Microsoft End of Life Dates - Mark Your Calendars!

With each passing year, Microsoft phases out software versions, replacing them with the new and exciting. It's kinda like death and taxes. You know they are coming, but they don't always give you the dates ahead of time. So here are some upcoming dates you might care about.

This one is fast approaching on 7/8/14 - Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 reaches the end of extended support!

Not impressed?  Okay, here's more...

• The end of sales for PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled (Windows Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate) is scheduled for October 31, 2014.  End of sales for Windows 7 Professional preinstalled has not yet been established, but Microsoft promises one year of notice so as of this writing it's safe to say mid-year 2015 at least for that.  Windows 7 also reaches the end of mainstream support on January 13, 2015, leaving it in extended support until 1/14/2020.
• Window Server 2003 reaching end of extended support on 7/14/15. This one is a biggie. Windows Server 2003 has been a workhorse for the last decade, much like Windows XP and it will be missed by many.  If you need some help, check out "It's the End of the World As You Know It... Windows Server 2003 End of Life: Infrastructure Migration" from TechEd 2014.
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 has it's extended support end on 4/11/2017.  I admit, I'm not so worried about this one. I used to be hard-core about running email services in house, but now I really think it depends on the size of your company. Email is sometimes best just hosted elsewhere and if you are running Exchange 2007 getting that out of the data center in the next few years might be something to consider.

Meanwhile enjoy your long weekend and lift a drink to BizTalk 2004.
:-)

Hybrid Cloud - The Three Part Series

Looking for more ways to learn about how the "cloud" is changing the IT industry?   

Then join Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich and Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson, for a three part Hybrid Cloud series.  Learn more about what the emergence of cloud means for your IT strategy and how Microsoft is driving innovation as we create more options for customers to extend from the datacenter to the cloud.

Episode 1 covers the basics of hybrid cloud including Microsoft’s definition of the hybrid cloud, its key benefits, and how hybrid cloud solutions will evolve with broader trends in the IT industry.  Get the background you need to understand what “hybrid” means today. Available on-demand: https://info.windowsazure.com/April2014_Hybrid_Cloud_Series_Episode_One_Register.html

Episode 2 focuses on how hybrid options are changing the way companies approach IT infrastructure. New capabilities mean new opportunities, and we’ll look at concrete examples of how you can make hybrid part of your toolkit.  Rethink the basics and learn what’s new.  Available June 23, with live Q&A from Mark and Brad: https://info.windowsazure.com/May2014HybridCloudSeries-EpisodeTwo_Registration.html

Episode 3 features an in-depth discussion of infrastructure modernization. As you upgrade from Windows Server 2003, how should you think about hybrid options?  How can cloud help you create a more agile infrastructure?  Hear from our experts about how to make this transition work for you.  Airs July 17, 2014, with live Q&A from Mark & Brad.  Registration info coming soon!

Be Part of Microsoft's Customer Research Team for the Cloud!

Microsoft Windows Server and Systems Center Customer Research team is looking for ITPros to participate on an IT Pro panel about virtualization.  If you are experienced with virtualization and cloud technologies, this is your chance to share your opinions with Microsoft.

As a member of the panel, you will have the opportunity to provide vision and feedback to the Cloud and Data Center Management Product team through surveys, focus groups, usability sessions, early design concept reviews, and customer interviews.

The research team is looking for very specific expertise profiles. Use of Microsoft products IS NOT required. To help identify if you qualify, start by completing a short survey.

Please note, this is only for customers located in the US but there is work toward extending to an international audience soon. Once again, you DO NOT have to use Microsoft products to participate.
Interested? Want to learn more? Click to access the survey.

VMware or Microsoft?–The Complete Quick List

The VMware or Microsoft blog series has come to an end, for now.  Below is the complete list of posts for your convenience.  You'll find lots of great information and you can never be too informed when making decisions that affect the company and services you support.

1. Series Introduction
2. What is a “Purpose-Built Hypervisor?
3. Simplified Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 Host Patching = Greater Security and More Uptime
4. Reducing VMware Storage Costs WITH Windows Server 2012 Storage Spaces
5. Does size really matter?
6. Let’s talk certifications!
7. Virtual Processor Scheduling
8. FREE Zero Downtime Patch Management
9. Agentless Protection
10. Site to Site Disaster Recovery with HRM
11. Destination: VMWorld
12. Get the “Scoop” on Hyper-V during VMworld
13. VMWorld: Key Keynote Notes
14. VMWorld: Did you know that there is no extra charge?
15. VMWorld: A Memo to IT Leadership
16. Moving Live Virtual Machines, Same But Different
17. Not All Memory Management is Equal
18. Can I get an app with that?
19. Deploying Naked Servers
20. Automated Server Workload Balancing
21. Thoughts on VMWorld
22. Shopping for Private Clouds
23. Dynamic Storage Management in Private Clouds
24. Replaceable? or Extensible? What kind of virtual switch do you want?
25. Offloading your Storage
26. VDI: A Look at Supportability and More!
27. Agentless Backup for Virtual Environments
28. How robust is your availability?
29. VM Guest Operating System Support
30. How to license Windows Server VMs
31. Comparing vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V At-A-Glance
32. Evaluating Hyper-V Network Virtualization as an alternative to VMware NSX
33. Automation is the Key to Happiness
34. Comparing Microsoft’s Public Cloud to VMware’s Public Cloud
35. What does AVAILABILITY mean in YOUR cloud?

Thoughts on VMworld

As promised, I've been formulating some closing thoughts about my first VMworld conference.

Overall, it was a fun experience. Going to conferences "at home" always prove to be more difficult logistically than going out of town. I was still on the hook for some of my morning and evening home responsibilities, so I didn't attend many of the evening events or the concert at AT&T Park. A bit bummed to have missed Imagine Dragons and Train, so maybe next time!

I can't say I was a big fan of the system where you registered for a seat in sessions. While I could see this being a boon for the event planners, it was frustrating as an attendee. I had difficulty deciding if I wanted to try to get into other sessions as "stand by" and risk giving up a registered seat elsewhere.  While not a big deal on the first day, as the conference progressed I found that my interests changed and I wanted more freedom in attending other sessions.

Also, I found that many of the sessions weren't very technical. I admit I did attend a few "business solutions" level sessions to get an overview of some of the topics I wasn't very familiar with, but even the "technical" and the "advanced technical" left me wishing for a bit more meat.

I attended sessions mostly around NSX, vCloud Hybrid Service and VSAN. With all of these technologies, VMware is clearly looking to make it as easy as possible for existing companies already virtualizing on VMware to embrace making their datacenters more automated. None of the ideas are "net-new" and many of the vendors that were in the Solutions Exchange area already have products that are functioning in that space or providing similar features, but I can understand why VMware would want to be able to provide similar technology options to their customers directly. I spent some time chatting with some vendors and the attitude was cordial, but at the same time it was clear that many will just be waiting to see if VMware can prove themselves in the market.

Looking at NSX, Windows Network Virtualization capabilities that are included in Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1 compare directly with the VMware offering. In the R2 release (coming October 18th) it's been extended to include a free network virtualization gateway in Windows Server 2012 R2 and integrate top-of-rack network switch configuration and remediation. Also in the R2 release, there is full support with the Cisco Nexus 1000V while using network virtualization.

With regards to vCloud Hybrid Services, VMware seems to be directly targeting customers who are looking at using AWS for public cloud. By making it easy to move virtual machines into vCloud instead of AWS, they are open to capture companies that have lots of VMware infrastructure in place and are just starting to look at utilizing public cloud services. A marketing message that I got from the Solutions Exchange show floor was that AWS was a great "playground" for developers, but production level applications belonged in your datacenter and then scaled to the vCloud.

However, with less than a half-dozen US-only datacenter locations mentioned for vCloud, I can't see the solution being a suitable for companies looking for a more global footprint. Right now, Windows Azure has eight datacenters in the US, Europe and Asia, with and additional 6 centers in the works for Japan, Australia and mainland China. Azure is available for use by customers in 89 countries and territories.

VSAN is offering some compelling features for pooling storage from multiple disk locations and using different tiers of storage like SSD and traditional spindles to provide a virtualized storage solution. Without reinventing the wheel, I found a few interesting links on the web that you might want to reference for more information about how it works (also here) and some products it could compete with.

From Microsoft, there is the StorSimple product which allows you to use an appliance to introduce tiered storage levels as well as connect to the cloud for an additional level of storage. For an option that doesn't require an appliance, Storage Spaces was introduced with Windows Server 2012 and will be updated with additional features in Windows Server 2012 R2.

Overall, I really enjoyed the opportunity to attend VMworld and take the time to see what other product and offerings are going to be "on the menu" for IT Professionals working to make their datacenters more streamlined and cost effective.  For more detailed information about how Microsoft and VMware compare and contrast, make sure you check out the IT Evangelist Blog Series - "VMware or Microsoft?"

Destination: VMWorld

I really enjoy conferences and if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know I've been a long time attendee of Micosoft TechEd. Before I joined Microsoft, my previous company was (and still is) virtualizing on VMWare. But VMworld was the conference of choice for my teammate, who primarily handled the storage and virtualization infrastructure. So even though VMWorld is often hosted right in my backyard, I've never been.

So for the first time, I'll be attending VMWorld next week. This is the 10^th Annual US VMWorld and since I missed attending my 10^th TechEd this past June, this seems apropos.  I mentioned this to some friends, who immediately said, "What? Are you some kind of spy now?"

A Spy? Really?

If you've been reading the "VMWare or Microsoft?"blog series this week, you'll know that Evangelists here at Microsoft take virtualization pretty seriously. But truly, it's all about taking TECHNOLOGY seriously. VMWare has been around for a pretty long time in "technology years" and they've brought a lot of stuff to the table that's worth learning about.

I know it's easy to get "religious" about the technologies you know best. As an IT Professional it's important to look at a variety of solutions before deciding which one is best for your company or the particular problem you are trying to solve and there are often a lot of factors to take into consideration.  When dealing with those types of decisions myself, I valued the opinions of people who had taken the time to really understand what's out there along with the pros and cons - particularly for products I wasn't as familiar with.

Like many large multi-day conferences, the sessions and tracks are vast at VMWorld and it's been hard to decide how best to spend my time. In doing a little preparation for this event, it seems that VMWare historically had a habit of talking about technologies at VMWorld that ended up not being released in a reasonable time frame.

Apparently there has been shift in recent years to concentrate only on technologies that will come to fruition in the next year, so I'm happy to find out that my time at the conference will be well spent learning about things that will be out there for IT Pros sooner than later. The software-defined datacenter and Infrastructure-as-a-Service look like they are going to be hot topics.

I'm looking forward to catching sessions around these areas:

• vCloud Hybrid Service - There is a "Jump Start" series of 5 breakout sessions covering topics like architecture, networking and security, deploying workloads and cloud management of the VMWare vCloud product. In addition to the jump start, there are many other sessions around this service that look like good picks.
• Storage and Data Protection - sessions around the VMWare Virtual SAN and SSD, Software-defined Storage and data protection and other storage advancements.
• Operations Management - Sessions around cloud computing management, building your infrastructure, cloud economics, the evolution of the data center.
• Virtualizing Active Directory - There is one session that caught my eye about Active Directory (always near and dear to my heart), so I probably won't be missing that one.

I learned from my former teammate that session seating is prioritized for people who put sessions in their Schedule Builder tool, so I'm hoping I've chosen wisely. I generally don't recommend session hopping at these type of events and this reinforces my plan to get a few good takeaways from every session I attend.

So to answer the question from earlier - Am I spying on VMWare? Nah, far from it.

Like every other conference I've attended throughout my career, I'm forever a student of technology. Be it Microsoft technology or not, I don't think I can ever go wrong looking for opportunities to learn. I can’t be good at my job and you can’t be good at yours unless we all take the time to learn about what’s out there and are open to comparing a variety of solutions.

So that's why I'll be at VMWorld. Meanwhile, I hope you'll continue to check out the posts in the "VMWare or Microsoft?" series.  On Twitter, the hashtag is #VMWorMSFT.  And for news of the conference, follow the tweets of @VMWorld.

And since I’m a VMWorld newbie, if you think there is something I shouldn’t miss, let me know!

New Adventures at Microsoft

I love being a Sys Admin.  For the last 15 years, I've learned so much about managing systems and working with the people that use those systems to accomplish their jobs. Plus, over the last several years, I've enjoyed being part of the IT Professional community, through the PacITPros User Group, from attending and staffing conferences like TechMentor, TechEd and TechDays and as a Microsoft MVP. 

I've made so many great connections, learned many cool new things.  Not sure I would consider having it any other way. But sometimes an opportunity opens up that takes you in a different (but related!) direction and that's what has happened to me.

As of yesterday, I've joined Microsoft as an IT Pro Evangelist.  I'm looking forward to getting to spend more time with the IT community and hopefully, learning a lot more things I can share!  I'll be primarily responsible for the Bay Area, so don't worry, I won't be going far. :-)

Because 365 Days to XP EOS was SO YESTERDAY!

You probably saw it mentioned a million times yesterday. End of Support for Windows XP is April 8, 2014. Today, it's probably old news. Or you've noted it and moved on. 

Well, unless you've moved to Windows 7 or Windows 8, you still need to pay attention - yesterday's news or not.  Check out the Springboard Series Blog and Steven Rose's post on the countdown to the end of XP Support.

And in case you missed them, here are a few other products with End of Support dates in the recent past or near future.

Server 2003 - 7/14/2015
SQL Server 2000 - 4/9/2013
Office 2003 - 4/8/2014

Exchange 2010 SP 1 - 1/8/2013
Office 2007 SP 2 - 1/8/2013

Microsoft End of Life Dates - Mark Your Calendars!

Where is 2012 going?  It seems like just yesterday I filed away my planner for 2011 and crack open that fresh page to January 2012. Now that we are racing towards Spring, you might want to highlight a few of these special dates for the future.

Here are some future "end of life" dates for some Microsoft products you might still have floating around on your network.  Some will be supported for several more years, but it never hurts to keep your eye on the horizon.

These dates are the end of support life for the product as a whole (no more extended support), so start thinking about your budget cycles and internal support needs for the next few years.

Windows XP - 4/8/2014
Server 2003 - 7/14/2015
Windows Vista - 4/11/2017

Exchange Server 2007 - 4/11/2017
SQL Server 2000 - 4/9/2013
SQL Server 2005 - 4/12/2016

Office 2003 - 4/8/2014
Office 2007 - 10/10/2017

These dates are for specific service packs for these products, so be sure to install the latest available service pack, if you haven't already.

SQL Server 2005 SP 3 -1/10/2012
Exchange 2010 SP 1 - 1/8/2013
Office 2007 SP 2 - 1/8/2013

For more information about other Microsoft Server products, check out the Lifecycle Info for Server Products list. - http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeSelectServ

** 11/21/14 Update **

For some current end of life dates - visit this post.  Interested in learning more about getting away from on-prem Exchange and Office?  Check out these courses from the Microsoft Virtual Academy -

• Managing Exchange Online Using the Console 
• Managing Exchange Online Using PowerShell 
• Managing Office 365 Identities and Services
• Office 365 ProPlus Deployment for IT Pros

Welcome 2012! Now Start Planning for 2013 and Beyond.

As you file away your planner for 2011 and crack open that fresh page to January 2012, you might want to highlight a few of these special dates for the future.  Here are some upcoming "end of life" dates for some Microsoft products you might still have floating around on your network. Some will be supported for several more years, but it never hurts to keep your eye on the horizon.

 

These dates are the end of support life for the product as a whole, so start thinking about your budget cycles and internal support needs for the next few years.

• Windows XP - 4/8/2014
• Windows Vista - 4/11/2017
• Server 2003 - 7/14/2015
• Exchange Server 2007 - 4/11/2017
• SQL Server 2000 - 4/9/2013
• SQL Server 2005 - 4/12/2016
• Office 2003 - 4/8/2014
• Office 2007 - 10/10/2017

These dates are for specific service packs for these products, so be sure to install the latest available service pack, if you haven't already.

• SP 3 for SQL Server 2005 -1/10/2012
• SP 1 for Exchange 2010 - 1/8/2013
• SP 2 for Office 2007 - 1/8/2013

For more information about other Microsoft Server products, check out the Lifecycle Info for Server Products list.

Bing and It's Done. For Real.

I've been dreading planning some summer travel. Or more specifically finding reasonable flights for summer travel.  I spent the last several weeks checking some travel websites and have been frustrated with the prices - Would they go down?  Should I just buy them and be done with it?  Will I be kicking myself for not waiting another week or day or be annoyed that I waited to long?

It was suggested that I check out bing.com for travel.  Now I can't say that I use Bing much for my regular Internet searches.  I've used Google since the beginning of time and I'm comfortable with it for what I usually need.  But hey, Bing is the "decision engine" and I wasn't getting anywhere fast with my ticket search otherwise.  It was worth a shot.

And then it was mission accomplished. Bing. Done. Wow.

To be fair, the search results are powered by kayak.com, and I've used Kayak directly in the past but it never struck me as any better than Expedia, which had been my go-to travel site for years.  (Like my use of Google, old habits die hard.)  Though often, I'd find the flight on Expedia and then book it directly from the carrier to elimate the middle man, especially since I don't often need travel packages.

With Bing you have all the features where you can customize your results based on number of stops, the travel times, red-eye or not, etc and you can look for hotels and other deals as well.  Once you select your flight, Bing redirects you to the carrier so you can complete the purchasing process directly.  From the main functionality standpoint, most flight search sites hand you the same base features and Bing doesn't disappoint.

The big selling point was the prominance of the price predictor and the fare history.  This is where the "decision" with booking flights comes into play.  This was the cleanest presentation of the where prices had been and where they might be going - it was the perfect stock ticker for travel. 

Perhaps I just got lucky but according to those tools, I was finally hitting the right time.  Ticket prices were the lowest they'd been in about 4 weeks and would likely go higher - I finally had the information I needed to move forward and put my money on the line.

Now I can check that off my list and you can be sure I'll use Bing for travel again in future. I guess everyone can learn a new trick now and then.

Ed Horley and Stephen Rose on RunAs Radio

Have you checked out RunAs Radio lately? 

Since 2007, RunAs Radio has been producing podcasts for Microsoft-centric IT Professionals and over the last few weeks has produced episodes featuring some of my favorite industry collegues - Ed Horley and Stephen Rose.  On 3/30/11, Ed Horley discussed the current state of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 and on 3/23/11, Stephen covers Windows vNext, IE9 and Intune.

Here are a few other older podcasts from some others I know in the Microsoft technology space that you might enjoy.

• 11/24/10 - Episode #187 - Mark Minasi on Cloud Technologies
• 9/22/10 - Episode #178 - Alan Burchill on Group Policy Preferences
• 9/8/10 - Episide #176 - Chris Jackson on app comp issues with those old IE6 applications

Shopping for Hard Drives? Pay Attention to Sector Sizes

Disk drive manufacturers are transitioning to the production of Advanced Format disk drives, which have 4 KB physical sector size instead of the traditional 512 bytes.  While larger sectors will ultimately improve performance, many applications are not written to take advantage of the change, so a transitional technology called "512-byte emulation" is used to support the 512 byte logical addressing.  These disks are known as "512e" disks, for short.

Advanced Format drives will ultimately be the future standard, however some applications may have issues with the transitional 512e drives, especially if you are imaging a machine to new hardware and the OS and applications aren't expecting a difference in physical and logical sector sizes.

Microsoft has a hotfix available for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 than can address several potential issues introduced with this type of disk.  Check out KB 982018 for additional details and several known issues.  I'd be particularly aware if you are doing any P2P migrations of servers that support Active Directory, DHCP or act as a CA, as the ESENT engine is sensitive to the reporting of sector size, as detailed in issue #1 of the knowledge base article.

Redmond Bound!

I'll be heading out this weekend to attend the MVP Summit at Microsoft in Washington.  This is my second opportunity to attend this event, so I'm looking forward to getting out there and catching up with some of the MVPs I met last year.  (Though I admit, I'm not looking forward to the chilly, wet weather.)  Meanwhile, enjoy the next few days and perhaps I'll have some stories to tell when I return!

Check out the Malware Response Guide

Microsoft recently published the new Malware Response Guide, officially known as the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Malware Response. 

I reviewed this guide in its beta stages a few months ago and it was a great read and a very useful guide.  If you have limited "official" procedures in place for handling infections on workstations, this is a great way to start that discussion with team members and use some of the tools mentioned to develop a plan that is specific to your organization.

I think the structure is well thought out and very logical. One can easily switch to the course of action that fits the needs of the user and the organization, as well as follow the instructions for preparing an offline scanning kit. I also appreciate the recommendations for additional reading so that I can go more in depth for the products I'm using.

While this guide likely won't change my organizations use of a third-party solution at this time, it greatly complements it by providing other tools from Microsoft that can support my existing tools, or give me an alternate set of tools if my vendor isn't as quick to produce a particular solution for new malware.

I think this guide shows that Microsoft is willing to support systems in all types of scenarios and the information is not written to exclude organizations who aren't committed to only Microsoft software. It provides great processes and talking points to bring any organization closer to having a more cohesive malware response plan.  Take a moment to download it and check it out.

There's Still Time to Win a Copy of Windows 7

If you are looking for a way to get your hands on a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate and you have a good story about how Windows 7 helped save your company money, solve a problem or somehow made your IT day, you have until the end of January to submit the story to Microsoft and win!

Microsoft will be giving away 10 copies of Windows 7 Ultimate to the 10 "Best Windows Stories".  If you've got a great story, check out the contest rules and fire up your literary side.  The contest ends at 11:59pm on January 31st.

Coming Soon! - Chat with MVPs, Learn about IPv6 and Hang with PacITPros

October is starting out with a bang.  Here are a few upcoming events that you might want on your calendar.  Please visiting their listed sites for more information or to register.

October 5th - PacITPros Monthly Meeting - This month they welcome Chad Scott, Solution Architect with Infoblox who will be going over their DNS/DCHP/IPAM solution plus their newest solution of NetMRI from the recent acquisition of Netcordia.  Also featured will be Kenny Spade, Academic Developer Evangelist with Microsoft presenting on Windows Phone 7. This will be a sneak peak prior to the official launch date, so you will get to see the handset and OS in action.

Meeting location is at the Microsoft Office, 835 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94103. Please RSVP at the www.pacitpros.org website.

October 14th - Chat About Microsoft Office and Windows with the MVP Experts, 10-11am PST -Would you like to learn more about the cool new features in Office 2010 and Windows 7 and what has changed since previous versions? Do you use Microsoft Office but would like to learn tips and tricks to be more productive at home, school or at work? Perhaps you are a new user who has questions on how to get started with Windows 7 or using the Office ribbon? Or would like to learn how to protect your computer from malware and viruses. Or perhaps you are just stuck and need answers. 

The Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are here to help! The MVPs are the same people you see in the technical community as authors, trainers, user groups leaders and answerers in the Microsoft forums. For the first time ever we have brought these experts together as a collective group to answer your questions live.

MVPs will be on hand to take questions about Microsoft Office 2010 or Office 2007 products such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Project, OneNote and more. As well as the Windows 7 and earlier versions such as Windows Vista. In addition to Microsoft Office, the chat will cover Windows related topics such as upgrading, setup and installation, securing your PC, Internet Explorer, personalizing your computer desktop or having fun with Windows Live Essentials to share photos, make movies and more. All levels of experience are welcome from beginners and students to intermediate power users.

Please join this informative Q&A style chat and bring on your basic and your tough questions!

November 2-4th - The gogoNET LIVE! and CAv6TF IPv6 Conference - With IPv4 addresses predicted to be depleted within 18 months we all need to start becoming familiar with IPv6. The California IPv6 Task Force is pleased to present the gogoNET LIVE! IPv6 conference at San Jose State University to:

- Get the knowledge you need from experienced IPv6 professionals
- Learn IPv6 theory in workshops
- Make useful technical contacts in the IPv6 world

 This is the only local West Coast IPv6 event for the remainder of 2010 and it is right here in the Bay Area so take advantage of this opportunity to increase your knowledge on all things related to IPv6.  gogoNET LIVE! is a live version of the gogoNET social network that has close to 30,000 IPv6 professionals as members.

Be prepared, don’t fall behind – this is your chance to get on the cutting edge of IPv6 deployment. Visit http://gogonetlive.com for details and to register.

Goodbye Live Communications Server 2005

If you happen to be a regular reader of Techbunny.com, you probably know that while I'm a big user of Microsoft products, I'm still happy to remove a MS product when something from a 3rd party will meet my needs. 

In this case, it was Live Communications Server 2005 that took the hit.  We have very few users that regularly "instant message" within the office and with our recent Shoretel upgrade, the conference bridge included basic IM services that could be integrated within our VoIP desktop software.  This would reduce the need for us to manage another server VM and free up those resources for other purposes.

I was concerned that removing LCS would be a chore, but it turns out it was quite easy with less than a dozen steps.  Find them here in TechNet.  I also love the great post-removal report that was generated, as I was able to add that to my change control documentation.

While the upcoming version of Microsoft Unified Communications looks like it will have some great collaboration features, sometimes it's easier to just go with something you might already have handy through a third-party, especially if you don't need a lot of bells and whistles.

Microsoft Resources on the Web

There’s more to Microsoft than www.microsoft.com. Most IT Professionals know about Microsoft TechNet, but there are many other great resources for professionals, consumers, students and businesses that provide access to great content about Microsoft products. Here are a few you might want to visit:

Talking About Windows – check out videos by IT Professionals and Microsoft Engineers as they talk about using and developing Windows. Submit your comments and feedback, or look for Windows related events in your location.

Microsoft Springboard Series – part of Microsoft TechNet, the Springboard Series focuses on the client OS. Find resources, blogs and forums for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP or connect with industry experts.

Microsoft Answers – real people from Microsoft and the tech community cover this forum for products like Microsoft Office, Security Essentials, Windows Live and the various client operating systems.

Microsoft Learning – the starting point for certifications, training materials and community resources for learning about Microsoft products and prepping for exams.

Because It’s Everybody’s Business – a portal site for businesses highlighting popular IT projects and the related software. Resources include production information, trial downloads and resources including case studies, news and blogs.

DreamSpark – a site dedicated to putting professional tools in the hands of students at low or no cost. Schools and students can register and start downloading Windows Server, SQL 2005 and a host of other development applications.

Working with Windows products, like any other software product that changes and evolves, can lead to frustration and confusion when trying to determine the right product for a project or business need. Knowing where to go to find answers and other valuable resources can be a key to success. It’s not always about what you know, it’s knowing where to look for what you need.

Looking at Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program

Microsoft has several ways of collecting data in order to improve the Windows experience. One of them is the Customer Experience Improvement Program. New installations of Windows 7 prompt you to opt in or out during the initial set up, but if you want to check or change your participation, you can find setting in the Control Panel.

This data mining tool sits in the background of your computer collecting usage and “trouble” data, periodically sending it off to Microsoft. While the idea of that sounds a bit “big brother”, there are some benefits to having a sibling watch over you. While you may or may not believe it, Microsoft uses data from these tools to fix bugs and improve the Windows operating system.

If you’ve checked “Yes” in the box above, your computer is identified by a unique GUID and your IP address is captured in the data submission process. The GUID is used to determine wide-spread issues compared repeated events from the same computer and is tracked, however your IP address isn’t ultimately stored with the data reports, so your computer can’t be identified specifically.

The CEIP data that is collected from your computer generally includes:

• Configuration – how many processors you have, your OS version, screen resolution, if you use Bluetooth or high-speed USB devices, etc.
• Performance and Reliability – how quickly a program responds to a button click, how many problems you have with a program or device and how fast your network connections work.
• Program Usage – what features you use most often, how often you launch programs, and how many folders you typically keep on your desktop.

If you want more details or to review the entire privacy policy regarding this program, visit the program webpage at Microsoft.