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PowerShell 2.0 Is Available For Download

Aubrey — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:54:46 GMT

Following quickly on the heels of the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 launches (they have PowerShell 2.0 built in), Microsoft has released version 2.0 for all flavors of Windows since XP:

Windows Management Framework, which includes Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0, was officially released to the world this morning. By providing a consistent management interface across the various flavors of Windows, we are making our platform that much more attractive to deploy. IT Professionals can now easily manage their Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through PowerShell remoting – that’s a huge win!

You can grab the installer bits here.

Using SCOM 2007 R2 To Monitor How Much Coffee Is In The Pot

Aubrey — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:16:57 GMT

I’ve been using SCOM 2007 R2 for a few months now, and I’m liking it. It’s a good system, and thorough. You definitely have to tune it to weed out the alerts that are false or unneeded, but after that, you really get a good insight into what’s going on with your environment. It can monitor just about any type of server, application, or network hardware. But now, thanks to the talented people over at Coretech, there is a management pack that you can use to monitor how much coffee you have left. All you need a network-connected camera, and you’re good to go. See a full demo here.

Happy Windows 7 Launch Day

Aubrey — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:46:22 GMT

After waiting through betas, release candidates, and, well, Vista, The Windows 7 launch date is finally here. Windows 7 has taken over Microsoft’s home page with a collection of seven second demos, and I’m seeing ads galore all over the web. They’re also sporting a really nice Facebook app that tracks what people are saying about Windows 7 in the social media space. Microsoft also opened the NASDAQ from their headquarters this morning, you can see a few (slightly blurry) pics here.

Also on Facebook, if you’re a fan of Family Guy, you’ll be happy to know that Stewie’s rocking Windows 7 on his laptop.

How is the public at large feeling about Windows 7? Well, it’s the highest grossing pre-order on Amazon. Ever. It even beat out sales for the final Harry Potter book. PC World held a midnight launch event in London, and people were lining up to get their hands on a copy. And great reviews are coming in from all over the place. Hell, even Walt Mossberg likes it.

Personally, I’ve been testing beta and RC versions for over a year, and I installed the RTM the day it was made available on MSDN. This is a really great OS with lots of great new features, it’s fast, and it’s stable. I highly recommend it. Let us know your thoughts, and have a great launch day!

UPDATE: Burger King is selling a Windows 7 Whopper. But only in Japan. It has 7 patties. Yikes!

“Windows Phones” Coming October 6th

Aubrey — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:46:32 GMT

Microsoft released details today confirming October 6th as the date that the new Windows Mobile 6.5 phones will hit the market. Here are some of the providers slated to have phones ready to go:

• In North America: Mobile operators AT&T, Bell Mobility, Sprint, TELUS and Verizon Wireless, and phone manufacturers HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba Corp.

• In Europe: Mobile operators Orange, Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group Plc, and phone manufacturers Acer, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

• In Latin America: Mobile operator TIM Brazil, and phone manufacturers HTC, LG Electronics and Samsung

• In Asia Pacific: Mobile operators NTT DOCOMO Inc., SOFTBANK Mobile Corp., SK Telecom, Telstra and WILLCOM Inc., and phone manufacturers Acer Inc., HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

What’s it going to look like? Well, seeing as how Windows Mobile still doesn’t look much different than it did in 2002, it’s about time for something new.

Somehow, that interface seems familiar, but I just can’t seem to place it. Anyway, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Issue Installing Exchange 2007 Management Tools On Dell Laptop

Aubrey — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:24:39 GMT

Today I needed to use export-mailbox to convert a mailbox into a .pst file. As it turns out, you have to have the Exchange management tools running on a 32-bit machine running Outlook. I procured a 32-bit machine (all mine are x64), installed Outlook and Powershell, and downloaded the 32-bit version of Exchange so I could install the necessary tools. The prerequisite check failed, however, and I was given this bit of info:

Management Tools Prerequisites
Failed
Error:
This computer is running Windows XP and has not been assigned an IPv4 address. Check the network configuration. IPv6 is only supported in Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 when it is installed on a computer running Windows Server 2008 that has both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=102391 for more details.

I found that rather odd, seeing as how all we use is IPv4 here and IPv6 isn’t even on this particular machine. After much frustration, reinstalling the IP stack and various other things that didn’t help, I found a fix. Uninstalling Broadcom ASF Management via Add/Remove Programs made the error go away. I don’t know if this is a problem specific to Dell machines or Broadcom software in general, but removing it allowed my Exchange 2007 install to proceed.

Microsoft Discontinues Money

Aubrey — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:21:00 GMT

Sad day for me. I’ve been using Microsoft Money to pay my bills online since 1995. Over the years, I’ve decided on what banks to use based on whether they supported Microsoft Money. Guess I’ll have to start using Quicken. Here's the official announcement:

Important notice: Microsoft Money Plus will not be available for purchase after June 30, 2009. All purchased Money Plus products must be activated prior to Jan. 31, 2011.
With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed. After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft is announcing today that we will no longer offer Microsoft Money Plus for purchase after June 30, 2009.

Granted, I still have a year and a half until support drops off, but I’m really saddened they decided to discontinue it, it was a really good product, and one of the few that Microsoft delivered on time, year in and year out.

My Phone Outage Planned Today

Aubrey — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:24:21 GMT

From their blog:

The My Phone service will be not be available on May 18 to enable deployment of a service upgrade. During this maintenance period, you will be unable to access the My Phone web site or to sync your phone with the service. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Site is definitely down, hopefully everything will go smoothly, and the service will be back up quickly.

Windows Home Server Available On MSDN

Aubrey — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:12:48 GMT

If you have an MSDN subscription and have been thinking about buying a Windows Home Server, it’s your lucky day. Log into your MSDN account, look under Operating Systems, and…

There you go, just provide your own hardware, and you’re good to go. I just wish it was there when I bought it. Oh well, enjoy!

XenServer Is Now Free

Aubrey — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:39:47 GMT

Yesterday, this announcement was made by Citrix:

XenServer, our enterprise virtual infrastructure platform is now free (including resource pooling and live relo), and we have announced Citrix Essentials for XenServer, and Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V as our virtualization management portfolio that offers a rich set of automated functions that drive the compatible virtualization layers beneath - the free Hyper-V hypervisor from Microsoft, and the free XenServer Enterprise virtual infrastructure platform from Citrix. Finally, and most importanly, we announced a powerful go-to-market roadmap with Microsoft.
Response to our announcements has been extremely positive, from our partner Microsoft to our channel partners and resellers, and many many customers and users. There are the expected nay-sayers too, but someone had to drink the only thing that you get free from our competitor - VMware koolaid.

That's a pretty serious offering for free. Here's a comparison chart they offer at their site:

Companies who are just now seriously looking into virtualization are going to be hard-pressed to pony up the cash VMWare is asking for their VI product when you can pretty much get the same functionality for free from Citrix. VMWare is going to have to do something in response to stay competitive, especially with the economy in the shape it's in right now. I can't wait to see what that will be.

Google Sync Is Actually Powered By…

Aubrey — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:13:10 GMT

A few days ago, Google released a beta of their new Google Sync product. It allows people with PDA-type phones to sync their contacts and calendar with Google. As it turns out, they licensed this technology from Microsoft. It’s just a rebranded version of ActiveSync. However, if you’re already syncing your device with Exchange, you probably don’t want to install this, as it will wipe out your existing calendar and contacts from your phone.

Oddly enough, the license agreement doesn’t extend to allowing Android phones to sync with Exchange, as Apple has done with their iPhone. Hey Google, if you want to tap into the enterprise market with your phone (and it’s a HUGE market) you should probably think about renegotiating that ActiveSync license.

Massive Security Hole In Windows 7

Aubrey — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:27:47 GMT

User Account Control in Vista was a really good idea that was pretty poorly implemented. In fact it’s downright annoying at times. Microsoft has decided to tweak it in Windows 7 and make it a little more user friendly, and they have done a pretty good job of that. There are now four levels of UAC, so you can adjust what will dim your screen and ask for a confirmation, and basic things like “Show processes from all users” in Task Manager no longer require confirmation at all.

However, Microsoft has overlooked something very basic that amounts to a huge security risk. Turning UAC off does not cause any sort of a prompt. This means that malware will be able to programmatically disable UAC without a user’s knowledge. Once that happens, the malware will pretty much be free to operate with full admin rights, and the user will be none the wiser.

In my opinion, that is even worse than not having UAC to begin with. If a user thinks they have UAC protecting them, but it has been disabled, they may unwittingly run any number of malicious items thinking that UAC is keeping them safe. Microsoft really needs to fix this if they’re the least bit concerned about security.

UPDATE: Yes, Microsoft has thought of this, they’ve been told about it repeatedly, but they still intend on releasing it this way. And as for it being something that can’t be done programmatically, check out Long’s post where you can download some code that will do it for you.

Live Mesh Update Coming To Fix Win 7 Aero Issue

Aubrey — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:05:42 GMT

This just in from the Live Mesh blog:

Now that we are out of our holiday blackout period for releases, we’re happy to announce that the next Live Mesh for Windows client update will (at long last!) be available later today. Thank you for your patience, and please see below for the details.

Fixes

Conflict-handling improved for duplicate files and folders

Live Mesh no longer disables Aero in Windows 7

Continued improvements to P2P synchronization

Minor usability improvements

This update will bring your Windows Live Mesh client up to version 0.9.3424.14

It’s not available yet, I just tried, but sometime today.

Problem Booting Your Zune 30G? - UPDATED: With Fix!

Aubrey — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:23:24 GMT

You're not alone. Microsoft is aware of the issue and they are working to fix it. Zune service status from their website:

Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!

I'll post an update when one becomes available.

UPDATE: Instructions from Microsoft on a fix:

My Zune 30 is frozen on the boot screen, now what do I do?
You will need to reboot your device after noon GMT on Jan 1, 2009.
Please unplug your Zune (no AC or USB cables).
Because your Zune is frozen your device battery will begin draining, this is good.
The battery will eventually be fully depleted and the screen will go black.
After noon GMT on January 1 (that's 7 a.m. Eastern or 4 a.m. Pacific time) connect your AC power or USB cable such that the battery can begin charging again.
Once the Zune has enough battery to boot it should do so normally and you can go back to enjoying your Zune!
My Zune 30 has been working fine today, should I be worried?
Nope, your device is fine and will continue to work as long as you do not plug it into the PC before tomorrow.
If you plug your device into a PC before noon GMT Jan 1, 2009 your device clock will be set to the last day of the leap year and you will experience the freeze issue. If this happens, see above.
The PC that you plug into does not have to have the Zune software installed in order for your device clock to be set and the leap year bug to occur so you should avoid plugging your Zune 30 into any PC today.
What if I have DRM content on my Zune?
Your DRM content will most likely not be affected by this issue. However, it is a good idea to sync your device with your PC once the freeze has been resolved in order to ensure that all of your licenses are up to date.
What if I took the advice on the forums and hard reset my device by disconnecting the battery?
This is not a good idea and we do not recommend opening your device up yourself. However, if you already did it…
If you have DRM content on your device, your DRM store is now out of sync with your secure clock.
You will need to wait 24 hours from the time that you reset the device and then resync your DRM licenses from your PC.
Alternatively you can format your device and resync the content.

Told you I wouldn't recommend removing the battery :) Hopefully this will get everyone back up and working.

MD5, PKI Compromised

Aubrey — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:45:30 GMT

A vulnerability has been identified with MD5 hashing that would allow an attacker to basically impersonate any SSL-secured website on the Internet. This is going to have serious and far-reaching implications. Combine that with the number of computers out there that are compromised by some virus or malware that has hijacked the hosts file, and it would be pretty easy to start collecting credit card numbers, bank account info, etc. You can read the full details here.

Even if you don't read the whole thing, check out their PlayStation Lab.

UPDATED: Unpatched IE Exploit In The Wild

Aubrey — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:45:06 GMT

ISS is reporting a vulnerability in the way that IE handles span tags that could allow an attacker to execute code on compromised machines. The exploit affects these versions of IE:

Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13

Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7.00.6000.16386

Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7.00.6001.18000

Microsoft published an advisory yesterday, but still no patch as of yet. I'm betting they're not going to wait until patch Tuesday in January to release the fix, so be expecting that in the very near future.

This might be a good time to try out that beta of IE8 you've been putting off downloading.

UPDATE: Microsoft revised their bulletin today indicating that this vulnerability affects every version since 5.01, including version 8 that's still in beta. Still no word on a patch yet. They have also added a few more workarounds, such as unregistering OLEDB32.DLL, so be sure to check those out as well.

UPDATE II: The patch is being released tomorrow.