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From the MSDN Editor

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: September 29, 2009

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 Released
Developers can use Windows Embedded CE to bring their devices to life by delivering compelling user experiences and seamless connections to Windows devices, PCs, servers, and services. Download the trial.

Get the Free Windows Embedded Standard 2011 Community Technical Preview
Windows Embedded Standard 2011 delivers the power of the Windows 7 operating system with familiar development tools optimized for embedded systems. Get to know Windows Embedded by attending a free technical webinar. We’ll explore the functionality, networking capabilities, security, and reliability of this upcoming release.Register for a webinar.

Announcing the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network
The Microsoft Ajax content delivery network (CDN) allows developers to easily add Microsoft Ajax Library and jQuery scripts to Ajax-enable and improve the performance of their Web applications. Just add a <script> tag to reference the script and it will be automatically served from the CDN servers located around the world.

Code7 Contest Deadline is Approaching – Code to the Power of Windows 7
The Code7 contest is a worldwide contest recognizing and rewarding applications that show off features in Windows 7. Enter by October 10, 2009 for a chance to win US$17,777.

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The 10 Things to Do First for Windows 7

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: September 27, 2009

The 10 Things to Do First for Windows 7
Bill Boswell
 
At a Glance:
  • Getting to know Windows 7
  • Dealing with the latest volume-activation requirements
  • Developing a roadmap
  • Handling new distributed-security features
  • Virtualizing desktops and infrastructures
  • Removing users’ local-admin rights

 

When you run your thumb down the list of new features and improvements in Windows 7 (see the feature comparison chart at tinyurl.com/win7featuregrid), you’re bound to wonder how you’re going to get your arms around all that new technology so that you can deliver it to your users without too much disruption.
Following are 10 steps that can help you accomplish that goal.

 

1. Get to know Windows 7 on a first-name basis.
Obviously, the first step is to gain personal experience. And that means more than just puttering around in the lab. Install Windows 7 on every workstation in your organization and on the machine you use at home for remote-access trouble calls. Force yourself to find ways to make everything work.
Most tools for managing Windows servers from Windows 7 are included in the Windows 7 Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT), which must be downloaded separately. At this writing, the final RSAT package hasn’t been finalized. The release candidate is available at tinyurl.com/win7rcrsat.
Don’t be surprised when your Administrative Tools folder doesn’t get populated immediately after you install the RSAT package. The RSAT tools come in the form of a Windows Feature set that must be separately enabled using the Programs and Features applet in the Control Panel. See Figure 1 for an example. For an unknown (but, I’m sure, entirely valid) reason, you must separately click each feature to select it. The parent check blocks don’t automatically select their children.

Figure 1 Windows 7 RSAT Feature List (Click the image for a larger view)
The Active Directory RSAT tools will work with Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 domain controllers, although some features, such as the Active Directory Recycle Bin, require Windows Server 2008 R2 functionality level.
Managing Exchange 2003 from a Windows 7 workstation isn’t quite so straightforward: The Exchange System Manager (ESM) console that comes with the Exchange 2003 installation CD doesn’t run on Windows 7. There’s a special version of ESM designed for Vista that you can download from tinyurl.com/esmvista. This console will run fine under Windows 7, but the installer makes a specific check for Vista (Windows version 6.0.0) that fails on Windows 7. You can use a free Microsoft tool called Orca to modify the MSI file to remove or modify the version check. Orca comes as part of the Windows Installer SDK; download instructions are at tinyurl.com/orcamsi. However, I think you’ll find it much simpler to load ESM in XP Mode. More on that later.

 

2. Learn Windows PowerShell.
It’s safe to say that the single most important skill a Windows administrator will need in the coming years is proficiency with Windows PowerShell. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 both have Windows PowerShell version 2 baked into the operating system and it’s enabled by default. You should plan on installing Windows PowerShell v2 on your remaining servers and desktops so that you can use one script technology to manage your entire fleet. (Note that you won’t be able to install PowerShell v2 on Exchange 2007 servers or workstations. These machines require PowerShell v1.1. But even v1.1 gives you access to a wide range of functionality.)
Even if you’re a die-hard GUI administrator who hasn’t opened a command prompt since Y2K, you’ll find that most new GUI tools from Microsoft are now taking the form of graphical front ends on top of Windows PowerShell cmdlets. Many of these tools will tell you the underlying command string if you know where to look for it. That’s an easy way to see how the cmdlets work.
Many great Windows PowerShell references are available, including the outstanding book “Windows PowerShell in Action” (Manning Publications, 2007), written by Bruce Payette, a member of the Microsoft Windows PowerShell team. A new edition is forthcoming; you can pay a few dollars to read the early chapters, reserve a copy when it’s released and get an e-book of the first edition at the publisher’s Web site, manning.com/payette2. Also check out “Windows PowerShell Pocket Reference” (O’Reilly Media Inc., 2009) by Lee Holmes, another Windows PowerShell team member. And visit the Windows PowerShell team blog at blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell. There, you’ll find one of the most interactive developer teams on the planet. Every word on this blog is worth reading. Twice.
Here’s more good news: The Windows 7 RSAT suite contains the same Active Directory Windows PowerShell cmdlets that come on Windows Server 2008 R2. See Figure 2 for an example. The best source for more information is the Active Directory PowerShell blog at tinyurl.com/psadblog.

Figure 2 ADPowerShell cmdlets in action. (Click the image for a larger view)
You can use these AD cmdlets to manage domains running Windows 2003 and Windows 2008, but you’ll first need to install the AD Management Gateway Service (also known as AD Web Services, or ADWS) on at least one domain controller. At this writing, ADWS is in beta; it can be downloaded from connect.microsoft.com.
The ADWS service requires Windows Server 2003 SP2 (regular or R2) or Windows Server 2008 plain or SP2. You’ll need to install the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (tinyurl.com/dotnet35sp1) and a hotfix (support.microsoft.com/kb/969429) that enables support for the Web service flag in Netlogon. (The hotfix is baked into Windows Server 2008 SP2.)
If you work in one of those organizations where getting changes approved for domain controllers takes a lot of time and effort, and you’d like to start using Windows PowerShell to manage Active Directory while you still have your youth and vitality, take a look at the free Active Directory cmdlets from Quest at quest.com/PowerShell.

 

3. Plow through licensing.
If your organization didn’t deploy Vista, you may not be familiar with the latest volume-activation requirements in Windows. If you’re an admin in an enterprise with more than 25 desktops and/or five servers, if your organization takes advantage of a volume-license program such as an Enterprise Agreement or Select Agreement, and if you purchase Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate (or you upgrade to those versions as part of Software Assurance), you should do the following: Print out a short stack of Volume Activation documents from tinyurl.com/volact, pour yourself a few ounces of a bold Tuscan wine and start studying.
When you eventually declare yourself completely confused, download an excellent webcast by product manager Kim Griffiths, who does a great job of explaining the program’s nuances. You’ll find the webcast at tinyurl.com/volactwebcastwin7.
In brief, to deploy Windows 7 desktops using volume licenses, you’ll probably need to install a Key Management Server (KMS). I say “probably” because you may not have enough machines in your organization to support KMS activation. A KMS won’t begin doling out activation approvals until it receives requests from at least 25 desktops and/or five servers. That’s to prevent unscrupulous vendors from using the same volume-license key for multiple small clients. Once activated, a client must reactivate every six months. Despite what you may have read elsewhere, there’s no reduced functionality mode in Windows 7. If the activation key expires, the desktop background simply goes black and a notification balloon states that the operating system isn’t genuine.
If you have fewer than the required number of devices for a KMS, you can obtain a Multiple Activation Key (MAK) that’s stocked with activation allocations based on the number of volume licenses you purchase, plus a fudge factor that allows you to add machines between true-ups. An MAK key is authenticated by a Microsoft hosted service, so you’ll need Internet access following the OS installation.
A change introduced with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 now allows virtual machines to count against the KMS minimum for activation. This helps to boost your device count if you’re a small shop that uses lots of virtual desktops and servers.
If you already have a KMS for Vista and Windows Server 2008, you’ll be able to download an update for activating Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines.

 

4. Focus on strategic improvements.
Once you’re familiar with system administration using Windows 7 tools and you’ve set up the technology to activate your desktops, it’s time to start planning for deployment to end users. The most important thing to do at this point—and I know you don’t want to hear this—is to hold a meeting.
Steady … steady. Stay with me. This will be a different sort of meeting. You’re going to gather all your IT cousins who have been working with Windows 7. Not just architects. Not just desktop folks. Not just the server team or help-desk technicians or internal developers or project managers. You want representatives from every team. Think of it as an ecumenical council. Make it an all-day affair. Tell all potential attendees that only the cool kids will be on this bus, so they certainly don’t want to miss out.
Do yourself a favor before the meeting: Arm yourself with numbers. That’s because, at some point, somebody is bound to say: “We really should put together an enterprise application catalog that we can use to do our compatibility testing. And can all our machines really run Windows 7?” Then the group will spend an hour or two talking about how to assemble the catalog or why it can’t be done or how John on the desktop team already has a spreadsheet with that information but he hasn’t refreshed it in a while and it doesn’t include the machines in Europe, the Middle East and Africa—and so forth and so on.
You can short-circuit that whole conversation with two free inventory and analysis tools. First, there’s the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP 4.0), available at tinyurl.com/map40. This agentless tool will collect statistics on your desktops and give you a report on which ones are ready for Windows 7, which ones need hardware upgrades and which desktops will never be ready—no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig. MAP generates spiffy pie charts for management (see Figure 3) and piles of greasy numbers for the techies (Figure 4).

Figure 3 Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Assessment Summary (Click the image for a larger view)

Figure 4 Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 Assessment Details (Click the image for a larger view)
When you run the tool, don’t be too restrictive on your hardware requirements. I wrote the first draft of this article running Windows 7 and Office 2007 on a 1.6GHz Celeron desktop with 512MB of RAM and a bunch of line-of-business applications running in the background. Performance was perfectly acceptable.
Next, load up the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.5, available at tinyurl.com/appcompat55, and use it to get software stats on selected desktops. The ACT assessment doesn’t just skim the Installed Software list in the Registry; it looks in crannies and cubbyholes for applications that have been tucked away by all sorts of legacy installers. This capability requires a local agent, which is deployed from an ACT management server and which sends back periodic reports for several days before de-installing itself.
As you can see in Figure 5, ACT does a thorough job of data collection—very thorough—so you’ll need a server with moderately good horsepower to run it. You can use SQL Express to store the data unless you want to include thousands of machines in the sample. However, if you have your software loads broken down by department or functional workgroup, you can select a few representative machines from each group as a sample. Even with tens of thousands of desktops, you should be able to sample 2 percent to 3 percent to get an idea of the work ahead of you.

Figure 5 Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 Application Report (Click the image for a larger view)
Now, let’s get back to that big meeting. Do it right. Dip into the department coffers to buy enough donuts and pizza to choke a medium-sized T. rex. Find a room with wall-to-wall whiteboards. If you can’t fly everyone to one location, line the perimeter of the meeting room with big screens, fire up your network meeting software of choice and make sure there are microphones and cameras everywhere.
In the meeting’s first half, ask attendees how they use Windows 7 to improve their daily tasks. Find out what took them longer to learn. Listen to their gripes. Spelunk around inside those brains looking for a combination of features that will materially improve your users’ productivity, enhance security, encourage mobility and simplify work processes.
Spend the second half of the day outlining a deployment plan. Don’t spin your wheels trying to resolve potential compatibility or interoperability or work-process problems. Any organization that’s been running XP for several years is bound to have evolved procedures that are getting a little, um, creaky. Identify the issues. Categorize them. Move on.
Pretend you’re a geologist testing a new oil field. Concentrate on finding the big pools and figure out how to do the extraction later.
The result of this meeting will be a who-what-when-where-how roadmap. It will address questions such as: What features will you deploy? Who will do the prep work? How long will it take? Which users will be most affected? How can you obtain those users’ cooperation? How much will deployment cost in hard and soft dollars? Where are the potential failure points? What resources are required for testing? And most important, when can the work begin? Boil it down to five slides, sell it to management and then execute, execute, execute.

 

5. Expand the deployment scope.
Some of the best features in Windows 7 may require a few changes to your infrastructure. For example: High on my list of favorite features is the combination of Federated Search and Libraries in the new Explorer shell. These work together to provide a centralized and flexible view of distributed data.
The key to using Federated Search is finding or building connectors to Web-based data repositories. A connector is a set of configuration items inside an .OSDX file. These items point at a Web site and describe how to handle the content. Here’s an example of a Bing connector:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
xmlns:ms-ose="http://schemas.microsoft.com/opensearchext/2009/">

<ShortName>Bing</ShortName>

<Description>Bing in Windows 7.</Description>

<Url type="application/rss+xml"
template="http://api.bing.com/rss.aspx?source=web&amp;query=
{searchTerms}&amp;format=rss"/>

<Url type="text/html" template="http://www.bing.com/search?q={searchTerms}"/>

</OpenSearchDescription>

When you right-click an .OSDX file, Explorer shows a Create Search Connector option in the property menu. Click it and the connector gets added to the list of items under Favorites. Initiate a search of the connector by highlighting it and typing terms into the search field in the upper-right corner of the Explorer window. In a few seconds, Explorer populates the results pane. Click Preview to view the contents of a selected page. Figure 6 shows an example.

Figure 6 Search Connector in Explorer (Click the image for a larger view)
Connectors are simple to build. Convince your internal developers to put a few together for your intranet servers (company portal, SharePoint farm and so on). Point them at the long list of sample connectors at SevenForums (tinyurl.com/srchcon), a massively useful independent site for all things Windows 7-ish. Distribute these connectors to your users using your standard package deployment tools. You can then use them to build a standard view of your distributed Web data.
Although Federated Search can handle Web site content well enough, organizations tend to struggle when it comes to delving into the terabytes upon terabytes of files sitting on file servers. This means that users who have only the vaguest notions of drive mappings and network data storage may need to spend hours sifting through their W: drives trying to find, for instance, the reports they wrote last month.
That’s where Libraries come into play. Libraries aggregate files from a variety of sources into searchable objects. The default libraries in Windows 7 include the usual assortment of personal data types and locations—Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos—and it’s simple to expand this list to include server-based repositories. Just right-click, select New Library and add a UNC path to a shared folder.
One catch: The target folder must be indexed. On Windows Server 2008 and higher, install the File Services role. Then, under Role Services, install the Windows Search Service. On Windows Server 2003 SP2 servers, install Windows Search 4.0, a free download from tinyurl.com/srch40dwnload. In addition, due to a limitation in the Search interface, you won’t be able to specify DFS paths even if the ultimate target of a DFS folder is an indexed file server.
There’s no command-line utility for creating libraries and, at this writing, no Windows PowerShell cmdlets, either. The Windows 7 SDK includes tools for working with libraries programmatically, so it won’t be long before little utilities begin appearing. Keep an eye out for them.
One note about the default action of Libraries: Explorer displays Libraries in the Common File Dialog to enable users to save files to a Library by dragging and dropping. If you have multiple links under a library, one of them must be configured as the default target.

 

6. Prepare for distributed security.
During your initial strategy meeting, set aside time to discuss how you want to handle the many distributed security features in Windows 7. You’ll want to determine a course of action early in the project because those decisions will have a substantial impact on your test matrix.
First, consider whether you want turn on the desktop firewall. When OS-based desktop firewalls were first introduced in XP SP1, many organizations turned them off with a Group Policy and that was that. The firewall in Windows 7 is much more flexible and warrants reconsideration. You can turn off the firewall while the machine is connected to the domain and turn it on when the machine is connected to a home/work network or to the Internet. You can define granular exclusions, too. Try a mix of options with the first wave of pilot users; take their feedback, along with input from your security team, to make a final decision on firewall settings. They’re completely configurable by Group Policy.
Second, do you want to use AppLocker to restrict applications permitted to run on your desktops? AppLocker allows you to put together a whitelist of approved executables that you can select individually by file hash, in groups by location or in groups by publisher (that is, signed by the publisher’s certificate). Once configured, these rules are downloaded by Windows 7 clients running the Application Identity service. From that point forward, only the whitelisted apps can execute. All other executables are forced to sit on the sidelines, kind of like me during my high-school athletic career.
Because AppLocker permissions are applied via Group Policy, you can tightly target the rules to computers based on OU, group membership or WMI filters.
Sifting through a mountain of applications trying to determine which should be on an AppLocker whitelist doesn’t sound like much fun, but the situation shouldn’t come to that. Most line-of-business machines have a fixed and limited suite of apps. Start there. After all, if you can keep the night crews from plugging flash drives into your factory kiosk machines to run games rather than build widgets, you’ve solved quite a few operational problems. Deal with the back-office machines later.
Finally, are you going to protect your laptops and flash drives with encryption? If your executives and managers and knowledge workers are out walking around with data drives filled with valuable intellectual property, then the answer should be a resounding yes. BitLocker allows you to encrypt the entire hard drive and all the data on it. BitLocker To Go extends this encryption to cover flash drives and other portable media. You really do need to deploy it.
Now, I’m not saying that you should simply flip on the BitLocker policy in Group Policies, encrypt a bunch of drives and walk away. As with any other encryption-based technology, you must carefully think through the options. Don’t be that person whom others tell stories about for years, as in “Remember when the CEO got locked out of her laptop an hour before the annual meeting and poor old <insert your name here> hadn’t arranged for an enterprise recovery key?” It would be smart to engage a consultant who’s experienced with enterprise-level drive encryption and BitLocker implementations. The main thing is: Don’t let the complexity scare you. The alternative is even scarier. After all, the story people tell for years after the fact could be something like “Remember when we used to have a company before organized crime got its hands on the CFO’s laptop?”

 

7. Virtualize your desktops.
Imagine this: You’ve spent a few weeks or months designing your standard Windows 7 desktop image. You’ve worked hard to resolve technical issues and you’ve found ways to quickly move applications and user data between machines, reducing the migration’s impact. (The User State Migration Tool, part of the Automated Installation Kit, is a good place to start for this kind of work. For a walkthrough demo, visit tinyurl.com/usmtwt.) Your field technicians are trained. The help-desk team is mollified with all the guidance you’ve posted on its SharePoint site. You’re finally ready to start the rollout.
But wait. Rather than putting the operating system directly on the hard drive of each new machine, Windows 7 makes it possible to install the OS into a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) file on the hard drive. The OS boots from the contents of this VHD, which becomes Drive C, and then sees the actual hard drive as Drive D. With proper planning, an OS installed this way could become highly portable. If John moves from Cincinnati to Chicago, the field tech in Cincinnati could copy the VHD over the network to a field tech in Chicago, who would plunk it down onto a machine so that John could get to work in his familiar desktop environment as soon as he steps out of his U-Haul truck.
If you think performance in this lashup would be less than stellar, think again. Check out the disk I/O stats at the Virtualization team blog, tinyurl.com/nativevhd.
There are some caveats. The first one involves hibernation, which doesn’t work at all for VHD-boot machines. That means that you may not want to use VHD boot for laptops. Also, you can’t boot to VHD on a drive encrypted with BitLocker, which also reduces its attractiveness for laptops.
It could be that the complexity of dealing with VHD-based deployments aren’t worth the benefits, but you should at least include them in your test plan. The steps to perform the legerdemain are too long for this article, but here are some places to go for instructions: You can use Max Knor’s method, described at tinyurl.com/win7bootvhdnativinstall, which essentially boots to the Windows 7 Setup CD, finesses out to a command prompt, creates the VHD and then uses it as the target for the installer—very slick. You can follow the walkthrough instructions on TechNet at tinyurl.com/win7bootvhdwt; or you can view this TechNet video: tinyurl.com/win7bootvhdvid.
Once you get proficient with these techniques, take a look at what Kyle Rosenthal at the Vista PC Guy blog has to offer in the way of instructions for using WinPE tools to build images. For example, the steps at vistapcguy.net/?p=71 show how to create a bootable flash drive with the WinPE tools and an installation image on it. Armed with that tool, you can quickly install your standard image on a machine without touching a single piece of flat plastic.

 

8. Evaluate enterprise features.
VHD boot, along with BitLocker and AppLocker, fall into a class of features that require Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate. The Enterprise SKU can only be obtained via a volume license agreement. If you own Enterprise or Ultimate, you should consider deploying a few additional features to improve security and streamline operations.
BranchCache allows you to cache file transfers either at a central server in a branch office or as part of a peer network of desktops. When a client initiates a file transfer, it first checks to see whether the file is locally cached and whether the file hash matches the hash at the authoritative source. If so, it copies the file from the cache. This not only speeds things up for users, it also reduces network load across the WAN, a benefit that’s sure to put a smile on the face of the network folks. (They’ve been known to smile. I’ve seen it.) I urge you to try BranchCache in your pilot testing to evaluate whether your mix of apps and associated file traffic would benefit.
Next, you could take the VHD-based quasi-virtualization I discussed in the last section to the next level—true virtualization—by deploying a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI, on Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. In a VDI, each desktop session exists as a separate virtual machine and users connect via RDP. This setup contrasts with the more mainstream Terminal Services way of publishing a desktop, where all users swim in the same pool of application images. In Terminal Services, if somebody makes a boo-boo, then everyone else suffers. Have you seen “Caddyshack”? Enough said. (You can also avoid unfortunate interactions in a terminal server by virtualizing your applications. Check out the App-V tools in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.)
VDI can get a little expensive. The cost of supporting user virtual desktops with a full complement of memory and network access on a server can exceed the cost of the PCs. But for disaster recovery in a distributed desktop environment, you can’t ask for better protection.
Another Enterprise feature, DirectAccess, allows users to connect through a Windows Server 2008 R2 gateway to the corporate network without the use of a VPN. A user can flip open her EVDO-enabled netbook while sitting in an airport and immediately start working on documents stored on corporate servers. Selling this feature to your security team might take some time, though. (Now there’s a group that never smiles.)

 

9. Build compatibility safety nets.
One issue that you should definitely hash out at your meeting of big brains is whether your organization is ready to deploy 64-bit desktops. New machines deployed as part of a refresh cycle are virtually certain to be 64-bit capable. You’re probably putting at least 2GB of RAM into them at today’s RAM prices, more likely 4GB if you were able to convince Finance to approve the slightly higher unit costs. The machines are likely to have dual-core processors, possibly even quad-core, with enough video memory to support Aero. These machines will perform very well with a 64-bit OS.
Even if all your current line-of-business and commercial apps are still 32-bit, it makes sense to install the 64-bit version of Windows 7, if for no other reason than to help future-proof your investment. Clearly the world is moving toward a 64-bit standard, and you want to be ready when vendors decide to start jettisoning backward compatibility.
If you decide to roll out 64-bit desktops, test thoroughly for issues with device drivers, anti-virus suites, management agents and so forth. If you currently have 32-bit print servers, you’ll need to populate the print queues with 64-bit drivers. As an alternative, you could deploy new x64 Windows Server 2008 or R2 print servers and populate both sets of drivers as you build the queues. The printer-migration wizard in Windows Server 2008 R2 will help with this task. It’s worth the effort to deploy new R2 print servers because the print model has been improved to keep drivers in their own memory space so that a bad driver won’t take down the spooler.
The most significant potential show-stopper is the need to run legacy 16-bit applications, which won’t run at all on a 64-bit host. Your best option in this case is to use a trick that hothouse farmers in Minnesota have employed for generations to raise tomatoes: Build an environment that fools the plants into thinking they’re in Dallas instead of Duluth. That is: Use XP Mode to put an instance of x86 XP SP3 on your x64 Windows 7 desktop.
Applications installed in the XP Mode virtual machine can be launched from the Windows 7 Start menu (Figure 7) just as if they were natively installed so that your users won’t get confused by living in two universes. (This trick actually comes from a special RAIL hotfix, not directly from XP Mode, so you can do the same Start Menu trick by installing the RAIL hotfix, then running Virtual PC with 32-bit Vista or Windows 7, if you like.)

Figure 7 XP Mode App List in Start Menu
By default, the XP Mode virtual machine runs under a local account inside the virtual machine. The account is called User. You set the password for this account during install time and the password is set to never expire. Alternatively, you can launch the virtual machine and join it to the domain and logon with your domain credentials. You can load Exchange 2003 ESM into XP Mode along with the older admin tools to have a fully compatible admin environment. And did I mention the seamless cut-and-paste between host and virtual machines? Sweet.
XP Mode requires hardware-based virtualization, either Intel VT or AMD-V. Steve Gibson at Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Gibson Research Corp. (famous for SpinRite and ShieldsUP!) offers a free utility called SecurAble (grc.com/securable.htm) that will quickly tell you whether a machine meets the criteria. See Figure 8 for an example of a SecurAble report.

Figure 8 Gibson Research Corp.’s SecurAble Report
If you have hundreds or thousands of PCs, you’ll need a centralized management package to handle this alternate environment. This is Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), one element of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. At the client, MED-V 2.0 works similarly to XP Mode by installing a virtual machine that requires virtualization support in hardware. On the back end, MED-V offers a variety of tools for building and deploying packages to the virtual machines. For more information, see this Windows team blog posting at tinyurl.com/medvblog.

 

10. Remove your users’ local-admin rights.
If you haven’t already pried away your users’ local-admin rights, now is the time. Yes, I know it’s hard. Laptop users are especially difficult to wean because the help desk can’t walk them through complicated fixes over the phone. But there’s also that “shadow” IT organization—department gurus and admin wannabes who find applications that meet certain tactical needs, then scurry around with thumb drives installing the apps with no regard for interoperability testing. And don’t even get me started on the kind of trash that average users install on their machines when they have local-admin rights. It’s amazing how the most unsophisticated user, incapable of so much as a password reset without help-desk support, can find a way to install complex multi-tiered client-server front-end applications if the reward involves shopping or sports.
Even if you muster the political strength to deny local-admin rights to the majority of users, as soon as you take those rights away, apps start to break. An astounding number of applications insist on writing to protected portions of the file system and Registry.
Windows 7 simplifies the switch to standard-user operation. Background processes redirect changes away from protected areas into user-controlled areas. That alone should resolve many issues that you might have encountered with standard-user operation with XP. There are also some simple but critical improvements that help standard users, such as the ability to change time zones, a task that required local-admin rights in XP and Vista. Ditto for changing screen resolution, doing an ipconfig /refresh to get a new DHCP address and installing optional updates.
The Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) contains a Standard User Analyzer (SUA) Wizard to help with vetting your apps. SUA provides an elevated-privilege launch platform for an application. Then, while the app installs and runs, SUA ferrets around inside looking for subtle issues that could keep it from running as a standard user. When it’s done, you receive either a clean bill of health for the app or a list of items that need remediation.
When you download ACT, you might as well download the Application Verifier from  tinyurl.com/appverify. This is used by the SUA Wizard and isn’t included in the ACT package. Also, be sure to read the docs for ACT 5.5. They’re a treasure-trove of great information on compatibility issues and fixes. And the June 2009 issue of TechNet Magazine extensively covered application compatibility.
But what about users who absolutely need local-admin rights, such as administrators and developers and users with enough clout to get themselves put back into the local Administrators group? Do you really want these users poking around all day with escalated privileges? I hope your answer is “no,” and that’s why the much-maligned User Account Control (UAC) should be your friend. Mark Russinovich recently wrote a detailed article on the topic (“Inside Windows 7 User Access Control,” TechNet Magazine, July 2009). Before you push the new UAC slider to the bottom to disable it on your machines, go online and read that article.

 

You Can Be Heroes—for More Than One Day
It’s going to take a lot of work to prepare for and deploy Windows 7, but it helps that users really want the new OS. Those who have tried it like the new interface. They appreciate the fit and finish, the responsiveness and the new features.
The opportunity to be popular as a system administrator doesn’t come along very often. I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. You should, too. Good luck with your Windows 7 deployment. Let me know how it turns out.

 

Bill Boswell (billb@microsoft.com) is a senior consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services in the Phoenix, Ariz., office. Bill’s current assignment is serving as an IT Architecture and Planning (ITAP) advisor for a major airline.
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What’s new in ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio Beta 2?

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: September 19, 2009

Core Services

Web.config File Minification

Extensible Output Caching

Auto-Start Web Applications

Permanently Redirecting a Page

The Incredible Shrinking Session State

Expanding the Range of Allowable URLs

Extensible Request Validation

Object Caching and Object Caching Extensibility

Extensible HTML, URL, and HTTP Header Encoding

Performance Monitoring for Individual Applications in a Single Worker Process

Multi-Targeting

New Features in ASP.NET AJAX 4

Client Template Rendering

Instantiating Behaviors and Controls Declaratively

Live Data Binding

Using the Observer Pattern with JavaScript Objects and Arrays

The DataView Control

The AdoNetServiceProxy Class

The DataContext and AdoNetDataContext Classes

Refactoring the Microsoft AJAX Framework Libraries

The DOM Ready Event

Using JSONP to Retrieve Cross-Domain Data.

Web Forms

Setting Meta Tags with the Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription Properties

Enabling View State for Individual Controls

Changes to Browser Capabilities

Routing in ASP.NET 4

Setting Client IDs

Persisting Row Selection in Data Controls

ASP.NET Chart Control

Filtering Data with the QueryExtender Control

Html Encoded Code Expressions

Project Template Changes

CSS Improvements

Hiding div Elements Around Hidden Fields.

Rendering an Outer Table for Templated Controls

ListView Control Enhancements

CheckBoxList and RadioButtonList Control Enhancements

Menu Control Improvements

Wizard and CreateUserWizard Controls

ASP.NET MVC

Dynamic Data

Enabling Dynamic Data for Existing Projects

Declarative DynamicDataManager Control Syntax

Entity Templates

New Field Templates for URLs and E-mail Addresses

Creating Links with the DynamicHyperLink Control

Support for Inheritance in the Data Model

Support for Many-to-Many Relationships (Entity Framework Only)

New Attributes to Control Display and Support Enumerations

Enhanced Support for Filters

Visual Studio 2010 Web Designer Improvements

Improved CSS Compatibility

HTML and JScript Snippets

JScript IntelliSense Enhancements.

Web Application Deployment with Visual Studio 2010

Web Packaging

Web.config Transformation

Database Deployment

One-Click Publish for Web Applications

Resources

Find at http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet40/, more whitepapers on ASP.Net can be found athttp://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/

From :Wriju’s BLOG

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TechNet Flash: Virtualization adds sizzle to new operating systems‏

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: September 1, 2009

Note from the Editor
Greetings, Uğur.
Summer is winding down and if you were able to get away for a vacation, consider yourself envied. We’ve been busy getting ready for a few noteworthy product launches. And since you already know what products I’m talking about, here’s some updates:

Windows Server 2008 R2 Trial Software
The Windows Server 2008 R2 trial bits are now available for download to start your 180-day evaluation of the new features, including new virtualization tools, Web resources, management enhancements, and Windows 7 integration. Tools such as Internet Information Services (IIS) version 7.5, updated Server Manager and Hyper-V platforms, and Windows PowerShell version 2.0 combine to give you greater control, increased efficiency, and the ability to react to front-line business needs faster than ever before. And the virtualization capabilities can help save time and reduce costs.

Speaking of virtualization, hear from a panel of experts how virtualization tools can help you with application compatibility concerns whether you’re migrating from Windows Vista or Windows XP. On September 24 at 9:00 A.M. Pacific Time, join the Springboard team’s webcast on Windows 7 Application Compatibility Part 2. They’ll cover the latest desktop virtualization technologies from Microsoft, including App-V, MED-V, and XP Mode for Windows 7.

Then check out the current issue of TechNet Magazine to find out how the R2 version of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 can help you manage your organization’s virtual machines more easily and efficiently. Paul Schnackenburg’s Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 RC explains how a key feature is the support for new functionality in Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor.

Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate Ready to Download
The Exchange Server 2010 RC is now feature-complete and available for download. New in the RC release is support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, co-existence with Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2003, and an in-place upgrade from Exchange Server 2010 RC to Exchange Server 2010 RTM, so you won’t need to reinstall your servers or reconfigure your Exchange settings once you have deployed the RC. Visit “What’s new in Exchange 2010” on TechNet for additional technical details.

Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight and SQL Azure Database August CTPs
We’re excited to announce that SQL Server StreamInsight is officially shipping as a component of SQL Server 2008 R2, which is scheduled to be available in H1 2010. StreamInsight brings a low-latency complex event processing (CEP) platform to SQL Server, and will enable organizations to derive insights from streaming data in near real-time in scenarios such as Web analytics, algorithmic trading, and industrial process control. Get the free trial.

Also available today is the first community technology preview of SQL Azure Database, a cloud-based relational database service built on Microsoft SQL Server technologies. SQL Azure Database enables you to provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud, and take advantage of a globally distributed data center that provides enterprise-class availability, scalability, and security with the benefits of built-in data protection, self-healing, and disaster recovery. Register for the free trial.

Thanks for reading,
Mitch Irsfeld
Editor, TechNet Flash

View the TechNet Flash Mobile edition. Subscribe to the TechNet Flash Feed blog for news updates as they happen, often several times a day.
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For the ‘former’ Windows XP User – Welcome to Windows 7!

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: August 28, 2009

So you have finally made the move from Windows XP to Windows 7, everything is working great, but a few things have changed. Yes indeed, there is a new look, but a familiar experience along with numerous changes and improvements since the release of Windows XP back in October 2001. For some persons, it might be a bit overwhelming, to help make the transition a smooth one, here is a quick guide to help familiarize yourself with some of the changes and benefits:

Welcome

As with every new install or first time use of Windows, the first interactive experience is logging in. Depending on how your PC is setup, you might or might not see the Account Screen when you start your Windows session, for those who do, here is a look at some of the changes:

Welcome Screens

When Windows XP was released back in 2001, it was seen as a major upgrade that focused on ease of use and friendliness, the Welcome sequence and log on screen featured warm, inviting thumbnails that easily identified your account and log in name. With Windows Vista, Microsoft made a few changes by changing the layout and removed a few things. Your accounts are displayed in horizontal layout, instead of the vertical view from XP. Some other functionality introduced in XP such as your amount of unread email notifications are not displayed in Windows 7. A nice welcome optional feature is CTRL-ALT-DEL command, which adds secure log on protection that can be managed through Group Policy (depending on the edition of Windows 7 you have installed) when unauthorized individuals or key loggers attempt to steal your account information. Also, you cannot take a screenshot of the Account Screen like you did in Windows XP. The Classic NT/2000 Log On dialog is not an option in Windows 7 for obvious reasons, if you log on to Domain to access a business network, there are some slight changes click here learn more.

Desktop

The first thing you see when you log on with your credentials is the Desktop, you will of course notice familiar experiences like your personal background. But you might see some other differences, like Gadgets. With Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced Sidebar Gadgets which are small (some cases) web based applications that provide quick access to information such as the latest news from your subscribed website’s, a slide show, Clock, CPU/Memory monitor, Weather and others that are included by the manufacturer of your PC. Gadgets are fun to use and you can get many more from www.gallery.microsoft.com, you can position them anywhere on the Desktop, resize them or just snap them to any side of your screen. You can quickly access them when you are within an application by using the hot keys ‘Windows key + G’ or ‘Windows key + space bar’ to see them on your desktop.

Taskbar & Start menu

The Taskbar first introduced in Windows 95 has been significantly enhanced, instead of features like Quick Launch, and labeled buttons, the Taskbar uses detailed icons to represent shortcuts and running applications. If you would like to learn more about the Taskbar, read my tutorial here.

Tip: Want a more familiar look to Windows XP? You can achieve this by right clicking the Taskbar, click ‘Properties’ > Taskbar (tab) > check under Taskbar appearance ‘Use small icons’. In the Taskbar buttons: list box, click ‘Never combine’ > click Apply and OK.

The Start button has been redesigned using a universal symbol that every PC user can understand. Instead of translating the word ‘Start’ in hundreds of languages, a simple effective pearl logo represents the keypad to accessing your programs and files. With Windows 7, Microsoft has removed some of the legacy that you have been seeing in previous releases. For instance, the Start menu does not include the option of Windows Classic anymore and with good reasoning considering the clean look in addition to its accessible design, along with its built in Instant Search capabilities the Windows 7 Start menu is much friendlier and easier to use.

All Programs

Along with the Start menu, is the All Programs Group, in Windows XP, you had cascading menus, that would often go off the screen if you had many applications installed. Windows Vista introduced a hierarchical view that makes it easy to browse through all the programs installed on your computer. With Windows 7, you don’t even have to go to the All Programs group, just search for the program name using the built in Instant Search box integrated into the Start menu.

Certain menu functions have been hidden such as the Run menu, which you can easily access by using the Windows Key + R command or you can find it under the Accessories menu. The ‘Connect To’ menu which stores all your available network connections in Windows XP has been replaced by the more convenient and more accessible (View Available Network) connections menu situated in the notification area. Simply click the display icon and you will see a list of all your available connections: Dial-up, Hi-speed Broadband, VPN etc.

Network Notifications

Back in Windows XP, Network notifications were identified by two blinking displays. Windows 7 displays only a single Monitor (display) icon. I personally don’t like it, I thought Vista’s Network icon was just perfect and quickly identified when you were connected to the Internet, Network or not connected at all.

The Recent Items menu is no longer displayed because the Start menu intelligently handles this through Jump List which displays a list of the recently accessed or created files in the programs you recently used on the Start menu or shortcuts on the Taskbar when you right click them. Another menu link that is not displayed is Favorites, you can Search the Start menu for your favorite website links or go to your User folder > Favorites to access all your website links.

Tip: If you would like the option of displaying these menus on the Start menu, simply right click the ‘Taskbar’, click ‘Properties’ > select the ‘Start Menu’ tab > click ‘Customize’ > in the dialog displayed, check off the appropriate menu links ‘Connect To’, ‘Favorites’, ‘Recent Items’ and the ‘Run’ command.

User folder

Windows Vista introduced some changes to the account folder structure. If you are familiar with the Documents and Settings folder which stores all the accounts on the computer along with your personal folder data such as My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, My Videos etc, it has now been replaced by  ‘User’. Just like in Windows XP, within each account folder you will find your personal folders such as Documents, Music, Pictures and local settings such as AppData which stores user settings such as cookies, dictionaries, and different types of data for applications you might have installed on your computer.

Another change you might see coming from Windows XP is the Public folder, this replaces your Shared Documents folder where you store information for other users on your computer or network can access. The relevance of Public folder itself has decreased in Windows 7 with the introduction of Libraries which makes it easy to share files and resources with other users on your home network simply by using a password.

What happened to ‘My’

Instead of using the ‘My’ prefix as a part of personal folders, common content locations are simply represented by their names Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos etc. Former Microsoft employee and Vice President of Platforms, Jim Allchin gave the reason for removing ‘My’:

The company introduced the “my” prefix in part to give users obvious places for storing their own files, Allchin said. (Although users can rename the standard folders, and create their own, many tend to stick with the default Windows naming structure.) He acknowledged that the company also was aiming to make the experience more personal.

But now, the “my” prefix has become so ubiquitous in the technology industry that it’s no longer the distinguishing characteristic the company hoped it would be. In part, Allchin attributed the situation to the tendency of software developers to adopt the common Windows terminology when making programs that run on the Microsoft operating system.

“People got carried away,” Allchin said in a recent interview. “Anytime Microsoft does something, everybody wants to do it. … It became a worthless descriptor.”

Explorer & Address Bar

Windows Explorer has changed significantly, adding more consistency and simplicity across folders. The Standard toolbar and Drop Down menu you are accustomed to seeing have been replaced by the Command Bar, which features contextual task and quick options for managing your folder views. If you want to do occasional task such as copy and move files, you can quickly invoke the Drop Down menu by pressing ‘Alt’ on your keyboard or use drag drop by expanding the folder tree in the Navigation pane.

The Address Bar works more intelligently in Windows 7/Vista, displaying quick shortcut paths within a folder hierarchy called bread crumbs. The enhanced Address Bar features drop-down menus along the current navigation path, enabling you to easily backtrack or navigate forward, anywhere along an address location. Search in Explorer is a major feature, the Instant Search capabilities makes it easy to find files within a folder, Windows 7 in particular introduces some major innovations, you can learn more here

The Task Pane in Windows XP has also been replaced by the Command Bar, previous functionality can be found there and in the preview pane situated at the bottom of the window which displays file size along with picture, video thumbnails and meta data information. The Navigation pane introduced in Vista features a clean design, divided into 5 common locations such as your Favorites for commonly accessed folders, Computer environment which stores your hard disk, optical media and removable storage. Libraries stores your data folders and aggregates all your personal files there for documents, pictures, music and videos. Network displays all the available computers you can access and shared locations.

Some other common functions and changes you might experience is how files are organized, some quick improvements you will notice include how files are grouped along with changes to things you often did in Windows XP.

  • You cannot move around files using drag and drop.
  • Alphabetical grouping is now ranged, meaning, instead of listing every file name from A-Z they are conveniently grouped by A-H, G-K etc.

Other file view changes include the removal of Film Strip view, instead you can view large quick previews of your files by clicking the view menu option to the left of the command bar or use your scroll wheel mouse and hold down the Control key to resize files and see large thumbnail previews of pictures and videos.

Customize and Personalize

Customizing your Windows experience is a huge part of Windows 7, Windows XP users are probably accustomed to changing their color scheme from Blue Luna, to Olive Green or Silver every now and then along with a wallpaper that came bundled with the OS or from personal pictures or off the Internet. You might even use third party themes. Windows 7 makes the out of box personalization experience richer, increasing the number of theming capabilities many times over from what was included in Windows XP. For example, you can change the color of your Taskbar/Start Menu/windows from the available collection of 16 different colors, expanded themes and wall papers have increased to 8 and along with that you can download many more from a dedicated website provided by Microsoft. The Windows Team have even personalized the themes based on your country and language. Still not satisfied, just create your own, its simple. Along with that you can have multiple wallpapers display at timed intervals. Windows 7 also includes 13 new sound schemes to add a personal touch to common notifications the OS might give out.

As far back as Windows 95 up to Windows XP, we had the Display Properties dialog which hosted the various options such as Themes/Background, Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance and Settings for customizing your user experience. Windows 7 includes a more convenient vision, instead of a dialog, a natural explorer shell Personalization interface is presented to user with quick access to the various options for customizing the look and feel of Windows. So, if you have a hard time looking for Display Properties, you now know where to look.

How do I manage my programs?!?!

Looking for Add/Remove? Just look under the new item in Control Panel named ‘Programs and Features’. Introduced in Vista, it features a clean, informative Explorer based shell that gives you quick details and options for managing all your installed applications and program updates too. You can view your programs in a number of ways similar to working in the Documents Explorer, program icons can be viewed as tile, list or even very large if you want. Programs and Features provides links to all the updates that Windows installed called ‘Installed Updates’, you can even uninstall an update if you experience a problem. Along with that, you have access to ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ which makes it easy to disable features that come bundled with Windows that you are not using.

Windows Update

In Windows XP, you updated your computer using multiple mechanisms, whether through the individual applications such as Microsoft Word for instance or through the Microsoft Windows Update site. With Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced a dedicated Explorer shell just for Windows Update which provides a broader set of options for downloading, managing updates for not only Windows, but other Microsoft products such as Office and Windows Live products and even hardware drivers for devices such as your printer, video card and networking card.

User Experience – Aero

Windows XP was the first release in years to introduce a significant change to the interface through its Luna theme, which offered a lighter palette, large, communicative icons and a more friendly design. With Windows Vista, Microsoft took bold steps to make Windows look much sleeker and lighter while also bringing more information to the screen and making it easier for you to focus on the content. Aero Glass depending on if your video card supports it adds a clean design to windows, putting clear emphasis on content. Window frames feature semi-transparent realism, making the interface not only cool but productive to use.

Security

Windows 7 is exceptionally secure and includes a host of built in technologies you won’t find in Windows XP or cannot be provided through a update or Service Pack. When you create an account, you are not given complete privileges, meaning, you are not the sole Administrator of the system. Windows 7 creates what is called a Standard Administrator account with a fair amount of privileges to do common power user task such as installing programs, updates, create other accounts, set restrictions and so on. Microsoft encourages that your daily activities should be performed in a Limited User account for added security.

Where is Outlook Express, Movie Maker, Windows Messenger, MSN Explorer etc…?

Windows 7 did some house cleaning, prioritizing what’s most important, especially in today’s Internet based world. As far back as Windows 95, users have come to expect Windows to include a default email program. Microsoft has taken a different approach by moving programs such as Email and Video Editing to a suite of free services called Windows Live Essentials. Outlook Express has been succeeded by Windows Live Mail, which features a built in calendar, clean interface, easy setup and strong integration with Windows Live which is the successor to MSN Explorer providing an end to end experience from the Windows desktop to the web for managing email, storing personal files and sharing photos with family and friends and a whole lot more. Windows Messenger as you probably would know has been succeeded by both Windows Live Messenger for consumer instant messaging as well as Office Communicator in Enterprise settings. You can find both Windows Live Messenger and the new Windows Live Movie Maker included with Windows Live Essentials and many other services.

If you are interested in learning about Windows Live Essentials, check out my summary here

I hope this introduction to some of fundamental improvements in Windows 7 will have you up and running. Windows 7 is faster, simpler and more efficient all around. The Windows Team went back to the fundamentals with this release. Users will appreciate both the small and big changes in this release.

Resources

Windows 7 has finally RTMed! – A Look back over the past 10 months

—

http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!E8E5CC039D51E3DB!27883.entry

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Codecs Package for Windows 7

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: August 27, 2009

August 27th, 2009. Filed under: Downloads. Tags: , ,

Windows 7 can play most media files today, out-of-the-box. However you may find that it may still unable to play some multimedia files.

To address this problem, you can download a codec pack for Windows 7. Win7codecs is an audio and video codec package for Windows 7.

The installer will automatically remove most other popular codec releases from your computer before installing this concise yet comprehensive package. You won’t need to make any adjustments or tweaks to enjoy your media content immediately. Windows Media Player and Media Center will instantly recognize all your files as playable.

It does not contain a media player and it does not associate file-types. With this package installed you will be able to use any media player, limited only by the players’ capabilities, to play all movies and video clips. Streaming video is supported in several formats in all popular web browsers.

Users of the Win7codecs have the ability to choose what is installed and where to install it using the public redistributable. After installation you can select to remove specific portions without removing the entire package. You can also re-add the removed items at any time.

HomePage | Download.

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ImageResizer for Windows XP & Windows Vista/Windows 7 (both 32-bit/64-bit)

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: August 27, 2009

These days everybody has digital camera with high resolution. Typically users click hi res with image sizes ranging from 2 MB to 10 MB depending upon the Megapixels supported by the Camera.

Many of them use these for sharing with their friends and families. Often users try to mail these pictures over the email or instant messenger by zipping them but it does not help much. Approximately a 5 MB images will be compressed to up to 4 or 4.5 MB but that is also the very high size per image sending via email or messenger. Sometimes we use our trustful Microsoft Paint application for resizing images, which is cool but again for a single or couple of images it is ok to open up the image and to “Save As” Well imagine what if you have around 20 30 40 50 100+ images for resizing. Then it is a painful task for doing manual resizing.

So, this is a problem that many of us must be facing in a day to day life as we click lot of pictures and share it across the web.

What’s the solution?

Well, the solution is to use a Image Resizer tool that we would talk about. An easy to use tool for resizing multiple images within few seconds. We are talking about ImageResizer PowerToy that was available for Windows XP and folks at CodePlex re-written the same application in C++ for Windows Vista & Windows 7 including support for 64-Bit version of Windows.

DOWNLOAD LOCATIONS. These tools are freely available :)

ImageResizer for Windows XP Download ImageResizer.exe

ImageResizer for Windows Vista/Windows 7 Download ImageResizer-2.0.msi

ImageResizer for Windows Vista/Windows 7 (FOR 64-Bit) Download ImageResizer-2.0_x64.msi

For original CodePlex Project visit http://phototoysclone.codeplex.com/

For Detailed Documentation visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/learnmore/tips/eschelman2.mspx

How to use Image Resizer in Windows Vista & Windows 7. (Note: Same way you can resize the images in Windows XP)

Step 1: Just right click on a single image or multiple images.
image

Step 2: Select the required size typically Medium or Large or you can even select Custom size by entering the required resolution.

Step 3: Once selected size you can click on the above option like “Resize the original pictures” This will not create the copies of the resized low res pictures but instead resize the original pictures.
image

Click on OK and you will get the resized images in the same folder.

image

So we have taken an example image for resizing. Compare the following 2 images and see the difference.

Original Image Size: 5.05 MB Download

Resized Image Size: 116 KB Download

Now you can easily create and share pictures with your friends and families. You can email them quickly or send them over IM. You can also use these small sized images to quickly upload on your favorite Social Media Site such as Facebook, MySpace, Orkut etc.

Happy Imaging :)

Published Tuesday, August 25, 2009 5:09 PM by aviraj Filed under: , , , ,

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How to Permanently Set Process Priority in Windows Task Manager?

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: August 26, 2009

Do you know “Windows” shares the processor time between all running processes based upon their priority? If a process has higher priority, it gets more processor time compared to a process having lower priority.

But we can change process priority using “Windows Task Manager”. Open Task Manager by right-clicking on Taskbar and select “Task Manager” or by pressing “Ctrl+Shift+Esc” keys together.

Once you open Task Manager, go to “Processes” tab, right-click on any running process and change the priority using “Set Priority” menu. You’ll notice some system processes are set to “High” priority and almost all 3rd party processes are set to “Normal” by default.

Although you can change the priority according to your requirement, but the priority is not set permanently. Once you restart your system, Windows forgets your custom priority and assigns the process default priority.

So how to set a process priority permanent? Don’t worry, here is the solution.

“Prio” is a free for personal use utility which solves the problem. It adds a new option “Save Priority” in “Set Priority” menu:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v374/vishaal_here/Save_Process_Priority.png

So now you can save the priority permanently.

It works in Windows XP, Vista and 7. It also adds a few extra features as mentioned below:

* Adds a new tab “Services” which shows the installed processes along with their status
* Adds another new tab “TCP/IP” which shows all established TCP/IP connections and all open ports
* Adds a new option “Silent Elevation” which allows you to execute a software with administrative privileges

You can download it using following link:

Download Link

Download Link (64-bit)

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Microsoft to shut off Soapbox by the end of August

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: August 26, 2009

Advertise HereAdvertise HereAdvertise HereAdvertise Here
Microsoft to shut off Soapbox by the end of August

Alam on July 22, 2009

Microsoft has decided to close down its user generated video uploading service, Soapbox. The software giant launched Soapbox three years ago in a desperate attempt to compete with YouTube. Initially aimed to attract larger number of audience the service couldn’t impress the odds and never came out of its beta version.

Soapbox is part of the MSN Video service and allows the users to upload and share their videos online.

soapbox

In an email, the MSN video team informed the Soapbox users of closing of the service. Here is an abstract from that email:

MSN will no longer offer Soapbox, the user generated video service within MSN Video, as of August 31, 2009. Beginning on July 29, you will no longer be able to upload videos to Soapbox. People who have uploaded videos to Soapbox will have until August 31, 2009 to download them.

The Soapbox users will be able to download their videos on and after July 29. The videos can be downloaded by logging into the profile and rolling the mouse pointer over the video thumbnail and clicking on the download link which automatically appears on the video as stated by the MSN video team here.

MSN Video, however, will continue working with some additional features. Bloggers and citizen jounalists will be allowed to upload and share videos with MSN users while the video content offering may be reduced to News, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle and Finance.

Source : sizlopedia.com

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Pitbull – I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) (Available on ULTRA HITS NOW!) OFFICIAL VIDEO

Posted by: ugurkazdal on: August 26, 2009

damn.. this clip is cool!:)

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