SWUG Activity Board

Singapore Windows IT Pro Group – February 2010 Newsletter

• February Meet Up Agenda
• TechNet offer is back again!
• Final Reminder - Windows 7 RC expiring
• Productivity with Office 2010
• Windows 7 Deployment Part I
• Cloud Computing with Software + Services (1 of 3)
• Deploying a Virtualized Server
• Hacking Windows 7
• Junior take a look: Prepare a Windows 2000 Forest Schema for a Domain Controller That Runs Windows Server 2008 R2

February Meet Up Agenda

Date: 10th February 2009 (Wednesday)
Time: 7.00pm to 9.30pm
Venue: 1 Marina Boulevard #22-00, MS Singapore - Level 22 Conference Rm 12

6.30pm	Registration
7.00pm	Microsoft Security - What's New with Stirling? - Andrew Cheng Synopsis: Forefront codename “Stirling” is a single product that delivers unified security management and reporting with comprehensive, coordinated protection across clients, server applications, and the network edge. Through its deep integration with the existing infrastructure, such as Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft System Center, customers can reduce complexity, making it easier to achieve a more secure and well-managed infrastructure. Join this session as Andrew unwraps for you, what's new.
8.15pm	Break (Light snacks provided)
8.30pm	What's in for Year 2010 - Dennis Chung Synopsis: Dennis will share the activities SWUG participated in year 2009. We will then set path for Year 2010. We will share the activities we will plan to do and a new initiative called Collaborative Learning (Learn & Share). Using Virtualization Technologies, we will learn about core technologies that revolves around our daily work. We need your help and input to make this work for everyone. Come join us, if you want to do your bid, for the group, yourself and your peers.

Registration

For registration, please email to swug@mvps.org with the following:

- SWUG ID
- Name
- Email Address

Note: There won’t be an event confirmation. Just turn up, we don’t turn people away. However, please register if you’re coming.

TechNet Offer is back again!

The TechNet plus promo offer is back again.
Promo period: 1 Feb – 31 Mar 2010, Offer: 28% off for new TechNet plus direct subscription

Promo code: TNWIN7L

Subscribe now: TechNet Plus Direct Subscription

Final Reminder - Windows 7 RC expiring

Hey folks, just a reminder that if you’re still running a Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) then it’s time to move to release bits, because it’s going to expire soon.  I wanted to take a minute and give you a rundown of what you can expect, and what you can do about it. 

The short version is that if you’re running RC bits, on Feb 15 you’ll start getting reminders to upgrade, on March 1 the system will timebomb and start rebooting every 2 hours, and on June 1 the system will expire and give you non-activated/nongenuine warnings in addition to the shutdowns.

More detail?

First off, how do you know what version you are on?  Run winver.exe, it will let you know if your build is going to expire.

If your build is an eval or RC, starting in 2 weeks on February 15^th, you’ll start getting daily popups reminding you that the expiration is coming.

When you get  down to the last 3 days before expiration, the reminders come every 4 hours.

On the last day, the notifications will come every hour.

Once your copy has expired, it will shutdown every 2 hours.  Your work won’t be saved.

Productivity with Office 2010

As we cross over to 2010, we are a getting closer to the launch of Office 2010. If not a user of Office User Group or you missed the session on Office 2010, this is a clips you maybe looking for. In this video, Tian-An, MVP in Office System also Leader of Singapore Office User group, bring you through the changes in 2010 and the enhancement in security. From an IT Pro point of view, how we benefit from management improvement as well as the license models.

http://bit.ly/7fiDRa

Windows 7 Deployment Part I

Are you planning a deployment for Windows 7 in the near future? As we all know, planning is one of the hardest and time consuming in the full process of deployment. We are sharing with you here an useful  article which will be informative and helpful to you. In this article, it covers on the choose of deployment strategy and useful tools that is available to help you plan your deployment. Enjoy~

http://bit.ly/840cV3

Cloud Computing with Software + Services (1 of 3)

As most of us would have realize, there have been increase in the discussion of cloud computing. The content of what is cloud computing and why should we care as IT Pro were covered in this video. If you are interested in cloud computing, this is one video you shouldn’t missed out.

http://bit.ly/mdMfN

Deploying a Virtualized Server

We usually think of Windows deployment services as a tool for deploying client operating systems. In fact, all the steps in this video could apply just as well to rolling out Windows 7 or Windows Vista to a desktop machine. But what about deploying Vanilla servers onto virtualization hosts in the data centre? – This screen cast shows how easy it is

http://bit.ly/7LAcVW

Hacking Windows 7

Marcus Murray, security consultant at TrueSec, shows us a hacking demo he created of Windows 7 using Excel over the internet.  After this he explains what security features in Windows 7 you could have used to prevent this hack from occurring.  He also talks about an interesting little-known security feature called “Authentication Mechanism Assurance” in Windows Server 2008 R2 which enables smart card dynamic group membership.

http://bit.ly/8SPlpj

Junior take a look: Prepare a Windows 2000 Forest Schema for a Domain Controller That Runs Windows Server 2008 R2

The link below leads you to a blog post by Tan Chee. This is a step by step guide on how he prepare a Windows 2000 forest schema to be upgraded to Windows 2008 R2. If you have not done this before, this is a good chance to gain some knowledge before you even try to do it in future. Enjoy~ ; )

http://bit.ly/cdvfUW

Your friendly Windows Group leaders
swug@mvps.org