Windows IT Pro UPDATE--Ch-Ch-Changes in Windows Vista

Making the Case for E-mail Archiving and Litigation Readiness
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Raxco Software's PerfectDisk 8 – Everything Faster
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Liquid Machines and Windows RMS: Rights Management for the Enterprise
http://www.windowsitpro.com/go/whitepapers/liquidmachines/rightsmgmt/?code=ITPro1017Hot

Sponsor: Symantec

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***Commentary: Ch-Ch-Changes in Windows Vista
by Paul Thurrott, News Editor, [email protected]

Last week, Microsoft announced a sweeping series of changes to Windows Vista, the next-generation Windows version the company plans to complete later this month. Some of the changes are functional and are designed to answer criticisms from antitrust regulators and competitors from around the world. Others, however, are changes to the Windows End User License Agreement (EULA). Microsoft says these EULA changes are simply a clarification of the Windows XP EULA. But various analysts, pundits, and enthusiasts claim Microsoft is tightening its already draconian stranglehold on users. Let's take a look. Functional Changes To address antitrust concerns in the European Union (EU) and South Korea, Microsoft last Friday announced that it would ship Vista in those markets concurrently with the rest of the world, ending fears that it will use the possibility of antitrust action to delay Vista further. However, Microsoft is making changes to the way Vista works, both to address antitrust concerns and to appease competitors such as Adobe Systems, Google, McAfee, and Symantec, all of whom have complained publicly about various Vista features in recent months.

First, to address Adobe's concerns about the PDF-like (XML Paper Specification (XPS) document format, Microsoft will open up XPS as an international standard and will provide the technology to a standards body. XPS will still be included in Vista (but not in Microsoft Office 2007; users of that suite will need to download a free update to access Save As XPS and Save As PDF features).

Second, to address Google's concerns about Windows Live Search being the default search provider in the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 7 Web browser, Microsoft will present upgrading users with a screen that displays their previous default search provider. They can choose to accept that choice or pick a new provider from a long list of choices that includes both major search services (e.g., Google and Yahoo!) and lesser-known options. Users can skip the screen, but it will reappear each time IE is launched until users verify which search provider they want to use.

Third, to address security company concerns, Microsoft is making three changes to Vista. It will provide APIs so that these companies can interact with the Patch Guard feature in x64 versions of Windows, which prevents access to the 64-bit Windows kernel. It will provide a second set of APIs so that these companies can bypass Windows Security Center, but only when they offer a competing dashboard that duplicates all of the notification features from Security Center. And finally, Microsoft will advertise third-party security products in the Windows Welcome Center that appears when users first boot into Windows. This will give these companies equal access to customers that Microsoft provides for its own products and services. EULA Changes More controversially, Microsoft has also made major changes to the Vista EULA. Microsoft presents these changes as a clarification, but various online pundits, analysts, and enthusiasts claim the changes will harm individuals and small business users because they further restrict user rights with regards to transferring Windows from one PC to another. In the EULA, Microsoft is also supplying its usage rights for virtual machines (VMs) for the first time.

According to the XP EULA, users who purchase a retail copy of the OS are allowed to "move \[XP\] to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove \[XP\] from the former Workstation Computer." People have read this to mean they can do so as frequently as they want, and many enthusiasts, who upgrade major PC components regularly, have pointed to this part of the EULA to justify using the same copy of XP repeatedly.

Microsoft says that the EULA clause mentioned above applies only to special circumstances, such as a hardware failure. So with Vista, they've clarified the EULA to state that a user might "reassign the \[Vista\] license to another device one time." This, many believe, is a huge new restriction.

Regarding VMs, Microsoft is addressing the installation of Windows in a VM with the Vista EULA for the first time. According to the EULA, any Vista product edition can act as a host OS for guest VMs. But only the "premium" Vista versions--Home Premium, Enterprise, and Ultimate--can be installed as a guest OS inside a VM. Microsoft says this isn't a limitation because the only customers really using VMs are businesses and enthusiasts, and they'll both be well served by this decision. More important, perhaps, a VM qualifies as a "device," so if you install Vista to a VM, you're using up one Vista license. You can't install any versions of Vista--except for Enterprise--more than once. With Vista Enterprise, you can install up to four VM versions of the OS under the host OS.

TechX World ( http://www.techxworld.com/?code=1017WITPro ) is coming to a city near you with the industry experts and tools you need to manage a heterogeneous environment. Here are the Top 10 things you'll learn at TechX:

1. Run Windows commands at the same time as UNIX commands. With SUA, applications can actually mix calling Windows APIs directly and calling into the UNIX APIs. 2. Get a single view of users across your various enterprise repositories. 3. Configure networked Linux systems to accept logins in a secured manner using Windows AD accounts. 4. Improve how you manage access across Windows Terminal Services, UNIX and Linux X Windows, legacy telnet, and even SSH. 5. Address problems with distributed identity management and enhance the security of the network by preventing unauthorized access. 6. Query an LDAP server from AD and manage AD with LDAP. Ensure a tighter, more secured interoperability. 7. Set up transactional replication between SQL Server 2005 and Oracle. 8. Create reports that draw data from multiple heterogeneous data sources such as SQL Server and Oracle. 9. Use SSIS to extract and cleanse data from an Oracle database and then load that data to a SQL Server database. 10. Put virtualization tips & tricks to work immediately for security, availability, backup/recovery, and server utilization.

Raxco Software's PerfectDisk 8 - Everything Faster

It's here! The new PerfectDisk 8 disk defragmenter with the Command Center management console. Winner of 2006/2005 Windows IT Pro Readers' Choice Awards, PC Magazine Editors'Choice Awards, Redmond Magazine Best of Best, 5 stars from Download.com, and many more. New management console for complete management and reporting, plus 3 times as many warnings and alerts as competitive offerings. SMARTPlacement(TM) patented optimization strategy, patent-pending Resource Saver(TM) technology for faster defrags, AutoPilot Scheduling(TM) to automate everything, Space Restoration Technology(TM) with single-pass free space consolidation, intelligent Screen Saver mode, ...and much more. http://www.raxco.com/winitpro101706

***From Windows IT Pro

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***From the Community FAQ: "How can I use Group Policy to manage power options under Windows XP?" Find out at the following URL:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/93799/93799.html

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Liquid Machines and Windows RMS: Rights Management for the Enterprise Extend Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) to support enterprise requirements for information protection, including proprietary business data.
http://www.windowsitpro.com/go/whitepapers/liquidmachines/rightsmgmt/?code=ITPro1017Hot

***New and Improved
by Blake Eno, [email protected]

Secure Data at Every Stage of the Data Lifecycle
BitArmor Systems announced BitArmor Security Suite, a data security software solution that protects and encrypts your sensitive data at every stage of the data lifecycle, including data in flight and stored on any media. BitArmor centralizes policy-based data security and its automatic key management capabilities eliminate the complexities and costs associated with public key infrastructure (PKI)-based point solutions. BitArmor is transparent to your organization because the software secures, manages, and protects your unstructured data without changes to existing applications, storage devices, or networks. BitArmor Security Suite features automatic data classification, availability and retention, data expiration, and data destruction. For more information, contact BitArmor at 412-682-2200.
http://www.bitarmor.com

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Any unscheduled downtime--especially of Exchange systems--can quickly affect a company's bottom line. Learn essential skills for reducing downtime to minutes instead of hours.
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You know you need to manage your email data; how do you do it? What steps are you taking? What additional measures should you enact? What shouldn't you do? Get answers to these questions and get control of your vital messaging data. Download the free eBook today!
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2006 PASS Community Summit November 14-17 Join the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) as it hosts the premier event of 2006 dedicated exclusively to Microsoft SQL Server education and networking! Come experience first-hand more than 100 technical sessions presented by more than 80 user-experts, MVPs, and members of the Microsoft development team.
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Can disaster recovery planning create real value for your business beyond mere survival? Justify your investments in DR planning, and get real answers to your questions about how DR planning and implementation affect the financial performance of your organization. Make cost-effective decisions to positively impact your bottom line! Live Event: Tuesday, November 14
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Join experts Douglas McDowell from Solid Quality Learning and Andrew Sisson from Scalability Experts, as well as Intel insiders and other database professionals, to learn the latest about SQL Server and Oracle database mirroring, BI, 64-bit database computing, and high availability. Coming to cities across the US this fall. Visit http://www.windowsitpro.com/roadshows/sqloracle/?code=1018emailannc

Prevent installation and execution of unauthorized software on the computers on your network. Download this free white paper today for a comparison of different techniques for detecting and preventing unauthorized code. Protect yourself against emerging risks today!
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