Rob Menching and the MSI SDK

For Windows admins, the Windows Installer service has made life considerably easier. MSI packages are now far, far easier to install than what went before. IT Pros will know the value of using MSI packages with Group Policies and how to achieve it. In my training classes, it’s clear that some delegates know and love the concept but are less clued in on some of the details. A great way to learn more about how MS technologies work is to read the System Development Kit (SDK) documentation. SDKs are produced mainly for developer to help them understand how to program against a set of API, in this case how create MSI packages and how to use the Windows Installer service.

Over on Rob Menshing’s Open Uninstalled blog, I saw a post noting that the MSI SDK was not ranked very well in “major search engines”. That’s a shame as there’s a lot of good information here, including:

• The SDK Documentation (online) - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc185688.aspx. Start from here and you can navigate to the other sections.
• The Windows Installer Documentation Roadmap - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa371366(VS.85).aspx. This shows what documents exist and what they contain
• What’s new - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372796(VS.85).aspx. This is a series of pages explaining what’s new in each version, including versions 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, and 4.5. Version 4.5 ships with Windows Server 2008 and Vista (and can be used on Win2k, Server 2003, and XP).
• Windows Installer Guide - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372845(VS.85).aspx. More information on aspects of the windows installer technology.
• Windows Installer Examples – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372837(VS.85).aspx. See it work!

There’s some great information here about the underpinnings of MSI packages and the Windows Installer service. It can help IT Pros understand more about how the technology works and will make them more comfortable. Rob’s blog is also a source of more information on both the Installer Technology and the WIX toolkit.

And hopefully, Robs and my blog articles will improve search ranking.

Technorati Tags: MSI,Windows Installer,Windows Installer Service,Windows

Get-Type.ps1

PowerShell is based on .NET, and makes heavy use of various .NET features including reflection and the underlying .NET Type system. In .NET, and in PowerShell – objects are at the centre of everything. An object always has a type, which contains meta-information about a the object.

With PowerShell, much of the typing happens under the covers – but you can always get information about the object’s type by using the GetType method. Every object (i.e. every PowerShell variable) provides this method and therefore it’s easy to obtain the type information.

To see this in action, consider a variable, call it $I, that we explicitly declare to be an Integer then we set a value to. Using the GetType Method, we can return all the underlying type information – in other words the description of an integer type.

Here’s a bit of PowerShell code that gets and displays type information for $I:

# Declare an integer and assign a value
[int] $i = 42
# Now get type information and print it out
$type = $i.GetType()
$type | fl *

The output from this PowerShell code fragement looks like this:

Module                     : CommonLanguageRuntimeLibrary
Assembly                   : mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089
TypeHandle                 : System.RuntimeTypeHandle
DeclaringMethod            :
BaseType                   : System.ValueType
UnderlyingSystemType       : System.Int32
FullName                   : System.Int32
AssemblyQualifiedName      : System.Int32, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089
Namespace                  : System
GUID                       : a310fadd-7c33-377c-9d6b-599b0317d7f2
GenericParameterAttributes :
IsGenericTypeDefinition    : False
IsGenericParameter         : False
GenericParameterPosition   :
IsGenericType              : False
ContainsGenericParameters  : False
StructLayoutAttribute      : System.Runtime.InteropServices.StructLayoutAttribute
Name                       : Int32
MemberType                 : TypeInfo
DeclaringType              :
ReflectedType              :
MetadataToken              : 33554626
TypeInitializer            :
IsNested                   : False
Attributes                 : AutoLayout, AnsiClass, Class, Public, SequentialLayout, Sealed, Serializable, BeforeFieldInit
IsVisible                  : True
IsNotPublic                : False
IsPublic                   : True
IsNestedPublic             : False
IsNestedPrivate            : False
IsNestedFamily             : False
IsNestedAssembly           : False
IsNestedFamANDAssem        : False
IsNestedFamORAssem         : False
IsAutoLayout               : False
IsLayoutSequential         : True
IsExplicitLayout           : False
IsClass                    : False
IsInterface                : False
IsValueType                : True
IsAbstract                 : False
IsSealed                   : True
IsEnum                     : False
IsSpecialName              : False
IsImport                   : False
IsSerializable             : True
IsAnsiClass                : True
IsUnicodeClass             : False
IsAutoClass                : False
IsArray                    : False
IsByRef                    : False
IsPointer                  : False
IsPrimitive                : True
IsCOMObject                : False
HasElementType             : False
IsContextful               : False
IsMarshalByRef             : False

This shows the actual type (System.Int), what assembly the type comes from, and a variety of details. Now for most IT Pros, most if not all of this information is not all that exciting. But it can be a great help for both Devs and more dev-friendly IT Pros wanting to understand more about .NET and how to leverage it from PowerShell. The INT32 class is simple, but the type information can help you to understand how this particular type works, something even more important for more complex types.

Technorati Tags: PowerShell,Type

Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008

It was a good week in Barcelona, despite losing my wallet thanks to pickpockets. I got back, excited to pick up the various sessions I’d missed, I was prompted by a mail I got today asking me to finish off my feedback.

I would have been happy to provide feedback, so I went to the Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 site. It says login – but there’s no where to actually enter credentials. I’ve tried on 3 machines, and used different browsers on each. Is it really too much to expect that Microsoft actually sends mail pointing to pages that are actually usable?

[Later]

It's now working again - and you can login. Looks like the email to MS generated the fix.

Technorati Tags: rant,TechEd,Does Microsoft need training in how to build web sites?

Ramp Up – Developer Training From Microsoft

If you are a developer, Microsoft has some new free training. Microsoft explains Rampup as: “free, online, community-based learning program, with a number of different tracks that will help you build your portfolio of professional development skills. Ramp Up has a solid foundation of premium technical content from subject-matter gurus, and provides easy-to-access content in a variety of forms that guide you in learning the important skills. Join Ramp Up (it's free!) and help advance your career”

The current offerings and current web site are clearly a work in progress. The site is a little clunk with the integration between MSDN and MS Learning being less than totally seamless. There’s a lack of discoverability, little integration between this training and the MSDN Library content and the material is not bang up to date. But that’s just work that needs to be done – the free training is still of benefit.

I’ve suggested that the next course to go up on the RampUp site should be PowerShell for developers. We’ll see if MS take me up on this suggestion.

So if you’re a developer, why not head on over to the new Ramp Up site and sign up?

Technorati tags: Rampup, training, Microsoft, PowerShell

Updated ZoomIt from Microsoft (Sysinternals)

For folks that do a lot of presentations, the Zoomit tool is a life saver. Written by Mark Russinovich,Zoomit is a screen zoom and annotation tool. Microsoft has released a new version of this fantastic tool. Key changes include the ability to change the colour of the break timer and a change in the say screen captures are done so as to include any tooltip window. And it’s free!

 

 

Technorati tags: Zoomit, Mark Russinovich, Microsoft, Sysinternals

PowerShell V2 – Video By Jeffrey Snover

I came across a great video on PowerShell Version 2. By Jeffrey Snover, it’s 1:08 long, but worth the look. Jeffrey is such a compelling speaker, and PowerShell V2 is such a compelling product! The title of the talk is PowerShell V2 – the next stage in the IT Revolution.

Technorati tags: PowerShell, PowerShell V2, Jeffrey Snover

PowerShellCommunity.org – another PowerShell community site

For PowerShell enthusiasts, there’s another ciommunity web site to bookmark and visit: www.powershellcommunity.org. This site has:

• Forums - http://powershellcommunity.org/Forums.aspx
• Blogs - http://powershellcommunity.org/Blogs/CommunityBlogs.aspx and http://powershellcommunity.org/Blogs/ExternalBlogs.aspx
• Podcasts - http://powershellcommunity.org/Podcast.aspx
• Script library - http://powershellcommunity.org/Scripts.aspx
• User group support - http://powershellcommunity.org/UserGroupSupport.aspx
• Learning Resources - http://powershellcommunity.org/LearningResources.aspx

A nice site, with lots of PowerShell community folks on board.

Technorati Tags: Powershell,community

Network Protocol Training

It’s a bit short notice, but I see that Network Protocol Specialists are running a series of free Wireshark Quick start web casts. The first webcast starts TODAY at 18:00 UK time (10:00 Pacific time), and it lasts for an hour. Today’s webcast covers cover analyzer placement, basic capture filters, and displaying the packets.

For more details on the webcasts, see: Network Protocol Specialists » Training and to register for today’s webcast go to the registration page.

Technorati Tags: Wireshark,protocols,webcast

PowerShell Community Site: www.powershell.com

WWW.PowerShell.Com is an educational and community site for Windows PowerShell. A cool site name – not sure how they managed to snag the domain name but it also provides a wealth of information to the PowerShell community. The site contains:

• Script library - http://powershell.com/cs/media/13/default.aspx
• Daily PowerShell tips and tricks – http://powershell.com/cs/
• Community forums - http://powershell.com/cs/forums/
• Community blogs - http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/ (see http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/Bloggers.aspx for the directory of bloggers)
• RSS feeds - http://powershell.com/cs/ps/feeds.aspx

It’s clear to me that the PowerShell community is strong, vibrant and incredibly empowering. Sites like www.powershell.com only help to improve the reach of PowerShell and help all of us do even better. You can join the site – it’s free! – and get some cool benefits, including a “@powershell.com” email address!

Technorati Tags: PowerShell

PowerShell Plus – TechEd Conversations

I got a real kick out of chatting with Tobias Weltner and talking to the Idera folks at TechEd Barcelona. Tobias has some great ideas – and some of the as of yet unreleased features he was able to show me were cool. I won’t violate the confidence by saying anything more other than the next release of PowerShell Plus is a must have for any PowerShell power user. I am now using PS+ as my primary IDE for PowerShell. I like the new upcoming ISE that MS will release – but for me, I have an even better tool!

I also enjoyed the chat with Idera. They really get PowerShell and are committed to delivering great tools for IT Pros. Turns out they have a load of SQL, Dynamics and SharePoint too. They also get community too – and are sponsors the www.powershell.com community site. Very cool – thanks Idera.

Technorati Tags: PowerShell,PowerShell Plus,Idera,SQL,Dynamics,SharePoint,tools

Azure Services Platform

I see Microsoft has added a bunch of content about the Azure Services platform to the MSDN Library. Lots of preliminary stuff, but great content. Consider checking it out. I would suggest updating it via the wiki feature, but it looks like this has the wiki feature turned off – so it’s r/o at this time.

Information provided includes:

• Windows Azure SDK - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179367.aspx
• Live Services SDK - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179367.aspx
• Microsoft .NET Services Nov 2008 CTP - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd129878.aspx
• SQL Services - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd200927.aspx

Scripting with Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP

For PowerShell geeks, the next CTP for Version 2 is out ‘soon’. Jeff Snover, at TechEd Barcelona said it would be coming in December. There were no new ‘bits’ for TechEd although there was lots of demos of functions not provided in the current CTP. I understand the team’s priorities and know that their decision not to hand out bits was the right one.

In terms of getting ready for V2, there are some great new features. I took detailed notes during one PowerShell talk and will transcribe into a blog post soon!

So while waiting for PowerShell V2 CTP3 to come out, why not visit Scripting with Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP – a sub-site below the TechNet Script Center. While CTP1/2 focused, there’s a lot of great information and good links on the site. With V2 being such a massive update in functionality (remoting alone is a huge topic!), learning about some of the feature now will hold you in good stead. And when CTP3 is released, I would hope that this site gets even more valuable.

Technorati Tags: PowerShell,CTP3

I’ve been robbed

So here I am – in Barcelona at TechEd EMEA. I’ve enjoyed a great dinner with all the PowerShell folks and we’re walking up to a bar on the Ramblas. A chap hands me a card for a bar and suddenly does a knee dance – moving me around and making me off balance. He finished and I start to walk away and I discover my wallet is gone. The police here are a tad unhelpful – pointing me to a phone with free phone number. Amex and Master Card eventually deal but it took a long time.

Thank heavens for good friends: Dmitry from Quest went to the police with me, lent me enough cash to get to the airport, and paid for the cab home. Times like this – you know who your friends really are. Thanks to Dmitry.

Being at a PowerShell dinner with friends that matter: priceless, Being in Barcelona – it sucks.

TechNet Keynote - Summary

Here’s the key points I pulled from today’s keynote at TechEd. I’ll post this as we go, with updates later!

Summary

The keynote did not have much really stunning news – most of the ‘announcements’ were well trailed and had been largely already announced. I was very dissapointed with no mention of PowerShell V2 (or announcing it’s availability!) and no mention at all of OCS 2007 R2. But hey – it’s great to see MS getting into recycling (and now recycling news).

General Stuff

• TechEd 2009 is to be in Berlin (Hooray – I think!)
• Brad Anderson is speaker – he’s the GM of the Management and Services Division.
• Brad see's IT Priorities today as: Virtualisation, Cloud, Compliance, BI, Access Anywhere, Green IT
• Dynamic IT is the key – 4 key areas (virtualisation, models of IT, service orientation (cloud), user focused (Win7)
• Infrastructure Optimisation is a key aspect to enable dynamic IT or help organisations get there.
• WiFi is poor (again) – although it managed to more or less be usable for the whole 90 minutes.

Virtulisation

• Brad says, moving forward 5% of worlds power supply goes to powering IT data centres – wow!
• A server at idle, uses 60& of full power .
• Virtualisation gives 10:1 impact (each physical server can support 10 virtual servers) – 90% reduction in power usage.
• Next release of Windows Server R2 – includes a new version of Hyper-V. Moving forward, Hyper-V will be updated with the OS and not out of band.
• Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V will have live migration (a feature dropped from first release of Hyper-V V1)
• They did a System Center VMM demo – very cool
  • Everything starts with a model
  • PRO – performance resource optimisation – part of SCC VM monitors SLA compliance (and can make recommendations)
• Virtualisation is not a product but a strategy (including server desktop, application and presentation). Not a new message.
• Kidaro integrates into MDOP next year
• MDOP the fastest selling product inside software licensing
• App-V – application virtualisation is independent of the OS
• Oslo is new modelling techniques to help manage the combination of app/server management

Green IT

• MS is currently the largest commercial purchaser of servers today!
• New data centres – one a quarter – based on green IT (using ambient air to do cooling).

Server 2008 R2

• New Hyper-V version coming
• Updates to IIS and ASP.NE on Server Core
• Power Management improvements
• PowerShell V2 including lots of new cmdlets (also as previously announced, PowerShell will run on Server Core)
• Best practices analyser – no details of what it will look like
• DirectAccss – VPN-less business across the internet.
• Branch Cache – a caching solution to improve performance/decrease bandwidth demand for poorly connected sites
• Bitlocker to go – encryption for disconnected media eg thumb drives

SQL Server

• Kilimanjaro – next version
• Gemini – self service BI analysis
• Cool demo – lots more legs to BI!

Security

• Forefront – built on Operations Manager, etc.
• Next release of Forefront will be installable on top of existing ops manager implementation

Services (aka The Cloud)

• Moving forward “Live” brand is consumer focused, “On-Line” is business brand
• MS seem to be killing off 3rd party hosting partners
• Coexistence between cloud and org starts with synching local AD with Cloud – this mean all YOUR AD Contents now are hosted by MS.
• Launch in Spring 2009
• Azure – launched last week at PDC contains key features to help you migrate to the cloud.

Technorati tags: TechEd, Microsoft, Hyper-V, PowerShell

Keynote Twitter from TechEd

 

I’m “in the room” for the TechEd keynote. The “music” is way too loud, and the video is abstract stuff. Follow me as @doctordns.

I’m hoping to get connected to the internet (no luck yet) to be able to twitter stuff as they announce it on stage! I

I’m using WiFi radar to get me a connection. But, at present, I’m unable  to get a stable wireless connection. :

Windows Server 2003 ASR – It DOES Work!

It’s been a bad day for my home network. We’ve had several hours of continual power cuts overnight, and when I woke up, my ISA Server Firewall had suffered a disk failure. I can’t really complain – the box is an old Dell desktop I bought around 4 years ago from E-bay, and it’s been running the firewall 7x24 ever since. I’d been meaning to take a backup, but, well I had none.

The symptoms were all too familiar – the dreaded startup screen that said disk failure. So I fired up the built-in IDE diagnostics which confirmed a serious disk error. Next I ran Sysinternals ERD (now part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack) to find I could see the disk. Surprisingly, the Disk Commander could see the disk, and I managed to get all the non-OS files stored on another drive on my network. Nothing important, except all the installation files for the box.

I tried to take a Ghost image of the drive, but that did not work (too many disk errors), so I turned the machine off for a while, and had some breakfast. A bit later, I managed to get it to boot and also managed to get an ASR backup done!

Those nice folks in PC World sold me a new Hitachi Deskstar disk (500 GB replacing an old Maxstor 40GB!) and after lunch that was installed and working. Once that worked, I booted the Windows Server 2003 boot disk, hit F2 to select ASR Recovery and sat back and watched. Around 40 minutes later I was up and nearly up and running. During the re-install, the Windows Firewall had been installed, which stopped ISA from running. The Event Log helpfully suggested re-installing ISA server – and sure enough that worked a treat and we’re back up an running. Sart to finish just over 6 hours (which includes breakfast, lunch and a drive to PC World).

Some key take-aways:

1. ASR does work, but it needs working floppy disks. That proved harder than you might think – but I know have a small stash of new-ish floppy disks.
2. The Event Log sometimes really is your friend.
3. The ISA Server team deserve a bit pat on the back for great (and accurate) event log messages
4. Hundred Years Hall is a great CD to listen to whilst fixing a broken system!
5. There may be an economic crisis, but PC World sure was busy.

Technorati Tags: ASR,Windows Server 2003,ISA Server 2004

Creating an NLB Cluster using Windows Server 2008

As noted in an earlier blog post, I’m writing an article on Server Clustering for Server Management Magazine. In the article I discuss setting up of an NLB cluster. This blog post shows the steps in more detail, including screen shots of each step.

Creating an NLB Cluster

There are three key steps to creating an NLB cluster in Windows Server 2008:

1. Install the NLB Feature into Server 2008 on each host that you will add to an NLB cluster.
2. Use the New Cluster wizard to create the cluster and add the first host.
3. Use the Add Host wizard to add one ore more nodes to your cluster

You also have to setup the application that you want to cluster. For the article I created a very simple ASP.NET application that I documented in an earlier blog post.

Installing NLB in Server 2008

This is extremely easy. First you run Server Manager, and select Features from the tree and click on Add Features:

From the Add Features wizard just select Network Load Balancing and click Next:

Finally from the Confirm Installation Selections click Install:

After a few seconds, NLB will be installed on the first host. You need to repeat this installation on each host you plan to add to your NLB Cluster. Installing the NLB feature does NOT require a reboot, but removing it does.

Creating your NLB Cluster

Once NLB is installed, you create your cluster by first bringing up the NLB Cluster Manager:

The right click the Network Load Balancing cluster node in the left pane, and select New Cluster:

This brings up the first page of the New Cluster Wizard – here you select the first member of your cluster by adding the IP address or DNS name into the Host box:

This shows you the interfaces on this host that you can use for configuring a new cluster. Chose the interface and click Next:

This brings up the Host Parameters page, where you enter the IP address to be used for the cluster for the cluster, then you click next:

 

This brings up the Cluster IP address page. Here you add the address used by clients to connect to nodes in the cluster:

 

After adding the IP address, and clicking next, the New Cluster wizard displays the Cluster Parameters where you specify the cluster IP configuration and the cluster operation mode (and click  next):

Finally, the wizard displays the port rules. In this case, we specify the cluster shoudl handle TCP Port 80 (and click on Finish):

The Wizard then does the necessary configuration, resulting in a single node NLB cluster, shown in the NLB manager like this:

At this point, you can navigate to the cluster to see the application running:

 

Adding Additional Nodes

A single node cluster is not much value, so you next need to add an additional node (or nodes). To add a node, you right click your newly created cluster and select Add Host to Cluster:

 

This brings up the Add Host to Cluster: Connect page where you specify the host to add, and the interface used in the cluster:

Next you specify the new host’s parameters:

Then you get to update, in needed the cluster’s port rules:

Clicking next completes the wizard, resulting in a 2nd host in the cluster. As seen by NLB Manager:

Re navigating in your browser to the cluster may (or may not) result in a different page. Whilst running the wizard to create the screen shots shown here, this did change:

 

So – it’s simple and easy to create an NLB cluster in Server 2008!

Technorati Tags: NLB,network load balancing,Windows Server 2008

Testing Server 2008 NLB clusters

I am working on an article for Server Management magazine, due out on December focusing on Clustering. One aspect of this article is around NLB clusters in Server 2008. To test this, I wrote a very simple ASP.Net Application.

Here’s the default.aspx web page:

 1 <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="myip._Default" %>
 2 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
 4 <head runat="server"> <title>NLB Test on NLB 1Tool</title></head>
 5 <body>
 6     <form id="form1" runat="server"><div></div>
 7     <p>        NLB Test Tool</p><p></p>
 8     <p>        The IP address of this server is:</p>
 9     <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server"></asp:Label>
10     </form>
11 </body>
12 </html>

As you can see, this ASP.NET has some code:

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.Net;

namespace myip
{
    public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
        string strHostName = " ";
        strHostName = System.Net.Dns.GetHostName();
        IPHostEntry ipEntry = System.Net.Dns.GetHostByName(strHostName);
        IPAddress[] addr = ipEntry.AddressList;
        Label1.Text = addr[0].ToString();
        }
    }
}

I loaded this onto two NLB cluster hosts changing the HTML title on each host to reflect the host name (the HTML avove is used on Node 1)! When I then navigated to the page, I saw this:

As you can seem, in this case, the cluster served up Node 2. Depending on which underlying host serviced the request, I saw a different title and a different IP address.

Thanks for http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/network.aspx and Naveen K Kohli for the important parts of the C#code.

Technorati Tags: C#,ASP.NET,NLB

574 Reasons for MS to be Proud and Optimistic About W7 and WS08R2

In a really neat blog post, PowerShell Team Blog : 574 Reasons Why We Are So Proud and Optimistic About W7 and WS08R2, Jeffrey Snover continues the PowerShell 2.0 tease. In this post he looks at the wide range of cmdlets that Microsoft plan to ship with PowerShell V2.

To some degree, this is not very exciting news. But only because this just meets MY expectations. However, in saying this, you should know that my expectations were set to a very high bar years ago – this latest blog post merely confirms what I’ve always believed. Namely, that with a good team, PowerShell could become a truly great product.

For IT professionals, Windows admins, and general power users, this post is another in a long line of hints that you really should get to know PowerShell much better. If you can’t pick it up and learn it on your own (like some of us old timers who had to since there was no training in those earlier days), then come on a training course. In EMEA, I run a nice selection of PowerShell classes, including the Microsoft 6434 course.

The 6434 is an excellent course, but I suppose that as I helped to write it, I would say that. It’s three days long and packed. Day 1 looks at what I call the holy trinity: cmdlets, objects and the pipeline and a whole lot more. Day 2 moves into how you use these things to write production scripts. Day three then looks at three key technologies (WMI, ADSI/.NET and COM) and how PowerShell can be used to interoperate and to manage Windows 2008 and other servers.

In closing, I just wish Jeffrey would stop teasing, and just release some code. We’ve not had a new PowerShell build for what seems like forever and I’m just anxious to get my hands on all this wonderfulness. If the PowerShell team is true to form, there just may be a nice surprise next week in Barcelona. I sure hope so!

Technorati Tags: Powershell,PowerShell V2,Jeffrey Snover

Hyper-V on Server Core vs. VMware ESXi

With Microsoft having released  Hyper-V (for free) and VMware having done the same, it was always a matter of time before someone did head-to-head tests on the two free Hypervisors. And in fact the ICTFreak blog has done just that. In the post: VMware: Hyper-V on Server Core vs ESXi we have a comparison on how easy it is to install VMware ESXi and Hyper-V. This post also has a couple of videos that show the process.

Before I read the piece, I would have expected the results to favour Redmond. But no – VMware required 1/7th the number  of reboots, significantly fewer keystrokes (85 vs. 684) and mouse clicks (14 vs 30). Installing VMware ESXi required 7 steps taking just over 10 minutes whereas Hyper-V took 37:27 and required 13 steps. The hands down winner was Vmware.

To be fair to Redmond and Hyper-V, part of this gaping difference is due to the weaknesses of Windows 2008 Server Core’s UI than the hypervisor itself. The bare UI offered by Server Core, plus the absence of decent tools such as PowerShell, means that the whole configuration process was a lot harder. As the article says that, with Server Core, you would need to: “key in a long sequence of obscure commands to configure iSCSI initiators and targets, partitions and file systems.” A fairer test might be how long it took on Windows 2008 full install.

Of course, installation is only one part of the puzzle and hopefully you do it just once (per server). The extra half an hour per server to install Hyper-V may not be a huge problem, but it sure doesn’t help in the hearts and minds battle.

This result shows Redmond has a lot of work to do to make the install of Hyper-V better as well as work to do to make Server Core more Admin friendly. Both are, I would hope, work items for the next version of Windows due out in a few of years (if the 4 year between versions story is made, this would be 2011). Maybe some  of this might be done in time for the intermediate release (Server 2008 R2) which should hit the shelves in 2009 (or more likely 2010) based on the 2-year between major and  minor version gap. We’ll see.

Technorati tags: Vmware, ESXi, Hyper-V, Microsoft

Under The Stairs – Access by Browser (IE’s Share Drops, FireFox’s Gains)

As I have mentioned in the past, I watch the stats for this blog using Site Meter, which offers the ability to show me access by browser type. Looking at the browser share report today, I saw this really very interesting graph:

 

FireFox now scores more than IE!

I suspect this may have more to do with my audience, but this is the first time I’ve seen the FireFox beating IE. I also suspect that there may be errors in the way Site Meter counts – there are no numbers for FireFox 2 or 3, or Chrome, but there are numbers (small) for IE8.

Interesting.

 

Symantec’s Vista User Account Control Tool – UAC done right

UAC is a feature of Vista that I long ago learned to dislike. Recently, I’ve been playing around a bit with Symantec’s Vista User Account Control tool. Currently in beta (and available for a free download), this effectively replaces Vista’s UAC tool so as to both make your system more secure and to improve the user friendliness.

UAC, as a concept, is a great idea. In most case, you really don’t need high privileges to do most day to day jobs. Of course, it depends on your job, but for most of the folks out there for whom their PC is just a business tool, UAC makes sense. While the concept is great, the implementation by Microsoft is so awful that many users (myself included) have just simply turned it off. I recognise the risk – but I do enough “privileged” things that UAC was more of a hindrance than a help. Like a lot of IT Pros that know better what they are doing than some mindless individual back at Redmond, I just said no to UAC.

Symantec’s tool, on the other hand, offers some nice features that would make UAC tolerable for many – it’s about good enough that I might actually buy it for my home machines. You can compare Vista and Symantec’s UAC fea\ture over on the ZD site: http://content.zdnet.com/2346-12554_22-240379.html

The key feature that, for me, makes Symantec’s product acceptable (and MS’s version so unacceptable) is the “Don’t ask me again” feature – it stops the UAC prompt coming up when you repeatedly do things (that would otherwise trigger UAC). If you are constantly doing some action that UAC doesn’t like – Vista prompts you each time, and there’s no way around it. In other words, Symantec’s UAC learns what is ‘normal’ and simply prompts less – making the prompts that do come up more useful in the long term.

The Symantec tool also provides more information about what triggered the alert. The way MS has implemented it, most users just get conditioned to click Yes and to allow the action. ALl in all, with Symantec’s tool, users can make more informed decisions on those few(er) occasions when they get nagged and are less conditioned to just click Yes!

The product is currently in beta. One aspect to be aware of is that the beta will send information back to their labs about the tool’s usage. A FAQ on the Symantec web site says this information “contains file name and file hashes for the EXE that caused the prompt and the EXE that is to be the recipient of the elevated privileges. In addition, the meta information contains file name and file hashes for DLLs that were active in either of the two EXEs, response information (what option did the user choose, how quickly, and did they choose "do not ask me again"), and date/time info.”

So well done Symantec! Hopefully MS will try to catch up in this area in time for Windows 8. In the mean time, if you like the UAC concept but hate how MS have done it – take a look at Symantec’s offereing.

Technorati Tags: Symantec,UAC,Vista

MSDN/TechNet Sites are back up!

Yesterday, I noted that Microsoft’s TechNet and MSDN Sites were unreachable for me.Today, they seem back up. Not sure what the outage was due to, but they’re live now.

I hate long (eg 1 day or more) outages where there seems to be no warning, or no exlanation. MSDN/TechNet site management needs a Microsoft Operations Framework course in Change Management.

Technorati Tags: MOF,MSF,MSDN,TechNet

PowerShell Security – why MS do it the way they do

Early on the life of PowerShell, the PowerShell development team “got” security. I don’t mean to suggest that team members themselves didn’t get security, what I mean is that the team, and the product got it.  And while I hated some of the implications of that, it was the right decision.

When I was first confronted with what has become PowerShell’s security model, I was not impressed – it slowed me down and, so I felt at the time, was little more than a speed bump. But the more I thought about it, and listened to some pretty smart guys explain it in the private newsgroups, the more I think they got it and got it well. It’s needed and the team have done well.

As described over on the PowerShell Team Blog, the product’s security model will not prevent all risks – it won’t stop 3rd world hunger, it won’t make you attractive to the opposite sex, and it won’t stop us all getting older. But what it does do, and does well, is to mitigate the risks it can – read the article to see what I mean. And what the security model does, to my way of thinking, is to show MS’s security vision, Trustworthy Computing, in a great light.

Of course any software product can’t do the things I mentioned above. But a tool as powerful as PowerShell can, in the wrong hands, do big damage. The fist step in designing any new product (e.g. PowerShell) is to have a very clear idea of the threat model: who will do bad things with the product. Not only does Jeffrey explain PowerShell’s threat model, but he explains how the team have tackled it.

For anyone looking at PowerShell, I urge you to read Jeffrey’s blog post carefully. And perhaps read it several times. There is incredibly good thinking, IMHO,there. And – if you can find either additions to the threat model, or a better idea as to how to address it, I’d sure like to hear it! No doubt the team does too!

Thanks Jeffrey to Lee Homesfor yet another great blog post.

[later]

And thanks Steve for pointing out who the author of the post really was – my bad! Oh – and I managed to nuke your comment to accidentally – sorry.

Technorati Tags: PowerShell

The PowerPoint world lost a good guy today

The PowerPoint world lost a good guy today (well a few days ago actually). Brian was a friend of mine. He was one of the first MVPs I ever met. He was outstanding in his field, and a real gentleman. The MVP programme is poorer for his loss.

RIP Brian Reilly.

Technet/MSDN sites seem down

It may be me, but I can’t get to http://msdn.microsoft.com or to http://technet.microsoft.com. Trying the former sends me to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/Message-Error.htm?aspxerrorpath=/en-gb/default.aspx, whereas the latter sends me to: http://technet.microsoft.com/Message-Error.htm?aspxerrorpath=/en-gb/default.aspx

I’ve pinged a UK contact, but it’s Saturday so she’s probably doing sensible things like not working <grin>.

This may just be another maintenance window, but I needed something from the site today and it’s down. :-(

[later]

Apparently - these pages are OK coming from Germany (thanks for the comment) but are still broken from here. I just tried on another system and get the same results. :-(

Microsoft Doesn't Matter Anymore

The title is not my idea – but comes from a Salon article: Microsoft doesn't matter anymore. The article talks about Microsoft’s latest attempt to improve the popularity of its Live Search site. The article, overall, is pretty scathing about MS, and  personally I don’t agree with at least some of its conclusions. But I suppose that’s to be expected as I make a living out of working in the MS eco-sphere and I do truly like many of the products MS makes and sells.

I do,agree with the article’s suggestion that this is a really lame marketing campaign. Or perhaps I should say another lame marketing campaign (Seinfeld/Gates etc). While Salon is right to point out the lameness – there’s another even lamer aspect: you have to use IE6. I use FireFox as my browser for some good reasons and certainly not going to change just to win cheap tacky prizes.

I have used both Google and Live Search for many years – and have both of them installed in my browser. Pretty much every time I change my default to use Live Search, I have to end up going back to Google. The reason is really simple: Live Search in general produces less relevant results. As a writer and trainer, I rely on web searching – relevance really matters to me.I’d switch over to using Live Search in a heartbeat if it’s results were better. As a writer and trainer, I rely on web searching – relevance really matters to me.

There is one area, however, where I do like Live Search – using it to search for typos. I am a moderator for the MSDN and Technet wiki’s and from time to time I find a typo that I want to get cleared up. If I was to search for “Micorsoft” for example, Live Search does just that, whereas Google has a tendency to assume I meant Microsoft and goes on to search for that. 

Something I disagree with the article over is the Zune. Now maybe it’s because I’ve never owned an Ipod, but I like my Zune. I have the 80GB red ZUne and I love it. I’ve got a great set of Sure earbuds and I take the device everywhere. I subscribe to several podcasts (including The DeapPod: at http://deadshow.blogspot.com). I carry my Zune with me whenever I travel!

As a small aside, and as another example of Google vs Live Search relevance,try searching for “dead pod” in Live Search vs Google (I wanted to find the URL to the site in the above paragraph). Google’s first hit was exactly what I wanted to find – and after three pages of results, I gave up with Live Search. Thanks MS, but free t-shirts can’t top relevance.

In summary, I think Salon is wrong to say Microsoft doesn’t matter any more – and I like my Zune. But I sure agree that Live Search is sub-optimal (and the latest marketing gimmick is pretty lame).

Technorati Tags: Google,Live Search,Greateful Dead,DeadPod

Culminis (Mark II)

We finally released news last night, The Culminis Restructure is now official. I’m super-excited to be part of this fine group and highly honoured to be the first EMEA Chairman. I feel this is both a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility. I can’t wait to get stuck in!

if you are going to be at TechEd EMEA, then stop by our booth. I’m doing what I can to arrange comfy chairs, power leads and wired network drops. With a bit of luck, we’ll also have some freebies to give away and some special guests – no promises but I’m on the scrounge for goodies!

Technorati tags: Culminis

Wireshark Training Courses

If you are in to networking, then you probably know about Wireshark (or Ethereal as it used to be known). It’s a first class packet capture and analyser tool, which many networking professionals rely on. It’s got a rich set of decodes an other features and is invaluable as a troubleshooting tool, as well as very useful to get to understand network protocols.

As our press release (New Wireshark Training Courses ) explains this training . I can’t wait to teach these classes.

If you want to know what’s happening on the wire – come along and learn!

Technorati tags: Wireshark, network protocol analyser,

Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfeld - Shoe Circus Commercial

 
So here is the first ad in the Seinfeld/Gates collaboration.

What do you think?

 

Technorati Tags: sad,commercial

Office Communications Server R2 –To Be 64-Bit (only)

The news is out over on the Office Communications Server Team Blog - the next release of OCS requires a 64 Bit OS (x64). For OCS this makes a lot of sense – as X64 enables significantly more memory to be allocated. However, there are some real downsides for OCS 2007 customers as there’s no direct upgrade path – you need a new OS install then a fresh install of OCS 2007 R2.  I wish MS had announced this externally several months ago when they actually made the decision.

MS has also announced shipping of the beta for OCS R2 although as of this morning, it’s not available on TechNet or MSDN. Hopefully soon.

Technorati tags: OCS R2

Why Copy Editors Matter

Over the years, I’ve worked on a number of publications (training courses, books, etc) that have had copy editors as part of the process. Most were pretty good, and I personally learned a lot about how to write better (my blog could probably use one too!). I’ve always had, as an objective, to give the CE nothing to comment on – but this rarely happened. The Washington Post has a great article, On Copy Editing that  explains why copy editors are so valuable. Makes interesting  reading.

Technorati tags: Washington Post, copy edit

Live Writer “Blog This” add-on still not working in FireFox v3 – but there is a solution!

Some time ago, I blogged about the neat “blog this” addition to FireFox not working in FireFox 3. You can see information from Microsoft about this add-on here. Well, it’s a couple of months later, and the add-on still seems to not be working. The add-on installs fine, but when you look at the add-ons dialog (tools/add-ons), it states this add-on is not compatible with FireFox 3.0.1 in my case).

Looking at the reviews on the MS Live Writer web site, I’m not the only person with difficulties using this add-on (although you will have to select ‘all reviews to see the ones critical of this not working with FireFox 3). Please MS – fix this???

Having said that, there is a work around is supposed to enable the add-on.

1. Download the Blog This installer from the MS site.
2. Close FireFox 3.
3. Run the Blog This installer.
4. Without starting FireFox, open the following file in Notepad: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Writer\BlogThis\Mozilla Firefox\install.rdf
5. Change <em:maxVersion>3.0</em:maxVersion> to <em:maxVersion>3.0+</em:maxVersion>.
6. Start Firefox.
7. If you still don’t see the new icon, click on View>Toolbars>Customize. from the "Customize Toolbars window, drag Blog-This icon out to to the menu bar in FireFox. Hey Presto.

Note that in step 4, the location is in the X86 branch since my workstation is a tricked-out Windows Server 2008 X64 and I’m running the Life Writer Technical Preview. You may need to look in different folders for install.rdf if you are running on a different platform. Sadly this work around is broken too and does not work on either my x86 or x64 boxes.

Please MS – fix this!!!

[later]
Some good news - there’s another 3rd party add-on, Live WriterFox that DOES work and I’ve installed it on all my systems. Get it from here.

Technorati Tags: live writer,Microsoft,FireFox 3

More on PowerShell Plus

I wrote about PowerShell Plus on Monday on my personal blog, and have been using it this week to create additional MSDN samples. I have to say that it’s a seriously good product. Like all betas, there are some minor niggles, but the product itself is very much on the right side of very good!

Some features I particularly like:

• Debugging support – in the script editor, you can set break points easily and intuitively. When at a breakpoint you can get/set variables, etc.
• Code Signing support – this is nice. You easily select a code signing cert (or generate a self signed cert!) and apply it. PowerShell Plus then signs the script whenever you save.
• Learning Centre – there is some great info here.
• History is ‘smart’. You can view history and click on individual lines in the history and have them executed.
• Intellisense – this is something I find very useful in Visual Studio and it’s equally valuable here!

I first got PowerShell Plus working on my XP Laptop, and today have set it up on my main X64 Windows Server 2008 workstation. It’s not so good on XP, as there are some missing APIs, but on Server 2008 it rocks. I suppose it works well under Vista (i.e. better than on XP), but I do not use Vista here so can’t comment.

All in all, this is an excellent product. When I first saw it and started playing with it, I wasn’t so convinced of the price point. But at US$79.00 (the price for beta testers) I think this is about right.

One niggle over price, it’s actually US$79 plus a US$15.8 “maintenance” charge. Personally, I’d prefer to see a single price (i.e. US$79) and a free update policy for each version. That is, version 2.1, 2.2 upgrades from 2.0 being free, but when Idera bring out a Version 3, then there’s an upgrade cost. They probably make the same amount over time, but it feels a bit dirty to ask for maintenance up front. And if they do need to bundle that extra charge, then why not just charge US$95 for the package and bundle the maintenance for ‘free’.

This is a good product, whether it’s US$79 or US$95! I will probably end up getting the RTM version!!

Technorati Tags: PowerShellPlus,Powershell,Idera

Idera – PowerShellPlus Professional in Beta

Idera has just released a beta of their latest version of PowerShell Plus, which you can download  now from http://www.idera.com/Products/PowerShell/.
PS+ is a scripting GUI aimed to help both admins and developers make the best of PowerShell. PS+ has an interactive console, an advanced script editor and a comprehensive learning centre. For those that know it, PowerShellPlus Professional Edition is built on the backbone of PowerShell IDE.
The beta edition is currently free but the final version will be commercial. Idera are offering a good discount on the final version to beta testers. This looks to be a nice product (and I’m using it already!)

Technorati tags: powershell, powershell plus, powershell ide, ideara

Windows-based Format Utility for HP USB Stick

Some years ago, HP created a neat utility to format USB sticks – including formatting them using NTFS (something that XP/Server 2003 does not do). I first wrote  about this utility in May 2005, and again in late 2006. Originally released by HP for their USB  memory sticks, the utility appears to have been removed from the HP site. The name of the utility is: HPUSBFW.EXE, and a quick Google search yields several places you can download it from. I got the utility some years back from the HP site and it’s still working fine (just formatted a 2gb memory stick this morning to NTFS). No idea what the legalities of obtaining this HP utility form other non-HP sites, so tread carefully.

Technorati tags: HP, USB, utililty, USB stick format, NTFS

Using Google Docs

This is ‘article weekend” – the time I spend each month penning articles. This is a busy weekend as I have an article for my Windows column due for ESM as well as a shorter  “Pro Virtulisation” piece also for ESM. The article is about Microsoft Optimisation and is due tomorrow.

For fun, I used Google Docs to write the article. In short, consider me underwhelmed. It was an interesting experiment, but Microsoft has not lost another Office customer – I had to use Word to clean up the article ready for publication.

My first gripe with the word processing bit of Google Docs is that there’s no styles or style sheet. My articles have a very simple set of styles (around 6-7 in all). Nothing very fancy – most of the real work is done by the publisher, but my style sheet is important. I rely on those few styles – but with Google Docs there are none. So before sending the doc off, I had to spend 15 minutes to tidy it up.

I also found it quite slow – I’d start typing and it could take 2-3 seconds before the text would start to appear on the page. This was somewhat disconcerting as I’m used to seeing things immediately when using smart clients like Word and Live Writer.

Google Docs also doesn’t play well with FireFox 3’s built in spelling checker. When editing a typo in a bullet list, the sell check is not active. Given my appalling spelling and typing, this is not a good thing.

And one very uncomfortable thing – several times, when saving, I got an error saying the document could not be saved. While lack of features is a problem, unreliability is a serious issue. If I can’t be confident of my data’s security, then cloud computing is not an option.

What I DID Like about it was the ability to access the document everywhere. I was able to use a PC in a classroom to add some content I found while searching at Lunch time. Previously, I’d have had to either remember of mail myself the link. The always available nature is compelling.

In summary, while there were some good things, I don’t think I’ll be using Google Docs to do the main writing. What I will probably do is to outline the document in Google Docs, then download what I’ve created in to Word to do the actual writing.

Technorati Tags: Google Docs,Word,Office,Cloud Computing

Another Ping.FM test

Last one failed, will this one work?