Windows 8 Update: OS gets friendly with Linux

Microsoft works out rift with Linux community over dual boot issue; video efficiency; latest on Windows RT

s initial boot security for Windows 8 made it hard to start other operating systems on Win8 machines, but the company has worked out a way for Linux and other OSes to clear the secure boot sequence on such devices.

The secure boot, called Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), requires a key for the boot firmware to hand off to the operating system, the idea being to make sure the operating system isn't corrupt.

Microsoft's initial UEFI implementation was restrictive by making it difficult for non-Windows operating systems to get their keys included in the firmware, says Tim Burke, vice president of Linux engineering for Red Hat, in a blog. But that's all been cleared up with some cooperation among interested parties, he says.

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Linus Torvalds
Now the keys can be registered via Microsoft key signing and registry services for $99. That way participating vendors can get their keys accepted by the machines so their OSes will boot. "I'm certainly not a huge UEFI fan, but at the same time I see why you might want to have signed bootup etc," Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds (pictured) is quoted as saying in the ZDNet Linux and Open Source blog. "And if it's only $99 to get a key for Fedora, I don't see what the huge deal is."
Power sipping video hardware

Windows 8-certified hardware will offload video decoding to a hardware subsystem, according to the Building Windows 8 blog.

"This allows us to significantly lower CPU usage, resulting in smoother video playback and a longer battery life, as the dedicated media hardware is much more efficient than the CPU at media decoding," Scott Manchester, group program manager for Microsoft's Media Platform and Technologies team, writes in the blog. "This improves all scenarios that require video decoding, including playback, transcoding, encoding, and capture scenarios."

A chart in the blog (below) indicates the hardware will call for a half to a third of the CPUs needed by Windows 7 for the same video tasks.

Chrome for Metro
Google's Chrome browser is getting tuned up to support Windows 8 in both desktop and Metro modes. Presumably, it won't be much challenge to get the browser to run in desktop mode since Microsoft says any app that run on Windows 7 runs on Windows 8.

But it's a little more challenging to fit it out to handle Metro and all its touch features. The company has been working on it since March, and says, "Over the next few months, we'll be smoothing out the UI on Metro and improving touch support, so please feel free to file bugs."

Samples of the browser will be available with the next Chrome Dev channel release, but the company doesn't say when that is. It also takes the opportunity to restate it's complaint that Chrome is banned from Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8 "Chrome won't run in WinRT, i.e. Windows 8 on ARM processors, as Microsoft is not allowing browsers other than Internet Explorer on the platform," Google says.

Qualcomm is down with Windows RT
Qaulcomm says it is making ARM chips designed for Windows RT devices -- the Windows 8 combo of operating system, limited Microsoft Office and hardware that won't run x86 applications. The chips are called Snapdragon S4 Pro.

MCITP: Enterprise Administrator

Earning a MCITP Enterprise Administrator certification in Windows 2008 is a definite step up for your career in the IT industry. This well recognised MCITP certification is held in high regard and will provide to your current and future employers that you have the skills and knowledge to implement and maintain a Windows Server 2008 network infrastructure. People who hold a MCITP Enterprise Administrator certification have one of the highest salaries on average compared to other MCITP certifications, if you wish you can view our comparison of the average MCITP salaries.

To gain MCITP: EA status you will need to gain a pass mark in 5 exams. Four of these are core exams and the last one is an elective which you get to choose.

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MCITP Enterprise Administrator core exams: (you need to pass all 4 these)
Exam 70-640 TS: Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory
Exam 70-642 TS: Configuring Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure
Exam 70-643 TS: Configuring Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure
Exam 70-647 Pro: Enterprise Administrator, Windows Server 2008

MCITP Enterprise Administrator Elective exams: (you need to choose and pass 1 of these)
Exam 70-680 TS: Configuring Windows 7
Exam 70-681 TS: Deploying Windows 7 and Office 2010
Exam 70-620 TS: Configuring Microsoft Windows Vista Client
Exam 70-624 TS: Deploying and Maintaining Windows Vista Client and 2007 Microsoft Office System Desktops (retired)

The best place to start when studying to become a MCITP Enterprise Administrator is by getting yourself a copy of MCITP Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Administrator Self-Paced Training Kit. This package below contains all the study material you need to pass all 4 core exams 70-640, 70-642, 70-643, and 70-647..

Windows 7 Upgrade: Isolated Problems, Not Disaster

Speed Up Windows XP With System Mechanic 10.8

System Mechanic 10.8 Put Through The Test

We've all seen those annoying television commercials that promise to speed up a slow computer, but do such solutions really work? The CRN Test Center put Iolo's System Mechanic 10.8 through its paces and was impressed with the results.

Our test subject was an old Pentium III-era PC running Windows XP so slowly that the machine was completely unusable. Just opening the Start menu easily took 20 seconds, opening an app required about a minute, and we could fix a steak-and-egg breakfast in the time it took to reboot this dinosaur.

But it was perfect for our purposes. We installed System Mechanic 10.8 and, after running a scan, the tool reported that the overall system status was poor and health and security were at alarming levels.

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As expected, the floodgates were opened last week on Windows 7 upgrades. From some of the histrionics on the blogosphere, one would almost surmise that an upgrade to Windows 7 was nothing short of a painful, abysmal failure. Much of the spotlight focused on upgrade problems with the Windows 7 Student edition -- one of the more understandable gripes about the upgrade process. Accusations about a host of glitches, such as endless loops of Windows 7 startup, abounded.

However, some of the outrages over Windows 7 upgrades are dubious, at best. As Channelweb.com's Kevin McLaughlin reported, many users are complaining that that they cannot do clean installs with Windows 7 upgrade media.

Say what? When has Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) ever made it an option for a user to do a from-scratch install with an upgrade CD? Legitimately, that is, without any workarounds?

It became a bit hard, during the course of last week, to separate justifiable gripes about the Windows 7 upgrade process from the lone freak incidents and overall general biases against Microsoft. However, upon a deeper dig into a disparate sampling of users all over the Internet recording their Windows 7 upgrade experiences, our verdict is that most problems were more incidental with third-party hardware drivers, line-of-business applications, and just random quirkiness.

We conducted our own independent tests on the upgrade process. What we found were very specific, yet irritating incidents that don't significantly undermine Microsoft's promise that "if it works in Vista, it will work in Windows 7." Furthermore, we did not find any issues in our testing that should render a business system inoperable. Note, all upgrades were done using 32-bit software.

In our initial test, we upgraded a Toshiba Portege 500 laptop from Vista SP2 to Windows 7 Ultimate. The full-blown version of Ultimate, and not an upgrade version, was used for the test. We first attempted to do a clean install over an upgrade, but Toshiba's native hard disk drive software prevented a complete wipe-out of the system. So, we moved on, doing just a plain old upgrade. The upgrade process was successful. There were no issues with drivers or any other preinstalled software.

One nuisance we noticed after upgrading to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 was a persistence of IE8 to open new IE sessions and tabs at 150 percent zoom. Somewhere during the upgrade process, the previous settings for IE were adjusted, but that is probably more of an issue with the upgrade from IE7 to version 8.

Next, we upgraded a year-old Dell (NSDQ:Dell) XPS laptop, again, with Vista SP2 to Windows 7. There also were no issues with the upgrade process, save for a broken link to a shortcut we had on the Vista OS desktop to wireless networking.

An upgrade of a Dell Vostro 220 mini-tower also gave no problems. All shortcuts and drivers transitioned over to Windows 7 without incident.

This should be of some comfort to home users. From our testing, all of the major OEMs seem to really have prepared for the final release of Windows 7. For business users and those in the channel, it appears that the biggest headaches will be caused by incompatibility issues with LOB software and any other proprietary software or unique hardware. Of course, a solid testing plan along with backing up of mission-critical data and system registries should alleviate any major issues with a Windows 7 upgrade.

Our expectation is that most businesses will opt for clean installs anyway, or replace dated machines with preinstalled Windows 7 ones. It would seem that so far, the Windows 7 upgrade process is a relatively painless one and does not merit the drama it has seemed to attract.

.

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Microsoft announces 7 bulletins for May 2012 Patch Tuesday, closes book on MAPP data leak

In addition to its advance notification for Patch Tuesday, Microsoft uncovers the party responsible for leaking security information and exposing customers to attacks against RDP


Just hours after releasing the advance notification for May's Patch Tuesday release, which consists of seven bulletins, Microsoft brought some closure to its biggest security threat of the year.

RELATED: Microsoft's MAPP reportedly hacked, RDP exploits coming sooner than expected

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In a post on its TechNet blog, Microsoft blamed March's information leak in the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) that led to several threats against a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) vulnerability on Chinese partner company Hangzhou DPTech Technologies.

"During our investigation into the disclosure of confidential data shared with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) partners, we determined that a member of the MAPP program, Hangzhou DPTech Technologies Co., Ltd., had breached our non-disclosure agreement (NDA)," Yunsun Wee, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, wrote in the blog post. "Microsoft takes breaches of our NDAs very seriously and has removed this partner from the MAPP Program."

The breach, which came at the hands of hackers in China, granted the cybercrime community access to information to attack the RDP vulnerability before Microsoft customers were given the information needed to patch it. Wee added that Microsoft "took actions to better protect our information," while senior program manager Maarten Van Horenbeeck provided more visibility into the inner workings of MAPP.

Given the relatively light load of security bulletins, Microsoft chose an opportune time to close the book on March's security scare. Three of the seven bulletins were rated critical, the most interesting of which was Bulletin 1's critical patch for Office, Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek says.

Threats against Office typically require the user to open a file containing a malicious program, Kandek says. Microsoft has traditionally been more prone to issue the "important" rating to threats that involve user interaction, he added, making this month's critical bulletin "kind of interesting."

Marcus Carey, security researcher at Rapid7, speculated that the Office vulnerability patched with Bulletin 1 "is an underlying issue on how it processes data." Citing the recent phishing attacks against Mac systems, Carey says threats coming through Microsoft productivity software are "becoming a recurring theme for organizations and end users because it's primed for phishing attacks."

Beyond that, the remaining two critical patches will attract the most attention, primarily because they address vulnerabilities in Windows versions XP through 7, Carey says.

"This means that all organizations and the entire user base will be affected by these critical bulletins," Carey says.

The other four bulletins were all rated important. Bulletins 4 and 5 address remote code execution vulnerabilities in Office, while bulletins 6 and 7 address elevation of privilege in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

With seven bulletins in April, Microsoft's total bulletins for 2012 rises to 35, compared to the 36 issued by the same point last year. Interestingly, Microsoft's release schedule has been far more consistent than in years past. From January through May 2012, the total number of Patch Tuesday bulletins issued in a single month has dipped as low as six and risen only as high as nine. In the same period last year, those totals ranged from two in both January and May to 12 in February and 17 in April.

This trend shows a sign of stability in Microsoft research and makes the jobs of systems administrators much easier, Kandek says.

"I'm not sure how they do this internally in terms of planning, but it seems to me going to a more steady stream is a sign of maturity, and from my systems administration perspective I prefer that than every two months getting something bigger," Kandek says. "I personally prefer a steady stream coming out. I can deal with that better, rather than things where suddenly my capacity is stretched more."

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, also took note of Microsoft's continued move away from the "feast and famine" approach of last year. However, the number of bulletins is less relevant than the number of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), Storms says, and the security community should put more focus on Microsoft's increase in that area this year.

"Bulletin numbers don't tell the whole patch story," Storms says. "CVEs correspond to the number of bugs fixed, and this year Microsoft is on a CVE streak. With the 23 CVEs in May's patch, Microsoft's CVE count has already reached 70 for 2012. This time last year Microsoft issued just 59 CVEs."

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Microsoft may take on Kindles and Nooks

Microsoft pays $300M for a Barnes & Noble app for Windows 8 and may build its own e-reader

Microsoft is investing $300 million in a Barnes & Noble spinoff that has agreed to create a free Metro style Windows 8 application so customers can shop at the spinoff's store, but Microsoft reserves the right to compete against Barnes & Noble with its own e-reader hardware presumably based on Windows 8.

As part of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that details the agreement between the two companies, Microsoft can make its own e-reader -- akin to Barnes & Noble's Nook and Amazon's Kindle -- and include an interface to the store and support any content customers buy there.

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HARDWARE: 12 available devices to test drive Windows 8

The new company, called NewCo for purposes of the filing, will create a Metro style application for x86 Windows 8 machines as well as Windows RT for ARM-based devices, including tablets.

"If Microsoft creates a reader, Microsoft may include an interface to the NewCo Store in that reader and may surface in that reader all Content purchased by customers from the NewCo Store," the filing says.

The app itself will be available free at the Windows Store, and NewCo will support it once it's installed on customers' machines. NewCo will also update the application as needed, the filing says.

The application will include other functionality, but what that is exactly is redacted from the SEC filing because Barnes & Noble requested confidential treatment.

Barnes & Noble commits to directly shift its agreements with publishers for content such as e-books and digital magazines to NewCo if possible.

The agreement also hints at more cooperation with Microsoft. "NewCo will make good faith commercially reasonable efforts to enhance the NewCo Windows App to exploit features and functionality available through Windows and its extended Microsoft ecosystem," the filing says.

It further states that the company will help Microsoft software and services interoperate with the NewCo store under specified circumstances. "NewCo will use good faith efforts to enable Microsoft Products and Services to be used with the NewCo Store and distribution system in the following scenarios, the delivery and nature of which will be subject to the Microsoft product and service strategy," the filing says. The scenarios are redacted from the filing.

The agreement has a clause to prevent Microsoft from hijacking the NewCo Store name or masking the fact that Microsoft customers are accessing it and giving the impression that it is a Microsoft store. "Microsoft will not white-label (which for the avoidance of doubt includes rebranding or presenting as Microsoft's) the NewCo Store or obscure NewCo's branding or the fact the NewCo Store is the NewCo Store, including in Microsoft Products and Services," the filing says.

The agreement calls for transferring to NewCo its e-reading assets and content, and to sell the content in a marketplace called the NewCo Store, apparently a replacement for the Barnes & Noble Store. As long as Barnes & Noble holds the majority stake in the company, Barnes & Noble will use its influence to supply digital content to the NewCo Store. The pricing of content available on the Windows application will be set by NewCo, according to the filing.

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Learning Microsoft MCTS 70-516 Exam

Microsoft certification exams are a great way to build your resume and let the world know about your level of expertise. Certification exams validate your on-the-job experience and product knowledge. While there is no substitution for on-the-job experience, preparation through study and hands-on practice can help you prepare for the exam. We recommend that you round out your exam preparation plan by using a combination of available study materials and courses. For example, you might use the Training kit and another study guide

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for your “at home” preparation, and take a Microsoft Official Curriculum course for the classroom experience. Choose the combination that you think works best for you.

This article will let you understand the core developers who write or support applications that access
data written in C# or Visual Basic using Visual Studio 2012 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and who also plan to take the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) exam 70-516. Before you begin using this kit, you must have a solid foundation-level understanding of Microsoft C# or Microsoft Visual Basic and be familiar with Visual Studio 2012..

Topics to know in C# or Visual Basic using Visual Studio 2012
ADO.NET Disconnected Classes
ADO.NET Connected Classes
Introducing LINQ
LINQ to SQL
LINQ to XML
ADO.NET Entity Framework
WCF Data Services
Developing Reliable Applications
Deploying Your Application

Most of the examples in the article could run very well on a single server running both the Active Directory and Exchange Server 2010, if you do not have the time or resources to set up a fully functional lab. (Keep in mind that it is highly recommended that the Active Directory Domain Controller and the Exchange Server do not coexist on the same physical or virtual machine in the real world for a variety of reasons.)

Make use of the Testing Engines that are available, as well as the free Webcasts. Practice test material is just for that... PRACTICE. It may help you pass the test but believe me you will only last one day in a job if you don't know what you are doing, so if you use practice material, read the question and if you don't know the answer, research it and learn it, don't just memorize the answer....I will tell you right now that their answers are not always right.

If your ready for career change and looking for Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Training or any other Microsoft Certification preparation get the best online training from Certkingdom.com they offer all Microsoft, Cisco, Comptia certification exams training in just one Unlimited Life Time Access Pack, included self study training kits including, Q&A, Study Guides, Testing Engines, Videos, Audio, Preparation Labs for over 2000+ exams, save your money on boot camps, training institutes, It's also save your traveling and time. All training materials are "Guaranteed" to pass your exams and get you certified on the fist attempt, due to best training they become no1 site 2012.

About The Author
Hi I educated in the U.K. with working experienced for 5 years in multinational companies, As an IT Manager and IT Instructor, I am attached with certkingdom.com here they provide IT exams study material, the study materials included exams Q&A with Explanation, Testing Engine, Study Guides, Training Labs, Exams Simulations, Training Videos, Audio Exams Training, etc. for certification like MCTS Training, MCITP MCTS, MCSD, MCSA, MCSE Training, CCNA exams preparation, CompTIA A+ Training, and more Certkingdom.com provide you the best training 100% guarantee. “Best Material Great Results”

My Specialties
I’ve worked with a lot of technologies, but these are where my focus has been in recent years:
* Microsoft SQL Server (particularly high availability and disaster recovery)
* VMWare Virtualization
* Oracle (yes, Oracle, I’ve worked on 7-11)
* Microsoft Clustering
* Red Hat Linux (I can still write shell scripts)

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Over View Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : MCTS 70-662 and MCITP 70-663

A number of articles have been published on Windows PowerShell, but very few of these are dedicated to Exchange Server 2012. I am an Exchange administrator. I am not a developer. Yet, I have found an increasing need to improve my development skills in order to be an effective administrator—first with Exchange Server 2007, then with Windows Server 2008, and now with Exchange Server 2010. Fortunately, with Windows
PowerShell and Exchange Management Shell, I can do so without having to learn a complicated language and extensive developmental concepts—something I really have no desire to do as an administrator. With just a simple verb-noun combination, I can achieve fantastic things in the Exchange organization and still be able to sleep at night without pieces of code swirling around in my head as I dream.

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What’s New in PowerShell 2.0
Microsoft Windows PowerShell is a combined command-line shell and scripting language designed primarily for administrators, not developers. Prior to the introduction of Windows PowerShell into operating systems, administrators were forced to learn a programming language such as Visual Basic to fully manipulate objects in the Active Directory and Exchange environment if the graphical user interface (GUI) did not provide
an easy means for administration. Mainly, an administrator found the need for additional tools, such as custom VB scripts, when he or she wanted to manage objects in bulk. PowerShell 2.0 includes significant changes from the original version.

Topics To Understand Exchange Server 2010 Portable Command:
An Overview of Windows PowerShell 2.0 for Exchange 2010
New Features and the Exchange Management Shell
Basic Techniques
Achieving a Comfort Level with PowerShell
Advanced Techniques
Customizing the PowerShell Environment
PowerShell and the Exchange 2010 Deployment Process
Standard Deployments
Disaster Recovery Deployments
PowerShell and Recipient Objects
Working with Recipient Objects
Bulk Management of Recipients
PowerShell and the Transport Roles Message Routing
The Hub Transport Role
The Edge Transport Role
Configuring Rules and Agents on Transport Servers
PowerShell and the Client Access Server Role
CAS Services
Working with Certificates
PowerShell and the Mailbox Role
Mailbox Servers and Databases
Working with Mailboxes
Using the Recovery Database (RDB)
PowerShell and the Unified Messaging Role
Working with Unified Messaging (UM) Role Objects
Managing Unified Messaging (UM) Users
PowerShell and Message Routing
Exchange Server 2010 Message Routing
Integrating Exchange Server 2010 into an Existing Exchange
Server 2003 Environment
PowerShell and High Availability in Exchange 2010
Database Availability Groups (DAGs)
Mailbox Database Copies
Using DAG to Mitigate Failures
Monitoring Highly Available Databases
PowerShell and Public Folders
Public Folder Database Management
Managing Public Folders
Public Folder Permissions
Troubleshoot Exchange Server 2010 Using PowerShell
Troubleshooting with the Test Cmdlets
Event Logging with PowerShell
PowerShell and Automating Exchange Server 2010 Administration
Using and Finding Scripts to Automate
Monitoring Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Permissions,
Mailbox Audit Logging, and Reporting with PowerShell in Exchange Server 2010
Configuring Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Permissions
Using Mailbox Audit Logging to Monitor Exchange Server
Reporting and Other Useful Cmdlets

Most of the examples in the article could run very well on a single server running both the Active Directory and Exchange Server 2010, if you do not have the time or resources to set up a fully functional lab. (Keep in mind that it is highly recommended that the Active Directory Domain Controller and the Exchange Server do not coexist on the same physical or virtual machine in the real world for a variety of reasons.)

Make use of the Testing Engines that are available, as well as the free Webcasts. Practice test material is just for that... PRACTICE. It may help you pass the test but believe me you will only last one day in a job if you don't know what you are doing, so if you use practice material, read the question and if you don't know the answer, research it and learn it, don't just memorize the answer....I will tell you right now that their answers are not always right.

If your ready for career change and looking for Microsoft MCTS Training, Microsoft MCITP Training or any other Microsoft Certification preparation get the best online training from Certkingdom.com they offer all Microsoft, Cisco, Comptia certification exams training in just one Unlimited Life Time Access Pack, included self study training kits including, Q&A, Study Guides, Testing Engines, Videos, Audio, Preparation Labs for over 2000+ exams, save your money on boot camps, training institutes, It's also save your traveling and time. All training materials are "Guaranteed" to pass your exams and get you certified on the fist attempt, due to best training they become no1 site 2012.

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at certkingdom.com