Standard User Analyzer for Vista is Released (1.0.1.700) Saturday, September 30 2006 @ 09:25 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft's Vista feature for "Standard User" sounds cool, but you really wonder how many of your legacy applications will be able to use the mode?  This utility monitors your application and gives a very detailed report on whether it will likely run under Vista's "Standard User"... read more New Vesion of Microsoft AppVerifier Saturday, July 29 2006 @ 09:53 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy A new version of Microsoft's Application Verifier (part of the Applcation Compatibility Toolkit) includes "Print Verifier", reinstatement of checking operating system compatibliity for Windows Logo and ThreadPool checking.  read more Microsoft Standard User Analyzer for application compatibility Monday, May 29 2006 @ 12:22 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft's Vista feature for "Standard User" sounds cool, but you really wonder how many of your legacy applications will be able to use the mode?  This utility monitors your application and gives a very detailed report on whether it will likely run under Vista's "Standard User"... read more Wise Package Studio 7 Beta Thursday, May 4 2006 @ 06:55 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Wise has opened up the beta of their next major release of package studio.  Significant enhancements include full integration of SVS (Software Virtualization Solution) with the Repackager, Test Expert and Software Manager also the ability to include RPMs for Linux Packaging ... read more FREE: Wake On Lan Support and Central Policy Push Tool For Group Policy Wednesday, April 26 2006 @ 08:21 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Special Operations Software is focused on making Group Policy based software distribution a practical reality in corporate environments.  They have released a free plug in to Group Policy that allows administrators to wake all the computers in an OU, force a policy update ... read more FREE: Lucersoft ISO Creator Monday, April 24 2006 @ 10:40 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy For some unknown reason the maker of the most prolific disc burning software continues to make the process of creating an ISO file with their software a mystery.  In addition, everyone else wants $30 to do this simple task for you...  read more Shared Computer Toolkit Update to 1.1 Wednesday, April 19 2006 @ 05:53 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has posted an upgrade to the Shared Computer Toolkit.  A primary target of this new Microsoft toolkit is educational computing labs and kiosks, however, the "undoable disks feature" (to use a virtual machine term) would be applicable...  read more BOOK: Visual Basic Express 2005 Friday, April 14 2006 @ 09:27 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft is making a new market play with the new free "Express" versions of their popular programming languages and development environment.  This book can be helpful to administrators who find themselves in need of creating full blown Windows executables... This book does not assume any programming background.  It has a good layout which takes the learner through practical examples throughout.  It leads the learner through the UI of the tool, then how to build a UI for an application, through programming logic (VB Style) and finally into connecting to external data sources.  Like most books on programming in Visual Basic, the overall focus is on building graphical business applications which allow end users to access and edit databases.  Many admins are in search of system programming in VB - but books that cover VB and Sytem programming are rare. read more FREE: Altiris Software Virtualization Solution Tuesday, April 11 2006 @ 02:08 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Altiris has released Software Virtualization Solution which provides software application level virtualization which helps isolate your applications from others running on the system.  The personal version is free, but devoid of any centralized management capabilities.  There is also a downloadable 120 day evaluation for the full corporate product ... read more FREE: BareTail - Log Viewing and Highlighting Tool Monday, April 10 2006 @ 03:58 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy I wonder if anyone has done any statistics on how much time an administrator spends looking at log files.  This hand free tool helps you view, highlight and analyze log files - while they are still active ... read more FREE: Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Thursday, April 6 2006 @ 09:29 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has responded to VMWare's free VMServer ... read more New Version of SpecOps Deploy Tuesday, March 28 2006 @ 02:26 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Special Operations Software has released a new version of their replacement for group policy software deployment... read more FREE: WMI Health Diagnosis Utility Wednesday, March 15 2006 @ 08:14 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy WMIDiag is a VBScript from Microsoft that runs a complete diagnosis of the health of WMI on a computer... read more FREE: Enhanced VMWare Import / Conversion Tool Beta Tuesday, March 14 2006 @ 10:35 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy VMWare has announced beta testing of an enhanced standalone import tool which facilitates conversion to and from many virtual machine and backup formats ... read more FREE: VMWare Server Software Wednesday, February 8 2006 @ 12:55 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy VMWare has created a new free edition of their server software.  It is called "VMWare Server" as opposed to the commercial products "GSX Server" and "ESX Server" It's limitations are ... read more Getting OneCare COMPLETELY Uninstalled Wednesday, January 25 2006 @ 12:26 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy So I didn't care for OneCare, but does it have to keep my computer locked down AFTER it is uninstalled?  Finally got it completely uninstalled ... read more Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) Sample Scripts Monday, December 12 2005 @ 04:31 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has published sample scripts for extending the Baseline Security Analyzer ... read more RELEASED: FLEXnet AdminStudio 7 SMS Edition Saturday, December 10 2005 @ 09:57 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Version 7 of Macrovision's AdminStudio for SMS has been released... read more FREE: SetACL - permissions from command lines, scripts and MSI custom actions. Thursday, December 8 2005 @ 12:10 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy SetACL is an open source project utility which allows advanced permissions settings for Windows from the command line, a script or... read more VMWare Workstation 5.5 Released Friday, December 2 2005 @ 02:54 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy VMWare Workstation 5.5 has been released and it has many cool new features ... read more FREE: Compact, Lightweight, Secure, Portable POP3 Mail Client Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 07:44 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This little mail client can easily fit on a floppy or thumbdrive and securely access POP3 mail.  Unlike a webmail solution ... read more Ghost 9/10 is the old V2i Protector Desktop - $0 at Buy.com This Week. Monday, November 21 2005 @ 05:25 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy If you are a happy owner of PowerQuest's V2i Protector Desktop Edition, like me you have had the sad experience of being abandon when Symantec bought PowerQuest ... read more Released: Point Release of User State Migration Tool (2.6.1) Saturday, November 19 2005 @ 06:31 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Microsoft has updated the User State Migration Tool ... read more XP Remote Desktop Client for 9x through W2K Monday, November 14 2005 @ 04:07 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy If you're trying to use XP's Remote Desktop as your strategy for roaming users you may have run into trouble when an XP desktop needs to be accessed from a non XP computer.  This MSI package (inside an EXE) let's you install RDP client on non-XP computers... read more Catalog of Windows BSD Errors (Stop Errors) and Causes Friday, November 11 2005 @ 12:30 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This site includes extensive information on diagnosing and resolving errors on the Blue Screen of Death (BSD) ... read more New Virtual Machine Blog Cateogory and RSS Feed Thursday, November 10 2005 @ 01:39 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy We have added a new category and RSS feed to DesktopEngineer.com for news about Virtual Machines... read more VMWare Player Enters Beta Monday, October 31 2005 @ 03:25 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy VMWare has a new "player" application which allows you to configure VMs to run on computers without an installed copy of VMWare ... read more FREE/OpenSource: Multi-platform Software Keyboard / Mouse Switch Wednesday, October 5 2005 @ 12:50 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Do you have a bunch of boxes on your desk?  If they are different platforms, you probably have a keyboard and mouse for each one - not anymore... read more Vista / .NET 2.0 Click Once Application Deployment Tuesday, October 4 2005 @ 11:21 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Windows Vista is touting the new Click Once application deployment mechanism.  This new mechanism could prove challenging for administrators since developers can begin to do their own "pull" updates to client computers simply by putting the right files on a ... read more Application Compatibility Toolkit 4.1 Released Friday, September 30 2005 @ 11:29 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Theoretically this is a minor update, not worthy of mention. But we all know that from time to time these small releases fix things that were never acknowledged as broken. read more FREE: SyncBack vs FREE: MS SyncToy - Syncronizing Large File Sets Tuesday, August 30 2005 @ 01:59 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Looking for an alternative to FRS (File Replication Services) for large file sets?  We don't often do comparisons here and this one is not...  read more FREE: 2.0 Release of MS Driver Information Framework (DIFx) Tuesday, July 19 2005 @ 12:27 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy DIFx is Microsoft's first attempt to standard device driver installations and make them more managable.  Included in this kit is Windows Installer... read more VMWare Enterprise Software for VERY Cheap Tuesday, July 12 2005 @ 08:34 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Many times we've touted the benefits of Microsoft's Action Pack offering putting the bulk of their software suite into the hands of the "little guys" out there.  Now VMWare has joined the party... read more FREE: Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit In Public Beta Tuesday, July 5 2005 @ 01:27 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy A primary target of this new Microsoft toolkit is educational computing labs and kiosks, however, the "undoable disks feature" (to use a virtual machine term) would be applicable...  read more SpecOps Deploy - Group Policy Distribution Made Usable Tuesday, July 5 2005 @ 10:16 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy It is always exciting when a company comes up with a slick solution to a strategic problem.  SpecOps makes group policy deployment a practical reality in many situations where it was previously very labor intensive and lacked appropriate status reporting. read more FREE: Windows Event Log as RSS Feed Friday, June 3 2005 @ 05:19 AM CST Contributed By: DarwinS If you have an RSS reader you've probably wondered at the marvel of having all your news and information come to a single unified location.  Many other uses are also possible such as alert and notification applications. read more FREE: VMWare Workstation 5 Thursday, June 2 2005 @ 02:13 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Get a Full Version copy of VMWare Workstation 5 just for attending a VMWare half-day seminar in a city near you. read more FREE: Timezone Display Utility from Microsoft Thursday, June 2 2005 @ 01:51 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Do you frequently do business with companies or business units in other timezones? This handy utility gives you quick access to the time... read more Ultrasound - Monitoring Tool for FRS by Microsoft Saturday, May 7 2005 @ 10:35 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy FRS is notoriously difficult to keep running smooth for large file sets such as those used in software distribution. This new utility from Microsoft can ... read more 2003 SP1 Server Management Tools Update Saturday, May 7 2005 @ 10:29 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy This release fixes a bevy of problems with the original release of the Server 2003 tools. read more VMWare Workstation 5 Released Wednesday, April 13 2005 @ 09:47 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy VMWare Workstation 5 has been released. This new release includes exciting enhancements for... read more ACT 4.0 Not Ready for Prime Time? Monday, March 28 2005 @ 09:29 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Just a short time ago we let you know that the Application Compatibility Toolkit version 4.0 was released. If the newsgroup is any indication, you may wish to hold off on spending time with it just yet... read more Auto-Updating Application Code Sample for .NET from Microsoft. Saturday, March 19 2005 @ 10:27 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Why am I publishing this to administrators? Through the years I have had many administrators ask me questions about high-impact or zero-turn around application pushes through their distribution system. In a lot of cases they are misapplying PUSH technology (all distribution systems) to what should be a pull - generally because there is a lot of money in the distribution system investment and well defined change management process. However... read more Application Compatibility Toolkit 4 Available Monday, March 14 2005 @ 06:46 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Back in September we let you know that a new version of ACT was entering the beta phase. It is specifically designed to help identify potential XP SP2 compatibility problems... read more Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter Update Friday, March 11 2005 @ 08:40 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Although I am a SpamBayes user, I have noticed Outlook 2003's built-in filter does a very respectable job. Here is an update to help it catch more of that unwanted email. read more Scan for Windows Hard Links Wednesday, March 9 2005 @ 04:01 PM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy Hard links are a file system trick taken from UNIX that allow one or more shadow copies of a file to point to the same real file. Programs accessing the file do not know that is it actually located somewhere else. If you've been using them, how do you know which are links and which are the original files? read more FREE: RootkitRevealer from Sysinternals! Wednesday, February 23 2005 @ 08:43 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy You've probably heard the rumblings about rootkits which are essentially undetectable viruses. The folks over at Sysinternals have put together a utility that successfully detects all... read more FREE: SMBIOS Utilities for Windows and Command Line Tuesday, February 15 2005 @ 08:27 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy The BIOS information in most modern computers complies with the System Management BIOS standard. This means most of the BIOS structures can be read by generic utilities - very handy for System build procedures that need to know what model they are running on. read more FREE: Be Alerted to Embarassing Hidden Info in MS Office Documents Tuesday, February 15 2005 @ 08:21 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy By now most of you know that there can be "leftovers" in MS document formats from document review cycles and other activities. Of course you can also just forget to change or remove document properties, powerpoint speaker notes and other items... read more Intel Accelerating Virtualization Plans by a Year Monday, January 24 2005 @ 09:12 AM CST Contributed By: Darwin Sanoy When a big company like Intel speeds up delivery of a chip level technology like virtualization, you know they think this industry segment is ready for prime time. read more