Pocket Protection for Windows 2003

Day-to-day admin duties spelled out in detail in 285 short, narrow pages. 12/01/2003

Weighty Decision in an Exchange/Windows Upgrade

Upgrading from Windows NT 4.0/Exchange 5.5 to Windows Server 2003/Exchange 2003? Simplify your decisionmaking and choose the ADC method. 11/25/2003

Books: .NET Development for the Entry-Level Programmer

Gunther Lenz and Thomas Moeller give entry-level programmers an overview of the development model with a .NET influence in their book, .NET - A Complete Development Cycle. 11/23/2003

Mimail Damage Mounts

The Mimail virus is making its way up the ranks of the most damaging viruses and worms to date, according to a security firm that keeps track of malware. 11/20/2003

Comdex Light on Products, Big on Windows

LAS VEGAS -- Comdex attracted a mere fraction of its peak attendance, but that didn’t stop Windows third parties from crowding the Microsoft Pavilion and announcing new wares. In fact, the Microsoft booth was one of the few show floor areas that drew consistent crowds. 11/20/2003

Sybari Launches Tool to Secure IM

Sybari Software launched the first utility this week for Microsoft's instant messaging and presence platform, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003. 11/20/2003

Exam 70-299 Betas Nov. 26-Dec. 11

Newest security specialist exam to go under beta testing in late November. 11/19/2003

Comdex in Miniature

From ENTmag.com: Once the monster of all U.S.-based computer trade shows, Comdex is a mere shadow of its former self. 11/19/2003

Early December GA Date Set for Microsoft Virtual PC

Microsoft began telling customers on Wednesday that Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 would be generally available on Dec. 2. 11/19/2003

Storage Vendors Qualify Hardware with Microsoft for iSCSI

A raft of storage vendors have gotten their devices and host bus adapters qualified for use with Microsoft's iSCSI architecture. 11/19/2003

Exchange in a Windows World

A few facts about installing Exchange 2003 under older Windows versions. 11/18/2003

Gates Highlights Security, Spam in Comdex Keynote

Bill Gates opened Comdex reiterating Microsoft’s security messages and showing publicly for the first time several new security and spam-blocking technologies. 11/17/2003

Is This the End of Conflict Testing?

Softricity on Monday announced SoftGrid 3.0, an intriguing technology said to reduce most headaches associated with software installation, configuration, conflict testing, and distribution. 11/17/2003

World's Biggest Production Databases Now Include Windows

Windows servers and SQL Server 2000 now power some of the world's biggest production databases, according to an annual survey from data management analysts at Winter Corp. 11/13/2003

IBM 32-Way Xeon System Slated for 2004

As IBM rolled out its 16-way Itanium 2 servers this week, the company confirmed that it still plans to bring out a 32-processor system based on the 32-bit Intel Xeon processor. 11/13/2003

Yukon Getting Data Warehousing Overhaul

The next version of Microsoft SQL Server, code-named "Yukon," will have a completely rebuilt engine for extraction, transformation and loading of data from one source to another -- a key element of data warehousing and business intelligence operations. 11/13/2003

Windows XP OS Exam Beta Testing This Week

Exam 70-271 also to continue beta testing to Nov. 20. 11/13/2003

SMS 2003 Launches at Last

Having pre-announced the official announcement of Systems Management Server 2003 last month, and having discussed the features to death in the years of delivery delays, there wasn't much left for Microsoft to do at the official SMS 2003 launch other than talk about customer momentum. 11/12/2003

3 Critical Bulletins in Microsoft's Monthly Patch Collection

Three critical security patches are included in Microsoft's bundle of security bulletins for November. The critical problems affect Internet Explorer, Windows and the Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions. 11/12/2003

Noski, Panke Named to Microsoft Board

Microsoft shareholders approved the addition of two outsiders to the corporate board of directors and a reduction in the number of committees each board member serves on. 11/12/2003

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 RTMs

Microsoft this week completed its first conversion of virtual machine technology acquired from Connectix Corp. into a product. 11/11/2003

IBM's Itanium-Based Offering Quadruples in Scale

IBM joined the mid-range Intel Itanium 2 scalability party this week with the rollout of an IBM eServer xSeries 455 that scales up to 16 processors. 11/11/2003

Local Admin Rights, Right or Wrong

Based on your feedback, the issue of local admin rights isn't cut and dried. 11/11/2003

IIS Slips in Netcraft Survey

Microsoft’s Internet Information Service continues its slide in market share. According to Netcraft, a U.K.-based consultancy that scans the Web each month for the most-used Web servers, Apache made major gains at Microsoft’s expense in the November survey. 11/06/2003

Microsoft Offers Bounties for Virus Outlaws

Stung by brutal virus attack after brutal virus attack on its core products, Microsoft is fighting back with a $5 million reward fund for those that turn in virus authors. 11/06/2003

HP Fleshes Out Server Line

HP this week pushed out a raft of new Intel-based servers, including a pair of Itanium servers that fill a gap in HP's 64-bit server line. 11/06/2003

Itanium System Breaks 1 Million Transactions on TPC-C

HP, Intel and Oracle crossed a psychological performance threshold this week when their Itanium/HP-UX/Oracle10g system achieved more than 1 million transactions per minute on the industry-standard OLTP scalability benchmark, the TPC-C. 11/06/2003

Microsoft Puts Up $5 Million to Catch Hackers

Microsoft raised the stakes for virus and worm authors on Wednesday by putting $5 million into a reward fund for information leading to the arrest of malware writers. Specific bounties of $250,000 each are in place for the authors of the MSBlastA worm and the Sobig virus. 11/05/2003

Opinion: Real Intelligence, or Paralysis by Analysis?

Business intelligence and analytics used to be a closed process in which a small room of analysts loaded sales figures into proprietary software or onto spreadsheets to generate reports for corporate decision makers. Now, three trends are sweeping away this process, but threaten to make the IT director’s job untenable. 11/05/2003

What have YOU done to land a job?

We need your successful job-hunting advice. 11/04/2003

Security Lockdown Wizard Coming to Windows 2003 in SP1

The security configuration lockdown wizard for Windows Server 2003 that was supposed to be delivered shortly after the operating system shipped has now apparently been pushed into the first service pack. 11/04/2003

Microsoft Releases Windows Rights Management Services

Microsoft released the final version of its Windows Rights Management Services add-on for Windows Server 2003 on Tuesday. RMS can be installed for free on licensed copies of Windows Server 2003, but organizations that plan to use the technology must pay for a special CAL that is layered on top of normal CALs. 11/04/2003

Exchange 2003 Exam Goes Live Next Week

New exam for Exchange specialist titles debuts November 10. 11/04/2003

Bad Mail Black Hole

It'll take some careful investigation to figure out why bad mail on your Exchange server is eating up disk space. 11/03/2003

Bouncing Back From Crashes

Recovery Manager takes repair disks to the next level. 11/01/2003

Protecting Mom and Pop

SonicWALL secures smaller networks. 11/01/2003

Simplifying the Life of an AD Admin

NetPro’s suite can reduce AD administration woes. 11/01/2003

Q&A: Secure Your Active Directory

Use Windows Server 2003 features to prevent denial of service occurrences in Active Directory. Also discover the best way to implement a time management service. 11/01/2003

SUS support; Rewarding Job; Worms; and Data Replication Issues

New Mail Carrier

Exchange Server 2003 is out, with improvements in mobile access and content delivery, and enhanced Outlook Web Access functionality among other upgrades. Here are the top 13 new features you need to know about. 11/01/2003

Controlling Network Connections

Stepping outside of the box is a good thing. 11/01/2003

It’s Still Not Done

What to do about the ongoing to-do list. 11/01/2003

Fine-Tuning Active Directory Access

Controlling who gets access to what in Active Directory means digging into the depths of AD. So grab a shovel and come along. 11/01/2003

Auditing Active Directory

Active Administrator centralizes Active Directory auditing. 11/01/2003

Get Your Arms Around the Storage Beast

Veritas’ StorageCentral excels at Quota Management. 11/01/2003

Take Inventory of SMS 2003

This rev of Microsoft’s desktop management tool has been in the machine shop for three years. Now that it’s nearly here, let’s look under the hood. 11/01/2003

Power Up Offline Files

A feature for mobile users. 11/01/2003

Major Migration

This team’s mission: to move the entire Kentucky public school system to Windows Server 2003. In the meantime, they got their own kind of education. 11/01/2003

SUS Gets a Service Pack Upgrade

Microsoft’s Software Update Services has added a critical piece of functionality that promises to make it much more useful in the enterprise—the ability to install service packs. 11/01/2003

Easy Desktop Migrations

Desktop DNA can handle any size network. 11/01/2003