In Part 1: AD RMS: Data Access Controls we learned about file access controls to data and resources by leveraging permissions via NTFS and share restrictions.

Part 2: AD RMS: Encryption covered the Encrypting File System and BitLocker functionality.

Part 3: AD RMS: Features and Operational Considerations covered some of the higher level features and operational considerations of the technology, reviewing content permission and control.

In today’s post I will be outlining the system requirements of Active Directory Rights Management Services as well as other dependencies for the service.

AD RMS System Requirements

Like any other application, Active Directory Rights Management Services has minimum and recommended system requirements.

Server 2008 R2 and Internet Information Services (IIS) are required in order to successfully install and initialize AD RMS. Additionally, AD RMS also requires access to a database server with SQL Server being identified as part of the system requirements. The database can be run either on the same server as AD RMS or on a remote server.

As defined by Microsoft the “requirement” for AD RMS is:

• One (1) Pentium 4 Processors running at 3 GHz or higher
• 512 MB of RAM
• 40 GB of free hard disk space

The recommended configuration is:

• Two (2) Pentium 4 Processors running at 3 GHz or higher
• 1 GB of RAM
• 80 GB of free hard disk space

AD RMS Software Requirements

Below are the software requirements for running your Server 2008 R2 based configuration on the Active Directory Rights Management Services role:

• The File system installed should be NTFS and Message Queuing needs to be enabled.
• Internet Information Services (IIS) is needed as well as ASP.NET.
• Your Server 2008 R2 system in the AD RMS role must be installed in an Active Directory domain. The domain controllers need to be running Windows Server 2000 with Service Pack 3 (SP3), Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2.
• An additional requirement is that all users and groups who need to use AD RMS to acquire licenses and publish content must have an e-mail address configured in Active Directory.
• AD RMS also requires a database server and Microsoft’s outlined requirements recommend SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008. (SQL Server 2000 is not supported).

Additional Considerations

Before AD RMS can be installed there are several additional considerations that need to be reviewed:

• The AD RMS server needs to be installed as a member server in the same domain as the user accounts that will be leveraging the service.
• You will need to create a domain user account to be used as the AD RMS service account.
• You need to also specify a user account to be used for the installation of AD RMS; this account needs to be different than the AD RMS service account and it must have access to query the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain.
• If you are going to register the AD RMS service connection point (SCP) during installation, the specified user account installing must be a member of the Domain Enterprise Admins group (or have at least the equivalent permissions).
• With respect to using an external database server for the AD RMS databases, the user account must have the right to create new databases. If SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 is used, the user account must be a member of the System Administrators database role, or equivalent

A Few More Recommendations

Microsoft best practices also details the following additional recommendations:

• The database server used to host the AD RMS databases should be installed on a separate computer.
• When installing an AD RMS cluster, secure sockets layer (SSL) certificates should be used and it should be issued from a trusted root certification authority.
• You will need to create a DNS alias (CNAME) record for the AD RMS cluster URL and a separate CNAME record for the computer hosting the AD RMS configuration database. This is helpful in a scenario where the AD RMS servers are no longer in use or taken out of service as the CNAME record can be updated without having to publish all rights-protected files again.
• If you are using a named instance for the AD RMS configuration database, the SQL Server Browser service must be started on the database server before installing AD RMS. If the SQL Server Browser service is not started the AD RMS installation will not be able to locate the configuration database and the installation will fail.

And that’s as far as system recommendations and other considerations for AD RMS go.

Next time, we’ll finally get to the fun part — installing AD RMS on a Server 2008 R2 system!

As I mentioned before, Server 2008 R2 is still in “Release Candidate” status so the details in these articles might change before the product is officially released to manufacturing (RTM), so please keep this in mind.

Now before we get started, let’s do a quick review of what we already covered:

In AD RMS – Data Access Controls we briefly reviewed file access controls to data and resources by leveraging permissions via NTFS and share restrictions. In this article we will take a look at some of the other ways outside of AD RMS that administrators can limit intentional and unintentional data leakage.

In AD RMS – Encryption: EFS and BitLocker we reviewed the Encrypting File System and BitLocker functionality. While not directly related to Active Directory Rights Management Services they are a part of any good security and control strategy.

In today’s segment on Features and Operational Considerations we will review some of the higher level features and operational considerations of the technology in order to get a good understanding of what it offers in terms of content permission and control. I’ll cover:

• Why use AD RMS?
• What AD RMS can do
• How Rights Management works (in a nutshell)
• Shares and Licenses

Why Use AD RMS?

When administrators leverage Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) as part of their security strategy, they add an additional layer above and beyond standard file based security, EFS, or disk encryption technologies such as BitLocker.

This is accomplished by allowing for the protection of information through persistent usage policies and rights management. The best part of this use and rights security is that it is not limited to where the data is stored but rather it is part of the data itself, which means that no matter where the data resides it effectively carries the permissions and restrictions with it.

AD RMS allows administrators to set up the services that will allow data owners to configure permissions to sensitive information as part of their security efforts to keep it from intentionally or accidentally being sent to or received by people that should not have access to it in the first place.

As an example, if I have general file access rights (read) to a Word document and I have it in my possession there is nothing preventing me from forwarding that out to the world in an email.

AD RMS resolves that issue.

As another example, if I have general file access rights (read) to a Word document and I am fired from my company I will always have access to that Word document saved on my own storage device.

AD RMS resolves this problem as well.

What AD RMS Can Do

The AD RMS environment that administrators will deploy includes a system running Server 2008 R2, the latest version released. This system would be running with the AD RMS server role enabled in order to handle all of the necessary certificates for the data. You would also need it to host database services and the AD RMS client.

The AD RMS client is included as part of Windows 7 and Windows Vista and is leveraged as part of the solution to process the permissions on the data.

Data owners are able to define who can open, modify, print, forward, or take other actions with the data. Policy templates can also be created and can be applied directly to the information so that the users do not have to define permissions or rights individually.

As an example a template could be set up as “INTFTE” which allows for “all rights denied except READ” and that could be applied to Word Documents and Spreadsheet and the like, where only those people that are full time, internal employees would even be granted access to the data and then only at a READ level. At that setting they would be unable to print out the data, copy and paste it out and the ability to create screen shots or clippings would be disabled when that document was open.

If you want to be able to leverage rights management to data created on a given application it must be rights management aware or be able to leverage add-ons that have been created to make an application AD RMS-enabled, even if it does not natively implement RMS functionality. Text files created with Notepad cannot be rights enabled because the application cannot leverage the functionality natively as an example.

How Rights Management Works (in a nutshell)

The way the Active Directory Rights Management Service works is that it will issue RMS licenses by way of the AD RMS client which is required for creating the permissions and restrictions on the rights-protected content. The client is also needed for access to that data as well.

Data that is protected by AD RMS leverages encryption and an embedded Usage Policy that defines how each user or group will have access to that data. The data owner will decide the rights that those trusted users will have and they will enable that access right through the application itself.

When a data creator / owner decides that they will rights protect a Word 2007 document, that is done right through Word by selecting the “Office Button” (sometimes called “The Pearl”) in the upper left hand corner of the application and choosing the Prepare option (preparing the document for distribution) and then choosing the Restrict Permission option.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – When content is rights protected (often referred to a “published” or “distributed”) through AD RMS, it is encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128-bit encryption. (Data Encryption Standard (DES) 56-bit encryption is available for backward compatibility).

In our example above in using Word, AES 128-bit encryption would be used as Microsoft Office 2007 always uses AES 128-bit encryption by default.

AD RMS uses public and private keys to encrypt the content encryption symmetric key. The rights policy data in the publishing license and the use license are also encrypted. AD RMS also uses the public keys to digitally sign AD RMS certificates and licenses as well.

Once the permissions are set (such as READ) then specific users or groups are assigned that license or right to that data. The data owner may then put the Word document out on a share (where the share may have access and permissions rights added to it through the share itself and / or where file permissions may be set via NTFS).

When a user with share and file rights access attempts to view the document they must also have this “licensed” right to do so from the owner or they will be denied access to the data from the rights management perspective.

You can see where combining share, file system, EFS, and BitLocker can add to the security of data and how RMS adds an additional layer even above and beyond that.

Shares and Licenses

If a user was accidentally put into a group that has permissions to a shared resource (such as the Payroll folder and network share), they would suddenly have access to data that they should never have been granted access to in the first place.

However, if the actual data was rights protected this user would not have the license right to access the data; despite the fact they are in a share they don’t otherwise belong in they cannot read the data because they have no RMS access to it.

Additionally, in a situation where someone is fired or quits working for a company, their rights to that data can be revoked. Despite the fact that they may still have data saved on a removable drive or flash memory in their possession, they will no longer be able to access it as their rights, remotely managed via the AD RMS service, will now be denied.

An overly simple way to consider AD RMS is — deny all access rights to all users / groups except those with specific granted rights by way of RMS permissions.

Further Reading

For a much more of a detailed look at the actual process please consider a review of Deploying Active Directory Rights Management Services at Microsoft — specifically the Process That IRM Uses to Generate and Retrieve Licenses section of the article.

Next Time

In my next article AD RMS – System Requirements and other Considerations we’ll go over the recommend system requirements and some of the high level configuration considerations for a standard set up. See you then!

Great! Today we’ll get our hands dirty with an actual Vista installation — which means that I want you to install Vista to get some practice.

I’ll review the high level details of performing a clean installation of Vista on a system that does not include a running operating system (this is sometimes called a bare metal installation.)

Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

• 70-620 exam details and the certification tracks that you can follow
• 70-620 exam prep focusing on identifying hardware requirements Vista installs

Installing Vista

The Perform a Clean Installation subsection of the 70-620 exam, focuses on:

• Installing Windows Vista
• Configuring a dual boot configuration of Windows Vista with Windows XP
• Configuring the default operating system in the boot manager

I’ll walk you through the installation steps below and in my next post I will show you how to do a dual boot configuration of Vista and XP.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Many of the references that indicate exam details show that the Installing Windows Vista subsection is formally identified as “Installing Windows Vista Business Edition” and while this is technically correct, having a full understanding of any of the versions of Vista will help you on the exam.

Basic and generic steps to get started on your installation include:

• You need to review and confirm that your computer meets the minimum hardware requirements
• Confirm that you have an installation source (DVD, network location, etc.)
• Verify that you have the 25-character product key
• Plan on a machine name for the completed installation (chose your own or allow for use of the default randomly generated name)
• Having access to a working Internet connection (for updates, product activation, etc.)

Some secondary considerations that you may need to consider include:

• Checking that system BIOS is up to date (before running the installation routine)
• Verifying the system will completely run through the POST routine (and fail properly when no operating system is found as a quick test to root out simple hardware issues that might be present)
• Verifying that the DVD drive is in the boot order (or otherwise selectable) before the system hard drive

Vista Installation Steps

Now we’re ready to do the installation.

The full details of a Vista install from a DVD complete with every screenshot that you can expect to see can be found at Petri: How can I install Windows Vista.

I will simply outline the steps and focus on what’s important to remember for the exam.

I will also suggest that since your exposure to this process is probably limited (I mean how often are you required to install an os at work) that you repeat test installs a few times to get used to the routine. I would also strongly recommend that you practice installing Vista on a bare metal system, and of course… do it more than once.

Also keep in mind that we’re doing a DVD installation, so you might notice some variance in the steps with other types of installs.

1. Booting from the DVD or a network installation point will start the installation routine (SETUP).
2. Press any key on the keyboard to boot from the DVD.
3. The setup routine will begin loading the pre-installation environment.
4. Once that completes the Install Windows dialog box will be shown.
5. On the Install Windows page choose any customization needed regarding language, time and currency format to be used and the keyboard layout / input method desired.

   

6. A second Install Windows dialog box appears next allowing you to review additional information if desired (What to Know Before Installing Windows).

   

7. Next is the Type Your Product Key for Activation page; you need to either enter a key you have for the version of Vista that you’re installing or you can opt to leave this field blank.
   
   Note: Leaving the 25 character field blank will not prevent you from installing Vista; it will allow the Vista installation to complete and you will be able to run the operating system for a limited number of days until you are forced to supply a key and activate the product.

   

8. The next page is the EULA (End User License Agreement) where you will need to check the “I Accept the License Terms” checkbox in order to continue.

   

9. The next page allows you the option for an upgrade installation or custom (clean) installation.
   
   Because this list review is of a bare metal installation you should expect to see the UPGRADE option grayed out as there is no existing operating system present.

   

10. The next screen should show you all of your available hard drives / volumes / partitions that can be used for the installation; choose one to continue. If your computer has a new hard disk that hasn’t been formatted before, your only option will be to create a new partition.
11. The next few steps will include Copying Windows files, Expanding the files, Installing features and so forth. The system will need to reboot itself at least a couple of times during this part of the installation and will do so automatically.

    

12. Once the final part of this segment of the process completes you will be presented with the Set Up Windows screen where you will need to Choose a User Name (and the icon to be associated with your local user account). You’ll also need to provide a password for use with this account.

    

13. The next screen is where you’d either accept the auto-generated system name for the new installation of Vista or you can choose to enter in a name of your own choosing. You also get to choose a desktop background.

    

14. The next screen is a continuation of the Set Up Windows configuration where you’d select the settings for protecting the system in the future (Windows Update settings). By choosing the Use recommended settings option you’ll be configuring the system to download updates at the default time of day and install them automatically without user intervention.

    

15. The next screen is where you’d review the date and time settings and make any necessary changes including specifying the time zone to be used.

And that is really the last formal step; progress from here will be to log in once the setup routine commits all of the final settings from the installation.

Next time we’ll continue with a dual boot configuration of Vista with XP. See you then!

Continue Learning about Vista Exam 70-620:

• Certification Series: Exam 70-620 Configuring Vista Client
• 70-620 MCTS Exam Prep: How to Install and Upgrade Vista

In today’s article we will take a look at some of the other ways outside of AD RMS that administrators can limit intentional and unintentional data leakage.

As I mentioned in my overview post on Active Directory Rights Management Services, AD RMS allows administrators additional ways to protect proprietary information and sensitive data through access and usage restrictions that follow the data wherever it is accessed.

By leveraging AD RMS administrators can dramatically reduce the probability and the possibility that the data is intentionally or accidentally received by users who should not have access to the data in the first place.

As I noted before, the information in this article is subject to change with the RTM, so please keep this in mind and if you do notice any changes feel free to post them in the comments.

Encrypting File System (EFS)

One of the ways to restrict access to data is to encrypt the data (lock it up) so that only the people or groups that have the permissions to access it can — everyone else is denied access.

Much in the same way that very few people have access to your home (only people with the keys to the doors of the house have allowed access) EFS offers administrators a way to set up strict access controls.

What’s different to this method over NTFS permission that we discussed in the last article is that the encryption permissions follow the file around … to an extent.

EFS adds on to the NTFS security layer by effectively scrambling the contents of that data so that it can be read only by someone who has the encryption key to decipher it. Just being an administrator of a system is not necessarily going to allow you to gain ownership of the data and the control to access it because now you’d need the key to unlock / decipher the data as well.

When a user attempts to access an encrypted file and that user does not have the key to unlock it they will receive an access denied message and they will be unable to read the file.

Because encryption is set on the object (and can be inherited) the effect of copying and moving files around can impact their encryption state.

The Rules of Encryption

The overall rules for encryption are as follows:

Rule # 1

When moving or copying a file within the same NTFS volume an encrypted file will not inherit the encryption state of the target folder when that folder is unencrypted. When you copy or move an encrypted file to an unencrypted folder, the file is still encrypted. If you have enabled a folder to encrypt files and you move or copy an unencrypted file to it, it will become encrypted at that point.

Rule # 2

When copying or moving a file or folder from one NTFS volume to another, an encrypted file will not inherit the encryption state of the target folder when that folder is unencrypted. When you copy or move an encrypted file to an unencrypted folder, the file is still encrypted. If you have enabled a folder to encrypt files and you move or copy an unencrypted file to it, across partitions, it will become encrypted at that point.

Rule # 3

Moving or copying a file or folder to a FAT16 or FAT32 volume – EFS supports attribute driven encryption only on the NTFS file system, so when you move or copy an encrypted NTFS file or folder to a FAT volume, (16 or 32) the encryption attribute will be lost. Because most forms of removable media do not support the NTFS file system, the same is also true.

What You Need to Know about EFS

Some key thoughts with respect to encrypting data by way of EFS:

When you need to access encrypted data and you are on a system where the key to the data is present, you can access the encrypted data by simply double clicking on it; there is no other interaction for you. The operating system decrypts the file to access it and then when it is closed it automatically encrypts it again.

You need to back up your encryption certificate and encryption key in case you need to recover these if the system crashes or there is some other error and the system needs to be rebuilt and so on. If you neglect to do this and there is an issue and no other recovery agent is available then these encrypted files are forever locked. This is especially important on standalone systems that are not attached to a domain.

When there are other users that are going to need access to files or folders that you encrypt they will need to have their own EFS certificate added to the files in order to gain access to them. Think of this like having their own key just to this file. They are not leveraging your key – your key unlocks ALL of your encrypted files; their key when added to a file that you lock with your key allows them to access that data and only that data.

Last Thoughts on EFS

EFS does not offer a complete solution for securing files that are sent across the network. EFS secured files are decrypted when they need to be sent over the wire, which can expose the file to possible interception and attacks if someone is monitoring (sniffing) the wire. In order to secure the transmission of sensitive data on an internal or external network another form of encryption would be needed such as IPSec or SSL depending on the need.

As you can see from this high level overview, there are ways to better secure the data but there are still some pretty big loop holes when it comes to storing the data, moving it around on portable drives and transmitting it over the wire.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Because this was an introductory overview of EFS there are a lot of details I glossed over. I would recommend reviewing the details of the Encrypting File System information on the Microsoft website to get more details.

Of special interest would be the Changes in Functionality from Windows Server 2003 with SP1 to Windows Server 2008 section.

BitLocker / BitLocker to Go

So with our review of EFS done I’ll turn our attention to BitLocker and Bitlocker To Go.

BitLocker Drive Encryption is available on some versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2 and in some editions of Windows 7. When leveraged BitLocker Drive Encryption is one of the best ways to protect portable systems such as laptops from loss of data and information when the laptops themselves are lost or stolen.

Additionally, the use of Bitlocker on desktop systems is also a good consideration when you consider how much information can be lost from recycled desktop systems that have not undergone a proper hard drive wipe routine before being sold off.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Bitlocker leverages the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 1.2 to help protect user data and to ensure that a computer has not been tampered with while the system was offline.

The main focus of this topic for the article is to talk about securing files and access control, so this part of what it offers is a little beyond the scope of the conversation.

For additional details on this there is the “What is a TPM” section of the BitLocker Drive Encryption Overview; it is a Vista based article but it is still applicable.

The Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption Step-by-Step Guide is another good detailed document to review.

For our conversation regarding securing files, BitLocker works well on a local drive on a laptop or a desktop as it completely prevents someone from accessing a system in its entirety unless they have a password to start up the system.

Without that password (or the recovery key if the password is lost) the entire system is unavailable.

Fairly skilled people understand that there are ways to get around regular file based security that the operating system offers by installing another version of the operating system locally or booting from a DVD or USB key to work from a lower level of disk access to get to the stored data.

When BitLocker is correctly enabled, the whole area of disk data that is locked out under the encryption is inaccessible to that person even at that low level.

With respect to BitLocker To Go this security of the data is expanded further as it can be leveraged on portable devices to lock all the data even when it is stored on FAT formatted drives keeping the data completely secured from unauthorized access.

The User – the Single Point of Failure

The problem with EFS and BitLocker to Go (most specifically) is that the single point of failure is the end user.

If the end user un-encrypts their EFS locked data or transfers it to a FAT or FAT32 drive it ends up being accessible to anyone that can get to it. If the user sends that data off to themselves in an email it can be left behind in the SENT folder and so forth allowing people that should not have access to it the possibility of getting access to it.

If the end user with the BitLocker to Go device like a USB stick needs to make edits and changes to data and temporarily copies it off the protected device to work on it (as would be the situation under a legacy operating system like Windows XP) and then forgets to delete the local copy, it is left behind unprotected and potentially available to others that should not have access to it.

Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) takes that point of failure and removes it by taking the control of the data away from the user.

But we’ll cover this in more detail in my next AD RMS article. Stay tuned!

We have already tackled the 70-622 certification requirements and taken a closer look at the first skill needed for the exam: Deploying Windows Vista.

I gave you detailed information on how to analyze the business environment and select an appropriate deployment method, so today we’ll move on to how to prepare a system for clean installations or upgrades.

In case you haven’t already, please review these two posts before moving on to the rest of this article.

• Part 1: Certification Series: Exam 70-622 Vista Support & Troubleshoot
• Part 2: 70-622 MCTS Exam Prep: Deploying Vista

MCTS 70-622 Skills Measured

As I mentioned before, exam 70-622 measures a number of different skills and the first section of topics for the exam, Deploying Windows Vista, encompasses the following:

• Analyze the business environment and select an appropriate deployment method
• Prepare a system for clean installation or upgrade
• Deploy Windows Vista from a custom image
• Perform post-installation tasks
• Troubleshoot deployment issues

With respect to Prepare a system for clean installation or upgrade subsection you’ll need to make sure that you understand some of the details around the following topics and tools that will help you in preparing a system for clean installation or upgrade.

Additionally, these tools can be used to assist in deploying Windows Vista from a custom image as well as performing post installation steps — all three of these items are part of the skills that are measured on exam 70-622.

The main topics and tools to review include:

• WIM files
• Windows PE 2.0 (Windows Pre-installation Environment)
• Additional tools that you can leverage in the WinPE from System32
  • Drvload
  • Wdscapture
  • Wpeutil
• Additional tools that are available through the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit)
  • Oscdimg
  • PEimg
  • BCDedit

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Below I’ll be discussing WIM files and Windows PE 2.0 in more detail, but here’s where you can get more information on WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) and the AIK (Automated Installation Kit).

Additional tools to be aware of include:

• ImageX
• Windows System Image Manager (SIM)
• User State Migration Tool 3.0
• Application Compatibility Tool Kit
• Sysprep
• Business Desktop Deployment (BDD)
• Windows Deployment Services (WDS)

What You Need to Know About WIM Files

WIM files are a new part of the install for Windows Operating systems that was introduced with the release of Windows Vista.

The structure of WIM files generally contains six types of data:

• Header information
• file resource details
• metadata resource details
• lookup table information
• XML data
• integrity table

The WIM image format is file-based rather than sector-based which allows for many benefits:

• The WIM image format is hardware-agnostic — only a single imaged is needed for different hardware configurations.
• Using the WIM image format allows you to store multiple images within one actual file. One example is the multiple different versions of Windows available on the installation DVD – they are all there within the WIM file; you just need the correct key to complete the install and activate the product.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – You can find the install WIM file in the CD DRIVE:\Sources directory along with all the catalog (.clg) files for the different Editions of Windows. See Understanding Windows Image Files and Catalog Files for additional information.

• You can also leverage the WIM image format to store corporate / enterprise images with and without core applications in a single image file.
• You can start a computer from a disk image contained in a WIM file if the image has been marked as bootable.
• The WIM image format enables compression and single instancing which reduces the size of image files significantly. Windows PE 2.0 for Windows Vista Overview has some additional details regarding single instancing.
• Offline image servicing is available in the WIM image format. This allows you to add or delete some operating system components, software patches, updates and drivers without forcing you to create an entirely new image.
• Leveraging the WIM image format allows for installations of the image on partitions of any size. Sector-based imaging requires that deployments are set to a partition the same size or larger than the source disk.
• Deploying the WIM image format can be done non-destructively; you can leave data on the volume where the image will be installed because deploying the image will not overwrite the existing contents of the volume.

Windows PE 2.0 (Windows Pre-installation Environment)

The Windows PE 2.0 (Windows Pre-installation Environment) is a bootable tool that provides operating system features for installation, troubleshooting, and recovery.

Windows PE is the environment that is presented to you when you run the Windows Vista installation routine (basically any time you boot from the DVD – that is WinPE). The WinPE environment was built so that it can be customized — so that non-traditional deployment needs can be met.

Windows PE can also be used for troubleshooting systems when they no longer start correctly or for when repairs of a system build need to be attempted under the Windows Recovery Environment.

Complete system recovery is available under Windows PE either from the original installation environment (DVD or network share) or from images that are available on a recovery partition on the local hard drive.

A scenario like that allows end users to start their computers from the WinPE environment to automatically reformat their volume and re-install Vista with the original drivers, settings, and applications in an effort to “reset” or recover their system from the original configuration when it was first purchased. You might often find this as an available option from the larger ISVs that build consumer PCs like Dell, HP and others.

While WinPE does start from the DVD, once it is fully up and running it does so directly in memory in a portion of space leveraged as a RAM Disk (usually assigned a drive letter of X:\). Once it is going to no longer even need the disk in the DVD drive and it can be removed, if you need to supply additional disks for drivers and other installs or updates.

Additional tools that you can leverage in the WinPE from System32:

• Drvload – adds out-of-box drivers to a booted Windows PE image via driver.inf files as referenced.
• Wdscapture – allows you to capture an operating system that has been prepared with Sysprep into .wim file
• Wpeutil – command-line tool that enables you to run various commands in a Windows PE session.

Additional tools that are available through the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit):

• Oscdimg – used to create an image file (.iso) of a customized 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows PE. You can then burn that .iso file to a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and it supports ISO 9660, Joliet, and Universal Disk Format (UDF) file systems.
• PEimg – used for creating and modifying Windows PE 2.0 images offline
• BCDedit – can be used to add, delete, edit, and modify data in the boot configuration data (BCD) store and replaces what used to be available in the Boot.ini file. Additional information on these changes can be found in the BCD Boot Options Reference where there is a table that reflects what was configurable before in the Boot.ini file and how you now do it under BCDedit.

You do need to make sure you have at least an understanding of these tools for the exam. If you follow each of the links above, the additional information there should help you with accomplishing that.

And always feel free to ask questions in the comments if you need further explanation on anything.

Best of luck in your studies.

This is accomplished through access and usage restrictions that follow the data wherever it is accessed, above and beyond what is set at the folder and file level through NTFS and / or the Encrypting File System (EFS).

By fully leveraging the rights management and access controls available in AD RMS an administrator can drastically reduce the probability (and the possibility) that the data is intentionally or accidentally received by other users that should not have access to the data in the first place.

Today we’ll review Active Directory Rights Management Services as it applies to both Windows Server 2008 as well as Windows Server 2008 R2, and I’ll focus specifically on data access controls.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Because Server 2008 R2 is in “Release Candidate” status at the moment until it is officially released to manufacturing (RTM), the information is subject to change.

The Basics: Other Types of Access Control

Before we take a look at all the benefits that AD RMS and the AD RMS client offers in the way of locking down permission to data and access rights, I think it’s important to do a historic review of how this was done.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – NTFS permission settings on files and folders are not necessarily relevant when it comes to what AD RMS offers directly, but it does make sense to have an understanding of where the “first” set of permission controls and rights access were introduced.

When your job as a system administrator involved the responsibilities of securing access control to information, historically this meant that you set permissions on the folders and data files themselves. If it was across networks then share permissions might come into play.

These access control permissions were set through the file system and leveraged by the operating system in use. These file and folder access controls could be set to users and / or groups.

ALLOW permissions were cumulative on the local system in that if you were a member of one group and had READ permission and a member of another you had CHANGE / WRITE — so the permissions would combine to give you the least restrictive level of access (in other words, the most control).

If there was a DENY permission anywhere from any one of the groups you were a member of that was a permission setting that trumped all others. Even if the combined access control allowed you FULL CONTROL of a set of data the DENY always had the override and prohibited all access.

This was a problem whenever you had a large environment where a user was a member of many groups for obvious reasons. It got even worse if the administrator decided to set very granular levels of access control by way of NTFS and you’re dealing with inheritance.

More subtly, there might be a reason to limit most people’s READ rights (as an example) to very sensitive information such as exact employee salary and compensation, but what would you do if someone had permission to read and access this information and wanted others to see it?

They could print it out or copy it to a FAT drive (file allocation table) where the file system permissions set by NTFS are removed and anyone that could physically access the data could get their hands on it.

These are some clear and obvious limitations of file system access controls.

Summary of File Based Access Control

So with all these details I thought it made sense to try to net them all out.

There is the additional consideration of inheritance and so forth but in an effort to just keep the overview simple for now consider permissions set on the data object itself.

NTFS File Permissions

NTFS File Permissions are those set on the files themselves:

Full Control allows for the following level of access control:

• Read
• Write
• Modify
• Execute
• Change attributes
• Permissions
• Take ownership of the file

Modify allows for the following level of access control:

• Read
• Write
• Modify
• Execute
• Change the file’s attributes

Read & Execute:

• Read
• Run / Execute the file — run a program as allowed by other access controls

Read — display the file’s data, attributes, owner, and permissions

Write — write to the file, append the file, and read or change file attributes

NTFS Folder Permissions

NTFS Folder Permissions are settings made at the folder level locally on the system:

Full Control:

• Read
• Write
• Modify
• Execute files in the folder
• Change attributes permissions
• Take ownership of the folder or files within the folder

Modify:

• Read
• Write
• Modify
• Execute files in the folder
• Take ownership of the folder or files within the folder

Read & Execute:

• Read
• Run / Execute the file — run a program as allowed by other access controls

List Folder Contents:

• Display the folder’s contents
• Display the data itself
• Display the data attributes
• Display the data owner
• Display the data permissions for files within the folder
• Run / Execute the file — run a program as allowed by other access controls

Read — display the file’s data, attributes, owner, and permissions

Write — write to the file, append the file, and read or change file attributes

Share Permissions

Share Permissions are given to the shared resource over the network:

Read:

• View files and subdirectories
• Execute applications
• No changes can be made

Change:

• View files and subdirectories
• Execute applications
• Add data / subdirectories
• Delete data / subdirectories
• Change / append files or subdirectories

Full Control:

• All of the above

NTFS permissions and share permissions are independent and the most restrictive of the two will be applied to the shared resource.

This would be in the situation that a resource access is attempted across the network (as local access renders share permissions irrelevant).

So in the example of where JOHN has FULL CONTROL of a file locally (NTFS) at the system console but across the network that user only has READ access to the share, JOHN will only be able to READ the data — that would be the maximum control level that user would have accessing the data remotely.

Next Time

In my next article I will go over some of summary details of how the Encrypting File System (EFS) offers another form of access control over data.

I have already outlined the 70-622 exam in one of my previous articles, where I provided an overview of the skills needed for the exam and how to achieve the MCTS certification.

Today I’m going to focus on one area of the 70-622 exam — Deploying Windows Vista segment of the exam, specifically the section that covers analyzing the business environment and selecting an appropriate deployment method.

Deploying Windows Vista

The 70-622 Vista Desktop Support for Enterprise Technicians exam measures a number of different skills and the first section of topics for the exam encompasses the following:

• Analyze the business environment and select an appropriate deployment method
• Prepare a system for clean installation or upgrade
• Deploy Windows Vista from a custom image
• Perform post-installation tasks
• Troubleshoot deployment issues

How to Analyze the Business Environment and Select an Appropriate Deployment Method

First you’ll need to make sure that you understand the three phases of the deployment lifecycle:

• Plan — assess the needs of the organization and develop a deployment strategy to meet the needs
• Build — put the tools and plans that will be used to support the deployment plan into place
• Deploy — implement the deployment plan

Windows Vista: Common Deployment Questions Answered is a great additional resource you can use to review this topic in a little more detail.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – The entire write up goes beyond the scope of what is “only” needed for the exam but the additional details will be helpful for you to understand the concepts in general with respect to the topic.

When preparing for the exam, make sure you completely understand the deployment challenges of an enterprise. Things to consider are:

• Hardware — are upgrades needed; can some systems be upgraded in place, what systems will need to be retired and replaced outright.
• Application Compatibility — critical applications that are a “must” need to be identified; from there you can break them into other levels of requirement in the enterprise. You would then need to breakdown any issues that show up in the compatibility testing. The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) is a tool you can download and use to perform this work of evaluating and mitigating application compatibility issues before deploying many of the newer versions of Windows, including Vista and other application upgrades such as changing from one version of Internet Explorer to another.
• User State Migration — going from Windows XP to Vista has been made easier with a number of automated tools such as the Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT).
• Technical Subject Matter Experts (SME) — as part of the deployment planning you need to consider the technical knowledge level of your own staff to address the efforts of the deployment challenge and whether additional assistance may be needed.

Another crucial part that you’ll need to understand is the hardware requirements for a successful (and supported) installation of Vista on the systems once the deployment is completed.

Make sure to review the details on systems requirements that I included in my previous post. The article focuses on a different Vista exam, but the information about Vista requirements is valid for this exam as well.

In the post I talk about what you need to take into consideration when pairing up your hardware with the appropriate Vista edition. I also cover understanding the different available Vista editions and understanding the difference between minimum and recommended hardware requirements — all useful stuff.

More Information on Deploying Vista

So far we have covered just one of the skills required for the Deploying Windows Vista section of the 70-622 exam — analyzing the business environment and selecting an appropriate deployment method.

I’m not going to cover the rest of the skills in detail, but I will provide you with some useful resources to get you started on them:

• How to install Windows Vista and How to prepare to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista are both good sources to start exploring.
• Vista Deployment Step-by-Step Guide is very thorough and will help you practice deploying Vista in a lab environment
• Troubleshooting General Operating System Deployment Issues is also a good place to start learning basic troubleshooting issues when it comes to deployment

I would also suggest checking out Pail Thurrott’s 3 part Windows Vista Installation Super Guide to practice with:

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: Using the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor
• Part 3: Clean Install Windows Vista

Remember, the more you practice doing hands-on tasks, the easier it will be for you to remember the information and master content for the exam. I hope that the information in this and my previous articles will help you get a good start on the 70-622 and other Vista certification exams.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I am looking forward to any feedback you have on it — feel free to leave me a comment below.

Best of luck in your studies.

Around the same time that service pack 2 was released, Server 2008 R2 (Release Candidate) was made available for download.

Last time I provided you with a brief introduction to R2 and some of the high level comparisons of both releases, system requirements and so forth. I also outlined a few high level, expected changes under Windows Server 2008 R2.

Today I will show you the steps for installing Server 2008 R2 from an ISO image on a Hyper V server.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] — The steps outlined in this walkthrough may differ slightly when installing to a physical system as opposed to a virtual installation but for the most part the steps are the same. In addition, since this is a Release Candidate and not the RTM bits, there’s always the rare possibility that something may change in the installation routine in the final version as well.

Also note that because Server 2008 R2 is in “Release Candidate” status the details of the steps of this walkthrough are more set than when the product was in beta.

Having said that, until the product is officially released to manufacturing (RTM), the information is subject to change.

The Basics: Setting the Virtual Stage

Before you start your installation to your virtual environment, it’s a good idea to have your virtual drive all ready to go.

In the event that you haven’t done this already, the overview of the steps are:

1. Open Hyper-V Manager under Start → Administrative Tools → Hyper-V Manager

2. From the Action pane, click New, and then click Virtual Machine

3. From the New Virtual Machine Wizard, click Next

4. On the Specify Name and Location page, specify the name of your virtual machine and location of the virtual machine files

5. On the Memory page, denote the amount of memory that you want to allocate for the virtual machine to run the guest operating system

6. On the Networking page, select the network adapter configuration you want to use (to identify if you want to have a live network connection to the physical adapter or not)

7. On the Connect Virtual Hard Disk page, specify a name, location, and size to create a virtual hard disk so you can install an operating system on it

8. On the Installation Options page, choose the method you want to use to install the operating system:

• Install an operating system from a boot CD/DVD-ROM. You can use either physical media or an image file (.iso file).
• Install an operating system from a boot floppy disk (where applicable)
• Install an operating system from a network-based installation server. To use this option, you must configure the virtual machine with a legacy network adapter connected to an external virtual network. The external virtual network must have access to the same network as the image server.

9. Click Finish

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – For this walkthrough I chose to select the networking option that allows us to connect to the physical network card so we could have network connectivity.

Additionally, at the Installation Options page, I choose the method to install from the ISO file directly.

Step Two: Starting the Install from the ISO Image

At this point we are ready to go, so I’ve placed the DVD into the drive and set the running virtual machine to capture the drive so the virtual environment will engage from the ISO configuration.

Once the setup environment is engaged the first screen you will see is the familiar Install Windows screen where you can initially choose the language to install, the time and currency format, and the keyboard input method as shown below:

Once you’ve made those choices you can click NEXT to continue.

The next screen will bring you to all of the available choices for installation (as provided in the ISO image that I am using). For our walkthrough I’ll choose the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (Full Installation) option.

The next screen that will appear is the ever familiar license terms page. You’ll need to select the “I accept the license terms” check box to continue.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If you do not select the box and accept the terms, you cannot continue with the installation. This has pretty much been the standard forever with respect to Microsoft operating systems and I am sure many other software companies.

Next is the “which type of installation do you want” page, where we will select CUSTOM as there is no existing operating system installed on our VHD drive to upgrade from.

Once the installation routine continues to the next page you’ll arrive at the options of where you want to install Windows. In the image below you’ll see just one choice for us in the virtual environment (Disk 0); in other installation scenarios such as on a physical machine, you may be presented with other disk locations to choose from.

Once you make that choice (and provided that no formatting is needed on that volume) the routine will begin the file copy and expansion of files on the selected volume.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If the volume was not already formatted the routine would have performed that step prior to the file copy step for obvious reasons of needing a place to copy the files.

The system will restart a number of times without user intervention needed throughout this part of the process as shown in the sequence of images below.

The Wrap Up: Finishing Steps

As the system starts for the first time where it requires logon by an administrator you will see the following screen:

In order to continue you will need to change the password before logging on for the first time. That’s actually a misleading screen of sorts as we’ve never set a password up to this point. What we are actually doing is setting the initial administrator password for account use.

Once that action is completed setup will continue.

At this point we are presented with the Initial Configuration Tasks window:

What you’ll notice at this point is that Windows has not been activated, the time zone is default selected to Pacific, and the computer name was generated at random and established. You may recall, we made no mention of these activities in the steps above as the installation routine from the ISO image did not prompt us for any of these options, including entering a product key.

Let’s close this window for now. Once we do that the Server Manager window is presented as shown below:

It too shows that Windows has not been activated and that there are other options that can be configured for the system, such as Roles and other connection settings.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Between my setup steps I chose to change the default name of the machine; on this screen you’ll see the Full Computer Name as SERVER2008R2 where on the prior screen it showed the randomly generated name.

Our final steps will be for activating Windows which will require a connection to the internet (for the easiest way to go about this) and the 25 digit key to enter in.

We will go to Start → Computer → Properties as shown above to bring up the System information page below:

At the bottom of the page we can see that there are just 3 days until automatic activation (which would fail at this point because the key has not been entered for this system). When you choose the Activate Window now option the Windows Activation screen appears as shown below:

When you attempt to do this you are automatically presented with the page to enter in your key.

You need to make sure the key you try to use is applicable to the product you installed or you will see an error message like this:

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – To generate that error for the purposes of demonstration, I entered the Standard Key which is different that the installed edition of the operating system which was the Enterprise edition.

Once you provide the correct key the Activating Windows routine will complete and you’ll be up and running.

Congratulations! Your Windows Server 2008 R2 has been successfully installed and activated.

Today we are going to review the Installing and Upgrading Windows Vista section of the 70-620 exam. More specifically, I’m going to focus on how to identify the hardware requirements needed for Vista.

Installing and Upgrading Vista

The 70-620 Configuring Microsoft Windows Vista Client exam measures a number of different skills and the first section of topics for the exam encompasses the following:

• Identify hardware requirements
• Perform a clean installation
• Upgrade to Windows Vista from previous versions of Windows
• Upgrade from one edition of Windows Vista to another edition
• Troubleshoot Windows Vista installation issues
• Install and configure Windows Vista drivers

How to Identify Hardware Requirements

As part of the Identify hardware requirements section you will need to make sure you have the ability to assess the hardware requirements for a successful (and supported) installation of Vista.

This includes the details as provided on the system requirements page at Microsoft’s website.

Notice the differences between the minimum and recommended system requirements. While the minimum requirements are probably enough, you want to be as close to the recommended system requirements as possible.

Here are some more things to take into consideration when pairing up your hardware with the appropriate Vista edition:

• All of the editions of Vista provide support for multiple core processors.
• Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors (2 physical units which may or may not have multiple cores). Home Basic and Home Premium do not support more than one physical processor.
• The Home Premium and Ultimate editions support TV watching capabilities when a TV tuner card is present natively within the installed version of OS.
• Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate Editions offer Windows Tablet and Touch capabilities on Tablet PCs or when installed on systems that have a touch screen.
• The Ultimate and Enterprise editions offer Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption on systems equipped with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 chip.

Part of the 70-620 exam is understanding the different available Vista editions. Here are some resources to get you started with this:

• The Compare Vista editions page provides a nice table with the four core versions shown.
• There is a separate page for Vista Enterprise os features and the Vista Starter edition.

Another thing you’ll need to know for the exam is which systems are Vista Capable and which are Vista Premium Ready.

And don’t forget about the Vista Upgrade Advisor — a tool that is available for download from Microsoft that will allow you to determine whether a system that is currently running XP meets all of the requirements for an upgrade to Vista.

The tool is nice but it only runs on the 32-bit version of XP and Vista and it will not run on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, or Windows 2000 systems. Additionally it cannot run against the 64-bit edition of Windows XP.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – There’s definitely some memorization that is required for the 70-620 exam, especially when it comes to this section of the exam. You will need to know what the different versions are and the requirements for each.

You’ll also need to understand the differences between minimum supported system requirements and the recommended system requirements.

Installing & Upgrading Vista

As far as the rest of the topics in the Installing and Upgrading Vista section are concerned here are some resources to get you started:

How to install Windows Vista covers:

• How to perform a clean installation
• How to upgrade to Vista from an earlier version of Windows
• How to troubleshoot Vista installation issues

Information on upgrading from one edition of Vista to another can be found in here and basically what you need to understand here is when you need to perform a clean install and when you can upgrade. For example, if you currently have the Vista Business edition you can upgrade to Vista Ultimate, however you will have to perform a clean install if you want to move to the other editions. There is also information on upgrading from a 32-bit version to a 64-bit version and upgrading a 64-bit version to another 64-bit version.

 
I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I am looking forward to any feedback you have on it — feel free to leave me a comment below.

Best of luck in your studies.

 

Continue Learning about Vista Exam 70-620:

Certification Series: Exam 70-620 Configuring Vista Client

70-620 MCTS Exam Prep: Mastering Vista OS Installation

Today I’d like to tackle another aspect of choosing the right job in IT. We’ll take a look at the pros and cons of where you choose to work from a salary and mental health stand point. We’ll also examine some of the differences in job expectations and how they vary from business to business.

IT Job Expectations That Vary

In some work environments the leverage against technology is so high and so critical to the success of the business, that your responsibilities may be quite high and the role quite demanding. Compensation is often higher to meet that higher responsibility, but for some people the stress and the pressure are not worth it, regardless of the compensation level.

As an example, an online retailer (let’s assume a large department store chain) that has both physical locations for shoppers to go to as well as an online presence, depends on both for its business. While it really doesn’t want to have issues with its online operations and it would become negatively impacted if its online operations suddenly came to a halt due to technology issues, it could continue to operate and make sales even during this impact of their infrastructure. There would be some sense of urgency to get online operations back up and running as quickly as possible, but the business is still running (though at an impacted level) and making sales.

An internet retailer that only has an online presence will totally cease to exist if its online operations suddenly came to a halt due to technology issues. A loss of online operations totally prevents this business from making any sales and revenue from them.

Between these two businesses there are two very different levels of urgency to get operations back online.

The higher potential for loss of sales and revenue for the business drives a higher level of severity for a problem; more management will be involved, more stress introduced and higher performance expectations will be needed from the technical staff to respond to the issues and to get them resolved.

If you think that you would thrive in this type of environment then you should seek out positions that demand this type of preparedness. If on the other hand, you’re the type of individual that cannot react well in an emergency situation (you cannot think clearly, you don’t work well under the glare of management, etc) you’d probably want to stay clear of these environments.

The bottom line — you need to consider the type of pressure you can work under and the demands and responsibilities of the role you have in that particular company. If the demand and expectation levels are too high for what you can manage then you need to consider a similar job role in a different work environment — one that is better suited to your personality type.

Role Responsibilities: Clearly Defined or Blurred Lines?

The other item to consider is how well a company is making out “doing more with less,” especially in the current economy.

Job responsibilities have always been in one form of change or another and there is nothing quite like the restructuring of potions and responsibilities in a tightening job market to accelerate those changes.

As one example, you might have taken on your role in your company when it didn’t involve interfacing with customer contacts and that has changed subtly as the position evolved or the company itself has grown. In a situation like this, where dealing with people directly is not your most favorable thing to do, you need to take stock in the changes and decide what to do.

Whether you retrain yourself to better deal with the changes in the new role or you decide to look for other positions that were more like the way your job used to be is going to depend on a couple of things.

In one case, you have to decide whether the change is something that is occurring in just your place of employment or if it’s an industry wide change. If the change in role responsibility is occurring in similar roles all over, then it’s a paradigm shift that will generally be found everywhere over the course of time.

The other factor you may consider is whether or not the change is really that drastic and if it’s going to make you completely unhappy in your new role. A certain amount of change can be good and it may allow you to grow and gain additional skills in the subtle changes of responsibility right within your own role.

If you think about it as cross-training right in your current job then you may find that you take to it well (or “well enough” to keep it as a positive change) and it allows you to add new skills to your resume. Those might be helpful come review time or in the unfortunate scenario where you might be laid off and looking for work.

The bottom line — change in the IT field is often relevant, beneficial and a complete part of the constant evolution of the industry. The better and more flexible you are to subtle and even sudden changes in business drivers, duties, and responsibilities, the better your position to maintain your job and to excel within the company.

Remember, the one constant in the IT field is change.

I hope you found this information useful. I’m always looking forward to your feedback on this and any other articles I have written so feel free to drop in some comments or contact me directly.

Additionally, I welcome any suggestions for topics of interest that you would like to see here.

Windows Server 2008 has been available in release since the May 2008 timeframe (according to the Microsoft Lifecycle page for Server 2008) and service pack 2 released in April of 2009.

Around the same time of the release of service pack 2, the Windows Server 2008 R2 (Release Candidate) was been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and the availability of public downloads came out a few days after that.

Today I’m going to review some of the important details of Server 2008 R2 and in my next article I’ll do an installation walkthrough.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Because Windows Server 2008 R2 is currently in “Release Candidate” status, the details are more formally announced than when the product was in beta.

Having said that, until the product is officially released to manufacturing (RTM), the information is subject to change.

The Basics — System Requirements

The system requirements for Server 2008 are outlined on the Microsoft website and have not been adjusted with respect to R2 at this point.

If this follows the Release Candidate all the way to RTM the details will be:

• Processor – Minimum: 1.4 GHz (x64 processor)
• Processor – Recommended: 2 GHz or faster (x64 processor)

• Memory – Minimum 512MB

• Recommended: (x64 systems): 2 GB or more
• Maximum (x64 systems): 32 GB (Standard)
• Maximum (x64 systems): 2 TB (Enterprise, Datacenter, and Itanium-Based Systems)

• Disk Space Requirements

• Minimum: 20 GB or greater
• Recommended: 40 GB or greater

• Display – Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution monitor

The main point to remember is that you need to discard all of the presented x86 information as R2 will be released in x64 editions only.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – These are the minimum system requirements to run Windows Server 2008 as a based installation and in a minimum supported state.

Your actual needed and recommended minimum requirements will vary based on system configuration and role designation of the server. As one example, processor requirements specifically needed to manage expected performance load are dependent upon not only the clock frequency of the processor, but the number of cores and the size of the processor cache as well as the number of physical processors present.

Additionally, disk space requirements for the system partition are approximate and do not take into consideration the role of the system and the amount of memory installed (which affects the needed available disk space for paging, hibernation, dump files and so forth).

Installation and Activation — The Past Highlights

When you are installing Windows Server 2008 proper, you are not required to deal with product activation or entering a product key for an initial 60 days under the license terms for evaluation.

Under those same terms, the 60 day evaluation period can be reset a total of three times, extending the original 60 day evaluation period by up to 180 days for a total of 240 days. At that time you would need to uninstall the software or go through the product activation process which would require a valid product key.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If you are in a situation where you need to automate the extension of the evaluation period, there is a knowledge base article titled: How to extend the Windows Server 2008 evaluation period that details these steps.

The release notes for the RC indicate “Evaluating this early release of Windows Server 2008 R2 software does not require product activation or entering a product key. This release of Windows Server 2008 R2 may be installed without activation and evaluated for an initial 60 days.”

Expected Changes under Windows Server 2008 R2

There are some expected changes to be found with the release of Server 2008 R2.

While the Server 2008 R2 release is expected to mirror other past R2 releases (in this case building on the original Windows Server 2008) it will be different in one major way in that it is the first 64-bit only Server release.

Server 2008 R2 also has several CPU-specific enhancements, one of which expands CPU support to run systems with up to 256 logical processors installed.

R2 also supports Second Level Translation (SLAT), which enables R2 to take advantage of the Enhanced Page Tables feature found in the latest AMD CPUs as well as the similar Nested Page Tables feature found in Intel’s latest processors.

Changes in Hyper-V allow for access of up to 64 logical CPUs on host computers which can allow for greater virtual machine consolidation ratios per physical server.

Virtual Desktop Integration (VDI) technology is included in R2 which extends the functionality of Terminal Services which allows administrators to install applications remotely and deliver them to end users. Once VDI is configured, programs that Remote Desktop Services sends to a computer are now available on the Start menu right alongside programs that are locally installed.

There are also some improvements to power management as well.

Next Time …

In my next article I will walk you through the actual Server 2008 R2 installation steps in my virtual environment.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I am looking forward to any feedback you have on it. Additionally, I would welcome any topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.

This decision will not only have an impact on how much money you’ll earn it will also have an affect your work / life balance.

Today I’ll discuss the pros and cons of where you choose to work from a salary and mental health standpoint to help in your IT career decision making process.

Where You Work — Does it Need to Define a Part of Who You Are?

Like it or not your job will define something about you either directly or indirectly. Just like the old frog and scorpion story (“part of my nature”) people can only maintain so long “out of their element” regardless of benefits, pay or other compensation.

Eventually they will come to be less happy and they’ll need to move on. The only other option is to be anywhere from “unhappy” to “miserable” in the work that you’re doing.

It is also important to have a good grasp on where you want to go in your career from the standpoint of where you want to work.

Having the desire to be an Operations Center Manager as one example is a great career path, but there is a big difference in being that manager for a mid-sized company as it is for a global one.

As another example, if you’re really short on patience and working with slow starters is not your thing then a role of training new hires on new technology is never going to work for you in the long run, even if it was your dream to work on Wall Street and the job pays 50% more than your last position.

You have to know what you’re capable of and you need to know what your limitations are.

If you’re working in your dream job (or your dream job for now) in IT but it’s in a place that doesn’t fit your “style” it can still make your work day something you come to regret getting up for in the morning. The work may be exciting and fulfilling but who you’re working for may be anything but.

Generally you spend one third of your day at work, five days a week. Add to that the time it takes you to travel to and from work, and it ends up being even more.

This means that five days a week you are spending 60% (or more) of your waking hours at work so you need to do what you can to ensure that the work is challenging, satisfying and a “right” fit for you.

Dealing with a Difficult Job Market

During a recession and tight job market, working in an optimal environment may not be an option. But keep in mind that you can hold back “resentful” feelings for where you work only temporarily; sooner or later they force their way to the forefront.

As time progresses and the job market improves you’ll have opportunities to move on to something that is a better fit for you.

During the tougher times you’ll need to make sure that you’re still doing the job you have to 100% of your capabilities. You don’t want to be let go into a bad job market because you’re slacking due to the fact you’re really not excited about the position.

Additionally, when the next opportunity opens elsewhere you may need to leverage reviews and references from your current place of employment and you’re going to want those to be as positive as possible.

Compensation is Not a Fix for the Wrong Job

Its one thing to not be a big sports fan and work for a sports apparel company and it’s quite another to support the ethical treatment of animals and work for a company that is known for its puppy mills. What you need to do is analyze what you can and can’t deal with.

There are some people that are very good at separating the work they do for a company and how they derive their paycheck from what the company does (the company’s business goals and their vision). Others will struggle with this and it will negatively affect their work and their own sense of well being and life outside of work.

Money is a great initial motivator but not a long term fix. You can be offered 20% more compensation to deal with less than desirable work conditions, but they will eventually affect your mood, demeanor and life outside of work.

In my own example, I’ve found that over time in a business environment that I don’t morally or intellectually agree with I have had problems working efficiently and with the complete desire to do my best. This is not because I don’t like my job, but because I have no passion for the company’s business objectives.

This leads to being less than satisfied with the work that I’m doing and the effort that I put in is not 100% because I cannot separate the two things in my head. I look at it as if I’m helping this company do something I don’t like or don’t agree with because I’m filling a job role that allows them to get that part of their business done.

However, there are people that manage and deal with this well — from something as blunt as the thought process of “I do my work and collect my check; what the company does isn’t really my concern” to more subtle positions such as “I do my best because if I don’t someone else will, so why not me?”

The bottom line — when you have the ability to make the choice, you need to keep in mind what you can tolerate at work. Remember, that your goal is to be successful in your job and to get where you want to be in your career and your work environment is going to play a role in that, so choose wisely.

Take Away

In summary and the main take away ideas:

Where you work doesn’t necessarily have to be a perfect fit

• You must have good intellectual capital to fully separate work from life
• Compensation is not a long term fix to a position you don’t enjoy
• You need to know what you’re capable of and what your limitations are

In rough job markets you may have to take the best thing available, until things improve

• If the job you take ends up being one you intend to hold until things are better, have a plan for moving on when the economy picks up
• Do the best you can and give 100% regardless of whether you want to keep the job in the long run or not

Make a plan for your career and decide where to have it

• Where you live will play a role in available job options and choices, especially in the IT industry
• The industry and job market will also play a role in your job options and choices

I hope you found this information useful. Next time I’ll focus on how role responsibility and job expectations come into play in IT. I will outline some of the pluses and minuses of different roles and responsibilities and the expectations of the positions to help you make the right decisions.

I’m always looking forward to your feedback on this or any other articles I have written so feel free to drop in some comments or contact me directly.

Additionally, I welcome any suggestions for topics of interest that you would like to see here.

Not only are you coming in with little to no practical experience but you’re potentially competing with some seasoned veterans for the few jobs that are available.

There are however a few things you can do to maximize your chances and to set yourself apart from other potential hires. Today I’ll show you what you can do to position yourself for the best chance to grab that open position and get the job you want.

Theoretical Knowledge

It probably goes without saying that you have to have some mastery of the subject before you go after the job you want. Be it classroom learning as part of a college course, or a certification class, or even through self paced training — if you want an entry level job on a help desk (level 1 support) or desktop hardware / software support role (level 2) you’ll need to have some form of training.

Additionally, you will need to know how to explain what you know to someone. Being able to understand that different RAID configurations lend themselves to data protection or performance improvements and being able to implement them are two different things. You need to have the knowledge before you can choose the most effective solution for the situation and then recommend and implement the solution.

The Lesson:

Learn as much as you can from the environment you’re presently in. Ask someone in a higher role what it is they are doing in the adjacent area working on that workstation or server. Try to remember the key things they are talking about and then research them on your own.

The knowledge is power rule applies here.

Practical Knowledge

On top of the theory, you also need to have some level of practical hands on experience. That might come from tinkering in a home lab setup or building your own white box computers for yourself or family and friends — but you’ll need this exposure and the more the better.

Sometimes this catch 22 is like getting a credit for the first time — you can’t have a credit history without having someone give you an opportunity to have credit and you generally do not get the opportunity to get credit from someone without showing them your pay back history and that you’re a good risk. Somewhere along the line someone has to take a chance on you.

With respect to getting hands on experience with computers and networking you might need to take a job that literally no one else wants or you may need to offer up what you know for free in exchange to use it as experience on your resume.

There are not too many people that are going to want to rotate tapes out of 10 year old backup systems and configurations, on third shift, part time, over the weekends only, for minimum wage — but if that’s what you can get to start out that might be what you need to do.

Grab the opportunity and do the job impeccably. Show up early, leave a couple of minutes after your shift ends, outline details of what was completed and what the next person needs to take care of and so forth.

All of these things will impress your current employer to the point where they may offer you more hours or a full shift when and if an opportunity comes up.

It doesn’t always work this way, but at least you’ll have the experience on your resume. Think of this as a stepping stone — your chance to get the job you want.

Additionally, you might see that a not for profit organization in your community needs helps rebuilding donated workstations and getting them onto their network. By donating your time you are gaining experience and another thing to add to your resume. And you’re helping out the community or the organization in a way that few other people can.

The Lesson:

Do the things you know how to do exceptionally well. Learn how to do things you don’t and practice them.

The knowledge is power rule applies here too but actual expertise and proficiency trumps it.

Moving to Where the Jobs Are / Commuting Long Distances

This is always a touchy subject; if you live in a small town you’re going to have to understand that in order to have options in the IT field you’re going to have to commit to driving long distances or totally relocating closer to the available jobs. It’s either that or understanding that your opportunities are going to be limited.

My first job in IT was 60 miles from my house; I drove about an hour each day to get to work and then an hour to get home. I did this daily for a year before the situation improved and I got an assignment closer to home. That was despite living in central Connecticut where there are many major population centers — I had to go into neighboring metropolitan areas to get a better position.

In order to get more exposure and greater experience I had to go farther than I previously was. I would take my car to the New Haven train station at 5:15AM and take the 1.5 hour commuter rail trip to Stamford so I would get there by 7AM to start work. The reverse trip would start at 4PM heading to the train station and getting on the 4:35 to come home. By the time the train ride ended, I got my car and arrived home it was 6:30PM most nights.

At the time it was tough justifying in my head all the time commuting (5 hours or so daily) and the cost (I think I remember it being about $400.00 a month ten years ago – who knows what it would cost today). The end result of my efforts however was worth it as the exposure and the experience I got paid dividends as I applied for positions in other organizations closer to home.

The Lesson:

To increase your chances at getting the job you want you will have to be flexible and make some sacrifices. If you want more than what the local job market has to offer then you may need to consider dealing with commuting or relocating.

Understanding Your Limitations and Making Them Work for You

Beyond knowing what you want to do you also need to understand that there are things you might not like doing long term or might not be able to do at all.

For example, I’m not much of a programmer. I can barely craft up much in the way of scripts and simple batch files. I understand how they work and I appreciate the power they harness but I would not like to focus on that all day long.

Others are complete scripting gurus but faced with dealing with a difficult customer situation or a technical escalation that creeps outside of their area of expertise might not be comfortable for them at all.

There are going to be things you do well and things you don’t do so well — make sure you understand that. Once you’re completely (or mostly) aware of this you can communicate these things to prospective or new employers as politically correct as possible; for example:

“I understand the concepts and the larger fundamentals of scripting, and I know how to leverage them but it is not my strong suit”

carries much better than:

“Scripting sucks and I can’t be bothered with it; I can click 60 times a minute and can do everything in GUI faster than any command line geek can type.”

When it comes to looking at new opportunities and positions some hiring managers don’t want to just hear what you’re good at. They also want to hear what your weaknesses are and how you manage them. You can only do that if you have the correct perspective on them.

The Lesson:

Have an understanding and appreciation for things you don’t do well and don’t like doing much; figure out the best ways for managing the scenarios where you have to do these things.

Make it a goal to handle these things a little better tomorrow than you do today. After that, focus on the things you excel at and make them the focus of your resume and skills that prospective managers are looking for.

That’s a wrap for today — I hope you found this article a good investment of your time.

I’m always looking forward to your feedback so feel free to drop in some comments or contact me directly. Additionally, I welcome your suggestions for topics of interest that you would like to see.

Best of luck in your studies!

Where is the best place to start? What is the next progression step in your role? Will it require more soft skills/people skills or more technology skills? Maybe it will fall somewhere in the middle.

Today I will try to measure some of the logical paths for experience in major IT roles and answer the question that’s on every IT candidate’s mind: How important is experience on my IT resume and what kind should I have?

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] — This article will look at the experience and knowledge across desktop and server support roles. There are simply too many topics to cover if the discussion trailed off into specialty roles like security, programming, database administration and so forth. Sorry.

Why Experience Counts

Without exception, it’s important to have experience and knowledge in any Information Technology role. It starts off being that you’re expected to have a lot of theoretical knowledge and less practical knowledge and that will begin to balance out as you gain actual on the job experience.

As you mature in your role and where you go is largely set by what drives you. Is it job satisfaction? Pay and benefits (compensation)? Making a difference? Working for a small business? Working for a non-profit?

With all the variables it is very difficult to pin down exactly what experience you need to have. A non-profit might want you to have a good understanding of the IT parts of your job but at the same time have a solid understanding of their mission (their entire reason for being).

I’m going to try to keep the focus on IT roles using the assumption of a generic midsized company. But try to keep these things in mind as you read through this post.

Support — Tier 1 and 2

Gaining experience in a support role generally means working at a help desk and then from there potentially hardware and/or software support, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you must work every role in natural progression. As an example — I never worked helpdesk and I barely did desktop support before I jumped into a server role.

As a summary, the following is a list most in the field would consider the natural progression of experience for someone working as a support professional supporting end users in a business environment:

 
• Help Desk

• Working with the customer on the phone to resolve issues
• Documenting fixes for a solutions database
• Follow up with customers
• Escalation to next level of support

• Operations Support (monitoring/tape backup changes)

• Manual system monitoring (uptime pings, trouble tables, etc.)
• Manual tape backup and rotation
• Live feed monitoring (visual uptime/virtual monitoring)

• Hardware Support (build/repair/troubleshoot)

• Taking base systems from loading dock and bring them up to specifications
• Adding memory, video cards, etc.
• Swapping out failed components
• Performing warrantee work
• Diagnosing Tier 2 and higher issues
• Escalation to Tier 3 — direct vendor support

• Hardware Support (installs, moves, adds, changes – often termed IMAC)

• Rolling out new desktop/laptop systems to end users
• Recycling old systems
• Moving users between locations
• Upgrading systems

• Software Support (installation/configuration)

• Adding new programs
• Making settings and configuration changes (to the application or the overall system)

• Software Support (troubleshooting/escalation/critical systems)

• Dealing with failures/error codes/crashes
• Working with 3rd parties/vendors/partners on issues encountered
• Correcting user changes that resulted in impacted or failed functionality

In recent years (and with much of the off shoring of help desk support) most of the Help Desk level jobs are gone as are many of the Operations Support roles, as those tasks are software automated and most backup systems do not rely on front end tape systems any longer.

Additionally much of the hardware and software roles are now merging into the two buckets and are even glomming into a single role.

The reason I broke them out into six items is that these are the traditional outlines of the progression steps within this role and despite the fact that for the most part they no longer stand out on their own, these are still all necessary skill levels to have.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – While I had outlined that I never worked a help desk I did need to understand the concepts and functionality of the role in the enterprise I worked in.

Additionally, you could begin side branching into networking or security from here or into programming or database management.

Support — Tier 3 / Server Administration

Unless your background is more people centric than technology your most likely point of progression from Support – Tier 1 and 2 would be to Support – Tier 3 / Server Administration than say to begin managing the people of any of the support groups, although it is not unheard of people going the Support – Tier 1 and 2 route to get better knowledge and understanding of the position before attempting to manage that staff.

Based on the idea that a natural progression through the role would maintain, this next series of skills would be the ones to consider being mandatory for progression through the role:

• End User Support Escalation to Vendors/Partners

• Working with 3rd parties/vendors/partners on issues encountered
• Recovering lost data/system backups/restores

• Server Hardware Builds/Configuration (hardware and software)

• Racking servers/cabling array management
• Running power coupling cabling/configuring backup battery setup
• Operating system installing and upgrades
• Configuring services and applications

• Server Administration (Support/Support Escalation)

• Working with 3rd parties/vendors/partners on issues encountered
• Recovering lost data/system backups/restores
• Dealing with system downtime and customer impact to business
• Day to Day operations/maintenance/management

Progression from here generally leads to greater span of responsibility and some branching of role execution at a higher level:

• Datacenter Support
• Server Architecture and Design
• Infrastructure Architecture and Design
• Datacenter Architecture and Design/Capacity planning

Since this level of role breakdown begins on the enterprise side of branching into specialty areas we won’t go into any additional detail from here.

Soft Skills and People Managing

As I write this, every past tech lead and manager that’s ever had to keep a reign on me just flinched because I wrote that section heading. I was the guy back in the day that would code into my trouble tickets in the resolution field “PEBCAK ERROR” or “ID 10 T PROBLEM” and then define that back to the customer if they saw me write it down and asked about it.

As a complete overlay to all the technical roles and experience that you gain, you need to be able to deal with and handle people (better than I used to — I got away with cowboy diplomacy back then; I wouldn’t survive today doing it that way). End users from all walks of life are not always going to be rational when they are on a deadline, when their system goes down and they are not going to ever be truthful with you when they think they can blame the PC.

You will need to make sure you have the ability to convey empathy (or BS that really well) with respect to their problems and issues. You need to reassure them that you understand the sense of urgency for resolving their current issue and work to get that done as quickly as possible.

The customer you are handling could be a single end user who simply must get the Excel spreadsheet completed for an 8AM meeting the next day that they ended up fat fingering the DEL key on; or a Director of Operations of a datacenter whose business is losing $100,000.00 an hour having systems offline at their own hand from a lack of procedure and planning.

To both of these people their needs are equally great to them and both of them will consider all other possibilities of why the issue is impacting them with the exception of their own doing. You will want to smack them both and despite being equally deserving of it you cannot.

Sometimes too, it is completely not their fault and they are victim of their environment. The Excel end user cannot control a crashed hard drive any more than that Director of Operations controlling a cascading network failure from a problem at the ISP.

Having the proper soft skills ability to manage the non-technical parts of the problem (while working the technical issues) is critical to additional success in all of your technical roles. Being able to properly manage the customer’s expectations and make them satisfied that you’re correcting their issue is just as critical to properly resolving the problem itself.

That’s a wrap for today — I hope you found this post a good investment of your time.

I am always looking forward to any feedback you have on this or any of the articles I have written so feel free to drop in some comments or contact me directly.

Additionally, I would welcome any suggestions topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.

Many businesses are taking the “do more with less” mantra to a whole new level. And you’re probably coming in with little to no practical experience, and competing with some very seasoned veterans of the industry for the few jobs that are available.

There are however a few things you can do by way of networking to maximize your chances and position yourself to grab new opportunities for employment and advancement.

Last week I talked about 3 entry level certs to help you launch your IT career and today we’ll discuss 3 ways that networking can help you accomplish the same goal.

Identifying Opportunities

Networking opportunities are all around when you’re paying attention. That sounds like a trite comment but it’s not meant to be.

You may be in the middle of a perfect opportunity and not even be aware of it. Any opportunity to sell yourself (and let’s face it that is what you’re doing) is an opportunity worth tactfully engaging in.

Social gatherings provide plenty of opportunities to network — the right social setting might be your chance to talk to a prospective employer or a technical contact you’ve just met about a possible position.

It might not always be a hiring manager you’re talking with either; you might be running into an engineering lead or the desktop migration architect and their own department may have a need. They may be partially to fully responsible to fill it and somewhat actively doing that when you approach them. (Some of it is luck, right time, right place).

If you don’t have a full skill set for what they need, don’t worry — they may know of other opportunities that are a better fit for you. Additionally, you might get pointed to other contacts within their own company that need help.

The key take away here is that the IT world is really a small place when you get right down to it. If you’re a seasoned professional you know people and are known by others; so if you run into IT professionals keep in mind that they can be a valuable asset to getting your foot in the door if they take a liking to you.

Lastly, you may run into someone just like yourself. Don’t discount them — they may know someone they can point you to that can help you along or they might know of an opening at their current location or a place they just left.

Just because someone is green in IT doesn’t mean they don’t have a large social network. They might have come from sales or another profession that afforded them many contacts from all over.

Networking Around the Downturn in the Economy

In this type of economy, people are getting creative with hiring as well. They may have a hiring freeze at their company despite the fact that someone has left a position that needs to stay filled.

Consider a scenario where cutbacks and layoffs are had and then someone moves out of a remaining position. That is the type of situation where the company may be forced under the hiring freeze to not bring anyone on regardless and yet the need is critical enough to warrant creative thinking about ways to fill the spot.

A hiring manager may be able to take on someone in a subcontractor capacity and line you up for an interview after an engaging conversation. They may have a partial headcount that never got struck from the books — if they pick it up at the end of the fiscal half year point they could possibly be in the position to bring someone on for the remainder of the year with the hopes of having it be a full head count at the start of the new year. The risk of course is the position is cut but you do get paid for your six months of work and you get to add the experience to your resume.

While some departments may have freezes others may not — your contact might socialize the idea that if you fill a lesser role in another department that you’d have a better chance once roles open up because you’ll be inside the company already.

The key take away here is that if they see value in you and your potential they’ll find ways to help you get started partly because you’ve gotten off on a good foot socially with them.

Turning a Training Session or Conference into a Networking Opportunity

You might be headed to a small MCPLS (Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions) lead training class or something as large as TechEd or TechMentor to get some training for upcoming technologies and while your primary reason for going would be for the learning there is networking to be had there as well.

Since the focus of this article is more in tune with launching your career then it is more likely you’ll be at the CPLS driven class. Never count out those large venues though — you’ll meet some very interesting people there from the attendees all the way to the speakers. Get as many business cards as you can if you should have the opportunity to go.

You may be really excited about being at the training event to expand your knowledge and add that to your arsenal as it offers another notch to tack onto your resume, but don’t overlook the opportunities around you.

There may be opportunities in the class you’re taking (or even others down the hall) to chat with people already in some technology roles in companies that you’d like to get involved with. You can learn about the businesses they are in and get a better understanding of the differences in the IT roles at a bank as opposed to at a steel mill.

Even if the school doesn’t have a formal placement option they may have a job bank or a contact board that you can leverage.

Speaking of learning opportunities at larger venues, there are events like the TechNet Events Unleashed that get held around the country. These are free sessions of technology content delivered by experienced IT pros and it is a great place to meet people with similar interests in technology.

The opportunity to learn from them is great plus the people you meet there may already be in roles that you’re looking to obtain, so it’s a good place to ask questions about what they do and how they like it.

And remember, Microsoft is not the only technology company that hosts events like this. If you’re really into learning about virtualization and want to focus on VMWare take a look at the events hosted by them. If Cisco or Oracle is more your thing you can leverage their free events as well.

The key take away here is that formal IT training situations may turn out to offer far more value to you than just the IT knowledge transfer — if you take the time to look up from the display and training manuals and chat with fellow classmates and seminar goers.

That’s a wrap — I hope you found this post to be a good investment of your time.

I am always looking forward to any feedback you have on this or any of the articles I have written so feel free to drop in some comments or contact me directly.

Additionally, I would welcome any suggestions topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.

This guide will introduce you to the top 3 entry level certification that you can earn quickly and that will remain valuable to you for a lifetime.

Top 3 Entry Level IT Certs

The 3 certifications that are listed below are all widely accepted in most organizations and are general and broad enough to be appealing to the majority of employers. So I won’t be focusing on any niche certifications or programs that are limited in scope.

Instead, these certifications are common, widely recognized and useful in many different IT positions. They’re not the be all or end all, and depending on your work environment, skills and needs they might not be right for you — so please keep this in mind.

1. CompTIA A+ Certification

Considered by some to be THE entry level exam to validate your IT skills, the CompTIA A+ Certification is a vendor neutral cert that authenticates the IT professional’s skills as being up to date and relevant for supporting base hardware and software computer needs for organizations.

Passing the A+ allows you to verify that you have the knowledge and skill level for:

• system installation of both hardware components and supporting software
• system configuration — again both on the hardware and software side
• diagnosing and troubleshooting hardware performance issues
• software installation and configuration
• configuring systems for standalone use and in a basic networking configuration

There are two parts to the CompTIA A+ exam which include:

• Exam 220-601 — CompTIA A+ Essentials (100 questions)
• One of the following three exams:
  • Exam 220-602 — IT Technician (90 questions)
  • Exam 220-603 — Remote Support Technician (90 questions)
  • Exam 220-604 — Depot Technician (90 questions)

Here are the minimum final scores you must have in order to pass a given exam:

• 220-601 — CompTIA A+ Essentials — 675
• 220-602 — IT Technician — 700
• 220-603 — Remote Support Technician — 700
• 220-604 — Depot Technician — 700

Other important things to keep in mind:

Once you’re A+ certified you’re A+ certified for life, you don’t need to retake the exam when a new version comes out, although you can do so if you want to.

Update January 26, 2010: The lifetime status of CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ certification has been revised. Those who obtain the certifications before December 31, 2010 remain certified for life, however those who complete them after January 1, 2011 will have to renew their certifications after 3 years. Read more about this: CompTIA Certification Renewal Policy for A+, Network+ and Security+ Certifications.

Also you don’t have to take the exams in any particular order or within a certain time frame. Although it is recommended that you take the Essentials exam first and since there’s a lot of overlap, it only makes sense to take them back to back.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – WAY back in the day the CompTIA +A certification was a single exam. You passed that one test and you were granted the A+ certification for life.

When I took the exams back in 1998 the exams were designated as the CompTIA Core / Hardware exam and the second exam was DOS/Windows; both were required to earn the certification.

If I remember correctly the numerical designations were 220-101 and 220-102. There were some minor changes made in the exams for releases 220-121 and 220-122 and larger certification objective changes were introduced in 2003 and again in 2006.

Despite the changes in the exams themselves and in hardware and software over the years, all technicians that passed these prior exams are still considered certified today.

CompTIA A+ Links

• CompTIA A+ page — more details about the certification
• CompTIA A+ Certification Overview — outlines the details with respect to the exam
• CompTIA Exam Policies — conduct, retake policies and some additional information
• CompTIA A+ General Info –background history on the certification and other info

CompTIA A+ Training

Train Signal’s CompTIA A+ Training is a comprehensive course that will help you gain the knowledge and skills required to obtain the certification and become a PC support technician.

2. CompTIA Network+ Certification

A natural progression from A+ is the Network+ certification. Part of the A+ exam’s domain of study includes an intro to networking, so it only makes sense that Net+ be a solid consideration for IT professionals with at least nine months of on the job/practical experience.

That is however only the suggested recommended experience level for the exam and not a requirement. And you don’t have to be A+ certified to be Network+ certified.

The Network+ exam was first offered in 1999 and since then more than 235,000 professionals have passed it according to CompTIA. And just as with A+, once you pass the exam you will have the Network+ credential for life.

 
Currently there are 2 Network+ exams available:

Network+ 2007 exam

• exam code: N10-003
• launched in 2005
• actively offered until July 31, 2009 when it is officially retired
• single exam
• 90 questions
• graded on a scale of 100 – 900 with a minimum passing score of 554

Network+ 2009 exam

• exam code: N10-004
• launched January 9, 2009
• expected to remain through 2012
• single exam
• 100 questions
• graded on a scale of 100 – 900 with a minimum passing score of 720

At present both exams are being offered so if you feel that past and present networking information is more of your strong suit and something you understand better, then you’d be more inclined to take N10-003 — Net+ 2007.

On the other hand, if present and emerging networking technologies are more your style then N10-004 — Net+ 2009 may be the best fit for you.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Keep in mind that passing either N10-003 or N10-004 will earn you the Network+ certification. Passing N10-004 doesn’t give you anything over a N10-003 certification holder.

That being said, sometimes it’s the presentation to a prospective employer and their understanding of the certification (or lack thereof) that makes a difference.

A hiring manager’s line of thinking may be “this candidate is certified on the most recent revision of the exam and it must mean they have a firmer grasp on up and coming technologies” (or something to that effect).

This might very well be far from the truth however; the end result is that many things are how they are presented rather than the fact of what they are.

As is this because passing N10-003 or N10-004 both grant the Network+ certification at an equal level.

CompTIA Network+ Links

• CompTIA Network+ page — more details about the certification
• CompTIA exam objectives — detailed exam objectives that can be downloaded
• CompTIA Exam Policies — conduct, retake policies and some additional information
• Network+ Certification Preparation page — study and practice test options and CAQC training materials

Just so you’re aware, the CompTIA Approved Quality Curriculum (CAQC) training materials go through a validation process verifying that all exam objectives are included. Train Signal’s very own CompTIA Network+ 2007 Training Package has received the CAQC approval and the updated training for Network+ 2009 will be released in May.

You can also sample a few videos from the training and learn about network components.

3. CompTIA Security+ Certification

Another valuable certification that will help you launch your IT career is the CompTIA Security+ Certification.

It was a tossup for me to decide this over the Server+ Certification as both are nearly equal in starting value to the training candidate in terms of immediate and short term impact on their careers. The deciding factor for me was which one offered the larger leap point going forward (more miles to the gallon if you will) and Security+ won.

My comments are not to diminish Server+ at all and if there was room for an honorable mention Server+ would win it hands down. So feel free to review the details of the Server+ Certification if you’re interested.

The Security+ exam was developed in 2002 to address the rise of security issues and validate the foundational knowledge of security professionals.

 
As with Net+, there are 2 Security+ exams currently being offered:

Security+ SY0-101

• exam code: SY0-101
• set to retire July 31, 2009
• single exam
• 100 questions
• 90 minutes total for the exam
• graded on a scale of 100 – 900 with a minimum passing score of 764

Security+ SY0-201

• exam code: SY0-201
• single exam
• 100 questions
• 90 minutes total for the exam
• graded on a scale of 100 – 900 with a minimum passing score of 750

CompTIA Security+ Bridge Exam

There is also a CompTIA Security+ Bridge Exam that is available to examinees who want to remain current on their Security+ certification with respect to the assessment of their skills. The SY0-101 certification itself is not be retired, only the exam is.

Professionals who are already CompTIA Security+ certified are eligible to become certified on the updated track by taking the CompTIA Security+ bridge exam.

The Security+ bridge exam (BR0-001) only measures the differences between the 2002 exam objectives and the 2008 exam objectives.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If you become Security+ certified under SY0-101 you will not be de-certified when the exam retires.

It is optional for candidates who hold the SY0-101 certification to take the bridge exam (BR0-001) or the new exam (SY0-201) to get certified on 2008 skills — it is not a requirement.

CompTIA Security+ Links

• CompTIA Security+ page — more details about the certification
• Security+ Certification Overview — details about the 2 exams

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I am looking forward to any feedback you have on it. Additionally, I would welcome any topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.

 

Is it worth spending the time and money getting certified if you already know your job? Are certifications going to add value to your resume if you already have a college degree? Can certifications really help you move up, get a new job and help your career?

There are pros and cons to the argument and my last article Part 1 – The argument FOR certifications made the case for getting certified and for staying current.

This installment will outline some of the arguments made against getting certified.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] — As I pointed out in Part 1, I’ve been a big fan of certifications because it made getting where I am today easier for me as I’ve progressed throughout my career in IT and over the past seven years at Microsoft.

Where I am as of today in my career, the effectiveness of technical certifications is somewhat waning because my role has shifted to more of a service delivery manager / technical resource manager (the part of my role that was more technical in the past is less so today).

Having said that, I still feel that I MUST keep my technical skills as up to date as possible for both the benefit of myself career wise and for the benefit of servicing of my customers.

Part 2 – The Argument AGAINST Certifications

There are some slivers of truth in some of the points that come from the pundits on why certification doesn’t matter, is irrelevant, and matters as much as a college degree, training, years of expertise and so on.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of these counterpoints that I have outlined below, however, they are more solid reasons for having the opinion of “why bother.”

Here are a few points where I can at least see where the counter argument is coming from. These are also the counter-points I hear the most.

• Some people test really well and memorize facts well but are worthless in practical application — certification muddies that because it is a simple one shot test or a series of tests

I can’t really argue with this one as it is the case some of the time. However, if this is the only thing that’s keeping you from getting certified then you really need to take a look at the benefits of certification that I outlined in Part 1.

• Nothing can replace on the job experience

This one is also true, nothing really can replace on the job experience. Sometimes though you may have to intern or cross train to get that experience and I always argue that if getting certified wipes out some of that training time so much the better.

• Technology changes so quickly that by the time you certify WITH the suggested amount of experience with a given product (generally up to two years) the next release of a product becomes available

I have always maintained that if you’re not interested in a fast ride you need to go find something else to do because technology moves at warp speed.

• There are too many paper certified individuals in the field that cannot do the work

That has been a truth. I say “has” because the dotcom bubble burst and the current recession have removed many of them from the workforce. Are there still some? Sure. That’s why you do want to have the experience to go with the paper.

• If you already have a college degree you don’t need to get certified

Ask anyone saddled with college loans how well their job search is (or was) when they first got out of college. Many of them will complain it was as if the paper was useless AND they were stuck with $25,000.00 in student loans.

College degrees get you in the door as can certifications — both are paper; what sets you apart from the next person holding one or both? If it is not skill and experience it had better be drive and determination.

• Certifications are just another revenue stream for companies

I sometimes feel that way too but I like to look at it as a necessary “evil” if you will. That and the total costs of ALL of my certifications to date still have cost less than ALL of my friend’s student loans.

He has 16 years of experience and a couple college degrees to my 10 years of experience, self study and a folder full of certifications. He has two weeks more vacation than I do but I earn about 35% more than he does in base pay. (That goes back to having more drive and determination when I had less skill and experience).

The moral of this story is partly “right place, right time” and what drive you have / what risk you want to take in the workplace (in that more risk can lead to more reward).

• I’ve been working here for X years; getting certified now has little merit for me or has little value to my employer

This is another one of those tough arguments. If you do not see the value you’ll never convince your manager of it. Maybe you don’t want to be bothered convincing them either.

You’ll never know what unexpected force will shake you off your old line of thinking. What if you convinced your manager of the value of having team members certify on a technology and it has some positive effect?

Perhaps your company now could handle warrantee work in house; if that converted into a net cost savings and that was all due to your efforts of driving that. Good for the review there. Additionally, if your manage moves on and the next one in is a bigger proponent for certification you’re already on the same sheet of music.

Keep In Mind …

There will always be people who are against certification and those who see real value in it. In the end it’s up to you to determine if IT certifications are right for your career or not. I hope that both the arguments for getting certified and the arguments against will help you make the right decision.

I also hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I am looking forward to any feedback you have on it. Additionally, I welcome any topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.

 

I even get into some heated discussions with people that just seem to be vehemently opposed to them.

There are pros and cons to the argument and this article will make the case for getting certified and for staying current.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – So I will start off by saying I’ve been a big fan of certification because it made getting where I am today easier however, at this point in my career the effectiveness of technical certifications is somewhat waning.

That has a lot more to do with just how far I have climbed and what part of my role is purely technical anymore and there is less of that since I started. There is more and more account management in my role than technical as the responsibilities have changed over the years.

There are other certifications of a non-technical nature and accreditations that I suppose I could go after to move farther forward but I am content to stay technical for the time being and to keep doing what I’m doing.

Part 1: The Argument FOR Certifications

Why would someone that’s been working for a company even bother to get certified especially if they already have a college degree and have been working for a number of years for that one employer?

Here are some points to consider.

• Show Your Value Through Certifications

By showing your skills are up to date you might be more in line for the next promotional progression in your role or for the next role. Your also showing your employer that you’re a valuable member of the team and that you’re willing to learn new things.

Additionally, you’ll be able to make a better argument for that next version of technology that you want to introduce into your enterprise. Perhaps part of the reason your company has been skittish is because they are concerned that the staff knows the current version better and would like to hold off on upgrades. You can take part of that argument away by getting certified on the new technology.

• Market Yourself By Getting Certified

There is also the marketability factor. You may not think you need to be marketable because you’re not planning on taking a new job anywhere else especially in this job market.

But it is that exact comment — this job market — that should make you WANT to prove you’re at the top of your game. If your job is outsourced and you’re lucky enough to keep it with the outsourcer you want to be able to make sure they understand just how valuable of a resource you are to the company which is now their customer.

If the outsourcer brings in their own staffers you want to at least be up to their speed or faster and certifications help prove that on top of your own employment records and performance reviews that your skills are relevant.

Certifications are a particularly unbiased barometer of your skills.

This scenario is also true for any downsizing that may come from your employer. If they are going to try to do more with less they will need the people at the top of their game and this is another way to show that.

Mergers of business or buy outs of companies also fall into this category.

• Stay Up-To-Date With Certifications

Going back to the college point; you have your BA, BS, MBA, etc — and just how long ago was that?

Certifications are an inexpensive way to show proof that you’re keeping your expertise current and up to date. You’re passing the industry’s measurement of knowledge based on their skill assessments of the role where they are certifying the results of your testing efforts.

Some people in technology today have simply made their way up through the ranks and it is a way for them to differentiate themselves from their peers. Nothing will make you stand out to management like taking on additional education and getting business aligning certifications, especially when they are not required and you are setting a new bar for the organization.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – As one example for myself, I dropped out of high school and tested out for my general equivalency diploma over the summer after I quit (I was 18 years old). I didn’t get into the technology field until nearly 12 years later when I was almost 30 years old.

I did have a little “right place, right time” on my side as I got into technology in 1998 when anyone that had a strong pulse got into technology, but I had to survive the dotcom bust (with less than three years experience under my belt) and the current slowdown is shaking out some people as well.

What has helped me grow through the dotcom burst to where I am today was the fact that I had a strong employment track record, my skills were in demand (and they were in demand because I always kept them current to bleeding edge) and that I was certified on the newest relevant technologies for most major companies.

That is also part of what is keeping me afloat in the current storm.

Keep In Mind …

In summary, getting certified:

• Shows that your skills are current
• Shows initiative when certifying is not required
• Separates you from peers
• Verifies to management that the certification provider is effectively validating your skills for them
• Keeps you valuable and marketable in the event of a slowdown, takeover, merger, etc.
• Raises management’s confidence level when they need to move to newer technologies that the staff is ready for the challenge
• Provides you with personal satisfaction that you’ve mastered new material

As with any point there is always a counter-point. And as I mentioned, I am a fan of certification but there are some sensible points that come from the rabid “I wouldn’t accept a certification on a technology if the owner of the company offered it as an honorary gesture.”

I’ll take that up in the next installment of Why Get Certified If You Know How To Do Your Job? — Part 2: The argument AGAINST certifications.

That’s a wrap for this segment of the article and I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

I am always looking forward to any feedback you have on this or any of the articles I’ve written — so feel free to leave a comment below.

Additionally, I would welcome any topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies!

Read Part 2 of Why Get Certified If You Know How To Do Your Job:
The Argument Against Certifications

You’ve been working with the technology for a while and definitely longer than the recommended or suggested amount of experience that is listed on the skills page for the certification, so you’re feeling pretty confident there.

You’re just trying to figure out if you’re missing anything else but you’re not really sure.

This article will help you a bit with that as I talk about two common mistakes people make on IT exams.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Two things are probably coming to mind right now: how would I know what the mistakes are if I’ve personally made them how reputable could I be? That and maybe: are there only these two common ones?

I’ll answer that last one first. There are quite a few different mistakes that people make but I wanted to try to focus on what I think are the ones at the top. As with anything there are dozens of ways to slip yourself up but when you look at them all sometimes a few are rooted together. One example set — not studying enough, not taking enough practice exams, etc would all funnel up to not being properly prepared.

As to the first part, I haven’t made a ton of mistakes taking exams personally but I’ve had close calls with some screw ups on my part and I’ve had many friends blow exams and when I’ve caught up with them later and we’ve discussed the results I’ve heard a lot of familiar comments and common elements.

So without further ado, here are the two common mistakes people make on IT exams (in no particular order).

Being Under Prepared

This is basically a simple one and the issue’s root really depends on the person. Some people assume because they work with Active Directory all day that they really don’t need to study much reading material or review any test prep questions because what could be on an exam that they don’t see every day or at least once it a while?

Plenty. For any IT exam you need to make sure that you are familiar with ALL of the skills being measured and not just all the ones you do day in or day out. Those questions you might smoke right through on the exam. Other items that you never deal with regularly (or at all) could burn you.

The main issue here is that the exams expect the test take to submit the best answer available as would be done following best practices. The problem is that many people in their day to day work don’t do this.

It might be that they learned a different way to do something that does work in their environment and may not even cause any issue but it does not follow suggested best practices. It might be that due to business rules that certain things must follow a procedure outside of conventional thinking or processes.

On the job experience may not be everything you need especially if you do not test well or are very used to only one way to get a job done. If you’re used to the command line and the question calls for you to use the GUI (or the other way around) you’re going to blow an answer that you’d otherwise know how to do if another way to do it was offered.

These are a few things I keep in mind when I am preparing for the exam in an effort to make sure I am not under-prepared:

• Do I know what the best practices are
• Do I know which ones we follow and which we don’t
• Do I understand why we do something one way and why another way is the best practice
• Am I aware of all of the skills being measured for the exam
• Am I strong in all of these areas

Being Over Prepared

Is there such a thing? Technically yes and you’ll probably pass with a really high score for being over prepared which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a mistake of sorts to spend more time than you really need on something.

There was a time when I was a beta tester for exams (I would do it now but I just don’ have the time). Basically, as a beta tester you are taking an exam as provided by the credential and certification owner before it is available for public release.

The pool of testers take many of the questions that will be on the actual certification exam when it goes live. Often they may have many more questions in total than what will be on the actual exam. (Example, the beta exam would have 120 questions where the final exam might have a pool of 55).

It is from these questions that the beta examinees review and are scored on that the final decisions on which questions to include and which to remove are made. In these scenarios you are drawing ONLY from on the job experience; since the certification is not even available yet there is nothing really to study from (no books, no practice exams, etc).

Once the final counts of which questions are included and which are thrown out are decided the examinees results are given back pass / fail to the candidates. If you fail the beta exam you can take it when it goes live. If you get a passing score you are granted the certification.

I took the very first Server+ exam in beta and missed by one or two questions (not exactly sure of the number but I was a smidgen under a passing score). I wanted to pass that exam on the beat but I figured I gave it my best effort and I would try it again.

I really didn’t like to fail exams because I really felt like I know a lot of the material but I also wasn’t sure how much the exam questions and the domain materials might have changed from beta to live so I bought two Server+ books and read them cover to cover over two months and took the practice exams in the books until I got perfect scores. Only then did I reschedule the exam.

I passed with a nearly perfect score.

I had felt half way through the first book that I might have figured out the couple of questions that I was on the fence with respect to answers I gave but you can never really be sure so I kept hammering away and I could have saved myself some study time and could have been doing other things.

These are a few things I keep in mind when I am preparing for the exam in an effort to make sure I am not over prepared:

• Am I already fairly confident of my knowledge of the skills being measured
• Am I already fairly competent at work in all of the skills being measured
• Do I understand where my weakness are and can I focus on just those
• Can I go to the back of the chapter and answer more than 80% of the practice questions correctly
• Do I need to do more than scan a chapter on the topic

The Advice

As with anything in life, achieving balance is the best way to succeed. Make sure you strike this balance when preparing for your next IT exam by not being under or over prepared.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I am looking forward to any feedback you have on it. Additionally, I would welcome any topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what I can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.

Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor can be leveraged by systems administrators to gather baseline information for review of system performance. This allows admins to review their server installations as well as carry out server tune ups of their Server 2008 systems.

In this series of articles we’ve been reviewing the most common uses and major functions of the tool.

Part 1 – Introduction to the Reliability and Performance Monitor took an overview look at the tool providing an introduction to basic elements of function, the interface and some of the initial features and default settings.

Part 2 – Performance Monitor Demystified was a review of some of the features and functions of the Performance part of the tool, including some of the best practices with respect to collecting and working with Performance Logs.

In this final installment, Reliability Monitor — What’s Working and What’s Not , we’ll go over some of the features and best practices with respect to troubleshooting problems found on systems reports from the tool’s output.

What Can You Do With The Reliability Monitor?

The Reliability Monitor part of the Reliability and Performance Monitor MMC allows you to review a computer’s stability details with respect to the events that impact the reliability of the system.

This is both from a positive aspect, such as a completed installation of an update, or a negative one, such as the failure of a software operation that causes it to stop working or otherwise fail.

This is done by calculating the Stability Index of all the events as part of the System Stability Chart over the span of system uptime (over the past rolling year as a maximum).

The screen shot below shows the reference system chart and subsequent events at the time of first start up of the operating system.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] — If I had expanded the details of the Software (Un)Installs section it would be readily apparent that this was a completed new installation of the operating system as there were over 100 software updates and driver installs that were successful.

You may also see that within a couple of working days there were some events that negatively affected the system reliability and the resulting stability index results which caused that “perfect” 10 number to begin decreasing in value.

Invariably over time with system use there is going to be negative impact on a system that takes its index rating down from 10.00. The main use of the tool, other than a quick review of recent and historical events, is to allow the system administrator the ability to quickly gauge what is going on and how it is impacting the system. Additionally, reviewing a series of reliability drops might be a good starting point for troubleshooting efforts.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – There’s a very good reason why above I indicated “a good starting point for troubleshooting efforts.”

On this particular system I had daily events where Outlook was crashing. This was peculiar to me because I had performed no recent updates to the operating system nor to any of the applications so I wasn’t sure what was now suddenly causing an issue. And the system’s performance was off in that it was responding a little slowly. This was shown daily in the System Stability Chart as OUTLOOK.EXE with a Failure Type of “stopped working.”

I continued to think the issue was with Outlook over the next couple of days as it was the only majorly impacted application on my system (nothing else was showing in the reliability monitor). In short order, the system performance got really bad and I had the time to do some additional troubleshooting. I leveraged the Event Viewer which revealed a slew of Errors in the system log; Event ID 55.

The issue I was actually experiencing was a file system structure corruption which was making it difficult for the operating system and the Outlook application to make needed reads and writes to the file system in the application volume. After I ran the chkdsk utility on the volume and fixed the issues my problems disappeared and the System Stability Chart began to show an improvement in the index rating component.

The moral of the story here is that the trouble you’re having with an application is not always necessarily the direct fault of the application itself — always check potentially extraneous events and if they are or are not in fact related to the issue you’re having.

The System Stability Report

The information that is available to you via the System Stability Chart is not only reflected in just the graphical format there but within the table data at the bottom which is part of the System Stability Report.

In the report you will find information relevant by date, subsection delineation and event with respect to:

• Software (Un)Installs
• Application Failures
• Hardware Failures
• Windows Failures
• Miscellaneous Failures

The information provided in the different sections of details of the events will be highlighted by the regular icon family that was standardized for use under Windows Vista. These icons highlight the results as they occur and are reflective of the event — informational, warning, and error. Additional details for these standard icons are available at Microsoft MSDN.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – You won’t generally see the question mark icon used to indicate a Help entry point within the Reliability Monitor.

  • Software (Un)Installs

In the Software (Un)Installs section you will see details regarding:

• software being reported out (the name of the application being installed or removed)
• version of that software
• activity (system update install, driver install, application install, application configuration change, etc)
• activity status (success/failure)
• date the activity took place

  • Application Failures

In the Application Failures section you can see information pertaining to:

• listed application that experienced the reported problem
• version of that application as reported
• failure type
• date the event occurred

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – It’s important to note that normally most of the details within the System Stability Report will also show up somewhere in the Event Viewer logs with the same reported information as shown.

Generally there will be additional information within the Event View logs (event IDs, error codes, etc).

  • Hardware Failures

In the Hardware Failures section you will see details regarding:

• reported component type
• device
• failure type
• date the event occurred

The information commonly show within this section of the tool is going to be limited to memory and disk failures.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – Earlier in the article I mentioned I had an issue where corruption of my file system was causing an issue with Outlook. The problem didn’t show up in the Hardware Failures section because the failure was not a physical disk problem (bad sectors, controller failure, etc) but a problem with the NTFS file system.

  • Windows Failures

The next set of details within the Reliability Monitor are shown in the Windows Failures section. The Failure Type section will detail an issue with a boot failure (in circumstances where there is a successful system start on subsequent attempts and where that original failure can actually be logged).

More often than a boot failure event, you will see information as a result of failures from the operating system processes. The Device section will report out which device is failing and the Failure Type will be outlined in the next column. Finally the date of the event will be shown in the Date column.

  • Miscellaneous Failures

All events that do not fit into the above categories will show up in the Miscellaneous Failures section. One of the major events that will show up in the Failure Type section is a scenario where the system shutdown was unexpected.

The Version column will indicate the version of the software failure (in the example above this would be the operating system version and the installed service pack if applicable). The Failure Detail will show the information pertinent to the resulting type of failure and the Date will host the information of when the event took place.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – There is an additional reliability event that may be recorded in special circumstances when a significant change to the system time is tracked. The System Clock Changes category will show information on the day that a significant clock change occurs and will be headed by the Information icon.

The Old Time section will contain the date and time prior to the clock change and the New Time section will contain the date and time selected during the clock change.

The Date column will reflect the date and time when the clock change occurred and the entry will reflect this information based on the newly applied time changes so they are relevant to the new system time in use.

And with that we are at the end of the Reliability and Performance Monitor series.

I hope you found this article series informative and a good investment of your time. I welcome any feedback that you might have on it. Additionally, I welcome any input on topics of interest that you would like to see and based on demand and column space I’ll do what we can to deliver them to you.

Best of luck in your studies.