With the January 30, 2007 world wide public release of Microsoft Windows new operating system Visa (Code name Longhorn) to the general public I decided to investigate the versions that are available and their corresponding prices.
It has been a long time (More than five years) in coming and happens to be the longest time between operating system releases by Microsoft to date. I am not in a hurry to make the change from Windows XP and I am not too fond of upgrades so I am going for the Ultimate full version.
Here you will find the system requirements for the available Windows Vista versions as well as Microsoft’s suggested retail prices.
Windows Vista Minimum Supported System Requirements:
Home Basic Version:
Home Premium Version:
Business Version:
Ultimate Version:
Microsoft has also released an upgrade advisor that can be run on your current Windows XP machine to determine if your system is capable of running Windows Vista. It scans your system and then generates a report of any known issues it discovers along with recommendations for each.
Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Download
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65926&clcid=0x409
Microsoft Windows PowerShell 1.0 for Windows Vista has been released to manufacturing (KB928439) and is available for download from Microsoft from the links below. This is quite a milestone however it is a bit later than expected as it was originally intended to be released with Windows Vista but was later defined as a separate release.
Windows PowerShell 1.0 X86 Edition
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=79516
Windows PowerShell 1.0 X64 Edition
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=79517
This version as well as all versions of PowerShell 1.0 requires version 2.0 of the .NET Framework as a separate download from the link here:
Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=64947&clcid=0x409
PowerShell is also supported on Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 and Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and is available for download below:
Windows PowerShell 1.0
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926140
Microsoft has released several System Center virtual labs where you can work with the application in a sandbox setting with no setup installation necessary. With each lab you get a downloadable manual and have a 90 minute time allotment for each of the modules. Registration is required.
By taking the taking a Free System Center Virtual Lab upon completion you will also get a chance to win a Garmin GPS Navigator.
Virtual Lab Express: SMS Hardware, Inventory and Web-Based Reports
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4671355
Deploying Microsoft Windows Vista Operating System Images Using SMS 2003
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6067734
Introduction to SMS 2003 R2
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5786884
Deploying Systems Management Server in an Active Directory Environment
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4267450
Using SMS to Deploy Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4267403
Managing Security Updates with SMS
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4267489
Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Technical Overview
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4267401
System Requirements
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/ins.mspx
Grab a free 60 day trial version of a Microsoft Office 2007 application or suite from the download link below. The trial versions have all of the functionality of the retail versions but the experience is only available for 60 days after installation. The following are available for download:
Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
Microsoft Office Live Groove 2007
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
Microsoft Office Professional 2007
Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007
Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007
Microsoft Office Standard 2007
Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007
Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2007
Try the 2007 Microsoft Office System
http://us1.trymicrosoftoffice.com
Microsoft has released several Vista virtual labs where you can work with the application in a sandbox setting with no setup installation necessary. With each lab you get a downloadable manual and have a 90 minute time allotment for each of the modules. Registration is required.
By taking the taking a Free Vista Virtual Lab upon completion you will also get a chance to win a Garmin GPS Navigator.
Microsoft Virtual Lab Express: Exploring New Functionality in Internet Explorer 7
http://www.microsoftvirtuallabs.com/express/registration.aspx?LabId=8070972c-f6fe-48f9-ad44-e5a1d1c785ea
Windows Vista Readiness - Application Compatibility
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5717925
Automating Windows Vista Installation with Windows System Image Manager Virtual Lab
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6118542
Windows Vista: Image Engineering
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247639
Configuring Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247632
Exploring New Group Policy Settings in Windows Vista
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247636
Exploring User Account Control in Windows Vista
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247634
Migrating User State from Windows XP to Windows Vista
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247627
Managing Windows Vista and Windows Server Longhorn Network Bandwidth with Policy-based Quality of Service
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247633
Managing Windows Vista Using New Management Technologies
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5247635
Microsoft has released several MOSS 2007 virtual labs where you can work with the application in a sandbox setting with no setup installation necessary. With each lab you get a downloadable manual and have a 90 minute time allotment for each of the modules. Registration is required.
By taking the taking a Free MOSS 2007 Virtual Lab upon completion you will also get a chance to win a Garmin GPS Navigator.
Synchronizing data between SharePoint 2007 and Groove 2007
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6099923
What's New in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Feature Walkthrough
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5174325
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Functional and Architectural Overview
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5293210
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Installation and Configuration
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5174328
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Records Management Deployment and Configuration
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5174324
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Features Administration
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5174323
Business Solutions Using Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5293213
Enterprise Content Management with Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5293211
Organizing and Finding Resources with Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5293212
This SQL query will return all of the machines that have USB Disk Drives along with the last logged on user name.
SQL Query:
Select
CS.Name0,
CS.UserName0,
HD.DeviceID0,
HD.InterfaceType0
From v_Gs_Computer_System CS
Join v_Gs_Disk HD on CS.ResourceID = HD.ResourceID
Where HD.InterfaceType0 = 'USB'
Order By HD.DeviceID0
If you have no need for the last logged on user name you can use this slightly simplified version:
SystemName0,
DeviceID0,
InterfaceType0
From v_Gs_Disk HD
Where InterfaceType0 = 'USB'
Order By DeviceID0
This Vbs script will prompt you for a site server name and site code and export your sites queries names as well as their appropriate query Id’s and comments to an excel spreadsheet.
Vbs Script:
Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
objExcel.Visible = True
objExcel.Workbooks.Add
intRow = 2
objExcel.Cells(1, 1).Value = "Query Name"
objExcel.Cells(1, 2).Value = "Query ID"
objExcel.Cells(1, 3).Value = "Query Comments"
strSiteServer = InputBox("Enter Site Server Name")
strSiteCode = InputBox("Enter Site Code")
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts://" & strSiteServer & "\root\sms\site_" & strSiteCode)
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from SMS_Query")
For Each objItem in colItems
objExcel.Cells(intRow, 1).Value = objItem.Name
objExcel.Cells(intRow, 2).Value = objItem.QueryID
objExcel.Cells(intRow, 3).Value = objItem.Comments
intRow = intRow + 1
Next
objExcel.Range("A1:C1").Select
objExcel.Selection.Interior.ColorIndex = 19
objExcel.Selection.Font.ColorIndex = 11
objExcel.Selection.Font.Bold = True
objExcel.Cells.EntireColumn.AutoFit
Set objExcel = Nothing
Set objWMIService = Nothing
Set colItems = Nothing
MsgBox "Done"
Server disk arrays can be quite large especially on file servers with hundreds of user home shares or countless developer or programmer files and directories. There are alternative ways to manage or even police this type of file server other than using SMS and with this in mind you can let SMS exclude these drives when doing a software inventory the same way you did it in SMS 2.0.
You accomplish this by creating a file called SkpSwi.Dat (Skip Software Inventory) that will notify the SMS inventory process not to perform software inventory on a drive that has this file present.
When you enable ‘Software Inventory’ for a site the software inventory agent runs within the first twenty minutes for SMS 2003 as opposed to the first thirty minutes for SMS 2.0 clients after you enable it. This is a global setting that is initiated on a site-by-site basis. This means that when software inventory is enabled the entire site is affected.
By default software inventory is always installed on the site server and the agent for the software inventory is always on your advanced clients so that when you initiate software inventory for your site the agent is already installed and the collection process can begin with no need to first go and install the agent. This is one of the nice features of the SMS advanced client in that all of the agents are installed and sit waiting for them to be enabled on the site server.
Note: On the legacy client it is installed the “Old” way in that it is only installed on these clients when the software inventory agent is enabled on the site server. After the agent is installed the process begins within the first twenty minutes as it does with the advanced client since this is an SMS 2003 default.
Both the advanced and legacy clients follow the same process after the agent is configured on the site server. First they perform an initial or full software inventory or Software Inventory Complete (SIC) and all subsequent inventories called deltas or to be more precise Software Inventory Delta (SID) are collected which are merely changes rather than complete inventories are collected according to the software inventory schedule you have defined.
Tip: Software Inventory Complete (SIC) and Software Inventory Delta (SID) are used with SMS 2.0 as well and have the same functionality.
The easiest way to create the Skpswi.Dat file is to use notepad. First open notepad and then select “Save As” from the File menu and change the “Save As Type” to “All Files” then name the file Skpswi.Dat. After this has been completed locate the file in windows explorer and right mouse click it and from the context menu select “Properties” and change the attributes to Hidden.
After you create the SkpSwi.Dat file copy the file to the root of the drives on the machine that you do not want the software inventory to run on.
For client machines with multiple drives or partitions copy the file to all of the drives you want to exclude from the software inventory process such as disk partitions that have only installation source files for drivers and applications on them. Another example would be if you have a defined collection path of “C:\Program Files” and you do not want the directory folder inventoried place the file in the root of the program files directory.
To resume the software inventory process for the machine or drives simply delete the Skpswi.Dat file and at the next software inventory cycle the inventory scan will execute.
Note: It is important to note here that if your end users are aware of this functionality they can place the file on their systems that will allow them to successfully hide .Mp3 files or Warez applications so they will not be inventoried.
Here you will find a list of the PowerShell comparison operators available to you in the Windows PowerShell console.
For example if you want to find all the process information for PowerShell you can run the following in the PowerShell console:
Gps | Where-Object {$_.Name -Eq "Powershell"}
Comparison Operators:
-Lt Less than
-Le Less than or equal to
-Gt Greater than
-Ge Greater than or equal to
-Eq Equal to
-Ne Not Equal to
-Like Like wildcard pattern matching
-NotLike Not like wildcard pattern matching
-Match Regular expression pattern matching
-NotMatch Regular expression pattern matching
When two machines on your network receive the same IP address from your Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server this is known as an IP address conflict.
With windows server 2003 you can configure your DHCP server(s) to use “Conflict Detection” that will prevent your DHCP clients from being assigned or issued the same IP address. When conflict detection is used the DHCP server will issue a ping request to ensure that the IP address that it is ready to be assign is not currently in use. If the IP address is not currently assigned the DHCP offer lease process will be initiated.
To enable conflict detection you need to start the DHCP management console and then follow the steps below:
1. Right mouse click your DHCP server and then select “Properties”.
2. From the context menu select the “Advanced” tab
3. At the “Conflict Detection Attempts” label select the number of Ping attempts you want your DHCP server to use before making a lease offer.
Note: By default the value is set to 0 and when you configure this option you can only allow for a maximum of 6 pings.
4. Click “OK” and close the DHCP management console.
On the morning of December 17th 1903 at Kitty Hawk North Carolina the American inventor Orville Wright (1871-1948) made the first airplane flight in history. The plane was built by him and his brother Wilbur (1867-1912) and flew for a total of 850 feet just barely off the ground and moved so slow that Wilbur ran along side him as it was in the air for just under a minute.
This is the beginning of airplane flight but not the beginning of air flight or even human flight for that matter. Most people when you ask them who the first to fly was will quickly respond that the Wright brothers were. Orville Wright was the first human to fly in an airplane but not the first human to fly. The Wright brothers have this distinction mainly because of the fact that they began our airplane industry as it exists today.
Thousands of people flew in the air before the Wright brothers just not in anything heavier than air. They flew in vehicles lighter than air. Actually they floated more than flew.
On July 2nd 1900 the German born inventor Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin (1838-1917) successfully launched a gondola hanging under a hydrogen filled cigar shaped balloon bag. This was called a dirigible balloon or dirigible from the Latin word meaning, "To direct" or simply called a Zeppelin after the inventor.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s commercial air flight consisted of dirigibles that thousands of people flew in. Dirigible flight lasted until its prime when on may 6th 1937 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester, New Jersey when the Hindenburg dirigible which was the largest one ever built burst into flames as it was docking killing 36 of the 100 passengers and crew.
But human flight began even earlier than this and it began in a simple balloon.
On January 7th 1785 the French scientist Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier (1754-1785) and a crew of two others crossed the English Channel in a balloon that utilized the method of heat from fire to fill the balloon to this make it lighter than air.
Nearly 5 months later to the day on june15th 1785 when Pilatre was returning across the English Channel the fire caught the balloon’s fabric and he fell about a mile to his death. Making him ironically both the first human to fly in the air and the first human to die in a vehicle that flew through in air.
Many of the error messages in Vbs scripts are quite cryptic and sometimes one needs a psychic or a Rosetta stone to decipher their real meaning. For example many times I fail to add an End If statement in a deeply nested routine in some of my more complex scripts. This results in what use to be a cryptic error:
Error: Expected 'End'
Code: 800A03F6
However since I have performed this action so many times over the years I can recognize my mistake as soon as the message pops up.
I have received several E-Mails such as the following asking me to help address script issues and I just correct the issues and send the scripts on.
“Sorry for my lack of troubleshooting skills, But I am getting this error message in the screen print here when running your script. I know I’m doing something wrong but I don’t know what it is can you help me?”
Provided here is a Rosetta stone by Guy Thomas on his Computer Performance website that details the 800 series VB script error messages. This page will help you to fix script errors on your own but if all else fails you can still send me a note or post your problem on the myITforum scripting forum. The page is arranged quite nicely and will also provide you with tips and troubleshooting ideas as well.
Troubleshooting Code 800 Errors found in VBScript
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/Logon/code/index.htm
Way back in the early 1990’s when I was introduced to real computers (That is if you call a Packard-Bell a real computer) as opposed to the VIC-20 and later Commodore 64 I previously owned I had hundreds of dollars invested in software.
I can remember back when I bought an upgrade version of Norton Utilities for DOS and when I tried to install it I found I didn’t have enough space left on my hard drive. Much to the chagrin of my wife I spent several hundred dollars to upgrade my hard drive to 32 MB. I was sure that it would be years before I had to spend that much money again for a hardware upgrade.
At that time all of my applications were MS-DOS based most of which were shareware I downloaded from bulletin boards via my Modem. I was a late convert to Windows because I hated all the clutter the lines and icons seemed to have created. It was not until I was asked to install a duplex receptacle for my friend Ralph Avers to plug his Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 computer into that I began the slow conversion to Windows. That was when my troubles really began as was reflected in my monthly bank account balance.
Windows was and always has been a disk space and memory hog. For a while it seemed like every year I was upgrading my hard drive, memory or even buying new computers to keep up with the demands placed on me by Windows and Windows based applications. I was so happy when hard drives broke the one GB barrier because I thought I would never use that much disk space…silly me!
Today I have hard drives from 80 Gig to 200 GB that cost mere pennies per MB. It was not until the mid 1990’s that the cost per MB dropped to about a dollar per MB and today the cost is about two cents per MB or about a dollar or so per GB.
Earlier this month I ran across a PC World article called “Hitachi Introduces 1-Terabyte Hard Drive”. In the article they stated that they expect to release the 1 TB drive in the first quarter of this year. Their drive called the DeskStar 7K1000 will sell at an estimated retail cost of $399.00. That incidentally is more than I spend for my 80 GB hard drive last year.
Let’s take a minute to put this in perspective. Just so that you know there are 1,048,576 MB in a Terabyte so if you do the math this drive would have cost $1,048,576.00 in the mid 1990’s. With inflation the cost would have been even more and only large corporations or government agencies could have afforded them.