We want to let you know about a new addition to our Volume Activation TechCenter on TechNet. The section, called Cheat Sheets, will contain short but detailed technical whitepapers covering topics that were too lengthy to post directly to our team blog.
The first cheat sheet, How to troubleshoot the Key Management Service (KMS), explains how to use the Event Logs and slmgr.vbs to troubleshoot issues with KMS activation on the KMS host and KMS clients.
The second cheat sheet is aimed at helping both IT implementers and licensing folks how to choose the right volume license key for Windows. In How to choose the right volume license key for Windows, you will read actual deployment examples for both Multiple Activation Keys (MAK) and...
Vista News
All the latest Windows Vista and Tech news.
In a follow up to last weeks blog on Understanding and set up of Remote Access to Windows Home Server, Sean Daniel, Program Manager for Windows Home Server, has provided further information on potential issues that you may experience when setting up your Remote Access, and how to solve the problem.
Once you finish setting up your remote access through Windows Home Server’s Wizard, a final screen will be shown. In a perfect world, when you click on Details you’ll see all green checks once you have finished this wizard. However, because there are three components (the home server, the ISP and the router), sometimes there is a snag in the setup. Here is an example of a working domain name with sample data:
The first...
The 2 videos below were recently created to showcase all of the features found in Windows Home Server in 1 minute.
The first video gives an overview of how a family uses Windows Home Server in their everyday lives. It shows how Windows Home Server will keep all family memories safely backed up and stored in a vault-like box, and how it can also stream large collections of media throughout the house.
In this second video, you will see the benefits of using Windows Home Server in your Small Office/Home Office (SOHO). Windows Home Server provides an IT team for your office to help protect, organize, and connect to all of your data without the expensive price tag.
You can find more demos and videos about Windows Home...
As it develops Windows 8, Microsoft has come to acknowledge both Apple and Google as competitors for the hearts and minds of current and would-be Windows users.
Full Story: Microsoft eyeing Google, Apple with Windows 8 development
Hi, my name is Arthur de Haan and I am responsible for Test and System Engineering in Windows Live. To kick things off, I’d like to give you a look behind the scenes at Hotmail, and tell you more about what it takes to build, deploy and run the Windows Live Hotmail service on such a massive global scale.
Hosting your mail and data (and our own data!) on our servers is a big responsibility and we take quality, performance, and reliability very seriously. We make significant investments in engineering and infrastructure to help keep Hotmail up and running 24 hours a day, day in and day out, year after year. You will rarely hear about these efforts – you will only read about them on the rare occasion that something goes wrong and our...
Leaked screenshots of Windows Live Wave 4 reveal that Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, and Windows Live Writer are all getting the ribbon user interface.
Full Story: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/12/windows-live-wave-4-mail-photo-gallery-writer-go-ribbon.ars
This week we announced Games on Demand for Games for Windows – LIVE. Through the Games for Windows – LIVE PC client, you can now purchase, download, and install full games for your PC!
Download: Games for Windows - LIVE (Version 3.2)
You can download 4 of 7 games I blogged about earlier this week in my post on 7 hot games for Windows 7 for the holidays. Those games include DIRT 2, a DirectX 11 game, and Batman: Arkham Asylum.
When you install Games for Windows – LIVE in Windows 7, Games for Windows – LIVE is added as a Game Provider in Games Explorer.
You can stay on top of all the latest Games for Windows – LIVE news right from Games Explorer in Windows 7.
Games for Windows – LIVE titles let PC gamers...
Visit the Windows 7 Test Drive for IT Professionals and take a guided tour of Windows 7. The short virtual labs and supporting videos will give you a chance to explore Windows 7 by feature with no installation required.
What can you try?
Search Federation: See how Search Federation works and see how to set up search federation connector.
BranchCache: Try BranchCache and enabling BranchCache in a virtual environment.
Med-V: Learn about Med-V and enabling Med-V in a virtual environment.
BitLocker/BitLocker to Go: Learn about enabling BitLocker and BitLocker to Go encryption using group policy.
User Account Control: Controlling user access through User Account Control.
Windows Troubleshooting: Observe...
Engineering is a process, with trial and error, analysis, weighing of pros and cons, planning for the unexpected, and discovering unexpected issues along the way. It’s exciting precisely because we’re always learning as we go.
I want to welcome you to our new blog, which is about just that: the engineering behind Windows Live.
Over the last year, we’ve consolidated our blogging efforts for all of the different Windows Live teams into a single blog, Windows Live team blog (or “Windows Live Wire”), so you wouldn't have to chase all over the web find out what we’re up to and what’s new in our products. But as we’ve brought the different blogs together, some of you let us know that you wanted to see more details about not only what...
During PDC, I had the amazing opportunity to join a group of remarkable engineers in presenting part of the Windows 7 Boot Camp pre-con event. As I’ve reported live, the event took place on November 16th, in a room filled with 750 attendees who heard about the changes to Windows 7 and Server R2 Kernel, as well as some of the new “user-mode” APIs such as Taskbar, Libraries, touch, sensors, and DirectX.
This post (a little overdue), gives you the opportunity to see the video recordings and download the presentations and demo code. So even if you missed this pre-con you can enjoy it all from the comfort of your PC.
Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow and the man behind SysInternals and many of the improvements in Windows 7, opened...
Now that Windows 7 has been released you may be interested in understanding what Microsoft Certifications are available, and how you can update your certification.
Jim Clark, Sr. Certification Manager for Microsoft Learning is here to answer some of the common questions.
Stephen: Are there any new certifications for Windows 7?
Jim: Yes, in addition to new versions of the Enterprise Desktop Support Technician Pro credential and the core configuring TS exam we have created a new credential with Windows 7 that is focused on the Enterprise Desktop Administrator.
Stephen: What is the difference between this new Enterprise Desktop Administrator (EDA) credential and the Enterprise Desktop Support Technician (EDST)?
Jim: Good...
Hi, I’m Sean Daniel, and I’m a Program Manager who works on Windows Home Server and Windows Small Business Server. I am one of the team members that works on Remote Access, and I wanted to blog today about setting up and understanding remote access in Windows Home Server, as well as call out a few “gotchas” to be careful of.
Let’s start with the basics.
Windows Home Server provides so many functions for the local network, it’s easy to overlook that it also provides an extended set of features for when you’re not at home. While Windows Home Server attempts to make this set up process as easy as possible, but some users still hit issues that the Home Server can’t predict. I’ll address those issues at the end of this post...
More... BBC News - Microsoft ends 10-year fight with Europe on browsers
A few days ago, we launched the Windows 7 Test Drive site. This site offers developers a chance to get first-hand experience in developing for Windows 7, even if they don’t have Windows 7 installed on their development environment. Using the Windows 7 Test Drive site, you can learn about developing on Windows 7 in a virtual environment. This experience provides the user with a guided tour of Windows 7 features from a developer's perspective with the goal of engaging and enabling them to develop on the Windows Platform.
The idea behind the Test Drive lab is to create a very low barrier-to-entry development experience for Windows 7. It is a free tool for you to use whenever you want and requires no special software installation...
