Category: Windows


Windows 8 will run on all Windows 7 PCs and Vista PCs too | ZDNet

Filed Under: Hardware, Microsoft, Windows 8 by William — 2 Comments
July 12, 2011

The Microsoft Partner Conference is always a good source of information.  This makes things intriguing for Win8.  If it truly runs on vista class machines then it’ll run on my 5 year old notebook(which currently run win7) just fine.

 

Worried that you’ll have to buy a new PC in order to be able to run Windows 8? Don’t! Microsoft has said that the Windows 8 system requirements will be the same, or perhaps even lower, than those of Windows 7.Speaking at the 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference, Tami Reller, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Windows division, had this to say:“In both of our Windows 8 previews, we talked about continuing with the important trend that we started with Windows 7, keeping system requirements either flat or reducing them over time. Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same requirements or lower.”So if Windows 8 has the same system requirements that Windows 7 had, that should mean that Windows 8 will also run on systems that currently have Windows Vista installed on them.As a reminder, here are the Windows 7 system requirements:1GHz CPU1GB RAM 32-bit or 2GB RAM 64-bit16 GB hard disk space 32-bit or 20 GB 64-bitDirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

via Windows 8 will run on all Windows 7 PCs and Vista PCs too | ZDNet.

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I Had This One Right

Filed Under: Microsoft, Server 8, Windows, Windows 8 by William — Leave a comment
May 23, 2011

I had some folks I know telling me MS wasn’t going to release Win8 in 2012.  Everything I have seen though form public to ms partner materials has strongly hinted at 2012 for the next windows stack..server 8 windows8.  Most likely office 2012 as well.  Right from the MS CEO:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsofts-ballmer-says-next-gen-windows-systems-due-in-2012/9515

so what do you do if you are on anything form xp on up?  wait to upgrade until windows 8 comes out…or for my clients wait for me to test the betas and give you an idea of the hardware requirements…which i will do as soon as the partners betas get released.

 

Microsoft’s Ballmer says next-gen Windows systems due in 2012 | ZDNet.

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Stuxnet: A Forensic Examination

Filed Under: Internet, Microsoft, Security, Windows by William — 1 Comment
May 23, 2011

Ralph Langner: Cracking Stuxnet, a 21st-century cyber weapon | Video on TED.com.

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Is SBS a Good Idea?

Filed Under: Linux, Microsoft, Open Source, SBS2011, Server 2008, Windows by William — Leave a comment
March 30, 2011

Short Answer: No.

 

Why do I say this?  If you are already running SBS2008 there is no compelling reason to upgrade.  SBS2011 is based upon Server 2008R2.  This version of Windows server goes out of primary support in 2014.  This means the newest SBS server software is based upon what is soon to be an outdated server platform.  Why do I say this?  Server 2008R2 goes out of primary support in June of 2013.  I’m not keen on spending large amounts of money on what is soon to be outdated software.  Sure it has Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010..but that’s really it.  All of that doesn’t matter since the base foundation software goes outside of primary support in 2013.  Sure there’s “extended support” but that’s security updates only.  No bugfixes, no non-security updates..etc etc.  I can’t recommend this package in any of it’s flavors right now especially with server 8 on it way for a likely release in 2012.

What does ECC recommend?  A server running ESXI with one vm running server 2008(or server 8 when it comes out) and in anther vm Zimbra.  Zimbra handles many of the functions of SharePoint/Exchange for an unbeatable price.  Zero.

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SBS 2011 System Requirements

Filed Under: Microsoft, SBS2011, Server 2008, Windows by William — Leave a comment
March 30, 2011

Are unreal.  minimum is 8 gigs and they say they really want 10.  I can say that if you want to deploy the system and have room for usage without having to upgrade the ram very quickly start with 16 gigs of ram.  Hard disk space is very large.  I can tell you right now in term of storage.  SBS 2k8 barely runs well on 7200 RPM SATA in RAID1.  Do not deploy this software on anything less than 10K RPM SATA/SAS in real hardware RAID 1. CPU is Minimum 2.0 ghz quad.  I’m going to say you really want 3.0 ghz quad to leave room for other things that will get installed on that box to support business operations.

 

SBS 2011 System Requirements.

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OH MY GOSH! I CAN GET DOS AND WINDOWS 3.X!

Filed Under: 3.x, DOS, Microsoft, Windows by William — Leave a comment
March 30, 2011

I finally got my Technet access working and i can’t believe this..i can download DOS and windows 3.x.  Needless to say I’ll be downloading these to add to my archives because I have actually run into machines running these operating and i needed the included tools to fix the system.

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Large Spambot Taken Down

Filed Under: Microsoft, Security, Windows by William — Leave a comment
March 18, 2011

Rustock is apparently severely crippled if not dead.  I noticed at least a 30% drop in spam volumes across the networks I manage.  I began looking at feeds, checking other security sites and the rumor was Rustock had been taken down by a concerted effort similar to the one that has crippled Waledac.  Upon returning form recovering a clients hard disk I saw this post from Microsoft talking about the Rustock takedown.  I also found more details about the takedown on Threatpost as well as a podcast on the same site.  Rustock has been one of hte longest lived botnets around. and I’m hoping Rustock is truly crippled or even dead and not set to rise again.

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New ECC Operating System Recommendations

Filed Under: Microsoft, Office, Office 15, Server 2008, Server 8, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 by William — Leave a comment
March 18, 2011

As the software landscape changes and so does technology so does my recommendations for clients.  The biggest one right now is do you buy windows 7/server 2008 now or wait?  ECC is saying to wait unless you absolutely MUST upgrade now.  Why?  2012-2013 Windows 8, Server 2012, and Office 2012/2013 are going to be coming out.  I would not buy anything srver 2008 related right now(that includes the latest versions of SBS as they are based on 2008 R2).  We are three years into the primary support cycles of 2k8 vintage product that means you have two years of primary support for most things 2k8 based.  If you are going to go through the expense of a major upgrade then I would wait.  If you only are using 2k8 for simple AD and file resource sharing 2k8 is most likely going to be a great bet if you have to upgrade now.  If you have further questions feel free to use the contact form at eccmd.com/http://www.emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com/contact-us or call me.

 

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SBS 2008 Roaming Profile Setup

Filed Under: Microsoft, SBS 2008, Server 2008, Windows by William — Leave a comment
March 13, 2011

I just figured out SBS2008 does NOT automatically setup roaming profiles.  This explains why i’m having issues with the desktops not matching when the users roam because the profiles are all local.  Unfortunately one of the users has his hdd die and this spewed corruption into the network portion of his “local” profile.  Now i can get rid of these corrupted profiles.  These are the steps to creating a baseline roaming profile…

 

1. Prepare the roaming user profile

 

-      Log on to a Windows Server 2008 with the domain user account to produce a user profile. Log off the computer.

 

-      Log on to the Windows Server 2008 with a domain administrator account.

 

-      Click Start—>right-click Computer—>Properties—>Advanced System Settings—>Advanced—>User Profiles Settings…—>Settings—>Copy To. Copy the profile to the file server, such as ‘\\filesrv\profiles\username.v2′

 

Note: A “.v2″ suffix to the name of the user profile folder on the file server must be added to distinguish between version 1 and version 2 profiles.

 

-      In Permitted to use, click Change. Type the proper users or groups and then click OK.

 

 

2. Prepare the user Profile path setting

 

-      In the Active Directory Users and Computers, type the profile location such as ‘\\filesrv\profiles\username’ in the user’s Profile path attributes.

 

Note: Do NOT add “.v2″ to the Profile path of the user object. This indicates that for Windows Server 2008 it will load the profile from ‘username.v2′ folder and for former Windows operating systems they will load from ‘username’ folder if it exists.

 

 

 

If you manually create user profile folder, please check the NTFS and share permission on the roaming profile share folder.

 

-      Locate the roaming profile share folder, and check the NTFS permission to make sure that the user, SYSTEM, and administrators have Full Controller permission on their folders and all sub-folder under the roaming profile folder has inherited proper permission.

 

-      Check the share permission to ensure that Everyone has Full Control permission.

 

Please pay attention to the Event logs in Windows Logs—>Application. User Profile Service will log events to show the reason why the roaming profile is not applied.

via SBS 2008 Profile.

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Hold off on SP1 for Windows7/Server 2008 R2

Filed Under: Microsoft, Security, Security Alerts, Server 2008, Windows, Windows 7 by William — Leave a comment
February 24, 2011

There are increasing reports of issues with this service pack.  Despite it not supposedly making any major changes to either OS it seems that may not be the case.  if you are an ECC client or just a user watching the ECC feeds i advise NOT installing this update right now.

 

Windows 7 / 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Problems.

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