Dario IT Solutions Blog

Windows 7 is just around the corner so it just the time to do a little comparison between those 3 OSs:

If you like to build batch files to automate cleanup on your computer, you’ll probably want to include at least one of these commands in your batch script. You can automate any one of the functions on the Internet Explorer 7 Delete Browsing History dialog.

Here’s the dialog that you are probably used to seeing:

And here’s the commands that correspond to the different buttons. The most important one from a cleanup perspective is the first, which will delete just the temporary internet files that are cluttering up your computer.

To use these commands, just run them from the command line, the start menu search box in vista, or a batch file.

Temporary Internet Files

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 8

Cookies

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 2

History

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 1

Form Data

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 16

Passwords

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 32

Delete All

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 255

Delete All – "Also delete files and settings stored by add-ons"

RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 4351

These commands should work in Internet Explorer 7 on XP or on Windows Vista

Thanks for HowToGeek.com for this wonderful blog : http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/clear-ie7-browsing-history-from-the-command-line/

As promised, I’ve uploaded the presentations from the sessions I gave on December 18th at Microsoft Israel. Enjoy.

Windows 2008 has a lot new security features like CNG, RODC, ASLR, Windows Auditing, Windows Defender, Security Center, Service Hardening, Bitlocker, NAP, UAC.

If you are interested on learning more about them and what is different from Windows 2003XP to Windows 2008Vista you are welcome to check a session I gave at Microsoft Israel.

SP 1 for System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 will be available on December 8th 2008. Along with the roll up update this release enhances many of the core features of DPM 2007. The key among them being

1. Protection of Hyper-V™ virtualization platforms
2. Enhanced SQL Server 2008 protection
3. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
4. Protection for Exchange Server 2007 Standby Cluster Replication (SCR)

In addition to enhancing the protection of each of the core Microsoft application workloads, additional capabilities have also been introduced with the release of DPM 2007 SP1, such as:

1. Provision for a Client DPML answers customer demand for a more cost-effective way to protect Windows XP and Windows Vista clients using the same DPM 2007 infrastructure that protects their servers
2. Disaster Recovery capabilities within DPM 2007 SP1 now include the ability to leverage a 3rd party vaulting partner via the cloud (SaaS) powered by Iron Mountain.

Are you using a Vista machine and miss having the ability to manage

your servers from you local machine ?

A few months ago Microsoft released the Vista version of the adminpak

tools under the name RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools).

The RSAT software can be installed only on Business, Enterprise & Ultimate versions

of Vista and requires SP1.

Here are the links for the RSAT downloads:

32 Bit – URL

64 Bit – URL

MAP is a scalable and agent-less assessment platform designed to make it easier for you to adopt the latest Microsoft technologies.

In this version, MAP has expanded its assessment capabilities to include SQL Server 2008, Forefront/NAP, and Microsoft Online Services migration, as well as providing a Power Savings assessment to help you "go green."

In summary, MAP 3.2 assessment areas now include:

• SQL Server 2008 Migration Proposals and Reports (NEW!)
• Forefront/NAP Readiness Proposals (NEW!)
• Microsoft Online Services Migration Surveys, Proposals, and Reports (NEW!)
• Power Savings Proposals (NEW!)
• Server Migration Reports and Proposals (Windows Server 2008 and "virtualized guests by hosts" reporting) (NEW!)
• Server Consolidation Reports and Proposals (Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Hyper-V)
• Desktop Security Assessment to determine if desktops have anti-virus and anti-malware programs installed and up-to-date, or if the Windows Firewall is turned on
• Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 Hardware Assessment Reports and Proposals

Main Downloads page (catalog, documentation)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb498232.aspx

Operations Manager Product Team Blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam

SystemCenterForum.org

http://www.systemcenterforum.org

System Center Content Search (Vista gadget)

http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=49e26ad0-113d-4f3d-a711-57f6530c75d9

System Center Operations Manager Blog Search:

http://search.live.com/macros/microsoft_user_assistance/sc_operations_manager_blogs

Event Flow Diagram

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2007/10/30/event-alerts-perf-data-flow-in-opsmgr-2007.aspx

DWDATARP.exe (For setting Data Retention policies in the Warehouse)

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/05/14/data-warehouse-data-retention-policy-dwdatarp-exe.aspx

End-To-End Task test:

http://www.systemcenterforum.org/testing-end-to-end-notification-in-opsmgr-or-essentials-2007-mp/

Targeting Best Practices Poster:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/a/7/fa73e146-ab8a-4002-9311-bfe69a570d28/BestPractices_Rule_Monitor_REV_110607.pdf

Best practices to use when you configure overrides in System Center Operations Manager 2007

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943239

Authoring Guide:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/d/74deff5e-449f-4a6b-91dd-ffbc117869a2/OM2007_AuthGuide.doc

Effective configuration Viewer:

http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a9db4dca-6716-478d-89b9-42f27ebc76a8&displaylang=en

Override Explorer:

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/attachment/4301837.ashx

Group membership:

http://www.systemcenterforum.org/list-ops-mgr-group-membership-using-powershell

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/10/26/which-groups-is-a-particular-computer-member-of.aspx

Management Group Configuration tool:

http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/archive/2007/06/04/mginfo-management-group-license-and-summary-info-utility-for-operations-manager-2007-and-essentials-2007.aspx

Maintenance mode Scripts:

http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/archive/2007/09/18/agentmm-a-command-line-tool-to-place-opsmgr-agents-into-maintenance-mode.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2008/03/04/one-more-maintenance-mode-script.aspx

How Microsoft Does IT (includes MOM 2005 and Ops Mgr documents):

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687791(TechNet.10).aspx

(from http://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase)

Certificates for Windows 2008 and Ops Mgr:

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/06/02/obtaining-certificates-for-ops-mgr.aspx

Adding Custom Information to alerts and Notifications:

http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2007/12/12/adding-custom-information-to-alert-descriptions-and-notifications.aspx

Last contact time Style reports:

http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2008/06/27/which-servers-are-down-in-my-company-and-which-just-have-a-heartbeat-failure-right-now.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2008/06/27/creating-a-new-data-source-for-reporting-against-the-operational-database.aspx

Converting an MP to XMl (unseal it)

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/16/unsealing-a-management-pack.aspx

Powershell basics:

http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/

http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/archive/2006/09/28/getting-started.aspx

Powershell script examples:

http://blogs.technet.com/brianwren/archive/2008/03/11/mms-command-shell-presentation.aspx

Effective Config Viewer:

http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a9db4dca-6716-478d-89b9-42f27ebc76a8&displaylang=en

Developing MPs

http://www.developer.com/design/article.php/3740486

Enable Proxying on Agents UI

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/02/enabling-proxying-for-agents.aspx

What Thresholds Monitors Have

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/07/so-what-thresholds-do-my-monitors-have.aspx

Boris Yanushpolsky’s blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/default.aspx

Bulk Enable / Disable of rules or monitors (Override Creator):

http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/04/disabling-enabling-multiple-rules-monitors-discoveries-at-once.aspx

New KB Articles / Hotfixes Summary:

http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/rss.aspx?Tags=New%20and%20upcoming%20KB%20Articles/Operations%20Manager%202007&AndTags=1

Update Custom Fields

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.opsmgr.powershell&tid=0bdee97c-95b6-4074-9eff-f7edca3d0ff2&cat=01DE69DE-CFDB-E7B7-8849-BF4BC19A6B88&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1

http://www.systemcenterforum.org/updating-custom-fields-in-alerts-operations-manager-2007/

Design Reports in SCOM:

http://opsmgr.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/want-to-design-a-new-report-in-scom-2007/

DB IOPS Performance

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/06/24/performance-iops-for-the-db-and-dw-in-opsmgr-2007.aspx

DW Backup and Grooming:

http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid68_gci1316214,00.html

Creating tasks:

http://www.systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/PowershellTasks_v1.0.pdf

Planning and designing the infrastructure:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD3921FB-8224-4681-9064-075FDF042B0C&SAMI_Campaign_Name=IPD062708RTM_IPDDL&displaylang=en

Operations Manager Training Videos:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb498237.aspx

Publishing Reports to Sharepoint:

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/02/29/publish-reports-to-sharepoint.aspx

Operations Manager Reporting Guide:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/d/74deff5e-449f-4a6b-91dd-ffbc117869a2/OpsMgr2007_RprtGuide.doc

Configuring notifications for a specific alert:

http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2008/02/01/configuring-notifications-to-include-specific-alerts-from-specific-groups-and-classes.aspx

System Center Capacity Planner:

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sccp/default.mspx

Operations Manager Authoring Console:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/4/3/f438d6a0-290c-42b8-8f9c-c6660f89e1aa/OpsMgr07_x64_AuthConsole.exe

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/4/3/f438d6a0-290c-42b8-8f9c-c6660f89e1aa/OpsMgr07_x86_AuthConsole.exe

SQL Server 2008 is now supported on Configuration Manager 2007 RTM and SP1

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (RTM and SP1) now supports the use of SQL Server 2008 as a site database.  In order to upgrade a site-server database to SQL 2008 there are 2 hot fixes required:

• ConfigMgr 2007 RTM customers must apply hot fix KB955229
• ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 customers must apply hot fix KB955262

The following are requirements when performing a clean install on a SQL Server 2008 database:

• A clean install of ConfigMgr 2007 RTM on a SQL Server 2008 database is not supported.  You must first install SQL Server 2005, upgrade to SQL Server 2008 and then apply hot fix KB955229
• A clean install of ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 on a SQL Server 2008 database is supported, but should apply hot fix KB955262

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is now supported for Configuration Manager 2007 RTM and SP1

Support will be provided for client management, site server roles, and the administrator console running within a Hyper-V environment.   There are no hot fixes required for the release to support configuration scenario.  This applies to customers running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V RTM installed.

Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0.03 is now supported on Configuration Manager 2007 RTM and SP1 with the ACT Connector

Customers leveraging the ACT Connector may download ACT 5.0.3 which released on September 2, 2008.  The following is a summary of the Application Compatibility Toolkit Connector:

Update Compatibility Evaluator: Update Compatibility Evaluator Now Supports Vista and Server ’08 in addition to Win2K, XP and Server ’03 that were previously supported.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Support: We now support Windows Internet Explorer 8. The Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluator as well as the Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool are capable of identifying issues on websites and web applications when they are run on IE8.

Major Bug Fixes:

SUA:

• SUA Crashes if AppVerifier Log Entry is Badly Formed
• Failure to Create Shim Database Entry if Product Name Contains Special Characters: SUA was unable to create a shim database entry for an application if the application name contained special characters. This issue has been resolved in ACT 5.0.3.
• CorrectFilePaths Shim Fix: There was a bug in the Standard User Analyzer because of which the CorrectFilePaths shim (used to redirect the path to which files created by the application are written) was only shimming a single file-path relocation even if multiple files needed to be redirected. This has been fixed in the current version of ACT.

ACM:

• The Application Compatibility Manager no longer requires elevation of user privileges to run in Vista.

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is now supported on Configuration Manager 2007 RTM and SP1

The .NET Framework 2.0 is a dependency for the Admin Console and the Desired Configuration Manager (DCM) feature of the client.  Typically the .NET Framework is a side-by-side (SxS) installation so compatibility is not a concern.  However, the .NET Framework 3.5 install performs an upgrade to the .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 3.0 behind the scenes, this is now fully supported.

Well it looks like Microsoft decide to fight back at Apple’s Mac VS PC Ads with an really nice interactive campaign.

In this campaign called “I’m A PC” , Microsoft is saying: “PC is not a stereotype! and If you’re a PC, you belong to a community of more than a billion individuals, working, playing, and connecting. Doing their own thing. If you’re a PC, we want to celebrate you. So stand up. Show your face and we’ll show the world what a PC really looks like.

PC is not a stereotype!

And neither are you. ”

check out the web site: I’m a PC

check out this cool ad too (with thanks to Lior Zoref blog):