Microsoft U.S. Partner Community

TS2 Blogs are moving!!

rwagg — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:09:00 GMT

My blog is moving at the end of March. We are moving the whole TS2 team blog to the TechNet Blog site. You can find our new site at http://blogs.technet.com/uspartner_TS2Team . I’ve moved all of my Hyper-V screen casts to the new site, you can access the summary page here . Don’t worry, we’ll continue the discussion, we’ll just do it at our new location . See you there! http://blogs.technet.com/uspartner_TS2Team Rob...(read more)

What is BitLocker? What does it do? What does it not do?

rwagg — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:11:00 GMT

What is BitLocker?

BitLocker lets you encrypt the hard drive(s) on your Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows Server 2008 computer. BitLocker will not encrypt hard drives for Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows 2003. Only Windows Vista and Server 2008 include BitLocker. BitLocker drives can be encrypted with 128 bit or 256 bit encryption, this is plenty strong to protect your data in the event the computer is lost or stolen. BitLocker protects your hard drive from offline attack. This is the type of attack where a malicious user will take the hard drive from your mobile machine and connect it to another machine so they can harvest your data. BitLocker also protects your data if a malicious user boots from an alternate Operating System. With either attack method, BitLocker encrypts the hard drive so that when someone has physical access to the drive, the drive is unreadable. Now if you are a network admin and you need to harvest data from a hard drive when a machine fails, our tools include the functionality to prompt the admin for the recovery key so the hard drive can be accessed. We've done a good job at ensuring the data does not end up in the wrong hands, while making it easy for authorized users to access the data in the event of a failure.

What does BitLocker do?

Again, BitLocker encrypts the hard drive(s) to protect the Operating System from offline attacks. Server 2008, Windows Vista Enterprise, and Windows Vista Ultimate all include BitLocker functionality. Windows Vista Business Edition and the Home Editions do not include BitLocker. The RTM versions of Vista only allow BitLocker encryption of the C: drive. SP1 for Vista includes the ability to encrypt all of the hard drives belonging to the Vista machine. Server 2008 includes the ability to encrypt all of its attached hard drives as well. BitLocker on a Server 2008 server might not make sense for your servers in the Data Center, but using BitLocker on servers in remote offices makes a lot of sense. How many remote offices have their servers in secure Data Centers? They don't! If you're lucky, your server sits in a locked closet. If you're unlucky, it sits under someone's desk. Deploying BitLocker to these machines makes perfect sense because if those machines are stolen, their data is encrypted and protected from the types of attacks that they would be exposed to. Another piece to protect these remote servers is the Read Only Domain Controller functionality. I won't go into it here, but it gives you the ability to provide fast logon experiences for your remote users while ensuring that all of the domain credentials are not stored on these remote office servers.

What does BitLocker not do?

BitLocker does not protect the computers contents while the operating system us running. Again, BitLocker is built for offline attacks, once the operating system is up and running, Windows Vista will protect your data from unauthorized access. When Vista is up and running, unauthorized access can come in the form of:

A malicious user trying to log onto the local computer. Windows Vista can protect itself by enforcing strict password policy and complexity. Please ensure that if your data is important enough to encrypt, that you also require complex passwords and/or two factor authentication. Two factor authentication takes the simple passwords or easy to guess passwords out of the equation so that they are no longer a risk.
A malicious user connecting to the computer over the network to harvest data from the local computer. If the user has access to your physical network, the malicious user can try to connect to your machine over the network. Again, strict user permissions on the local machine and on your network as a whole, will prevent malicious users from accessing your network.

Other ways to protect your data:

RMS, EFS, IPSec. I'll give you more detail in my next post.

Until next time!

Rob

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How big Should PageFile.sys be on a Server 2008 Hyper-V Server?

rwagg — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:08:00 GMT

I received the following question:

Thanks for the article. What do you do about your host system's pagefile? I'm thinking more about size. Do you leave the default? I have a 16GB system and 12GB of that is allocated to VMs.

Do I size the host pagefile for the whole 16GB or just for the 3 or 4GB not used by the VMs? Of course, I want to reduce paging and disk I/O for the host, but if I don't need a huge pagefile, then I'd rather not.

Still researching to see if the old 1.5x RAM sizing is still applicable to x64 large-RAM Hyper-V systems.

Thanks!

Well I did some looking around and there is not a black and white answer to this one, but for the majority of your situations, I'd recommend that we let the system manage the pagefile.sys. Pagefile.sys is around for two reasons:

Provide Virtual Memory to support the physical memory on the server. 1x-1.5x the amount of memory is the "suggested size" of the pagefile.sys, but usually that does not make "sense" on a 16GB machine, and this is "traditional guidance" that does not take Hyper-V into consideration.
Pagefile.sys has always been available as the dump location in the event of a crash, so in this situation, sometimes you need a pagefile.sys that is at least the size of your available RAM (plus a little more). Check out the article below that discusses the details to be considered.

If the server crashes once, do you really want a dump of all of the RAM? If you do, then pagefile.sys needs to be larger than the available RAM, and the machine probably needs to be configured to allow all of the RAM to dumped. Be warned that if you do this, the memory dump could take a very long time (30 - 60 minutes?). Most likely, you don't want to run with this big of a pagefile.sys, because machines don't bluescreen that often anymore. If you do encounter repeated blue screens, you'll most likely work with a Support Professional that will help you configure the server to generate the appropriate dump anyway.

Now when we consider your situation, 4Gb is usually adequate since the other 12Gb is dedicated to the VMs. Since the VM's require real RAM, not virtual memory, there's really no reason for pagefile.sys to support the VM memory for day to day operations. Again, the only good reason I could find to have a 16Gb page file in *most* (but not all) instances is to be able to capture a memory dump in the event of a failure.

Here is the guidance on Server 2003 and WindowsXP pagefile.sys planning. While we have made some changes in Server 2008, this guidance is a very good starting place, check it out. It asks you to profile your machine with your workloads, and then take that profile information to determine the pagefile.sys size.

How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP

At this time, we do not have guidance specifically for Server 2008 and Hyper-V, but this plan should be fine in most scenarios. One thing that has changed in Server 2008 and Vista is that you can now specify a different dump file, location and size of the dump files. That's a different discussion, but the pagefile.sys guidance above should be adequate for "best practice" configurations.

As you can tell, I've hedged my bets boths ways on this because there is no one size fits all answer if you feel you need to customize the pagefile.sys configuration, but usually the pagefile.sys configuration is not an item that will impact system performance that much anymore. The pagefile.sys configuration is System Managed by default for both Server 2008 and Windows Vista. If you want to conserve space, I can see the reasoning for no more than a 4Gb pagefile.sys on a Hyper-V machine. Heck I can even see where only a 2 Gb pagefile.sys might make sense, but again, the system by default can take care of that for you.

Of my three Hyper-V machines, I've configured two of them manually so that I could move the pagefile.sys file off of the boot drive. My third machine is configured with the default configuration of System Managed. If you really want to tweak performance, putting pagefile.sys on a different drive can reduce drive contention as long as the new destination isn't hosting any other disk IO intensive applications like Virtual Machines or databases.

Until next time!

Rob

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Fingerprint Readers... Are they all they are cracked up to be?

rwagg — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:06:00 GMT

Almost every mobile computer that is currently shipping has a Fingerprint Reader on it. How convenient... I've had a lot of customers get excited about the convenience of no more passwords when they think that a finger will do. Well personally, I give those Fingerprint Readers the finger!. Honestly, Fingerprint Readers are pretty secure for normal things, but anything you really want to secure, a strong password is still the best.

There is plenty of documentation on the Internet about the lack of Fingerprint reader security, but for a typical consumer machine, it's probably good enough. Today I did a search on the Internet to see what I could find. Of course Live.com is my search tool of choice, one of the first items it presented was "Gummy Fingers" Fool Fingerprint Readers http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,13730,00.asp. Of course, the person that came up with this idea was a Japanese mathematician! I never trusted those "math guys"... Their logic and all of that! In college I took a math class The fundamentals of Math. I thought hey, I understand that one + one = 2, that's fundamental... Right? I needed to raise my GPA, so I decided to give it a try. Holy Crap was that a rough class! That's when I decided to never again trust those math guys. I digress, back to the topic at hand...

This mathematician took a mold of a finger, used the same material gummy bears are made of, and created a mold of a gummy finger. Now I wonder how many tries it took him to get it right... Did he eat his mistakes??? I agree that molding a gummy finger is considerable effort for someone to expend, but it's a low effort, low tech way to defeat a high tech solution. Reminds me of NASA creating pens that could write in zero gravity. The Russians, they just used pencils! I subscribe to the Keep It Simple Stupid mentality, so gummy fingers are a pretty reasonable solution to me. The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bears_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/ added some additional detail to his research.

Microsoft's corporate policy states that we cannot store our corporate credentials on our laptops. Finger print readers ask for, and then store, your credentials on your local machine. [This is really the root of the concern. If all of your credentials are stored on the same machine, eventually your credentials will be compromised. It's only a matter of time. The "time" factor could be 2 days or 2 hundred years. It just depends on your level of encryption and the attackers level of skill and dedication.] The authentication process: When you swipe your finger on the fingerprint reader, the fingerprint reader enters your domain credentials for you. We've done a good job of opening up the authentication API, this makes it easier for developers to develop alternate authentication methods, but we need to solve the problem of the credentials being stored locally.

Two factor authentication is a super way to meet this need. A number of companies have moved to two factor authentication, Microsoft made the move over 6 years ago. We all carry smart cards; it functions like a typical proximity card that allows me to open our security doors, but it also includes a "chip" that contains my Microsoft certificate. Whenever I have to connect remotely to the Microsoft network, I have to have my smart card inserted in my machine, and then I have to enter a PIN to allow access to the certificate on the smart card. Not only do you need the smart card, but a PIN as well. It all comes down to requiring 1.) What you have; The smart card, and 2.0 What you know; the PIN. Without both items, you're not connecting to our network. The PIN is required because the certificate on the smart card is encrypted with the PIN. Without it, the smart card is just a gold thingy stuck to the back of your ID card.

Now if you really want to protect the data on your computer, let's talk BitLocker. I'll save that discussion for another time.

Until next time!

Rob

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Eliminate UAC for Printer Driver installation

rwagg — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:04:00 GMT

During the IT Pro Conference, someone asked if they could eliminate the UAC (and the local administrator requirements) just for printer driver installations on Windows Vista machines. Printer Drivers are the most difficult issue when it comes to removing the requirement for local administrator access to a machine. I've monkeyed with this a little, I have more research to do, but I think I found a way to solve this predicament. Point and Print. This feature was included in Windows XP and in Windows Vista we require local administrator privileges to install these drivers. There is a Group Policy setting that tells Windows Vista to not require local administrator privileges for printer drivers that are already installed on your servers. This is the Point and Print functionality...

Below is a screen capture of the Group Policy setting that disables the local Point and Print Restrictions. This will allow Windows Vista users to install printer drivers without local administrator permission. This is a Local Machine policy, but you should also be able to define an AD based Group Policy to do the same thing. Let me warn you, the reason we require local administrator privileges is to prevent malicious device drivers. This setting will allow any device driver to be installed. Now you can define the policy setting Package Point and print - Approved Servers to allow users to install the printer drivers from only an approved list of servers. This will allow normal users to install any printer driver, once it's been approved and installed on your servers.

To disable the Point and Print restrictions, you need to get to the screen below, To do that, let's click on Start (or the Vista Perl) -> and in the Search box, type mmc and press enter. Once the management console comes up, choose File -> Add / Remove Snap in... Choose Group Policy Object and then click Add... If you are defining a local policy, choose local computer. If you are an AD admin, you should know how to set an AD group policy. If not, let me know and I'll include those instructions later. Once you click OK, you should be back to the Local Computer Policy screen like below. Go ahead and expand the Local Computer Policy, and then choose User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel -> Printers. Then you're able to disable the Point and Print Restrictions.

Once you make this local policy change, you need to either reboot your computer, or go to a command prompt and execute the command gpupdate / force to ensure the local policy gets applied. Now you should be able to browse to a local server and double click on a shared printer. Now the printer driver will install without requiring local administrator privileges.

Give this a try and let me know how it works for you.

Until next time!

Rob

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Which Server is Right for SOHO or Micro-biz customers?

ronaldg — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:06:08 GMT

As most of you know, I seldom do the standard “cut-paste” thing for this blog and like to at least put my own spin around things, but this is something I ran across (the Q&A section below) that I think may be valuable, or at least interesting, to you even without my inimitable input or masterful massaging (a little alliterative humor there)…and I apologize for losing the source of this info, I would be more than happy to give credit for the Q&A if only I hadn’t lost the link to the source where I found it. I ran across this Q&A while I was preparing a recent SMB (small and medium business) server platform and products presentation.

Here’s a great link for info on WHICH WINDOWS SERVER SOLUTION WORKS FOR YOU?

Also, I’d like to give a shout out to David Overton’s great blog around this same topic: http://davidoverton.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2009/08/20/server-line-up-for-small-businesses-and-home-is-increasing-in-options-or-complexity-for-some.aspx

Now for the Q&A…

Q: What about Windows Server Foundation, does that replace SBS?

A: No. Windows Server Foundation is fulfilling the need for a cost-effective, general purpose server designed for organizations with less than 15 users. Windows SBS provides small businesses with an end to end solution beyond the server OS for small businesses with up to 75 users. The availability of both products is another great example of Microsoft’s commitment to the SMB segments offering greater choice and value over any other company.

Here’s a link to the Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation home page

Q: How is Windows Home Server different from Foundation Server?

A: Windows Server Foundation 2008 R2 is an entry level general purpose operating system designed specifically for business use (running business applications and securely sharing information and resources) and usually requires an experienced IT professional to set up and manage. Windows Home Server is designed for general consumer use and therefore does not require an experienced IT professional to install or support. Because of its simplicity, price point and key features, Windows Home Server is a great alternative for both home based businesses or small offices with up to 10 users who need an easy way to back up their PCs, centralize files, and access their files remotely.

Q: What is the recommended first server for small businesses?

A: Not all small businesses are the same; therefore Microsoft offers a portfolio of servers to choose from. As an example: Windows Home Server, while a great server for the home is also a great option for home-based businesses or small offices because of its ease of use and simple client back-up. Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation is a great cost-effective entry level server operating system for businesses that need to run line of business applications, centralize their information and protect their data. Windows Small Business Server is a great first server for businesses who want an end to end solution that gives them secure remote access to support remote working, more control of employee access to business information, as well as a more effective and professional way to communicate internally and with their customers. SBS 2008 is also an ideal platform to run line of business applications because the premium edition includes a database.

Q: What is the portfolio of servers for SMB?

A: Whether your business technology needs are on-premise, virtualized, in the cloud or hosted, there is a ‘just right’ Windows Server offering for every customer need, size and geography.

Product SKU	Product Description & # Users Supported
Windows Home Server	Entry level server for home-based and small offices who need an easy way to back up their PCs, centralize files, and access their files remotely. Up to 10 Users
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation	Entry level server operating system for running business applications and securely sharing information and resources. Up to 15 Users & 1Proc System
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard	Advanced server operating system with built in virtualization capabilities for increased reliability & security. Unlimited Users
Windows Small Business Server 2008	Designed and Priced for Small Business All in one server suite for enhanced productivity and a more professional business image. Up to 75 Users
Windows Essential Business Server 2008	Designed & Priced for Midsize Business Enterprise class server suite for enhanced manageability and security. Up to 300 Users
Windows Server 2008 R2 EE	Advanced server operating system with built in virtualization capabilities and high availability for increased business agility. Unlimited Users

Q: How does Windows Server 2008 Foundation compare to Window Server 2008 Standard.

A: Both Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation and Windows Server Standard 2008 R2 are general purpose operating systems. Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation is targeted at small businesses with less than 15 users, who buy low end hardware and want basic capabilities such as file/print share, offered by a product such as Windows Server Foundation. Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard provides businesses with more advanced capabilities such as built-in virtualization (compared to Foundation) and has no user restrictions. Windows Server Standard supports server hardware with up to 4 Physical processors.

ronaldg’s ramblings (on this blog site) going away

ronaldg — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:01:35 GMT

As I’m sure you’ve figured out from some of my colleagues blogs excerpts on the TS2 blog home page, we’re moving off of this site/server and over to the TechNet Blog site. This should happen around the end of March, so stay tuned here for at least the next 30 days or so as I’ll have some more posts on here before the move.

We are also moving to a team blog scenario and I don’t know exactly how that will look yet, but hopefully it’ll be more convenient for those of you who follow several or all of the other TS2 team blogs. Of course, it should reduce the number of redundant blogs, but I actually try not to blog about things that I know others are also blogging about, still I think it’s a good thing, and you will have access to an expanded array of topics and styles.

You should be able to find the new site at http://blogs.technet.com/uspartner_TS2Team and I see that some of my compadres have already started the ball rolling on our new site. You will notice that the author is identified in small print at the bottom of each post in the following format:

Posted by MSFTTS2 | 0 Comments

Filed under: BPOS Software Plus Services, Steve Deming

and each post will have a tag, so you use those to follow your favorite poster or topics via the RSS feed options provided. In fact, you will likely want to use the Browse by tags (example below, and author is a tag) functionality to help you filter the results you want from what I suspect will be a prolific site. And hopefully you’ll see me on there shortly. I’m planning to put my first post up by end of next week. Thanks, see you in the new location shortly.

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Want help setting up Hyper-V for High Availability?

rwagg — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:33:12 GMT

I have a series of screen casts ( here ) that talk about setting up Hyper-V, but I wanted to let you know that we just released a new Hyper-V: Live Migration Network Configuration Guide here . I wish I would have had this when I was building out my demos. This guide does a good job of detailing the different scenarios that are supported and those that are not recommended. One of the things I did that is different from this guide is that I dedicated two of my four network adapters...(read more)

TS2 Blogs are moving!!

charlesv — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:18:00 GMT

Well, my blog on this server is going away at the end of March officially. We are moving the TS2 team blogs to the TechNet Blog site which hosts the majority of Microsoft blogs. This will enable the team to cut down on the redundant posts while expanding the topics we discuss as well as expanding or overall reach.You can find our new site at http://blogs.technet.com/uspartner_TS2Team . We've already launched several new topics and you will need to pick the person and / or topic you would like to follow via the RSS feed options provided.We look forward to talking to you on a variety of topics and will hopefully keeping you coming back for years to come.

Watch Out For the Organizer

LarryLentz — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:56:35 GMT

Today I’ve been preparing for my trip to Miami tomorrow to teach a CRM class. I logged into my airline and had it send me my flight schedule. I dutifully added that to my Outlook calendar using the e-mailed meeting requests. Great. Then I promoted those ‘meetings’ to CRM. Great. Then I noticed the flights were no longer on my Outlook schedule. NOT so great! So I went back to the airline and repeated the process. Then after I promoted each flight to CRM, I had a look at the Appointment record in the Details tab. There I found the Organizer for the appointment to be the sender of the e-mail, no-reply@aa.com. If the Organizer of an appointment isn’t the user whose calendar it’s for, it disappears from the calendar. So, I changed the Organizer to my User account. Now I’ll know when my flights are tomorrow!

TS2 Blogs are moving!

sdeming — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:53:20 GMT

In order to keep you on your toes, we are moving the TS2 blogs to a new home next door to the other partner blogs:

http://blogs.technet.com/uspartner_TS2Team

Look to see you there

Live Meeting Audio

sdeming — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:10:26 GMT

Q: (from Gordon)

According to this chart the live meeting service has integrated PSTN and VOIP two way audio with both standard and professional editions. Does that mean the hosted live meetings can have a dial-in number for users that aren’t located at a computer and want to participate in the audio portion of the hosted conference? Or would we have to partner with a audio conference provider?

If you plan on using PSTN access, you would have to partner with a phone conference provider:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/HP102357801033.aspx

More information on integrating the various audio options can be found at:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/HP102356641033.aspx

Exchange 2010 Demo Environment

sdeming — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:23:09 GMT

Q: (from Stephanie)

We would like to do a March briefing around Exchange 2010’s Impact on Business E-mail. Unfortunately, we’re not fully prepared to handle demo capabilities after the fact. We’re looking for access to an Exchange 2010 environment that we can drive on our side. Is this possible?

Microsoft sponsors a free trial UC site at https://r2.uctrial.com. It covers both Exchange 2010 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Accounts created are good for 60 days and allow voice and email communication with Outlook Web Apps, Outlook, Communicator, and of course the phone.

The only features are not covered deal with management. If you really want to show the management side, you will have to download and install the pre-configured virtual server images we offer at:

(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=53f7382a-3664-4de3-8303-31e514d69f02&displaylang=en)

They too, are fully functional, but without special hardware, you can’t demonstrate the voice mail capabilities.

Licensing Virtual Desktops

sdeming — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:54:17 GMT

Q: (from Josh)

Here are the questions my customer has:

Does an existing WinXP VLK work with View?
Is there an upgrade/purchase option for Win7 that works with View that does not require a subscription?
Same questions for an Office 2k3 VLK and upgrade paths.

So to answer your questions:

Does an existing WinXP VLK work with View?
No. The Windows XP volume licenses they own are only upgrades. What they currently have still requires the base license in order to run it in either a physical or a virtual environment.
Is there an upgrade/purchase option for Win7 that works with View that does not require a subscription?
No. Microsoft’s current VDI desktop OS licensing offerings are “VECD for SA” which is based on a “rich client” that already has Software Assurance or VECD which is for a “thin client” without SA. In either case Software Assurance and an annual payment model is involved. However it means that you can use Windows 7 Enterprise and you have the option to install any of our downgraded desktop operating systems because it is a volume license SKU.
Same questions for an Office 2k3 VLK and upgrade paths.
Yes. Because new Office 2007 licenses can be purchased via volume licensing, you have the downgrade rights to Office 2003.

BTW, initially I would question the choice of VM Ware View. Both because Microsoft sells our own VDI solution stack based on Hyper-V for less money and because we offer other desktop virtualization solutions like Remote Desktop Services that might address the client needs and would be significantly less complex. If you would like to know more about our offerings, please ask.

Recovering a Clobbered Outlook Note with Windows Home Server

LarryLentz — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:39:03 GMT

Tonight we had a major crisis in the Lentz home. My wife accidentally clobbered an important Note she was keeping in Outlook. She didn’t delete it, that would have been easy. She managed to wipe out the contents. Recovering items from Exchange isn’t all that easy a project and the Note was definitely overwritten and therefore its contents gone. The only hope was trying to recover it from a backup. Restoring mailboxes from Exchange is never a fun project, and I do have other things to do tonight.

Luckily I installed Windows Home Server at Christmas so we had a backup of her notebook. I was able to recover her Offline Folders File (OST) from the Home Server. I then configured her Outlook to not use the Cached Mode (which uses the OST), disconnected the computer from the network so it couldn’t communicate with the Exchange server, renamed her old OST file and copied in the recovered OST. I then reconfigured Outlook to use Cached Mode and started it back up. Since it wasn’t connected to the network, Outlook relied on the recovered OST to tell it what it had. And it had the Note! I saved the contents of the note in various ways and then reconnected the computer to the network. Once connected, Outlook synched back up with current data. That presented a bit of a conflict with the recovered note. The note was displayed with a different icon. Double-clicking on it gave me a choice of whether to keep the recovered note, the clobbered one, or both. Tough decision but I eventually chose to keep the recovered note :-) The whole process only took a couple of minutes, once I decided on my course of action.

Hooray for Windows Home Server backup!

Customer Licensing Questions

sdeming — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:06:39 GMT

Q: (from Josh)

I have a customer that has some questions about upgrading to Windows 7 from XP. I was wondering if you would be able to have a quick con call with myself and my customer to clarify some questions.

If you have specific questions or know what your customer’s questions are, I would be happy to work with you. But when it comes to joint calls, you would be better served by involving your distribution partner – they offer that as part of their support services for you.

Windows 7 & Office 2010 Presentations

sdeming — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:04:16 GMT

Q: (from Mike & Lisa)

We were approached by a group of healthcare office managers that are interested in a 1hr talk at their users group meeting. They would like an overview on Windows 7 and the new Office products.

Windows 7

Ready-to-Go Campaign materials
Found at https://partner.microsoft.com under the Sales & Marketing tab
There are five campaigns that include Windows 7, but of those five the “Upgrade the Desktop” and “Optimized Desktop” probably fit your audience the best. Each campaign includes marketing, case studies, handouts, presentations, demo scripts, plus more.

Windows Demo Toolkit
https://partner.microsoft.com/US/productssolutions/windows/40103571
If you need a demonstration Windows 7 image with Office installed, the WDT is made by Microsoft, used by our staff, and is fully configured for both business and consumer demos. It also includes scripts for demonstrating the various Windows 7 features.

Office 2010

Ready-to-Go Campaign materials
For this, I would recommend the “Office 2010 Sneak Peek” or the “Upgrade the Desktop”. There is also a campaign I’ve not looked into which might be a great fit: “Health Electronic Medical Records”

Windows Demo Toolkit
Since it already has the beta of Office 2010 installed

Office 2010: Understanding the Suite Line-ups and Changes to Licensing

charlesv — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:26:47 GMT

While I’ve been working with my counterparts on the US Partner Readiness team to build the training for Office 2010, I felt it was important to share some of the key changes to the Office 2010 product lines up with you. I’ve included a few screenshots from the online training course that is available to all levels of the Partner Network today at https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=574219 You’ll need to login with your Live ID that is associated with your Partner ID to access the training.

Let’s take a look at some of the key points form the Selling Office 2010 Overview Course.

The first thing you’ll likely notice below is the introduction of the Word and Excel Starter edition SKUs.. These will only be available on new systems purchased via the OEM / System Builder Channel. If you are looking for a Microsoft Works SKU in the 2010 lineup, look no further as the Starter editions are replacing the Works family. Moving across the list, the other NEW SKU is the Home & Business SKU. This is designed to bridge the gap for the customers out there looking for their core productivity tools, but don’t require the additional horsepower associated with the Professional suite.

In the Professional SKU the one change to point out and I’ve to say I am happy to see is the inclusion of One Note. OneNote is what I consider to be one of the best kept secrets of the Office family. The only application I use more often than OneNote on a daily basis is Outlook.

I want to point out some significant changes regarding licensing with these products. You’ll notice a new acronym “PKC” at the top next to OEM and FPP. PKC stands for Product Key Card. As new systems are sold with Office 2010 evaluation copies installed on them, consumers will be able to go to major electronic retail outlets, think “Big Box Marts”, etc. and purchase a Product Key Card (PKC), which is a single license card (No DVD). The user will be able to unlock one of the three versions of Office 2010 you see represented in this graphic, Home & Student, Home & Business, or Professional.

The theory behind this is that we are making it easier for the consumer to test drive the products and simplify the purchase and installation process.

Now this convenience also offers a different set of Licensing Benefits from the standard Full Package Product (FPP). You’ll notice in the Benefits breakdown in the graphic, that a PKC license enables the purchaser to use this on New PC’s Only and it is a 1 license / 1 device installation. Whereas, the FPP license is a 1 license / 1 PC + Portable installation AND the License is transferrable.

The FPP Home & Student edition still offers one of the best values for the money with a 3 device installation option.

Here are some of the HIGHLIGHTS of the Volume License product line up. The ONE item that stands out to me the most is the inclusion of Office Web Apps in the VL Suites. This will provide a new level

of flexibility and productivity for the mobile employee. Providing them instant access to the applications they use dally at their office from the convenience of a web browser. There are more details regarding the licensing enhancements to provide more flexible options for your customers, but you are better off catching up on that via Eric Ligman’s blog.

Technorati Tags: Office,Office 2010,Office Web Apps,Product Key Card,PKC,Office Home & Business,Office 2010 Licensing,Eric Ligman

del.icio.us Tags: Office,Office 2010,Office Web Apps,Product Key Card,PKC,Office Home & Business,Office 2010 Licensing,Eric Ligman

Windows Server 2008 R2 Adminstration Instant Reference Book…. Get it while its HOT!!

charlesv — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:27:13 GMT

Congratulations is in order! Matt Hester, Chris Henley, and Harold Wong from the Microsoft TechNet team have put a lot of blood, sweat, and time into the creation of one of the best IT Pro books on the market. While I haven’t had the privilege to read all of it just yet, I’m looking forward to picking it up and getting it signed by my friends.

Here’s what the editor at Amazon posted about the book.

Product Description

All your Windows Server 2008 R2 questions answered—on the spot!

Get up to speed on the new features of Windows Server 2008 R2 with this indispensable guide. Designed for busy IT professionals, it's the perfect go-to resource for quick answers and real-world solutions as you administer the new server OS. You'll find easy-to-read lists, quick-reference tables, helpful thumb tabs, and much more in a handy, compact format that puts the information you need at your fingertips.

Topics include:

Getting started and adding roles and functionality
Automating tasks
Managing users, groups, directories, and the centralized desktop
Handling folder security, disk management, storage, backup, and recovery
Monitoring and maintaining web servers
Troubleshooting IP and managing remote access
Doing performance tuning and maintaining virtual servers

About the Author

Matthew Hester, IT Professional Evangelist for Microsoft, has more than a decade of experience with Microsoft core infrastructures products such as Windows, Active Directory, Exchange, and others. He is a contributor to TechNet Magazine. Chris Henley, IT Professional Evangelist for Microsoft, has worked in IT for more than 15 years. Chris specializes in client and server technologies.

If you are looking to pick it up, here are a couple of online resellers that should have it in stock today.

Amazon: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference

Barnes and Noble: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference

Borders.com: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference

Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference,WS2008 R2 Instant Reference,Windows Server 2008 R2 Book,Matt Hester,Chris Henley,Harold Wong

WooHoo!

ronaldg — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:42:56 GMT

Microsoft Outpaces Apple in Customer Satisfaction

Yep, that’s right. Just couldn’t pass up the chance to blog about this. If you’re interested, I’m sure you’ll read the entire article, so I’ll do some summarizing here but not do any wholesale cut-paste. My main reason for doing this post isn’t so much to brag about the obvious inference of the title (you believe that, don’t you?), or to add to the already great buzz around Windows 7 (hereafter referred to as Win7), but rather to point you to some (more) 3rd-party evidence that you can also show to your customers to help them overcome some of their Vista stigma or, in many cases, help them be more confident in rolling out what they likely perceive as “new technology” (but we both know that Win7 is leveraging all the reliability and security of the Vista platform while hopefully overcoming some of the negatives).

As you’ll see, this article is from Bloomberg.com and it centers around a “Chart of the Day” which in this case is a chart showing the results of satisfaction surveys done by a London-based research firm YouGov for both Microsoft and Apple around satisfaction with their most recent OS upgrades (Windows 7 and Snow Leopard [SL] respectively). The chart is essentially an overlay of the two surveys which purports to show, by percentage of positive “grades”, the relative customer satisfaction levels with the 2 products. The basis of the article headline is that, since shortly after it’s release in Nov, Win7 has achieved higher percentages of positive grades than it’s rival (indeed, at the end of CY2009, according to the chart, Win7 was trending up and was at almost 75% satisfaction while SL remained consistently below 70%).

Some of the things that I noticed (from the chart) that I thought I’d point out are:
- after it’s release, SL briefly spiked up to just over 70% but then plunged to well below 60% (Win7 has never gone below 60%), then did another peak (to only around 65%) before diving again back under 60% until gaining back to launch time levels of mid-to-upper 60%.
- Win7 launched at about the same mid-60% range as SL but has not had any plunges like SL, it did dip a couple of percentage points but not even as much as the second plunge of SL which was smaller than its first.
- I’ll be honest, I’m not doing research into why the dips happen (to find the “rest of the story” like I usually do), I just find it interesting that SL has only had better percentages for a few brief spikes all along the 7-month continuum, even when Win7 was still in pre-release.

Of course, you can draw your own conclusions from the chart, and I’m not going to try and push this as some be-all-end-all proof of anything, but what I do want to point out is that I think, with all the halo-effect and general positive perception that Apple seems to enjoy, and with the lack of halo-effect and some of the (unfounded) negative perception, which you know I’ve commented on in this blog over time, that most folks (meaning your customers) would be very surprised to find out that Win7 enjoys a level of satisfaction that’s, in fact, comparable to (yea, even perhaps beats) Mac’s latest OS. Man, I wish we could come up a commercial around this.

You know I dislike anecdotal evidence being put forth as some sort of “leading indicator”, but in this case the quote was from an analyst for Directions on Microsoft and those folks are the real deal, so when they say something I generally find it much more credible that than average supposed expert comment that I typically see. And, his quote that “People who were thinking about buying a new PC are more likely to do so now. You’ll see slightly better sales.” is supported by what I see and hear all over the press. So, again, back to my back premise here – hopefully you can use articles like this one to show your customers that now is the time get off that legacy stuff and get onto the current generation OS technology, and hopefully they will feel comfortable with Win7 knowing that it actually does enjoy a high satisfaction level amongst those who have actually used it. That’s what I’m talking here. You know as well as I do that when many of them take the step up they’ll be glad they did (on several levels) and hopefully you’ll reap the benefits as their Microsoft partner and trusted advisor.

Interestingly, Apple declined to comment, go figure.

Windows 7 RC Bits Expire June 1, 2010

charlesv — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:57:03 GMT

For those of you who jumped on the Beta and RC bandwagon because you were excited to put the new Operating System to the test, we thank you. Now that you’ve been running it for close to a year, its time to start thinking about moving to the release product.

Do you have customers still using Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC)? If so, let them know that it is expiring soon:

February 15 - They'll start seeing notifications on their PCs, warning them that their operating systems will expire soon and reminding them to back up their data.
March 1 - Users' systems will reboot or go to a blue screen every two hours, depending on their system failure settings.
June 1 - The Windows 7 RC license will expire.
- When it expires, the customer will receive notifications which are more intrusive and occur when logging on and when accessing system components such as the control panel.
- Finally, the desktop background will turn black with a non-genuine watermark.

Visit the Windows Blog one week prior to each expiration milestone for additional details.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Win7,Win7 RC,Windows 7 RC,Expiration

White House’s New Cyber-Security Czar to Address San Antonio Conference on Internet Security

charlesv — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:06:54 GMT

I wanted to share this information that my friend Larry Lentz of Lentz Computer Services in San Antonio passed along to me. If you have an interest in Security or an existing background in it, this should be a a worth while event. Since its on Friday, I’m planning to catch the PBS broadcast of the event.

Howard A. Schmidt, who also served Bush 43,

will participate in Texas Lyceum PBS-televised “Great Debate Series”

Our Growing Lives Online: Safe or Not?

(SAN ANTONIO) The person President Obama recently charged with the enormous task of protecting our nation’s public and private computer systems will participate in a televised panel discussion hosted here next month by the Texas Lyceum.

Howard A. Schmidt, appointed last month by President Obama to serve as White House Cyber-Security Czar, has nearly forty years of experience in business, government and law enforcement. Previously, Mr. Schmidt served as the Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Security Strategist for online auction giant eBay. Mr. Schmidt also served as the Special Advisor for Cyberspace Security for President George W. Bush, and as the Chief Security Officer for Microsoft Corp. Mr. Schmidt will join the Texas Lyceum’s “Great Debate Series,” Our Growing Lives Online: Safe or Not? in San Antonio on Friday, February 5 from 4 – 6 pm at the Empire Theater, 226 N. St. Mary’s.

The “Great Debate Series,” which marks the 30^th anniversary of the non-partisan leadership group, will be televised by KLRN-TV, San Antonio public television station, and re-broadcast statewide on Texas PBS stations. The Great Debate event is open to the public; tickets are $20 at www.texaslyceum.org. Members of the media are invited free of charge, but must also register online.

Along with Mr. Schmidt, other “Great Debate” panelists include CEO of SecTheory Robert Hansen, a leading expert on web application, browser and e-commerce security; JDr. Nicole Beebe, Assistant Professor of Information Systems, UTSA; and Ari Schwartz, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

“We are honored to host such an illustrious group of leaders from the cyber security world, and we look forward to a robust discussion on the myriad Internet security issues facing the public and private sectors,” said Texas Lyceum President John James of Midland. “As we increasingly rely on the Internet to store and communicate information, personal security and identify theft is becoming a growing concern for all Americans,” said James.

“San Antonio’s growing cyber security industry, coupled with the Air Force’s announcement to locate its Cyber Command here, make San Antonio an ideal location to host a conference tackling these issues,” said John Dickson, Lyceum Director, conference coordinator and Principal of the San Antonio-based Denim Group. “We are particularly excited to welcome Howard A. Schmidt, and we look forward to his insights on some of the most compelling cyber security issues facing our country.”

For more information about the Texas Lyceum, the conference and for ticket information, please go to www.texaslyceum.org.

About the Texas Lyceum:

The Texas Lyceum, a non-profit, non-partisan group, is a premier statewide leadership organization focused on identifying the next generation of top Texas leaders. The Lyceum consists of 96 men and women from throughout the state who begin their six-year term while under the age of 46, and have demonstrated leadership in their community and profession, together with a deep commitment to Texas.
In 2009, the Lyceum conducted the third annual Texas Lyceum Poll, an independent survey of Texan’s attitudes about issues facing the state and the nation, and held its 24th Annual Public Conference in Austin entitled: “The 2009 Stimulus Package: What’s in it (or not) for Texas?”
The Lyceum has an impressive list of former members who are serving or have served in public office including: Former President George W. Bush, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Governor Rick Perry, former Texas Comptroller John Sharp, Texas State Senators Rodney Ellis and Kirk Watson, Houston Mayor Bill White, Texas Supreme Court Justices Don Willett and Dale Wainwright, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore, former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, and Congressman Pete Olson. Current Directors include Texas Representatives Veronica Gonzales and Marc Veasey.
The Texas Lyceum acts as a catalyst to bring together diverse opinions and expertise to focus on national and state issues, and seeks to emphasize constructive private sector, public sector, and individual responses to the issues.
To accomplish these purposes, the Lyceum conducts periodic public forums, publishes the Lyceum Journal, commissions The Texas Lyceum Poll, and convenes programs for the Directors to explore and discuss key economic and social issues of the state and nation. For more information visit: http://www.texaslyceum.org/.

Technorati Tags: Cyber Security,Texas Lyceum,Security Czar,KLRN-TV

CWR on SBS 08

LarryLentz — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:48:16 GMT

For some time I have really loved CWR Mobility’s CWR Mobile CRM client for the Windows Mobile Smartphone. It worked great for me, until I upgraded my network to Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 08). From then (back in April) to today, I have longed to have the CWR client back on my phone. But every time I attempted access the server, I would get an authentication error and it would go no further. The kind folks from CWR were stumped as well. I even spent an hour and a half with Erik van Hoof, chief owner of CWR, in person, trying to figure it out. Then today Jeffry from CWR made a suggestion that started me in the right direction.

I started looking at the authentication methods for the CWR web site on my server. Everything looked as it should be. Then I drilled a bit further. Of the possible authentication methods, only Windows Authentication is enabled. We tried enabling other methods to no avail.

Then I noticed the Advanced Settings button. Trying this for the Windows Authentication method I saw there was a single check box to Enable Kernel-mode authentication. It was unchecked. I looked at a couple of other web sites and it was also unchecked. But the verbiage that went along with it suggested that it might resolve authentication problems and is on by default, except in my system. And I would assume other SBS 2008 servers as well. I simply selected this check box. This resolved my problem. I am now able to access CWR Mobile CRM from my phone and carry a fully functional Microsoft Dynamics CRM client with me anywhere I go.

Second shot at Second shot

ronaldg — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:34:46 GMT

For those of you who are Microsoft technology certified already, or for those who are thinking about the value of adding technology certifications to your portfolio of industry acumen, there WILL be exams (to use a variation on the movie title phrase that’s really popular these days). [Those already certified may well be refreshing or updating those certs for the Windows 7/Server 2008 wave of technology.] For those that have done these kinds of exams, you know that sometimes they can be tricky. Perhaps some of you even joined myself and Beatrice for some of our “Certification Prep Series” webcasts we did a couple of years back. And, you may also remember the “Second Shot” testing promotion that has been very well received. Well, I have really good news – the Second Shot program is back!

Microsoft Learning (MSL) is bringing back Second Shot as part of its new Career Initiative, which is designed to help you (partner) and perhaps in some cases even some customers/clients to get trained and certified on Microsoft technologies.

Those of you already certified certainly understand the value of having a Microsoft certification, whether it be for meeting the requirements of the higher levels of the Microsoft Partner Program (now Microsoft Partner Network) or just differentiating yourself from the crowd for other job or business purposes.

Well, since these exams are not free, a “bad day” in the test room has some potential financial impact. For instance, I know some of you have employers who will reimburse for these exams, but even if you get reimbursed, they don’t necessarily reimburse for failed exams. But with Second Shot you can now register for a free retake (should you need it), and then take the first exam with less anxiety and fear of not passing. Second Shot is not available to everyone for any exam, but most of my partners who read this blog should qualify.

A couple of key things to note:

You must purchase a qualifying exam to be eligible for this offer (in case this wasn’t obvious <smile>)

This current promotion is valid from January 13, 2009 – June 30, 2010. (meaning you must sit for both the first and (if necessary) second retake exams before June 30, 2010.

Eligible Exams: All 070 and 083 exams.

Second Shot is available worldwide (except India and China) and only at Prometric Testing Centers.

Here’s the link to get more info on the Second Shot offer:
Special Offers on Training and Certifications from Microsoft

And while I’m on the subject of certification, here’s a link to a new MSL site that lists job roles, learning paths and other resources for getting certified in the Microsoft technology area of your choice: Microsoft Professional Career Portal.

On a side note, one of the things I’ll be doing now that I’m back in TS2 is being the “Champ” if you will for Microsoft Learning and our Learning Solution (CPLS) competency and our CPLS partners. So expect to see more posts from me around certifications in the future.

Managing Virtual Machines without Domain Administrator Credentials

rwagg — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:40:00 GMT

I received another really good question, so I want to share it. My servers will be running Windows Enterprise running HyperV with 4 VM's each. The third server will run Windows Standard 2008 with Microsoft SCVMM. Is there a way for SCVMM to be installed and manage the Windows Enterprise HyperV hosts and VM's without being a domain admin. These are being installed on a large secured network and getting Domain Admin privileges to Active Directory will not be possible. I didn’t know the answer...(read more)