Microsoft Talk

On July 24th, Microsoft announced that it intends to acquire DATAllegro Inc., a provider of breakthrough data warehouse appliances. The acquisition will extend the capabilities of Microsoft’s mission-critical data platform, making it easier and more cost-effective for customers of all sizes to manage and glean insight from the ever-expanding amount of data generated by and for businesses, employees and consumers.

“DATAllegro is a tremendously innovative company that has started to redefine the data warehouse market,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers enterprise-class capabilities in business intelligence and data warehousing, and the addition of the DATAllegro team and its technology will take our data platform to the highest scale of data warehousing.”

“Integrating DATAllegro’s nonproprietary hardware platform and flexible software architecture into Microsoft SQL Server will provide customers with the strongest offering in the market,” said Stuart Frost, CEO of DATAllegro. “We are excited to join forces with Microsoft and continue the innovation this company was founded on.”

Unlike most data warehouse appliance vendors targeting the 1–25 terabyte range, DATAllegro has specialized in large-volume, high-performance data warehouses. DATAllegro’s data warehouse appliance installations boast some of the largest data volume capacities in the industry — up to hundreds of terabytes on a single system. DATAllegro clients span such markets as retail, telecommunications and manufacturing.

According to a report by Donald Feinberg of Gartner Inc., “As data warehouses are becoming more strategic to organizations and as data warehouse appliances mature, the adoption rate of the data warehouse appliance is increasing rapidly.” (“Data Warehouse Appliances Are More Than Just Plug-And-Play,” July 13, 2007.)

In addition to offering large capacities, DATAllegro’s patent-pending technology is designed for complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the few data warehouse appliances built on a nonproprietary hardware platform including Dell and Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it ideally suited to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server.

After completing the acquisition, Microsoft will retain most of DATAllegro’s team as well as its headquarters in Aliso Viejo, Calif., making it a Center of Excellence for data warehousing. Existing DATAllegro customers will continue to be supported.

What this means for you and me, is faster and more effecient service from any company.

Check out the newest books over on The BookStacks.

Hello Hello!

My name is Brick ONeil, and i’ve been with the 451 Press Network since March 2007. I’m the new blogger for Microsoft Talk. We’ll be discussing ‘About Microsoft’ itself. What’s happening, who’s coming/going, what new technologies they’re coming out with, updates and upgrades. I’ll try to bring you news each day that impacts your daily life and use of Microsoft products, or just interesting information I think you’ll enjoy.

I, myself, use a HP/Compaq TC1100 Tablet PC loaded with Microsoft XP for tablet and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. I would be lost without these. I bought my tablet in 2007 preloaded with XP for tablet and was offered the chance to upgrade to Vista. I thought long and hard about it, but decided my tablet wasn’t powerful enough to load and run Vista appropriately. I really need to upgrade the RAM/memory to be more effective, and thats on ‘the list’ of things to do, if you know what I mean.

What computer and op system do you have?

Head on over and check out Reality on Bravo.

Feel free to drop me a line anytime in the comments or email!

Microsoft Office 2007 introduced new Open XML-based file formats for Office applications. These new file formats reduce file size, improve security and reliability, and enhance integration with external sources.
To allow Windows Mobile users to work with Office documents created in the Open XML formats, Microsoft has developed an upgrade for Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile applications. This upgrade to the Office Mobile applications allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slideshows created by using Microsoft Office 2007.
Other improvements include:
• Enhanced viewing experience for charts in Excel Mobile.
• Ability to view SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile.
• Ability to view and extract files from compressed (.zip) folders.
Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1 Full Version to support Microsoft 2007 file formats
If your Windows Mobile device does not have a version of Microsoft Office Mobile prior to 6.1, you can purchase the full version of Microsoft Office Mobile.
The Office Mobile application suite includes Microsoft Office Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint® Mobile for Windows Mobile 6 powered devices, helping users manage and review documents. Microsoft Office Mobile includes support for rich reviewing and minor editing capabilities as well as support for rights-managed documents.
The primary user scenario enabled by Office Mobile is viewing e-mail attachments, performing minor edits, sharing document versions, and opening documents from an SD card or a SharePoint server. Office Mobile provides a high-fidelity document viewing experience, with capability to edit as well as fast performance in loading the first page of the document.
Note: This free upgrade works only for Windows Mobile powered devices that have an earlier version of Office Mobile. If your Windows Mobile powered device does not have Office Mobile applications, this upgrade will not work for you. You can purchase the full version of Office Mobile 6.1 online. For more information, click here

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows Mobile 5.0 software for Pocket PC; Windows Mobile 6

• Supported Operating Systems on the Computer: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows XP; Windows XP Home; Windows XP Professional; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2; Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1; Windows XP Professional x64; Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-Bit x86); Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1; Windows Server 2003 64-bit; Windows Vista
• Supported Operating Systems on Windows Mobile Powered Devices: Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC; Pocket PC Phone Edition; Windows Mobile 6
• ActiveSync 4.5 (on Windows 2000/XP/2003); Windows Mobile Device Center (on Windows Vista)
• At least 6 MB of Available Storage on your device or storage card.

Download 

Recommended Reading:

Tip: Disable/Enable Screensaver with a shortcut | Outlet USB Charger

Microsoft has just issued the latest backwards compatibility update for the Xbox 360, allowing over 80 previously unsupported original Xbox games to be played on the system. Thanks to the Xbox 360’s software emulation, all supported games are capable of running in resolutions up to 1080i with anti-aliasing.

Notable titles added include Armed and Dangerous, Breakdown, Burnout 2: Point of Impact, Freedom Fighters, and Syberia II.

Today’s update also increases the number of titles Microsoft will be able to offer via the Xbox Originals program, which allows Xbox 360 owners to download original Xbox titles from Xbox Live and play without a disc. Each game will run 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) when the service debuts on December 4.

Xbox 360 owners can obtain the update by either inserting an original Xbox game into the system while connected to Xbox Live or by downloading the update from Microsoft and burning it to a disc.

Source

How to burn a disc

Create a DVD or CD
To create an update disc you need the following:

• A DVD or CD burner.
• A blank, writeable DVD or CD.
• The update from Xbox.com.

These steps will cover burning the DVD or CD with Windows and the DVD or CD burning software that is part of the operating system. DVDs work better than CD-Rs, which in turn work better than CDRWs.

(For illustration, we’re using a CD in a CD burner, but the same steps apply with a DVD in a DVD burner.)

Step 1: Place a blank disc in your burner. Select "Open Writable CD Folder Using Windows Explorer" or just open the CD drive icon from Explorer.

If you choose to use third-party CD/DVD writing software then please follow the instructions for that software in creating a data disc with just the update on the disc.

Step 2: Drag default.xex to the CD Folder. If the CD write window doesn’t open by default please drag and drop default.xex on the CD/DVD RW drive.

Step 3: Click "Write files to CD" from the CD writing tasks in the Explorer window or select Write these files to CD from the CD/DVD RW drive right mouse click menu.

Step 4: Go through the CD wizard. The first step is to add a label to the CD; the default of the date is fine.

Step 5: The CD wizard will create the CD. Wait until the CD is ejected.

Step 6: Remove the CD from the drive—you have created the CD.

Source

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How many times have you been watching a long video on your computer and had the screensaver come on? Then you play the game of trying to jiggle the mouse every certain number of minutes to make sure it doesn’t happen again…  seems like it would be easier to have a really quick way to disable the screensaver.

Our solution comes in the form of a little utility named flipss.exe which can be used to easily enable or disable the screensaver via a command line argument… we’ll just have to manually create shortcuts for each task.

Create Disable/Enable Shortcut

Right-click on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.

You will need to enter in the full path to where you saved the flipss.exe file, followed by either "/off" or "/on". For instance, if you saved the utility in C:\MyFiles you would use this path to create the disable icon:

C:\MyFiles\flipss.exe /off

On the next screen you’ll need to give it a useful name, and then create a second shortcut with "/on" which you can use to turn the screensaver back on.

You can give them different icons by going into the properties for the shortcut and choosing the "Change Icon" option. Personally I moved the icons into the quick launch bar for easier access and indexing in Launchy.

Download Flipss.zip from jddesign.f2s.com

Source | PowerPoint Tip: Copy a presentation to a CD or anyhwere | Word: Compatibility Pack for End Users

I just came across some secret codes for 3D Pinball in Windows XP. Now you don’t need to start from ground zero! Howzzatt?!!

Note that the 3D Pinball window must be active for these codes to work.

• Regain your old rank from a previous game by starting a new game and immediately typing rmax. Each time you type this secret command, you’ll advance one rank level.
• Get an extra ball while the Awaiting Deployment message displays by typing 1max.
• Activate the Gravity Well by starting a new game and immediately typing gmax.
• Get an unlimited number of balls and essentially play for as long as you like by starting a new game and immediately typing bmax. Each time you lose a ball, a new one will appear. (While playing with an unlimited number of balls, none of the other tricks will work.)
• Control the ball with your mouse by starting a new game and immediately typing hidden test. When you do, you can click the ball with your left mouse button and essentially drag it anywhere you want and rack up an unbelievable number of points.

Keep in mind that there isn’t a text box into which you enter these secret codes — you simply type them.

In addition to this, how about tweaking your Windows XP sound scheme to play Pinball sound effects!

Here’s how:

1. Go to Start | Control Panel and double-click the Sounds And Audio Devices Properties tool.
2. Select the Sounds tab and then choose the program event that you wish from the Program Events menu.
3. Click the Browse button
4. Select the Look In drop-down list and navigate to the C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Pinball folder.
5. Sample the .wav files by hovering over a file and clicking the Play Sound button in the Preview panel located in the bottom left corner of the Browse For Default Beep Sound dialog box.
6. Once you’ve identified an interesting sound, double-click the .wav file, click the Apply button, and save your Sound Scheme.

Trick: Try assigning Sound999.wav to the Minimize Program event.

How cool is that?!

Source TechRepublic

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One of the nice little features in Windows Vista that you don’t think about is the graph of drive space for your drive icons, so you can visually see at a glance how much space is used. There’s no reason to upgrade for this feature, especially since some programmers created a small utility for XP that gives you the same functionality.

You’ll notice the new icon looks very similar to the ones in Vista, but the more interesting addition is the new bar under the icon that gives you a tiny graph of the current drive space.

The graph will show up on most of the icon sizes other than the details view.

When your drive is running low on space the graph will turn red to indicate that you should probably stop downloading so much.

You can see in task manager that it really doesn’t use all that much memory.

Download Drvicon from Sourceforge.net

Some Third-Party Gems since Active Directory is based on LDAP standards, you can query and modify it using any tool that can speak LDAP. Many third-party vendors have released fee-based tools to assist you in administering Active Directory, but sometimes you find a treasure that has been made available to the community at no charge. Such is the case with a collection created by Directory Services MVP Joe Richards, available for download from joeware.net/freetools. There you’ll find numerous tools to serve many different functions. Three that I turn to again and again are adfind, admod, and oldcmp.

Adfind and Admod

Adfind and admod are similar to dsquery and dsmod; adfind is a command-line query tool for Active Directory, and admod can create, delete, or modify one or more Active Directory objects.

Unlike the ds* tools that have multiple submenus and different switches depending on the type of object, adfind and admod have a consistent syntax regardless of the type of query or modification you’re trying to perform. The basic syntax for adfind is:

adfind –b <Search Base> -s <Search Scope> -f <Search Filter>
    attributesDesired

So a query for the DN and description of all computer objects within your domain would be:

adfind –b dc=contoso,dc=com –s subtree –f (objectclass=computer) dn
    description

A query for all user objects would look like this:

adfind –b dc=contoso,dc=com –s subtree –f "(&(objectcategory=person)
    (objectclass=user))" dn description

Notice that except for the contents of the LDAP query, the syntax has not changed.

As you work with adfind, you’ll find a number of shortcut operators that can save you a lot of typing. For example, the -default switch can replace -b dc=contoso,dc=com in the previous example and search your entire domain; -gc searches against a global catalog (GC) and returns all users in your Active Directory forest. You can also use the -rb switch to set a relative base for your search; if you want to search the Training OU in the phl.east.us.contoso.com domain, you can save yourself quite a bit of effort by simply specifying –default –rb ou=Training rather than –b ou=Training, dc=phl,dc=east,dc=us,dc=contoso,dc=com.

Adfind can also perform a number of advanced search functions that can’t be easily managed at the command line otherwise, including those shown in Figure 4.

An example using the –asq switch would be "Show me the group memberships of the members of the HelpDesk," like this:

adfind –default –rb cn=HelpDesk,ou=IT –asq member memberOf 

Admod, as its name suggests, is used to modify objects within Active Directory. As with adfind, there are no specialized submenus with particular syntaxes to remember; admod uses the same syntax regardless of the type of object you’re working with. You can also use admod to add, move, rename, delete, and even undelete objects simply by adding the appropriate switch, such as -add, -rm, -move, -undel. And just as with dsquery and dsmod, you can also use the | character to pipe the results of an adfind query into admod.

Note that performing an undelete with admod simply performs a tombstone reanimation operation, in which most of the objects attributes have been removed. To fully restore an object and all of its attributes, you’ll still need to perform an authoritative restore of the object.

Oldcmp

There’s one additional joeware tool I consider an indispensable part of my automation toolkit: oldcmp, which scans your Active Directory database for computer accounts that have not been used in a specified number of weeks and can do the following:

• Create a report of accounts without taking any action against them
• Disable the unused computer accounts
• Move the computer accounts to a different OU that you designate
• Delete the computer accounts outright

Note that because oldcmp has the potential to wreak serious havoc on your directory, it has a number of built-in safety features. It will not delete any account that has not already been disabled (and without manually specifying a "No really, I mean it!" command-line switch). It will not modify more than 10 objects at a time without a similar "No really, I mean it!" switch, and it absolutely will not do anything to the computer account for a domain controller.

Despite the now-misleading name of the tool, Joe has updated oldcmp so that it will perform similar functions for user accounts that have not been used for a certain amount of time as well.

For a small Active Directory environment or one where you’re only working with one or two additions or changes at a time, the GUI tools such as Active Directory Users and Computers might be sufficient for day-to-day administration. But if you’re adding and modifying large numbers of objects on a daily basis or simply want a more streamlined solution for your administrative tasks, moving to the command line can greatly speed up the process of creating, modifying, and deleting objects within Active Directory. As you’ve seen, there are a number of flexible and powerful tools available free of charge, both built right into Windows and downloadable from members of the Active Directory community. Any of these tools has the ability to greatly enhance your productivity as an Active Directory administrator, and together they become even more essential to your daily work life.

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Dsget and Dsquery

The ds* command-line toolset also includes two tools used to query Active Directory for information rather than for creating or modifying objects.

Dsget takes an object’s DN as input and provides you with the value of the attribute or attributes you specify. Dsget uses the same submenus as dsadd and dsmod—user, computer, contact, group, ou, and quota.

To obtain the SAM Account Name and Security Identifier (SID) of a user account, enter the following command (note that the following is all on one line):

dsget user cn=afuller,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com
    –samAccountName –sid

You’ll get output such as that in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Running dsget (Click the image for a smaller view)

Figure 3 Running dsget (Click the image for a larger view)

Dsquery returns a list of Active Directory objects that meet criteria you specify. You can specify the following parameters no matter which submenu you’re using:

dsquery <ObjectType> <StartNode> -s <Search Scope> -o <OutputFormat>

For ObjectType, dsquery can use the following submenus, each of which has its own syntax: computer, contact, subnet, group, ou, site, server (note that the server submenu retrieves information about domain controllers, not any member servers in your environment), user, quota, and partition. And if one of these query types doesn’t fit the bill, you can use the * submenu, which lets you enter a free-form LDAP query.

StartNode specifies the location in the Active Directory tree where the search will start. You can use a specific DN such as ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com, or one of the following shortcut specifiers: domainroot, which begins at the root of a particular domain, or forestroot, which begins at the root of the forest root domain using a Global Catalog server to perform the search.

Finally, the Search Scope option specifies how dsquery should search the Active Directory tree. Subtree (the default) queries the specified StartNode and all of its child objects, onelevel queries only the immediate children of the StartNode, and base queries the StartNode object only.

To better understand search scopes, consider an OU that contains both user objects and a child OU that itself contains additional objects. Using the subtree scope will query the OU, all of the user objects contained within it, and the child OU and its contents. The onelevel scope will query only the users contained within the OU and will not query the child OU or its contents. A base query will search only the OU itself without querying any of the objects contained within it.

Finally, you can use Output Format to control how the results of dsquery are formatted. By default, dsquery returns the distinguished names of any objects that match the query, like this:

"cn=afuller,ou=Training,dc=contoso,dc=com"
"cn=rking,ou=ITTraining,ou=Training,dc=contoso,dc=com"

To query for all user objects contained within the IT OU and any child OUs, use the following:

dsquery user ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com 

You can further refine this query by adding additional switches such as -disabled, which returns only disabled user accounts; -inactive x, which returns only users who haven’t logged on in the past x weeks or more; or -stalepwd x, which will return only users who have not changed their passwords in x days or more.

Depending on the number of objects in your directory, you may need to specify the -limit x switch when running your query. By default, dsquery will return up to 100 objects that match the specifics of your query; you can specify a larger number such as -limit 500, or use -limit 0 to instruct dsquery to return all matching objects.

You can use the other submenus to perform useful queries for other object types as well. Consider the following query, which returns every subnet defined in Active Directory Sites and Services that’s in the 10.1.x.x address space:

dsquery subnet –name 10.1.*

Or use the following to return every subnet located in the Corp site:

dsquery subnet –site Corp

With another submenu, you can quickly determine how many domain controllers in your forest are configured as Global Catalog servers:

dsquery server –forest –isgc

You can also use this syntax to help you determine which domain controller in your domain hosts the Primary Domain Controller (PDC) Emulator Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) role:

dsquery server –hasfsmo pdc

As with the other ds* commands that include submenus, you can view all of the switches available within a particular dsquery submenu by going to the command prompt and typing dsquery user /?, dsquery computer /?, dsquery subnet /?, and so forth.

An additional slick trick is to pipe the output of dsquery into another tool such as dsmod using the | character (shift-backslash on U.S. keyboards). For example, let’s say your company has renamed a department from Training to Internal Development and now you have to update the description field of each relevant user from the old department name to the new. On a single command line, you can query for user objects that have a description field of Training and then modify that description field in bulk, as follows:

dsquery user –description "Training" | dsmod
    -description "Internal Development"

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Dsadd

Dsadd is used to create an instance of an Active Directory object class on a particular directory partition. These classes include users, computers, contacts, groups, organizational units, and quotas. Dsadd has a generic syntax that consists of the following:

dsadd <ObjectType> <ObjectDistinguishedName> attributes

Note that each object type you create takes a specific set of switches corresponding to the attributes available for that type. This command creates a single user object with various attributes populated (note that the following is all on one line):

dsadd user cn=afuller,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com
–samID afuller –fn Andrew –ln Fuller –pwd *
-memberOf cn=IT,ou=Groups,dc=contoso,dc=com "cn=Help Desk,ou=Groups,
dc=contoso,dc=com"
–desc "Marketing Director"

The –memberOf switch requires the full distinguished name (DN) of each group the user should be added to; if you want to add the user to multiple groups you can add multiple DNs separated by spaces.

If any element contains a space, such as the DN of the Help Desk group, it needs to be enclosed in double quotes. If an element contains a backslash, like an OU called IT\EMEA, the backslash must be entered twice: IT\\EMEA. (These requirements apply to all of the ds* tools.)

When you use the -pwd * switch, you’ll be prompted to enter a password for the user at the command line. You can specify the password within the command itself (-pwd P@ssword1), but this will display the password in plain text on the screen or in any text or script file that you’ve embedded the command into.

Similarly, you can create a group object and an OU using the following two commands:

dsadd computer cn=WKS1,ou=Workstations,dc=contoso,dc=com
dsadd ou "ou=Training OU,dc=contoso,dc=com"

Dsmod

Dsmod is used to modify an existing object, and you work with it much as with dsadd, using different submenus and syntax depending on the type of object you’re modifying. The following dsmod statement changes a user’s password and modifies his account so he will be prompted to change to a new password on next logon:

dsmod user "cn=afuller,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com" –pwd P@ssw0rd1
    –mustchpwd yes

To see how similar these switches are, look at the dsadd syntax you would use to create this user with the same attributes configured:

dsadd user "cn=afuller,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com" –pwd P@ssw0rd1
    –mustchpwd yes

As you can clearly see, if you know the switches to create objects in dsadd, you can use those same switches to modify users with dsmod.

Dsrm

The converse of dsadd is dsrm; as you might imagine, this tool lets you delete an object from the command line. The basic dsrm syntax is pretty straightforward: simply enter dsrm followed by the distinguished name of the object you want to delete, like so:

dsrm cn=WKS1,ou=Workstations,dc=contoso,dc=com

By default, dsrm will prompt "Are you sure you want to delete this object?" Type Y, then press Enter. You can suppress this prompt using the –noprompt switch, but, obviously, you then get no chance to confirm that you’ve selected the correct object before deleting it. Two additional switches can be helpful if you are deleting a container object, that is, an organizational unit that could potentially contain other objects within it. The following command deletes the TrainingOU organizational unit and all objects contained within it:

dsrm ou=TrainingOU,dc=contoso,dc=com –subtree 

This one deletes all child objects contained within TrainingOU but leaves the organizational unit object itself in place:

dsrm ou=TrainingOU,dc=contoso,dc=com –subtree
    –exclude 

Dsmove

To move or rename an object in Active Directory, you use the dsmove tool, but note that you should use it to move an object only within a single domain. To migrate objects between domains or forests, use the Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT), a free download from the Microsoft Web site. Dsmove relies on two switches that can be used separately or in combination. This command gives Steve Conn’s account a new last name:

dsmove "cn=Conn, Steve,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com"
    –newname "Steve Conn" 

This command moves Steve’s account from the IT OU to the Training OU:

dsmove "cn=Conn, Steve,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com" –newparent
    ou=Training,dc=contoso,dc=com 

You can combine a rename and a move into a single operation by specifying both switches at once, like this:

dsmove "cn=Conn, Steve,ou=IT,dc=contoso,dc=com" –newname
    "Steve Conn" –newparent ou=Training,dc=contoso,dc=com

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CSVDE

The Comma-Separated Values Data Exchange tool, known as CSVDE, allows you to import new objects into Active Directory using a CSV source file; it also provides you with the ability to export existing objects to a CSV file. CSVDE can’t be used to modify existing objects; when you are using this tool in import mode you can only create brand-new objects.

Exporting a list of existing objects with CSVDE is fairly simple. Here’s how you’d export your Active Directory objects to a file called ad.csv:

csvde –f ad.csv

The –f switch indicates that the name of the output file follows. But you must be aware of the fact that, depending on your environment, this basic syntax could result in a huge and unwieldy output file. To restrict the tool to export objects only within a particular organizational unit (OU), you could modify the statement as follows:

csvde –f UsersOU.csv –d ou=Users,dc=contoso,dc=com

Let’s further say that you’re only interested in exporting user objects into your CSV file. In that case, you can add the –r switch, which allows you to specify a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) filter for the search, and the –l switch, which restricts the number of attributes that are exported (note that the following is all on one line):

csvde –f UsersOnly.csv –d ou=Users,dc=contoso,dc=com –r
    "(&(objectcategory=person)(objectclass=user))" –l
    DN,objectClass,description

The –i switch allows you to import objects into Active Directory from a source CSV file. However, creating user objects with CSVDE has one critical limitation: you can’t set user passwords with it. Because of this, I’d avoid using CSVDE to create user objects.

LDIFDE

Active Directory provides a second built-in tool for bulk user operations, called LDIFDE, and it is more powerful and flexible than CSVDE. In addition to creating new objects, LDIFDE can also modify and delete existing objects and even extend the Active Directory schema. The trade-off for LDIFDE’s flexibility is that the necessary input file, which is referred to as an LDIF file with the extension .ldf, uses a more complex format than the simple CSV file. (With a little work you can also configure user passwords, but I’ll get to that in a moment.)

Let’s start with a simple example, exporting users in an OU to an LDF file (note that the following is all on one line):

ldifde -f users.ldf -s DC1.contoso.com -d "ou=UsersOU,dc=contoso,dc=com"
       –r "(&(objectcategory=person)(objectclass=user))"

As with most command-line tools, you can find a full explanation of the LDIFDE switches by running the LDIFDE /? command. (Note that the switches are actually the same for both the CSVDE and LDIFDE commands.)

The real power of LDIFDE is in creating and manipulating objects. Before doing this, however, you first need to create an input file. The following creates two new user accounts called afuller and rking; to create the input file, enter the text in Notepad (or your favorite plain-text editor) and save it as NewUsers.ldf:

dn: CN=afuller, OU=UsersOU, DC=contoso, DC=com
changetype: add
cn: afuller
objectClass: user
samAccountName: afuller 

dn: CN=rking, OU=UsersOU, DC=contoso, DC=com
changetype: add
cn: rking
objectClass: user
samAccountName: rking 

Once you’ve finished creating the file, run the following command:

ldifde –i –f NewUsers.ldf –s DC1.contoso.com

The only new switch here is -i, which, you can probably guess for yourself, denotes that this is an import operation instead of an export.

When modifying or deleting existing objects, the syntax for the LDIFDE command doesn’t change; instead, you modify the contents of the LDF file. To change the description field of the user accounts, create a text file called ModifyUsers.ldf, such as the one shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 The ModifyUsers LDF file (Click the image for a smaller view)

Figure 2 The ModifyUsers LDF file (Click the image for a larger view)

You import the changes by running the same LDIFDE command syntax as before, specifying the new LDF file name after the -f switch. The LDF format for deleting objects is even simpler; to delete the users you’ve been working with, create a file called DeleteUsers.ldf and enter the following:

dn: CN=afuller OU=UsersOU, DC=contoso, DC=com
changetype: delete

dn: CN=rking, OU=UsersOU, DC=contoso, DC=com
changetype: delete

Note that unlike CSVDE, LDIFDE is capable of configuring user passwords. Before you can configure the unicodePWD attribute for a user account, however, you must configure secure sockets layer/transport layer security (SSL/TLS) encryption on your domain controllers.

Moreover, LDIFDE can create and modify any type of Active Directory object, not just user accounts. The following LDF file, for example, will create a custom schema extension called EmployeeID-example in the schema of the contoso.com forest:

dn: cn=EmployeeID-example,cn=Schema,
cn=Configuration,dc=contoso,dc=com
changetype: add
adminDisplayName: EmployeeID-Example
attributeID: 1.2.3.4.5.6.6.6.7
attributeSyntax: 2.5.5.6
cn: Employee-ID
instanceType: 4
isSingleValued: True
lDAPDisplayName: employeeID-example

Because LDIFDE files use the industry-standard LDAP file format, third-party applications that need to modify the Active Directory schema will often supply LDF files you can use to examine and approve the changes before applying them to your production environment.

In addition to tools for bulk import and export operations, Windows Server 2003 also includes a built-in toolset that lets you create, delete, and modify various Active Directory objects as well as perform queries for objects that meet certain criteria. (Note that these tools, dsadd, dsrm, dsget, and dsquery, are not supported under Windows 2000 Active Directory.)

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This update includes minor changes to how Internet Explorer handles some web pages that use Microsoft ActiveX controls. Please see the Overview section of this page for more information.

Today Microsoft Corp. and the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) Consortium announced a joint standards-based development project that will make it possible for computer users who are blind or print-disabled to make better use of assistive technology in their daily lives. A reference model for other Open XML solution providers, this open technical collaboration project on SourceForge.net will yield a free, downloadable plug-in for Microsoft Office Word that can translate Open XML-based documents into DAISY XML, the foundation of the globally accepted DAISY Standard for reading and publishing navigable multimedia content. (PressPass)

Microsoft and open-source site SourceForge plan to offer a free plug-in early next year that will convert Office 2007 files to the Daisy format, which translates text to speech.

The free tool will add a "Save as Daisy" option within Word 2007 and 2003. Daisy, or Digital Accessible Information System, XML files can be "read" aloud by speech synthesizers, paired with audio narration, and used to create electronic Braille. Users can navigate open-standard Daisy documents quickly by jumping between page elements such as headers and indexes.

The Daisy Consortium of 70 nonprofits has aimed since 1996 to make all published information available to people with visual impairments and learning disabilities.

Digital narration serves computer users with visual impairments, people with learning challenges like dyslexia, as well as those with Parkinson’s disease and other conditions that make it hard to type or hold a book.

With the release of the Office 2007 suite in January, Microsoft shunned the popular, XML-based OpenDocument Format for its own, new Office Open XML format. The OOXML documents, which include Word files with the DOCX extension, are easier to retrieve, if corrupted, than older DOC files.

Versions of Word prior to 2007 can open OOXML documents after a one-time download of a free converter from Microsoft. However, critics gripe that Microsoft’s format change was unnecessary and clumsy. Microsoft maintains that the new format enables greater flexibility, such as accessibility features.

Source

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This update addresses issues with Media Center for Microsoft Vista.

This download is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Windows. Click the Continue button in the Validation Required section above to begin the short validation process. Once validated, you will be returned to this page with specific instructions for obtaining the download.

Download Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista (KB941229)

Brief Description

Prima has you covered with guides for all your favorite Xbox® titles. The world’s leading publisher of official game guides and the exclusive guide publisher for Microsoft®, Prima continues to dominate the field it created in 1990 by providing the highest quality game guides available.

Overview

Lost in a particularly difficult level? Can’t figure out how to beat that one boss? Wish you knew how to unlock that last character? Prima has you covered with guides for all your favorite Xbox® titles. The world’s leading publisher of official game guides and the exclusive guide publisher for Microsoft®, Prima continues to dominate the field it created in 1990 by providing the highest quality game guides available. Get the best tips, maps, hints, and strategies from Prima’s experts, and take your gaming further than you ever thought possible.

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