A release candidate is available for Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.  Don't go installing thsi on production systems!  If you do have a Vista deployment on your network then you should probably start testing your deployment processes now and verifying that there will be support for your applications.  You can read a bit more about SP1 here.

Heads up anyone who has a problem with IE7.  If you are using WSUS then you will see it come down to your network on February 12th as an Update Rollup.  You can control this by manually aproving that cetegory of update.

I got to play with the beta of DPM 2007 last Summer for a little while.  I have to say that I liked it for the most part.  SharePoint document recoveries were a little messier than I would have liked but much better than the alternative of using the native tools - ICK!  MS recently release a whitepaper on how to deploy the toolset.

If you've gone to any presentations by Microsoft on System Center then you'll have heard all the marketing blurb and TLA's on how their solutions will manage your network and manage themselves.  Well folks; it's starting to happen now!

Microsoft recently released a SCCM 2007 configuration management pack for SCOM 2007.  SCCM can used desired configuration management to audit the installation and configuration of SCOM based on the SCOM team's recommendations.  This means that SCCM will continually audit your SCOM system and you can report on non-compliance.  Obviously, this pack may require some tuning for your environment because SCOM always requires some customisation.

Microsoft has released a number of guides to walk you through the basics of using features of Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft has released two auditing packages for SCCM 2007 so that you can assess your configurations for European and USA data privacy compliance.  You can use SCCM 2007's Desired Configuration Management to query file, security, registry and WMI for configurations of your servers.  This can be used to generate configuration compliance reports.  You can use these reports to plan remedy actions on your servers.

Credit: Bink.

I've also noticed a pack for SQL 2005 SOX compliance and for EU data compliance.  Sweet!

Nexus SC has posted an article on how SCCM 2007 and Windows Server 2008 Network Access Protection work together.  This is something I have mentioned early last year when I was working on the betas of SCCM 2007.

SCCM 2007 has knowledge of how your Windows network is configured, e.g. what patches are deployed.  It also can be repsonsible for deploying those same patches.  NAP is a Server 2008 soltuion for isolating machines that do not meed seceurity configuration criteria, e.g. authorised patches must be deployed.  Toegether, NAP and SCCM can isolate non-compliant machines, resolve those issues and allow the affected clients access to the network when they are compliant.  The whole process is automated once you have defined your policies.  Pretty sweet, eh?  Anyone who is serious about security will look at this.  They might even integrate it with Cisco Network Access Control (NAC).  Cisco and MS have worked toether on integrating NAC and NAP to make it a security solution rather than just a policy enforcement solution.  Note: Without NAC, it can only be considered a policy enforcement solution because a user with admin rights on the desktop can still locally override actions by the system to gain access to the network at the TCP/IP level.  NAC can disable that at the switch port level.

Credit: Bink.

You've heard of Windows Server and you've heard of Small Business Server.  SBS has  a hard coded limitation of 75 users so it's only good for the small business.  What about that huge number of smal-mid sized organsiation that wants a tightly integrated server solution that isn't your normal Server deployment?  What do they get?

Last year we first heard of Centro, a 3 server version of SBS.  It is now called Windows Essential Business Server (WEBS).  It comes in two packages and includes:

• It is built on Windows Server 2008 x64 (not this does not support x86; only x64)
• System Center Essentials
• It includes Exchange Server 2007
• Forefront Security for Exchange (anti malware)
• The next release of ISA
• SQL Server 2008 (only in the "Premium" pacakge of WEBS).

Like SBS, the idea is to tightly integrate the entire solution so that it is quick to deploy and easy to mange for lesser skilled engineers, i.e. those likely to be found in smaller organisations that would not otherwise have the experience to build an integrated solution from these technologies.

This will be of major interest to companies who are not only investing in their own IT but those who provide managed services, e.g. server hosting.  Building a template for this solution should make it easy to rapidly deploy a customer's network espeically if hosted in a virtualised or cloned environment.

I'm often asked "why should I consider Windows Server 2008".  The first thing I mention is the new TCP stack.  The next thing I consider is IIS7.  But there's just SO much it's hard to stop there.  Terminal Services, OS installation, Server Manager, NAP, simplified clustering, Hyper-V, Active Directory (of course!) and branch offfice infrastructure in general.

Microsoft has posted a summary of the improvements in Windows Server 2008.  It's a big release and it's going to offer real soluitons to business problems unlike never before.  It's well worth getting involved with now.

I was asked to sit down for a quick video interview at Microsoft Ireland late last year to talk about my early impressions of Windows Server 2008.  The video has just been posted.

EDIT: The video is also posted onTechNet Edge.

Note that you will need Microsoft Silverlight to view the video.  Don't worry; it's kind of like Flash.

The Windows Server 2008 User Group for Ireland (WS-UGI) has been launched and yours truly is the leader of the group!

This user group will be a cooperative community where members will help each other develop skills and share experiences of the Windows Server 2008 product and related solutions.  We’ll accomplish this via an online presence and by hosting seminars across Ireland on a regular basis.

Although it is sponsored by Microsoft, it is my intention that this group will have an independent voice.  This is pretty important because I don’t want people to see the group as a marketing machine. It certainly isn’t going to be that.  We will be creating an atmosphere where contributions and questions are welcome from all members.

I’ve launched a blog for communications.  On there you will see that we have announced our first of what will be many seminars.  These will be free.  The first seminar is scheduled to be in Dublin on March 12th at 19:30, the day after the Irish launch of Windows Server 2008.  This will give people an opportunity to attend the Microsoft event and then bring questions to our event.  We are hoping to have a very special guest who will be in a superb position to answer those questions.  Attendance will, of course, be free. More details on location (central) and seminar contents will be announced as soon as possible.

We’ll continue to have seminars on a regular basis.  We’ll have access to speakers from within Microsoft but I really would like to get members to contribute as much as possible.  The venue will give members the opportunity to market themselves either as representatives of their organisation or personally for career advancement.  And contact me if you do have a blog or online content related to Windows Server 2008.  We’ll link to you and your content and hopefully give you a few more hits. Maybe you even have a success story that you’d like to share?  If so, jot it down and we’ll be happy to let the world know.

Check out the blog.  We’ll be updating it as often as possible.  Send us an email to ws-ugi<at>live.com if you on that address if you’re interested in doing a little more.

I've just posted the first of my whitepapers on Windows Server 2008 on Server Manager:

Windows Server 2008 brings about many changes for administrators to get used to. One of these is Server Manager. Server Manager is exactly what it says on the tin: it allows administrators to configure, monitor and manage their server. We’re going to look at two aspects of Server Manger. The most important aspect is that of Roles and Features. This allows us to add or remove functionality on our Windows 2008 servers. I’ll describe how we can manage Roles and Feature using the MMC console and by using the command line utility SERVERMANAGERCMD.EXE. We’ll then wrap up the document by briefly looking at the tools that are integrated into Server Manger.

One of the first things you notice when you first install Windows Server 2008 is that it is locked down. In fact, it doesn’t do very much because it has almost no functionality. You configure your password, login and if you’re like me you’ve skipped past all those annoying windows that automatically open to get in under the covers to see how this thing ticks. I wanted to add those components that I’m used to playing with in work and in labs. That’s when I originally noticed that things were different … very different. Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Once you start trying things out you soon understand what is going on and why Microsoft has designed it the way they have.

A brief recap on what Microsoft has been doing in previous versions of Windows Server will give us a clue of what is happening. Firstly, Microsoft has been trying to develop a single tool approach to managing our servers. They’ve tried to get us to see servers as having specific functions that would be installed in a modular manner. We were given tools to do this but other than knowing about them for MCP exams we had little use for them. It was just quicker for us to get into Control Panel and install what we wanted plus we had 100% control over the process. The other thing that Microsoft has recently being aiming towards was the locked down initial installation that we had to add functionality to as and when we required it. Windows Server 2003 edged slowly towards this. Windows Server 2008 has firmly achieved this.

The document continues ...

I get messages from folks via the MS Live Spaces site every now and then looking to ask me a question or make a request.  I've no problem with that, in fact, I welcome it.  However, if you are going to do this then please check your MS Passport/Live settings.

In the last week, 3 people have contacted me and I cannot directly respond to them.  I get the following message when I attempt to do so using Live: "You can't send or reply to this person because of their communication preference settings".  There's never any email address included so I have no other way to contact these people.

So, please either correct that in your profile or alternatively, email me on website <at> highwaycsl <dot> com.

By the way, thanks to those folks who've sent "thank you" or complimentary messages in the past.  It means a lot that my efforts were useful to someone.

- Aidan.

Windows Server 2008 is nearly here.  I'd already heard RTM would be early February and general availability would be early March.  MSDN, TechNet and Volume License subscribers would all have download access within a couple of weeks of RTM.  Bink has confirmed that W2008's source code will be frozen in preparation for RTM on January 16th.  You can expect launch parties to be held by Microsoft in your local area in the coming 2 months.

I've been asked by a contact in Microsoft to start blogging a bit about Windows Server 2008.  I'm going to try talk about what to look for.  Unlike some of my previous efforts with SCOM 2007, WSUS 3.0 and FCS, I'm not going to be able to spend loads of time getting into deep detail for another couple of months.  I've got another project on going that will eat up that time.  But I will talk about what you should be looking forward to and researching, in other words, how to answer that age old question "why should I upgrade?".  There's plenty of good reasons.  I do have some content already written that appears to be unwanted at the moment.  I'll see if I can convert that and post it in the next few days.

Also, next week will see me kicking off the work to get the Windows Server 2008 User Group (Ireland) off the ground.  I'll be meeting our sponsor to get things moving.  Anyone who is interested in attending or contributing should contact me on website <at> highwaycsl <dot> com.