Mike Bazarewsky: Stuff I want to post

Office 2007 SP1 Released

I rarely have time to post anything nowadays, but this is important.

Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (client and server) has been released.  One announcement is available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/abouttn/flash/landingpages/editorial_121207.mspx

One thing not obvious but important is that Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 was also released.  This is needed for Windows Server 2008 support and is strongly recommended for MOSS 2007 (although it can be skipped - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942620/).  That download is described at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936988/ and is available through links on that page.  (There are five links total depending on exactly what you need.)

Online hotfix request

I did not catch this until now for some reason, but there is now the ability to perform online hotfix requests, instead of calling Microsoft PSS.  This is a very, very good thing!

Windows Server 2003 SP2 Released

Go get Windows Server 2003 SP2 and start doing your test deployments!

The best search is to look for "Service Pack" and sort by date at the MS Downloads site.

The downloads include a blocking tool for preventing an AU installation.

I'm looking for x64 XP info now...

[edit 3:13 pm ET - the x64 XP update is available as well as part of the 2003 x64 update, thanks to Susan Bradley for finding this and telling me about it via the ActiveDir list]

Win Mobile vs. Windows CE

A topic that comes up very often in the CE courses is "what is the difference between Windows CE and Windows Mobile"?  There is actually a set of slides in the 2540N course (the CE 5.0 course) about this very topic, in fact.  There seems to be a continuing misconception that Windows CE is PocketPC, or equally silly beliefs.  This is a belief that is often difficult to shake.  Mike Hall has another good blog entry today, covering the difference, and he does a good job of explaining the relationship between the products.  The key point is that Windows Mobile is a specific product with Windows CE as the underlying OS, one of many, many such products. 

Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Train-The-Trainer

This week, I'm in Redmond Building 31, taking the Train-The-Trainer for the new Windows Embedded Training: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 course.  The material is quite good overall, although there are some issues/additions/corrections which are expected to occur over the next month or so.  This is similar to the 2540N class, which had some changes and updates made after the TTT. 

Mike Hall's blog has a pair of postings so far on the Train-the-Trainer:

• He has a post with an classroom shot, which is an introduction to what the CE TTT is.  The original picture (mirrored here) shows the back of my head.
• He has a post from yesterday with an outdoor group picture of all the attendees of the TTT.  The picture there (again mirrored here) has me clearly visible from the front, as the fourth person from the picture's left side in the first row. 

One thing I learned in the 5.0 TTT is that you meet several people who are "famous" names in the Windows Embedded community, and the 6.0 TTT has not changed that.  It's quite a nice experience.

Software Answers is ramping up the 6.0 training.  We are already listed on the Windows Embedded Training Partner site, and bSquare and Arrow are both represented in the class as well and thus will be able to provide the training front-end with us providing the actual training as appropriate/necessary.  The web site will be updated once the class is complete and the information is public knowledge.

SharePoint presentation is Tuesday

Just a reminder that I am giving a SharePoint presentation at Microsoft this coming Tuesday, Jan. 9.  The invitation information is below.  Come on by and learn about the new version of the SharePoint platform!

Featured Products/Topics: Microsoft Office Professional Edition, Microsoft Office OneNote, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, Microsoft Live Communications Server

Recommended Audiences: Managers, CEO, CIO, COO, CTO, Sales Executives, CFO, Operations Managers, Office Managers, Sales Managers, Marketing Managers, Marketing Executives, Business Managers, Business Owner, Business Professionals, Controller

Topics include connecting people to: 

• The right information at the right time and the right place
• Fellow employees, vendors, partners or other external contacts outside of the organization
• The right business processes

The discussion will also include information on the differences between SharePoint Services 3.0 & SharePoint Server 2007, as well as upgrade options for CMS 2002, WSS 2.0, and/or SPS 2003. Join us to learn how your organization can take advantage of Microsoft’s communication and collaboration technologies to address today’s business challenges.

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 released

Vista/Office/Exchange Launch in Cleveland, Jan. 23, 2007

In a strange turn, the day-long Cleveland, OH launch event for Vista/Office/Exchange launch events are being held at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, not at the IX Center.  The day of events (five choices total, three in half of the day and two in the other half) is Jan. 23, 2007:

1032316258 Microsoft Across America Launch Event - IT Executive Track
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032316258&culture=en-US

1032315854 Microsoft Across America Launch Event - Partner Track
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032315854

1032315993 Microsoft Across America Launch Event - Developer Track
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032315993

1032315841 Microsoft Across America Launch Event - Small Business Track
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032315841

1032316163 Microsoft Across America Launch Event - IT Pro Track
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032316163

ISA Server 2004 with a Polycom 7000e VSX

I have a customer who recently replaced a braindead port-filtering NAT "firewall" with a real firewall, namely an HP ProLiant DL320 ISA Server 2004 Appliance (purchased from Business Smarts).  Because ISA Server 2004 is an intelligent firewall which actually looks at application traffic, if an application protocol tries to be too intelligent itself, it can cause problems. 

This was the case with this customer, and their Polycom 7000e VSX videoconferencing unit.  The Polycom is a SIP-compliant and H.323-compliant unit which allows for point-to-point or streaming videoconferencing in a compact unit.  It's actually quite a nice unit for what it is.

Anyway, to make a long story and a Microsoft PSS call short, it turns out that the Polycom was trying too hard to cope with being in a NAT setup, and as a result, it was "outsmarting" our attempts to get it to work.  So, for the sake of documentation for all, here is what we did to get this to work, copied from my summary message to Microsoft:

1. Disabled the H.323 Filter globally under “Add-ins”.
2. The Polycom 7000e VSX should be set with:
   1. NAT disabled (strange but true!)
   2. H.323 knowledge of NAT disabled
   3. Fixed ports (TCP 3230-3235, UDP 3230-3253; only the starting ports can be changed by the administrator)
   4. Public address set to manual with the appropriate address; “auto” uses the default external card on the ISA server which may not be the correct address and may change [I don’t think this setting means anything with NAT disabled, but just in case...]
   5. Public address published in the global directory [Again, I think this is ignored with NAT disabled…]
   6. The LAN IP settings should include the ISA server as the external gateway (directly or indirectly through other routers).
3. We created three server publishing protocol definitions – ports are clear from the names, UDP is receive/send:
   1. Polycom Inbound TCP 1720
   2. Polycom Inbound TCP 3230-3235
   3. Polycom Inbound UDP 3230-3253
4. Created publishing rules for each of the protocol definitions, publishing the internal Polycom IP, and setting the publishing rule to look like the traffic is coming from the ISA server, NOT the original client.
5. Created a web publishing rule to aid in administration of the Polycom (port 80).  This is not necessary, but is nice when troubleshooting and testing.
6. Created a client protocol definition, “Polycom Outbound”, TCP 3230-3235 and UDP 3230-3258 Send.  [This second one probably should just go to 3253, but I don’t want to risk breaking what’s working.]
7. Created an outbound rule called “Videoconferencing Outbound” for the “H.323 Protocol” protocol and the “Polycom Outbound” protocol from “Internal” to “External” for “All Users”.  [This is probably unnecessary in our case as the ISA server has a wide-open outbound policy, but it matched the earlier prescription.]
8. Testing was done using NetMeeting and a webcam with a true public IP address on the NetMeeting machine (to ensure no NAT issues at the other side).  There is a Diagnostics page in the Polycom admin pages which allows for viewing the local video and remote video, so you can remotely see the full call traffic on both sides (NetMeeting for the remote view, the admin pages for the local view).

So that is it in a nutshell.  Now you know.

PowerShell 1.0 released for all but Vista

When I was working the TechEd Hands-On-Labs this summer, PowerShell (a. k. a. codename "Monad") was a very popular lab.  Many administrators wanted to work with the product and have an early hands-on with it. 

Well, version 1.0 for XP/2003 (x86/x64/IA64) has been released!  You can go get it through the "how to download" page.

There is a lot of stuff online about how to use PowerShell; one nice article (although it's about 14 months old!) is at ArsTechnica, entitled "A guided tour of the Microsoft Command Shell".

Firefox 2.0

In my post covering what's happened since I posted in the spring, I neglected to mention something else very important that was not a Microsoft event - the release of Firefox 2.0.  Competition is good, as long as it's done well.  It forces improvements on both sides.  So as Firefox 3.0 and IE 8 start down their long roads (with whatever comes inbetween), remember to give credit to the Mozilla folks for forcing the issue at all.

Vista sounds

One topic that has come up occasionally during the tail portion of the Vista beta was around the sounds associated with the beta.  For example, there is a "startup" sound, which initially the user would not be able to turn off, although the ability to turn it off was added in later releases.  (This is often explained as a Mac-like "experience" item, although on the Mac you need to either mute your volume before you shut down or use a third-party add-on to turn the "chime" off.  So even though we have a sound in Vista, at least it can be turned off.  I'd hate to think what a 2000-PC call center would sound like at the start of a shift otherwise!)

Well, fast-forward to RTM.  The sound experience has undergone some last minute additions, "surprises" if you will.  This is enough of a pop-culture item that there was an NPR story about the Vista sounds on Morning Edition this morning.  Windows team member Larry Osterman has a blog posting on this as well where he says:

I actually didn't think this would be a big deal.  Shows you what little I know.

Indeed.  I still remember hearing stories about the Windows 95 login sound in particular as being a very important part of the overall experience....

Wow, seven months

It has been almost seven months since I've had time to sit down and write a blog post.  All kinds of things have happened in that time.  Vista and Office have RTM'd, which is great - I am very excited about Office 2007, more than I was about Office 2003, and that's saying a lot!  I honestly believe the UI changes are going to make this a worthy upgrade.  Vista will be much more exciting once drivers catch up, although I thought it was impressive that my old eMachines M6809, since replaced, had every single piece of hardware picked up by later releases.  Can't say that about XP on the same hardware...  Of course, my replacement (Gateway 7508GX), does not have drivers for audio available yet, and the Synaptics Vista driver is not yet openly available for some reason only Synaptics understands.

Meanwhile, IE7 was released, with the usual pro and con arguments.  I was at a large Fortune 100 site the other day where they were telling all users to not upgrade to IE7 because some applications would break.  Frankly, this is idiotic.  The betas have been out forever.  There is absolutely no excuse for not having an application ready for IE7.

Also in my space, two important Windows Embedded releases occured earlier this month.  The Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007 was released, which adds a lot of important changes including file-based EWF and official USB boot support in the box.  (This latter item was a huge demand item.)  The OS components have also been refactored, meaning you get much more control over what you have and why...

A much larger release - one which is nearly impossible to overstate - is the release of Windows Embedded CE 6.0.  (They didn't call it "Windows Live CE 6.0", so that's something! ;) ).  This is a major, unbelievably huge release.  It's the largest change in the OS since the release of 1.0 a decade ago.  Certain design decisions that have been present since that first release (32 process limit with 32 MB process slots, most notably) have been changed.  When I teach Windows CE 5.0, and before that taught Windows CE .NET 4.x, there are certain places where I can explain that things have not changed since 3.0 (e. g. 256 priority levels), and other things that have not changed since 1.0 (e. g. the aforementioned 32 process limit, the general micro-kernel design concepts).  With 6.0, lots has changed, and generally for the better.  Windows Mobile 6.0 of course comes later, as the Mobile releases always come after the base OS releases.  That said, the fact that the CE team had ported Windows Mobile 5.0 to CE 6.0 in a reasonably short time (I can't find a link right now, you'll need to trust me) says that these changes, although radical, don't hurt anywhere as bad as they might seem, as long as you've played by the rules.  bSquare, our Windows Embedded partner, has a blog by Jason Browne and others (e. g. Akron office engineer Dean Ramsier) that discusses some issues, as do of course Mike Hall's blog and other blogs.

And I haven't even mentioned much less earth-shattering releases like the new Windows Live Local enhancements like the Outlook plug-in and the new city views. 

Oh, yeah, and there's the new version of one of the longest living video game franchises in history...

Lots going on.  Little time to deal with it all!!!!!

SQL Server 2005 SP1 Released!

Microsoft has already - yes, already, as in 6 1/2 months after initial release - released SQL Server 2005 SP1!

The main page for SP1 is part of the SQL Server site but doesn't give a lot of detail.  The press release on SP1 is vaguely helpful, including the fact that Database Mirroring is in fact now released.  The knowledge base article (913090, "A list of the bugs that have been fixed in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1") is much more helpful.

On a related note, they have also released the SQL Server 2005 Feature Pack, which is really a collection of downloads in one place for client drivers (e. g. the Native Client, Analysis Services Client, etc.) as well as other useful tools.

You can also get updated Express tools and installation sets, updated samples and sample databases, the December, 2005 update of Books Online (if you don't have it yet), or just the Readme files for SP1.

Windows Defender now at Beta 2, plus x64 support, and other MS pieces

Microsoft has released their Beta 2 build 1347 of Giant AntiSpyware/Microsoft AntiSpyware/Windows Defender.

Besides inching towards release (Beta 1 was out for approximately forever), the addition of x64 support is nice for folks like myself, running x64 as their production platform.

More at Bink's posting and at the download page.

Also, Windows Desktop Search is up to 2.6.5, although it's still 32-bit only.

Finally, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Mobile has been released.  I don't currently have a device capable (!), but I think that it's a nice tool.  Hopefully I'll have a capable device soon!