Most news sites reported yesterday that Microsoft announced Windows 7 SP1 (and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1). I didn’t see such an announcement. All I found was a post in Microsoft’s blog titled Talking About Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Well “talking” can hardly count as an announcement. Microsoft neither mentioned a release date nor really told us what new features Windows 7 SP1 will have. There will be an updated RDP client that supports RemoteFX, but I suppose this client will also be available for Vista (and perhaps for XP?).

So what is this talk all about? I attended a Microsoft online meeting for a discussion on SP1 for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, which was a little more revealing. It is interesting to note that no NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) was required as is usually the case when MVPs are invited to such meetings. Obviously, Microsoft wanted IT pros to spread the message. So what was the message? About half of the meeting was used for repeating the central part of this “announcement”: Don’t wait for SP1! Deploy Windows 7 now!

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I somehow forgot my poll about cloud computing which I started last year. I wanted to know how many Windows admins are already involved in cloud computing and how interested 4sysops readers are in this new technology. The result is quite interesting:

At time of this writing, 17% are already using cloud technology, 11% are planning to introduce cloud computing in their organization, and 24% have no such plans. The most interesting result here is that 48% of those who took part in this poll didn’t choose any of these three options. Does this mean that almost half of participants simply don’t know if their company will introduce cloud computing?

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Last year, when Firefox 3.5 was released and the whole net community was amazed by the performance gains of the Open Source browser, I was only amused by the childish obsession many IT pros have with browser speed. Now, as the Internet Explorer 9 developer preview is available, touting its fabulous hardware acceleration, I am beginning to wonder if the whole net is just nuts or if I should see a doctor because something is profoundly wrong with my sense of time. I am really worried. So please help me diagnose this phenomenon!

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I suppose, most organizations use Microsoft’s Key Management Services (KMS) to activate Vista/Windows 7 and Server 2008/R2 machines. The Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) is usually used by smaller organizations which prefer to activate Windows with MAK or retail product keys. However, even if you work with KMS, VAMT can be useful to keep track of your Windows activations. KMS still only has a command line interface and VAMT has a nice GUI which gives you a good overview of the activation status of all Windows machines. In this post, I will summarize the enhancements of VAMT 2.0 compared to VAMT 1.2. VAMT 1.2 is part of the WAIK and already supports Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. VAMT 1.1, which is available as a separate download, only supports Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Please note that VAMT 2.0 is still in beta. For an introduction to VAMT please read my review of VAMT and my article about proxy activation with VAMT.

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Michael’s Update: This great free tool has been submitted more than two years ago by Jeffrey Botts. Since then quite a few new features have been added and because Spiceworks 4.6 is now out, I updated this post. The top new features follow after Jeffrey’s original comment and at the end of the article you will find some screenshots of the new version.

Submitted by Jeffrey Botts, November 2007

You want network management software that works for you, not software that makes you work. You wish you could have it… without spending a fortune. Your wish is granted.

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PC Audit is really a very simple tool. But, in some cases, this is just what you need if you want to quickly see an overview of the hardware and installed software on a PC. The tool can also display the running processes. You can save all the data to the clipboard, which allows you to paste the inventory data quickly into any application, or to a text file. I think this latter feature makes PC Audit a useful tool for the helpdesk.

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In my last article, I listed all important features of Microsoft’s free Sysprep tool. Today, I will explain why I think that unique SIDs are still necessary, even though, Mark Russinovich debunked the machine SID duplication myth.

I have no doubts that Mark’s analysis that Windows networks don’t require unique SIDs is correct. Actually, this corresponds to my own experience. I have been cloning machines long before Microsoft introduced the Sysprep tool. At that time, Microsoft warned about using cloning tools. The main argument was that SID duplication can cause problems. This didn’t really convince me because my tests showed that these problems don’t exist. When I first tried a cloning tool, I was baffled as to how this technology was superior compared to unattended installations. Thus, I decided to ignore Microsoft’s warning and embrace OS cloning. I don’t remember SID duplication ever causing a problem.

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