New in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Resource Monitor is a powerful tool for understanding how your system resources are used by processes and services. In addition to monitoring resource usage in real time, Resource Monitor can help you analyze unresponsive processes, identify which applications are using files, and control processes and services.

There are so many things you can do with the Resource Monitor!  I’ve used it to identify stuck programs/processes, programs/processes that are using too many resources, and even list the ip addresses a network application is connected to!

To bring up the Resource Monitor, simply type resmon.exe in the Start Menu Search Box, and hit enter.

Resource Monitor always starts in the same location and with the same display options as the previous session. However, at any time you can save your display state including window size, column widths, optional columns, expanded tables, and the active tab. You can then open the configuration file to use the saved settings.

Tabs

Resource Monitor includes five tabs: Overview, CPU, Memory, Disk, and Network. The Overview tab displays basic system resource usage information; the other tabs display information about each specific resource.

• Switch between tabs by clicking on the tab titles.
• If you have filtered results on one tab, only resources used by the selected processes or services will be displayed on the other tabs. Filtered results are denoted by an orange bar below the title bar of each table. To stop filtering results while viewing the current tab, in the key table, clear the check box next to Image.

Identify Resource Consumers

In Windows Resource Monitor, you can sort table data by any column to help you identify which processes are using which resources. The following procedures describe how to complete some common troubleshooting tasks using Resource Monitor.

To identify the process with the highest current CPU usage

1. Click the CPU tab.

2. In Processes, click CPU to sort processes by current CPU resource consumption.

To identify the network address that a process is connected to

1. Click the Network tab, and then click the title bar of TCP Connections to expand the table.

2. Locate the process whose network connection you want to identify. If there are a large number of entries in the table, you can click Image to sort by executable file name.

3. Review the Remote Address and Remote Port columns to see which network address and port the process is connected to.

• Click the Disk tab, and then click the title bar of Storage to expand the table. The Available Space column displays the amount of free space, in megabytes (MB), for each physical disk on the system.

1. Click the Memory tab.

2. In Physical Memory, review the Available to Programs value. Available memory is the combined total of standby memory and free memory. Free memory includes zero page memory.

To assist users who are experiencing network connectivity issues, Microsoft introduced the Network Diagnostics Framework (NDF) in Windows Vista.  NDF is designed to simplify and automate many of the common troubleshooting steps and solutions for networking-related problems.  In Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, NDF functionality is extended by integrating with other new Windows 7 features, such as the Troubleshooting feature in Control Panel, network tracing using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), and a new Netsh command line context, Netsh Trace, which provides advanced tracing capabilities.

Example: Internet Explorer browse session fails

Launch Internet Explorer, and then attempt connect to the resource of your choice. If the connection fails, the Windows Network Diagnostics wizard opens. For example, you might attempt to connect to http://www.msn.com

When the connection attempt fails, Internet Explorer displays the message; Internet Explorer cannot display the web page, as shown in the following figure.

Click Diagnose Connection Problems, to launch the diagnostics. The Windows Network Diagnostics wizard opens.

After the diagnostic completes its initial analysis, review the information, and then follow the steps that diagnostics provides to resolve your problem.

Deployment options

Network share

Description

A simple way to deploy Office 2010 is to create a network installation point and copy the contents of the Office CD onto the network share. Make sure that the network is accessible by the targeted resources (users/computers).

Advantages

• Easier for smaller IT departments to implement
• Network share and network access are the only infrastructure requirements.
• Flexibility — allows users to initiate the installation on an as-needed basis.

Limitations

•  Difficult to control and monitor who installs Office
•  Difficult to manage installation times by end users and consequent affects on network infrastructure

Recommendations

Using network file and folder sharing for installing Office 2010 can be a good alternative for smaller organizations that lack supporting infrastructure such as Microsoft System Center Essentials, Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), or available technical knowledge, such as scripting.

Tools

•  Network File and Folder Sharing
• Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

Group Policy startup scripts

Description

Administrators can use Group Policy to assign computer startup scripts to deploy Office 2010. A script can be written in any language that is supported by the client computer. Windows Script Host-supported languages, such as VBScript and JScript, and command files are the most common.

Advantages

• Leverages Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Group Policy infrastructure.
• AD DS handles the elevation of privileges required for application installation.
• Administrators can use a similar scripting process to apply security updates and service packs for each computer in the domain or organizational unit.
• A script can be written in any language that is supported by the client computer, such as VBScript and JScript, which are Windows Script Host-supported languages.

Limitations

• The product installation is not managed in the same way as Group Policy Software Installation (GPSI).
• Group Policy invokes the script and has limited awareness of the installation state thereafter.
• Product uninstalls and installs for multiple computers have to be done by using a command-line script or batch file.
• It might be difficult to determine exactly which updates and service packs were applied for each client computer.

Recommendations

Group Policy startup scripts is a solution for organizations that do not have a desktop management application, such as Microsoft System Center Essentials or System Center Configuration Manager, but that need an automated way to deploy Office 2010 to many computers.

Tools

• Group Policy Management Console (GPMC)
• Scripting languages, such as Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) and JScript
• Sample Group Policy Startup Script
• Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

Managed Deployment

Description

Administrators can use change and configuration management software, such as Microsoft System Center Essentials and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, to deploy Office 2010 applications. The choice of System Center Essentials or Configuration Manager depends in part on the size of your organization.

Advantages

· Applications are deployed to thousands of workstations in a short period of time. Managed deployment systems can first push the installation bits to the targeted workstations over a specified period of time (such as over a week), which helps distribute the load to the network and allows for a quick deployment once the installation bits are on the targeted workstations.

· Makes network bandwidth management easier.

· Centralizes control, monitoring, reporting, and issue resolution of deployment.

· Reduces the need of sending helpdesk personnel to workstations for troubleshooting.

Limitations

· Requires supporting infrastructure.

· Expertise is required to manage the change and configuration management software.

Recommendations

· Use managed deployment systems when applications are deployed to thousands of workstations in a short period of time.

· Put change and configuration management policies in place.

· Plan, test, and validate before rolling out to production.

· Roll out in a phased manner. This is especially true for unattended installs — the most common issue is people not creating/configuring a valid unattended install  experience.

· Schedule deployments for minimum network utilization times, such as evenings and weekends.

Tools

· Microsoft System Center

· Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

· Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

Application Virtualization

Description

Administrators can use Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) as part of a deployment option to allow users to run Office 2010 applications on their workstations. App-V streams applications on demand to the workstation, from which the application is run. However, the application is not installed on the workstation.

Advantages

· Centralizes management of applications, such as controlling application usage and license metering, which can help administrators ensure compliance.

· Supports end-user roaming experience and provides applications to end users quickly.

· Allows multiple versions of Office to run on the workstation and can run both virtual applications and installed applications.

· Office 2010 runs in an isolated virtual environment, which can enable previously incompatible applications to run on the same workstation.

· Uses available workstation processing power to run applications.

Limitations

· Requires supporting infrastructure and resources for App-V, which will vary depending on the infrastructure deployment option selection.

· Network bandwidth availability for streaming application to end-user device.

· Integration into existing infrastructure, such as patch management process.

Recommendations

· When application compatibility, such as running multiple versions of Office 2010, is required and you want to use the processing power of the workstation to run the applications, then application virtualization is a good solution.

· When you want to use the existing processing power of the workstation to run the application, then application virtualization is a good solution, as opposed to the use of presentation virtualization, where the running of the application takes place on the servers.

· When scalability is needed for the distribution of the virtualized application to many hundreds of computers and in different locations, such as remote offices, we recommend use of change and configuration management software, such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, as the delivery mechanism.

· Ensure that redundancy is in place for application virtualization infrastructure to avoid having a single point of failure.

Tools

· Microsoft Application Virtualization

· Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack

· Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

Presentation Virtualization

Description

Administrators can use Windows Server® 2008 Terminal Services as a deployment option to allow users to operate the Office 2010 applications from their workstations. Terminal Services is run on a shared server and presents the application user interface on a remote system, such as a local workstation. Using Terminal Services to take advantage of App-V enables the optimization of the application through the sequencing process of application virtualization and then uses Terminal Services to deliver the application as a presentation virtualization.

Advantages

· Centralizes management of applications, such as controlling application usage and license metering, which can help administrators ensure compliance.

· Supports end-user roaming experience and to quickly make applications available to end-users.

· Provides thin-client support.

· Reduces network traffic because only keyboard, mouse, and display information is transmitted.

Limitations

· Application availability is dependent on both the network infrastructure and the servers running the application.

· Graphic-intensive applications might experience degradation in performance.

· Less flexibility of traditional end-user experience on a workstation.

Recommendations

· Presentation virtualization is a good solution if application compatibility, such as running multiple versions of Office, is required and you want to use the processing power of servers running Terminal Services to operate the applications.

· When older workstations do not support the operating system, presentation virtualization is a good solution.

· Ensure that redundancy is in place for presentation virtualization infrastructure to avoid having a single point of failure.

Tools

· Windows Server Terminal Services

· Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

· Microsoft Application Virtualization for Terminal Services

Microsoft Office 2010 is the best Office suite yet created by Microsoft, in my humble opinion!

Over the next several days, I’ll be posting a series of Office 2010 deployment options as created by Microsoft.  Today, we’ll talk about what’s new for deploying Microsoft Office 2010.

New and different for Office 2010

The deployment architecture for Microsoft® Office 2010 is primarily the same as the 2007 Microsoft Office system. One difference is that Office 2010 now requires Office Volume Activation technologies, such as Key Management Service (KMS), Multiple Activation Key (MAK), MAK Proxy, or a combination of these, for participation in any volume licensing programs. In addition, Office 2010 introduces native 64-bit versions of Office products.

In Office 2010, the Office Customization Tool (OCT) and the Config.xml file remain the tools for customization of an installation before the deployment option is chosen.

Choosing the deployment option

You can use five areas of functionality to deploy Office 2010 are categorized into the following five areas: network share, Group Policy startup scripts, managed deployment, application virtualization, and presentation virtualization. You can use any of these options or a combination of them, such as the managed deployment option to deploy and manage virtualized Office 2010 applications. Microsoft does not support Office 2010 deployment by means of Group Policy Software Installation (GPSI). A workable alternative is to assign computer startup scripts.

Customize the installation for Office 2010

Several options are available to customize the installation of Office 2010 before you decide how to deploy it.

• The Office Customization Tool (OCT) is the primary means to customize the installation of Office 2010 applications.
• The Config.xml file can be used to configure some installation tasks.
• Group Policy settings can be used to define and maintain an Office configuration on users' computers. The Group Policy settings are enforced and can be used to create   highly managed or lightly managed configurations.

In my next post on this issue, I will discuss the five various deployment options, as discussed above, starting with the Network Share Deployment Option.

July 2, 2010

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4

Dear iPhone 4 Users,

The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same— the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Apple

A couple of news items:

Adult Obesity Rates Rose In 28 States, And Fell In Just One, USA

Obesity Rates Highest In Southern States

So what does this mean to me?  Well, as a nation, we’re growing fatter, and as I live in Alabama, my region of the country is in the lead.  And while I have no statistics (yet) to back this up, I see a lot of fatties in IT.  Present company included.  I think IT, due to the stressfulness and sedentary, chair-bound working environment leads to weight gain and therefore has a high percentage of overweight people.

We can fight this, at least a little.  So I’m posting five good ideas of things to do that will help work off, or at least keep off the pounds

1.  Get out of the chair!  Remote desktop is a great tool, but do try to visit the server room at least twice a day.  If it’s on  another floor, use the stairs.

2.  Eat s-l-o-w-l-y.  Studies have shown that rushing through your meals doesn’t give your digestive system time to let the nervous system know it’s full.  We tend to grab a quick lunch when we’re busy.  I’ve tried the following:  I eat some of my lunch, say 1/4, and get up and go do some small thing.  Since I’m always busy, there are millions of small things needing to be done.  Just avoid having such a nice lunch that it will tempt your coworkers to finish it before you return!

3.  Avoid junk food!  We also have a tendency to grab a bag of chips and a coke, or a snickers, or something out of a machine, when we’re so busy we have no time for lunch, or we wind up working after hours.  Try to have healthy snacks available.  Carrot sticks are an excellent item as the biting and grinding tends to help work off stress.  Try seedless grapes, melba toast, celery, other raw veggies and fruits.  Keep your hands busy while your mouth is crunching for good stress relievers.

4.  Drink water.  It has zero calories, and tends to fill you up.  It’s healthy and you need it.  Don’t you remember learning in school how are bodies are 60% water?  Of course, you could argue that you’d lose weight by drying up some, but you’d probably kill yourself at some point!  A skeleton is dry and weighs a lot less, but it is dead.

5.  Get plenty of sleep.  Stressed out and overworked, staying late and coming in early takes its toll, but the more sleep we get, the better we’ll maintain our health and keep our weight down.  You should strive for 8 hours a night, but not less than six.

Windows Intune Beta

Windows Intune simplifies how businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7—so your computers and users can operate at peak performance, from virtually anywhere.

Windows Intune is a comprehensive solution that includes PC management, malware protection, Windows upgrades, and more.

Use the Windows Intune cloud service beta to:

• Manage updates
• Protect PCs from malware
• Proactively monitor PCs
• Provide remote assistance
• Track hardware & software inventory
• Set security policies

One of our client’s file servers crashed this weekend but they were able to get the system to boot one last time in order to copy over the most important files and directories.  It was an older server; originally running Windows NT 4.0 and later upgraded to Windows 2000 Server.  They didn’t have a good backup! The last four backups had a disk error in the early part of the file copy they were using for the backup (something the NT 4.0 admin from years past had scripted for them) and it was aborting, which they didn’t notice as the file copy backup script didn’t log anything. So they got the system to come up despite the disk error—I had them start copying the files over to a newer system while we figured out what to do.  We were able to copy over the files.  Their plan was to decommission the older server anyway.  It had been running since 1998!  Miraculously they were able to copy all the shared folders. After that, it went belly up and would not come back up.  Still, they had to re-share everything.  They did not have a list of who had access to what.  Not in ntfs or the file share permissions. 

They wanted me to do a miracle fix for them.  Not possible given what they didn’t do.

So, a word to the wise.  It’s a good idea to have written documentation of your file, folder and share permissions.  Oh, and keep a current backup using a good backup program!