One of the things I do all the time in XP, 2000, and 2003 is use the RunAs command. It comes in handy when you are running as a limited user, and need to fire up a process as an administrator.

Here is the typical command line sequence

c:> Runas /user:intelliadmin\administrator notepad.exe
Enter the password for intelliadmin\administrator: *********
Attempting to start notepad.exe for user intelliadmin\administrator

Then notepad launches under my administrator account, instead of the current user.

This works great under those operating systems. I can run as a limited user, and when I want I can launch a command line window, or any other program as an administrator.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work the same in Vista. Yes - the RunAs command works perfectly fine. But because of the way UAC works it does not give me full administrative access. Why? Because when I launch another process as an administrator it still needs to be elevated.

If you have not used Vista yet I will explain. All users by default (Even administrators) run as a limited user. When windows detects that you need a higher level of access you are prompted like this:

That way you know, and have a choice when an application has administrative access - even when running as an administrator. The problem is that this prompt will only show if the program is Vista aware, or Vista detects that it is needed. Sometimes it is impossible for Vista to detect this. Why? How could it possibly know that you want to launch notepad so you can edit a file within the windows directory?

It can’t - and I was looking for something that would let me tell Vista from the command line that I wanted to be prompted. Microsoft Technet has an excellent article, and a powertoy (at the top) that lets you do exactly that.

It is simple to use. Once downloaded you can call it like this:

Now I can easily elevate from the command line and get administrative access when I need it.

• TVTonic brings QuickTime support to Windows Vista Media Center
  Now you can watch podcasts and the like through Media Center.
  (tags: Media Center QuickTime )
• Windows Vista SP1 Beta invitations have been issued
  Apparently some that applied are receiving notices of their approval for a beta release of SP1.
  (tags: SP1 Beta )

Windows Vista SP1 will soon be released as a limited beta. It is an update to Windows Vista that addresses feedback from our customers. In addition to previously released updates, SP1 will contain changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. SP1 also addresses some management, deployment, and support challenges.

Microsoft TechNet has made available some good materials to help you prepare for Windows Vista SP1.

If you have not had a chance to take a look at these materials - please visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb738089.aspx

News Source: blogs.technet.com

Microsoft next week plans to issue its first Windows Server 2008 release candidate, a near-final version of its operating system, a senior executive at the software company said Thursday.

“We expect the release candidate next week,” said Mike Neil, Microsoft’s general manager of virtualization, in an appearance during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here.
The release candidate will include a test version of software code-named Viridian and formally called Windows Server virtualization. This “hypervisor” allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously, a useful technology in improving server efficiency and eventually leading toward more flexible data center operations.

Neil showed a server running virtual machines on Viridian, one the bare-bones “reduced-footprint” version of Windows Server 2008 and another Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Server. The software can take advantage of the horsepower of a four-processor Xeon system, Neil said.

Microsoft hasn’t had a smooth time delivering either software to the market. In May, Microsoft stripped out several significant Viridian components from the first version of the technology, and in August, it delayed Windows Server 2008’s release to manufacturers from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008.

Viridian is scheduled to ship in final form within 180 days of the final version of Windows Server 2008.

News Source: www.news.com

When I tried to install windows vista on my computer, the first decision I had to take was to partition the hard disk. I started looking for software on the Internet that can resize existing disk partition. I found some free software but none of them looked convincing enough to install and try on my computer. So I just decided to go on and install Windows Vista anyway. I had two partitions on my computer. The first partition was the C drive which had windows XP installed on it and the other partition was D drive which had all my data. There was no way I can install Windows Vista on C drive. So, I installed Windows Vista on D drive. After installing Windows Vista I went to the computer manager by right cliking on the “computer” icon and selecting and “Manage”. There you will find the Disk Management option. From there, select the D drive and choose “Shrink”. It will shrink the parition to all available space. This will take a long time to complete without any notification. So, don’t think Vista has hung. Let it finish and you will find D has been shrunk and there’s a new parition. (more…)

computer manager, disk defragmentation, disk management, disk partition, free software, hard disk, installed windows, installing windows, partitions, vista, Windows, windows xp

Before we start talking about ABE in Windows Server 2008 I would like to set the stage and explain very briefly what ABE does.

ABE filters shared folders visible to a user based on that individual user’s access rights, preventing the display of folders or other shared resources that the user does not have rights to access.

End users see only what files and folders they need for their responsibilities rather than spending time looking through lists of inaccessible folders and files. Administrators can be more productive because they do not have to help less-skilled users navigate through dense shared folders. Administrative inefficiencies can consume resources as surely as technical problems, and minimizing time-consuming problems help make any IT organization more productive.

Check out the details for Windows Server 2003 ABE: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/abe.mspxNow the good news is yes we still have ABE in Windows Server 2008 and we have a GUI where you can enable this. Let me explain to you how you do it:

1. Open the “Share and Storage Management” MMC and Provision a new share.

2. Follow all steps to create a share and when are at the SMB Settings window, which is shown below, click on the Advanced button.

3. In the Advanced window you are able to Enable or Disable ABE, by default it’s enabled.

So basically you don’t have to do anything to enable ABE on you shares. The screenshots above show you how you can create/provision a new share using the GUI. The ABE is also enabled if you create the share through the folder directly by right clicking onto the folder and select share. However if you create a share through the command prompt using the “net share” command it won’t be enabled by default.

You can always enable / disable the ABE after you created the share by using the “Share and Storage Management” MMC just right click onto a share and hit the advanced button. So far I didn’t found any cmd-line tool to enable or disable ABE.

News Source: blogs.technet.com