Hyper-V 3.0 Confirmed for Windows 8 Client
A moment has come that I am very excited about. I have been taking a part the latest Windows 8 leaked build 7989, which is the first time an X64 build has leaked. In looking at the Windows Features item in the Control Panel, I came across something new.
via Hyper-V 3.0 Confirmed for Windows 8 Client – Robert McLaws: Windows Edition.
Simplify SSL Management & Installation on Windows Servers
Here’s the deal: Unless you work with SSL every day, managing your certificates on Windows servers isn’t easy. Root certificates, intermediate certificates, and private keys, oh my! Sometimes it can feel like you’re doing brain surgery on your server to fix a certificate problem. So DigiCert built a new tool called DigiCertUtil.exe to make it easier. With this tool you can manage, troubleshoot, and fix the SSL certificates on your server, all without having to open up a cmd prompt to run special certutil commands, or dig through the MMC Certificate Snap-in.
Continue reading and download the tool at DigiCert Windows SSL Management Tool – Windows SSL Troubleshooting.
via Friday Mail Sack: Gargamel Edition – Ask the Directory Services Team – Site Home – TechNet Blogs.
A cool method that is too small to rate a full blog post: if you need to get a network capture on a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 computer and you do not have or want Netmon installed, you can use NETSH.EXE.
From an elevated CMD prompt run:
netsh trace start capture=yes tracefile=c:\yourcapture.etl
Do whatever you needed to do
netsh trace stop
Boom – network capture, written in ETL format.
Open that file in Netmon 3.4 and you get all the usual capture info, plus other conversation and process info. AND other cool stuff – open the CAB file it created and you find a bunch of useful files with IP info, firewall event logs, applied group policies, driver versions, and more. All the goo I gather manually when I am getting a capture. Sweet!
Windows 8 to get better crash-detection features, a 3G/Wi-Fi/WWAN Cost Limiter and gasp! a taskbar with multi-monitor support.
By Sandro Villinger, ITworld
Late last month, I spent some time digging into an early Windows 8 build and found some interesting hidden features — including the Windows Store, a hybrid boot mode that drastically reduces cold boot time, Automatic Maintenance, and Spot Verifier, which checks for bad sectors in real-time and marks them as “bad” in order to avoid data loss or damage.Then came the presentations at the AllThingsD and Computex conferences and all attention turned to Windows 8’s new immersive UI. But there’s much more happening under the hood that Microsoft isn’t quite ready to tell us. After looking through about 1500 group policies of an early Windows 8 build, I’ve caught a few interesting hints to yet unrevealed features.
Continue reading via 3 more hidden features in Windows 8 | ITworld.
Steven Sinofsky @ D9 – Windows 8 Details
Paul Thurrott has a live-blog from the D9 conference where Steven Sinofsky has revealed details about the next version of Windows – code named Windows 8.
See the report via Steven Sinofsky @ D9.
Building “Windows 8” – Video #1
WOW!!!!! I did NOT expect this much info about Windows 8 today.
Watch the video via YouTube – Building “Windows 8” – Video #1.
Cheap GPUs are rendering strong passwords useless
Think that your eight-character password consisting of lowercase characters, uppercase characters and a sprinkling of numbers is strong enough to protect you from a brute force attack?
Think again!The results are startling. Working against NTLM login passwords, a password of “fjR8n” can be broken on the CPU in 24 seconds, at a rate of 9.8 million password guesses per second. On the GPU, it takes less than a second at a rate of 3.3 billion passwords per second.
Increase the password to 6 characters (pYDbL6), and the CPU takes 1 hour 30 minutes versus only four seconds on the GPU. Go further to 7 characters (fh0GH5h), and the CPU would grind along for 4 days, versus a frankly worrying 17 minutes 30 seconds for the GPU.
Continue reading whole article via Cheap GPUs are rendering strong passwords useless | ZDNet.
Report: Microsoft to show tablet version of Windows 8 next week
Bloomberg is adding fuel to the rumor fires claiming that Microsoft may show off the tablet version of Windows 8 next week at the AllThingsD conference. If and when that happens, here’s what to watch for.
Steven Sinofsky, the President of Microsoft’s Windows client division, is slated to take the stage during the three-day confab, which kicks off on May 29. Ever since Sinofsky’s appearance at the show was confirmed earlier this week, there’s been talk that he’d show off an updated version of Windows 8 there.
Continue reading Mary-Jo Foley’s report via Report: Microsoft to show tablet version of Windows 8 next week | ZDNet.
VMware releases Horizon App Manager. Here’s our full analysis – Brian Madden – BrianMadden.com.
Brian has a good summary of the new VMware SaaS software management solution.
by Brian Madden
Last week VMware officially launched VMware Horizon App Manager, the first phase of their “Horizon” project which extends on-premise user identities and app provisioning into cloud and SaaS apps. This is definitely a “v1” launch (well actually the stuff is labeled “v2” for some reason), and there’s a long way to go before the products fulfill VMware’s full vision, but it’s exciting to see some real stuff here that we can finally get our hands on.
For those IT Pros out there, how are you feeling about the onslaught of ‘the cloud’ in relation to your job security?
Deb Shinder takes a good look at the issue, in relation to how Microsoft are approaching it.
Takeaway: Are IT pros getting the short end of the stick at Microsoft these days, or is that just a misperception fueled by fear of change and the unknown? Debra Littlejohn Shinder tackles the question head on.
Continue reading here: IT Pros are not feeling the love from Microsoft | TechRepublic.
Automate My Desktop 