Channel 8

WS03 Introduction Part 1: ADDS

Donald Adu -Poku — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:50:00 GMT

Introduction

Hi all,

I’m Josh Bolling (TheContempt on the forums) and I hope to be your “WS03 Tour Guide” of sorts and guide you in some of the more basic practices and features included with the product in the beginning and move into more advanced concepts as time wears on. Today, we’ll begin with a quick tutorial on installing and configuring Active Directory in WS03 as it’s a major foundational building block of most any production network or test lab. Plus, many other products from Microsoft, like Exchange, Forefront and System Center, need to leverage Active Directory to function properly.

A brief history of Active Directory

Active Directory, or AD as it is more commonly known, was introduced with Windows 2000 Server and is, at its’ most basic level, a database similar to the Registry in Windows Client operating systems. However, it stores Objects instead of application settings. Some of these objects include Users, Computers, Organizational Units (OU) and Groups. Active directory provides many benefits over a traditional Workgroup style environment, like:

· Extensibility

· Centralized Authentication

· Centralized Administration

Installation overview

To deploy Active Directory, please follow the steps below:

Step 1-Point to Start > Run and enter dcpromo in the dialog. Please see Figure 1.1

Figure 1.1-Run dialog

Step 2-Review the Welcome screen and click next to continue with the installation process. Please see Figure 1.2

Figure 1.2-Welcome screen

Step 3- Carefully review the OS Compatibility screen as it contains important information about legacy compatibility concerns when deploying Active Directory. Specifically, older versions of Windows client operating systems, like Windows 95 and NT 4.0, won’t function correctly within an Active Directory based environment. Click next to proceed to the next step of the installation. Please see Figure 1.3 for a more detailed explanation.

Figure 1.3-OS compatibility warning

Now begin the truly important steps

Step 4-Now you’ll be presented with a couple choices. Each of which is equally important, but for the purposes of this guide, we’ll continue by choosing Domain controller for a new domain and then choosing next to proceed.

Figure 1.4-DC type selection

Step 5-Choose Domain in a new forest and click next to continue.

Figure 1.5-Domain type selection

Step 6-Enter the desired name for the Doman (while making sure it’s unique) and click next to proceed.

Figure 1.6-Domain name entry

(Special note: Once you click next, the Wizard may appear to have frozen, it hasn’t. It’s merely checking to make sure the Domain name is globally unique-or doesn’t exist on the LAN.)

Step 7-Leave the Domain NetBIOS name set to the default value and click next to continue.

Figure 1.7-NetBIOS name entry

Step 8-Choose the location where the AD database itself as well as associated log files.

Figure 1.8-Databsae and log tile location

(Special note-These entries default to C:\WINDOWS\NTDS,
but it is accepted practice to place the AD database on a separate physical hard disk if available. This will help with both performance and disaster recovery.)

Step 9-Select the location for the SYSVOL folder and click next to continue.

(Special note-Again, storing this directory on a separate hard disk drive would be best in a production environment.)

Step 10-Here, you’ll point to the option labeled Install and configure the DNS service on this computer, and set this computer to use this DNS server as its preferred DNS server and click next to continue.

Figure 1.9-DNS installation prompt

Step 10a-To provision a DNS server on the local machine, you must set a static IP address on at least one network interface. To do so please point to Start > Control Panel > Network Connections > Right-click Local Area Connection > choose Properties > Choose Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and choose Properties.

Figure 2.1-Network connection properties

Step 10b-Now you’ll want to set the IP address of the Local Areas connection. To do this, please reference the Figure below, Altering settings where appropriate for your particular network environment. To apply these settings point to OK and Close on the subsequent dialog.

Figure 2.2-Network settings

Step 11-Here’ll you’ll want to choose Permissions compatible with Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 operating systems and point to next to continue.

Figure 2.3-Permissions

Step 12-Enter the desired value for the Restore Mode Password. The password will prove invaluable if you ever need to demote the DC back to a member server or restore the Schema for any reason.

Figure 2.4-Recovery Mode Password entry

Step 13 –Carefully review the installation summary and click next to begin the Active Directory installation. During the installation, you will see screens like those below:

Figure2.5-Installation summary

Figure 2.6-AD install dialog (1)

Figure 2.7-AD install screen (2) (DNS)

(Special note: Make sure you have the WS03 installation CD handy or have access to a network share where the contents of the i386 directory are stored as some of those files will be needed by the installation process.)

Figure 2.8-File copy prompt

Step 14-That’s it! Once the machine has prompted you to reboot and has booted back into Windows you have a fully functioning Domain Controller ready to be filled with all sorts of fun objects! Congratulations!

Figure 2.9-Confirmation dialog

Conclusion

As you can see, the installation process for Active Directory is quite straightforward! However, it is VERY important to master the installation process as Active directory is the largest building block in relation to production networks that leverage Windows Server. Look forward to the conclusion of this series of articles in which we’ll wrap up AD with an explanation of adding Users and Groups to Active Directory and step through getting a client machine connected to the domain. Thanks for reading!

How Office Live Could Make You A Collaboratin' Fool... FREE!

Max Zuckerman — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:38:00 GMT

Let's face it... no one actually knows what Stefan really does here. OK, I do know, but on Channel 8, he is the Mega-Microsoftie that shows off the best and the coolest stuff that will actually make you more productive.

And you know it's good stuff since he usually has nothing to do with the product team that made it, yet he's sooooo excited!

So this 3rd installment of "Stefan Demos Stuff he has Nothing to Do With," is all about software and services in the form of Office Live. He showcases workspaces that allow you to collaborate on documents in the cloud so you can reach the 4 corners of the world effortlessly. My favorite part is him showcasing the multiple-person cursors viewable in a shared environment so that you can all collaborate together rather than one at a time.... pretty cool eh?

Check out Stefan's previous shenanigans for more "BOOM" fun.

Exceptions

Donald Adu -Poku — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:05:00 GMT

In the .NET programming sphere, code that feels like it might generate exceptions is put in a try{} block which would sound an alarm whenever one of these occur during execution. This "thrown" exception is caught by a catch {} block and handled appropriately.

Even though this feature makes our programming lives easier it has a drawback being a certain reduction in performance. This means that the number of exceptions thrown is inversely proportional to your application's performance. There are other operations in .NET that have similar effects, like boxing and unboxing of value types.

I ran a little test to check this out. I intentionally produced an exception and handled it while measuring the time it took to do this.

int[] Array = null; //not instantiated

Stopwatch watch = new Stopwatch();

try

{

watch.Start();

Array[0] = 1;//exception thrown

}

catch (NullReferenceException)

{

watch.Stop();

Console.WriteLine(watch.ElapsedMilliseconds +"ms");

}

watch.Reset();

Console.ReadLine();

I got 23ms as an average of three executions. To serve as comparison I used a foreach construct to iterate a numeric array.

int[] numArray = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 };

Stopwatch watch = new Stopwatch();

watch.Start();

foreach (int number in numArray)

{

Console.WriteLine(number);

}

watch.Stop();

Console.WriteLine();

Console.WriteLine(watch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");

Console.ReadLine();

I got 4ms as an average of three executions.

With these results I would say that the process of throwing and handling exceptions is quite slow.

But that alone does not justify avoiding them. Exceptions should be thrown when needed. Your code would be better off having just the right quantity of exception throwing and handling structures than none, which could bite you pretty hard at runtime.

Exception-safe code is your best bet to minimizing the number of exceptions thrown instead of throwing them at the slightest provocation. Take a look at this code:

public string[] Getnames()

{

string[] array = null;

if (/* new names are available */)

{

//populate the array with names

return array;

}

return array;

}

public void PrintNames(string[] nameArray)

{

foreach (string name in nameArray)

{

//print the name

}

The PrintNames method could unnecessarily throw an ArgumentNull exception if there are no names to populate the string array.

The problem between these two methods is the state of the return type of GetNames() .If there are no names when GetNames() is called then the returned array would be null.

string[] array = null;

.............

return array;

In order to avoid an ArgumentNull exception when calling PrintNames() a defualt array could be returned when there aren’t any new names to populate the array with.The reifned code would look like this:

public string[] Getnames()

{

string[] array = null;

if (/* names are available */)

{

//populate the array with names

return array;

}

return new string[0];

}

Using default states over null(the almighty) saves you some exception hassle ,the trade-off though is memory resource.Little changes like this definitely help make your code better .Happy coding :)

A Fellow 8er Remembers Windows XP

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:29:00 GMT

One of your fellow Channel 8ers, Sriram, caught this snapshot at the Gulf finals of the Imagine Cup and said it really reminded him of Windows XP. Of course, he slapped the C8 logo on there and asks... "remember XP?"

Go ahead and download a higher resolution if you'd like. Thanks, Sriram!

Behind the Scenes: Imagine Cup 2008 US Finals Judges Exclusive

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:51:00 GMT

Alright so I don't know if this is really an exclusive or not, but I doubt these guys were this candid in front of any other camera...

After a full day of judging multiple sections of the Imagine Cup US Final teams, check out what Andy, Neil (Randy), and Kevin thought about what they saw. They cover presentation styles, innovation, initiative, and even some spy activity.

BONUS:
You'll even get job interview advice for Microsoft and other industry style interviews.

This one's funny, so feel free to leave a comment and tell the judges "thanks for being open, rock on."

What's the Micro Framework?

Christian — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:22:00 GMT

Will and I had the chance to speak with Rob Miles and Dave Baker. They talked us into the .NET Micro Framework and showed us what you can do with C# on small devices (really really small devices) that could be embedded everywhere. Some of these devices are so small that their only reason to live is to work for us as a sensor somewhere.

It was really amazing to see how easy it is to use the Micro Framework and C# to create a solution that runs on a device that's just as big as my old Nintendo(r) GameBoy (and with a cover would also look exactly the same).

Tune in if you like to program for embedded devices and ever wanted to see your code running in a toaster!

Getting started with Silverlight

Christian — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:56:00 GMT

There are a lot of open questions around Silverlight: What's Silverlight? What's better in Silverlight than in its competitors? What's really making the difference to other technologies? What technology is running Silverlight? Why should a student even care about Silverlight?...

That's why I met with Jaime Rodriguez (after I have heard that he's going to come to Vienna) and asked him a huge load of questions on Silverlight. Jaime is a Technical Evangelist for Silverlight and does therefore a lot with Silverlight; and that's not only demo applications!

I tried to cover a lot of the open questions to give you a great overview on why to choose Silverlight. Since I'm a developer I went also a little bit deeper to understand what exactly is making the "Silverlight experience" run.

Tune in if you enjoy programming and/or designing for the web and you wondered if there is a way to create a richer experience than the one that is available through plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Ask the Zuck: "Do you have any more of those Windows Live OneCare Subscriptions??!?"

Max Zuckerman — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:08:00 GMT

Well ladies and gentlemen, here is a perfect example of how you all as a community have the power to make cool stuff happen. In this first of many installments of "Ask the Zuck: Man on the Inside," I have a little surprise for you. It seems that the lead product manager for Windows Live OneCare, Larry B., is a Channel 8 reader! He was so impressed with everyone's passion for Windows Live OneCare both in the forums and in my last post, that he has dropped off 10 one-year subscriptions for me to do with as I please.

And since you guys asked for it, I am pleased to give all 10 subscriptions to you all! Want one?? Be one of the first 10 comments and you win! As soon as you comment, drop me a note at maxzuck AT live.com so I have a means of sending you your code. You must comment before sending me a mail. And do me a favor, please, and let me know who you are in the email (Channel 8 user name that is).

UPDATE: I have ONE MORE pass from Leandro, so that makes the total 11!

Reaaaady.... GO!

Get your hands dirty: Introduction to Visual Basic 2008

Lean — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:39:00 GMT

Did you get your software from DreamSpark? Here you have a tutorial on how to use it. Mario (MSP) gave us an introduction to Visual Basic, how to build applications and start coding right away. And here are samples... Enjoy!

Language(s): English

Product(s): Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2005

Duration: 50 Minutes

Author: Mario Meir-Huber

Getting a Gaming Job, Round Table Edition

Clint Rutkas — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:57:00 GMT

After spending hours attempting to get as many game developers in a room as possible, I managed to track down Ian Lewis from the XNA team at Microsoft, Andrew Brownsword from EA, Kent Quirk from Linden Labs which make Second Life. I may or may not have used an Xbox 360 with Rockband primed as bait.

As usual, I asked them what a student should know. They talked about figuring out how to solve problems, working in teams, writing good code, the coding or testing hat, and a bunch more.

While these are game developers, almost everything they mention directly translates to normal development.

Spice up your Zune Card with Channel 8

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:06:00 GMT

As you guys know, I like to customize things ranging from shoes to wallpaper. And since I'm a big Zune fan and of course the social aspect of it, I thought I would create a little Channel 8 background for my Zune Card since it shows on my site and even on my facebook.

Download it while it's hot!

I expect to see a few of your own submissions from the usual suspects :)

New Live Search front page

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:47:00 GMT

This one actually caught me by surprise, which sometimes is fun, but other times when you catch the early flight home from San Diego to find your...... oh never mind.

Anyway, it seems that the front page for live.com is sporting a sleek new interface that I personally think looks--dare I say--elegant.

What do you think??

Zune 2.5 Software Release... now with more Social

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:00:00 GMT

In today's Spring update, bringing us to version 2.5, the Zune software takes a big step forward in the "social" experience particularly. The improvements can be seen throughout the web, the local client, and the device itself.

The main features added include:

The ability to transfer a friend's Zune Card to your device which will keep an up to date list of that friend's most recently played songs, favorites, and top plays. If you have a Zune Pass, then you will be able to play the songs from your client and they will automatically be synced to your device. Best of all, it will keep this list updated so you can think of this as an automatic DJ playing your friend's tunes for you.....
Video store to download and take TV shows etc. on the go
Client/Player enhancements like creating autoplaylists, no gaps in the playback, multiple Zune sync, and easier editing of track information

Some really cool scenarios come to mind with these new features. For example, my best friend Nick and I have similar taste in music but he is usually a little faster at finding the good stuff. If I just sync his Zune Card, I am all set to get the best and latest music that I have a much better chance of liking than if I try to find just the overall top 40 songs from the radio.

There are even going to be "super" friends that you can add--which won't take up one of your 100 maximum friend slots--that will be experts at choosing music based on certain genres. I'm imagining it like a radio station on-the-go, but will have to try it to find out.

The video you see is the new TV ad that is about to hit airwaves... I like it much better than other Microsoft TV ads (can you say "the 'wow' starts now??").

Some screen shots:

Now you can see more social information directly in the Zune client... And yes, that's a "friends of friend" row at the bottom for you to further explore

The "autoplaylist" feature helps quickly put togther music based on artists, genres, etc.

The video section will have some of your favorite shows like "The Office" or "Heroes."

Even the Zune Social homepage got a little visual tweaking...

EdVangelist gives his advice

Max Zuckerman — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:16:00 GMT

Edwin Guarin, "EdVangelist," has been in your shoes as a student. He has also been the "paratrooper" of enterprise business support... on call at any moment to jump on a plane, go onsite to customer locations, fix mission critical issues, and maybe grab a sandwich on his way home. Now, he's in front of students like you every day discussing where industry is going, technology today and how it can help you, and ways for you to learn and find your passion.

Edwin gave one of his famous interactive talks to students at the Imagine Cup 2008 US Finals where he discussed the future of the job market and ways for students to prepare. Check it out and get some advice from the pro.

Note: I cut the video he references: Tina's "Life at Microsoft."

Academic Community Launch in Austria

Christian — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:13:00 GMT

In the last 4 weeks we three Microsoft Student Partners (one even Senior Student Partner), Alex, Mario and me, did the Academic Community Launch in Austria.

The idea was to visit a lot of the universities in Austria and do the something similar as the launch events (Heroes happen here, anybody) that Microsoft held in the different countries around the world.

We also wanted to show them the new technologies (in talks and one workshop) in a from-students-for-students perspective.

This video is a summary of what we did, plus (after minute 9:30) an interview with Alex where he speaks about the organization of such an event and also about what we learned while doing it.

Age of Empires creators + Halo = HALO WARS

Max Zuckerman — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:58:00 GMT

I was not entirely sold on the idea of a real-time-strategy (RTS) game on the Xbox 360 when I first heard about it. In addition, I was less sure of this plan when I was told that it would be based on the Halo story. I decided to approach it with an open mind, however, and I checked out the teaser web site.

Looks like I may be proven wrong......

Although there is no official launch date yet and some other details have yet to be decided, this actually has my attention now and has potential to be an interesting game. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good trailer, but if the game comes close to what I am seeing, then I'm for it.

What do you think??

Mega-quick hands on with Ford Sync powered by Microsoft

Max Zuckerman — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:31:00 GMT

Dan Waters, the Academic Relationship Manager out of Tampa, FL, drives a Ford. And when asked about what some of his favorite features of the car are, he immediately mentions "Sync." You may have seen some of the commercials--my favorite is the one where a guy's friend reveals he has "questionable" taste in music--but have you actually seen it in action??

In case you haven't, this is a mega-quick hands on with two Sync equipped models. Dan walks me through the usage on one car, but honestly it's pretty intuitive and I think most people would get it just by playing around.

Cells on camp (with subtitles)

Ivana Tilca — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:25:00 GMT

25 April 2008 .. Hi! I wanted to share with you the Cells on Camp event which took place a few weeks ago in Salta, Argentina. This is the first of many events the students like me are planning on doing this year.

Over 1.000 students and teachers were present. Thanks to the MSP's Leonardo Amaya, Sebastián Miserendino and also to the cell members Cristian DiNatale, Ricardo Miranda, Ramón Romero, José Villagrán among others, people enjoyed topics like WPF , WCF, Silverlight , Hyper-V, XNA , ASP.NET Ajax, Windows Deployment Services , etc.

The event began at 9 a.m. with Pablo Listingart introducing Microsoft Academic Program, and finished with Alejandro Ponicke, an incredible IT Pro Microsoft Evangelist from Buenos Aires also a legend for students and professionals in our country.

We also had several topics that were given at the same time, so attendees were able to choose which they wanted to listen to.

Also Cell members showed the projects they've been working on, and we had an Install Fest in which we gave Microsoft Software absolutely free. The day ended at 9 p.m. with lots of presents for the crowd, like T-shirts, Books, Backpacks, etc. And as you can see in the video, people loved it.

This is the first event made by students in our country, and hopefully, will be others in a couple of months. Because students like us, enjoy learning, and OUR POTENTIAL IS OUR PASSION.

Imagine Cup USA Finals in Los Angeles

Max Zuckerman — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:00:00 GMT

40 students from over 15 different universities across the USA converged on the Orpheum theater in LA for a 3 day adventure filled with learning, real world hands on experiences, networking, showmanship and of course a whole lot of fun! The goal of the US Imagine Cup finals was to create an AMAZING experience for the student teams, and to give them the opportunity to have fun, learn from successful mentors, network with influential’s, and to use the Imagine Cup Finals as a launching point into their next endeavor.

Here's a glimpse of some of the student projects and shenanigans. This year's theme was all about the environment, so keep that in mind when you see people talking about saving energy, carpooling, and how our world looks.

Microsoft hits it big on Webware's top 100 Web Applications for 2008

Max Zuckerman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:20:00 GMT

The voting is complete and the winners are posted from Webware's top 100 web apps chosen by the community (that's you!). The list is full of really great products and services that I have found to be invaluable tools for everyday Internet use. It was also nice to see some of Microsoft's recent advancements in the online space on some of the top 10 lists. Zune side by side with Pandora. Live Search up there with Google. Windows Live next to Skype and Yahoo! Mail.

Some of these services are pretty new have had rocky starts but are definitely contenders today as can be seen by how the community feels. If you haven't checked out Live Search lately, give it a shot. The results are MUUUUUCH better than they used to be and it has actually become my homepage. I personally use Pandora all the time but have augmented my music knowledge-base considerably with the Zune Social capabilities.

This is pure speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if Live Mesh took a few winner's slots in the near future :)