On July 16th Microsoft announced on the Windows Home Server Blog that Windows Home Server has hit RTM (Release To Manufacturing).  This means that it should be available for purchase or evaluation in the next few months. 

Microsoft finalizes Windows Home Server code by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley — Microsoft announced on July 16 that it has finished development of its Windows Home Server (WHS) product and has released the code to manufacturing. Microsoft says a variety of WHS systems will be in the market in time for this year’s holiday season.

The ease of use and feature list of Windows Home Server looks very impressive, especially for a v1.0 release.  There is a Windows Home Server demo on the product’s website but you have to make sure you fast forward to 37:15 after the video clip starts playing.  I think WHS is going to make managing your home computers so much easier, especially in the areas of sharing files and keeping your data safe from disaster.

I received this interesting tidbit of information in my e-mail today:

Grisoft has launched a “Become Legal” campaign this week.  AVG users using their license against the End-User License Agreement are notified and a purchase of AVG license offered.  This campaign is focused on AVG Free users and users of illegal AVG License Numbers spread over the Internet.  This is a great opportunity for you to offer a full AVG license to such users!

You definitely have an illegal copy of AVG if you are using AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition against the terms of the EULA (End-User License Agreement) or are using a license number that has been spread over the Internet.  Here is a brief list of the licensing terms from the AVG Free download page on the Grisoft website:

* AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single computer use only. The use of AVG Free within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.
* AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is not for use with any type of OEM bundling with software, hardware components, or any other services.
* Your use of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition shall be in accordance with and is subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition License Agreement that accompanies AVG Free.

We are an AVG Authorized Reseller and can help you make the switch from an illegal copy of AVG to a properly licensed copy.  We can help you with every step of the process, from determining what Grisoft product best meets your needs to the purchase and installation of it.  Please give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to help you.

Steve Clayton: Geek In Disguise recently posted some cool demos that were shown at the WorldWide Partner Conference this year.  When I watched the Windows Automotive demo all I could say is I sure wish my car could do that.

Here is a list of the demos as well as links to their websites for your convenience:

• Microsoft Surface [demo]
• Live Labs Photosynth (and SeaDragon) [demo]
• Windows Live for Windows Mobile [demo]
• Microsoft RoundTable [demo]
• Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM [demo]
• Microsoft Silverlight [demo]
• Windows Server 2008 [demo]
• Windows Automotive [demo]

Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized - Sally McGhee

The July 2007 Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update contains fixes for Vista compatibility issues with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 (SP1 and R2).  If you are running Windows Vista on your SBS network you should make sure you download this update.  Hopefully, you are using WSUS 3.0 to manage your updates which will make it easier to make sure all of the computers in your office have the update.

I first noticed this tip on the E-Bitz - SBS MVP The Official Blog of the SBS “Diva” blog.

There always seems to be those little things that are a minor annoyance but always seem to get put on the back burner.  When I read my e-mail in Microsoft Outlook I usually use the preview pane.  However, after I get done reading the message it doesn’t mark my message as read in the navigation pane until after I click on a different message.  If I forget to do that the little envelope down by the clock doesn’t go away so it still looks like I have new mail even though I already read it all.  I found this tip posted on the Lifehacker: Outlook blog the other day and thought some of you might also find it helpful.

Microsoft Outlook 2007’s default setting is to leave the naggy little “new mail” notification envelope in the taskbar, even if you’ve viewed your last unread email in the reading pane. Luckily it’s easy to stop that madness: In the Tools menu, choose Options, and from the Other tab, hit the Reading Pane button. There you can check off “Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane.”

Microsoft has created a security portal on their website with some excellent resources on the latest online threats.  It is called the Microsoft Malware Protection Center and the initial release contains:

• Four “Top 10″ lists:
  • Desktop Threats
  • MSRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool) Detections
  • Most Active Email Threats
  • Adware/Spyware
• An encyclopedia of malware and unwanted software
• Links to more tools & resources
• Sample submission page:  A place to send the team files, suspected to contain malware, to be analyzed
• Definition updates for Windows Defender as well as Forefront Client Security

I originally found out about the new portal from the Spyware Sucks blog.  They kept referring to it as the MLPC (which probably goes back to the Live branding confusion saga).
NOTE:  They changed MLPC to MMPC after I wrote this blog post.

There is also some good information on the Anti-Malware Engineering Team blog about version 1 of the portal going live.  They mentioned that this release was just a beginning and asked for people to send feedback about the portal to mpcfb@microsoft.com.

People have been starting to ask me if they should upgrade to Windows Vista.  I’ve been running it on my Gateway M675 laptop for awhile now and have been pretty happy with it overall.  Most of the issues I have encountered so far were caused by a lack of support from software and hardware vendors.  However, over the past few months vendor support has been getting a lot better.  The following article by Ed Bott goes into more details on how the hardware support has been improving:

The Vista driver outlook gets a little brighter by ZDNet’s Ed Bott — I’ve been watching for the past six months as PC hardware makers deliver updated drivers to make their products work with Windows Vista. Lately, the trickle has turned into a steady stream, with some high-volume hardware companies delivering solid 32- and 64-bit updates. But there are still some rough edges to deal with.

If you want to upgrade to Windows Vista the easiest thing to do is to purchase a name brand computer with it preinstalled.  That way you know all the hardware is compatible and has already been tested to work well with it.  In addition, it will probably end up being more cost-effective in the long run since it will cost a couple hundred dollars just to purchase Vista (the price varies depending on what edition you choose).  That isn’t figuring in the cost of any hardware upgrades or labor if you need to have someone help you get it installed.

If you are planning on upgrading to Vista from Windows XP make sure you do a little homework first to make sure your computer meets the recommended system requirements.  You also need to make sure all of your other hardware and software is compatible.  If you are already running Windows XP then a great place to start is by running Microsoft’s free Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor utility.  It will look at everything installed on your computer and let you know what steps you need to take before upgrading.  If you are running a computer that came with anything older than Windows XP you should probably consider purchasing a new computer to get the best bang for your buck.  Here is an excerpt from the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor website:

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will help you to determine if your Windows XP-based PC can run Windows Vista. You can also use the Upgrade Advisor to determine if your Windows Vista-based PC is ready for an upgrade to a more powerful edition of Windows Vista.

This small software tool will scan your computer and create an easy-to-understand report of all known system, device, and program compatibility issues, and recommend ways to resolve them. Upgrade Advisor can also help you to choose the edition of Windows Vista that best fits the way you want to use your computer.

If you have an office with multiple computers networked together you might want to check out the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment.  It will scan all the computers on your network and make a comprehensive report on which ones are compatible with Vista.

It is impossible to give you the best advice for you without knowing your specific situation.  In general, Vista has made some nice improvements over Windows XP and I have been pretty happy with it so far.  Just make sure you do your homework first by checking to see if everything on the computer that you rely on is compatible with Vista.  Now, if only Gateway would release updated drivers for my M675 laptop :p

Here is a tip from the Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog about how to reduce spam by using the new postmarking feature in Outlook 2007.

Postmarking is a new part of the Outlook 2007 junk e-mail feature; it complements the existing feature set to reduce the amount of spam in your inbox.

One of the great advantages of e-mail is that it is easy and cheap to send. Unfortunately, this is the very same reason that makes it so useful to spammers as it enables them to send huge amounts of email in bulk.

Think of Postmarking as computational “postage” imposed when sending email. This is a small burden for an individual user, but is a very large burden for spammers. Spammers rely on being able to send thousands of mails per hour, and in order to be able to send spam with postmarking turned on, they would have to invest a very large amount of money to expand their computational power.

Postmarking generation is only present in Outlook 2007 and postmark validation is present in Outlook 2007, Windows Live Mail , Exchange 2007, and Windows Mail in Vista.

So, how does it work?

Sending e-mail with postmark: Before messages leave your Outbox, Office Outlook 2007 stamps each message with an e-mail postmark. The postmark incorporates unique characteristics of the message, including the list of recipients and the time when the message was sent, making the postmark valid only for that message. As a result it takes a little longer for the message to leave the Outbox – however, this is not noticeable during normal day-to-day Outlook usage.

Receiving e-mail with a postmark: When a recipient e-mail application that supports Outlook e-mail postmarking receives postmarked mail, it recognizes the postmark. The postmark means that the message is most likely not spam and this is an additional factor evaluated by the junk e-mail filter when determining if an email is spam or not.

How to turn Postmarking off

To turn on/off Postmarking, use the following option in Outlook 2007:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

2. On the Preferences tab, under E-mail, click Junk E-mail.

3. Clear the When sending e-mail, postmark the message to help recipient e-mail programs distinguish regular e-mail from junk e-mail check box.

NOTE:  I updated the post to include a copy of the instructions (without including the screen shot at the end).  I also noticed after posting this tip that it is currently only supported within Microsoft’s e-mail software (i.e. Outlook 2007, Exchange, etc.).  That severly limits the effectiveness of this feature because there are a lot of people out there that use e-mail software that isn’t made by Microsoft.  You’re much better off using a server-based solution that works well no matter what client everyone else uses.  The solution we use ourselves, as well as resell and recommend to clients, is called ExchangeDefender.  It has cut the time we spend dealing with spam down to less than 5 minutes a day.