Aidan Finn, IT Pro

Microsoft Windows Vista is now available to all, not just businesses and those with subscriptions.  Microsoft released the product today with lots of fanfare.

The coverage by mainstream press is really making me laugh.  Sky News (UK cable/satellite broadcaster and sister of Fox News) is running a piece by an American broadcaster, CBS.  In it, the "journalist" (and I use that word loosely) interviews a mom who was "1 of 50 test users".  50?  Hmm,  that doesn’t sound right.  If they’d said 50,000 I wouldn’t have questioned it.  Considering that Vista was downloaded in beta and RC by countless thousands of test users and the public, 50 just aint right.  It’s no wonder the US press is the laughing stock of the world.  And Sky is just as bad for playing that piece.  I sure hope people don’t make technology based purchasing decisions based on this sort of mainstream press rubbish.

So Vista is done.  What’s up next?  The next big release and the one of real interest to businesses is Windows Server "Longhorn".  There’s loads of features in Vista that we’re either not aware of or not able to use yet until "Longhorn" is released.  The public beta is coming up soon.  General release is expected at the end of this year or early next year.

According to ENN, AV-Comparatives has just rated Eset NOD32 as the best generally available anti virus product on the market.  If the November 2006 ratings are anything to go by, other big players such as Sinmantec came nowhere close.

I’ve never seen NOD32 in action but some people whose opinions I trust rave about it.  I can’t wait to see how Forefront Client Security rates against the competition.

I’m naming names now.  I have no care or concern for the guilty.

I was promised a call by BT Ireland’s Customer "Care" from a manager called "Liz Byrne".  That was supposed to take place last Monday.  No call was ever received.

I arrived home on Friday to find that I received a bill from Eircom for a landline and broadand subscription.  I never made any contact with them (they’d be the last people I’d use for broadband for price reasons).  So, they either goofed up or someone (probably a door-to-door sales agent) committed a fraudulent act. 

I immediately called Eircom.  Their systems were "down for maintenance" and no one could help.  Maybe I should call back on Monday.

Enough is enough!  I’ve just lodged a formal complaint with ComReg, the telecoms regulator.  Eircom had better get my service returned back to BT with no service interruptions or else:

• My solicitor will be getting a call to start actions for (a) for lost earnings and (b) Eircom entering me into a contract without my knowledge
• I will be calling the Gardai (the police) to report a case of identity fraud that implicates Eircom.

I must dig up contact details for an old housemate.  She’s a journalist now 🙂

I am not one to me messed with.  I will be getting to the bottom of this and the person(s) responsible will face the music, one way or another.

New Releases

Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1: February 2007

Virtual PC 2007: March 2007

Virtual Machine Manager: Approximately October 2007

Support

Exchange Server 2003 – Only on Virtual Server 2005 R2 or later (KB 320220)
Certificate Server – Only with Win2003 SP1 or later guest and host (KB 897614)
ISA Server 2006 – Is supported, but not recommended (KB 897613)

KB 897613 – Microsoft supports Windows Server System software running within a Microsoft Virtual Server environment subject to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy …

KB 897614 – The following Windows Server System software is not supported within a Microsoft Virtual Server environment: Speech Server, ISA Server 2000/2004, MIIS 2003, Sharepoint Portal Server.

KB 897615 – For Microsoft customers who do not have a Premier-level support agreement,
Microsoft will require the issue to be reproduced independently from the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

KB 917437 – Microsoft support for Linux guest operating systems is currently limited to the following list of qualified and tested operating systems: [9 Linux distributions]

The public release of Windows Vista is coming on January 30th.  From then onwards, you’ll be able to purchase Vista from public retail outlets.  Those of you who already attedned the business launches (who were promised free copies) will get them pretty soon.  If you are hankering for a free copy then keep an eye out for launch events … MS appears to be throwing it and something Office 2007 around.

The February edition of the free (and now award winning) TechNet Magazine just hit the wires.  This one spans a a lot of useful subjects:

• Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 1 (Mark Russinovic)
• Delegating Authority in Active Directory
• Dig into New Group Policy Templates in Windows (Darren Mar-Elia)
• Your Guide to Group Policy Troubleshooting
• Monitoring Active Directory with MOM
• Gaming in a Secure Environment

This might be of interest if you are coming up to a point where you need to make decisions about future Microsoft licensing.  No one can claim that MS licensing is easy.  But if you play the game right, you can get big discounts and gain access to benefits that include free support, access to professionals, access to products that other customes can’t get, etc.

This downloadable chart explains the different volume licensing programs and explains the benefits.

This one might be useful to MOM 2005 administrators who are often the first to find and be plagued by WMI failures.  Microsoft has released version 2 of a WMI diagnosis utility.  It’s actually a VBS script that’ll test your WMI service.  The download includes the script and documentation.  I’ll be using this puppy myself today.

EDIT: Updated 26/01/2007 @ 14:10

My client has been having massive RPC/WMI issues which is breaking MOM 2005.  I suspected that the engineering team has "hardened" the network some time during the initial MOM deployment.  After that, they been seeing thousands of WMI alerts every day plus agent management/deployment was broken (RPC).  All the usual suspects (naming, firewall, IPSEC) were quickly ruled out.

I downloaded the WMIDiag.vbs script and ran it on a sample server.  It stores 3 files in the %TEMP% folder, including a .TXT file.  The .TXT file is a summary of the tests.  Sure enough, it screamed that expected configurations relating to BUILTINNETWORK SERVICE (the user that the MOM Agent runs as) and BUILTINPERFORMANCE LOG USERS were not found and that this could break WMI client applications.

A big "Thank you" to the authors of this utility.

BTW, you can make some advanced use of this script:

• MOM: Make a custom management pack.  Set up a timed rule that runs the script as a response.  Use a 3rd party log parsing utility to scan the log file for errors.
• SMS 2003: Deploy the script and run it on a recurring basis (the same way the Inventory tools do).  Gather the log file using SMS file collection for later analysis or monitor the log file using MOM 2005 and a 3rd party log parsing tool.