Author: Ward

MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta released

The MAP Toolkit team announced that MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta is available. MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta has rich feature set to plan and prepare your environment to adopt next wave of Microsoft products and cloud services. The MAP Toolkit has readiness assessments that range from desktop to cloud — Windows 8 to Windows Azure.

The MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta program is open for general testing today and you need to register to download and try MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta in your environment as you prepare your IT infrastructure to evaluate and deploy the latest Microsoft products and cloud services.

MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here

MAP Toolkit 8.0 has completely revamped modern user interface, which provides easy and clear access to assessment scenarios supported in MAP Toolkit and assessment summaries and results. If you have used a prior version of the MAP Toolkit, you will find MAP Toolkit 8.0 much easier and simpler to navigate, find and run assessment scenarios you are interested and review the assessment results.

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Following are some of the key assessment scenarios in the MAP Toolkit 8.0:

Windows Server 2012 Readiness

MAP 8.0 Beta assesses the readiness of your IT infrastructure for deploying Windows Server 2012. This assessment includes detailed and actionable recommendations indicating which machines meet Windows Server 2012 system requirements and which may need hardware updates. A comprehensive inventory of servers, operating systems, workloads, devices, and server roles is included to help in your planning efforts.

Windows 8 Readiness Assessment

MAP 8.0 Beta assesses the readiness of your IT environment for a Windows 8 deployment. This assessment evaluates your existing hardware against the recommended system requirements for Windows 8. It provides recommendations detailing which machines meet the requirements and which may need hardware upgrades.

Office 2013 and Office 365 Readiness Assessments

MAP 8.0 Beta assesses readiness for Office 2013 and provides an in-depth assessment of client desktops for upgrading or migration. It also offers support for Office 365 features such as web apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, or full Office 365 client support.

Windows Azure Virtual Machines Migration Recommendation

MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Server and Linux machines to determine if a migration to Windows Azure Virtual Machines is possible. The toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration. Key features help you reduce the operating costs of hosting on-premise servers as well as estimating the required size and monthly network and storage usage required to migrate on-premise Windows and Linux servers to Windows Azure Virtual Machines using the data from the environment.

Software usage assessment for Lync

MAP 8.0 Beta’s Lync Enterprise and Usage Tracking feature counts the number of Lync Enterprise/Plus users as well as device activities for determining the number of required client access licenses (CAL). For Lync 2010, MAP provides a server inventory and software usage by device and user for Lync Standard features. MAP’s updated Software Usage Tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft products including Windows Server, SQL Server, System Center, Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP), and Lync.

Starting today, beta program will be open for six weeks and will end on Dec 14th, 2012. You can participate in beta by downloading and running MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta in your environment.

MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here

VMware Workstation 9.0.1

In this “maintenance” release we can see that few OS support has been added and some bug fixes has been issued as well. This release comes only after two and half months, where VMware Workstation 9 has been released.

What’s new in the Version 9.0.1 – Build Number:894247

  • Support for Ubuntu 12.10 as a host and guest.
  • Solaris 11 has been added to guest OS list

Fixes:

  • When powering on a virtual machine with Binary Translation on a SMEP-capable CPU, Workstation no longer causes the host to reset. If you run Windows 8 hosts on Ivy Bridge processors, VMware strongly recommends that you update your installation of Workstation.
  • Several security vulnerabilities have been addressed, including updating third party libraries.
  • The Workstation plug-in for Visual Studio has been updated to work with Visual Studio 2012.
  • For host systems with more than 4GB of memory, Workstation will use more of the available memory to run virtual machines.
  • The ability to mount a .vmdk file as a drive by right-clicking the file in File Explorer has been restored.
  • Streaming a virtual machines has been fixed.
  • Occasionally, certain elements in the Windows 8 user interface were incorrectly displayed. This has been fixed.
  • After disconnecting certain USB devices from a virtual machine, Workstation would prevent devices from being reconnected without restarting the virtual machine. A more comprehensive error handling code has been added to prevent this problem from occurring.
  • To improve application startup performance, the data being collected as part of the optional User Experience Improvement Program will no longer be aggregated on every launch of Workstation.
  • Remotely retrieving the IP address of an Ubuntu virtual machine with an IPv6 address assigned failed unless an IPv4 address was also assigned to the virtual machine. This no longer occures.
  • With IPv6 disabled on the host, the Linux version of Workstation is now able to share virtual machines.
  • When you import an OVA file of a virtual machine running the Datacenter version of Windows Server, the network adapter failed to be configured correctly. This is now fixed.
  • Closing Workstation in the middle of a cut and paste operation no longer causes the Workstation user interface to crash.
  • After unsharing a virtual machine configured to use client-side devices, you can now reconfigure the device settings to use local devices.
  • Easy Install on the Linux version of Workstation now recognize all compatible operating systems.
  • The VMware monitor has been updated to work with Linux kernel 3.5.
  • On the Linux version of Workstation, entering a permanent license key after using an evaluation key now removes the days remaining evaluation indicator.
  • The network adapter configuration screen now correctly preserves the Custom network settings.
  • You can now remove a Network if network settings changes are pending.
  • The Use physical drive radio button for a floppy device was disabled when connecting to a shared virtual machine or remote virtual machine a on host without a physical floppy device. This is now fixed.
  • Animated cursors are now displayed correctly in a virtual machine.

Source: VMware Workstation 9.0.1 Relese Notes Release notes

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 7.0 Now Available

Get ready for Windows Server 2012 with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 7.0. The latest version of the MAP Toolkit adds several new planning scenarios that help you build for the future with agility and focus while lowering the cost of delivering IT. Download MAP 7.0 and begin planning your server deployments today!

New capabilities allow you to:

· Understand your readiness to deploy Windows Server 2012 in your environment

· Determine Windows 8 readiness. For more info, see this blog post.

· Investigate how Windows Server and System Center can manage your heterogeneous environment through VMware migration and Linux server virtualization assessments

· Size your desktop virtualization needs for both Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and session-based virtualization using Remote Desktop Services. For more information, see these blog posts.

· Ready your information platform for the cloud with the SQL Server 2012 discovery and migration assessment. For more info, see this blog post.

· Evaluate your licensing needs with usage tracking for Lync 2010, active users and devices, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012. For more information, see this blog post.

Download MAP 7.0 now from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?&id=7826

Office 2013 Administrative Template files (ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool

This download includes Group Policy Administrative Template (ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool (OPAX/OPAL) files for Microsoft Office 2013.

This download includes Group Policy Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool files for use with Office 2013 applications. It also includes an \Admin folder with an Office Customization Tool, and ADMX and ADML versions of Office 2013 system Administrative Template files. For administrative template files, you may use the combination of ADMX and language-specific ADML files on computers running at least Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.

For the latest information about policy settings, please refer to the Microsoft Excel 2013 workbook, Office2013GroupPolicyAndOCTSettings_Reference.xls

admintemplates_32bit.exe

admintemplates_64bit.exe

iOS 6.0.1 update available including Exchange Meetings Bug Fix

There is a update released for IOS 6,Update 6.0.1 and it includes a bug fix for an important ActiveSync issue affecting meetings. If you’ve not heard about this issue, you can read more about it here and on the Exchange Team Blog here.

The fixes included in this release include a few other fixes, but nothing mentioning the AutoDiscover issues present in iOS 6:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1606

VM Advanced ISO. Free Tools For Advanced Tasks

Kendrick Coleman has compiled a CD with FREE TOOLS for virtual machines within your VMware environment. All of the tools in this package were pooled together for performing advanced tasks to optimize performance, reclaim lost space, and clean up your virtual machine.

CURRENT VERSION = 0.8

Without further ado here is what is packaged in VM Advanced v0.8 (510MB):

  • FoxitPortablePDF
  • 01 – P2V Clean-up
    • 01 – Resolution Resize
    • 02 – HP ProLiant Cleaner
    • 03 – Remove Non Present Devices
      04 – Rename Local Area Connection
    • 05 – Network Settings
    • 06 – Dell Cleanup
  • 02 – Hal Upgrade-Downgrade
    • 01 – HAL_Toggle <- UPDATED
  • 03 – Partition Alignment
    • 02 – mbrtools (only how-to is provided) <-REMOVED, Use UBERAlign
    • 04 – Paragon Alignment Tool 2.0 (free tool for limited time but cannot distribute within ISO) <-REMOVED, Use UBERAlign
  • 03 – VDI Performance
    • 01 – VM Check Partition Alignment
    • 02 – Aligning VMDK Partition For Template
    • 03 – Quest Desktop Optimizer
  • 04 – Reclaim Space
    • 01 – SDelete
  • 05 – Analysis
    • 01 – IOPS w/ IOmeter
    • 02 – LoadStorm
    • 03 – NetworkPerformance
      • 01-  iperf
      • 02 – PSTools <- New
  • 06 – SysprepFiles
    • 01 – vCenterSysprep
    • 02 – vCloudSysprep
  • 07 – Virtual Router
    • FreeSCO
  • 08 – Floppies
    • 01 – LSI_Logic_Parallel_WinXP_x86
    • 02 – Bus_LogicParallel_WinXP_x86

  • 09 – vSphere Client
  • 10 – Security
    • 01 – Angry IP Scanner
    • 02 – Blues Port Scanner
    • 03 – NetworkActiv PortScanner
    • 04 – PuTTY
    • 05 – HijackThis
  • 11 – SQL Native Client
    • 01 – SQL Native Client
  • 12 – ISO Creation <- New
    • 01 -Folder2Iso

Download Here:
VM Advanced v0.8 ISO

The RTM versions of Exchange 2013, Lync 2013 and Office 2013 are now available on MSDN and Technet

Exchange 2013, Lync 2013 and Office 2013 RTM is now available for download on MSDN/Technet!!! Whoot!!!!!! Open-mouthed smile Open-mouthed smile Open-mouthed smile

MSDN Links:
Lync Server 2013 (x64) – DVD (English)
Exchange Server 2013 (x64) – DVD (Multilanguage)
Office Web Apps 2013 (x64) – DVD (English)
Office Professional Plus 2013 (x64) – DVD (English)
Office Professional Plus 2013 (x86) – DVD (English)
SharePoint Server 2013 (x64) – DVD (English)
Visio Professional 2013 (x64) – (English)
Visio Professional 2013 (x86) – (English)
Project Professional 2013 (x64) – (English)
Project Professional 2013 (x86) – (English)

IOS6 and Exchange Issue’s

If you’ve been following the Exchange and Apple-related news lately, you can’t have failed to hear about a number of bugs in the new iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch OS, iOS 6.
What’s the problem, then? Well, in iOS the two most widely reported ones relate to:

  • AutoDiscover – It doesn’t work unless the Email Address and UPN match.
  • Meeting Requests – The iOS device loses track of the organizer and replaces the device user as the organizer instead, allowing the device user to update or cancel meetings other people have asked them to attend. For more info, see KB 2768774

Another method you might want to consider is to find those iOS 6 users within your organization and tell them about the issue. It might not be practical in all situations, but with the help of the script below (which will also report future and previous versions) you’ll be able to see what the task in hand looks like.

Use the script as follows:

.\Export-iOSDeviceStatistics.ps1 -OutputCSVFile .\output.csv

You’ll see output about iOS devices shown in the PowerShell session:

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And the resulting CSV file can be opened in Microsoft Excel, or your favourite CSV editor:

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Download the script from the Technet Gallery

Special thanks to Steve Goodman

Exchange 2013 RTM Help File

Exchange

 

For those interested, e.g. you’re planning for or about to implement Exchange 2013 or just want to look up something: the Exchange 2013 RTM help file has been made available for download . Note that the help file is still incomplete, so I expect it gets updated in the upcoming period.

It comes in a Hybrid as well as an On Premise version; you can get them here

Free E-book: Introducing Windows 8 for IT Professionals

Augusto Alvarez Wrote a nice e-book “Introducing Windows 8, an overview for IT Professionals” (preview version).

This book has some quite important topics that every IT guy which is considering implement Windows 8 in their company should read it carefully. Here’s a short summary for the topics included (I’m just naming a few; the entire list is available in the download):

  1. 1. Overview
  2. 2. Experiencing Windows 8
  3. 3. Windows 8 for IT Pros
    • Customizing and configuring Windows 8
    • Client Hyper-V
    • Redesign NTFS
    • PowerShell 3.0
  4. 4. Preparing for Deployment
    • Windows 8 SKUs
    • Application compatibility
    • User state migration
    • Windows To Go
  5. 5. Deploying Windows 8
    • Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit
    • Deployment and Imaging
    • User state migration tool
    • MDT 2012 Update 1
    • e. SCCM 2012 with SP1
    • f. Desktop Virtualization
  6. 6. Delivering Windows Apps
  7. 7. Windows 8 Recovery
    • DaRT
  8. 8. Windows 8 Management
    • Group Policy Improvements
    • Windows Intune
    • Mobile device support
  9. 9. Windows 8 Security
  10. 10. Internet Explorer 10
  11. 11. Windows 8 virtualization
    • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
    • Application Virtualization
    • User State virtualization

I did not read it completely, but for what I’ve seen so far the content is not fully detailed with step-by-steps but contains valuable information and guidance that must be read it if you are implementing / managing Windows 8.

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