Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc. has touted its "green computing" image following a recent independent test that ranked Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5's power efficiency over Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 on three different hardware platforms. The server tests rated power consumption on IBM, Dell and HP machines in three conditions: active mode optimized for power savings, active mode optimized for performance and quiet mode.

David Ross: It's great to see some positive reaction to the potential of our XSS Filter. Now we just need to deliver!

In this blog post I’ll try to shed some light on our design philosophy.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server worklaods as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. With Hyper-V, you can also efficiently run multiple different operating systems concurrently, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

When you’re planning a virtualization infrastructure with Hyper-V, please be sure to stay within the supported limits below. In addition, the limits discussed in this document are highly dependent on the underlying hardware server configuration.

Curtis from the Microsoft Windows SDK Blog: I’ve been writing about some of the useful but sometimes overlooked tools in the Windows Software Development Kit for Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5.    For this installment, let’s have look at couple of tools that are related in that they are both used for testing. Check out my other ‘hidden gems’ posts, Part 1: Windows Installer Verbose Log Analyzer and Part 2: XAMLPad.

With the recent release of Hyper-V the big question is "Am I using the latest version?".

Especially since you can't easily upgrade to the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version in some scenarios (without having to recreate your Hyper-V-based virtual guests that is), it's important to know your version of Hyper-V and Integration Components to plan your upgrade accordingly.

I have recently seen a number of issues where customers called in to report a significant difference between the “Size on disk” for the root of a volume, and the reported amount of “Used space” in the volume properties. While considering this, I noticed that my own C: drive had a mysterious 20GB difference.

The August edition of TechNet Magazine is now available online or, if you prefer, you can download as an  HTML Help .chm file for offline reading.

Since the main subject is SQL Server, there aren't very articles I would like to highlight, besides these very interesting field notes, written by R'ykandar Korra'ti: IMAP Saves the World.

Microsoft will release four security patches for its Windows, Exchange, and SQL products next Tuesday, all rated "important."

The Exchange and SQL flaws are "Elevation of Privilege" bugs, meaning that an attacker could theoretically exploit them to get administrative access to a PC. One of the Windows flaws is labeled a "spoofing" bug, meaning that it could help hackers trick the user into doing things like visiting malicious Web sites.

The fourth update fixes a Windows flaw that could allow an attacker to run unauthorized code on a victim's PC, Microsoft said. Normally, this type of flaw is rated "critical" by Microsoft, but in this case the bug was probably given a less-severe rating because it doesn't work without the user first taking some extra actions or adding special software or drivers, said Eric Schultze, chief technology officer at Shavlik Technologies.

The July 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine is now available online.

Got a Vista laptop and a Windows Mobile Smartphone? If so, then you already have a way to control PowerPoint with your phone – all you need is some SideShow software. To get started, you must first pair your phone with your laptop via Bluetooth (if you haven’t already done so), then download SideShow for Mobile. SideShow for Mobile is an application for Windows Mobile smartphones (versions 5 and 6) and PocketPCs that let you use your phone as a Bluetooth SideShow device. The final step is to download the Office PowerPoint Remote gadget. With this gadget installed, you can control PowerPoint with your phone - no remote required! You can move forward and back, jump to a specific slide in the presentation, preview the next slide, and view the slide speaker notes on your device. It will even work right from the Today screen so you can just use the hardware buttons on the phone to control the presentation. Nice!

Microsoft this week released its Hyper-V virtualization server, which has been years in the making. Today the technology lacks the breadth of functionality VMware offers, but now that the technology is readily available, could Microsoft wrest market share from VMware with its no-cost entry point and by shipping the technology with Microsoft Server 2008? Forrester Research Analyst Christopher Voce weighs in on the topic.

Microsoft and Micro Focus have teamed up to enable COBOL-based mainframe applications to run on Windows. Currently, Micro Focus enables 32-bit programs for Windows, but soon the company will begin to offer its Net Express, SOA Express, and Enterprise Server products with managed code-based 64-bit offerings that leverage .NET Framework, SQL Server, Team Foundation Server, BizTalk Server, and System Center Operations Manager. Essentially, the two companies are making it easier for Cobol developers who want to work with Microsoft technologies.

In order to provide customers with improvements in reliability, operation and service quality, Microsoft needs to occasionally update the infrastructure of the Windows Update client itself (this usually occurs about once a year). To help customers prepare, and ensure that they understand what’s happening, we have created several resources to provide information on the updates before they begin in late July.

Microsoft has eased the hardware requirements for PC makers to load Windows XP Home on ultra-low-cost PCs to allow touchscreens and larger screen sizes, further prolonging the life of Windows XP.

While June 30 marked the last day for selling most new Windows XP licenses, Microsoft has made several exceptions for the older operating system, including its use on ultra-low-cost laptops such as the Asus Eee PC, as well as on an emerging class of mini desktops. These devices are sometimes called netbooks and nettops.

Wes Miller: Over the next few months I'm planning to cover Windows Deployment Services (WDS), which is available for Windows Server 2003 and is built into Windows Server 2008. WDS can be a very important component in your deployment infra-structure, so I want to make sure you have a good foundation for the discussion.

This first column will drill into the architecture of the Pre-boot eXecution Environment (PXE; pronounced pixie), the history of Remote Installation Services (RIS), as well as other PXE-related technologies used at Microsoft.

The Microsoft HPC solution comes with an enhanced MPI stack. For sure, it is not the only MPI stack that runs on windows. ANL has an mpich2 mpi stack, so does HP. How does MSMPI differ from the ANL one, of which it is based on?

We’ve long recommended that customers use the Windows Firewall to protect SQL Server installations. Starting with Windows XP/SP2, and continuing with Windows Vista, the firewall has been enabled by default on Windows client operating systems. Windows Server 2008 marks the first time this protection has been extended to a Windows Server OS.

For those of you migrating from Windows Server 2003 or earlier to Windows Server 2008, if you have not previously heeded the advice to enable the firewall, you may be surprised by connectivity failures caused by the firewall (for any version of SQL) and you will need to take action to enable the connectivity you want.

Don’t panic! J Choosing the right firewall strategy isn’t as hard as it may seem, and it will pay dividends over the long run. We have a books online entry that has lots of good information on how to use the firewall. That document is available at

The new features focus on configuration change management and enhanced troubleshooting designed to help you identify and resolve ISA Server configuration issues within the ISA Server Management console.

The service pack includes the following new features and feature improvements:

• Configuration Change Tracking—Registers all configuration changes applied to ISA Server to help you assess issues that may occur as a result of these changes.
• Test Button—Tests the consistency of a Web publishing rule between the published server and ISA Server.
• Traffic Simulator—Simulates network traffic in accordance with specified request parameters, such as an internal user and the Web server, providing information about firewall policy rules evaluated for the request.
• Diagnostic Logging Viewer—Now integrated as a tab into the ISA Server Management console, this feature displays detailed events on packet progress and provides information about handling and rule matching.
Improvements for existing features, including:
• Support for integrated NLB mode in all three modes, including unicast, multicast, and multicast with Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). Previously, ISA Server integrated NLB-supported unicast mode only.
• Support for use of server certificates containing multiple Subject Alternative Name (SAN) entries. Previously, ISA Server was able to use either only either the subject name (common name) of a server certificate, or the first entry in the SAN list.
• Support for Kerberos Constrained Delegation (KCD) cross-domain authentication. Credentials from users located in a different domain than the ISA Server, but in the same forest, can now be delegated to an internal published Web site by using KCD .
• Support for client certificate authentication in a workgroup deployment. This removes the requirement to map each client certificate to an Active Directory® directory user account when forms-based authentication is used as the primary authentication method and client certificates are used as the secondary method.

For more information about this service pack, see Microsoft Article 943462.

For general information about installing ISA Server updates and hotfixes, see Microsoft Article 885957.

According to a report released on Tuesday, more than 40 percent of Internet surfers don't use browsers with up-to-date security patches -- and Internet Explorer users are the biggest culprits.

This guide describes important tuning parameters and settings that can result in improved performance for the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Each setting and its potential effect are described to help you make an informed judgment about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals.

This information applies for the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Download white paper here.

J. Peter Bruzzese: Hyper-V lives! Is Microsoft ready to prove it has what it takes in the virtualization arena? As I mentioned last week,

However, the company challenged Microsoft to answer some serious questions about its virtualization technology -- such as how Hyper-V can compete with the open source Xen-based alternatives and whether a Windows-only virtualization technology can hack it in today's increasingly heterogeneous datacenters.

When Adobe, Google and Yahoo announced earlier this week that content stored in its Flash file format would be more easily indexable by Google’s and Yahoo’s search engines, Microsoft was nowhere to be found.

With the release of Windows Server 2008, a number of customers have asked us whether or not they need to extend the Active Directory schema in order to use the new version of Distributed File System Replication (DFSR).

The answer is, of course: it depends. :)

There are a few DFSR scenarios available in Windows Server 2008, so let’s start by talking about them. Then we’ll see what you as an administrator can decide to do in your environment.

There's no doubt in our minds that writing for TechNet Magazine is the most prestigious—and rewarding—job anyone could have. (Of course, it would be even more rewarding if we actually got paid, but that's another story.) Just how prestigious is this job? Let's put it this way: right now, all over the world, children who are being tucked into bed are looking up at their mothers and saying, "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to write a monthly scripting column for TechNet Magazine."

The average person considers system administration scripting to be extremely useful but probably not very exciting; in fact, he or she likely finds scripting a bit humdrum. And here's the reason: each of these people haven't tried writing boot configuration data scripts in either Windows Vista® or Windows Server® 2008.

Ah, yes, that raised your heart rate a beat or two, didn't it? As most of you reading this probably know, in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, the old boot.ini file has been discarded in favor of a new boot configuration data store that provides increased flexibility (and capabilities) when it comes to managing the boot process.

Paul Thurrott: In August, Microsoft will ship Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, the second major milestone of its upcoming Web browser. Whereas Beta 1, released in March, focused primarily on developer features, Beta 2 will be about end users. And while I wish I had some new UI bits to show you today, that will have to wait. Instead, this week, Microsoft is talking about the new and improved security features that it will debut in IE 8 Beta 2. These features constitute the bulk of the work Microsoft is doing around security in IE 8, so this overview will provide an interesting snapshot of what we can expect.

Daniel asked about the Linux integration components for Hyper-V. They've now reached RC2 status, according to Mike Sterling, and are available from http://connect.microsoft.com/

Hang on – did you say RC2?

Due to customer feedback from the beta version, we added a couple of additional features.

· Mouse Support: Support for the synthetic mouse device has been added in beta. This new mouse support allows the mouse to move in and out of the window without having to use the CTRL-ALT-LEFTARROW key command to break out.

· Fastpath Boot Support: Support for faster single disk configurations has been added to the RC2 release. Boot devices now take advantage of the storage VSC to provide enhanced performance.

We’ve reached RTM on the hypercall adapter, Linux implementation of VMBus, and the network and storage VSC.

Hi, I'm David Ross, Security Software Engineer on the SWI team.  I’m proud to be doing this guest post on the IE blog today to show off some of the collaborative work SWI is doing with the Internet Explorer team.

Hi! I’m Eric Lawrence, Security Program Manager for Internet Explorer. Last Tuesday, Dean wrote about our principles for delivering a trustworthy browser; today, I’m excited to share with you details on the significant investments we’ve made in Security for Internet Explorer 8. As you might guess from the length of this post, we’ve done a lot of security work for this release. As an end-user, simply upgrade to IE8 to benefit from these security improvements. As a domain administrator, you can use Group Policy and the IEAK to set secure defaults for your network. As web-developer, you can build upon some of these new features to help protect your users and web applications.