Windows Server 2008

FTP 7.5 Upgrade for Windows Server 2008

Richard Green on

Well I’m not entirely sure how I managed miss this one? Perhaps it was through a haze of Windows Server 2008 R2 release excitement, but I recently discovered that Microsoft have a patch available for Windows Server 2008 to upgrade the existing FTP 7 to FTP 7.5, the version found in the R2 release of Server 2008.

This is good news for users of Server 2008 because it adds support for the biggest feature on FTP for years gone by – FTP over SSL (FTPS). This means that your previously plain-text unencrypted FTP transmissions can now be protected by the same certificates and public keying process and your online banking transactions.

You can get the download from the Microsoft Download Center in both 32-bi and 64-bit versions:

Microsoft FTP Service 7.5 for IIS7.0 (x86)
Microsoft FTP Service 7.5 for IIS 7.0 (x64)

Disk I/O Performance Improvements from Partition Alignment

Richard Green on

Disk or partition alignment is something new to me. I have heard of it before but I have never used nor understood it’s meaning until a colleague at work brought it to my attention for a customer we are trying to help out.

The information in this post is taken from a blog posting entitled Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server by Jimmy May and Denny Lee at Microsoft.

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New Version of Windows AIK Available

Richard Green on

There is a new version of the Windows AIK available for Windows system integrations and deployments.

The new version supports Windows Vista (RTM, SP1 and SP2), Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 and also Windows 7 Beta.

I’m sure there will be an update for this once Windows 7 goes RTM, but for now its good, because the previous version of WAIK does not work with Vista SP2 WIM files.

For the download, just click

Roll on the Release Candidates

Richard Green on

Well Microsoft have certainly been busy little bee’s with Windows 7 as a lot of my recent blogs show, but today is the next milestone and not just for Windows 7.

Microsoft today released Windows 7 RC, Windows Server 2008 R2 RC and also the Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista.

Vista users using RTM with the blocker tool will be disappointed to note that this tool has now been removed and will have to upgrade to SP1, however I personally think you should just go all the way to SP2.

Going along with the whole RC & SP release, last week also saw the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2 which has a lot of stability and performance improvements, which for some will be welcome although I never really see any problems except perhaps in Outlook opening a huge attachment.

Windows 7 RC is available in x86 and x64 builds and is available currently to all TechNet and MSDN subscribers, as is Server 2008 R2 RC, however Windows 7 RC will be making it’s way to the public in the next few days.

Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 are both available from the the Microsoft Download Center at www.microsoft.com/downloads.

Have a great weekend.

The Case of the Broken Default Domain Policy

Richard Green on

So over the last couple of days, I decided as part of my server virtualization project at home with my new hard disks, I would rename the domain to something more suitable.

I found a tool on the Microsoft site called rendom.exe along with a few other tools for renaming a domain. I read all of the instructions and had a plan set out for doing it, and the process was fairly painless due to only having one Domain Controller, so there was no need to wait for forest and domain replication to take place.

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Mix ’08 and My Thoughts

Richard Green on

Late last night, I watched some interesting content from the Mix ’08 show from Microsoft. I took the time to watch the two keynote presentations, firstly introducing Microsoft’s new web technologies and the second being an interview with Steve Ballmer.

Whilst I am not a developer, there are some things which do realy excite me when it comes down to web development and the new functionality which people are driving through sites like social networking and the demand for richer, faster and more integrated web experiences, and for me, a lot of the things that came up in the Mix ’08 keynotes did it for me.

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