Unfortunately I was unable to make TechEd this year. Today marks the start of a highly eventful week at our yearly conference for IT professionals. Roughly 10,000 attendees will gather at Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FLA.

This year at TechEd we are launching the new unified Windows Client TechCenter. The new TechCenter is now the official new home to the Springboard Series of online resources (www.microsoft.com/springboard). This is a critical component of the Windows Vista deployment and management story. With Windows Vista we built a number of capabilities into the product itself, as well as number of tools to prepare for implementation. The piece that's been missing is structured guidance along adoption path that helps IT Professionals learn how new features and capabilities can assist common tasks and also how to pre-empt and address key challenges upfront... We're aiming to deliver this final piece through the new Windows Client TechCenter, which shares candid best practices from real-world experiences. For instance, check out Springboard Series articles such as Five Windows Vista adoption "Gotchas" and how to get beyond them. The new site offers a consolidated repository of resources across the adoption lifecycle, new troubleshooting zones

...

Nicholas Rayner pointed out (via Twitter linking back to his blog) a new article available for download on Microsoft.com looking at 5 misunderstood features in Windows Vista today.

Download: 5 Misunderstood Features in Windows Vista

Those 5 misunderstood features include:

• User Account Control (UAC)
• Image Management
• Display Driver Model
• Windows Search
• 64-bit architecture

The article looks to clear up some confusion IT Pros might have with these features. This article is part of the Springboard Series on TechNet offering a collection of resources, tools, and monthly articles to address your questions on Windows Vista based on community feedback and feedback from early adopters.

We blogged about a Springboard Series Live Roundtable event in February in which Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich took part of addressing Windows Vista Deployment and Adoption. You can watch the recording of the session here.

Thanks Nick (a.k.a "aussienick") for pointing this out!

Welcome to "The Quest for the Holy Desktop WMI Filter”, this is a global search for what you could call "The Perfect Desktop WMI Filter". A WMI filter which, by using WMI Query Language (WQL), should be able to spot DESKTOP computers only. It should be a general query - meaning it should be possible to use the filter in most Active Directory environments around the globe for Group Policy filtering.

So, what is a desktop really? Well, actually in this case we'll say it's the opposite of a laptop. Hmm, then what is a laptop? Easy enough: a computer with a battery! We've got the WMI filter for finding laptops already:

Select * from Win32_Battery  - don't you just love the simplicity in this query?

This filter will make a computer with a battery respond back with "TRUE" (because the WMI class instance is present), meaning a GPO with this filter will apply to computers with batteries. Simple right? And you might think it's easy to just "turn it around" to find desktops, like:

Select * From Win32_Battery Where Availability != 2
  or
Select

...

So, you are in the mood for studying Group Policy? In the lack of GGPI, I know the feeling.

And you got tired of reading my GP stuff here:
http://www.windowsecurity.com/Jakob_H_Heidelberg :-)

I’ll recommend you to go for these sites then:
http://blogs.technet.com/grouppolicy
http://www.gpanswers.com
http://www.gpoguy.com

That’s where everything starts…

Enjoy!

.

From the Vista Team blog:
Today we’re making available the release candidate (RC) of Windows Vista SP1 via Microsoft Connect, and tomorrow subscribers to TechNet and MDSN will have access to those RC bits too. In addition, the RC will be available to the public next week via Microsoft’s Download Center.

Check out the Vista Team blog here!

 

Go get it!

/Jakob

It’s so exciting - Windows Server 2008 RC0 is out there and ready to be downloaded!

Read the team blog here:
http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/

Download CTP here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/audsel.mspx

.. og go get it from Technet (if you are a subscriber).

_