Microsoft is reminding users that support for Windows 2000 Server and Client and Windows XP SP2 will be ending July 13, 2010. For small business users, there are several resources available to help you move to a new client and server operating system.
Windows
Microsoft’s Mega Patch Tuesday
Microsoft is gearing up for the release of its largest number of security updates and patches on this Patch Tuesday which will rival the previous highs of 12 security bulletins (February 2007 and October 2008). This release cycle will have 13 and also has eight bulletins that fall into the “critical” category which affects all versions of Windows, including the yet-to-be-released Windows 7. Affected software includes SQL Server, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, several important tools used by developers and the enterprise-grade Forefront Security client software.
Getting Ready for Windows 7
It’s coming and you know it. As Microsoft gets ready to release Windows 7 to the general public, it is very important for small business owners to start thinking of how to migrate to the new OS. Unlike, Windows Vista, there is no reason why enterprises should not start planning for the move now.
Of course, with every new iteration of an Operating System, there comes the headache of application compatibility. Will that legacy application that worked flawlessly in Windows XP be able to deliver in Windows 7? While there seems to be a lot of tolerance for legacy apps built into Windows 7, there could be a few problems along the way.
How to Upgrade Windows 7 from RC to Final
The recent buzz in the technology world has been the upcoming release of the finished build (RTM) of Windows 7. Already, subscribers to Microsoft Technet have been granted access to the final release. But for those who installed the Release Candidate (RC), it will probably come as a shock to find out that there is no direct upgrade … Read more
Securing Windows 7
Windows 7 has been released to the consumer market and small business integrators, administrators and owners should start thinking about their strategy for deployment and how they will go about securing their environment. From our experiences with the beta, release candidate and official release (RTM) versions of Windows 7, I must say we’ve come a long way from the days of using National Security Agency (NSA) templates to harden and secure enterprise computers. Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft started delivering products that were significantly more secure than previous versions out of the box.
In this fast moving internet age, the biggest threats these days come from malicious trojan executables and user laziness. The trojans you can get tricked into allowing into your computer system; the laziness is what happens when users naively lower their default Operating System defenses like disabling the User Account Control (UAC) in Vista and/or Windows 7, turning off automatic patching and deactivating the built-in firewall. The UAC and firewall, by the way, performs the same functions as applications we spend money on with products like Zone Alarm, Norton, McAfee etc. where you get notified if an application is trying to do something fishy.
Active Directory and Morphed Folders
I recently came across a cool tool from Microsoft called Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner which runs more than 100 checks to help you assess the overall health of your Active Directory and network infrastructure, including the configuration of Active Directory Domain Services, DHCP, DNS, Exchange Server, network adapters, and domain controllers. If the tool detects problems, it links to Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and other Web content for resolution information. I got the tool, installed it and ran it against a client’s network and it exposed some issues in the Active Directory and network environment that could create problems during server deployments, infrastructure upgrades and migrations.
A good example of what the tool found is the exposure of what is called “Morphed Folders” in the domain controllers. Microsoft describes morphed folders as “…folders and files that have replicated to other servers and are exact copies of one another. When the File Replication Service (FRS) cannot determine which of two folders is most recent, it creates a duplicate folder. These folders are named FolderName_NTFRS_GUIDname, where FolderName is the name of the original folder and GUIDname represents a unique GUID for the morphed folder.”