Some bloggers [1] [2] gave the impression that Internet Information Server overtook Apache. According to a press release of Port80, IIS 6.0 passed Apache for the first time. In my view, however, this data doesn’t say much about the market shares of Apache and IIS.

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When I read recently that Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 will support Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) I was quite excited. This means that you can backup a running virtual machine without shutdowns. Some weeks ago I decided against Virtual Server 2005 and for VMware Server. However, VSS support is a killer feature in my view. Today, I tried to backup a running virtual Windows Server Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Beta2 using Symantec Backup Exec 10d.

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Today, I wanted to update Vista RC1 to RC2. When I booted up, Vista informed me that I have to activate it before I can logon. Unfortunately, I used a private IP. So Vista Activation wasn’t able to phone home. No problem you say? Just enter a public IP and go ahead. But how can you do that without logging on?

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It seems that this is going to become my hobby. Wouldn’t it be boring if it were possible to install Vista by just running the setup? On Saturday I complained that Vista RC2 can’t be installed on VMware Workstation because the Vista setup claimed that there is a CD/DVD driver missing. One of my readers mailed me the solution to this new problem. Thanks!

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It seems that Microsoft is serious to keep the release date. At least it sounds like this in Jim Alchim’s letter. The download was pretty fast. I guess because most American Windows fans are in their beds now dreaming of the next Vista release candidate. The first thing I tried was to install Vista RC2 on VMware Workstation.

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Update: Please, check out this complete list of Vista shortcut keys.
Arlindo Alves has a list of useful shortcut keys for Windows Vista. Many of them also work for Windows XP. There is one I can’t find, though. What is the shortcut key to disable User Account Control (UAC)? I am sure, this would be my favorite key combination every time I logon on a new PC.

David D’Souza, the Director of Development in the Windows Core OS Division, wrote an article about the reasons why Microsoft used imaging technology for the setup process of Windows Vista. It is interesting to note that installation speed seems to be the main advantage in his view. We use imaging technology since we deploy Windows NT, and performance was never the reason why we preferred it over unattended installations.

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InfoWorld has an interesting article about VMware Converter 3. It is a tool that converts Windows systems running on a physical machine to a virtual machine in the VMware format. They wrote that there will be a free-of-charge version and an enterprise edition.

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One of the main problems with Group Policy is that policies are only applied when a computer is rebooted, a user logs on or within certain time intervals. Network Location Awareness is a new feature of Group Policy in Windows Vista which will address this problem.

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Recently the air conditioning in our server room broke down. To escape the heat death all of our 30 servers increased their ventilation. It resulted to a blown fuse which enforced a shutdown of some servers after the UPS run out of power. We considered purchasing a temperature alerting system before, but the solutions we found were too expensive. We have three air conditionings, so I thought, the probability that they all break down at the same time is relatively low. Okay, I am a bit wiser now.

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