On Tuesday, Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 will be available thru Automatic Update. I recommend waiting to deploy it for some time. Recently, we updated a machine running ISA Server 2004 with SP2. This improved significantly the security of Microsoft’s firewall since all traffic was blocked after the update. Okay, the disadvantage was that the computers behind ISA were not able anymore to access the Internet.

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The Windows Server Division WebLog reported that the public beta of Windows Server Virtualization (a.k.a. “Viridian”) will be available only in the second half of 2007, not in the first half, as previously planned. I have expected Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 to be released these days, but it will probably be shipped in Q2 only. I think that both virtualization products are very interesting, so I am a little disappointed to have to wait a little longer to get my hands on them.

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Update: The Adminpak for Windows Server 2003 SP2 has been released.

Microsoft released another compatibility update for Vista. Aside from computability issues, it should also fix problems with the Adminpak (Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Administration Tools Pack). However, it seems that one still needs this workaround to install the Adminpak under Vista.

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Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 can be downloaded now. There are no new revolutionary features like in SP1. In particular, there is no kernel change this time. Most of the new important features like WDS (Windows Deployment Services) or MMC 3.0 were already available as separate downloads before.

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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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Update: The Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Vista SP1 replace the Adminpak.

A while ago, I liked to an article that explains how to install the Adminpak on Windows Vista. Meanwhile I found out that there is a much easier way.

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Windows Server 2003 SP2 RC is now publicly available for download. So it might be time get prepared for Microsoft’s latest Server Service Pack. There are, however, no major changes in SP2, like in SP1. Microsoft has a list of top 10 reasons why we should deploy SP2.

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Robert L. Mitchel wrote an interesting article about the virtualization technology in Windows Server Longhorn. I’ve read several times that Longhorn will come with its own hypervisor, which always confused me. I didn’t understand how a typical guest operating system can have a hypervisor because I thought a hypervisor is just some kind of an OS.

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When I started using VMware Workstation, I took the name of the tool literally and installed it on my workstation. Although I had a high-end PC with 2 GB RAM (which was quite much at that time), I often ran into performance problems. Usually, I test software for servers which are dependent on other systems. So, I often had three or four virtual machines running at the same time. You can imagine that 2 GB is not enough for this. CPU power and hard disk space were also often a problem. The conclusion is that you shouldn’t install VMware Workstation on a workstation if you test software for server systems.

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Update: The Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) for Vista SP1 replace the Adminpak.

The official name for the so-called Adminpak is Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Administration Tools Pack. For earlier versions, the name of the setup file was admipak.msi, hence the name Adminpak. You will also often find Adminpack. It is a collection of free administration tools which allow you to remotely manage a Windows Server. Basically, they are the same management tools that are installed on a Windows server, the Adminpak just installs them on a workstation.

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Did you ever wonder if your backup software also secures your DHCP database? I often did, but never found time to make sure that we have backups of our DHCP settings. (Yeah, shame on me!). I was relying on Symantec Backup Exec to do the job.

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Did this ever happen to you? You came back from the server room to access a freshly-installed Windows Server, and then, you realized that you forgot to enable Remote Desktop? If so, then Remote Desktop Enabler is the tool for you. It is a simple standalone-program. Just specify the name or IP address of your Windows Server, the credentials and here you go.

Many Windows admins turn up their nose when it comes to Linux system administration. Although there are good graphical desktop interfaces for Linux, most of the system management is still based on simple text files. Centeris Likewise is a Linux management solution targeting this kind of Windows sysop.

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