In this article you will be introduced to the free SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher utility, which enables you to record and monitor a Web transaction for quality assurance, performance tuning, and troubleshooting purposes.

Now more than ever before in your career as a Windows systems administrator, you may find yourself partially or fully responsible for the availability of your company’s Web applications. “But I’m not a Web admin!” you might exclaim. Like it or not, the migration of applications from the desktop to the Web browser means that we systems admins must take ownership of application uptime, regardless of form factor.

Here are some thought questions for you to consider: Does your organization do business over the Web? If so, how can you verify that your e-commerce engine is functional at any particular point in time? How can you diagnose bottlenecks and latencies in your Web application from the user’s’ perspective?

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In this article you will learn how to maintain Internet Explorer 9 by using Group Policy in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Before we begin, please have a look at the previous articles in this series so you have a firm background of what we are trying to accomplish.

In this blog post we assume that you used the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) and Active Directory Group Policy to deploy a custom build of Internet Explorer 9. Today we will pick up with the questions:

1. How can I maintain an already deployed build of IE9?
2. How can I lock down browser preferences?

Well, let’s get to work at answering those questions.

IEAK Configuration-Only Packages

Recall that the Media Selection screen of the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard enables us to create a configuration-only package. In constrast to the CD-ROM and File options, which give you a full-fledged Windows Installer (.MSI) build of IE9, the configuration-only package option has two chief deliverables: the .INS file that stores your custom build settings; one or more component information (.CIF) files that contain metadata concerning custom IE9 components; and optionally a Microsoft Cabinet (.CAB) file that contains compressed installation files as well as additional build metadata.

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In this article you will learn how to use Active Directory software installation to deploy a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 that you created by using the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK).

Thus far in this series about IEAK we have covered the initial configuration and creating custom build of Internet Explorer 9. In this installment we turn to how we can leverage Active Directory software installation in Windows Server 2008 to deploy our newly created IE9 installation package.

Preliminary Steps

In this tutorial I assume that we have the following assets in place:

• An Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain
• A file share that stores our IE9 .MSI file(s)

For example, the screenshot below shows the contents of my development server’s Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path \\SERVER01\ie:

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In this article you will learn how to use the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) to create a custom installation package for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.

In part 1 of this series we learned that the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) is a free, version-specific software package from Microsoft that enables IT administrators to deploy and maintain the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser for their users/customers.

It is important for us to remember that IEAK sets initial defaults only in Internet Explorer. In other words, there is no provision in IEAK that would prevent users from changing those initial defaults, post installation.

Therefore, we must use Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to force users to keep our preferred default values. (We will cover Group Policy lockdown of IE in a future installment.)

Now that we have IEAK installed, we will turn our attention to building a custom installation package for deployment on our corporate intranet. To accomplish this goal, we must first have installed IEAK on our administrative workstation by specifying the Internal Distribution via a Corporate Intranet option.

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In this article you will learn what the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) is, why it is useful, and how to install the software in Windows Server 2008.

Regardless of whether you love or hate the Internet Explorer Web browser, one thing is for sure: Microsoft sure gives us administrators plenty of flexibility in how we deploy and manage the application. In Windows Server 2008 R2 we have over 1,000 Group Policy settings to customize IE behavior.

NOTE: In Windows Server 2008 R2, the Group Policy paths to the Internet Explorer maintenance settings are Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer and User Configuration\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maintenance

Some of the representative IE customizations that Windows administrators may want to specify include the following:

• Enforced HTTP proxy settings
• Corporate branding
• Remote access connection profiles
• Enforced security settings

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Google officials claim that hardware + software leasing is a new price model for business computers that helps to reduce costs. I will argue in this post that this is not the case.

Applications for Chromebooks not only have an old-fashioned user interface; they are also significantly more expensive than Windows netbooks.

8. Costs

I like Google’s leasing model. I really do! I generally don’t like buying heavy things such as houses, cars, or furniture. So I also like the idea of not owning my computer. I find renting much more convenient and flexible. But one thing is for sure: Renting is usually more expensive than buying. If you have a closer look at Google’s pricing model for Chromebooks, you will realize that this also applies to this “new kind of computer.”

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In part 4 of the Chromebooks series, I discuss their capabilities with regard to modern touch-based user interfaces and the support for cloud applications.

There is no doubt about it. The lack of control over automatic updates and no support of data backups are severe disadvantages of Chromebooks for businesses. However, more important for the success of Chromebooks will be their usability and their abilities regarding cloud computing.

6. User interface

Just like Microsoft, Google was obviously caught napping by the success of the iPad. Chrome OS was already in the making, and there was no way to adapt the OS in a reasonable time for tablets. The only difference is that Microsoft is working feverishly to improve Windows’s touch capabilities, whereas Google has no plans for tablet support.

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Google officials claim that, with Chromebooks, you don't have to take care of backups and software updates. I doubt that this is an advantage.

Last week, I outlined why I believe that Chromebooks are no match for Windows netbooks when it comes to accessibility and the ability of their applications. Today, I will address two topics that Google explicitly names as two advantages of Chromebooks—that is, the fact that you need not worry about backups or updates.

4. Backups

That you don’t need to take care of backups if you store all your data in the cloud is a claim often put forward. Of course, this is supposed to also be one of the alleged advantages of Chromebooks. From my point of view, it is one of the major disadvantages.

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This second part of the Chromebooks series discusses the "anytime and anywhere" argument and compares the power of web apps with Windows applications.

In the last post in this series about Google’s Chromebooks, I outlined why I believe that “this new kind of computer” won’t improve security in your organization. Today, I want to address two topics that also play an important role in the current discussion about Chromebooks: accessibility and ability.

2. Accessibility

Google touts the anytime and anywhere accessibility of web apps as one of the major advantages of Chromebooks. Honestly, this is simply wrong. Watching the keynote was a nice case in point of the limited accessibility of web apps. I was trying to watch the video in Boracay in the Philippines (by the way, one of the world’s best beaches). Even though Internet speed in the Philippines is definitely above average compared to other locations in Asia, I wasn’t able to watch the video continuously even though I used the lowest available resolution.

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In this series, I will outline my views about the disadvantages of Google's Chromebook, a netbook running Chrome OS. Part 1 discusses security.

A few days ago, Google announced Chromebooks, “a new kind of computer,” as the Google Chrome blog was titled. I watched the Day 2 video of the keynote speech for the Google I/O developer conference, and I read several comments on the web. I often found myself shaking my head. This five-part series covers eight of the causes that made my head shake: security, accessibility and ability, updates and backup, usability and cloudability.

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Group Policy Preferences for Internet Explorer 9 are not (yet?) supported. This post describes the workaround.

When I first read that Group Policy Preferences can’t be used for Internet Explorer 9, I thought that was just a misunderstanding. How could it be that such an important feature is not supported for Microsoft’s latest web browser? Group Policy and Group Policy Preferences are one of the major reasons why many organizations stick with Internet Explorer even though good browser alternatives are now available.

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In my personal browser benchmark test Internet Explorer 9 turned out to be much slower than Chrome 10.

Microsoft listens to their customers. Or perhaps I should say they listen to what the media tell their customers. Every week or so, another computer magazine or blog posted a new browser benchmark where Internet Explorer always came off as the slowest browser. The times of browser benchmarks are now history. Since Internet Explorer is now by far the fastest HTML viewer and JavaScript executer, no one needs those benchmarks any more. It is boring if Microsoft wins. They always do. Well, almost always.

As far as my browsing experience is concerned, Chrome is still a lot faster than Internet Explorer 9. When it comes to browsing speed, the performance of the rendering or JavaScript engine is negligible. I have said that many times before, and I won’t get tired of repeating it. For a knowledge worker like me, other features are by far more important to speed up my daily work on the web.

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This post discusses the free and cost-based virtualization solutions WineBottler, VirtualBox, and Parallels Desktop that allow you to run Internet Explorer on Mac OS X.

In June 2003, a Microsoft product manager told CNET News that “Safari is turning into a better answer for (Apple) customers.” This statement sounded the death knell for the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser on Apple Mac OS X systems.

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In the last post of this series, I summarize the major arguments for apps, which are essentially the downsides of web apps.

In the last two posts, I discussed my two favorite reasons why I believe that web apps have no future. However, there are quite a few other reasons. I don’t want to make a book out of this series, so let me just summarize a few more arguments that speak for apps and against web apps (no completeness guaranteed):

• Apps work better in offline mode.
• People prefer to pay for software they can download and run on their own devices.
• Cloud computing eliminates a major advantage of web apps—that is, to access the application from different devices—because different apps on different platforms can now access the app’s data service in the cloud (like the Gmail app for Android and the Outlook app for Windows ).
• Local apps perform better than web apps because they have better access to local hardware resources, which allows for sophisticated user interfaces.
• Apps need fewer local resources than web apps (with comparable rich interfaces) because no web browser has to be running.
• Providers of proprietary platforms can move forward at their own pace and don’t have to wait until a new open standard gets the blessing of the sluggish W3C. This is one of the reasons why proprietary platforms will always be technologically a few steps ahead of platforms that are based on open standards.

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Platform independence was once a major argument for web apps. The rise of the apps makes it now obvious that platform independence is the major downside of web apps.

In my last post, I argued that web apps have no future on mobile devices. But what about the PC? Didn’t the adoption of web apps make some good progress in the last few years?

Let me make my point by continuing the Gmail example from that post. Most of my email accounts run on Gmail. However, I rarely use the Gmail web app. Instead, I use the best Gmail app that currently exists on the PC—Outlook 2010. I could now start comparing Outlook to the Gmail web app, but honestly this doesn’t really make sense. Compared to Outlook, the Gmail web app is a child’s toy. I could as well compare a space shuttle to a handcart. Just like the Gmail app for Android is perfectly adapted for mobile phones, is the Gmail app for Windows (Outlook 2010) by far the best choice on the PC.

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