In all honesty, this was a pretty weak choice - you all know which version you need despite Microsoft's attempts to complicate the matter.  But we couldn't really leave Vista out of a 2007 technology related list, so here's our advice :

If you're a volume license junkie, Vista Enterprise is the choice for you.

If not, Vista Business is where it's at!

     

The command line is far from dead, despite Microsoft's Windows 95 protestations and as every good admin knows often the keyboard is quicker than the mouse!  So here we suggest 4 command line utilities that we don't think get the publicity they deserve.

• Telnet - the troubleshooting tool par excellence if you have SMTP problems.
• Netstat - gives you the low-down on what's happening in the network stack.
• Runas - another reason you don't have to run as an Administrator to get the job done.
• Pathping - if you have intermittent network issues, pathping is your friend.

     

If you're in the market for x86 workstation virtualization products, commercially at least, there are 3 main players.  Microsoft, previously Connectix, Virtual PC2007, VMware Workstation 6 and Parallels Workstation 2.2.

Virtual PC 2007 has one obvious advantage over the other two products, price! Being free certainly makes for a tempting offering, and indeed does make it a pain-free way to dip you toe into the virtualization pond. However, there is a price to be paid in terms of development and functionality. Since Microsoft's aquision of the product from Connectix, I don't think anyone would argue that development progress has slowed. Indeed my opinion is that Microsoft's purchase was a technology aquision rather than a product one.  If your primary use for virtualization is testing Microsoft products, VPC is ideal.  For more on Virtual PC, why not visit the Virtual PC Guy blog.

VMware Workstation has been around long enough to have achieved a good deal of maturity.  Historically it was differentiated from VPC as VMware's angle was to produce a product which optimally virtualized a chosen set of operating systems, whereas Connectix chose to produce a purer x86 emulation.  Over time I have personally owned (and here I mean spent my own cash!) both VMware Workstation and Virtual PC.  VMware Workstation improves upon VPC's differencing disks with their implimentation of snapshots which are a very powerful feature and especially useful for running "what-if" scenarios on software configurations.  VMware's ability create a virtual machine from an existing physical machine is a feature I've found particuarly useful.  So if you need richer, more feature-laden environment for your testing then VMware is the way to go.

Parallels Workstation is very much in 3rd place at this stage.  It's considerably cheaper than VMware Workstation and appropriately less feature rich.  If you're tempted by this mid range solution, you can try out the demo before commiting your hard earned cash.

     

Before deploying a new server, even a shiny new example from a tier 1 manufacturer, testing is still required. It’s far better to shakedown a server before deployment, than have your users do the testing for you!

While there are many tools available, I find Prime95 particularly useful. Not only does it do a thorough job of stress testing the processor, you’ll need however to run a separate instance for each core, but it has the handy side effect of giving other hardware areas a workout too.

     

Active Directory management and maintenance has become one of the core tasks in administering a Windows network. Even in a smaller organization where AD use may not be all encompassing, ensuring the health of you AD is still critical.

Possibly most important of all, the age-old mantra – check your backups.  While you may not have spare servers lying around to test your restores, the current state of virtualization makes this task somewhat less arduous.

Probably the most common Active Directory troubleshooting task you’ll perform relates to Group Policy Objects (GPO’s).

1. Use GPUPDATE.EXE to ensure the machine is getting the latest group policy settings.
2. Test using GPRESULT.EXE to show which policies are actually being applied to a machine. This is often very useful in narrowing down your search to a few policies that may be the culprit.
3. Check the event log for messages with the event source "SceCli" as these often give additional clues to your problem.

Finally don't forget, Microsoft provides a plethora of resources at their Active Directory site.

     

Why not join us for hints & tips to educate, enlighten and inform throughout the holiday season.