Vol. 11, #46 - Nov 13, 2006 - Issue #602 Sysinternals Suite Now From TechNet EDITORS CORNER Sysinternals Suite Now From TechNet Quad Watch Animal Quotes Of The Week ADMIN TOOLBOX Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without TECH BRIEFING More About The WXP Password Hack Crash Course: Virtualization Basics There's Gotta Be A Better Way To Time Sync XP Systems New Windows Generation Raises Same Old IT Challenges Backing Up And Restoring NTFS Permissions On A Specified Volume Exchange Server 2003 Storage Management Options Special Report: VMworld 2006 WINDOWS SERVER NEWS Novell Explains, Defends Microsoft Patent Agreement Vista RTMs. Now It's Up To Developers! Microsoft To Release Six Windows Security Updates WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS Prevent Simultaneous Connections to Your Network New Process Monitor Replaces Regmon and Filemon WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK Running Just One Single AV Engine, Company Wide? Upgrade to Next-Generation Antispam/Antivirus for Exchange And save 50% over your current product! Ninja is easier to manage, has better multi-engine spam detection, and integrated multi-engine antivirus. Ninja gives you great end-user control. It is an excellent replacement for Exchange products from Trend, GFI and Symantec. Get your 30-day full function eval and see it for yourself: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Sunbelt-Messaging-Ninja EDITORS CORNER Sysinternals Suite Now From TechNet MS TechNet has rolled up the entire set of Sysinternals Utilities into a single Suite of tools. This file contains all the individual tools & help files. The whole thing is just 8MB so I suggest you get a copy. And while you are there, Mark also came out with a new very cool Process Monitor that you can download. See the Third Party section for the description and the download link! http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Sysinternals Quad Watch Intel is expected to introduce its quad-core Xeons on Nov 14, curiously enough a week -after- Dell announced it was ready to ship machines based on Intel quads. Dell plans to ship five two-socked blade servers, and three workstations fitted with quads. Intel's announcement is expected to be four Quad flavors, three for servers and one workstation geared to gamers, with more CPU models planned for early '07. Looks like Intel wanted to get the quads out fast, to beat AMD to the game as AMD won't have quad Opterons until second quarter '07. You'll have to pay for this power though. These chips are not cheap yet. Animal Quotes Of The Week "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx "I like good news. I like it even better when 100+ horses are saved." -- Yours Truly. Here is the Google Netherlands video: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Horses Hope you enjoy this issue of WServerNews! Warm regards, Stu  |   Email me: feedback@wservernews.com ADMIN TOOLBOX Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without Tools are not only software. They can also be methodologies to get things done. Here's How To Ace Your Yearly Performance Review: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Performance-Review Move, copy, or clone the Active Directory database for backup, recovery, or testing: UMove for Active Directory. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-UMove Must have AD FREEWARE. Web white pages + self-service GAL. Customizable upgrade available. Download now: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-NameScape Extend Active Directory authentication to UNIX, Linux and Mac. Run reports to show "who has access to what" for regulatory compliance. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Centrify TECH BRIEFING More About The WXP Password Hack WSN subscriber Jeff Vandervoort sent me the following. Ouch. The truth hurts sometimes. [grin] He started with repeating my quote: "We are all victims of mythology in one way or another. We are the inheritors, and many times the propagators, of a desire to believe what we want to believe, regardless of whether or not it is true." -- J.V. Stewart. He then commented: "Indeed. Case in point -How to Hack a Window XP Admins Password. This is a really fast hack: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-XP-Hack If the computer has NTFS on the system drive, this won't work unless you're logged on as an admin or have non-default security configurations on the system. If you don't have FAT32 on the system drive, you deserve to have the admin password changed. If you can't trust your other admins, you deserve to have the admin password changed. If you change security configurations in such a way that this "hack" is enabled, you deserve to have the admin password changed." end quote. Thanks Jeff! [licking wounds] Crash Course: Virtualization Basics Take a fast trip through tips on choosing virtualization products, managing virtual machine sprawl and virtual hard disks, migrating from VMware to Microsoft Virtual Server and more. Your guide is Anil Desai, IT book author and consultant and SearchServerVirtualization.com Ask the Expert advisor; not to mention MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA and a Microsoft MVP. (free registration req'd) http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Virtualization-Basics There's Gotta Be A Better Way To Time Sync XP Systems There's a tendency for any two given Windows XP systems to be completely out of sync even though they're both joined into the same domain. Learn more in this tip! http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Sync-XP New Windows Generation Raises Same Old IT Challenges Vista, Office System 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 are slated for delivery this month. But for enterprises, these platforms will mean lots of time and work for years to come. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-IT-Challenges Backing Up And Restoring NTFS Permissions On A Specified Volume In this tip, expert Serdar Yegulalp explains how you can harden your security by using the script NTFSBKP to back up and restore NTFS permissions -- either on one folder or to an entire drive. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Permissions Exchange Server 2003 Storage Management Options Exchange Server 2003 supports three primary types of storage technologies: storage area networks (SAN), network-attached storage (NAS), and direct- attached storage (DAS). In this SearchExchange.com crash course, contributor Brien Posey explains how each option works and discusses its advantages and disadvantages for Exchange Server storage management. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Exchange-2003 Special Report: VMworld 2006 VMworld 2006 last week in Los Angeles was the place where all major virtualization players came together. SearchVirtualization.com was there for the entire event. Read more in this special report. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-VMWorld WINDOWS SERVER NEWS Novell Explains, Defends Microsoft Patent Agreement It won't affect the freedom Novell or anybody else has under the GPL, including developers, and it won't contradict the GPL's conditions, says Novell's legal eagle. Novell on Nov. 7 explained how its recent patent agreement with Microsoft neither violates the GPL nor implies that Linux infringes on any of Microsoft's patents. Additionally, "Novell entered this broad set of agreements with Microsoft to further promote the adoption of Linux," according to Novell's senior VP and general counsel, Joseph A. LaSala, Jr. In particular, LaSala continued, "Many people want to know whether this agreement is compatible with Novell's obligations under the GPL, especially section 7. This was an important consideration for us as well." Want to read more about what's covered by the new Novell/Microsoft patent deal? eWeek has the story: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Novell-Microsoft Vista RTMs. Now It's Up To Developers! Finally, the OS has gone gold. Now that developers really know that there are no more major changes going to be made, it's up to us software developers and the hardware guys to complete the work on our side. MS also releases five languages simultaneously at RTM time, two more than last time. The product will be available in 18 languages by the January release time, and ultimately there will be 100 languages. Vista supports more hardware than any earlier OS. Redmond expects about 50 percent more device driver coverage at RTM than Windows XP had. The rest of these will arrive through Windows Update. Redmond also claims that Vista is the most reliable system they ever shipped, having had more testing than ever before. Now developers need to get their apps in shape, tested, and debugged. That always takes a little while but you should see the vast majority supporting Vista in early 2007. ComputerWorld has a good microsite called 'Vista A to Z': http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Vista-RTM Microsoft To Release Six Windows Security Updates November's Patch Tuesday load appears to be a light one. Microsoft has announced that the monthly collection of security fixes for its software will include just six items, but no patch for a recently reported Visual Studio vulnerability. ENTMag has a good summary this time: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Patch-Tuesday WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS Prevent Simultaneous Connections to Your Network UserLock tracks, notifies, and reports the logon/logoff activity of your domains, and limits the number of simultaneous connections under the same user name on an entire Windows NT/2000/2003 network. Trial at: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-UserLock New Process Monitor Replaces Regmon and Filemon From a posting on the NTSYSADMIN list: "Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. It combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon, and adds an extensive list of enhancements including rich and non-destructive filtering, comprehensive event properties such session IDs and user names, reliable process information, full thread stacks with integrated symbol support for each operation, simultaneous logging to a file, and much more. Its uniquely powerful features will make Process Monitor a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit. Awesome looking tool, especially for those LUA type hunting exercises. If this is the kind of product that comes out of the acquisition, I'm all for it." http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Process-Monitor WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. You all know the cult movie Office Space. If you don't, see it! Some one redid the trailer for it, and it's a "180". Fun... http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Office-Space The world's largest earth mover. 311 feet tall and 705 feet long. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Earth-Mover Into possible and/or impossible movie physics? This is your site! http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Impossible-Physics You see these logos almost every day, right? - Let's see how well you remember them. Find the real logo and find out how you rank: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Guess-the-Logo The International Space Station doing the Blue Danube Waltz with the Shuttle Atlantis: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Space-Shuttle Books sales trends can give a good indication of where IT development platforms are heading. Publisher O'Reilly has some interesting stats: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Books-Sales This week I received email from some lawyers who started the class action lawsuits that I predicted here 3 years ago: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Class-Action-Lawsuits Here are some humorous quotes on human reproduction. NOTE: May not be entirely suitable for all office environments. http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Human-Reproduction Microsoft now allows a new scary screensaver download... BSOD ! http://www.wservernews.com/061113-BSOD Introducing the ping-pong cat, the boxing cat, the paw-shaking cats and many more funny felines... http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Cats This 10-inch tall Futaba humanoid robot uses 11 high torque servos and 9 lightweight servos for the upper body for SUPER-FAST MOVEMENT. VIDEO: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Futaba-Robot WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK Running Just One Single AV Engine, Company Wide? In that case you need to take five minutes and watch this Flash presentation. We have come up with all the ammo you need to convince your boss to get some extra budget allocated to multi-engine AV on Exchange. It's worth the time. It's on the Ninja page in the left column, but here is the direct link: (Flash) http://www.wservernews.com/061113-Ninja-Presentation