Do you know anyone who is studying digital advertising, or is interested?
I just learned that Bing and Microsoft Advertising are sponsoring the 2009/2010 DMEF Collegiate ECHO Direct & Interactive Marketing Challenge. All current undergraduate and graduate students can participate in this case study challenge (all majors welcome; Microsoft employees not eligible).
This competition can be made into a class assignment, extra credit or an extracurricular activity. The participants also get to present their ideas in front of Microsoft executives~~
To learn more and sign up, click here.
I finished writing my Windows PowerShell Best Practices book for Microsoft Press. I do not have all of the statistics available (number of words, number of figures, number of scripts and those type of numbers) but one value stands out clearly in my mind—one year. The Windows PowerShell Best Practices book has taken one full year (actually closer to 1 year and two weeks … but who is really counting) to write. I still have the re-writes to do, and I still have the appendix and the front matter to complete, but for all intents and purposes the book is finished.
After having worked on nearly two dozen book projects, the end of a book project is nearly always the same—what do I do now? For an entire year, every single weekend has been consumed with working on the book. During the week in the evenings, I have chipped away at the book; little by little, bit by bit, sentence by sentence; until I arrive at the day when there is nothing left to write.
Some might think it is a time to go out for a celebration; take Teresa out to eat, maybe take in a show; but book completion is not really that type of event. The book is finished, but in some strange sort of way, a constant companion has left. For an entire year, I knew what I would be doing every evening, and every weekend—I was working on a book. With that book finished, I am now adrift without direction. The search begins for new project.
Because I write to a very tight schedule, this weekend did not sneak up on me, and I am not left completely without direction. For example, I am going to study for the new Microsoft Certification Exams that are being released for Windows 7, and for Windows Server 2008 R2. That will be a fun project. I am also going to do some wood working, and will therefore spend a little time taking a class, and building a couple of small items in my wood working shop. I will spend some more time swimming and running because in the last two months I have been derailed from my goals in that arena …. but what do I do for this specific weekend?
As it turns out, I spent it reading. Teresa and I went to the public library, brought home a huge stack of books (not one of the books were about computers) and we sat in the living room and read the entire weekend. I read 5 books … in the end, the best way to celebrate finishing my book … was to enjoy the efforts of other authors who had reached the completion stage of their book project as well.
Our newest Microsoft Press Training Kit -- MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-653): Configuring Windows® Small Business Server 2008 (ISBN: 9780735626782) – is now available at fine bookstores everywhere. The book, authored by Small Business Server experts Beatrice Mulzer, Walter Glenn, and Scott Lowe, provides comprehensive preparation for exam 70-653 and the MCTS: Windows Small Business Server 2008, Configuration certification.
The book includes complete coverage of all exam objectives, real-world scenarios, lab exercises, customizable practice tests, and a discount voucher that will save you money when you’re ready to take the exam.
To give you a taste, we’ve included excerpts from the Introduction and two sample chapters:
This training kit is designed for Microsoft Small Business Specialists who want to update their current certification credentials as well as for consultants to small businesses and value-added resellers (VARs) who want to add credentials reflecting their experience with Windows Small Business Server 2008 (Windows SBS) server software. A Small Business Specialist is a server administrator who has at least three years experience managing Windows-based servers and infrastructure in an environment of 5 to 75 users in a single physical location. A Small Business Specialist is responsible for supporting network services and resources such as messaging, database servers, file and print servers, a firewall, Internet connectivity, an intranet, remote access, and client computers. The Specialist might be responsible for implementing connectivity requirements, for example, connecting branch offices and individual users in remote locations to the small business network and to the Internet.
The Preparation Guide for Exam 70-653 is available on the Microsoft Learning site.
By using this training kit, you learn how to do the following:
■ Deploy hardware and software for servers running Windows SBS 2008. ■ Migrate to Windows SBS 2008. ■ Deploy hardware and software for computers on the network. ■ Maintain systems and services availability. ■ Implement and maintain remote access. ■ Maintain user accounts and computers. ■ Implement and maintain collaboration. ■ Implement and maintain messaging.
Windows SBS 2008 might appear to be quite simple because it was designed with ease of use for the administrator in mind. When an administrator is familiar with the Windows SBS Console, managing the Windows Small Business Server network should be straightforward.
What most administrators—especially administrators who have an enterprise background—overlook is that the Windows SBS Console functions on top of the Windows Server 2008 operating system and uses most of the Windows Server 2008 native administrative tools, managed through the Windows SBS wizards. In previous releases of Windows Small Business Server, often administrators would forgo using the Windows SBS wizards because, for instance, they were certain that adding a user or group account should be done through the Active Directory Users And Computers console and not through a wizard! In the end, this resulted in user accounts that were only partially functional, with authentication and access problems. The basic knowledge that these administrators were missing was that Windows Small Business Server configures its own organizational units and applies preconfigured Group Policy settings. Using the Windows SBS Console to create the user or group accounts places the newly created accounts in the appropriate organizational unit, therefore minimizing administrative tasks while ensuring consistency.
The caveat here is to use Windows Small Business Server and its tools and wizards as intended. Only reach for additional tools when necessary—for instance, when you cannot perform an advanced task through the Windows SBS Console. Read this book, practice the exercises, and keep this thought in mind as you take Exam 70-653, and you are well on your way to becoming a Small Business Specialist.
Joining client computers to the Windows Small Business Server 2008 (Windows SBS) domain is an excellent example of the Windows SBS 2008 philosophy of automating administrative tasks to the point of miniscule effort. You can join 10, 20, or more client computers to a domain without first having to create computer accounts in the Active Directory directory service. You can also configure Group Policy, updates, disk quotas, e-mail quotas, and folder redirection with a minimal amount of effort and, better yet, without having to touch each individual native tool or program.
You can use the Windows SBS Connect Computer Wizard (covered in Lesson 2) combined with several Windows SBS Console tasks (covered in Chapter 2, “Managing Users”), and voila, your client computers will become Windows SBS 2008 network clients that are standardized and easily managed. But before you assemble your Windows SBS 2008 network, you must be sure the client computers meet certain prerequisites.
The recommended client operating systems for the Windows SBS 2008 network are the Windows XP Professional operating system with Service Pack 2 (SP2), the Windows Vista Business operating system, the Windows Vista Enterprise operating system, and the Windows Vista Ultimate operating system. If your client computers run earlier operating systems such as Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Millennium edition, Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows Vista Home Basic, or Windows Vista Home Premium, it is important that you upgrade them to one of the recommended operating systems. You can then manage them from the Windows SBS Console, and the recommended operating systems provide additional security features, reliability, and better performance.
You can use the Client Advisor utility in Windows SBS 2008 to scan client computers that are running one of the recommended operating systems to help determine their compatibility with the Windows SBS 2008 network prior to joining the computers to the domain. With this time-saving tool, you can prepare client computers and avoid possible failures during the domain join process.
When you have established basic network connectivity between the client computers and the server running Windows SBS 2008, you can join client computers to the Windows SBS domain by starting the Windows SBS Connect Computer Wizard. The Windows SBS Connect Computer Wizard joins client computers to the Windows SBS domain, migrates local user profiles, and configures networking and additional settings as configured by you in the Windows SBS Console.
This chapter discusses the details of preparing client computers for the Windows SBS 2008 network, migrating user data, and joining client computers to the Windows SBS 2008 domain, as well as configuring the network and client computer settings in the Windows SBS Console. Chapter 2 discusses managing user and computer accounts in greater detail.
■ Prepare the computer. ■ Join computers to the domain. ■ Migrate local data.
Messaging and collaboration are two key drivers in technology-buying decisions. The ability to quickly and easily stay in touch with customers and work seamlessly with other people in the organization to meet customer needs often raises the need for new technology. In Windows Small Business Server 2008 (Windows SBS) server software, Microsoft takes collaboration to a new level by including both Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 as a part of the base product. Both Exchange Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 offer powerful features that take information management outside the corporate boundary by enabling high levels of remote access. Through this ability to access information anywhere anytime, Windows SBS 2008 removes location from the equation. Users can just as easily work at the local coffee shop as they can from their office.
In this chapter, you learn how to manage Exchange Server and SharePoint. You might realize that you need to work with these two products for some time before you can consider yourself a master. Because Windows Small Business Server exposes only a fraction of the features available in these two products, take time after the exam to explore these two products in great detail; you’ll find that, used appropriately, they can revamp the way you do business.
We re busy launching the website for the Get on the Bus Tour Europe. It should be coming this week, but launching that website has some benefits for those outside of Europe: a Born to Learn site redesign!
We ve tried to make it pop a little and clean up a lot of small nagging issues from our old site. I m hoping this one will be much easier to read and better organized. RSS feeds will remain the same but we will have a new commenting system. We re incorporating Disqus and while it s still open to anonymous postings, it gives us a lot more features and flexibility that we ll leverage down the road.
This is just the first step. We re going to launch the UI redesign and the full Bus Tour website (incorporated within BTL) this week, but in the coming weeks we ll also add a few more things to the site.
Anyway, take a sneak peak below and stay tuned this week for the switch! If you have some ideas or feedback for things you want to see in a new blog, let us know!
October and November will be busy months around here as we start design on the Visual Studio 2010 exams. These sessions will be a little different than what we did for VS2008 as we are working with our Portfolio Design team on a combined effort using our USD 3.0 processes.
USD stands for Unified Skills Domain and its main purpose is to ensure alignment across the entire portfolio for exams and training. The sessions create an exam design known as an Object Domain(OD) and a complete portfolio document set, the USD. The OD goes on to be the guidance for exam writers to create content for the exam and the USD goes on to be guidance for content writers for training.
This is a great mechanism for creating content and exam designs that are in sync and benefit our customers and trainers. If you are an expert on any of the below topics and are available during the indicated dates, drop me a reply. We are recruiting for Subject Matter Experts to help in these sessions. If you are expert in these areas, get in touch.
October 19 to 23
70-511 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Windows Applications Development (WPF) 70-515 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Web Applications Development
October 26 to 30
70-513 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Windows Communication Foundation Development 70-516 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 4, Accessing Data with ADO.NET
November 2 to 6
70-518 Pro: Designing and Developing Windows Applications Using Microsoft .NET 4 70-519 Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4
Gerry
I know I can ask Tjeerd this stuff, but he’s likely to make up some elaborate lie that I’ll buy hook, line and sinker and the next thing you know I’m wearing wooden shoes and singing “I’m a Little Teapot” in the middle of the town square. So, I’m asking you: Do the Dutch celebrate Halloween?
I want to know because it looks like the bus will be spending Halloween weekend in Amsterdam and I’m wondering what we can look forward to. What should we do? What shouldn’t we miss and what we can take a pass on?
I’ve only been in Amsterdam once and was on my own, so I can pretty much promise you that I didn’t hit the highlights. Or the lowlights. What I want to do is experience the city and have some fun while I’m at it. Oh, and I need suggestions for things that I can convince at least one other person on the bus to do with me so that if I end up in jail, someone knows where I’ve gone. Not that I’m planning on ending up in jail. I’m just sayin’.
So give me your suggestions. Tell me your stories of Amsterdam – the ones you can share without too much embarrassment!
Oh, and have a great weekend!
Microsoft Press author, and Microsoft Office MVP, Stephanie Krieger, has a series of live webcasts – the first started this week. The training is free and self-paced, offered by Microsoft Office Online.
Here are the links to the Open XML series:
Open XML I: Exploring the Open XML File Formats
Open XML II: Editing documents in the XML
And here’s the series on Office 2007 – introduced in previous post.
Build Your Own Custom Themes - September 15th
Extend the 2007 Office system - September 29th
And here’s the recording of the first held earlier this week: Create Professional Quality Graphics with the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Level 200).
Much of this material builds on concepts and content found in Stephanie’s book Advanced Microsoft® Office Documents 2007 Edition Inside Out.
We believe certification can further enable your career in IT. We want to help you take control of your career. You are probably familiar with our web pages where you can review our certification pathways. You may also want to discuss your plans with your Microsoft Certified Trainer; MCTs can inform you about our certification pathways and help you choose your next training/certification steps and help you align these with your career plans. And MCTs can of course offer you a discount on certification exams.
Got deals? Yes! Next week, you will see new special discounts on a select number of exams on our web pages, valid for a limited time only. We will announce the details here on Born to Learn and the same offers will also be available through your MCT. Stay tuned!
We are preparing for our bus tour throughout Europe and have received quite a few ideas from our partners on events they would like to run with us. It is great to see the creative ideas and it is exciting to hear how we could meet students, customers and trainers. We are still open for suggestions though, CPLSs or IT Academies who would like to host our ‘traveling band’ please take a look at the form posted here. If you are interested in attending one of these events, please keep track of us here on Born to Learn and we’ll soon have more news, updates and our ‘tour schedule’.
As part of the preparations, we just had a photo shoot session and I wanted to share one of the pictures that did not make it. Why? Well, it may raise a smile, you see the photographer was asking us for a series of expressions. At some point he shouts ‘Now look exasperated!’. As you can probably tell from the picture below, Joanne and I speak English as a Second Language. We had no clue what ‘exasperated’ means…
This picture never made it, next week we’ll have more information, news (and the pictures that did make it), stay tuned!
We’re pleased to announce that Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Programming, by Itzik Ben-Gan, Dejan Sarka, Roger Wolter, Greg Low, Ed Katibah, and Isaac Kunen (Kalen Delaney Series Editor; Solid Quality Mentors) shipped to the printer today (Microsoft Press, 2010; ISBN: 9780735626027; 832 pages)!
This book provides a detailed look at the internal architecture of T-SQL with this comprehensive programming reference. Database developers and administrators get best practices, expert techniques, and code samples to master the intricacies of this programming language—solving complex problems with real-world solutions. Some of the tasks you’ll learn include:
All the book’s code samples will be available for download from the companion Web site.
We’ll post excerpts from the book soon, in the middle of September, when the book is available.
Recently on Born to Learn, you may have noticed some solicitations for customer participation in Microsoft Learning’s product development process. We’ve got the Assessment and Certification Exam (ACE) team asking for Beta exam participants and for Subject Matter Experts for exam development. We’ve got the Courseware team asking for Alpha participants for classes. Microsoft Press wants you to fill out evaluations on the books. What’s up with that?
At Microsoft, one of the ways we manage our business is by putting in place metrics by which we measure how well we’re doing. About 5 years ago, we decided to start measuring the number of customers we involve in our product development process. The idea was that getting customers involved in the creation of our products, whether for SME services or feedback, would get us closer to delivering products that customers liked and valued. So, we started measuring this as one of our business metrics.
For legal reasons, the ACE team had always required customer involvement to be a part of developing a rigorous, real-world exam. To be fair, all of our product lines had customer involvement at some point along the development process already, but we’d never had goals associated with this and we’d never systemically looked at it all-up for Microsoft Learning. The result of all this was that we increased the number of customers in the loop and got some great (and sometimes painful) feedback on making our products better.
Today, customer involvement is an entrenched part of our product development process and I bet that if you ask anyone who has ever had a hand in the process, they’ll tell you they played an important role in making a quality product. So when you see those solicitations for your feedback and involvement, think about participating.
Windows 7 Administrator s Pocket Consultant, by William Stanek, series editor of our Administrator’s Pocket Consultant series, is now available. The book provides 704 pages of easily accessible details related to the daily administration of Windows 7; its ISBN is 9780735626997.
William is a Microsoft MVP with more than 20 years of experience in systems management and advanced programming. He is an award-winning author who’s written more than 100 books, including Windows Server 2008 Inside Out.
In this post you’ll find the book’s Introduction and an excerpt from Chapter 9, “Installing and Maintaining Programs.”
First the Intro:
Introduction
Writing Windows 7 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant was a lot of fun—and a lot of work. As I set out to write this book, my initial goals were to determine how Windows 7 was different from Windows Vista and Windows XP and what new administration options were available. As with any new operating system—but especially with Windows 7—I had to do a great deal of research and a lot of digging into the operating system internals to determine exactly how things work.
When you start working with Windows 7, you’ll see at once that the operating system is different from earlier releases of Windows. What won’t be apparent, however, is just how different Windows 7 is from its predecessors—and that’s because many of the most significant changes to the operating system are below the surface. These changes affect the underlying architecture, as well as the user interfaces, and they were some of the hardest for me to research and write about.
Because Administrator’s Pocket Consultants are meant to be portable and readable— the kind of book you use to solve problems and get the job done wherever you might be—I had to carefully review my research to make sure I focused on the core aspects of Windows 7 administration. The result is the book you hold in your hands, which I hope you’ll agree is one of the best practical, portable guides to Windows 7. Toward that end, the book covers everything you need to perform the core administrative tasks for computers running Windows 7.
Because my focus is on giving you maximum value in a pocket-size guide, you don’t have to wade through hundreds of pages of extraneous information to find what you’re looking for. Instead, you’ll find exactly what you need to address a specific issue or perform a particular task. In short, the book is designed to be the one resource you turn to whenever you have questions regarding Windows 7 administration. It zeroes in on daily administration procedures, frequently used tasks, documented examples, and options that are representative while not necessarily inclusive.
One of the goals for this book is to keep its content concise so that it remains compact and easy to navigate while at the same time packing it with as much information as possible to make it a valuable resource. Instead of a hefty 1,000-page tome or a lightweight, 100-page quick reference, you get a valuable resource guide that can help you quickly and easily perform common tasks, solve problems, and implement everyday solutions for systems and users.
Who Is This Book For?
Windows 7 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant covers all editions of Windows 7. The book is designed for:
To pack in as much information as possible, I had to assume that you have basic networking skills and a basic understanding of Windows operating systems. As a result, I don’t devote entire chapters to understanding Windows basics, Windows architecture, or Windows networks. I do, however, cover desktop customization, mobile networking, TCP/IP configuration, user profiles, and system optimization.
The book also goes into depth on troubleshooting, and I’ve tried to ensure that each chapter, where appropriate, has troubleshooting guidelines and discussions to accompany the main text. From the start, troubleshooting advice is integrated into the book—instead of being captured in a single, catchall troubleshooting chapter inserted as an afterthought. I hope that after you read these chapters and dig into the details, you’ll be able to improve the overall experience of your users and reduce downtime.
How Is This Book Organized?
Windows 7 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant is designed to be used in daily administration, and as such, the book is organized by job-related tasks rather than by Windows 7 features. The books in the Administrator’s Pocket Consultant series are down-and-dirty, in-the-trenches books.
Speed and ease of reference are essential elements of this hands-on guide. The book has an expanded table of contents and an extensive index for finding answers to problems quickly. Many other quick reference features have been added as well. These features include step-by-step instructions, lists, tables with fast facts, and extensive cross-references.
Conventions Used in This Book
I’ve used a variety of elements to help keep the text clear and easy to follow. You’ll find code listings in monospace type, except when I tell you to actually type a command. In that case, the command appears in bold type. When I introduce and define a new term, I put it in italics.
Other conventions include the following:
Note To provide additional details about a particular point that needs emphasis
Tip To offer helpful hints or additional information
Caution To warn you when there are potential problems you should look out for
Real World To provide real-world advice when discussing advanced topics
I truly hope you find that Windows 7 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant provides everything you need to perform the essential administrative tasks on Windows 7 systems as quickly and efficiently as possible. You are welcome to send your thoughts to me at [email protected]. Thank you.
And here’s the opening of Chapter 9:
Chapter 9
Installing and Maintaining Programs
Managing Application Virtualization and Run Levels 311 Installing Programs: The Essentials 318 Deploying Applications Through Group Policy 322 Configuring Program Compatibility 324 Managing Installed and Running Programs 328
Administrators and support staff often install and configure applications that are used on desktop computers. You need to install and configure applications before deploying new computers, install new applications on computers when the programs are requested, and update applications when new versions become available. Also, as users install additional applications, you might be called on to help troubleshoot installation problems or to help uninstall programs. Most program installation problems are fairly easy to solve if you know what to look for. Other problems are fairly difficult to resolve and require more work than you might expect. In this chapter, you’ll learn how User Account Control (UAC) affects how you install and run applications and about techniques for installing, uninstalling, and maintaining programs.
Managing Application Virtualization and Run Levels
User Account Control (UAC) changes the way that applications are installed and run, where applications write data, and what permissions applications have. In this section, I’ll look at how UAC affects application installation, from application security tokens to file and registry virtualization to run levels. This information is essential when you are installing and maintaining applications on Windows 7.
Application Access Tokens and Location Virtualization
All applications used with Windows 7 are divided into two general categories:
The distinction between UAC-compliant applications and legacy applications is important because of the architectural changes required to support UAC. UAC-compliant applications use UAC to reduce the attack surface of the operating system. They do this by preventing unauthorized programs from installing or running without the user’s consent and by restricting the default privileges granted to applications. These measures make it harder for malicious software to take over a computer.
Note The Windows 7 component responsible for UAC is the Application Information service. This service facilitates the running of interactive applications with an “administrator” access token. You can see the difference between the administrator user and standard user access tokens by opening two Command Prompt windows, running one with elevation (right-click, and then click Run As Administrator), and the other as a standard user. In each window, type whoami /all and compare the results. Both access tokens have the same security identifiers (SIDs), but the elevated, administrator user access token will have more privileges than the standard user access token.
All applications that run on Windows 7 derive their security context from the current user’s access token. By default, UAC turns all users into standard users even if they are members of the Administrators group. If an administrator user consents to the use of her administrator privileges, a new access token is created for the user. It contains all the user’s privileges, and this access token—rather than the user’s standard access token—is used to start an application or process.
In Windows 7, most applications can run using a standard user access token. Whether applications need to run with standard or administrator privileges depends on the actions the application performs. Applications that require administrator privileges, referred to as administrator user applications, differ from applications that require standard user privileges, referred to as standard user applications, in the following ways:
Applications not written for Windows 7 run with a user’s standard access token by default. To support the UAC architecture, these applications run in a special compatibility mode and use file system and registry virtualization to provide “virtualized” views of file and registry locations. When an application attempts to write to a system location, Windows 7 gives the application a private copy of the file or registry value. Any changes are then written to the private copy, and this private copy is then stored in the user’s profile data. If the application attempts to read or write to this system location again, it is given the private copy from the user’s profile to work with. By default, if an error occurs when the application is working with virtualized data, the error notification and logging information show the virtualized location rather than the actual location that the application was trying to work with.
Application Integrity and Run Levels
The focus on standard user and administrator privileges also changes the general permissions required to install and run applications. In Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows, the Power Users group gave users specific administrator privileges to perform basic system tasks when installing and running applications. Applications written for Windows 7 do not require the use of the Power Users group. Windows 7 maintains it only for legacy application compatibility.
As part of UAC, Windows 7 by default detects application installations and prompts users for elevation to continue the installation. Installation packages for UAC-compliant applications use application manifests that contain run-level designations to help track required privileges. Application manifests define the application’s privileges as one of the following:
To protect application processes, Windows 7 labels them with integrity levels ranging from high to low. Applications that modify system data, such as Disk Management, are considered high integrity. Applications performing tasks that could compromise the operating system, such as Windows Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7, are considered low integrity. Applications with lower integrity levels cannot modify data in applications with higher integrity levels.
Windows 7 identifies the publisher of any application that attempts to run with an administrator’s full access token. Then, depending on that publisher, Windows 7 marks the application as belonging to one of the following three categories:
To help you quickly identify the potential security risk of installing or running the application, a color-coded elevation prompt displays a particular message depending on the category to which the application belongs:
Prompting on the secure desktop can be used to further secure the elevation process. The secure desktop safeguards the elevation process by preventing spoofing of the elevation prompt. The secure desktop is enabled by default in Group Policy, as discussed in the section “Optimizing User Account Control and Admin Approval Mode” in Chapter 5.
Setting Run Levels
By default, only applications running with a user’s administrator access token run in elevated mode. Sometimes, you’ll want an application running with a user’s standard access token to be in elevated mode. For example, you might want to start the Command Prompt window in elevated mode so that you can perform administration tasks.
In addition to application manifests (discussed in the previous section), Windows 7 provides two different ways to set the run level for applications:
To run an application once as an administrator, right-click the application’s shortcut or menu item, and then click Run As Administrator. If you are using a standard account and prompting is enabled, you are prompted for consent before the application is started. If you are using a standard user account and prompting is disabled, the application will fail to run. If you are using an administrator account and prompting for consent is enabled, you are prompted for consent before the application is started.
Windows 7 also enables you to mark an application so that it always runs with administrator privileges. This approach is useful for resolving compatibility issues with legacy applications that require administrator privileges. It is also useful for UAC-compliant applications that normally run in standard mode but that you use to perform administration tasks. As examples, consider the following:
Note You cannot mark system applications or processes to always run with administrator privileges. Only nonsystem applications and processes can be marked to always run at this level.
Real World The Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) is a solution for administrators that requires no reprogramming of an application. ACT can help you resolve common compatibility problems. For example, some programs run only on a specific operating system or when the user is an administrator. Using ACT, you can create a shim that responds to the application inquiry about the operating system or user level with a True statement, which allows the application to run. ACT also can help you create more in-depth solutions for applications that try to write to protected areas of the operating system or use elevated privileges when they don’t need to. ACT can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center (http://download. microsoft.com).
You can mark an application to always run as an administrator by following these steps:
1. On the Start menu, locate the program that you want to always run as an administrator. 2. Right-click the application’s shortcut, and then click Properties. 3. In the Properties dialog box, click the Compatibility tab, shown in Figure 9-1.
4. Do one of the following:
Note If the Run This Program As An Administrator option is unavailable, it means that the application is blocked from always running at an elevated level, the application does not require administrator credentials to run, or you are not logged on as an administrator.
The application will now always run using an administrator access token. Keep in mind that if you are using a standard account and prompting is disabled, the application will fail to run.
Optimizing Virtualization and Installation Prompting for Elevation
With regard to applications, two areas of User Account Control can be customized:
In Group Policy, you can configure these features by using the Administrative Templates policies for Computer Configuration under Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options. The security settings are as follows:
In a domain environment, you can use Active Directory–based Group Policy to apply the security configuration you want to a particular set of computers. You can also configure these settings on a per-computer basis by using local security policy. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, Administrative Tools, and then click Local Security Policy. This starts the Local Security Policy console. 2. In the console tree, under Security Settings, expand Local Policies, and then select Security Options. 3. Double-click the setting you want to work with, make any necessary changes, and then click OK.
Installing Programs: The Essentials
Program installation is fairly straightforward. Not so straightforward are troubleshooting the many things that can go wrong and fixing problems. To solve problems that might occur, you first need to understand the installation process. In many cases, the typical installation process starts when Autorun is triggered. Autorun in turn invokes a setup program. Once the setup program starts, the installation process can begin. Part of the installation process involves checking the user’s credentials to ensure that he or she has the appropriate privileges to install the program and prompting for consent if the user doesn’t. As part of installing a program, you might also need to make the program available to all or only some users on a computer.
Occasionally, Windows might not be successful in detecting the required installation permissions. This can occur if the installation manifest for the program has an embedded RequestedExecutionLevel setting that has a value set as RequireAdministrator. Because the RequestedExecutionLevel setting overrides what the installer detects in Windows, the installation process fails any time you run the installer with standard user permissions. To solve this problem, back out of the failed installation by exiting, canceling the installation, or taking another appropriate action. Next, locate the executable file for the installer. Right-click this file, and then click Run As Administrator to restart the installation process with administrator privileges.
Additionally, it is important to understand that in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2, Application Control policies replace Software Restriction policies. Software Restriction policies control the applications that users can install and run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. Application Control policies control the applications that users can install and run on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2. Keep the following in mind:
We hope you find this book extremely helpful!
Lo and behold, the 20% off MS exam discounts were supposed to have ended as of today.
But they haven’t. At least, not yet. Here’s the reason why…
Click here to read the rest of this post!
We’re pleased to announce that Windows 7 Inside Out, by Ed Bott, Carl Siechert, and Craig Stinson, shipped to the printer today (Microsoft Press, 2010; ISBN: 9780735626652; 1056 pages)!
The book includes a foreword by president of the Windows Division at Microsoft, Steven Sinofsky.
Written by the authors of the immensely popular Windows Vista Inside Out, this supremely organized reference shows readers the best and smartest ways to work with Windows 7. Compare features and capabilities in each edition of Windows 7; Configure and customize your system with advanced setup options; Manage files, folders, and media libraries; Set up a wired or wireless network and manage shared resources; Administer accounts, passwords, and logons—and help control access to resources; Configure Internet Explorer 8 settings and security zones; Master security essentials to help protect against viruses, worms, and spyware; Troubleshoot errors and fine-tune performance; Automate routine maintenance with scripts and other tools.
The book’s CD includes: A fully searchable eBook; Downloadable gadgets and other tools for customizing Windows 7; Insights direct from the product team on the official Windows 7 blog; Links to the latest security updates and products, demos, blogs, and user communities.
We’ll post a teaser from the book in the next couple of days, and then an excerpt toward the end of September, when the book is available.
You can also pre-order the book here or here.
Also, be sure to visit the Microsoft Learning Windows 7 Training Portal, where you can download free sample chapters (previews) as well as learning snacks and online clinics.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/windows.aspx.
A quick one. There’s a great interview with Sara over at CodeCast, the late night show for .NET developers:
Sara discusses her past 8 years at Microsoft leading up to her current role on the CodePlex team, what’s new around CodePlex, how the CodePlex team uses agile development practices, prioritizing new features to CodePlex, and details on the CodePlex roadmap including high priority features. The chat concludes with Sara’s participation at recent and upcoming community conference events, and her Microsoft Press book Microsoft Visual Studio Tips.
As mentioned at the end of the interview, Sara’s Microsoft Visual Studio Tips: 251 Ways to Improve Your Productivity is available now and is helping to raise scholarship money for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Foundation.
Last week, I had the good fortune to attend CMP’s XChange’09 event in Washington, DC. As a vendor-centric show, this kind of event gives solution providers like my company the opportunity to see new offerings from various vendors, give feedback, and forge business relationships that can mutually benefit our companies.
But this year, one of the initiatives taking place during XChange’09 really made me, and a whole lot of others, sit up and take notice.
Today is the LAST day that the 20% off MS exam discounts will still be available for certain regions/countries. So if you want some, you MUST enter the giveaway TODAY!
Honestly, the response to the MS exam voucher giveaway has been nothing short of AMAZING! So much so that actually delivering the vouchers to people will be delayed just a little bit AKA a couple of days. My primary focus today will be to make sure I have enough vouchers from the different regions to cover outstanding requests.
That being said, if you know you are going to make a larger request, unless you make it before noon Central time today, there really are NO guarantees I will have time to request enough for you.
So that means you should do two things ASAP…
Microsoft Learning has recently completed the beta version of a Windows 7 Instructor-led training course for IT Professionals entitled “Planning and Managing Windows 7 Desktop Deployments and Environments”
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Course.aspx?ID=6294A&Locale=en-us
In an attempt to attain feedback on the course prior to the RTM release of Windows 7 we are offering the five-day course to IT Professionals who would like to attend and give feedback on the course.
· When: September 21st to 25th (9:00AM to 5:00PM)
· Where: Microsoft Campus, Redmond WA
This beta class is being offered for free only once and class size is limited. If you are interested in attending the course send an email to [email protected]. In the email explain your interest in the course as an IT Professional. Students will be chosen based on how well they match the audience profile listed in the syllabus link above. You will receive an email response within 48 hours if you have been selected to attend the course.
It’s time again for an I. M. Wright podcast from the illustrious man’s archives. This podcast is for the August 2008 blog post, which begins like this:
It s summertime. Time to sit out in the sun and daydream, perhaps on a vacation or a weekend afternoon. When your mind is relaxed at times like these, you often think of beautiful new ideas. You further develop those ideas and then, when the time is right, perhaps early in the next release cycle, you begin prototyping those beautiful notions. Before you know it, your beautiful ideas have blossomed into hideous, miserable nightmares that either die of exposure, or worse, live on to cause future generations of engineers to curse the day you were born. Oh but if it were a fairly tale. Instead, more often than not, prototypes of beautiful ideas become horrific, hairy hodgepodges of hacks that cannot be easily maintained, refactored, or understood. Why? What happened? It s not that you should write prototypes more carefully, with unit tests and all the rest—you shouldn t. It s not that you should throw the prototypes away—though you should. No, the problem is that your entire philosophy about prototyping is dead wrong. Explore the space Usually, when engineers think of a new idea to try, they write a prototype. That s a major mistake and the wrong thing to do. It leads you down a path to destruction of all that was good about your idea. You see, you shouldn t write a prototype—you should write dozens of prototypes parameterized to try hundreds of cases, all designed to solve the same problem but from different angles. That s how all other fields of study work. You don t do one experiment, try one approach, or use just your first guess. You do hundreds of experiments. Artists and producers call it, "exploring the space." Could you imagine if medical researchers only tried one idea at a time to cure diseases? Wouldn t you think that was idiotic? Hello?
It s summertime. Time to sit out in the sun and daydream, perhaps on a vacation or a weekend afternoon. When your mind is relaxed at times like these, you often think of beautiful new ideas. You further develop those ideas and then, when the time is right, perhaps early in the next release cycle, you begin prototyping those beautiful notions. Before you know it, your beautiful ideas have blossomed into hideous, miserable nightmares that either die of exposure, or worse, live on to cause future generations of engineers to curse the day you were born.
Oh but if it were a fairly tale. Instead, more often than not, prototypes of beautiful ideas become horrific, hairy hodgepodges of hacks that cannot be easily maintained, refactored, or understood. Why? What happened?
It s not that you should write prototypes more carefully, with unit tests and all the rest—you shouldn t. It s not that you should throw the prototypes away—though you should. No, the problem is that your entire philosophy about prototyping is dead wrong.
Usually, when engineers think of a new idea to try, they write a prototype. That s a major mistake and the wrong thing to do. It leads you down a path to destruction of all that was good about your idea. You see, you shouldn t write a prototype—you should write dozens of prototypes parameterized to try hundreds of cases, all designed to solve the same problem but from different angles.
That s how all other fields of study work. You don t do one experiment, try one approach, or use just your first guess. You do hundreds of experiments. Artists and producers call it, "exploring the space." Could you imagine if medical researchers only tried one idea at a time to cure diseases? Wouldn t you think that was idiotic? Hello?
You can get the podcast here.
And we encourage you to check out I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code.” The book includes numerous “Eric Asides” by Wright’s alter ego, Eric Brechner, Director of Development Excellence in Microsoft’s Engineering Excellence group. These asides explain Microsoft terms, provide updates, or convey additional context. Wright’s blog does this too.
Time’s running out for you to get in on the exam discount vouchers, folks.
All exam discount vouchers generated through the MCT Rewards program will flip over to 10% off starting on August 27, 2009, now and forever, instead of the current 20% off enjoyed by some countries/regions.
Current year vouchers generated BEFORE August 27, 2009, however, won’t expire until June 30, 2010.
So don’t delay.
And if you have a large-ish request for vouchers, but you wait until the last minute, then there are literally NO GUARANTEES I’ll be able to get them issued in time. Just giving you fair warning on that. Because once it’s closed, it’s closed.
So what’s the best way to assure you get the discount vouchers you want? That’s easy…
GET OFF YOUR DUFF AND DO THE SURVEY ALREADY!
That means, jump over to the official listing of all active giveaways at The Funcave, which includes links to the entry surveys, and get cracking!
Exam 70-691 is now available in Prometric testing centers. This is a Technical Specialist exam designed to assess candidates’ hands-on skills developing for Windows HPC Server 2008.
Candidates should have at least three years of experience working with Windows®-based high performance computing software such as Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 or Windows HPC Server 2008.
This exam covers the following topics:
For a more detailed list of the skills measured on this exam, check out the prep guide. To schedule your exam, visit Prometric’s Web site.
Just a quick update to let you know that the Exchange TS beta exam is now open to the public. But slots are tight so register quickly! You can get all the details on the Beta Blog site. The main thing you want to know is the registration code: E14J
Good luck!
As we have been busy at the TechNet Script Center with our migration to a blog, and bringing the TechNet Script Center Gallery on line, I have been giving a lot of thought to organizing the keywords / tags that are used to provide quick links to groups of topics. The problem is the world of scripting is huge. Forget for a minute the dozens of scripting languages, but consider the sheer number of things that can be “scripted.”
For those of you who might not know, a script is computer code that is not compiled. This means that it can be easily written in something as simple as Notepad—it is a plain text file with a special file extension. Most people never see file extensions because they are hidden by default in Windows Explorer. But a VBScript has a vbs file extension that causes Windows to execute the code in the file instead of displaying it in Notepad. A Word document has a doc (or docx) file extension that tells Windows to open the file with Word.
Anyway, many things on a computer can be scripted. For example, I can write a script that will create a Word document. This in itself might not seem too exciting, unless you think about running a script to find information such as the name of the computer, the programs that are installed on the computer, the amount of free disk space on a computer, the amount of memory installed in the computer, and the speed of the Central Processing Unit (CPU) for the computer. If you would like to write that information in a Word document it will save you a little bit of time. Suppose that you need that information from each of the 50,000 computers on your network because you are planning to upgrade to Windows 7 … now you can see that it would take a considerable amount to do all of this stuff manually.
Here is the problem … how do I file the above script that gathers the computer inventory information and writes it to a Word document? I can file it under WMI (which will be the technology used to gather the information from the computer) I can file it under Word because I write to a Word document, I can file it under Word document, because it creates a Word document, I can file it under Word.Application, Word.Document, Word.Range … and other such obscure things because those are the Objects I will need to create in my script to make the “magic” happen.
I recently read a book with the name of “Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages” by Alex Wright in this book, Mr. Wright talks about how different societies wrestled what is sometimes referred to as information overload, or the information glut. How do you develop a taxonomy to organize, to categorize, or to systematize information retrieval?
At the TechNet Script Center what I have been doing is creating a Script Center Taxonomy (SCT) or perhaps Script Center Advanced Taxonomy (SCAT) that applies to the Hey Scripting Guy! blog, and the TechNet Script Center Gallery, this organization pattern is replacing five different methods of organizing the same information. It is a bigger project than I originally thought, and I have to take into account the legacy systems that were set in place nearly a decade ago. But it is also fun work. Oh, by the way, the information gathering script I talked about that writes upgrade information to a Word Document, I would probably file it under Desktop Management / Basic Computer Information.
Good intentions don’t really mean much. Sure, you can vow to go rock-climbing, but if you never actually do anything about learning how to do it, and making sure you have the appropriate gear to help you learn, what happens? You’ll very quickly become a damp stain at the bottom of a rock face, that’s what.
In the spirit of getting back on track, August has officially been dubbed “Gear To Get Your Butt In Gear” month at www.chrisrue.com. What that means is I’m giving away a bunch of stuff, gratis, simply for filling out various super-short surveys (1–2 minutes to finish tops).
All the giveaways this month have been chosen to reflect one general idea: If you really want something to happen, well it’s really up to you to actually GO make it happen, Cap’n.
And the biggest giveaway so far?
Click here to read the rest of this post (and to see a super-cool pic of Tjeerd!)
National Public Radio is on a hot streak this week for me. Full disclosure: I am an NPR junkie. Not in recovery, not in denial. A junkie pure and simple.
This week I wanted to share two things with you. The first was a brief story on Wednesday morning on American Public Media’s “Marketplace Morning Report” titled, “Will Tech Lead Economic Recovery?” The gist of the story is that according to “KPMG, 8 out of 10 technology executives expect their business to power up over the next year.” We’ve talked about this before. The reason is that companies have postponed technology projects and investments during the recession, but might be ready to pull the trigger on those projects this year.
And here’s my perennial question:
What are you going to do about it?
If those 8 out of 10 technology execs are right, there’s opportunity in the technology industry. But you have to be ready. If they’re wrong, then you end up on the cutting edge when it does happen. Because it’s going to happen. So get ready, get skilled, get certified.
OK, I’ll get off your back and give you a little Friday gift for sticking with me through my diatribe. This morning (on NPR, of course), I heard a story about how record industry revenues have fallen since the advent of Napster and other online file sharing services nearly 10 years ago. So rather than going the record label route, one artist has taken a new approach. Jonathan Coulton posts his music for free and fans choose to pay for it. What caught my attention was that this guy is one of us! He’s a former computer programmer whose most popular song is “Code Monkey!” I might have to contact him for a Born to Learn interview…