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Windows 7 tips!

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  1. Prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet Springboard Series INSIDER. Nedan hittar du hela senaste nyhetsbrevet. Sign up for this newsletter
  2. Håll dig uppdaterad och besök Springboard webbplatsen regelbundet.
  3. Prenumerera på vårt lokala TechNet nyhetsbrev med fokus på svenska erbjudanden.
  4. Boka dig nu till en av workshopparna med start 31 januari 2011 - Windows 7 Deployment Workshops i Malmö 31/1, Halmstad 1/2, Göteborg 2/2, Linköping 3/2, Örebro 14/2, Sundsvall 15/2, Umeå 16/2 och Stockholm 17/2 2011 med Johan Arwidmark och Andreas Stenhall, båda MVP, från Knowledge Factory.

 

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Windows 7 Deployment,Deployment,workshop,Johan Arwidmark,Andreas Stenhall,TechNet

Springboard Series Insider

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Welcome to December. Before you get ready to take some time off to spend with family and friends, I have a few last minute tech items to share with you. First off, thank you to everyone who attended our Springboard Series Tour. We had an awesome time meeting many of you. If you have not had a chance to check out the tour videos, take a few minutes and check out the highlights from Amsterdam, Stockholm, Helsinki, Reading, Rome, and Vienna.
Many IT professionals choose December as a month to pilot and deploy a new operating system. With many people out of the office, it is also often a perfect time to get caught up on projects, and test new applications and hardware. So, in the spirit of helping you accomplish those tasks with greater efficiency, here are some readiness aids and downloads you'll want to have on your pre-"to do" list.

We also have two great new articles in this month's newsletter—one by our own Deployment Guru Jeremy Chapman and a peek into a deployment Kobayashi Maru scenario from Microsoft Certified Trainer Mitch Garvis—plus tons of other great tips and tricks. Have a great holiday and see you all in 2011!

Stephen Rose
Sr. Community Manager, Microsoft Windows Client IT Pro
stephen.rose@microsoft.com

NEW RESOURCES

Video Demonstration: Simplifying Windows 7 Migration with the MAP Toolkit
Need tools and guidance to help your organization migrate to Windows 7? Learn how to use the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit to automatically inventory your heterogeneous IT environment—and assess your hardware readiness for Windows 7—in a matter of hours.

Windows Command Reference
Windows command-line tools are used to perform various tasks related to Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows 7, and Windows Vista. Familiarize yourself with new and enhanced command-line tools, learn about the command shell, and learn how to automate command-line tasks by using batch files or scripting tools.

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX on a Single Remote Desktop Virtualization Host Server
This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of setting up a working virtual desktop that uses RemoteFX and is accessible by using Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) in a test environment. Upon completion of this step-by-step guide, you will have a virtual desktop with RemoteFX that can be connected to by using Remote Desktop Connection. You can then test and verify this functionality by connecting to the virtual desktop from a client computer as a standard user.

Virtual Hard Disk Getting Started Guide
Get an introduction to virtual hard disks (VHDs) in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 including an overview of technologies that you can use to configure VHDs and procedures to help guide you through deploying VHDs.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List
Download a list of sites that are most likely to be displayed better in Compatibility View in Windows Internet Explorer 8. This list will be periodically updated and automatically downloaded to Internet Explorer 8 users who have opted-in to use Compatibility View updates from Microsoft. For more information on Compatibility View list updates, please see https://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9754639.

Windows PowerShell: Think Commands, Not Scripts
Don't be intimidated by the term "scripting." Read this article to find out how you can do a lot with Windows PowerShell using simple commands.

SOMETHING TO BLOG ABOUT

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.5 Beta
Simplify planning for upgrade or migration to the latest Microsoft products and technologies with the MAP Toolkit 5.5 Beta. This multifaceted tool includes new features to help you streamline planning for your next migration project such as an assessment for easier migration to Windows Azure and SQL Azure, heterogeneous database discovery for SQL Server migration projects, and much more.
Desktop migration projects, in particular, are easier thanks to a hardware assessment for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer and the new MAP 5.5 Internet Explorer Upgrade Assessment, which inventories and reports on browser helper objects, add-ins, and plug-ins and delivers the findings in a convenient migration assessment report and proposal.
Join the MAP 5.5 Beta Program today to test drive the newest version of this powerful tool, and find more details on what's new, on Microsoft Connect.

Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration for Software Assurance
Ever wish there was a way to keep a user's old system, its applications, and its customized Web browser around as a virtual machine inside of Windows 7? P2V Migration for Software Assurance does this in a fully-automated way as part of a Microsoft-Deployment-Toolkit-(MDT)-driven PC migration by leveraging Sysinternals Disk2VHD with MDT 2010 to deliver what is basically a backup of the old system that the user can still interact with in the virtual world. Applications even get published to the Windows 7 Start Menu and can be launched seamlessly without seeing the entire desktop of the old virtual operating system (OS). While you won't want to utilize this solution for many users' PCs, it can help unblock deployments suffering application compatibility delays. Find out more.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Jeremy ChapmanThe Top 7 Deployment Resources for Windows 7
By Jeremy Chapman, Senior Product Manager - Windows Division, Microsoft Corporation Just before flying to Tech•Ed Berlin a month ago, I guest-blogged for Keith Combs. In the Windows 7: Best of Deployment Compilation, I enumerated 34 key deployment resources ranging from blogs to videos to complete virtual-machine-based deployment environments. While 34 different resources sounds like a bunch of stuff to read, watch, and play with, it actually only scratches the surface of the information that's available. The Springboard Series pages showcase most of these 34 resources, as well as additional content I didn't call out in that blog. In this article, I will distill that list, counting down the seven most valuable resources to consult as you begin your quest toward Windows deployment.
This article is mainly geared toward people who haven't needed to worry about Windows deployment and were recently tasked with figuring it out. It's not just about cloning a bunch of reference computers with sector-based imaging tools. And, thanks to heavier-hitting automation and less custom scripting work, deployment is much more fun.
I'm going to put these seven items in order of consumption-instead of order of importance. As with most of my blogs, I aim to make this marketing-free, and I'm highlighting items to get the work done using primarily free tools. Let's get started!

7.
Deploying Windows 7 from A to Z
I wrote this as a blog series almost a year ago, and it quickly became the most informal whitepaper ever published by Microsoft (to my knowledge). This is an "unplugged" session that explains deployment tools and processes end-to-end.

6.
Deploying Windows 7: Essential Guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine
This downloadable eBook explains all of the Windows 7 deployment tools succinctly and without glossing over anything. In my opinion, this is actually the most important item on the list.

5.
Planning Optimized Desktops and Windows 7 Projects with MAP
If you are going to target some of your existing hardware and don't have a great inventory now, or if you just want to build nice reports to show less technical people which hardware will and won't work, this video outlines how to use the free* Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit to do just that. (Approximately 5 minutes)

4.
Application Compatibility Toolkit (Five-Part Video Series)
Okay, I'm cheating here a little by using one entry to highlight five items, but if you watch all five videos, you will learn about everything from installing the toolkit and taking an application inventory to triaging and fixing any detected incompatible applications. (Approximately 50 minutes total)

3.
Thrive Live! Migrating from IE6 to IE8 (Two-Part Webcast Series)
Chris Jackson is a personal hero of mine, and in this two-part series he explains how to think about migrating Web applications from Internet Explorer (IE)6 to Windows IE8 without using virtualization crutches. These demo-heavy webcasts highlight real-world scenarios to configure, manage, deploy, and ensure the compatibility of Web applications with Internet Explorer 8. (53 minutes total)

2.
Building the Deployment Environment and Initiating the Install and Migrating the PC
These two videos explain how to use Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 to create fully automated Windows XP to Windows 7 migrations that include data, applications, drivers, and packages. (Approximately 20 minutes total)

1.
Windows 7 and Office 2010 Proof of Concept Jumpstart Kit
The only thing better than powerful, task sequence-based automation is having everything already built and working in virtual machines for you to play with. Test it, reverse engineer it, customize it, do whatever you want with it. The Proof of Concept (PoC) Jumpstart Kit provides resources in preconfigured VHD files, with MDT and the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) already installed. It's prebuilt to deploy a desktop proof of concept with Windows 7, Office 2010, Internet Explorer 8, and Microsoft Application Virtualization using the technologies in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. Access the guidance online or download the entire kit.

There you have it—my top 7 deployment resources. If you are new to the deployment space, or revisiting it after a long hiatus, this content will give you a pretty good grasp on everything out there and roughly how it works. Plus, it will take you as little as one day to go through these resources. Visit the Springboard Series on TechNet for even more Windows 7 content recommendations.
One last thing... As I write this, my countdown clock gadget on my desktop tells me there are 3 years, 4 months and a few days left until Windows XP end of support, so if you plan to roll out Windows 7 over three years of hardware replacement, now is a good time to start. If it was me, however, and I was on a three-year hardware replacement cycle, I would deploy Windows 7 to the hardware I've purchased over the last two years and target this coming year's new hardware investments for Windows 7. That way, I'd only need to touch these machines once, and the recently purchased hardware can enjoy blazing fast user state migration via hard links. The tools I introduced in this Top 7 list make targeting existing hardware a reasonable operation—even for the more conservative IT shops out there.
Thanks for reading!
Jeremy Chapman is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft responsible for enterprise OS deployment tools. He has contributed to the current generation of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, as well as numerous videos and articles on deployment tools.
*Access to and use of the Internet may require payment of a separate fee to an Internet service provider. Local and/or long-distance telephone charges may apply.

DECEMBER 2010




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Something to Blog About

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Tips and Tricks

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Community Update

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Tweet Alert

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Events and Training

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Upcoming Webcasts

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Sneak Peek: For Insiders Only





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Application Compatibility

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Desktop Virtualization

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Security and Control

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Networking

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Performance and Hardware Compatibility

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Volume Activation





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Springboard Series

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Windows Team

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Engineering Windows 7





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Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RC

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Windows 7 90-Day Trial

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Deploying Windows 7 from A to Z

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Windows 7 Upgrade and Migration Guide

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Guidance for Small and Midsize Businesses

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Windows 7 Videos

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Support and Troubleshooting

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Windows 7 Security Enhancements





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Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

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Windows Vista SP1

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Performance and Tuning

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Support and Troubleshooting





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Upcoming Microsoft Press Titles on Windows 7

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Windows Internals, Fifth Edition

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Windows Administration Resource Kit: Productivity Solutions for IT Professionals

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Windows Vista Inside Out

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Windows Vista Resource Kit





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COMMUNITY UPDATE

Greg Shields

The Kobayashi Maru of Desktop Deployment
By Mitch Garvis, Microsoft Certified Trainer

Facts: 1) there is no way to directly upgrade a client computer running Windows XP to Windows 7; and 2) there is no way to upgrade any computer running a 32-bit (x86) operating system to a 64-bit (x64) operating system.
The first of these facts was a huge disappointment to many of us when it was announced, and it has likely been one of the reasons that so many companies have not yet taken the leap-even in face of overwhelmingly positive responses from companies and users who have moved to Windows 7.
The second fact is one of those facts of life that we all accept: It has been true for as long as there have been x86 and x64 operating systems. Besides, other than power users who need more than 4GB RAM, or who use specific 64-bit applications (Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suites are just two of the application suites that now offer 64-bit versions of their more resource-intensive applications) why would anyone want to move from x86 to x64?
If we accept the traditional definition of the word "upgrade," then the facts are true. Of course, if, at the Starfleet Academy, James T. Kirk had accepted the reality that there was no way to win the Kobayashi Maru, then he might not have become the rising star that he was. What did he do? The Star Trek fans among us might say he cheated... he broke into the computer (I don't think the term 'hacked' was actually used) and changed the parameters of the exercise.
I am not a hacker; however, our language has and will continue to evolve, and perhaps—at least with regard to a secure, well-managed infrastructure—the accepted definition of the word 'upgrade' is outdated and should be revisited and revised.
Traditionally, to upgrade a computer, we would put the media for the new OS into the drive, and, through a specific set of scripts that the user never sees, the old operating system is systematically replaced, and the scripts are written to ensure that nothing is lost.
It is stated, in a 2006 article on the Microsoft TechNet website, that "During an upgrade, existing user settings are retained, as well as existing applications." So, is there a difference between "nothing is lost" and "user settings and applications are retained"? Of course there is: User settings and applications are not lost.
So, what remains other than the operating system, applications, and settings? The answer is usually not pretty: bloat, remnants of applications long uninstalled, and potential malware, or at least the remnants of malware that had been cleaned. We also have registry creep, hidden directories, hidden files, hard-drive fragmentation, and myriad other unwanted lag. All of that can be left behind when we perform an OS upgrade.
If you have ever gone through the process of performing an OS upgrade you will agree with me that it usually works... it takes time, but most of the time it works. However is it worth it? Is there a way to move to Windows 7—from either Windows XP or Windows Vista—and retain our data, user settings, and applications while eliminating the legacy remnants, and doing so in a quick, efficient manner?
Remember when I said we were going to change the parameters of the equation? Rather than perform an OS upgrade, we are going to upgrade the operating system on our workstation, or workstations.
The tools we need are simple: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 is the central management tool. MDT will manage the User State Migration Tool (USMT), and works in tandem with the Application Compatibility Toolkit, Office Environment Assessment Toolkit, and more. However for the 'upgrade' that we will be performing, the only necessary component is the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) - USMT is included in the Windows AIK. Both the Windows AIK and MDT are free downloads, and they can be installed on any workstation. However for the purposes of managing a deployment infrastructure, I prefer to install MDT with the Windows AIK on a server, which, typically, is more static, offers more concurrent connections, and is less prone to being touched by unauthorized staff.
I have often referred to MDT as the "Deployment Foundry," in which all the components of a deployment are stored. Once MDT is installed we can begin to bring in the pieces, of which the operating system and applications are the most constant, although others include language packages and drivers.
Why, you may ask, for a simple upgrade, are we going to the trouble to build our MDT deployment point? Because once our applications are configured within the deployment point to install automatically, the first piece of the upgrade process is in place. Few users will ever have more than a single operating system, just as few would ever run just a single application; in fact, many users will have dozens or even scores of applications. Operating systems usually install fairly quickly, and with little user interaction required. It is the applications that make reinstalling our computers a pain. With a little effort, we can script our applications within MDT to deploy with little or often no user action at all.
With our applications imported into MDT and configured to install, we can then import our operating systems, which will literally become interchangeable. My applications will likely install just as well on Windows 7 Enterprise 64-Bit as they would on Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit. All that is required is a new Task Sequence. Any Task Sequence is specifically created for a single OS edition and version, but it can handle as many applications as you'd like. Suddenly, your applications are included in your operating system installation.
Now that the applications are taken care of, we can turn to the user settings and data. There are a number of ways to migrate these, including the Windows Easy Transfer feature in Windows 7 (one of the greatest tools for home and small business environments) and USMT (the don't leave home without it scriptable tool that migrates profiles from computer A to computer B. However when you are simply installing a new operating system on computer A, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 uses USMT's great hard link feature, which allows the MDT to keep data on a hard drive while formatting it.
USMT knows that most files used by most users in Windows XP reside in c:\Documents and Settings\%username%, as do all user settings for most applications. USMT discovers all of the files it wants to keep, then creates hard-links for each file, like maintaining a map (pirates buried their booty, and drew treasure maps so that they could recover it later; this is the same concept, minus the boat). Folders on the hard drive are selectively deleted by MDT during the OS installation and since we are using file-based images, it doesn't need to be formatted (if we did that, our hard link map and the files themselves would be compromised). The new Windows 7 operating system (any version, any edition) is installed on the hard drive. The MDT scripts boot into Windows and install patches, language packs, and applications, none of which overwrite the data and settings because those sectors were marked as bad. One of the last procedures of the Task Sequence is to Restore User Profiles, which remaps the hard-linked files back to the right locations within Windows 7.
So let's look at what we have: Our client computer that was formerly running Windows XP Professional (x86) is now running Windows 7 Professional (x64). Our applications are there, our user settings and data are there. We have successfully upgraded our Windows XP system to Windows 7, and we have successfully upgraded from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS (it only works to go from 32-to-64 bit, by the way). By changing the parameters of the equation - even if you do call it cheating - we have either debunked two myths... or successfully done what was supposed to be impossible. As an added bonus we have the infrastructure to keep doing it... if you have dozens or hundreds of machines it doesn't matter, once you have built the deployment point you don't have to do it again... ever. So if you decide to change versions of your operating system... or change languages, or add applications or driver sets, all you have to do is take a few minutes to modify your deployment point, and you are set.
There is, as a footnote, one missing piece. Everything we discussed above is fine for standard corporate applications, but what about apps that our end users install themselves? The answer is you should never allow those in a secure, well-managed infrastructure! There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is the management concern - if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. Also it doesn't matter who installs it, if it is on a corporate workstation the corporation is responsible for its content, including (but not limited to) unlicensed software. If one or two users need the application then you can install it for them. Beyond that, find a way to include it in the deployment point (DP). I have DPs that include Adobe AIR and Shockwave Player in addition to tools such as the Cisco WebEx client and Microsoft Office. Contact your vendor and you'll see... many toolbars can be included in your image.
So will doing all of this turn you into the great James T. Kirk? No. Will it turn you into the deployment hero whose knowledge and skills helped your company to move ahead to Windows 7 six months or a year ahead of schedule and thousands under budget? Yes! Your solution will address the needs of the many (which of course outweigh the needs of the few) and will let you live long and prosper as a deployment maven!
Mitch Garvis is a Renaissance Man of the IT world. He is an excellent communicator which makes him the ideal trainer, writer, and technology evangelist, which is what he does as a Virtual Partner Technology Advisor for Microsoft Canada. If you cannot attend one of his classes or community sessions, you can read his blog or follow him on Twitter. He makes his home outside Toronto where he has one wife, two kids, three dogs, and four minutes to himself.

TWEET ALERT

We met a lot of great IT pros during our most recent Springboard Series Tour—some of which we are now following on Twitter:

  • @geekbabe (Jean Parks) - A chocolate-eating, cupcake-loving computer geek with a passion for technology, bath/beauty products, finer living, and fun
  • @MikeRigsby - Network administrator for a contract circuit board manufacturer, PC troubleshooter, and "tech geek" with A+, Network+, MCP, and MCDST certifications (currently working on MCITP)
  • @tonykrij (Tony Krijnen) - Technology Advisor for Microsoft The Netherlands and international technology presenter
  • @dansaap (Daniel van Soest) - Microsoft IT Pro Evangelist with tips on how to accomplish deployment and maintenance tasks with greater ease
  • @magrom (Martina Grom) - Avid blogger with a love for online and social media, cloud computing, Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS), Microsoft Office 365; also a consultant, co-founder of www.atwork.at, and writer for the TechNet Team Blog in Austria

If you would like to be considered for this column, send a message to Stephen Rose via Twitter @stephenlrose and tell him, in 140 characters or less, why we should feature you next month. Also, for the latest information on what's going on here at Microsoft follow the Springboard Series @MSSpringboard.

EVENTS AND TRAINING

For the Win: Window 7 Development Boot Camp
January and February 2011
Web and cloud may be all the rage, but many developers are still doing hardcore client development. If you are among them, this Boot Camp is for you. In this full-day event, we will explore how to maximize your impact on the Windows client. Interactive sessions will include topics from throughout the Windows development platform. We will look at application compatibility and transitioning your applications to Windows 7, integrating with the Windows Taskbar, developing for Internet Explorer 9, utilizing the cool functionality in the Sensors and Location Platform so that your application better responds to its current environment, and leveraging multi-touch capabilities.
Click on your desired city below to register:

UPCOMING WEBCASTS

MSDN Webcast: Best Practices for Building Cross-Browser Web Applications (Level 200)
Monday, December 13, 2010 12:00 PM Pacific Time
Attend this webcast to see how the Windows Internet Explorer 9 browser makes it easier to create web sites using interoperable HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While the webcast focuses on Internet Explorer, these lessons apply to all browsers, and we show you the best practices you can use to target a broad range of browsers.

Business Insights Webcast: Security and Management Convergence on the Desktop (Level 100)
Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:00 AM Pacific Time
As deployment planning for and deployment of Windows 7 gets underway, IT departments have the opportunity to re-evaluate investments, tools, and processes to ensure they are more responsive to user needs around client computing. In this webcast, featuring Terry Cosgrove of leading analyst firm Gartner, we discuss the changing landscape of client security and management; the convergence of desktop security and management and how it affects how IT organizations do business; and key questions organizations should think about when seeking efficiencies in security and management.

MSDN Webcast: Designing User Interfaces for Multiple Clients (Level 200)
Tuesday, January 04, 2011 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Learn how to take a common approach to applying good UX (user experience) to each device and still preserve design best practices for the device you're building for. We explore designing for Windows, Windows Phone 7, and Windows-based slate multi-touch, and we discuss the best approach for defining a design framework you can reuse as new form factors emerge.

SNEAK PEEK: FOR INSIDERS ONLY

The following resources will be released in December on the Springboard Series on TechNet. Bookmark or subscribe to the Windows Client Headlines feed and receive automatic notification when these and other resources, announcements, and downloads are released.

  • Springboard Series for Windows application for Windows Phone 7
  • The first installment of downloadable posters on key Windows 7 deployment topics like application compatibility and upgrade paths

 


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