Why?
Actually, why not?
In the Windows Server 2003 era, quite a few of us used it as a quasi-primary workstation operating system.
With Windows Server 2008 allowing you to define roles for it, I guess it was just a matter of time before it became the IT pro's workstation operating system.
In this post here, Steven Parker at Neowin has some insight, and a link to detailed installation/conversion instructions.
Really though, shouldn't you try it?
Take your daily dose of sensational headlines in the IT press with a grain of salt!
In the last couple of weeks, the blogosphere has been abuzz with news that (Microsoft’s) BitLocker drive partition encryption process was penetrated, and indeed, easily defeated.
My first thought upon reading the research document from a team including the esteemed Edward Felton, was that this was an attack more likely to occur in exotic situations, and/or against highly targeted victims.
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Just when you think it is safe to go out again, comes even more news about SCO.
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When Microsoft and Cisco announced an agreement last year to co-ompete, people wondered if it was real or fluff.
I lauded the agreement as two giants letting their constituencies know what the planks in their relative platforms were. (Hey, it's the election season.)
Last week, the first fruits of the new arrangement was announced: the embedding of Windows Server 2008 into a line of WAAS appliances manufactured by Cisco.
Just how cool is this?
For branch offices, this is a boon, and a product that you should add to your testing and validation plans for the coming year.
I fully expect the delivered product to to be a winner, from both an integration and a revenue-generating standpoint. After all, it is a product of Microsoft and Cisco.
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Earlier today, Microsoft released Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solutions Accelerator.
This free tool, first blogged about here , will enable you to do the following:
It will also prepare recommendations for server consolidation using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Virtual Server, and for application virtualization using Microsoft Application Virtualization.
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Windows Vista™, build 6.0.6001.18000, was released to manufacturing three weeks ago.
After over a month working with the RTM bits – which I received prior to RTM, and greatly expanding our test to select customer sites, we have seen better driver coverage, increased performance, and no unexpected compatibility issues.
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On your menu for 2008: Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, Windows Essential Business Server, Server Virtualization, Applicaton virtualization (aka SoftGrid).
How do you cope?
Microsoft Assessment & Planning, or MAP!
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on the heels of Uruguay's 100,000 nays as well.
Hello!
Now François Bancilhon decides to utilize a poison pen ‘open letter’ to bash capitalism.
Dude, this is how it works in the real world without Kroes and the EU binding your competition in order to let you breathe.
I have lambasted the OLPC every chance I got for the colonial thought behind it: in developing the system for the impoverished of this world, there seemed to be that creepy line of thought that the targeted audience was somehow dimwitted, and couldn’t use a normal OS.
Dr Watson would have been proud of this line of thinking as it jelled with his stated eugenic beliefs.
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Are you surprised?
Personally, I am shocked it took so long.
In my post here, I mentioned the fact that there were very perceptible differences between the two ODF-based desktop productivity suites I tested, Sun’s StarOffice, and IBM’s Lotus Symphony. In fact, I stated that”
"Looking at two distinct programs working off the same codebase supposedly, and getting the diametrically opposed user experiences from both, I cannot help but remember that phrase Alex Wolfe used when describing the myriad number of versions of Linux: Linux is a forking mess!
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I spent a couple of days last week in New York City where I visited the Microsoft Windows Consumer Experience Space in New York, and came away impressed with the advantages Windows Vista is making and will make to consumers, due to technologies already in Windows Vista™ and some more being developed under the auspices of Windows Live.
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Since the release of Windows Vista™ on January 29, 2007, Microsoft has been fighting the insidious perception of the failure of the OS, which without a doubt, is the best client operating system in the known universe, bar none.
The vicious perception, fueled no doubt by hapless competitors, uninformed yobs in the mainstream media, and the bashing-Microsoft-is-fashionable attitude of supposedly informed members of the IT press, cannot pass muster when confronted by that most important debunking tool: facts.
In this case: 88-million copies sold.
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Top line companywide growth: 25% year over year.
Client growth 25% to $4.14 billion, with operating profit up 27% to $3.36 billion.
Server unit came in with operating income of $963 million, a 25% increase, on sales of $2.9 billion, a 16% gain.
The Business unit eked out $4.1 billion during the same time period, a 20% gain, with operating income up 21% to $2.7 billion.
However, the Online and Entertainment BUs managed to lose $592 million on sales on $2.6 billion.
All dollar amounts in US dollars.
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On June 14, 2007, John Obeto (yours truly) declares that Apple’s delayed new operating system, OS X Leopard is a rip-off of the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Microsoft Windows Vista.
On Friday, October 26, 2007, Apple finally releases OS X Leopard.
Later that same day, Apple forums are flooded by rants of irate users whose systems have halted at a blue screen!
Hello?
Blue Screen Of Death??
Hello???
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It is always refreshing when companies send the zealots on their dev teams to the back of the room, and allow the business-minded execs to do what they are paid to do: provide solutions that benefit the company instead of some yob’s religious zealotry.
Turbolinux’s decision to enter into an agreement with Microsoft is one of those pragmatic decisions.
For which their customers will undoubtedly enjoy the soon to be seamless interoperability between products form them and Microsoft. Not to talk about the cheaper and undoubtedly more superior customer service they (Turbolinux customers) are about to commence enjoying from the Microsoft side of the equation.
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The EU announces that Microsoft is (at last) in compliance with their 2004 decision.
The IP and money grab worked!
While Microsoft’s compliance is pragmatic, both from a sales standpoint, and most especially from a tax-advantage standpoint (which I feel is the primary reason for the capitulation), I cannot help but get that feeling of being robbed.
However, all is not lost.
In true communist fashion, look for the economies of the EU to produce the software equivalent of that famed human transportation conveyance formerly manufactured in Zwickau, the Trabant.
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This past week, I tested StarOffice, from Sun, Inc.
A question posed to me by my brother Greg, and a couple of responders to my blog offline: would I recommend StarOffice, and under what conditions?
While I have issues with document fidelity in the conversion of Microsoft Office documents, I have no problem recommending the applications suite as long as projected usage is within the narrow confines of conditions I shall declare below.
Apart from that, at about $70 per user, it is inexpensive, though not in any way a cheapo. It is fast to launch, and handles conversions speedily.
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Straying off the ranch, I have been testing IBM’s Lotus Symphony, the latest incarnation (in name only) of the DOS-era integrated program of the same name.
For this test, I focused on two aspects, usability and compatibility, as being more important to my constituency than others, since most companies considering any of these programs would probably be doing so with a current inventory of documents already saved in the Microsoft Office format.
Concurrent with this test, I also tested StarOffice, version 8, from Sun Microsystems since it is the suite the Open Office project is based upon.
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I have a couple of Windows Mobile smartphones that use Microsoft Outlook™ to synchronize with my corporate and personal Microsoft Exchange Servers on the backend, a situation comparable to that of most smartphone users.
Like it or not, Outlook is the Gold Standard in this category, and has been for quite a while, receiving continual dev funds from Microsoft due to its (Outlook’s) necessity in the enterprise.
Reading through my feed list yesterday, I came across an article that purports to help wean users from Outlook. Ready to give it the normal cursory glance I give such flights of fancy, my eyes glommed upon one of those buzzwords used by lazy writers when bereft of new ideas. In this case, bloatware.
You know I had to give it a good read then!
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Imagine this scenario.
After months of being titillated by those hip ads on the telly, fishwraps, subways, hipster rags and glossies, you decide to side with the zeitgeist being postulated by some shills in the mainstream press as the future, and make a decided move: you decide to change your mobile telephony infrastructure to OS X-based computing. Since, it is the system for the ‘rest of us'.
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What goes around, you know, comes around.
Schadenfreude is the most genuine kind of joy, since it contains nary a drop of envy!
In the Googleplex nowadays, nervousness reigns.
Why?
They awoke the sleeping giant, that is why!
With the aid of the Wayback Machine, let’s revisit.
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The kerfuffle over Windows Update updating itself is one of those issues that columnists and bloggers bereft of new ideas use as a crock to continue stoking the flames of customer discontent against Microsoft.
Guess what?
Microsoft deserves it!
Have you read the End User License Agreement? Have I? Has any normal human?
For goodness sakes, the EULA, while necessary was, without a doubt, composed, by lawyers for lawyers; to protect Microsoft’s rights, delineate obligations and responsibilities, and reduce the amount of awards when actions are brought against it.
Where is the consumer in all this?
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Isn’t the customer always right?
CS 101: always endeavor to give satisfaction.
One PR thorn in Microsoft’s side has got to be Windows Genuine Advantage, WGA.
I empathize completely with Microsoft on the issue of piracy. However, taking a page from the RIAA is so not the way to go.
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IBM wants to do just that!
Are you kidding?
One of the 'innovations' brought to IBM during the Gerstner years was a relentless focus on profitability.
Not inventions.
Profitability, especially through the monetization of the company's patent portfolio.
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Contrary to the erroneous insinuations of the uninformed about Windows Vista™ Ultimate Extras, the (Windows Vista Ultimate) team was working to deliver those extras to us.
In a post today, Barry Goffe, Director of Marketing for Windows Vista™ Ultimate, informs us of the latest events in the life of Windows Vista Ultimate.
While the awaited 19 MUI language packs are not ready, other items are.
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Good news abounds today.
Coming on the heels of the release today of Windows Vista™ SP1 beta – albeit as a private beta, comes the release t the general public of Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0.
This must-have beta contains Microsoft’s first public iteration of the it’s hypervisor, codenamed Viridian. (Viridian is part of Windows Server 2008 RC0 x64 (64-bit) only). is here.
Including the virtualization release notes above, reading materials include installation notes, a Technical Overview, and the always useful step-by-step guides.
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Microsoft has released the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 beta to a wider set of public testers at 12.00 pm PDT today.
Nick White, a Program Manager for the Windows Client team at Microsoft has some details on the Windows Vista Team Blog here, and Brandon LeBlanc, of the Windows Experience Blog, has his experiences using Windows Vista™ SP1 here.
Enjoy the (beta) test drive.
Previous posts
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Linux is a forking mess!
So declared Alexander Wolfe in his latest column for the IT glossy InformationWeek.
It is a tongue-in-cheek remark decrying the number of versions, known as distros, of Linux, at last count 359!
While a reader of InformationWeek for a while, I had never taken the time to read any of Alex Wolfe’s work.
Sir, I apologize.
After today’s article, I promise to use my coming OTG time to read your entire online body of work.
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For the last couple of days, I have been trying out the latest beta version of Microsoft Business Deployment Desktop, currently called Deployment 4 Beta 3.
Using this beta, you are ready to create images and deploy Windows Server 2003 and pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008 using the Deployment Workbench. It integrates with the new System Center Configuration Manager 2007 features for OS deployment and task sequencing, and leverages the new multicasting functionality coming in Windows Server 2008 Windows Deployment Services.
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One of the problems with the blogosphere is the insane amount of crap spewed forth by idiotic yo-yos at every turn.
Having to navigate through all the noise is very painful; however, one in a while, a gem emerges.
In a very informative article, titled Has Google actually read U.S. v. Microsoft?, James V. DeLong breaks down the ruling in US vs. Microsoft. Not the discarded, illiterate decision by Penfield Jackson; the seasoned, thoughtful, and just decision by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. (DeLong is special counsel for Kamlet Shepherd & Reichert. He is also vice president and senior analyst for the Convergence Law Institute.)
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IBM. Google. Apple. Intel. HP.
What do they have in common?
They are all market leaders, and 100% American companies.
In the eye of the EU, and the harpie that runs their Directorate for Stealing US IP, that makes them juicy targets.
Granted, some of them are trolls and probably deserve it, however, the truth of the matter is that the only catalyst for wrongful action in the EU is for some incompetent business rival to cry out. Whereby the helpful, bureaucratic hands of the EU would descend on the successful business.
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I am managing partner and chief technology officer of Logikworx, an SMB solution provider based in California. I'm also editor-in-chief of SmallBizVista.com and The Interlocutor, an associated monthly e-mail newsletter. I am also a member of the Microsoft Featured Communities and The Hive.
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