Microsoft TechNet helps IT pros get the most out of Microsoft technologies by allowing them to explore and evaluate products and services that can help reduce costs and bring value to their organization. Here's a sampling of important technologies that IT pros need to know to keep their skills up to date and their company on the road to profitability.
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 can maximize existing investments and help people accomplish more by bringing server capabilities to everyone through familiar and intuitive applications. Office Professional Plus 2010 provides smart, simple, time-saving tools to help everyone do more with less.
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In this webcast, Kevin Remde and his guests discuss the productivity tools that business users expect in a connected world and explain why IT professionals need to provide solutions across the computer, phone, and browser to facilitate work in more places. Office 2010 is a tool designed to fit user demands while providing an easy, powerful productivity experience. ( Or you can listen to the podcast.)
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Office
Windows Phone is an important tool for personal productivity and collaboration. Windows Phone 7 will be taking this to the next level. In this session, learn what's new in Office Mobile, how it integrates with SharePoint Server and how to create the highest impact for users. This session also presents the new functionality that is available with Exchange Server 2010 in combination with Windows Phone and offers deployment guidance.
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A growing number of employees are using their smartphones for business purposes. This makes planning secure access to email, documents, and applications a mission critical job for IT. Learn how Forefront Unified Access Gateway makes accessing email and documents from Windows Phones secure. This session presents the top things you can do to improve the security of your Windows Phone deployment, including deploying ActiveSync with Microsoft Exchange Server, providing secure remote access to Microsoft SharePoint, planning and publishing line-of-business applications, to take advantage of this evolution. Take full advantage of your IT investment in Exchange Server and SharePoint. This session covers architecture, deployment best practices, application publishing and traffic filtering for better protection of information.
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SharePoint 2010 enables robust business collaboration for the enterprise and the Web by offering a fuller breadth of capabilities and new enterprise-class management tools.
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Listen as Kevin Remde and his guests discuss the productivity tools that business users expect in a connected world and explain why IT professionals need to provide solutions across the computer, phone, and browser to facilitate work in more places. Office 2010 is a tool designed to fit user demands while providing an easy, powerful productivity experience.
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In this episode of TechNet Radio, we continue our Visio feature series presented by Mr. David A. Edson, M. Arch., MCP, Visio MVP, an original Visio Corporation Senior Technical Evangelist and current CTO with Visibility.biz, a Gold Certified Visio Partner. In this session, David will discuss the new Visio Publishing technologies, specifically the Visio 2010 Visio Services.
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Part of the SharePoint Administration Toolkit from Microsoft, the SharePoint Diagnostic (SPDiag) tool provides a wealth of information of all kinds across the entire server farm, offering both static and trend analysis and reporting as well as real-time diagnostics and details to assist in analysis, planning and problem avoidance and resolution.
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Part of the SharePoint Administration Toolkit from Microsoft, the Permission Reporting Tool provides various components to help better understand how security is being derived and applied across and within sites, lists and item. The tool includes three components - the Compare Permissions Sets function, the Check Effective Permissions function and the Broken Inheritance Reports function.
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A Web site's information architecture determines how the information in that site its Web pages, documents, lists, and data is organized and presented to the site's users. Information architecture is often recorded as a hierarchical list of site content, search keywords, data types, and other concepts. This article provides some guidance on how to analyze the information requirements of your Internet or intranet site.
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Microsoft SharePoint helps users solve their most pressing information management needs. This article describes the typical characteristics and best practices for publishing portals based on Office SharePoint Server 2007.
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Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering, shows how Windows Phone will excite business end-users and enable rich applications that run on PC, Web, and phone. He covers all aspects of Windows Phone 7, highlights the use of Windows Phone in key work scenarios, discusses IT capabilities to support these, and illustrates the rich development platform for applications run across PC, Web, and phone.
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Enterprise 2.0 is big, getting bigger, and is no place for laggards; not in today's global business arena where knowledge is power and the water cooler might be 1,000 miles away. Microsoft SharePoint provides companies with rich features for social computing and a solid foundation for Enterprise 2.0.
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Get the low-down on what's in Office 2010 for IT Pros, along with demos of some new features, and explore the business justifications to upgrade to Office 2010.
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In this webcast, Kevin Remde and his guests discuss the productivity tools that business users expect in a connected world and explain why IT professionals need to provide solutions across the computer, phone, and browser to facilitate work in more places.
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In this webcast, we discuss the features of Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 that are relevant to the network administrator, including codecs, quality monitoring, quality of service (QoS), and virtual local area network (VLAN) support. Discover how large enterprises have used these features, along with network right-provisioning and bandwidth planning, for their own successful OCS deployments, and learn how to apply these techniques to your enterprise network.
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Do you want to know the architecture behind the voice features in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, and what it would take to deploy the product? In this webcast, we present the deployment scenarios for enterprise voice functionality, including sizing and topology considerations, call routing and management, and interoperability with existing telephony infrastructure.
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It's important to document your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 capacity planning strategy as early as possible in the planning process, and then refine it as the project continues. Early planning can significantly reduce your risk of discovering that you have underestimated your hardware needs after the deployment has already started.
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If you have been running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and have decided that you need the functionality of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can upgrade from Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to Office SharePoint Server 2007. We'll show you how.
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Cloud Computing
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite is a set of messaging and collaboration solutions hosted by Microsoft, and consists of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online. Register for a free 30-day trial.
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Attend this webcast to learn how Windows Azure can help your business adjust to changing conditions, innovate, and stay competitive in the market. By taking advantage of a combination of on-premises resources and cloud services, you can deliver services and solutions to customers quicker and throttle resources on demand.
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The current focus on education and accountability from district to state and to the national level calls for new solutions that allow collaboration, deep reporting capabilities, and secure access. The cloud is the ideal platform for building such solutions. Join Patrick McDermott, IT Director of the San Juan School District in Utah, which is using Windows Azure to help education become more accountable and provide better services to students, parents, teachers, administrators, and the state and federal governments.
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In this first video in the four-part Real World Azure series, Joey and Brian keep it light as they fill in the vocabulary, describe what SaaS, Software plus Services, and cloud computing are, and point out types of applications that are best-suited for the cloud.
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With Windows Azure, IT Pros have to deploy applications and manage their health, predict and manage demand for applications, and make sure data is backed up and secure. This installment describes the Windows Azure Platform Application Fabric and touches on SQL Azure, storage elements, blobs, queues, and tables.
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Learn to identify applications that can move to the cloud and get a look at some real-world cloud computing business scenarios.
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It's time to bring up the big concerns: trust, risk, losing control, legalities, compliance. and Sarbanes Oxley. Also learn what is in-place for Windows Azure in terms of physical security, information security, management and standard security audits.
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Doug Cavit, Chief Security Strategist at Microsoft, provides great, high-level insights into what you should be thinking about when evaluating the trust of various cloud providers.
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Learn to manage Azure deployments, delve into using the Azure Diagnostics assemblies, and manage SQL Azure firewall rules in these helpful online videos.
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Does "cloud" mean Web-based applications, Web-hosted services, centralized server farms and data centers, or platforms for developing and running scalable applications? In reality, the cloud can be all of these things and more. So what is the Microsoft view of cloud computing? And what does it mean to the IT leaders within large enterprises? Attend this webcast to learn about Microsoft in the cloud.
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Microsoft cloud services is a new model for business computing offering greater financial flexibility in how to fund IT resources. When the need for on-premises IT resources is reduced, the maintenance and operational overhead is also reduced, including hardware and facility expenses. At the same time, the IT organization can simplify and accelerate application updates and deployment. Attend this webcast to learn how cloud computing with Microsoft can lower cost of ownership.
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WinClient
In this video, Matt Hester demonstrates Internet Explorer 8's Web Slices -- a technology that allow users to subscribe to snippets of any page and view them by using the Favorites toolbar. The video will show how to create and use Web Slices.
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This demonstration shows how to capture a custom Windows system image using the System Preparation Tool (sysprep) to generalize the installed image and ImageX to capture the contents of the generalized system image for re-deployment to other computers - including different hardware types.
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This demonstration shows the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) command line tool and how it can be used to audit and manage offline Windows System Images.
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Looking for guidance specific to Windows 7 deployment? Check out what the industry's leading experts have to say in this free Microsoft Press eBook. Sample topics include: deployment platform, planning deployment, testing application compatibility, and eight common issues in Windows 7 migrations.
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Attend this webcast to learn more about the application compatibility changes in Windows 7 and how to get your application portfolio ready for an operating system migration from a Windows XP environment to Windows 7. Get the answers and tools that can make your migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 straightforward using a WORKGROUP. We also discuss stand-alone migrations using standard methodologies and the tools that are needed. Learn how the User State Migration Tool (USMT) in the Automated Installation Toolkit (AIK) has everything you need to get the migration going and smoothly deploy Windows.
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How has Windows evolved, as a general purpose operating system and at the lowest levels, in Windows 7? Who better to talk to than Technical Fellow and Windows Kernel guru Mark Russinovich? Here, Mark enlightens us on the new kernel constructs in Windows 7 (and, yeah, we do wander up into user mode, but only briefly).
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Explore Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM), a new command-line tool for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. DISM consolidates the core image management functions of multiple tools found in the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) and enables IT professionals to view components of an applied or mounted operating system image and add or remove packages, software updates, and drivers.
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The Problem Steps Recorder in the Windows 7 operating system is a feature that enables users to record their interactions with an application and provide a detailed screen-by-screen view with accompanying information. Learn how the recording can be used to quickly identify problems and help reduce time spent with the help desk.
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The User State Migration Tool (USMT) for Windows 7 is now part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) and provides fast and flexible options to migrate user profiles and data from one operating system to another. Explore how the new Hard-Link Migration feature highlighted in his demonstration can dramatically reduce migration time for in-place operating system migration or computer refresh scenarios.
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This command line demonstration explains how to build a bootable Windows 7 VHD image from a Windows 7 "install.wim" file using diskpart.exe and imagex.exe. The demonstration continues with an explanation of how to configure the boot entry using bcdedit.exe and explains the limitations of VHD Boot. See the Windows 7 VHD Overview page for more information about this technology.
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Microsoft is committed to maximizing compatibility for applications that work with Windows Vista running on Windows 7. Much of the work done to remediate applications in Windows Vista will carry over to Windows 7 due to the underlying similarity of the two operating systems. This demonstration shows how creating compatibility fixes for an incompatible application running in Windows Vista can be used on a Windows 7-based computer.
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Building on the technologies introduced in the Windows Vista® operating system, Windows 7 streamlines desktop deployment. Technologies within Windows 7 improve application compatibility, for example, and new tools in Windows 7 allow IT professionals to reduce the evaluation and readiness cycle.
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Silverlight offers the fastest, highest quality Web experiences, for animation, HD video, vector, and 3D graphics. It features multi-thread support, simple integration with existing Web technologies and assets such as ASP.NET and SharePoint, and it works across every major OS and all major browsers.
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This demonstration shows how the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit is used to create deployment media to install Windows 7. The process includes migration of user files and settings, automated installation of the Windows 7 operating system, automated installation custom applications and performing additional configurations needed when migrating from Windows XP or Windows Vista to Windows 7.
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This demonstration shows the migration experience from Windows XP to Windows 7 using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. We will show how user files and settings are migrated quickly using hard-links, applications can be installed and customized according to user roles, and Windows 7 is installed and configured with minimal up-front initiation from the IT administrator.
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Internet Explorer 8 is more productive thanks to improved performance and reliability; it features better security; offers granular management; is easy to deploy; and easy to migrate.
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Join Kevin Remde, Sr. IT Professional Evangelist in US and Venky Chandrasekharan, Product Manager as part of Windows 7 team in US Subsidiary, as they address how the Windows 7 operating system could add more value to your organization. In this webcast, Kevin and his guests discuss the improvements in Windows 7 that can reduce the total cost of ownership by helping to increase automation, improve user productivity, and provide flexible administrative control to meet compliance requirements.
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Microsoft has continued its investment in security by adding new technologies to Windows 7 as well as enhancing many of the technologies introduced in Windows Vista. This provides an overview of the new security features and enhancements you'll find in Windows 7.
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DirectAccess enables remote users to access the corporate network anytime they have an Internet connection, without the extra step of initiating a virtual private networking (VPN) connection. Find out how to use DirectAccess to provide a more secure and flexible corporate network infrastructure in which computers on and off the network can remain healthy, managed, and updated.
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The introduction of BranchCache in Windows 7 is the next step to improving end user productivity in branch offices. BranchCache caches content from remote file and Web servers in the branch location so that users can more quickly access this information. The cache can be hosted centrally on a server in the branch location, or can be distributed across user PCs.
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UAC was introduced in Windows Vista to help increase security and improve total cost of ownership by enabling the operating system to be deployed without administrative privileges. See how Windows 7 continues the investment in UAC with changes that enhance the user experience and put users in greater control of their prompting experience.
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AppLocker is a new feature in Windows7 that allows you to manage what applications are allowed to run on a managed machine with multiple techniques, including white listing and black listing applications. It goes way beyond what is available today using Software Restriction Policies.
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The Windows Troubleshooting Platform can reduce calls to the help desk by diagnosing and resolving common issues, and by providing built-in troubleshooters for several different types of problems including audio, video, and networking. Learn how to develop custom Windows Troubleshooting Packs using Windows PowerShell to help resolve issues commonly encountered in your environment.
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Learn how to use the User State Migration Tool (USMT) to migrate user files and settings from Windows XP to Windows 7 using a default installation.
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Explore how Windows PowerShell 2.0 can help increase the productivity of IT professionals by providing a powerful, complete scripting language to automate repetitive tasks and conduct remote troubleshooting. It delivers a growing set of cmdlets that can be used to manage Windows based PCs and servers, and it can be easily extended.
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AppLocker provides the flexibility to allow users to run the applications, installation programs, and scripts they need to be productive. Learn how you can realize the security, operational, and compliance benefits of application standardization by using AppLocker.
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Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 builds on the award-winning foundation of Windows Server 2008, helping you achieve new levels of reliability and performance with new virtualization tools, Web resources, management enhancements, and Windows 7 integration. These features help save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and efficiently managed datacenter.
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Watch Joey Snow chat with Scott Rosenbloom , a Senior Product Manager in the Windows Server team, as they discuss how Windows Server 2008 R2 can support the very same, critical workloads for which mainframes have typically have been "go to" platforms. Scott shares some really cool customer stories and scenarios in addition to his experience in this space. Check it out!
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Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new feature called Active Directory Recycle Bin, which will give you an additional 180 days before the object is thumstoned through the regular relations process. If you delete a user by accident, you can recover it.
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Matt Hester, Sr. IT Professional Evangelist from Microsoft, looks at the tools that can help you as an Administrator in Windows Server 2008 R2, including a couple of enhancements Inside Windows Server Core.
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Gordon Ryan shows you how you can configure BranchCache in Hosted mode to offer clients improved access times while consuming less bandwidth on those congested WAN links.
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Gordon Ryan checks in with a very cool screencast highlighting some of the new backup features that arrive with the RC version of Windows Server 2008 R2 including the ability to backup System State as a separate job, the ability to do incremental System State backups, and the ability to exclude specific file types, file folders, and specific files.
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This screencast discusses and demonstrates new Active Directory functionality that comes with Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory Domain Services. It demonstrates the configuration of the "Recycle Bin" feature, and how to restore deleted objects that had been mistakenly deleted.
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Windows Server 2008 R2 isn't a completely new release, but rather adds additional features and refinements to the existing release. This eBook focuses on the new features and refinements in R2. It assumes you have at least a general knowledge of Windows Server, and that you have some familiarity with Windows Server 2008, although it doesn't assume you're actively running Windows Server 2008.
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This poster provides a visual reference for understanding key technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2. It focuses on Active Directory Domain Services, Hyper-V, Internet Information Services, Remote Desktop Services (including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure [VDI]), BranchCache, and DirectAccess technologies.
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This screencast walks you through two ways that a Live Migration can be initiated against Hyper-V-based virtual machines running on high availability clustered Hyper-V hosts.
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In this screencast we use PowerShell 2.0 (which will be a part of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7) to do some remote administration using the new "Remoting" functionality.
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In this screencast, we discuss and demonstrate how to set up the capability to boot from a VHD file running either Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
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Virtualization
One focus of MED-V V1 SP1 is to expand support platforms to include Windows 7 (x86 and x64) as a host. This screencast demonstrates running a MED-V workspace using a V1 SP1 client in the Windows 7 environment.
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Desktop Virtualization is the process of separating, or more precisely isolating, out the individual components of a PC and managing each one separately. By isolating these components, you can then abstract and virtualize the computing resources.
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Virtualization raises certain unique security requirements and provides some interesting security capabilities as well. Watch this video as Steve Riley, Senior Security Strategist with Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Initiative, explores the interesting aspects of virtualization and security.
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Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 provides centralized administration and management of your virtual environment, helps to increase physical server utilization, and enables rapid provisioning of new virtual machines by the VMM administrator and authorized self-service end users.
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The concept of VDI is to store and run desktop workloads including a Windows client operating system, applications, and data in a server-based virtual machine (VM) in a data center and allow a user to interact with the desktop presented onto a user device via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). VDI is part of an enterprises cohesive, holistic virtualization strategy across the IT infrastructure.
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This article looks at a toolset that can help you with your virtualization projects the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP), which is a member of the Microsoft Solution Accelerators family. MAP 3.1 is a network-wide infrastructure assessment tool designed to help you quickly gain a baseline understanding of your servers and desktops, including whether they are ready for upgrade or migration to technologies such as Hyper-V, Microsoft Application Virtualization, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Office 2007, and SQL Server.
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The consolidation of servers onto fewer physical machines has huge advantages in resource and cost savings, but two key factors need to be considered during the planning process. Users have increasing expectations regarding the availability of their software, including both line-of-business applications and tools such as messaging and collaboration platforms. Furthermore, problems or failure on servers can have a significantly greater impact on operations.
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Security
You may have already heard about the Secure Messaging, Secure Endpoint, Secure Collaboration, Identity and Access Management, and Information Protection solutions which are a part of Microsoft Forefront's Business Ready Security. Now, you can dive deep into the new Forefront products which are a part of those solutions. Hear from the product team and watch amazing technical demos on FEP, FSSMC + Script Kit, FIM, TMG, UAG, FPSP, FPE, FOPE, and ADRMS + Exchange.
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Part 6 of this virtual even discusses Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange by giving a brief overview of the product then dives into AntiSpam, Monitoring, Filtering, Administration, Anti-malware.
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This report provides an in-depth perspective on malicious and potentially unwanted software, software exploits, security breaches and software vulnerabilities--both in Microsoft software and in third-party software. (PDF)
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Many organizations learn how to respond to security incidents only after suffering attacks. By this time, incidents often become much more costly than needed. Proper incident response should be an integral part of your overall security policy and risk mitigation strategy. Learn a recommended process and procedures to use when responding to intrusions identified in a small- to medium-based (SMB) network environment.
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Part 10 of this virtual even discusses Forefront Identity Manager 2010 by giving a brief overview of the product then dives into User and Group Management, Password Reset, and Policy Management workflow.
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After the very long Patch Management article last month, this month's article is much shorter and to the point. Let's just say you did not install the patches like we discussed last month. Now you got hacked. What to do?
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The regulatory environment is increasingly complex. Compliance is often not a simple process, and regulations vary in the specificity of their requirements. An organization must, therefore, conduct a full assessment of risks and impacts. This article describes some of the processes and technologies that you can use to help standardize and streamline regulatory compliance efforts in the area of e-mail confidentiality.
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Exchange Server 2010
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 helps organizations communicate effectively with a simplified, unified framework that helps them lower their costs and enhance business productivity. This Learning Snack explains how mailbox availability is achieved in Exchange server 2010 and how the new and improved age features help organizations manage their Exchange environment better.
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Many organizations are now adopting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to take advantage of the enhanced unified messaging feature. Unified messaging provides users with flexible and powerful new ways of accessing information and increasing productivity. This Learning Snack explains how unified messaging works and also describes its architecture. In addition, it describes the voice mail integration feature of Exchange Server 2010.
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SQL Server
Discuss SQL Server and data management with Andrew Fryer, an IT Evangelist at Microsoft, specializing in Data Management.
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In this video, Jacques Victor explains how to Design High Performance Cubes in SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services. The benefit of building a cube to house data is that business rules can be centralized for calculations that can't easily be stored in a relational data mart.
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In this video, Ty Anderson shows how to use T-SQL to convert a table that is self-referencing table for hierarchy purposes into a table that utilized the new Hierarchical data type.
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Consider SQL Server 2008 Enterprise to efficiently manage your business-critical applications. Do the math on SQL Server value and you'll see the efficiencies add up.
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This paper provides an overview of the Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight platform for complex event processing. StreamInsight allows software developers to create complex and innovative CEP solutions along two scenarios: (1) building packaged event-driven applications for low latency processing and (2) developing custom event-driven applications for businesses with high throughput, low latency needs.
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WinClient
Deploying Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
