Learning to Fly - Mika's Blog

We just received a note from our publisher stating that the 2nd Edition of our book "Inside Active Directory" is going to reprint :) Based on this and earlier information, it looks like Amazon rank isn't the full truth...

BTW, you can read the third chapter "Managing Active Directory OUs, Users, and Groups" of the book online. And if you happen to be Technet subcsriber, you can find chapter 4 "Securing Active Directory" of the first edition of the book on the Techical Information CD. The last CD/DVD that included the chapter was the December 2004.

Just came across Technet (web-only) white paper "Reverse Proxy Configurations for Windows SharePoint Services and Internet Security and Acceleration Server". This inspired me too "google" and lead me to a fellow MVPs (German) blog where there is a reference to another (downloadable) white paper "Deploying on an Extranet by Using ISA Server 2000 and ISA Server 2004". The latter is much more detailed with 5 different scenarios. The Word documents spans over 116 pages.

I shall finish combing through the docs by latest the 3rd of March when I will be presenting a talk "Securing Messaging and Intranet Services with ISA Server 2004" in Technet Pro 2005 seminar.

You might have come across version 1.0 of the Scriptomatic tool. Microsoft Scripting Guys wrote that little tool to make it a no-brainer to accomplish simple WMI scripts. The tool itself was a great little addition to the toolbox of a Windows administrator but the story behind it is probably the funniest you'll find at the moment on www.microsoft.com :) BTW, you can also find the story as Write WMI Scripts Like the Pros.doc when when you uncompress the downloaded scriptomatic.exe.

Last week they released Scriptomatic 2.0. The title of the properties of the readme.doc accompanying the tool summarizes it all: "Back in the good old days, people were much easier to please than they are now". The readme.doc reveals that the guys have done some homework at least in religion, history, literature and arts (especially pop music) in the seek of making the second release a success. And I must admit, they've succeeded - also in the readme department. The funniest and most entertaining story of version 1.0 has got even more entertaining (and sould I say cultivating) successor. It is stated that version 1.0 has been downloaded almost half a million times. Consequently, the readme included a transcript of a press conference! The tool itself has also improved. I recommend you to read the readme, which details all improvements and new features. The highlights are:

• Using any WMI local or remote (!) namespace (instead of just root\CIMV2 as in version 1.0)
• Output directed to command prompt, txt, HTML or Excel
• Script in VBScript, JScript, Perl, or Python
• Easy to target the script to multiple computers
• Handles arrays and displays dates in more readable format

The readme is so entertaining that I don't want to even try to list the features. Go get the tool install (uncompress) it and read the readme.doc yourself! You won't be disappointed.

In addition to the Scriptomatic, you might also have a look at WMI Tools (for exploring WMI) and the latest version of TechNet Script Center Sample Scripts. Also, see the WMI scripting primer (part 1, part 2 and part 3) that those Scripting Guys wrote.

I guess it's about the time to switch from holiday mode back to business. I've had a nice holiday between Xmas and New Year and also did a bit of travelling last week with my family. Came across with my cousin's brand new desktop PC which used to shut down almost everyday by itself - no fun for a home user not to mention the IE crashing sometimes several times a day :( I suspect memory or motherboard failure. The courier company picked up the PC to be repaired the same morning we left...

If you didn't hear this from somewhere else, last week Microsoft released the public beta of AntiSpyware. I've now installed it on three machines and nothing special has come up. The product works very well considering its beta status. The only problem I had with it was when I tried to start it as an ordinary user. With runas, no problems so far. BTW, I've referred my students frequently to Aaron Margosis' WebLog where Aaron has written great info on running apps as admin while locked on as an "normal" user. Yesterday, I also came across Michael Howard's article "Browsing the Web and Reading E-mail Safely as an Administrator" which also includes DropMyRights application and info on process tokens when using the app. You can also find a shell extension & some further discussion on http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/archive/2004/12/23/331606.aspx.

On my production machine (Windows Server 2003 Std & ISA 2004 Std & Symantec SAVCE), the only threat that AntiSpyware reported was MSN Messenger add-on MessengerPlus! and its optional adaware called C2Media. I've got to like MessengerPlus! and its functionality and in this case usability takes over security...

I'm not going to write a comprehensive report on the functionality of the AntiSpyware, since Paul Thurrot has already done that. I found the most interesting part of the application to be the Advanced Tools that included System Explorers to find out details that might be hard to do otherwise. I've yet to study whether Microsoft has dropped some of the advanced tools that Paul mentions. Of course, some other companies have written similar apps, such as SysInternal's Autoruns utility which provides the info on the programs starting automatically.

I've been trying to start blogging for the last few months of 2004. When I really think about it, it was in June when we sat in a sauna with Ilija and discussed blogging. He made it earlier ;) 

Then in December came the interview about MVP programme for the Microsoft Finland b-to-b magazine Circle. I promised to start my blog by the time the magazine hits the mailboxes in January. The next struggle was to to think about the name. For some reason, it had to do with flying. Pink Floyd's Learning to Fly made it since my motto "Never fly faster than your guardian angel" doesn't have any resemblence with learning.

I've yet to learn how to fly but in the meantime, I'm trying to learn something about how computers work... You can learn few thing about me @ Microsoft MVP Gallery.

I'm looking forward to sharing some of my discoveries through this blog.