A few weeks ago Rodney wrote a great post about the new XP mode in Windows XP. This is based on a new version of Virtual PC. I wanted to take a moment to talk about the new version which was released in beta along with the Windows 7 RC.

First this version of Virtual PC will only work with Windows 7, so earlier versions of Windows will have to stick with Virtual PC 2007.

Second, you can run Windows Vista and windows 7 in a virtual PC, what is really cool is that you can get full Aero glass compatibility in a virtual PC environment after you install the integration features. (notice that in Virtual PC it’s integration features not integration components as it is in Hyper-V) Notice the transparency effect in the screenshot below.

Another change is the integration of the virtual machine interface into Windows Explorer

Some additional things to keep in mind, in order to run Virtual PC for Windows 7 your CPU, chipset and BIOS need to support hardware

Window 7 RC has been out for a few weeks now the TLA team has been busy learning and testing all the great new features. Your tip for today is on Windows 7 App Locker. Many of you know about Software Restriction Policies. They allow you to block the execution of a program by file name or hash calculation. Many of you probably also know how it was a race to block applications in our network with these methods. Users could change the name of the file, or applications updates so frequently that you would constantly need to generate new hash files.

Windows 7 introduces a great new feature called App Locker. App locker works under the premise that it’s easier to allow the applications you want and block the rest. If you’re running a Windows 7 machine you can see App Locker by typing gpedit.msc into your search bar and pressing enter.

You can define policies based on Executables, Windows Installers, and scripts. Creating a new policy is really simple. right click on any of the 3 categories and click new.

You can create a policy

One of the major challenges with moving to a new OS is dealing with older applications.  This was an issue with the release of Windows Vista and in order to mitigate that with Windows 7, Microsoft has released a feature called XP Mode, which runs a Windows XP SP3 virtual machine in the background that can be used to run legacy applications.  What is really interesting is that as a user, you only see a shortcut on the desktop or start menu and interact with the application as you would any other application.  Launch an application and the VM wakes up (by default it hibernates when not in use) and presents the application, close the app and the VM hibernates!

There are two components that need to be installed, Windows Virtual PC which is the successor to Virtual PC 2007, and the XP Mode VM.  Once they are installed there is a simple set up process to turn on Automatic Updates, set a username and password for the XP VM and you are on your way.  The VM can be joined to AD and act as any other domain member.

There are the typical Virtual PC settings such

Oh boy is this a feature designed for lazy admins. When I’m not writing and keeping the site up to date I’m usually onsite working for clients. Often I’m required to have multiple emails accounts active when working with various partners.

Now this isn’t usually a problem except as many know you can’t have multiple exchange accounts open in outlook at the same time. This means that you need to create separate profiles for each Exchange account. This also means that you need to type in a password every time you change profiles. Being that retyping passwords can be a drag on productivity, (fat finger errors and typos) wouldn’t it be great if you could have Windows remember your different accounts associated with your already logged on user account?

In the control panel choose Users Accounts and Family Safety

Then click on Credentials Manager

You can now see credentials that you have already entered in for various sites. If you check “Save Username and Password” in the checkbox the information will be stored here.

Once a credential has been added and

One of the new command tools introduced in Windows Vista was powercfg. Essentially it’s a command line tool that enables users to control power settings. There are a lot of very granular setting that can be configured. To get an idea of what you can do with it just run the following command from the command line:

powercfg –Help | more

You’ll need to pipe that help output to a “more” because the standard command prompt settings won’t buffer the entire help output!

A really cool new feature for Windows 7 is the Power Efficiency Diagnostic Reports. This will allow power users and administrators understand and optimize their systems for maximum power efficiency and by virtue maximum battery life for laptops. In large environments the cumulative effect of optimizing power usage over thousands of computers can result in tangible power and money savings!

To generate the power Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report open an administrative  command prompt and run:

powercfg -energy

The system will observe the behaviour of your devices and settings for 60 seconds. Once complete the following output will be generated:

The output file is dropped into the current working

PowerShell 2.0, included in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, includes a new Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) which provides you with a GUI based tool to write your scripts and learn PowerShell.  To launch PowerShell 2.0 ISE simply drill down to Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Windows PowerShell.

Once that is launched you’ll see the ISE load and you are ready to begin.

The top portion, aka the Script Pane, is your scripting environment which allows you to write PS scripts.  The play and stop buttons are used to start and stop the running of a script.  The middle portion, aka the Output Pane, is where the script is executed and the results displayed.  Finally at the bottom is the Command Pane, where you can run individual Cmdlets and “one-liners”.  So besides a nice GUI editor why do I like the PowerShell ISE? 

• · ISE Features -  Tab completion, line numbering, indenting and the always useful search and replace.
• · Customizable ISE -  You can