Michael Iversen

Check out the developer preview at Google I/O

2009-06-04T14:51:57Z

Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year. Watch the demo video below, sign up for updates and learn more about how to develop with Google Wave.

Hiding the vmware_user account in Windows 7

2009-02-06T22:26:52Z

Image by nanotron via Flickr

Faldt lige over denne artikle: http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/windows/hiding-the-vmware_user-account-in-windows-7

Installing VMware Server or Workstation on Windows 7 will leave the __vmware_user__ account showing on the logon screen, which does not happen in earlier versions of Windows.

If you want to hide this account, it’s a simple registry value addition:

Open Registry Editor and navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
If it does not already exist, create a key named SpecialAccounts
Below the SpecialAccounts key create another key named UserList
Create a new DWORD value (DWORD32 on x64) inside UserList named __vmware_user__ (the name of the account we want to hide) and ensure the value is 0
Close Registry Editor and you are done – no need to reboot or logoff

To add this value a little quicker, paste the following command into an elevated command prompt and it will add the value for you

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList" /v __vmware_user__ /d 0 /t REG_DWORD /f

Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 8

2009-01-18T21:14:04Z

Image via Wikipedia

Så har Microsoft frigivet et tool til at hindre IE 8 download.

To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date, Microsoft will distribute Windows Internet Explorer 8 as a high-priority update through Automatic Updates for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and higher, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003 SP2 for x64 and x86, Windows Vista for x64 and x86, Windows Vista SP1 for x64 and x86, and Windows Server 2008 for x64 and x86. This Blocker Toolkit is intended for organizations that would like to block automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 8 to machines in environments where Automatic Updates is enabled. The Blocker Toolkit will not expire.
Note:

For computers running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, the Blocker Toolkit prevents the machine from receiving Internet Explorer 8 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Express install option on the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites; Internet Explorer 8 will be listed as an optional update with the Custom install option.
For computers running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, the Blocker Toolkit prevents the machine from receiving Internet Explorer 8 as an important update via Automatic Updates on the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites; Internet Explorer 8 will be listed as an optional update.
The Blocker Toolkit will not prevent users from manually installing Internet Explorer 8 as a Recommended update from the Windows Update or Microsoft Update sites, from the Microsoft Download Center, or from external media.
Organizations do not need to deploy the Blocker Toolkit in environments managed with an update management solution such as Windows Server Update Services or Systems Management Server 2003. Organizations can use those products to fully manage deployment of updates released through Windows Update and Microsoft Update, including Internet Explorer 8, within their environment.
If you used the Blocker Toolkit to block Internet Explorer 7 from being installed as a high-priority update, you need to use the Internet Explorer 8 version of the Blocker Toolkit to block Internet Explorer 8 from being installed. There are different registry keys used to block or unblock automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8.

Filen kan hentes her: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21687628-5806-4ba6-9e4e-8e224ec6dd8c&displaylang=en

Fix it for me

2009-01-04T14:59:32Z

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Lidt nyt fra MS: http://blogs.technet.com/fixit4me/

Have you ever come across a Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article or been presented with a Windows Error Reporting (WER) solution and asked yourself, why can't Microsoft just fix this for me? Today KB articles and WER solutions provide you with a list of steps that can be followed to resolve your issue. However, tomorrow looks much different and we hope it helps you resolve any issues you have with our products faster and easier.

Our team's purpose is to automate the steps in Microsoft KB articles and Windows Error Reporting (WER) solutions so you can click a button and have the issue resolved.

We Interrupt This Program, With a Windows Error [Microsoft]

Moving WSUS update content directory on your Essentials 2007 server

2008-12-20T22:42:42Z

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Faldt lige over denne her: http://www.systemcenterforum.org/news/moving-wsus-update-content-on-your-essentials-2007-server/

Here’s a good question that came up recently:

Q: How can I move the WSUS content directory to another drive on my Essentials 2007 server?

A: You can use the wsusutil.exe tool to make it. The tool is in %programfiles%\update services\tools on SCE server. The syntax is the following:

Wsusutil.exe movecontent g:\new_sce <log file path>

If you need to move the folders, but not the content, you can add the –skipcopy switch.

Incidentally, wsusmove.log is the logfile for the operation

What's New in DPM 2007 Service Pack 1

2008-12-19T23:22:26Z

Så er der nyheder omkring DPM 2007 SP1. Denne info er fundet her: http://www.microsoft.com/SystemCenter/DataProtectionManager/en/us/WHATs-NEW.aspx

Se også video her: http://edge.technet.com/tags/DPM/

De nye licens betingelser er beskrevet her: http://edge.technet.com/Media/DPM-2007-sp1-Licensing/

Service Pack 1 for Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 provides continuous data protection for Windows application and file servers using seamlessly integrated disk and tape media and includes the following expanded capabilities:

Protection of Hyper-V™ virtualization platforms, including both Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and the Microsoft Hyper-V Server, has been added to the existing set of protected workloads, building on the virtualization protection originally delivered for Virtual Server 2005.
Enhanced SQL Server 2008 protection, including the addition of new protection capabilities for mirrored databases, support for parallel backups of databases within a single instance, and the ability to move data from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 for migration scenarios.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 receive index protection, significant catalog optimization, and support for mirrored content databases.
Added protection for Exchange Server 2007 Standby Cluster Replication (SCR), enabling a complete disaster recovery solution that leverages SCR failover alongside DPM point-in-time restores.

In addition to enhancing the protection of each of the core Microsoft application workloads, additional capabilities have also been introduced with the release of DPM 2007 SP1, such as:

Local Data Source Protection enabling the DPM 2007 SP1 server to act as a branch office server offering self-protecting File Services and Virtualization hosting within one platform.
Cross-Forest Protection allowing large enterprise customers with multiple Active Directory® forests to now have even more flexibility in their DPM deployments.
Provision for a Client DPML answers customer demand for a more cost-effective way to protect Windows XP and Windows Vista clients using the same DPM 2007 infrastructure that protects their servers.
Disaster Recovery capabilities within DPM 2007 SP1 now include the ability to leverage a third-party vaulting partner via the cloud (SaaS).

All of this new functionality builds on the features released in the DPM 2007 ‘Rollup Update’ in June 2008, which provided protection of Windows Server 2008, including Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 core, Windows Server 2008 System State and BitLocker™ support – as well as new tape media capabilities around tape sharing and media library sharing.

Outside of the Service Pack itself, Microsoft is also co-releasing a Management Pack to enable System Center Operations Manager 2007 to monitor and manage DPM deployments, providing an enterprise view of all of the DPM servers and protected workloads, as well as knowledge-based troubleshooting and optimization guidance from a central console.

Between ‘Rollup Update’ and Service Pack 1, many of the core features of DPM 2007 have seen incremental capabilities or workload advancements which promises to keep Data Protection Manager on a trajectory toward improving how Microsoft customers protect and recover their Windows application and file servers with the Microsoft backup and recovery solution.

Rebuilding your Essentials server without losing WSUS settings

2008-11-09T14:45:25Z

Image by cote via Flickr

Here’s a good question that came up in the Essentials Support Forum Recently.

Question: How can I rebuild my Essentials 2007 Server without losing my WSUS approvals?

Answer: Uninstalling SCE 2007 will also uninstall the WSUS 3.0 instance that is installed with it. However, you can choose to retain the updates when running uninstall wizard. As for your WSUS configuration, you can export the configuration to an xml file with the wsusmigrationexport.exe and wsusmigrationimport.exe tools.

At a high level, you’ll basically

Export your WSUS approvals to an xml file with wsusmigrationexport.exe
Uninstall Essentials (and thus WSUS), retaining your updates that have been downloaded.
Install WSUS 3.0 on your Essentials Server.
Import the xml settings file into WSUS with wsusmigrationimport.exe
Reinstall Essential.

Download this tool along with WSUS 3.0 API samples at the URL below.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117680

Microsoft lists Windows 7 in patching tool

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 Beta is now released

2008-10-25T15:57:20Z

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The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is an integrated platform with tools and guidance that make it easier for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs. It offers easy inventory, powerful assessment and actionable recommendations for Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid), System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Windows Vista, 2007 Microsoft Office, SQL Server, Microsoft Online Services, and Power Management. The popular Windows Vista Hardware Assessment readiness tool has now been replaced by this platform.

For more information on the toolkit including instructions for downloading see http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=297

Blog trackback: http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/10/16/the-microsoft-assessment-and-planning-toolkit-3-2-beta-is-now-released.aspx

2 new Microsoft infrastructure planning and design guides - Server 2008 File Services and Server 2008 Print Services

2008-10-18T20:39:51Z

Image via Wikipedia

Windows Server 2008 File Services
This guide provides the basic building blocks upon which many other infrastructure services are based. Enjoy peace of mind in knowing that all critical phases of the plan are included, allowing you to establish a good foundation for future expansion.

Windows Server 2008 Print Services
The goal of this guide is to enable you to strategically plan your print infrastructure. By analyzing your printing needs, you will be able to design print servers with sufficient memory and spooler capacity. Efficiently designing printer pools can help you avoid problems before they begin, erase performance bottlenecks, and serve your customers more reliably.

Link to originally blog: http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1742-2-new-Microsoft-infrastructure-planning-and-design-guides-Server-2008-File-Services-and-Server-2008-Print-Services.html

Announcing the System Center Essentials Technology Adoption Program

2008-10-16T08:23:45Z

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Så er det tid til at være med på TAP programmet til næste version af System Center Essentials…

This announcement is to alert you that the next version of System Center Essentials Technology Adoption Program (TAP) is now accepting nominations.
Do you want to be part of making the next generation of the System Center Essentials product great? If you are a responsible for managing the IT assets and services for a midsized business and have a passion for providing feedback, you could be a great candidate for our Technology Adoption Program (TAP). We view our TAP program as one of the most important investments we make as a product team. We are very selective in which customers we invite to participate and we intend is to partner very closely with you. Our goal is to develop a mutually beneficial and long term relationship with you to enable building the next version of the System Center Essentials product that is designed to meet your needs to the best of our abilities.

For more information and to nominate yourself for the TAP please click this link.
Thank you! The System Center Essentials Team.

Installing System Center Essentials 2007

Enabling VSS for Hyper-V Backups With Windows Server Backup

2008-10-15T20:32:21Z

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Faldt lige over denne blog omkring VVS for Hyper-V: http://thelazyadmin.com/blogs/thelazyadmin/archive/2008/10/06/backing-up-hyper-v-with-windows-server-backup.aspx

As with anything you should be backing up your Hyper-V machines. I think that just goes without saying. Backing up Hyper-V has gotten easier with the addition of VSS and Windows Server Backup (WSB). WSB is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 that replaces the old NTBackup from days gone by. It is not installed by default but can be easily added with the Add Features wizard in Server Manager. Once installed there is one last setting you must configure before backing up the Hyper-V virtual machines.

While Hyper-V does support VSS backups, it is not enabled by default. I am not sure why but you need to set a few registry settings to get WSB to recognize the Hyper-V VSS writer. You can enable this with the following two registry settings.

Under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport add the following key {66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE

Then under that newly created key add a new REG SZ string called Application Identifier with the value Hyper-V. Once that is done you are ready to go! To make it a bit easier you can copy and paste the following to a command line (with administrative privileges) and it will get it all set up for you. You will need to set this on all Hyper-V servers in your organization but there is no reboot required!

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}"
reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}"

/v "Application Identifier" /t Reg_SZ /d Hyper-V

For more information see:

Windows Server 2008 Backup Step By Step

Creating a "no hypervisor" boot entry

2008-10-13T12:43:31Z

Image via Wikipedia

Jeg var på udkik efter at starte en Windows 2008 server, som har installeret Hyper-V rollen, uden at starte Hypervisoren.

En hurtig søgning på nettet gav denne løsning: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/04/14/creating-a-no-hypervisor-boot-entry.aspx, som er beskrevet her.

From time to time I want to run Virtual PC / Virtual Server on my Hyper-V system. While I can do this with the hypervisor running, the result is that Virtual PC / Virtual Server run quite slowly. An easy fix for this is to create a second boot entry for my system that starts Windows without starting the hypervisor. To do this you need to open an administrative command prompt and run:

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Microsoft Windows Server 2008 - no hypervisor"

This copies your currently active boot entry (assuming that this is the one you want to copy) and gives the new copy an appropriate description.
bcdedit /set {identifier for the new boot entry (copy from the output of a plain 'bcdedit' command)} hypervisorlaunchtype off

After doing this you can choose whether the hypervisor gets loaded whenever you boot the system.

Virtual System Center Users Group - November 13th - Call for Presentations

2008-10-12T18:28:49Z

Fik lige denne mail fra Virtual System Center Users Group. Hvis du vil holde et indlæg, så skriv venligst til admin@systemcenterusergroup.com

Image via Wikipedia

We're writing to you to find presenters for the next Virtual System Center Users Group scheduled for Thursday Nov 13th at noon Central. If you have topics you'd like to present, please send them to admin@systemcenterusergroup.com and we'll work quickly to put together the new schedule and outline.
Please send in your topics by close of business Tuesday October 14th.

We are looking for presenters on topics that are new or current within the System Center management space. Usually there's about 25 to 30 minutes per topic, and the meeting will start Thursday, Nov 13th at noon Central, and will end around 2 pm Central.

If you have anything you'd like presented, please let us know. We look forward to hearing from you!

Take care all!

Scott Moss
Virtual Gopher
Virtual System Center Users Group

Google Epic

2008-10-11T21:02:53Z

Image via CrunchBase

Faldt lige over denne video, som bare skal ses…

Google Epic er en god historie, som ALLE bør se, hører og tænke over:-)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Related articles

Requesting MS hotfixes online has changed slightly - new way of generating a request

2008-10-11T14:58:10Z

Jeg faldt lige over denne blog og det skal da afprøves:-)
http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1746-Requesting-MS-hotfixes-online-has-changed-slightly-new-way-of-generating-a-request.html

I don't know if this is considered a 'backdoor' or not, but it has worked with every KB article I have tried it on so far.
Most of the time, if a KB article is available to the public, there will be a "Hotfix Download Available -
View and request hotfix downloads" message on the top of the screen like this:

If you have a particular KB article that you want to download, and the image above seems to be missing, try this link in your web browser:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=[KBnumber]&kbln=[KB language]
Replace [KBnumber] with the number of the hotfix you want, and replace [KB language] with your build language.
For instance, requesting KB 940848 for US English, would look like this:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=940848&kbln=en-us
If someone wanted to, you could create a little Javascript applet to ask for the language and KB article, and auto-generate the above link.
Update: As pointed out in the comments section, someone beat me to writing up a Javascript-esque script for automating the request process. It is called Hotfixr. Much like Flickr. We seem to be losing vowels on the Internet.

Michael Iversen

Check out the developer preview at Google I/O

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Hiding the vmware_user account in Windows 7

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Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 8

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Fix it for me

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