Opeations Manager 2007 also has a great number of commands available to manage the product through Windows Powershell.  One of the commands that I found this week is called get-override.  After playing with this command a bit I found that I could run this simple command to give me a list of all of the overrides I have configured:

get-managementpack | get-override | format-list name,parameter,value

This will output a list of all of the overrides from all of the management packs that are installed giving me the name of the Override, the parameter that was changed, and the value of that changed parameter.

Have you started testing Operations Manager 2007 yet?  If not sign up today for the beta at http://connect.microsoft.com!

To do this go to this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx#

On the right hand side their will be instructions for creating your own search provider.  In step 3, past the following URL:

http://www.myitforum.com/forums/searchpro.asp?phrase=TEST&author=&forumid=ALL&topicreply=both&message=body&timeframe=%3E&timefilter=0&language=single&top=300&criteria=AND&minRank=0&sortMethod=r&submitbutton=+OK+

In step 4, name it something like myITForum Forums and then click on Install in Step 5.

Now you have a new search provider listed in the drop down box that will search the myITforum's Forums!

Rod and Ron, you all should download this XML file and put it on your site!

Tim

To get you started you should really watch the webcast on some of the new Group Policy features in Vista available here: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032292773&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

There are over 700 new policy settings in Vista and it can be a little overwhelming when you first load up the GPMC and look through all the settings.  You can download the settings reference guide here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=90&p=&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=41dc179b-3328-4350-ade1-c0d9289f09ef&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2f5%2fa%2f9%2f5a97f495-51b1-433a-b5c4-976a61391f71%2fVistaGPSettings.xls

If you are new to managing the new ADMX format with Vista you should really read through the Step by Step Guide to Vista Group Policy.  You can download and read through it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=311f4be8-9983-4ab0-9685-f1bfec1e7d62&DisplayLang=en

I have been using the WAIK for several months now and it is a huge improvement over the days of the sysprep.inf, unattend.txt, etc.  Now you just have to configure one file, the unattend.xml.

The install for WAIk includes the Windows System Image Manager which allows you to create the unattend.xml.  You can use the unattend.xml to customize not only your Windows Vista installation but also customize your Windows PE 2.0 boot process.

Other great tools that are included are imagex, our new imaging tool with that allows you to create a WIM file.  You can easily create WIM files with both Windows XP or Vista so you don't have to wait until deploying Vista to take advantage of the new tools.

The Windows Deployment Service (WDS), is also included in the WAIK.  WDS is a replacement for RIS and allows PXE booting to a Windows 2003 server.  You can take your custom WIM file created with imagex and deploy it with WDS.

The help files are outstanding and the Windows System Image Manager has competely integrated help so you can click on any item and hit the F1 key and find great reference information.

Download and start playing with WAIK today at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7e5752f7-4e64-474f-9069-d2694eff2245&DisplayLang=en

So one of the most challenging items for my customers during the Vista Beta was running the Windows 2003 Administration tools on Windows Vista.  There were many "hacks" out there that seemed to work by modifying the MSI using Orca or another tool, however with Vista RTM our story is much better.

Vista RTM includes an application compatibility shim that will allow the Windows 2003 Admin Tools (Adminpak) to install on Vista!  This requires no modification of the MSI.

One thing to note after testing is that Active Directory snap-ins do not seem function immediately after the install.  However, this is easily rectified by registering the following DLL's.  , ADprop.dll and DSadmin.dll  So once you install the Adminpak go to a command prompt and type

regsvr32 adprop.dll

and

regsvr32 dsadmin.dll

Once you register those DLL's the adminpak seems to work fine.  Please leave a comment if you find any more issues using the Adminpak. 

This solution probably isn't entirely supported but seems to work.

Thanks for reading!

*UPDATE*

The official supported method of getting the Adminpak working can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/930056

This next few weeks promises to be even more exciting as we are expecting to release the Beta 2 TR of the Office 2007 system, and the next build of BDD 2007 and an update to the Application Compatibility Toolkit.

So if you haven't already started testing these products now is the time to do it!  The builds are stable enough to use in a production environment.  Feel free to share your experiences with these tools and Vista in the comments.

You can download the update from here:

http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/motosupport/source/SoftwareUpdateSummary.asp?country=&language=&web_page_name=SUPPORT&strCarrierId=Verizon&strPhone=Q&strCable=Mini%20USB%20Data%20Cable#

You can read about the update here:

http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/motosupport/s...

I also came across this very cool website that has a lot of great discussion and software for the Q:

http://www.everythingq.com

Enjoy and happy upgrading!

Techready 3 was awesome.  We have SOO many great products coming out in the System Center Family.  I spent a lot of time at the System Center Operations Manager 2007 sessions.  I will be blogging quite a bit about the changes coming in SCOM 2007 over the next couple of months. 

Over the next year we will be releasing the following products:

• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SMS V4)
• System Center Operations Manager 2007
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager
• System Center Capacity Planner
• Syscem Center Service Desk
• Softricity!! (Title to be announced later)

I haven't been this excited about the management space in years.  We are really going leaps and bounds above our competition and we are really pulling everything togehter.

For those who want to try System Center Virtual Machine Manager, you can now download Beta 1 on Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com)

One of the most exciting technlogies that I saw was the Softricity demo.  This technology is really going to change the IT world.  Softricity will all but eliminate the need for application repacking due to registry or DLL conflicts as well as allowing users to run applications as Administrator but still be standard users.  Start reading up on Softricity now at http://www.softricity.com.  We haven't officially re-released the software yet but it will be coming in the next few months probably with a new name.

I have a lot to blog about so stay tuned!

Tim

For those of you who aren't familiar with ImageX, it is the new imaging tool that will be released with Windows Vista for creating images of workstations using Microsoft's WIM file format.

I've been asked numerous times what the difference is between the WIM file format and the Ghost file format.  Other than the obvious file extension, the WIM format does a file based image as opposed to a sector based image as with other imaging tools.  This allows you to easily apply offline patches and make modifications to files inside of an image without having to apply the image, make the change, and re-apply the image.

There is a great overview of ImageX here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/expert/imagex.mspx

If you would like to try it for yourself, sign up for the open beta of BDD 2007 on http://connect.microsoft.com