PhillipsTaylorBrown IT Support & Industry News

Microsoft targets Christmas 2009 for Windows 7!

Up until recently Microsoft has been very guarded in giving any specific timescales for the release of their latest incarnation of Vista, Windows 7.

Microsoft's current Vista Velocity program which includes work to improve current vista based machines has continued in to Windows 7. In a presentation last week Microsoft suggested that Windows 7 would ship in time for christmas.

Microsoft are working hard to avoid any repeat of the Windows Vista delivery date slippages. The official company line is that the next generation of Windows will ship 3 years after Vista Home, which was January 2007.

After the success of Windows XP, Windows Vista has been something of a let down. Microsoft introduced the Velocity program in July 2007 in order to discover the reasons behind certain speed issues in the operating system, especially at start up and shutdown times.

With Windows 7 Microsoft are aiming to keep the core operating system simple by removing features and applications that don't work correctly or slow down the system.

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Since Sunday the 9^th of November 2008 certain AVG users have been left with unusable Windows systems. AVG Security Scanner software placed a Trojan threat on a core Windows component.

AVG tagged user32.dll as Trojan following a definition update which was issued on Sunday 9^th of November 2008.

Users systems would either failed to boot or would go into a continuous rebooting cycle, versions of AVG  that had been affected by this update are 7.5 and 8.0 a updated definition has been made available that corrects this issue.

AVG subscribers that have affected by this definition update can boot with their Genuine Windows media (if supplied) and choose the repair option, or they use bootable media to access their Hard drive and then restore the file from C:Windows\System32\dllcache.

AVG have admitted the problem advice has been posted on their support site with details on how to rectify systems that have been affected by the update. As long as, of course, that user has internet access via another computer, advice is under item number 1574.

Understandably this has caused user inconvenience especially with AVG popularity with the free ‘cut-down' version that it offers to customers, so there is little wonder why AVG's forums are filling up with complaints.

This is also not the first time that AVG has flagged such false positive less than a month ago AVG was in the same position when Zone Alarm was detected as a Trojan, as you can imagine this is beginning to raises questions within the IT industry about the quality and control regime for its virus definition updates.

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Microsoft introduces two new server products for small to medium sized businesses

Yesterday, 12^th November 2008 Microsoft officially launched their two latest server compilations for aimed at smaller businesses. Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS) can be licensed for up to 75 users or PCs. Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS) has a larger base and can be licensed up to 300 users or PCs.

PhillipsTaylorBrown have been working with clients in migrating existing SBS installations and have plans for multiple SBS 2008 installations in the coming months.

As with previous versions of SBS there are two editions, Standard and Premium.

Unlike previous versions of SBS, Microsoft have determined that, should you wish to use Microsoft SQL Server as a line-of-business application, then this will require a second server. The Premium version of SBS includes a separate licence of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition for installation upon this server.

In the same vein EBS has two editions, Standard and Premium. Where EBS differs over SBS is the deployment of Microsoft's Edge Security model and management facilities. The licensing contained within both editions of EBS allows for the deployment of an Exchange 2007 server in Edge Role and a Exchange 2007 server in its traditional role.

Management of the EBS server system is also improved with Microsoft's new System Centre Essential 2007, designed for midsize businesses to manage their IT environment with increased efficiency.

Both EBS and SBS include the latest SharePoint 3.0 for internal document collaboration and Microsoft Forefront Security system for Exchange to prevent email based threats.

The release of SBS 2008 is the first collaboration of Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007 and as such both SBS and EBS are 64-Bit only products. PhillipsTaylorBrown have been working with Dell and HP and many of their latest server offerings an can recommend and deploy systems specifically optimised for the SBS / EBS environment.

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An exploit in probably the most popular form of wireless network encryption - WPA tkip has been found by academic researchers in Germany.

They found the hole by modifying the existing exploit in WEP.

The exploit works by the attacker sniffing a network packet, modifying it so the checksum is incorrect and checking the result by sending it back to the access point.

Usually this would take a long time, but Martin Beck & Erik Tews have discovered a way to make the router send large amounts of data - which makes the crack much easier.

Those clever Germans have also worked out mathematically how to crack the data much faster than in previous attempts - this takes the amount of time to break the key to around 12 - 15 minutes.

While it's not an attack that can generate the current access key, it could be used to poison ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) or to spoof DNS entries.

There's no immediate danger of networks being compromised - as no usable exploit has been released yet - but one thing's for certain.....

It won't be long before one is.

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25 years ago Bill Gates and his little team at Microsoft gave the world the all new and 'revolutionary' Windows version 1.0. Nobody quite knew at the time what would become of this new 'Windows' but looking back it's astonsihing what it has become and how it has impacted almost every professional and home computer user today.

It was originally sold for $100 per copy (isn't still about that much?), and Bill Gates invited the press to its unveiling by sending out branded squeezes and chamois leathers to reporters, inviting them to join the company at the Plaza Hotel in New York City for a "clear view of what's new in microcomputer software."

Whilst it was first shown in 1983 it wasn't actually available for a further 2 years! Might as well start out as you mean to go on. We call them 'future truths' here!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

Bill boasted to the world (or anybody that would listen at the time) about an all new graphical user interface. He called it the 16-bit graphical operating environment (testament to his nerdy roots in development). He claimed it was to be a significant step up for the computer industry as a whole. The feature list (read: bug list) in Windows 1.0 was long and distinguished for its time but seems really quite trivial by today's high standards.

Regardless of what you think about Microsoft or Windows you simply cannot deny the fact that it has changed the landscape of our culture in almost every single way. Who knows what OS we would be all running today if Windows 1.0 never saw the light of day, I suspect we would have all had IBM OS/2.. but then most of thsat was written by Bill and his team too (a project between Microsoft and IBM)! It's not a well know fact but Bill Gates actually wanted to call Windows 1.0 "Interface Manager". I wonder.. do Microsoft owe much of their initial success to world class marketing?!

Windows has defined today's modern computing world. From Windows 1.0 to the all new and not yet released Windows 7, all of us working in IT today should give Microsoft a little credit.

Happy Birthday Windows..  25 years old!

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Microsoft has finally withdrawn its ancient, but much loved operating system, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 from the embedded market. This was the very last market to which the system was available.

In July Microsoft told all of its vendors that the now 15 year old Operating System would be put out to pasture at the start of this month (1st November 2008). This was to allow the slower manufacturers still partying like it's 1993 enough time to realise its 2008 and recover from the shift of having to move onto Vista (Which i can assure you, from Windows 3.11 is a leap of biblical proportions).

Most people don't realise that Windows 3.11 for Workgroups actually outlived its successor, Windows 95. And by no short margin! The Windows 95 operating system has been unavailable for retail and OEM sales for quite some time now. testament, i think, to its simple reliability and tiny footprint.

Microsoft did in fact stop supporting Windows 3.11 for Workgroups in 2001 but a large number of companies still found the embedded system a useful platform. Its small, reliable and fast. Most of all, cheap!

By all accounts Virgin and Qantas Airlines have both been known to use the Windows 3.11 Operating System to power some of their inflight entertainment systems for long-haul flights. It's also been used on various cash tills and airline ticketing systems.

Take a moment and have a look at the spec of your desktop PC (or even your laptop) and think that not too long ago.. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 needed only.. 640KB of RAM, seven megabytes of hard drive space and support for a CGA, EGA and VGA graphics card. It required an 8086/8088 processor or higher, with a clock speed of up to 10MHz.

I remember my 486 DX33 with 8mb RAM taking 5 seconds to fully boot Windows 3.11 from cold. And now.. well you tell me. Hats off to Windows 3.11, I suspect you and NT 4.0 will be the 2 most overlooked Operating Systems to date. But 2 of best of their time. 

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We recently recieved our pre release copies of Windows 7 Ultimate edition (Due out in late 2009). Obviously being the power geek that I am, I immediatley got it installed on my PC (eek!). I'll give you a quick run through what I think are going to be the 10 most popular IT professional features inside the new 'Windows 7'.

Federated search & Enterprise search scopes

One of the big ideas in Windows 7 for the business user is allowing easier access to information no matter where it's located. The idea here is for a single unified interface for any given search, with the results brought in from a number of different locations into one easy to read window.

Some of the nice features here include one-click auto preview, the ability to search within specific "libraries" of information (libraries being a defined set of resources or locations to narrow the scope of a search) and integrated results presentation from SharePoint sites and beyond.

DirectAccess

For us in IT, this is by far one of the coolest new features of Windows 7 (When used with Windows Server 2008 R2). Direct access is essentially  access to your corporate network via RPC over SSL (or SSTP), the ability to access file shares, intranet, seamless authentication with company resources etc. Removing the requirement for that big pipe through which these resources are accessed and That's DirectAccess.

Imagine just taking your laptop home and still being to able to connect to mapped drives, your email, your compant CRM package etc. all without a messy and complicated VPN.

BranchCache

BranchCache extends some of the improvements made in Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows Server 2008 by caching downloaded information from the Web and intranet sites within a branch office the first time it is requested. Since branch offices often operate on lower-speed Internet links, user productivity is improved gradually as the day goes on because more and more files are present within the cache. In a microsoft demo, a document was downloaded over a 512Kbit/sec. connection and took about 30 to 45 seconds. After the caching, when another user in the same site requested that information, the transfer was nearly instantaneous.

BranchCache works not only with a branch office server but also on a peer-to-peer basis among Windows 7 clients in the same location. So if you have a business LAN and still share certian information from PC to PC you will see a massive performance increase.

BitLocker to Go

Bitlocker is of course the Microsoft encryption technology. Bitlocker to go is the mobile version. Imagine how many USB thumb drives you have within your business? I bet everybody has at least one! Do you know what information is stored on each one of them? I couldn't attempt to remember what kind of information is on just mine, never mind anybody elses drive.

Consider the security risks that these tiny drives represent. With BitLocker to Go, you as the administrator can set the policies that require these removable drives to be encrypted prior to allowing write access to them. You protect from the beginning, thereby reducing the risk of data loss or theft. The encryption process in most cases seems to take less than a minute or two and the process can also alert the user automatically when he plugs in a drive that hasn't been encrypted yet. Very cool for business use, I think this might be quite popular.

AppLocker

Once upon a time we had software restriction policies from Windows XP, a way for us administrators to restrict certain applications from running on the network. It was ok but a little bitclunky. AppLocker is exactly what it sounds like, an application locker! Now we have a Group Policy based way to identify applications that are and aren't permitted to run on your network. You can now filter by a specific application publisher, this identifies a program's digital signature and is a much easier and a much more reliable way than using a checksum or a simple binary filename. You also get much more granular control on the power of the rule, allowing certain versions or groups of versions (eg: we only Version 7 or above fopr a specific application) to run, much more easily than having to create rules over and over again everytime you want to block something.

DNSSEC Support

Many security type people have said that the next big problem facing the Internet is the inherently poor and antiquated insecurity of the Domain Name System (DNS). Now in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 DNSSEC arrives (finally). It is essentially a set of extensions to DNS that help prevent spoofing address information.

VHD Boot & Support

VHD Boot works with a virtualised desktop infrastructure to ensure image consistency among client computers. If you have an specific environment using a strong Group Policy configuration, perhaps folder redirection, roaming profiles and the like, then you could boot from a virtual image.

The ability to backup your PC to a VHD file which should allow you to then take that image and boot it up on a Server with HyperV, or a PC with Virtual PC support or any other Windows 7 PC or even a boot disk. A working virtual image of your own PC!

Windows Troubleshooting Platform

The Windows Troubleshooting Platform is an all new and more comprehensive approach to solving end user problems via 'troubleshooting packs' that can be applied to PCs throughout the environment. The new Windows Troubleshooting Toolkit allows you as an administrator to create your own troubleshooting packs when you identify specific problems within your network. There is also a separate new tool called the Problem Steps Recorder, this allows an end user to record the steps he or she takes leading up to a problem and then capture those steps into automatically created screen shots, and then email them to their support company. Fantastic! - We have needed this for a long time, replicating an issue or relying on a non technical person to articulate their issues is a major bug bear for all support companies.

Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment

Because of PowerShell's huge popularity, Microsoft have finally introduced into Windows 7 a new graphical interface for Windows PowerShell that makes it much easier to learn the new scripting language and use it in a lovely new color-coded, easy-to-read environment. Developing, debugging and running the scripts in this new environment is far easier than it was with the previous single-command-prompt method.

PowerShell Remoting

Also new to PowerShell is support for the WS-Management protocol that allows you to remotely run commands on client PCs. You can use this capability on a one-to-one basis, presumably for specific requests in response to help desk calls etc, or you can use one-to-many remoting and run cmdlets on multiple PCs from within the new Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment

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Microsoft has recently announced that it's moving into the 'cloud' technology game with the release of Azure.

 It's followed google desktop and amazon EC2 into the cloud market, and I've got to say it's a teeny weeny bit worrying for your under valued and over worked systems engineer.

 A couple of years ago - Microsoft launched hosted exchange, which has meant that companys don't need to buy and service their own Exchange server, they effectivly rent space on a partitioned exchange server sitting in a rack at some ISP.

Although Azure is stricly speaking only an operating system  - onto which applications need to be developed, it's a sea change for Microsoft - and if an internet connection is the only service your business needs to function on a day to day basis - they won't be needing any installation/support services at all...

 eek...

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Windows Server 2008 R2 - coming soon!

Not got Windows Server 2008 yet? Get moving guys. Server 2008 was released as an SP1 product. Microsofts biggest and best platform to date is about to get even bigger and even better.

As Windows develops its hard to keep track of whats what and when it might affect you. Vista has been out for a while now and contrary to many reports is an excellent product (you just have to invest some time to learn it). Vista will, in 2009, be superceded by 'Windows 7'. The next client release of Windows for the desktop. Microsoft state there will be no huge interface changes.

Windows 7 will not have a server version. At least, thats what we know to date. Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the newest flavour of Server software and will match up nicely with Windows 7 when its released (they should be out around the same time).

What we know about Server 2008 R2 so far:

• It will be a 'point release' and won't have a new kernel. Just some improvements in that area. This means kernel version 6.x and NOT 7.0.
• This new point release will be 64 Bit only. This makes perfect sense as all hardware is now 64 bit (finally).
• Hyper-V Version 2.0 will be included. This should bolster the already fantastic features it has and put it on a par with VMware. Features like live migration and better dynamic memory allocation will help this.
• 
  Powershell 2.0 will be included. This is essentially a logical development of powershell 1.0, allowing extended scripting and functionality.
• Improved power management. New for servers really. Allowing dynamic adjustment of CPU and drive power consumption along with policy driven power saving features.
• Better direct access. Similar to outlook anywhere (RPC over HTTPS). Using SSTP, IPsec and IPv6. Great for allowing remote access to your company LAN without a VPN.

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VMware get a former Microsoft Executive to be their new CEO - who said Microsoft were no good!

Diane Greene the lady partly responsible for founding VMware and also developing it as a successful (Probably the most successful) virtualisation company to date, is leaving her post as CEO in order to be replaced by former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz.

No reasons behind the change were given by VMware's board on the 8th when this was announced. It is however safe to assume that this new appointment is significant and a possible indication that VMware are about to press forward more now than ever, probably in response to Microsoft's efforts to push Hyper-V into the enterprise arena.

Keep watching our news section for important news relating to Virtualisation and who's doing what.

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