Hi, Mike Nash here. In late October I announced the Beta  of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 - beginning with a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers. This week we're opening up the beta to a broader audience. Starting today, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will have access to the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta to begin testing.   

Beginning Thursday Dec. 4^th, we will be making the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta available to everyone through a Customer Preview Program (CPP). The CPP will launch on TechNet and be available to anyone interested in trying out this service pack. The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack.

For those of you who choose to test this service pack, we encourage you to install the beta as soon as you can; your feedback will help us to ship a solid and stable service

Since starting the "I'm a PC" campaign a few months ago, we've been hearing folks were interested in showing off they are a PC with "I'm a PC" gear such as t-shirts and hats. We've partnered up with Zazzle.com to provide just that. By going to the "I'm a PC" store on Zazzle.com, you can now purchase a variety of "I'm a PC" gear including some offbeat stuff like skateboards and ties.  Who knows?  You may even find some fun stocking stuffers or gifts for the holidays.

I know here on our blog many of our readers are not in the United States and international support is super important. Zazzle.com provides shipping to 84 countries worldwide. So even if you're not in the U.S. you can still order from the "I'm a PC" store on Zazzle.com. 

Remember - you can also upload yourself to the "I'm a PC" website as well as download the Windows Live Messenger "I'm a PC" Theme Pack.

I recently had the chance to talk to James Osteen, Assistant Director of the City of Miami's IT Department about their Windows Vista deployment.  I thought that many of you could relate to his position and would appreciate his insight into what it takes to keep a major city like Miami up and running.

The Windows Blog:  Hi James, thanks for joining us.  Tell us a bit about yourself.

James Osteen: I'm James Osteen, an Assistant Director with the City of Miami's IT Department with Infrastructure responsibility.  I work with all aspects of our IT infrastructure, including desktops and mainframe, networking, storage, security, and the web.  The best part of my job is that it is ever changing...the pace of change in IT allows us to constantly provide more and better services to our citizens and internal clients- and at a lower cost.  Let's put it this way, we certainly never get bored!

The Windows Blog: From an IT perspective, what are the top three challenges you face?

James Osteen: That's easy: First is the security of our infrastructure - this isn't something we've had issues with before, but it's always something we're thinking about.  We want to be sure our system is secure...our

Major Nelson has posted that an update to Games for Windows – LIVE will be available next time you login to a LIVE enabled game (of course) - offering you the brand new LIVE Guide. He’s also posted a bunch of shots of the new LIVE Guide here on Flickr.

Unfortunately I’ve packed my Games for Windows – LIVE games away as I’m in the middle of moving. But I’m thinking of picking up the new James Bond game Quantum of Solace (I’m anxious to give the new Live Guide a try myself). Feel free to recommend other Games for Windows – Live titles for me. I already own Halo 2 for Windows Vista and Shadowrun.

As you probably have noticed, we just re-launched our blog today as The Windows Blog sporting an all-new look and feel reflecting Windows in a broader sense instead of a single Windows release. We figured it was time to give our blog a good facelift (it’s looked the same since we originally launched in October of 2006) – especially as we start talking about Windows 7, Windows Live, and many other interesting Windows topics. Our old design focused strictly on Windows Vista. Our new design is no longer tied to a specific Windows release allowing us to talk about a wider range of topics.

With the previous site design – we essentially had 2 blogs hosted together on the same site: the Windows Vista Team Blog and Windows Experience Blog. But because of the design – not a lot of people noticed that there were actually 2 distinct blogs on our site.

We wanted to fix that.

In thinking about the design for The Windows Blog, we wanted the site to act like a community of blogs focused on talking about Windows.

Today – our new design reflects that.

Wow, this was a long time coming, but its finally here. For the past couple of weeks now, I have been encountering problems trying to get the most recent Windows Vista Ultimate DreamScene Content Pack 4 to show in Windows Update. I don't know what was causing the delay on my machine running Vista x64, but its now finally here.

Yep, its finally here.

Previously:
Where are my Ultimate Extras and DreamScene Content Pack 4?

Resources:
Microsoft releases new Ultimate Extras - Microsoft Tinker
Windows Vista Ultimate Extras
Ultimate PC
New Ultimate Extras: Microsoft Tinker and Dreamscene Content Pack 4