FileAlyzer is a free tool that analyzes the properties of a file and its contents. The tool can be accessed from the Windows Explorer’s context menu. So, you just have to right click on the file and select FileAlyzer.

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Windows Connected has six useful tips for admins dealing with Vista’s new imaging technology: Script Everything, Automate Your Installs, Virtual Machines make it easy, Minimize Drivers in your reference Image, Keep a build document, Hardware.

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BDD 2007 is now feature complete. Thus, it is really time to get acquainted with it if you plan to deploy Vista in the near future. The documentation is ready as well. BDD 2007 contains important deployment tools for Vista like ImageX, WSIM (Windows System Image Manager) or WDS (Windows Deployment Services). You can download it at Microsoft Connect.

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Microsoft SMS 2003 SP2 (Systems Management Server) only offers limited support for Windows Vista. You have to wait for SMS 2003 SP3 in order to use all its features. So far, I didn’t find an official Microsoft document with more details about the supported features. I am currently playing with SMS 2003 SP2 to find out how compatible it is with Vista, and if it can be used to manage Vista.

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You might have realized in the past days that 4sysops was unreachable sometimes. There have been content spam attacks from countless different machines resulting in DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service).

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If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know my favorite worst Vista feature: UAC. Now, I found my second worst feature, and I feel the urge to tell the world about it.

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SearchWinIT has a good article summarizing arguments for and against Vista migration. What I like is that Bernie Klinder, the author, doesn’t mention Aero and similar things, as an advantage. He focuses mostly on technical arguments; most of them are relevant for system administrators.

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TrackWinstall is a free tool that informs you about the changes a setup program made to your Windows installation. It shows you what files where added or removed and which files were changed by the setup program. It also lists all Registry changes.

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Microsoft released Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 for Windows XP. Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 (RDC) is already part of Windows Vista. The new RDP client has a couple of new features; some of them seem to work only with Terminal Services in Longhorn Server:

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I just stumbled upon Microsoft’s technical guidance for Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0. Oh my! Taking the length of the documents into account, this seems to be more complicated than deploying Vista.

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