMC with all these extras you are increasing the amount of points of failure. Much depends on the quality of the add-on, so it's absolutely vital to read up on the application and see what other people's experience has been (ie: don't be a guinea pig for other people).

A good rule of thumb, especially for codecs, is that the lighter it is, the better it is. For example, if you want to use VMC to play back Quicktime movies, don't install Apple Quicktime. Install Quicktime Alternative instead. This is especially true of that horror of the software world - RealPlayer. Install Real Alternative and get the benefit without the pain. Similarly with DivX (and we all need DivX) - you only need the codec, not the Player and all the other paraphernalia. Therefore, keep it light and simple and VMC will thank you by not crashing through a destabilisation of the entire OS base.

A great resource for codec is Codec Guide. Here you'll find links to just about everything you need, as well as the K-Lite Codec Pack, arguably one of the best codec bundles out there.

VMC add-ons are designed to enhance functionality. I can't really comment on them as I don't tend to use them, but a couple of the more popular ones are epgStream (a free Australian-based EPG) and MyMovies (a DVD library with an online metadata database).

Is VMC Worth It?

Unfortunately, to get any HTPC off the ground takes time and effort - there's just no getting around that. What I have found is that although Vista's Media Centre has its problems, it's far, far better than XP MCE, but I think that this has less to do with the quality of the application but rather the quality of the underlying OS. Windows XP, bless it, just can't measure up to Vista in the stability stakes, and as long as the hardware platform is good and there are no dodgy drivers lurking in the wings, VMC is an excellent media experience and well worth the effort

Author: James Bannan
Source: APCMag

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Top 10 Overlooked Features of Windows Server 2008

2007-10-11T12:14:55Z

Windows Server 2008 is on its way. With the first release candidate in the pipeline, it shouldn't be long before release to manufacturing and general availability.

With such a long development time (it's the first new Windows Server OS since 2003,) the showstopping new features have been well publicized: Most IT pros are familiar with at least some of the details of Server Core, PowerShell and Windows Server Virtualization (codenamed Viridian). But Windows 2008 includes a lot more than those headliners.

]]> To that end, we're presenting the Top 10 overlooked features of Windows 2008. We spoke with Ward Ralston, senior technical product manager for Windows Server, to help us build our list. These items haven't garnered the same kind of press attention, hype and word-of-mouth as the others, but they're nonetheless important - maybe very important - to your network.

10. The Print Management Console (PMC). This was originally released with Windows Server 2003 R2. But unlike the R2 release, it's a native function in Windows 2008, and available to everyone. PMC is a snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), which lets an admin see every printer in an entire organization, from one console. In addition, you can use Group Policy to map printers to specific user groups, so that the Accounting folks won't be hogging printers that Engineering needs.

9. Auditpol. This is a verbose logging tool that allows you to configure, create, back up and restore audit policies on any computer in your organization. In these days of regulatory compliance, auditing is more important than ever, and Auditpol may eliminate the need for a third-party auditing program. It includes a greatly expanded list of auditing counters from the simple tools available in Windows 2003, and hundreds of different categories that let you "create a paper trail of what's going on inside your OS," Ralston says.

8. Windows Remote Shell (WinRS). To connect to a command prompt on a remote computer in Windows 2003, an admin needed to use Terminal Services. TS worked well but wasn't scalable, requiring a connection to a console on each remote computer. WinRS makes secure connections to as many remote computers as necessary, all from a single console. That could be a significant time-saver for admins.

7. Event forwarding. This benefit is available to organizations that run Vista on their desktops. Event forwarding aggregates and forwards logs of chosen computers back to a central console, making management much more efficient. Say you're an admin and you start getting calls from users who are seeing the dreaded "Event 51" pop up on their screens, indicating a logon problem. Instead of employing sneakernet technology -- running from machine to machine to comb through security events or other problems -- you simply "subscribe" Vista computers through your console, and they send whatever information you ask for right to your door.

6. Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS). In Windows 2003, this was known as Windows Rights Management Services. It was available in Windows 2003, but only as an add-on product for purchase. It's built into Windows 2008, and includes some upgrades. AD RMS assists in the creation of rights-protected files, licensing rights-protected information, and checking to make sure that only authorized users have access to rights-protected data. Some of the enhancements for Windows 2008 include the ability to administer AD RMS through the MMC, and delegate AD RMS tasks through "administrative roles."

5. New password policies. In Active Directory (AD), the domain is a security boundary. In the forerunner to Windows 2008, Windows Server 2003, that boundary led to the restriction of one password policy per domain. That is a limiting requirement, one that's been done away with in Windows 2008. Now you don't have to create new domains to have a new password policy; just set password policies for specific groups or users. If your C-level execs need more stringent policies than your administrative assistants, it's easy to do in Windows 2008.

4. Group Policy (GP) improvements. There are two changes that Ralston said were at the top of the list for GP managers, and they've both made it into Windows 2008. The first is a searchable database for GP settings. Most admins have used Excel spreadsheets to track their GP settings. Given that there can be thousands of such settings, it's obvious that this can quickly become an unwieldy situation. Now, within the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC), admins can search for policies, throwing off the Excel yoke and drastically speeding up the process.

3. The second GP upgrade is the ability to attach comments to GP settings. Being able to add comments to settings will not only help the present admin, but future admins as well who have to troubleshoot GP. When you're configuring a GP, for instance, you can say why you're making this particular policy; then, when you need to troubleshoot or reconfigure that policy, you (or your successor) can see why the policy was created in the first place. In addition, when you do GP modeling, to figure out how different policies will interact and impact your environment, those comments can show up in reports, easing your GP architecting.

2. One of the chief concerns IT pros have when upgrading or migrating to a new OS is ease of installation. Although Ralston could not give specific details, he did drop some tantalizing hints on what's to come on this front. It's an "umbrella deployment technology that will give customers prescriptive guidance on upgrade and migration" strategies, he says. It will provide admins "tools to successfully deploy, update and maintain Windows Server 2008." Ralston promised that more information will be coming on these advanced technologies in November. It will be first announced on the Windows Server Team blog on Technet.

1. Potentially huge network speed increases. Networks move more data than ever, but owing to outdated network stacks, those networks increasingly look like a Los Angeles freeway. In Microsoft's case, the amount of data that can be sent in a packet has remained static at about 64KB since 1995, roughly the Mesozoic era in computing terms. That size packet translates into top-end data throughput of about 5 MB. In terms of efficiency, Ralston says, "It's like having a semi truck, putting one box in it and driving around." In other words, it doesn't matter how big and fast your network pipes are if the packet size stays tiny.

The entirely reworked network stack in Windows 2008 includes new technologies that allow for a much bigger packet to enter the network. It can also resize -- on the fly -- the size of the packets on the network, making it more efficient. The limit on packet size has been upped to 512KB, which ultimately translates into data throughput of 40MB. In other words, your network, if properly configured and tuned, could be eight times faster than it is now. Sound good?

Vista is getting better - slowly

2007-10-11T12:08:31Z

A lot has been written about how Microsoft released Windows Vista too early and with too many bugs to make is a feasible platform for people looking for a relatively hassle-free platform. If you liked being at the cutting edge then I'm sure you'd be happy to live with the bugs, but if happened to be looking a stable work platform, the general opinion was that it was best to stick with XP for a while. Now though, things are changing. Vista is getting better ... slowly.

Over the past few weeks we've not only seen a beta for the long awaited SP1 fall into the hands of a small pool of beta testers (of which I'm one), we’ve also seen a fair few compatibility, performance and reliability releases, specifically KB938979, KB938194 and KB941649.

I've installed all these updates onto several systems in the lab and what I'm noticing is that while KB938979 and KB938194 resulted in very litter overall benefit (the main benefit came from KB938979 and the fix to the "estimated time remaining" when copying or moving large files bug, but this was more of an annoyance rather than a critical problem), I'm seeing considerable improvement to both performance and reliability after installing SP1 and KB941649 on all systems. In particular, Vista startup times are improved considerably and overall reliability is infinitely better. What's even better is that there's no sign on a downside to applying these patches.

Several cynics have commented on the timing of these releases and wonder if they have anything to do with the imminent release of Mac OS X Leopard. While it's easy to entertain such theories, I don't put too much stock in them. It takes time to identify and fix issues, especially within a complex OS such as Vista. We're not yet at the year mark since Vista went RTM so it's still early days. Should Microsoft have been faster and more aggressive in releasing patches is a point worth debating, but that's history now, what matters is that we're starting to see real progress being done in bringing Vista up to scratch. Some areas are still waiting to be fixed (for example, I can easily replicate the network transfer speed bug on a fully patched SP1 beta version of Vista), I'm pleased with the progress I'm seeing.

While I've been highly critical of Vista as it was when it went RTM back in November of 2006, With the bundle of patches already released and Vista SP1 now on the horizon, I'm starting to see light at the end of the dark tunnel that I've been in for the past eleven months ... and I'm hopeful that it's not a train coming in the opposite direction!
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How to secure your Microsoft SharePoint products

2007-08-09T10:18:26Z

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 are becoming popular for companies of all sizes. But its popularity translates into the need for better security, and it might be difficult to figure out what steps you need to take to secure WSS from the start. Here is a quick checklist that can help you get your Microsoft SharePoint Server security priorities in order: Make sure that Microsoft SharePoint is running on a secure IIS site.

At its core, a SharePoint site is simply an IIS Web site, so you can take the standard methods of securing any IIS site and get significant results in increasing overall WSS security.
Make sure SSL is enabled. Harden the permissions for users to get access to the virtual director that SharePoint runs in, use strong authentication methods (NTLM or Kerberos), and ensure the Web server itself is protected using typical Windows hardening methods.
A quick search on SearchSecurity.com for "IIS server security" will provide a wealth of information for hardening the environment that SharePoint itself runs in.

Assign application-wide security policies.

You can use the "Policy for Web Application" feature to enable a greater swath of authentication to your sites. From this page, you can set anonymous access standards and grant control or deny access. These application-wide security policies take precedence over any individual configuration features that have been set up on specific sites.
These policies also apply to users that reside both within and outside of your firewall's reach.
To reach the Policy for Web Application feature, open Central Administration, click the Application Management tab and click the Policy for Web Application link. You can begin setting policies from there.

Understand Microsoft SharePoint permission levels to control access for your users.

Like Windows and NTFS permissions, you assign access to users through permission levels and SharePoint groups. Permissions aren't assigned directly to users; rather, you control availability and access through levels and groups. Users are assigned to levels and groups and thus inherit access controls through that membership.
You can access the controls for permission levels and SharePoint groups from the Site Actions menu on any page, but first make sure you are logged onto the site with administrative credentials. Click Site Settings from that menu, and then click the Advanced Permissions link under the Users and Permissions section.
Make sure you assign permissions and levels carefully, as these control what users can read, change, and do on your sites. Treat this as diligently as you treat file system permissions.

Disable anonymous access to your Microsoft SharePoint Services site, if possible.

If your SharePoint site is designed only for internal users that have accounts on your domain, there is no need to open the site up to users who haven't authenticated. This closes a reasonably significant vector through which information could be leaked.
To disable anonymous access, open the Central Administration site. From the Start menu, choose Administrative Tools and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration. Then navigate to the Application Management tab and click the Authentication Providers in the Application Security section.
Click the Default Zone link, and then uncheck the Enable Anonymous Access box, and finally, click Save.

Perform regular backups of your Microsoft SharePoint site.

Backing up is still an integral and critical part of your security infrastructure. If a compromise were to take place, you would easily be able to restore the data stored in your site after you rebuilt the machine on which the breach took place.
Remember: Once a cracker gets access to your machine, it isn't your machine any more. So the only safe way to proceed is to flatten the hard drive and rebuild the operating system and application installation from the ground up.

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Use System Monitor to find bottlenecks in Windows Server 2003

2007-06-28T10:01:15Z

Windows Server 2003 comes with two performance monitoring tools: System Monitor, and Performance Logs and Alerts. These tools provide information that administrators can use to find bottlenecks and for troubleshooting Windows.

]]> You can open the Performance console from the Administrative Tools by selecting Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Performance. You can also open it from the command line by typing perfmon.msc.

When a new Performance console is opened, it loads a blank system monitor graph into the console. The Performance console contains two utilities: System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts.

This article will discuss System Monitor, then we'll discuss Performance Logs and Alerts in a separate article.

System Monitor periodically takes a snapshot of system performance characteristics and displays the information as a graph, which can then be used to monitor the behavior of the system, predict future resource requirements, measure the load on system components, and trigger an alert to inform you of potential failures of these components.

Here are some key terms used in performance monitoring that will help clarify the function of the System Monitor and how it ties into software and system functionality. The three components noted in the System Monitor are object, counter and instance.

Components contained in a system are grouped into objects. Objects are grouped according to system functionality or association within the system. Objects can represent logical entities such as memory or a physical mechanism such as a hard disk drive.

Counters are subsets of objects. Counters typically provide more detailed information for an object, such as queue length or throughput for an object. The System Monitor can collect data through the counters, with data being collected and displayed in graphical or text log formats.

If a server has more than one similar object, each is considered an instance. For example, a server with multiple processors has individual counters for each instance of the processor. Counters with multiple instances also have an instance for the combined data collected for the instances.

System Monitor provides an interface to permit the analysis of system data, research performance and bottlenecks. System Monitor displays performance counter output in graph, histogram (bar chart) and report format.

The histogram and graph view can be used to view multiple counters at the same time. However, each data point displays only a single value that is independent of its object. The report view is better for displaying multiple values. Data sources can be obtained by clicking the View Current Activity button on the button bar. On the other hand, clicking View Log Data displays data from completed or running logs.

Adding counters

System Monitor is ideal for diagnostics and short-term views of performance output. Before counters can be displayed, they have to be added. Counters can be added simply by using the button bar. The Counter button on the button bar includes Add, Delete and Highlight. You can use the Add Counter button to add new counters to be displayed.

The Delete Counter button removes unwanted counters from the display. The Highlight button is helpful for highlighting a particular counter of interest; a counter is highlighted with a white or black color around the counter. The Highlight button cannot be used with Report view.

Note: It's possible to display the function of a button in the button bar by placing the mouse cursor on the button.

When the Add Counter button is selected, a dialog box appears. The top section of this property page allows you to either choose the server being worked on or connect to a different server on the network. System Monitor allows you to connect to a remote computer and to monitor system performance of the server. This process is referred to as remote monitoring.

It's important to collect all the monitored data for analysis. Clicking the Freeze Display button or pressing Ctrl+F freezes displays, which in turn suspends data collection. Data collection can be resumed by pressing Ctrl+F or clicking the Freeze Display button again. Click the Update Data button to display an updated data analysis.

Importing displays

You can also possible to import or export a display by using the Cut and Paste buttons. For example, a display can be saved to the Clipboard and then imported into another instance of System Monitor. This is done to obtain system information and view or analyze that information on a different system rather than performing analysis on a production server.

System Monitor enables you to save log files in comma-separated (csv) or tab-separated (tsv) format, which you can then analyze by using third-party tools such as Seagate Crystal Reports. You can also import csv or tsv files into an Excel spreadsheet or a database application such as Access.

Windows Server 2003 also allows you to collect data in SQL database format, which is useful for performance analysis at an enterprise level rather than a per-server basis. Reports displayed in Excel can help you better understand the data as well as provide reports to management. Once the log file is saved in csv format, it can be opened using Excel.

Note: If a server stops responding, it's possible to run System Monitor from another computer to monitor the troubled server.

How to dual-boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first)

2007-06-28T09:55:37Z

Scenario: You want to install Vista on your PC alongside your XP installation, on the same drive. You have installed Vista already.

]]> Tutorial Summary:
We're going to use the DISKPART on the Vista DVD to shrink the Vista partition on the hard disk and create enough space for an installation of Vista. We'll then install XP, repair the Vista bootloader which will be overwritten during the XP installation, and then use the EasyBCD utility to configure Vista's bootloader to boot the XP partition.

This is an updated tutorial, based on our first Windows Vista/XP dual-booting workshop. The main difference is that EasyBCD has been updated, but the processes are essentially unchanged.

This tutorial was tested on a VMWare 6 Workstation and an AcerPower SK50 system.

Prepare Windows Vista
This tutorial assumes that Vista has been installed on a partition which takes up 100% of the hard drive, so we need to create some space. Boot off the Vista DVD. Hit Next from the start screen and then select "Install now". (If Vista came preinstalled on your machine and you don't have a Vista install DVD, you can use the Gnome Partition Editor Gparted to do it. Our earlier tutorial on dual-booting XP and Vista if you've installed XP first describes how to use it.)

Install Vista

Don't type in your product key and untick "Automatically activate Windows when I'm online", then hit "Next", and "No" when asked whether you want to enter the key.

Vista Product Key

When prompted to choose the edition of Vista you're installing you can actually select any of them as we're not doing a Vista install at this point. Also tick "I have selected the edition of Windows that I purchased" and hit "Next".

Vista Version

Accept the license terms and hit "Next" again, then choose a Custom installation.
On the screen where you're asked where you want to install Windows, you should see a single large partition marked Primary - this is where Vista is already installed.

Vista Partition

Press SHIFT + F10. This is a Windows PE 2.0 shortcut to open up a command window - very useful trick.

Command Tool

Type in DISKPART and press Enter. This opens the Microsoft DiskPart application. You need to select the active disk, so type in:

list disk

The primary disk is generally Disk 0, so type in:

select disk 0

DISKPART Disk

Now we need a list of volumes on this disk, so type in:

list volume

In this case Volume 0 is the one we want, so type in:

select volume 0

DISKPART Volume

Now type in:

shrink

DISKPART Shrink

DiskPart will go off and reclaim as much of the drive as it can - you should get at least 50% of the space back.

Now type

EXIT

and

EXIT (again)

to quit the command window and get back to the install screen. Click Refresh and the partition window will update - you should now see the original Primary partition plus a brand new partition.

New Partitions

This is where we will install Windows XP. Eject the DVD, restart the machine (just hit the reset button) and boot off the Windows XP CD.

Now, install Windows XP

When the Windows XP setup reaches the point where you're prompted where it is to be installed, you'll see that while XP can see the space we created earlier, it can also see the partition with Vista on it.

XP Partition

You should be able to see the space you reclaimed on the disk earlier which has become "unallocated space".

Create a second partition using the Windows XP installer screen above by selecting the free space on the drive and pressing "C" to create a partition (if prompted, choose NTFS as the file system.)

Irritatingly, XP assigns a drive letter to this partition (C:) which means that it will use the next available drive letter after all the other physical drives have been taken into account.

This means that the system drive of the XP installation won't be C:.

From XP's perspective this isn't really a problem - it's smart enough to figure out where everything should go - but some applications make assumptions about where they should install to, and can't cope with a non-standard Windows configuration.

This was also the case with our tutorial on dualbooting Ubuntu and XP, where Ubuntu had been installed first. However in that scenario, even though the XP system drive had a non-standard drive letter, it couldn't read the Linux partitions so there was no danger of the two systems overlapping. This is not the case with Vista/XP.

Nonetheless, install XP as normal - there's no need to do anything differently.

IMPORTANT NOTE - after the initial file copy, Windows XP reboots and loads up the GUI-based component of the install. You may get the following error: "A disk read error occurred - press Ctrl-Alt-Del to continue". This is caused by a corrupt bootloader

When the system reboots it won't bring up a boot menu. Although XP recognises the Vista partition it doesn't recognise Vista itself.

The Windows XP bootloader gets installed to the MBR and Vista can no longer boot.

When XP loads, open up Windows Explorer and you'll see something interesting - a C: and (in this case) an E: drive.

The C: drive contains Windows Vista, and as Windows XP can read NTFS partitions, it can browse and modify Vista's file structure.

More importantly, applications which have installation paths hard-coded into their install scripts rather than using Windows system parameter variables could easily dump files into C: when they should be installing to E:. This isn't such a great situation.

Two Drives

Restoring Vista and dual booting

Because you can't use the Windows XP bootloader to boot Vista, we have to reinstate Vista's bootloader to the MBR and configure it to manage both operating systems.

Compared with scenarios involving Ubuntu where you have to reinstall the GRUB bootloader, getting Vista up and operational again is very easy.

Boot from the Vista DVD and on the screen where you're prompted to "Install now", select "Repair your computer".

Repair Vista

The next screen searches for local Vista installations - there should only be one, so click Next.

Choose Vista

This loads the System Recovery Options screen. Select the first option - Startup Repair. This looks for problems which would prevent Vista from loading (like a missing bootloader) and automatically fixes them.

Startup Repair

If you click on "Click here for diagnostic and repair details" and scroll to the bottom of the list, it shows that the problem detected and repaired was a corrupt boot sector (according to Vista, anyway).

Repair Diagnostics

Click Close and then Finish, and the system will restart and boot into Vista.

Now we need to enable dualbooting with XP, and EasyBCD is the best application to achieve this.

Download and install EasyBCD.

Launch the app and go to Add/Remove Entries.

Under “Add an Entry" and under the Windows tab and select in the Version drop-down list “Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3".

Change the Drive to E:\ and the name to “Windows XP", then click “Add Entry" and “Save".

Vista & XP - EasyBCD

Reboot the system and you'll have two entries in the Vista bootloader, and can boot into either operating system.

Vista Bootloader

Removing Windows XP

If you eventually decide that dualbooting XP as the second OS isn't all it's cracked up to be, it's pretty easy to undo the changes made.

Use EasyBCD to remove the Windows XP boot entry, and then go into Computer Management (right-click on Computer, Manage) and go to Disk Management.

Right-click E: drive (the Windows XP partition) and select Delete Volume.

Right-click the newly-created partition and select Delete Partition.

Then right-click the C: drive (the Vista system partition) and click Extend Volume - this opens up the Extend Volume Wizard.

Extend Volume Wizard

The wizard gives you a readout on how much space is actually available to extend the partition - enter in how much you want to use and press Next. Vista will extend the system partition to reclaim the disk and Windows is well and truly gone.

Fixing the corrupt bootloader If the Windows XP bootload corrupts during the install, performing a reinstall won't fix it, nor will going into the XP Recovery Mode and attempting to repair the MBR.

Luckily, the install was up to the stage where all you need to do is be able to boot from the Windows XP partition, and the install will pick up from where it left off.

To achieve this, follow the procedure outlined above to restore the Vista bootloader (under "Restoring Vista and Dualbooting").

This allows the system to boot into Vista, and then you can use EasyBCD to create an XP boot entry and boot into that to continue on with XP's installation. (For details on using EasyBCD, also see the section "Restoring Vista and Dualbooting".)

Performance monitoring in Windows: An overview

2007-06-27T11:08:59Z

There are several performance monitoring tools available to Windows administrators. Which tool you use will depend on what you are trying to accomplish, your operating system and your technical skills.

]]> It is normal for a system's performance to diminish over time as more applications, drivers, etc. are installed. Eventually though, a system's performance may reach an unacceptably low level. When this happens, you need to know what to do about the problem.

In some cases, you might simply need to replace an aging system. But in other cases, a simple memory upgrade or the removal of a buggy device driver might give the system's performance a huge boost. The problem is that Windows isn't going to come right out and tell you what you need to do to fix the problem. It's up to you to figure out which diagnostic utility to use.

There are three primary performance monitoring utilities that are included with various versions of Windows. Each has its advantages.

Performance Monitor

Performance Monitor is the primary tool for diagnosing a system's performance. It has been around since the days of Windows NT, and has had several different names along the way. You'll find some Microsoft documentation calls it PerfMon and some older Windows' versions call it System Monitor.

This tool allows the administrator to select the specific counters they want to monitor. Each counter corresponds to a specific aspect of system performance. By selecting the counters appropriate to the situation at hand, an administrator can diagnose system performance at a granular level.

Performance Monitor can not only diagnose performance problems, but also help prevent them. In many organizations, it's common practice to run Performance Monitor against the organization's servers on a constant basis.

When this is done, the counter sampling frequency is set low so that Performance Monitor only minimally impacts the server's performance. Depending on the organization, Performance Monitor can sample performance data once an hour or a few times a day.

The advantage of doing this is that the collected data can be logged and analyzed. This allows the organization to spot trends. By examining long-term Performance Monitor data, a systems administrator may learn when an organization's servers are under the most stress.

Analysis of long-term data also shows organizations how much each server's workload increases over time. This information is important for preventing performance-related problems from occurring down the road. For example, if you noticed that your server has to work 3% harder each month, you could estimate that a year from now the workload might routinely be 36% higher than it is today. With that knowledge, you can plan for any upgrades that might be necessary for the server to better handle the increased workload.

The major drawback to Performance Monitor is that there are hundreds of counters to choose from. Unless an admin understands what each counter actually measures and knows how to interpret the collected data, Performance Monitor is worthless.

Task Manager

Since using the Performance Monitor can be complicated, Microsoft built a simplified version of the Performance Monitor into the Windows Task Manager. You can access this simplified monitor by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete, then clicking the Task Manager button.

The Task Manager cannot perform the various logging functions that are available through the Performance Monitor, and in most versions of Windows, you cannot look up additional performance data. But what the Task Manager lacks in functionality, it makes up for in simplicity. For example, key information related to CPU, pagefile, and memory usage are clearly displayed.

Reliability and Performance Monitor

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 have introduced an augmented version of Performance Monitor called the Reliability and Performance Monitor. One of the tool's key features is its ability to collect event log information and use it to determine the machine's reliability. Reliability is not only based on errors, but also on factors like application or driver installation. Key events are logged on a time line so an administrator can read a machine's history at a glance.

The Reliability and Performance Monitor also includes several pre-defined data collector sets. These data collector sets frees administrators from trying to figure out which Performance Monitor counter to use (although manually selecting counters is still an option). Also, administrators no longer have to interpret graphs, as the predefined data collector sets generate reports.

Vista draining laptop batteries and patience

2007-05-08T07:45:43Z

Some of Microsoft's most important customers aren't happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista. "'It's a little scary," said John Wozniak, a distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard's notebook engineering department, referring to the work HP needed to do on making Windows Vista more suitable for notebooks.

Vista, while touted as having improved power management capabilities that would make it easier for users to extend battery life, isn't to some living up to that promise. The main culprit appears to be the Aero Glass interface, a spiffy new user interface that makes Vista more pleasing to the eye with transparent windows and animated transitions when moving from one application to another.

When Aero is turned off, battery life is equal to or better than Windows XP systems. But with it turned on, battery life suffers compared with Windows XP.

Microsoft made some important changes in Vista that do improve some aspects of battery life, such as smarter hibernation modes that override applications that want to keep running, and simpler options for choosing a power management setting. But laptop users who spent extra money on powerful laptops to handle the graphics requirements of Vista and the Aero interface are forced to run the aesthetic equivalent of Vista Basic, the low-cost version of Vista, if they care about battery life.

"The potential is there to do some good things, the bad thing is that it comes with the canned settings."
--John Wozniak, technologist, Hewlett-Packard

HP decided it wasn't going to use the power management settings that shipped with Vista, Wozniak said. The company came up with its own set of power management settings for Vista laptops, allowing users to select different power settings, such as "power saver" or "high performance," that strike a balance between processing power and battery life. Lenovo is likewise using its own power management technologies honed over several years, said Howard Locker, director of new technology at Lenovo.

"They've really made it complex from a power management standpoint," Wozniak said. "The potential is there to do some good things, the bad thing is that it comes with the canned settings...and we didn't like any of them."

Reports that Vista was an energy hog started to surface during beta testing last year. At the time, Microsoft said many of the problems would be cleared up by the time the operating system launched. Of course, this isn't a new issue when it comes to operating system changeovers, said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC. "When you look at a new operating system, battery life tends to be worse. When Windows XP came out, that was true, and when Windows 98 came out, that was true."

The difference this time around is that notebooks are "the growth engine for industry," Shim said. Notebook PCs now account for more than half of all retail PC sales and are projected to become the majority for the whole market by the end of the decade.

But battery life problems continue to rankle notebook users. As blogger Rob Bushway of Tablet PC site Gottabemobile.com put it, "when a consumer has to buy an extended battery to get what they use(d) to get out of a standard battery, something is really wrong."

More than one company other than HP has acknowledged the demand that Vista and the Aero interface put on a notebook PC running off its battery.

"Vista is consuming more power than Windows XP, but we have been very focused on introducing more power-efficient technologies," said Bahr Mahony, director of product marketing for Advanced Micro Devices' mobile product division.

Most attribute that power use to Aero. "In (Aero) mode, you will drain the battery faster, but you get something in return because it's cool and nice looking," Lenovo's Locker said.

The Aero interface is automatically disabled when users put their Vista notebooks into the "power-saving" profile, one of three new simplified power-management states. While that makes for an arguably duller experience, Microsoft said it commissioned a study that found no difference in "responsiveness," or application load time, between a notebook with Aero disabled versus one running the fancy graphics: implying that Aero doesn't put too much of a load on the system.

Microsoft isn't deterred by HP's decisions and other criticism. "We actively encourage (PC companies) to customize the default power profiles so that users get the most out of their hardware," Microsoft said in a statement.

A more definitive statement on Windows Vista and battery life should surface soon, with Intel scheduled to release new chips for notebooks next week at the launch event for the next generation of its Centrino technology. Also, Bapco, an industry benchmarking organization, is expected to soon release the MobileMark 2007 benchmark.

Microsoft, for its part, will likely have to improve Vista's battery life performance over time through the release of service packs and other tweaks, Shim said. "The (PC companies) are getting pressure from consumers--who are the notebook adopters--who are saying their number one priority on a notebook is battery life."

Source: CNET News
Author: Tom Krazit

]]>

Vista Betas Will Kill Your Data

2007-04-26T08:59:27Z

MICROSOFT HAS let it be known that the behaviour of Windows Vista beta copies is about to change fairly substantially. From May 31, anybody using a beta copy of the OS will find that their machine reboots every two hours, and that intermediate access will be limited to base-level file retrieval. ]]> That means that you could lose data you're working on, and that your machine will be good only for reformatting. This isn't as bad news as it seems. Users who had taken part in the Vista beta scheme millions of people, in fact were all given free copies of Vista Ultimate by the Vole as a 'thank you'.

We suspect that this is more likely to affect those individuals who were using copies of the Vista beta nicked from mates or from BitTorrent in a bid to avoid having to pay for the full thing. The quick phase out means that this is possibly the shortest post-release beta Windows has seen. So, if you're running on a Vista beta, you'd better scramble and get your system running, or else face a hard time come June.

Vista, IE7 help Microsoft boost search market share

2007-04-25T09:10:37Z

In a rare bit of good news for Microsoft on the search front, web metrics firm comScore reported that for the month of March, Microsoft's search engines saw their first market share increase in nearly a year. Microsoft's search market share jumped 0.4 percentage points from February to March, giving it 10.9 percent of the total market. One month does not a trend make, but the increase is good news for the software giant. More importantly, it may show that increasing adoption of Vista and Internet Explorer 7 are helping Microsoft's search efforts. comScore senior vice president James Lamberti told Ars that his company is seeing increased traffic to Live.com.

"Growth from Live.com is outpacing Microsoft's overall search traffic growth," Lamberti told us. "Live is the integration point for Vista, and it looks like Live.com is beginning to have an impact."

Whether Microsoft's March increase is a blip or the start of a trend is something we won't know for a few more months. However, Lamberti does believe Microsoft's bleakest days in the search market may be a thing of the past. "I think we're comfortable with the notion that Microsoft has bottomed out," he said. If traffic to Live.com continues to grow, it will mean that Microsoft's strategy of making Live.com the default search engine in IE7 and a focal point for Vista will be paying off, and we should see continued growth as Vista adoption grows.

The last year has been challenging for Microsoft's search efforts. When we looked at search engine trends a few weeks ago, we noted that the company had been seeing its market share slip away, while Google's steadily increased and Yahoo's remained more or less stagnant.

Speaking of Microsoft's competition, comScore reported yet another month of gains for Google. Its market share saw a modest, 0.2 percentage point increase during March, bringing it to 48.3 percent. comScore's news for Yahoo was not as good, as it was the only one of the top five search engines to see a decrease in market share last month. Yahoo's share of search traffic dropped to 27.5 percent from 28.1 percent, its lowest level in over a year.

Author: Eric Bangeman
Source: Ars Technica

]]>

Vista, Office 2007 get thumbs down from UK schools tech advisor

2007-01-17T08:47:38Z

High risk, high cost, lack of interoperability and a lack of need have been cited as major reasons why UK schools should avoid upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007 in a new report from a respected British Government technology advisory body. The 20 page report "Microsoft Vista and Office 2007, Interim Report with Recommendations on Adoption and Deployment" was authored by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) and released late last week. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the report recommends in no uncertain terms that schools should steer clear of both of Microsoft's new flagship products for the time being.

For Microsoft, this is particularly bad news because by the estimation of Becta, the combined cost of deploying Vista and Office 2007 throughout UK schools, not including graphics cards for Vista's Aero interface, would be around £327 million (US$643 million), much of which would go into the software company's pockets. However, if the advice of Becta is heeded that won't happen.

According to the report, while the enhancements in Vista add value, they do not justify its early deployment in UK schools. While acknowledging that Vista has key advantages over Windows XP in areas such as security and access, the report states: "A comprehensive features analysis was carried out on Vista and the results confirmed that there were no 'must have' features."

According to the report, many of the features touted in Vista, such as IE7 and Windows Media Player are freely available without the need to upgrade from Windows XP. Others, such as Bitlocker drive encryption, are not in widespread use in the education sector.

Another particularly worrying point made in the report concerns the value of Aero. "The costs versus the benefits of the Aero interface are questionable, since most ICT-based teaching and learning now takes place in applications (browsers, curriculum tools and so on) not at the operating-system level," the report states.

The report also questioned the wisdom of becoming an early adopter of Vista because of possible stability issues.

"The version of Windows XP generally agreed to be the most stable became available with the release of Service Pack 2 in August 2004, almost three years after the launch of the product. Windows XP was developed from an existing operating system whereas Vista is a wholly new operating system. It seems reasonable therefore not to deploy Vista until it has a demonstrably stable and secure track record," the report states.

In the case of Office 2007, the Becta report had no problem with the product's stability but was highly concerned with the software's usability and interoperability.

"With Office 2007, Microsoft introduces a new UI for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, but there is no 'classic' mode - that is to say, it is not possible to revert to the earlier UI. Should mixtures of Office versions be deployed (which could occur, for example, when educational institutions purchase new equipment with Office 2007 pre-installed), this will cause usability issues as users will be faced with different UIs depending on which machine they are using at any given time," the report states.

The report was particularly concerned with compatibility issues arising between Office 2007 and competing open source products such as Open Office and Star Office.

"In relation to interoperability between Office 2007 and competitor products (such as StarOffice or OpenOffice), all tests failed as none of these alternatives supported the new Office 2007 file formats. Additionally Microsoft's current adoption of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) format is limited: it will initially at least be an add-in rather than natively supported. These factors could lead to a situation where a move to Office 2007 by education establishments could make it more difficult for learners and their parents to use non-Microsoft products at home to share documents," the Becta report states.

"Using the default file format of Microsoft Office 2007 therefore has the potential to exacerbate 'digital divide' issues as a result of the loss of interoperability with free-to-use products. Becta considers that educational institutions should only consider deploying Office 2007 when they are assured of its interoperability with alternative products including free-to-use products such as OpenOffice.org."

Aside from anything else, however, the Becta report concludes that, like Vista, Office 2007 is simply not a must have solution for schools. The report notes that competing free open source solutions such as Open Office provide about 50% of the functionality of Office 2007, which it states is more than enough to meet the needs of schools. In addition, the report notes that many users are satisfied with the functionality of their current versions of Microsoft Office.

"Becta has not yet been able to identify any realistic justification for the early adoption of Office 2007 across the educational ICT estate. Recognising that many educational institutions already have perfectly adequate office productivity solutions, we believe that there would need to be a strong case to justify the necessary investment," the report states.

The unhappy conclusion for Microsoft is that Becta essentially recommends that the software company go away and come back with a better business case for UK schools to upgrade to the company's new products. An even bigger worry for the world's largest software company is that the same scenario may well be repeated throughout the education sector elsewhere in the world.

]]>

Vista security flaw no surprise

2006-12-28T11:21:11Z

The media is having a field day about the newly discovered flaw in Microsoft's latest. greatest and possibly last desktop operating system, Windows Vista. However, to experts the discovery of the relatively minor vulnerability is really no surprise.
During routine Patch Tuesday updates throughout 2006, a number of vulnerabilities were identified that could impact beta versions of Vista as well current versions of Windows. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that further vulnerabilities will discovered as weeks, months and years of Vista use progress.

The only question is will Vista users be safer from malicious exploits than users of current and earlier versions of Windows.

A Microsoft technical expert told us earlier this year, that Vista would not eliminate the monthly patch cycle that we've all become used to. However, he expected the patches to be fewer and further between. These are similar promises made for earlier versions of Windows.

One of the main selling points of Vista security is that it more clearly distinguishes between user and administrator privileged access to the operating system kernel. Vista gives users with user privileges, no power to touch the operating system. Administrators can virtually do what they like.

This should work within enterprise installations - indeed most enterprises already tightly control what privileges users have under current versions of Windows. However, many experts believe home users are likely to simply give themselves administrator access, and turn off the UAC (user account control) feature, which is relatively simple to do.

A fact that Microsoft will likely be forced to accept is that many, if not most, home users will be administrators. Thus, promises of a security Nirvana awaiting us on January 30 are likely to fade into the distance as they did with previous versions of Windows.

Given security is an issue that will always be with us, no matter what the operating system, a question for this user is whether after five years of extensive development, Microsoft has succeeded in eliminating periodic system freezes and inexplicable system shutdowns accompanied by the "blue screen of death".

We have come to accept antivirus and firewall packages as a fact of life. Unfortunately there is no package you can buy that will guarantee system stability. If Vista succeeds in that area, where previous versions of Windows have failed, it will have justified its reason to exist. ]]>

Migrating to Vista - the other side of the coin

2006-11-28T21:34:13Z

There are many valid business reasons to migrate to Windows Vista, and Microsoft spends a lot of time and effort laying out the rationale for doing so as soon as it is available - or as soon as humanly possible. What Microsoft won't proactively say is that there are many legitimate reasons not to jump on the bandwagon and rush to migrate to Windows Vista.

]]> Windows XP is still very functional

Although Windows XP is more than five years old, it is still a very popular and stable operating system that appears to have a lot of life left in it. Service Pack 3 for Windows XP is long overdue and is expected to be released in the 2008. The 64-bit edition of Windows XP will provide support for the accelerating adoption rate of 64-bit workstations. Until Microsoft officially stops supporting Windows XP, many customers may take a wait-and-see approach until Vista is more widely adopted and "proven" in the business market.

New hardware requirements

One of the loudest objections to Windows Vista is in response to the new hardware requirements. But Windows NT-based OS releases have always pushed the existing hardware standards, and Vista is no exception. All of the requirements for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP seemed steep when they were first announced; but they all became the standard entry-level workstation within a few months of release.

Microsoft's recommendations for a "Premium Ready workstation" include a 1 GHz or greater processor, 1 GB of RAM, a DirectX 9 graphics processor with 128 Mb of graphics memory, 40 GB hard drive, a DVD drive, audio capabilities and the ability to access the Internet. Aside from the graphics memory (which is only an issue if you want the full Aero interface), these specifications are hardly a stretch for the corporate workstations being deployed today. The Vista "capable" workstation specification recommends an 800 MHz processor, 512 MB of memory and a DirectX 9-capable video card. These requirements should easily fall into the standard corporate workstations configurations deployed in the last 12 months. In fact, Microsoft estimates that 180 million workstations in use today are already Vista capable.

Real world advice for the final release of Vista may recommend a faster processor and even 2 GB of RAM depending on application requirements. In my experience with Vista Beta through RC2 releases, performance has been very reasonable on workstations with 2.0 GHz processors and less than 1 GB of RAM if the Aero interface and menu animations are disabled.

Vista's code base is too large and complex to be manageable

Over the last five years of development, Windows Vista has grown to a staggering 50 million lines of code, with over 50 dependency layers. This level of complexity alone is cause for concern for some of Microsoft's critics. But dropped features, political problems within Microsoft and very public pressure to release Vista before the end of the year have many people concerned about the quality of Vista's code.

To its credit, Microsoft has been very open with the Vista Beta program and has used the early feedback to make significant changes in subsequent releases. The RC1 release, which was expected to be very close to completed code, was met with harsh reviews regarding hardware compatibility issues, battery life on laptops and sluggishness. Vista RC2 addressed many of these issues and looks solid in terms of reliability and performance. Overall, quality of the code will make or break Vista, but based on initial testing, RC2 looks more solid than Windows XP was at its release date.

User Access Control (UAC)

Vista's User Access Control is a controversial security feature that forces users to run their daily tasks using non-administrator credentials (even if they are using an administrator account). It then elevates their privileges for the functions that do require higher permissions.

In theory, UAC would prevent users from installing unapproved software and prevent the spread of malware and other security threats, and it would still enable users to run legacy applications and perform basic system tasks without administrator privileges. In practice, UAC is the most hated "feature" in Vista because it prompts the user endlessly during a normal session. Most people just want to turn it off. For the less tech-savvy users, UAC could result in a flurry of help desk calls requesting guidance on how to respond to the prompts.

Microsoft has used the early feedback from the beta program to scale back the number of prompts and is reportedly still struggling to find a balance between security and usability. User Access Control behavior can be managed centrally via Group Policy, but this is one more feature that will require pre-deployment testing and user training.

User and staff training

Just as users are finally getting used to Windows XP, thanks to widespread adoption by consumers, Microsoft has made changes to the user interface and menus. It replaced the green start button with a round button with a Vista logo and no text. The Start Menu has been reorganized. Sub-menus have changed throughout the OS. IE 7 has a new look, new features and a new navigation menu that is sure to confuse and frustrate users. And, user access control pop-ups will have users calling the help desk asking what to do.

Many of the user interface issues can be resolved by using a few GPO settings and instituting some user training. There are still "classic" theme options available in Vista that provide an interface similar to Windows 98 if necessary. However, the IE 7 interface and Office 2007 "ribbon menus" don't have a "classic" option and may require additional user training.

Windows activation

In an effort to combat software piracy, Microsoft introduced the controversial Product Activation features in Windows XP and Office and has added the Windows Genuine Advantage program to Windows Update and other free downloads. In the past, Microsoft excluded Product Activation for volume-licensed editions of Windows to reduce the administrative burden on corporations. Since that time, Microsoft has discovered that many of the pirated versions of Windows XP and Office are volume-licensed editions, using leaked keys.

Microsoft Vista introduces the Software Protection Platform, which is deeply imbedded into the operating system and can limit the functionality of system components if it determines the OS is genuine or not. Microsoft also introduces Volume Activation 2.0 (VA2) for clients using volume licenses. For companies with fewer than 25 workstations, Microsoft offers a Multiple Activation Key (MAK), which can activate a limited number of installations with a single key by connecting to a local machine or Microsoft's servers.

For larger environments, Microsoft offers the Key Management Service (KMS), which is installed on two local machines in the environment (one primary and one backup). Once initially activated, Vista and Longhorn clients must connect to the KMS machines at least once every 180 days for it to remain activated.

This new feature will certainly require additional deployment testing and planning and may meet with some stiff resistance from customers that don't want to worry about mobile users who don't connect to the main network for six months or troubleshoot faulty deactivations. Fears that Microsoft may use the KMS service to audit clients and extract additional licenses may also delay adoption of Vista.

Active Directory for Windows 2000 and 2003: What's the difference?

2006-11-22T17:36:16Z

In this article, we will examine the changes that occurred when the initial release of Windows Server 2003 hit the streets. In a later article, we'll look at additional changes that came about with the release of Windows Server 2003, Service Pack 1.

]]> Same structure; new capabilities
Unlike the transformation in the directory service architecture that took place between Windows NT and Windows 2000, the changes you see between Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 are much more incremental in nature. Windows Server 2003 is grounded in the same Active Directory structure in Windows 2000 where each domain controller holds a read-write copy of the AD database, relying on multi-master replication to keep everything up-to-date.

In the Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Users & Computers MMC snap-in, you can now move an object from one location in the directory tree to another by using the familiar drag-and-drop method, rather than being forced to right-click the object and select "Move", as was the case in Windows 2000. You can also now select multiple objects simultaneously for editing or deletion, and save commonly-used queries within the ADUC console window. Although really, if you're going to be working with more than one object at a time, I would recommend that you get out of the MMC console anyway and use command-line tools or scripts to take away some of your administrative burdens.

New command-line tools

Windows Server 2003 includes a number of built-in command-line tools that were not available in Windows 2000, including:

* dsadd - allows you to create objects from the command line
* dsmove - moves an object from one OU or container to another within the same domain
* dsrm - will delete an object from Active Directory
* dsquery - will return an object or list of objects that matches criteria that you specify
* dsget - will return one or more attributes of a particular Active Directory object

Added feature promotes new domain controllers into a domain

Another new feature is the "Install from Media" option for promoting new domain controllers into a domain. In Windows 2000, if you needed to install a domain controller at a remote location, you had one of two options:

1. Travel to the remote site to running dcpromo and allow the entire AD database to replicate across a slow (and often expensive) WAN link, or
2. Configure the database at your corporate headquarters, and then ship the DC to the remote site; this is often an expensive process and one that runs the risk of damaging expensive computer hardware in transit.

Enter the "Install From Media" feature. In Windows Server 2003 you can initially populate the Active Directory database using a System State backup from an existing DC, saving you both WAN traffic and shipping costs. For those of us who run extremely decentralized environments, this is one of those "Where has this been all my life?" kinds of features.

Enhanced replication capabilities

Another significant change, particularly for larger environments, is a replication enhancement called linked-value replication for objects such as Active Directory group objects. In Windows 2000, a group's membership list was replicated as one single block of information. This led to a number of potential problems, such as the following:

1. Inconsistent replication. Consider this: you have a group called DOMAIN\Finance. From Domain Controller A, you add the jsmith user to the Finance group. What happens if, at precisely the same nanosecond, your junior admin removed the bthomas user from the Finance group while connected to Domain Controller B? Without linked-value replication, this would create a replication conflict, which would either lead to jsmith being added to the group and bthomas not being removed, or vice versa.
2. Replication delays. In Windows 2000, Microsoft published a size limitation where you could not place more than 5,000 members in a single group object; more than this created significant replication delays since the membership list was replicated as a single block.

Linked-value replication solves these problems by replicating these multi-valued attributes separately. In our first example above, the addition of jsmith and the removal of bthomas would be replicated as two separate transactions, allowing both updates to be applied without causing a replication conflict. In our second example, only the individual changes to the group membership will be replicated, greatly streamlining the replication process and removing the 5000-member limitation on Active Directory groups.

In a future installment, we'll talk about more Active Directory changes that came about with Windows Server 2003, focusing specifically on changes that happened when Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 was released.

Microsoft Office 2007 - 'Productivity' Applications

2006-11-21T15:04:33Z

Office 2007 marks a major transition. Microsoft Office started out as a collection of individual desktop productivity applications: the first version of the Office suite in 1989 included a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation program - and a "Pro" version added a database and a scheduler, according to Wikipedia link. But in recent years, the focus of "productivity computing" has shifted from individual productivity to group productivity, from unconnected computers to networks, and from stand-alone applications to client software that works with remote servers.

]]> Microsoft Office has kept up with these trends. Office 2007 is described as a "system" rather than an old-fashioned "suite," and it's a system that's become a big tent. Under the Office tent are 15 desktop applications, and no fewer than 13 server applications and "related products and technologies." Microsoft's official list also includes two Web-based services, Office Live and Live Meeting, and an indeterminate number of "solutions." It's a total of 30 products if you ignore the "solutions" (which you should do, because, as usual, they are all about marketing programs rather than computer functionality.)

Interestingly, of the 15 desktop applications, more than a third - Communicator, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, and SharePoint Designer - can be described as client applications because they depend at least in part on server-based functionality.

That's a change.

Some of these, such as OneNote and Outlook, are covered elsewhere in this package. While these six clients have similarities, they are all different. Outlook, Office's e-mail and calendaring client extrordinaire, you've surely already met. OneNote and Groove are essentially serverless clients that use peer-to-peer technology - OneNote in a simple way to share a data file, Groove in a far more complex way to share a managed workspace. InfoPath and SharePoint Designer are both primarily developer tools, rather than end-user applications, aimed at making it easier to develop applications for the SharePoint portal. Communicator is Microsoft's first try at "applicationizing" presence awareness and tying together its instant messaging with Active Directory.

Groove: A Server-Based Serverless App?
When Microsoft bought Groove in March, 2005, it wasn't clear whether the centerpiece of the deal was the Groove collaboration application or Groove founder Ray Ozzie himself. For a while it looked like it was the latter as Ozzie, the driving force behind Lotus Notes and much of current thinking on collaboration and presence awareness, rose quickly in Microsoft's hierarchy. But Office 2007 gives evidence that Groove and its collaboration technologies were a prize for Microsoft, too.

Groove filled a hole in a Microsoft product line-up. Groove provides an "occasionally connected" collaboration model and support for real-time communications and ad hoc creation of managed shared workspaces. There hasn't been much time since the acquisition to integrate Groove into the Microsoft code base. As a result Office Groove 2007 looks pretty much like Groove before the buy-out.

The changes have come under the hood, to make Groove a more manageable participant in the enterprise computing environment. Many of the changes support Office Groove Server 2007, a collection of functions that work to improve network performance by mitigating Groove's impact on network traffic, and interface points for management of Groove. Some of these tie Groove into the Active Directory structure for bulk provisioning of accounts, do usage reporting, enforce security and business rules, give Groove tools and templates access to data in other SharePoint applications, and reduce the impact of peer-to-peer file transfers to large numbers of users on the network optimization.

Fortunately, none of this changes the fundamental nature of Groove. It's still an extremely easy way for a group to work on a project asynchronously and securely across enterprise domains and firewalls. Its peer-to-peer architecture hasn't been changed, so an individual can still create a workspace and invite other participants to share files, make and propagate changes, monitor the presence of other team members in the workspace, and conduct threaded discussions in an offline/online use model.

It will be interesting to see where Microsoft takes Groove. Better integration with OneNote, for instance, should be a high priority, so that notebooks created with OneNote's easy data-collection tools can live in Groove workspaces. There is some integration of Groove's presence awareness with Communicator already, so that Groove users can use IM and voice services to communicate with others in their workspaces. Clearly the Groove acquisition has given Microsoft a boost in its efforts to create credible competition for IBM/Lotus's Domino/Notes/Sametime/Workplace combination.

Communicator: Are You There?
Microsoft introduced Communicator in 2005 as an integrated client for real-time communications through its Live Communications Server 2005. Office Communicator 2005 provides a user interface for instant messaging, SIP-based VoIP and video, PBX-integrated telephony and conference calling, and Web conferencing with Microsoft Office Live Meeting audio. It also functions as an alternative to Outlook to provide access to Exchange e-mail accounts.

Communicator is intended to give businesses an integrated, manageable client for the Live Communications Server. Much like IBM/Lotus's Sametime, Communicator uses server-based presence awareness information - indicators that show who's online and how they're connected - to enable secure IM and connect to public IM services and corporate telephony systems.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 won't be released with the rest of Office 2007, but is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2007.

InfoPath and SharePoint Designer: Easy AppDev for the Portal Age
The presence of InfoPath and SharePoint Designer on the list of Microsoft Office 2007 applications is perhaps more about marketing than about real benefit to most users of Microsoft Office. Both applications are development tools for creating or customizing applications to run on the SharePoint Server.

InfoPath gives businesses a forms creation and management application they can use to deliver browser-based forms that connect to back-end data collection systems, either through the SharePoint Server or, if they're not running SharePoint, a new Office Forms Server 2007.

InfoPath handles the UI part of the forms-design process and lets designers build forms that can be completed in a browser or in other Office applications. Other application-development tools let programmers create workflows that route these forms for approval or reporting. The most complex workflow applications can be created by developers using the new Workflow Foundation piece of .NET 3.0. For end users, SharePoint Designer supports workflow creation without writing code.

SharePoint Designer 2007 is half of what used to be Office FrontPage, the WYSIWYG Web page creator. With Office 2007, FrontPage vanishes, replaced by SharePoint and Expression Web. SharePoint Designer is geared toward application-development tasks that would formerly have built applications that called the FrontPage Server Extensions, now embedded in the SharePoint Server. Expression Web, not a part of Office 2007, is aimed a professional Web designers. It requires .NET 2.0.

Sorting the Pieces
Not all of these client applications are available in all the eight different versions of Microsoft Office 2007. But this isn't as much of a limitation as it might appear, because the client apps most widely run by end users are also the most widely available.

While the Groove client, for example, is included in only two Office versions (Office Enterprise and Office Ultimate), it's freely distributed as a trial version to PC users invited into Groove workspaces. OneNote is missing from four versions of Office, but available as a stand-alone application for $99. Outlook, perhaps the most widely used of the Office client applications, is inexplicably missing from four versions of Office - perhaps because Microsoft judged that the free and ubiquitous Outlook Express bundled with Internet Explorer was good enough for those markets. InfoPath is included only in the three high-end packages (Office Professional Plus, Office Enterprise, and Office Ultimate), and SharePoint Designer doesn't show up on any list.

Not every Word or PowerPoint user has a clear and present need for SharePoint Designer, to be sure, but the very presence of clients and appdev tools like these say a good deal about the future of Microsoft Office - and perhaps about the future of desktop computing.