Microsoft RemoteFX introduces a new set of remote user experience capabilities that enable a media-rich user environment for virtual and session-based desktops. RemoteFX can be deployed to a range of thick and thin client devices, enabling cost-effective, local-like access to graphics-intensive applications. RemoteFX also supports a broad array of USB peripherals to improve the productivity of users of virtual desktops.

SP1 also includes Dynamic Memory, which enables servers running Hyper-V for server virtualization, to be more efficient in the use of memory.  Dynamic Memory pools and distributes memory among the virtual machines running on a physical host, enabling higher consolidation ratios, increasing server utilization rates, and providing more flexible workload management. Furthermore, memory is dynamically added based on the demands of the current workloads and without service interruption.

Expect to see Service Pack 1 released in its final form during first quarter 2011 and whether you’re virtualizing servers or desktops, take a few minutes to learn more about Service Pack 1 here. You needn’t wait for SP1, however – you can join those already enjoying the benefits of Windows Server 2008 R2 by deploying today.

Improve the efficiency and availability of IT resources and applications with the new virtualization innovations provided in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC. Dynamic Memory and Microsoft RemoteFX^TM, to help businesses further optimize their datacenter and desktops.

• Dynamic Memory lets Hyper-V administrators pool available memory on a physical host and dynamically distribute it to any virtual machine(s) running on that host.
• RemoteFX lets Windows Server 2008 R2 administrators provide a rich end user desktop virtualization experience by delivering vivid content, independent of any graphics stack, to server-hosted virtual and session-based desktops.

Businesses can take advantage of these innovations to help deliver new capabilities such as private cloud and VDI. To learn more about Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC and the benefits it provides, read the documents, feature overview and FAQs below.

• Read the Windows Server 2008 R2 Technical Whitepaper for a technical overview of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC release features and benefits.
• Download the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC Reviewer’s Guide to evaluate the core features of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC release in your environment.

Dynamic Memory Overview

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V introduces a new feature, called Dynamic Memory, in the Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 RC releases.  It allows customers to achieve increased density when they’re consolidating physical servers into a virtual realm, providing them with predictable performance and linear scalability.

With Dynamic Memory, IT administrators are able to pool available memory on a physical host and then dynamically dole that memory out to virtual machines running on the host, based on current workload needs.

• For a technical overview of the new Dynamic Memory feature, download the Dynamic Memory Technical Overview whitepaper.
• View the Dynamic Memory video

RemoteFX Overview

RemoteFX, a key feature of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) lets IT administrators deliver a rich graphics experience to end-users through virtualized desktops.  Using new protocol enhancements between Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, end users can now access virtual machines on a wide variety of target devices and still get a rich graphics experience with server-side graphics processing.

• Learn more about Remote Desktop Services and RemoteFX and download the Remote Desktop Services Business White Paper. 
• View the RemoteFX video

Download SP1 here; http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyId=C3202CE6-4056-4059-8A1B-3A9B77CDFDDA&hash=wrw75DeobQ1hLeOrOvthYUYCv7PJpk89RMXhKQ3RVng1XsUOVWqxDvThIkaoGa34DtzYCHZTKY4Evdlqyp7X4Q%3d%3d

Sources;
http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/ 
http://bink.nu/news/windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-service-pack-1-release-candidate.aspx

Free ebook: Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (10 chapters by by Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines)
Free ebook: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (10 chapters by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner)
Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (DRAFT Preview) (6 chapters by Charles Petzold)
Free ebook: Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 (Special Excerpt 2) (newer than the ebook above; 11 chapters by Charles Petzold)
Free ebook: Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft (8 chapters by Katherine Murray)
Free ebook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) (6 chapters by Mitch Tulloch)
Free ebook: First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (14 chapters by Katherine Murray)
Free ebook: Windows 7 troubleshooting tips (short ebook by Mitch Tulloch)
Free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 (9 chapters by Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker)
Free ebook: Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance (10 chapters from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and 6 TechNet articles)

Source ; http://bink.nu/news/free-ebooks-from-microsoft-press.aspx

Below are a few key points on what’s new with R3.  Go here to download the evaluation software, view demonstrations or try R3 via Microsoft’s virtual labs.

• Centralized Power Management: Allows IT organizations to centrally manage the power settings of Windows 7, Vista and XP computers, helping reduce energy consumption and costs.  Detailed reports of trends and settings help IT pros make smart power management choices, and also validate Green IT projects with summaries of power, money and CO2 savings.  Learn more here.

• Mobile Device Management: Licenses for System Center Mobile Device Manager allow users to run comprehensive asset inventories, deploy software, manage settings and enforce password policies for Widows phones.

• Enhanced Scalability and Performance: Configuration Manager R3 is more scalable than ever, increasing the number of supported clients to 300,000 per site.  R3 is also more efficient in the way it communicates with Active Directory, helping you discover user or machine changes more quickly and allowing custom queries to define user, system or group attributes.

Additionally, just like Configuration Manager R2, R3 will be the foundation for the upcoming Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010.  By bringing endpoint security into overall endpoint management, users can reduce costs and inefficiencies, and also improve security and compliance..

Source;

http://bink.nu/news/system-center-configuration-manager-2007-r3-released.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/configuration-manager/cm-r3.aspx

Under MSDN Microsoft has launched a new site called http://gps.cloudapp.net this site is awesome! The site will allow you to search for group policy settings, filter by Internet Explorer version, office version and others and browse by registry or by policy.

But this tool makes it much easier to find the right settings and apply them either with registry hacks or policy objects.

This is a quick example of a search on hide drives which is pretty commonly used but still..

source : http://www.renevester.com/2010/09/online-group-policy-search-tool-from-microsoft/

Windows Management Framework, which includes Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0, was officially released to the world this morning. By providing a consistent management interface across the various flavors of Windows, we are making our platform that much more attractive to deploy. IT Professionals can now easily manage their Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through PowerShell remoting – that’s a huge win!

PowerShell v2 has finally been released for ‘legacy’ OSes (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008)! I’m saying legacy OSes because the latest OSes are Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You could also say the out-of-band releases have been released. This happened somewhere in the end of October 2009.

If you are having a hard time finding those, that’s because it is in included in the Windows Management Framework.

The Windows Management Framework includes:

• Windows Remote Management (WinRM) v2.0
• Windows PowerShell v2.0
• Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) v4.0

Read more about it here.

Windows Management Framework Core (WinRM 2.0 and Windows PowerShell 2.0)

• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows Server 2008 package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=863e7d01-fb1b-4d3e-b07d-766a0a2def0b)
• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=d37e25cf-db05-4b23-a852-cdf865d81b82)
• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows Server 2003 package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=f002462b-c8f2-417a-92a3-287f5f81407e)
• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=909bbcf1-bd78-4e03-8c83-69434717e551)
• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows Vista package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=f2fa1227-9a34-4e29-aa03-62f5c00e16f2)
• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows Vista x64-based systems package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0f73efa2-f8d6-45f3-a8f8-5cdc205b119a)
• Download the Windows Management Framework Core for Windows XP package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=60cb5b6c-6532-45e0-ab0f-a94ae9ababf5)

Windows Management Framework BITS (BITS 4.0)

• Download the Windows Management Framework BITS for Windows Server 2008 package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=e77925a9-58a2-428b-bb4f-714d49d0b889)
• Download the Windows Management Framework BITS for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=e749f4cd-74db-404a-bc30-765137cd3804)
• Download the Windows Management Framework BITS for Windows Vista package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=d7ae9660-bb13-4f0c-816b-85de3980ec1b)
• Download the Windows Management Framework BITS for Windows Vista x64-based systems package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=173c8a2d-b264-49ca-8d35-b6f234cbdaeb)

WSUS 3.0 SP2 delivers important customer-requested management, stability, and performance improvements. Some of the features and improvements include the following:

• Integration with Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Support for the BranchCache feature in Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 clients.
• Compliance Report
• Windows Update Agent (WUA) offers a collection of performance enhancements, user experience improvements, and bug fixes software updates.

WSUS 3.0 SP2 can be installed alone, or as an upgrade of WSUS 3.0 SP1.
This package installs both the WSUS 3.0 SP2 Server, WSUS 3.0 SP2 Administration Console components and WUA client for down-level operating system. You must install the server components on a computer that is running on Windows Server 2003 SP2 or later versions. You may install the Administration Console on a remote computer that is running one of the supported operating systems, see below the Supported Operating Systems section.
WSUS 3.0 SP2 Server Installation on Windows Small Business Server 2003
If you are installing the WSUS 3.0 SP2 product on Windows Small Business Server 2003, follow the instructions in Installing Windows Server Update Services 3.0 on Windows Small Business Server 2003.

Download Here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=a206ae20-2695-436c-9578-3403a7d46e40#tm

Download “Understanding Microsoft Virtualization solutions – from the Desktop to the Datacenter” free pdf ebook

Original article: Microsoft Press – Microsoft Virtualization Solutions Free E-Book by Brian Johnson

Once you install the update, you can enable one or more of the following tools from the Control Panel under Programs, Turn Windows features on or off.

Download Here : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d&displaylang=en

The main pieces of this scenario were:

1.  Lockdown mode: this allows you to disable and/or hide any functionality in the PowerGUI admin console. Simply open the file quest.powergui.Lockdown.xml in PowerGUI profile folder (%appdata%\Quest Software\PowerGUI ). You can just replace all true with false (in that case users won’t even be able to click an action or change order of columns), or be more granular.

2.  Central configuration update: Redirections.xml from PowerGUI profile folder lets you make PowerGUI pull its configuration and/or lockdown information from another location (e.g. file share). PowerGUI also checks for the configuration version, which lets you force the UI update whenever you change anything in your custom console.

3.  Ability to change the welcome page to something more meaningful for your organization.

And then there are multiple smaller changes:

4.  Multiline comments for PowerShell v2 (<# #> ).

5.  Icons in the grid and dynamic nodes.

6.  Multiple bugfixes based on reports we got from our community forum s. We’ll hopefully follow-up on all of them next week.
Download PowerGUI here: http://powergui.org/downloads.jspa

Summary of techniques applied in the Powershell script:

• search Active Directory objects
• show Active Directory object attributes
• update Active Directory object attributes
• move an Active Directory object to a specified Organisational Unit (OU)
• set the ‘user must change password at next logon’ flag
• set a password on a Active Directory user object

vclear the ‘disabled user account’ flag

• set the terminal services profile path (Changing the Terminal Server profile path requires the powershell script to run on a server because the call requires some DLLs that are only installed on servers)

Disclaimer: The powershell scripts shown in this article have only been tested on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.

function searchUserSam($userID)
{
$root = [ADSI]”
$searcher = new-object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher($root)
$searcher.filter = "(&(objectClass=user)(sAMAccountName= $userID))"
$object = $searcher.findall()
if ($object.count -eq 0) {
return 0
} else {
return $object[0]
}
}

$Name = $args[0]
$objUser = searchUserSam $Name
([string]($objUser.Properties.adspath))
$userObject = [ADSI]([string]($objUser.Properties.adspath))

#show the current user values
"name:"+$userObject.name
"samaccountname:"+$userObject.samaccountname
"extensionattribute8:"+$userObject.extensionattribute8
"userPrincipalName:"+$userObject.userprincipalname
"cn:"+$userObject.cn
"useraccountcontrol:"+$userObject.useraccountcontrol
"profilePath:"+$userObject.profilepath
"scriptPath:"+$userObject.scriptpath
# This terminal server specific InvokeGet method only works on Server 2008, not on Vista!
"terminalservicesprofilepath:"+$userObject.PSBase.InvokeGet(‘terminalservicesprofilepath’)

# set userPrincipalName to X account and add the ‘@foo.bar’ extension
$userObject.userprincipalname = ($userID + "@foor.bar")

# clear the ‘disabled user account’ flag
$userObject.psbase.InvokeSet(‘accountdisabled’,$true)

# set the profile path
$userObject.profilepath = "\\"+$domainFQDN+"\data\"+$environment+"\Users\"+$UserID+"\Profiles\Desktop"

# set the terminal services profile path
$userObject.PSBase.InvokeSet(‘terminalservicesprofilepath’, "\\"+$domainFQDN+"\data\"+$environment+"\Users\"+$UserID+"\Profiles\%FarmName%")

# set the login script
$userObject.scriptPath = "Login.cmd"

# set a new password for the account
$userObject.psbase.Invoke("SetPassword", "Whatever1")

# set the ‘user must change password at next logon’ flag
$userObject.pwdLastSet = 0

# write all updates to the user object in Active Directory
$userObject.setinfo()

# Move the user object to the ‘Standard Users’ OU
$userObject.PSBase.MoveTo("LDAP://OU=Business Users,OU=Production,DC=foo,DC=bar")

So what is PowerShell you ask?

I would imagine a lot of you have at least heard of PowerShell. If you aren’t a developer you’ve probably steered clear of it simply because it looks like complex code. Fear not, it isn’t that complex. Here’s the description from microsoft.com:

Microsoft Windows PowerShell command line shell and scripting language helps IT professionals achieve greater control and productivity. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 130 standard command line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell allows IT professionals to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation. Windows PowerShell is easy to adopt, learn, and use, because it works with your existing IT infrastructure and existing script investments, and because it runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2003. Windows PowerShell is now included as part of Windows Server 2008. Exchange Server 2007, System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Data Protection Manager V2, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager also leverage Windows PowerShell to improve administrator control, efficiency, and productivity.

Here’s the 20 minute screencast video Jeff created. Jeff demonstrates some really cool tools so stick with him through the entire video. Double click the small window below while playing and it will go full screen. If you want to download the video and watch it offline, right mouse click this link and SAVE AS to your local disk.

For more information on PowerShell, see the website at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/default.mspx.

See the TechNet Script Center at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx.

Get PowerShell version 2 (CTP) @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7C8051C2-9BFC-4C81-859D-0864979FA403&displaylang=en.

Original Post Here:
http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2008/07/22/windows-powershell-excellent-screencast-now-available.aspx

A more complete version of what’s new can be found on our version history page .

Both components got:

• VMware Infrastructure Client integration
• Support for roaming profiles, as well as Citrix/TS deployments
• Easier UI localization switch right from the GUI
• STA mode support

The highlights for the IDE include:

• Online search for PowerShell scripts
• Support for multiple runspaces
• Intellisense now supporting NoteProperties, env:, and function drive
• Support for signed scripts

Admin console got a lot of improvements for making your powerpacks easier to create and use:

• Ability to select which parameters get prompted
• Support for $host.ui.prompt and $host.ui.promptforchoice so you can easily create dialog boxes of your own
• Updated default PowerPacks
• Column selection now associated with data type and thus consistent and working for dynamic nodes

Again, the what’s new page has some details and we are out there at the forums waiting for your feedback.

Go ahead and download the latest build ! (Or wait another week or so till we turn the automated upgrade)

The Script Repository categorizes sample scripts designed to run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.

Most of the scripts on this this page were written using VBScript.
New to scripting at all? Take a look at the Getting Started page to learn more about how these scripts work and how to write your own scripts.