Typically hotfixes are released on the second Tuesday of each month as you are all well aware.  Occasionally, I can personally only remember three including this one, there are out of band hotfixes released.  While we don’t normally post hotfix release notifications considering this is an out of band release I wanted to let you all know ...

In a recent article I wrote about the Standard User Analyzer, one of the tools available to mitigate app compat issues with UAC.  Some applications require a little more work to get them working and for these situations you can use the Compatibility Administrator which part of the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0.  Again it is a ...

One of the biggest blockers to deployment in application compatibility.  Whether it is a new OS and existing applications or new applications on an existing OS these are they kind of things that drive you nuts.  There are many tools available now to help address these issues, one being the Standard User Analyzer.  With Windows Vista ...

The other day I posted the first half of this video with the server side setup of NAP.  This video will cover the client side setup and testing on both Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3. Note: Double-click on the video to go full screen. If you want to give these demos a try yourself be sure to grab the lab build guide and demo scripts ...

Quick post to let all you Lazy Admins out there that Windows Search 4.0 has been released. There is a long list improvements. I have been using the preview release for the past month, and I definitly have noticed performance benefits on my laptop. For those who haven't tried Windows Search, it's a Lazy Admin's best friend. The only downside is the ...

A few weeks ago I posted about some of the tools Microsoft provides to help establish the costs and saving that deploying Vista can bring. One of the issues that I have is how do we get the numbers to fill in those forms; well MS has you covered there too. This tool is really useful. With the MS Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator you ...

We have all muttered the words ''Where is <fill in the blank> when you need it?''  A lot of times that blank is filled with the name of a SysInternals utility like Process Explorer or TCPView.  Well never utter those words again thanks to http://live.sysinternals.com :)  Here you will find a list of all the SysInternals tools ...

I posted a few weeks ago about some Vista Springboard. Continuing that series of posts, I wanted to talk about the first part of Springboard program which is: Discover. Now I'm sure many of you have already ''Discovered'' Vista, I thought I had too, but the great thing about the springboard site is it concentrates a great deal of information into ...

Windows Vista Springboard is a micro site on the Microsoft Web site dedicated to helping IT Pros get Vista deployed into their environments. Now before going any further with regards to Vista Springboard, I want to say that I am a strong supporter of Windows Vista. Their are some big benefits, and some big steps forward with Vista. The most ...

The other day I posted a tip on how to enable the Network Access Protection client on XP SP3.  The client is also built into Vista (RTM and SP1) and is a little easier to configure.  Although the same command line from the XP SP3 config can be used, there is a MMC console as well. Again before we configure the client we must set the ...

With the recent launch of Windows Server 2008 you are no doubt spending all your free time playing around with everything new.  One thing you might be playing around with is Network Access Protection.  There is a great document on getting a DHCP based NAP lab set up but one thing the document is missing is how to configure the NAP client ...

You have probably heard this bit of news already but in case you haven't we thought we'd share it with you.  Vista SP1 and Server 2008 were both released to manufacturing today and will become available in the near future.  That is unless you have a TechNet or MSDN subscription in which case you can start downloading now ...

As you may know, BitLocker Drive Encryption only encrypts the C:\ drive.  If you have additional drives in your PC, or use an external USB hard drive with your notebook, you can't encrypt that drive with BDE.  Officially that is :) While Vista SP1 will bring support for encrypting the other volumes in your system you can do it today ...

We've done a few post on BitLocker around some of the more advanced features and controls.  The one thing we haven't touched yet is just how easy it is to encrypt your drive with BitLocker.  Before we get started on the procedure a little review of the options you can choose is in order. TPM Only - This is the easiest to deploy and ...

We have gone over the GPO settings for BitLocker recently and now we are going to cover the actual configuration of BitLocker on the computer itself.  There are two ways, the GUI way, or the CLI way.  Today we will focus on the CLI method.  There is one command that allows you to manage BitLocker via the CLI and that is ...