Arizona System Management User Group (AZSMUG)

Meeting Minutes

Meeting Date:    October 26, 2006

Next meeting:    TBD

Location:    

Microsoft Corporation

2929 North Central Avenue

Suite 1400

Phoenix, AZ 85012

Announcements

• The Microsoft's Windows Vista Launch Blitz will take place in Phoenix, Arizona January the 17^th. If you plan to attend make sure you register for this event when it becomes available.
• The next meeting of the AZSMUG is under discussion contingent on Harold Wong's (our sponsor) availability. It will be announced when confirmed.

Discussions

Chairperson Mike Terrill began the meeting of the Arizona Systems Management User Group (AZSMUG) sponsored by Harold Wong (Microsoft) with an opportunity for the new attendees to introduce themselves. Attendance was up from the last meeting.

• The AZSMUG logo submissions were presented and voted on by the members. The Cactus-Sun-Mountain logo gained the majority vote and was accepted as the AZSMUG logos design.
• Javier Rodriguez from Microsoft demonstrated Windows Vista and provided an enlightening overview of Microsoft's Business Desktop Deployment (BDD).
• After the demonstrations Javier provided each attendee with a complimentary copy of The Windows Vista Product Guide. The colorful guide covers several of the innovative features of Window Vista and describes the information about the different editions that will be available.
• Harold Wong did an informative mini-demo of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Workbench and discussed System Image Manager.
• Harold provided each attendee a copy (or two) of the Systems Management Server 2003 Administrator's companion from Microsoft Press.
• Near the end of the meeting Harold raffled off several BDD Technical books and a software package to the membership.

The meeting of the AZSMUG convened at 7:30 PM (MST). The meeting was very informative and members left with several technical books and other precious goodies. Once again, everyone was encouraged to get the word out about the AZSMUG and bring a new member or more to the next meeting.

Vista Demo Highlights

• Gadgets – Vista has a new feature called gadgets. There is already an online community of gadgets that can be downloaded. You can upload ones you create as well. A cool thought would be some gadgets that monitor SMS.
• Windows Defender – Vista has a more enhanced version of the Windows Defender for Windows XP. It has a feature called Software Explorer that displays information on running applications. It even displays information about network connected programs.
• Reliability and Performance Monitor – the Reliability Monitor provides detailed information on Software Installs/Uninstalls, Application Failures, Hardware Failures, Windows Failures and Miscellaneous Failures. This will be a valuable tool for IT support staff.
• Guided Help – Windows Vista Help will actually provide a guided point and click help that shows you where to go.
• File will support meta data – You will actually be able to tag files with more descriptive information. This will be great for pictures and will make finding them a breeze with excellent search feature in Vista.
• Group Policy Objects – there are over 3000 GPO's in Windows Vista (and you thought there were a bunch in XP SP2).
• Windows Meeting Space – Windows Meeting Space will allow you to set up a peer to peer meeting with another user running Vista (kind of like the next generation of Netmeeting).

Things to look at

Be sure to check out the Vista Team Blog for late breaking information and news on Windows Vista: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/default.aspx

Check out the Technet Webcast: Deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Using BDD 2007 by Michael Niehaus.

The link for the Microsoft Management Summit 2007 is now up and active. You can find more information and register here.

New and upcoming releases

Internet Explorer 7: IE7 is out for Windows XP (SP2) and Windows Server 2003 (SP1) (as well as the 64 bit versions)

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

IE7 will be deployed by Automatic Updates, Windows Update and Microsoft Update. You can find out more information here, along with information about a blocker toolkit.

Windows Media Player 11: WMP11 was recently released. You can download it here.

Virtual PC 2007 Beta: Be sure to test drive the new beta of Virtual PC. You can sign up for the open beta here.

Office 2007: Office 2007 recently hit the Volume Licensing and MSDN download sites. You can read more about the eight different versions of Office here.