Just got this tweet from the Building Windows 8 twitter account: 

Announce...Windows 8 Release Preview first week of June. Here's the announce from Japan's Windows 8 Dev Days #thankyou http://pic.twitter.com/ndRmXzJK

So, the RC is coming in June.  Looks like an October release to manufacturers is still forthcoming.

Davef

Customers Find Success With Microsoft Private Cloud

April 17, 2012 — Today at the sold-out Microsoft Management Summit, Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson spoke to nearly 5,000 IT professionals and said:

“Cloud computing gives IT professionals an opportunity to increase their strategic value to their businesses while building new skills,” Anderson said. “Microsoft’s private cloud solutions help IT professionals become cloud innovators for their companies, managing and delivering the applications people need to be productive across private, hybrid and public clouds.”  In addition, Anderson provided a preview of how Microsoft’s private cloud will become even more powerful with Windows Server “8” and announced that the operating system will officially be named Windows Server 2012. The new “cloud-optimized OS” is due out later this year.

  LOL!

DaveF

Just a reminder to all my readers and to myself:  It is ALWAYS DNS.  If you’re having problems with the Active Directory, Exchange, Lync, or any other server or role that uses DNS to find itself and components on other servers it needs to talk to—it’s DNS.

You can count on it.

I just got this press release from Microsoft Learning:

A great article from the Wall Street Journal on the PROBLEMS tablets can cause IT departments.  The problems aren’t insurmountable, but they need to be acknowledged and planned for.

My favorite quote: 

Ultimately, companies need to recognize that tablets are a new breed of devices that require new methods of management. Says Lars Kamp, strategy lead for Accenture Mobility Services, part of consultants ACN Ltd.: "Don't think tablets are an extension of existing legacy IT systems. They are not."

Company's Most Common Tablet Mistakes - WSJ.com

Here are some new ways Microsoft Certifications can help you keep your skills—and your careers—current. So Microsoft Learning is sharing insider insights about how their certifications are evolving to match tech industry trends.

From Microsoft Learning:

The tech industry has changed a lot of over the last 20 years, and we’ve continually updated Microsoft Certifications to keep pace with it. In previous post, we discussed how we’ve kept the certifications relevant to changing technologies. So how do Microsoft Certifications help you to keep your skills relevant in today’s rapidly changing tech landscape?

You’ve probably noticed that IT Technology cycles continue to compress. The advantages of Microsoft’s private cloud solution mean that it is easier and quicker than ever to develop and deploy new applications in a private cloud datacenter. And the software companies you depend on for your tools and environment—like Microsoft—have compressed their cycles, too. That means new more change, more often, as your work environment updates with new software and technologies.

Microsoft Certification continually updates too, to help you keep your skills up to date in this changing environment. We’re keeping Microsoft Certifications current with more streamlined, solutions-based certification paths covering the latest trends in the industry. For example, in addition to our upcoming Private Cloud certification, a Windows 8 Certification is coming soon.

And having a Microsoft Certification sends a clear message to employers that you have proven skills in the latest technologies. For instance, a 2011 CompTIA study found that IT professionals gain an average 9% salary increase immediately after receiving certification, and 29% over the long term, versus peers who are not certified (channelinsider.com, 2011-10-19). And in a in a 2010 survey of hiring managers, 91% said they consider employee certification as a criterion for hiring (Microsoft Learning, 2010).

We’re keeping Microsoft Certification current so you can keep your skills—and your career—current. You can get prepared now for Windows 8 Certification by upgrading your certification to MCITP: Enterprise desktop 7 .

I am a certified MCITP: Enterprise Desktop 7, among others.  I really believe in the benefit of certification, not only to prove you know something about the product, but as an excellent way to learn a very broad range of skills for that product.  Very often, we become experts in some technology we use for our jobs, say Windows Server or SharePoint, but since our organization might not use every feature, bell or whistle that a product can do, we really have no expertise on these other things.  Certification and training lets you know and understand all the features.  Who knows, maybe you can be the one to suggest a new way to use a product your organization already owns, and then become the latest IT Hero!

The TechNet Poster Guy is AWESOME!  Check out his new Windows Server 8 Beta Architecture poster here:

Quote: 

Exciting news today, the new “Windows Server “8” Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster“ is now available for download. My inbox has been over flowing with requests for this poster, so I’m delighted to make this available.

You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29189

This is a beta edition poster, so keep an eye out for the final version. If you’re able to get to Tech Ed this year, drop by and pick up a printed copy or two.

: Unquote

Read more below:

The NEW Windows Server “8” Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster is available ... Its FREE - ThePosterGuy - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

During this past Thursday night’s Montgomery Windows IT Pro user group meeting, I gave a demonstration of the new Windows 8 Consumer Preview operating system.  I showed how Windows 8 Consumer Preview (CP) has a hypervisor and can run Hyper-V as a feature.

The Windows 8 CP I’m using is actually a virtual machine I built in Windows Server 2008 R2.  So, on my laptop I’ve installed Windows Server 2008 R2 and I’ve created 3 virtual machines:  Windows 7, Windows 8 CP and Windows Server 8 Beta.  I added all three as native boot VHDs so I can boot to them and directly access the laptop’s hardware, etc., without going through the Windows Server’s hypervisor.  It’s not hard to do (see previous blog entry) at all as long as you have the disk space to accommodate each OS.  In fact, I almost always boot to the Windows 7 vhd as my primary when actually using the laptop apart from demonstrations.

So, at the meeting I had booted to the Windows 8 CP vhd to demonstrate all the functionality of the new OS (minus touch, as I do not have a touch screen on the laptop).  I showed the group how to install the Hyper-V feature and explained the requirements (CPU with AMD-V or Intel VT-64 plus Second Level Address Translation or SLAT, enough memory to run the VMs and the host).   ----

ASIDE--- How to, without the Control Panel?  My way:  Go to Search (get to search by putting mouse cursor in far right bottom, search icon “floats” up on screen above), change Search parameter from Apps to Settings, type in “add Windows features”. This causes a “Windows Features” icon to “float” up on the screen which you can click on and then it will cause the traditional “Turn Windows Features On or Off” menu to appear.  Scroll down to Hyper-V.  You can install Hyper-V Manager and Hyper-V Management Tools at this point by expanding the list item and checking both boxes, then clicking on Apply.  Your Windows 8 CP machine will then reboot a couple of times and then viola, you’ll have Hyper-V to add vm’s, import and export them, and there are a bunch of new features available like creating a virtual Fiber Channel SAN and virtual switches…  Enough to geek me out and the group!

So the next step was adding a vm.  Since the host WAS a Hyper-V server I had plenty of vhd’s lying around on the hard drive.  I simply created a new vm in Windows 8 CP Hyper-V by using an already existing Windows Server 2008 R2’s vhd…  This worked fine and I was able to bring up the vm and use it from within Windows 8 CP.  So somebody asked if it would work within running the Windows 8 CP OS I had as a vm itself, and then bring up Hyper-V on that vm and try to run the Windows Server vm I had just created as a vm….  Hmmmm, now why not?  That would be, as Butthead says, Cool!

This I did.  Booted back to the original Win Server 2008 R2, launched the Windows 8 CP virtual machine, logged in, started Hyper-V on it and started the new Win Server vm I just made!  It worked!  It booted up!!!! 

Still, a couple of problems.  Each time I went into the Windows 8 CP vm it captured my mouse and my video experience was scroll bound.  I tried to install the Integration Services but got a “This version of Windows does not Support Integration Services” message.  I’m assuming that’s a Windows 8 CP issue.  Also, not all the virtualization services on the Windows 8 CP vm would auto start; I had to start them manually.  Still, I’m not done.  My next step is to try to native  boot into the new Win Server vm and add the Hyper-V role and then add a new vm to it.  Then I’ll boot back to the original Windows Server and bring up the vm’s in vm’s in vm’s!

Wish me luck!!!  If I keep going, how far do you think I’ll get?

Perhaps it will be like in the end of Poltergeist, when the house collapses on itself and is swallowed into a black hole?