• Windows 7: Changes Since Beta for the RC 36 changes! And I thought Windows 7 Beta is feature complete…
• New release of Microsoft’s App-V for Windows 7 available Interesting that the current App-V version doesn’t run on Win7.
• New features in DHCP for Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows 7 How can such a simple app as DHCP have so many new features?

Update the survey is over.

IDG (publisher of Computerworld, InfoWorld) is running a visitor survey that will help me  improve my blog. 4sysops belongs to the IDG TechNetwork, a network of independent technology publishers.

If you give me a minute of your precious time, you would have the chance to win a US$500 cash prize. Most of the questions are about the way you use or perceive 4sysops. This will help me to understand who you are and what you expect from my blog.

There are also some questions about the role you have in your organization. These questions are of interest tp my sponsors. Without my sponsors I wouldn’t be able to invest that much time in 4sysops. With answering these questions, you would help me a great deal.

Just in case you took part in the survey I ran a year ago, I would appreciate it very much if you also answer the questions this time. Perhaps you are the lucky winner of the $500 cash prize.

There is no doubt that Windows 7 has gotten much better feedback than Windows Vista. As such, many organizations are likely to be tempted to skip Vista, and move directly from XP to Windows 7. However, skipping a version of Windows comes with quite a few risks. I’ve just read a white paper from Gartner that includes some interesting arguments on why skipping Vista might not be such a good idea. The document was published in July but continues to be just as, if not more, relevant today. Because it is now clearer what improvements Windows 7 will bring, it is a good time for those who plan to skip Vista to re-evaluate that plan.

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• Vista SP2 and Server 2008 SP2 will be made available to the general public next week.
• Windows Vista SP2 RC and Windows Server 2008 SP2 RC are available for Technet and MSDN subscribers
• Survey: Fear Slows Cloud Computing Adoption Interesting statistics.
• IE8 Reliability Update for Windows 7 Beta Now Available Bye the way, 10% of the 4sysops readers already use IE8.

In my last post I introduced Steel Run As, a free tool that allows you to give standard users the right to run specific programs that require administrator privileges. Today I will show you how this utility can be used to allow standard users to change the network settings. This as an example of how end users can change Windows settings with Steel Run As and how you use the tool in batch scripts.

Perhaps it is not a good example because the easiest way to allow standard users to change the network settings is to add them to Network Configuration Operators group. However, this might give them more rights than you want. Furthermore, you can use batch scripts to automatically set specific TCP/IP settings, for example if an user always has to use the same IP in one location. This way, changing the IP can be done with just a mouse click.

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• Win one of 15 Windows 7 Beta DVDs here
• Ballmer: Office 14 not this year I guess this is good news for admins.
• Gmail struck with service outage I wasn’t able to open my inbox for 40 minutes. Not enterprise ready if you ask me.
• Upgrading Windows XP Professional SP3 to Windows 7 Ultimate (beta build 7000)
• Internet Explorer 8 has reached RTM

Steel Run As solves a problem that every Windows administrator faces sooner or later. It allows you to let standard users run a specific program with administrator privileges. This works in login scripts, in Windows domains or on standalone workstations. Important is that the user doesn’t have to know the administrator’s password, like with the Windows runas command. Best of all is that Steel Run As is very easy to set up.

When I first heard that Microsoft was going to introduce UAC in Windows, I thought it would be something similar to sudo in Linux. Unfortunately, UAC is no match at all for sudo. The feature I miss most is the ability to allow certain end users to manage specific operating system features that require administrator rights.

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• To stub or not to stub? Interesting white paper (PDF) by GFI that explains the stubbing concept of email archiving tools.
• Citrix makes XenServer free I guess it is the only way to compete with VMware and Microsoft.
• Microsoft, Citrix join forces against VMware Why did nobody speak of “joined forces” when MS started to support ESX?
• Windows Vista/Server 2008 Service Pack 2: What to Expect No important new features.

I stumbled upon a nice Youtube video about cloud computing (at the end of the text). It provides no new arguments, but it could be helpful if you want to explain “cloud computing” to non-techies. Be careful to whom you show it though. Your boss might like the idea and move all your servers to the cloud and you to the unemployment office.

The videos were created by GoGrid, a cloud provider. Therefore, you can’t expect that they’ll tell you about the many disadvantages of cloud computing; for example, that cloud computing shares many of the downsides of mainframe computing and about security concerns, or that you might have to hire cloud specialists in your own organization.

What I like most in the second video is the analogy to taxis. Why buy a car if you can take a cab to a meeting that is just a couple of blocks away? You just pay for the time you use the taxi and you don’t have to worry about its maintenance. They forgot to mention that taxis also “scale” very well. If the whole department has to join the meeting, then you can just order the appropriate number of taxis.

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• Free e-book from Microsoft Press: Windows Vista Resource Kit, Second Edition
• Windows 7 Release Candidate Rumors were wrong – only at build 7046

Earlier, I blogged about attaching VHD images and WIM files, so it is only fair that I introduce a tool that allows you to mount VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk Format) images. VMware’s format is certainly one of the most commonly used imaging formats these days. The VMware DiskMount GUI is not, despite its name, a VMware tool. It is a DEVFRAM product, and simply consists of a graphical user interface for the command line tool VMware DiskMount (vmware-mount.exe), which is a part of the free VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit. As such, you have to first download and install this toolkit before you can use the VMware DiskMount GUI.

When you first launch the VMware DiskMount GUI, you have to tell the tool where to find vmware-mount.exe. If you installed VMware’s toolkit in the default folder, then you can find it under C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit\bin\. The DiskMount GUI supports all of DiskMount’s command line parameters, including those for remote virtual disks (ESX Server and VirtualCenter).

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• Gartner predicts that Microsoft will challenge the VMware leadership by 2013
• Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 Release Candidate are now available for download on Microsoft Connect.
• Windows 7 RC Expected In February Hard to believe. Just a few weeks ago everyone expected the RC for April.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta Evaluation Virtual Hard Drive Images (for Hyper-V)

WIM2VHD is a new free command line tool that allows you to convert WIM (Windows Imaging Format) images to the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) format. It is written in JScript and requires Windows 7 and the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit). The VHD images are sysprepped and can be used to create virtual machines for Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 SP1, and Virtual PC 2007. WIM2VHD is helpful if you want to test an OS image with a virtualization tool before deploying it to physical machines.

I tried WIM2VHD with the Windows 7 Beta install.wim. Its usage is very simple. Before you use WIM2VHD, you have to set CScript as your primary script execution environment:

CSCRIPT //h:cscript

To convert the Windows 7 Professional volume image of a .WIM file to a VHD image you have to type:

WIM2VHD.WSF /wim:install.wim /sku:3

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PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment), formerly known as Graphical PowerShell, is a graphical development environment and Command Prompt alternative. It is part of PowerShell 2.0, which has been integrated into Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and is available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

I believe PowerShell’s integration into Windows will bring its breakthrough. As far as I’m concerned, the “DOS Command Prompt” is finally dead. Even if you haven’t found the time to learn PowerShell yet, it makes sense to use PowerShell ISE whenever you need a command line, because a graphical user interface is much more convenient.

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• Microsoft Thrive – a new website that has resources to help advance the career of IT pros Seems to work only in IE.
• VMC2HV – Free tool that can be used to import a Virtual Server (or VirtualPC) based VM into Hyper-V