Technet Deployment Assistance Workshops

I am currently engaged in a small UK TechNet Roadshow tour - doing 4 of these in Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Birmingham. The first two events (Manchester and London) have already run - Edinburgh is next week and Birmmingham is in December. I think there's still room on both events so come along if you can.

The event is divided into two days. The first day is primarily around deployment of the XP platform, while day 2 is around deploying applications. Since attendees can go on one or both days, I'm doing some platform discussion on day 2 and some application discussion on day 1 to cater for those who come for only one day. There's a huge range of things to cover around unattended build and deployment, application compatibility, group policy, deployment of Office itself, application packaging. There's a week's worth of material, jammed into two days - and despite the title of the event, I do all the work, while the delegates listen and learn.

To support this event, I have uploaded some DAP related content to my website. There are slides from past events, but the soft copy of the curreent slides are not there yet. Mainly because they are too big (over 100MB zipped). I'm working on a solution - I'll post more details here when I've found a work around.

Passed 74-139!!!

I've just taken, and passed, the 74-139 exam. Woo-Hoo!! The exam itself was straightforward enough - basically it required you to know the Business Desktop Deployment Accelerator Standard Edition. The exam probed for understanding of the adapted MSF methodology, knowledge of how BDD SA installs (i.e. what goes where), some experience with the tools involved (including WinPE) and some practice with BDD .

This was the first Partner Competency exams I've taken. The idea, of these exams, says Microsoft, is to "validate that individuals in a partner environment are efficient and capable of deploying multifaceted IT solutions to their customer with skills across multiple Microsoft products and technologies. Interestingly enough it would appear that although charged the same, these exams do "not qualify an individual as a Microsoft Certified Professional. Shame really - somehow the concepts of MCP and Partner competency seem to overlap greatly.

So partner competency exams are here. And this is a good thing, it's a way of demonstrating competency. I'm looking forward to seeing more of these exams. I'd just like some more joined up thinking from Microsoft around the exams.

Windows "Monad" Shell Beta 2 Documentation Pack

If you want to learn more about Monad, why not take a look at the Windows "Monad" Shell Beta 2 Documentation Pack. It's got up a good getting started guide (80 pages!), plus the HOLs from PDC. Very useful!

Windows "Monad" Shell Beta 2 Documentation Pack

If you want to learn more about Monad, why not take a look at the Windows "Monad" Shell Beta 2 Documentation Pack. It's got up a good getting started guide (80 pages!), plus the HOLs from PDC. Very useful!

MFC applications leak GDI objects on computers that are running Windows XP

After re-installing XP on my Laptop (due to a disk crash), I got bit by this bug in XP SP2 again. I still can't quite work out why, when this bug was fixed in XP SP1, it was both re-introduced with SP2 and is a 'request only' fix. Just like the fix for the bug in Virtual PC that I described earlier, you have to in effect, pay just to talk to some one to resolve the issue. I got hit again by this latter bug - standing on stage, presenting a workship for Microsoft and being unable to do anything but reboot and hope for the best.

Of course, if the fix is for a bug, MS is supposed refund the money. But I resent the need to pay for a support call around a documented Microsoft bug. I also don't feel good about being forced to take the risk that MS really IS going to refund the money as well.

Anyway, I need these fixes, so I bit the bullet, and called MS Support. It took just over 1.5 minutes to navigate through the ear candy and the phone menu to reach someone. Unfortunately, the first words out of her mouth were "our systems are updating and we can not create a call - please call back later".

I don't care about their system issues, I just want the hot fixes. MS care abour "CPE" - Customer/Partner Experience - well today, they've scored a big fat zero and I look forward to having a survey to fill out awarding them that score. I've got Windows XP SP2 loaded, and I am getting hit by two known and documented bugs which MS is making it hard to resolve - this is not a good way to increase CPE.

More on Monad with RTM .NET Framework

In a recent blog post, I pointed out that you can now run an updated version of Monad on the RTM version of the .NET Framework. The de-install and re-install is flawless - and aside from the size of the Framework download, it's pretty quick. However, the first time execution of Monad generates a tonne of errors, due to the new code-signing policy. IMHO, this is a setup bug - and while I can live with it - it sure is ugly!

Virtual PC 2004 and any virtual machines may stop responding after the computer resumes from hibernation

As a heavy VPC user on my laptop, I've seen the problem with VPC not responding after the laptop resumes from hibernation. And there's a KB fix: Virtual PC 2004 and any virtual machines may stop responding after the computer resumes from hibernation is the KB article.

Unfortunatly this appears, at first sight, to not be a free update. In order to get the fix, it appears that you have to agree to pay £35 (plus VAT) before you can even DESCRIBE the problem to Microsoft. While I appreciate MS's need for extra income, this is poor: a known bug, a known fix, and I still have to pay just to get it? Sure, the fee should be refundable - but why should I have to pay up front (and trust Microsoft later to refund my fee)??

Virtual PC 2004 and any virtual machines may stop responding after the computer resumes from hibernation

As a heavy VPC user on my laptop, I've seen the problem with VPC not responding after the laptop resumes from hibernation. And there's a KB fix: Virtual PC 2004 and any virtual machines may stop responding after the computer resumes from hibernation is the KB article.

Unfortunatly this appears, at first sight, to not be a free update. In order to get the fix, it appears that you have to agree to pay £35 (plus VAT) before you can even DESCRIBE the problem to Microsoft. While I appreciate MS's need for extra income, this is poor: a known bug, a known fix, and I still have to pay just to get it? Sure, the fee should be refundable - but why should I have to pay up front (and trust Microsoft later to refund my fee)??

Netcraft: Microsoft Update Will Remove Sony DRM Rootkit

The firestorm over Sony's use of root kit technology continues with news from Microsoft (courtesy of Netcraft in this case) stating that they are going to issue updates to their Malicious Code Removal tool to detect and Remove the Sony DRM Rootkit. Good news.

I'm all for the protection of intellectual property. I make a small bit of money writing (books and for technical magazines) and am behind Sony on the broader issue of protection. Where I disagree is over how this to be achieved. And for the avoidance of doubt, , installing a root kit is simply wron. So wrong as to wonder how Sony ever could have considered it OK! Their ham-fisted attempts to 'help' users out once the news leaked reeks of corporate arrogance taken way too far. I can not understand why Sony want me to agree to being on Sony's marketing lists in order to remove a root kit they installed without my knowedge or permission.

In my view, Sony should publically apologise for this action and should take ALL possible steps to remove all the damage. If necessary, they should be required legally to be more upfront with consumers. An given the strong arm tatcics the motion picture and recording industry uses against file sharers, Sony should face similar stong penalites: the maximum fines possible and execs facing a real possibility of going to gaol.

This issue also raises the issue of the power of blogs. Mark's original article is just 2 weeks old. Last Friday evening, a Google search for "Sony Rootkit" returned 3 million or so hits. By Satuday, this had grown to over 5 million, while today it's at 9 million. A huge PR disaster to say the least. In two weeks, Sony has turned into a pretty hated company - I've thus far not seen anyone defend Sony's actions. But it's clear that, in today's world, simple technical articles like Mark's can cause a major PR firestorm. I'm willing to bet that someone at Sony (or some other associated legal firm) is burning midnight oil trying to working out if and how they can sue Mark for Sony's losses.

The sooner Sony apologise in public, the better. In my personal opinion of course!

Monad Beta 2 on .NET Framework 2.0 RTM

Microsoft has now begun shipping .NET Framework 2.0 (and Visual Studio 2005), even though the formal launch is not till Monday Nov 7th. If you want to run the RTM version of the .NET Framework (e.g. to run Visual Studio 2005 RTM) and you want the latest version of Monad, you'll need an updated version of the latter which you can download from here (for X86). If you are using X64, you can get the X64 Monad drop here.

This drop of Monad is the nearly the same as released earlier (but targetted towards an earlier version of the CLR). The only change is that the "Restricted" ExecutionPolicy is the default, which is discussed in the release notes.

TechNet Magazine - HTML Help Download

The latest version of TechNet Magazine (November/December 2005) is now available on the web. HELPfully, MS has also made and HTML Help version avaiallble for download. I wrote an article on Monad which is published in this edition.