Neil Hutson - Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 for developers

Brian in the team has just released the next 10-4 show on Channel 9 which is all about some new features to help manual testing of applications. Despite all of the advances in automated testing tools and frameworks, manual testing still a key part of the testing effort.

This episode shows the new capabilities in Visual Studio Team System 2010 for supporting manual testing. You will see how these capabilities will not only help manual testers do their jobs more effectively, but this approach also helps developers by providing detailed diagnostics information about tests when they fail.

You can find the manual link just here ( http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/10-4/10-4-Episode-23-An-Introduction-to-Manual-Testing/)

Brian walks you through downloading and installing Visual Studio 2010 Team Suite Beta 1 and Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Beta 1 as part of the regular Visual Studio 10-4 show ( amazing this is already episode #20.

This video references several important URL's. You can Download instructions for all files in this video through the following link.
 

The Windows Azure team have announced a refresh to the Windows Azure SDK and Visual Studio Tools for Windows Azure together with some significant updates to Windows Azure Storage. 

The updated SDK includes improved Visual Studio integration, support for development on Windows 7RC, Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 SP2 and addresses some bug fixes.

The new Windows Azure Storage features include new capabilities that allow applications to perform atomic transactions across multiple entities and to copy blobs. Essentially they include entity group transaction support for Windows Azure Table, Copy Blob for Windows Azure Blob, Block List for Windows Azure Blob, and API versioning.  In addition, there are two changes to the semantics of the Windows Azure tables, namely Property Names and PartitionKey and RowKey sizes. 

New updates will continue to be released as the platform matures ready for general availability of the service.

You can now download the latest Service Pack (SP2) for Vista and Windows Server. The Service Pack, which is a consolidation of a number of small fixes into one larger downloadable, was uploaded to the Download Center on Tuesday. As before, there is only one service pack which supports both OS’s to make it easier for Administrators to deploy the image around the business.

Once the service pack becomes part of the automatic updates in “Microsoft Update”, business customers who want more time to prepare for the implementation of SP2 can use the same blocking tool that Microsoft provided for Vista SP1.

Some of the updates included in SP2 cover third-party application compatibility, version 4.0 of Windows Search technology, support for the Bluetooth v2.1, improved performance for Wi-Fi connections after resuming from sleep mode, and the capability to natively record data to the Blu-Ray optical disk format.

You can download the Service Pack from the following location ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/dd727510.aspx )

Ryan in the team has just release the Windows Azure MMC.  This tool was created to manage storage accounts in Windows Azure and makes it simple to help debug, create, and explore your storage solutions. 

Features

Manage multiple storage accounts (makes it easy to manage all your accounts)

Easily switch between remote and local storage services

Manage your blobs

• Create containers and manage permissions
• Upload files or even entire folders
• Read metadata or preview the blob contents

Manage your queues

• Create new queues
• Monitor queues
• Read (peek) messages
• Post new messages to the queue
• Purge queues

I have just been browsing an interesting project on codeplex which will provide PHP developers with a SDK to enable them to easily access the features of Windows Azure. In particular, enabling developers to access Blogs, Tables and Queues. There will also be helper classes for HTTP, AuthN/Z and REST and error management support.

There are currently three milestones, starting in mid-May and being feature complete in August.

The nice aspect of the project is that through REST, the application could be hosted on Windows Azure or hosted elsewhere , and still be able to take advantage of these assets, which is show through the diagram below.

During the Keynote at TechEd 2009, we announced a few new Windows Server 2008 R2 Features that come in the RC.  One of these features, File Classification Infrastructure, is getting alot of buzz at the event, so Joey thought he should sit down with Nir Ben Zvi, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft and go over what File Classification is, and how it can help IT Professionals. 

Here is the interview on TechNet EDGE.

Go here to get the latest pointers to the information ( http://edge.technet.com/Media/File-Classification-with-Nir-Ben-Zvi/ )

We have just released the SQLServer 2008 developer Training kit. This kit will help you understand how to build web applications which deeply exploit the rich data types, programming models and new development paradigms in SQL Server 2008. Roger has been pretty busy packaging this up into something that you will find is easy to install on your machine and gets you started. This kit is full supported with SQLServer Express version which you can download here.

• Learn how to build web applications that exploit the unique features and capabilities of SQL Server 2008
• Provides a comprehensive set of presentations, demos and hands-on labs
• Designed for web developers who are already familiar with SQL Server application development.
• Easy to download and install and works on free editions of SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.
• Great support for Web developers who build applications for the Microsoft platform.
• The training kit includes the following content:
  • Presentations (6): Filestream, Spatial, T-SQL, Date and Time Types, SQLCLR, Reporting Services
  • Demos (13): AdventureWorks Racing All-Up SQL Server 2008 Demo, SQL Server 2008 All-Up Spatial Demo, Spatial Types Demo, Intro to Filestream Demo, SQL CLR Nullable Types Demo, Programming with Filestream Demo, Reporting Services Web Application Integration Demo, Date and Time Support in SQL Server 2008 Demo, T-SQL Table-Valued Parameters Demo, T-SQL Row Constructors Demo, T-SQL Grouping Sets Demo, T-SQL Merge Demo
  • Hands-on Labs (3): Using Spatial Data in TSQL, Using Spatial Data in Managed Code, Using SQL CLR in SQL Server 2008

You can find more details at the following location

Adam from Edge provided a 1.5 min update on the key highlights from day one of TechED straight after the keynote had finished.

Key things

1. Holiday Release for Windows 7
2. File Classification Infrastructure in Windows Server 2008 R2
3. Key new things in Windows 7 from an ITPRO perspective

I have just been checking out the latest Photosynth project on the NASA site. If you have kids, they are going to love this. You are able to zoom into a number of space stations, pan around and take a walking tour. This is all driven by silverlight and all works pretty smoothly and their is a huge amount of detail.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/photosynth/index.html

Windows 7 is available for download this morning. You can go here ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx ) as your starting point. The RC will be available at least through until the end of July 2009 and there is no limit on the number of product keys.

Just to be aware, this is not the RTM code, so this RC will expire on June 1, 2010 and starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Hopefully this will give you plenty of time to test this release.

What you need to know before you begin installing Windows 7?

• If you’ve installed Windows 7 Beta on your PC, you’ll need to back up your data, and do a clean installation of the RC. Then you’ll need to reinstall your programs and restore the files, settings, and other information you want to use for testing.

• Before installing the software please read these two documents for important information: Things to Know and Release Notes.

Things you need to have before you start:

• Dedicated test PC: I would not recommend this RC on your primary home or business PC.

• Data backup: Back up your PC before you start.

• Antivirus program: Remember to re-enable the antivirus program when you are finished with the installation.

• Internet connection: Makes sure you get useful security and hardware updates. We recommend you keep your PC set to automatically check for updates through Windows Update.

Windows 7 minimum hardware requirements

• 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• 1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

• 16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)

• DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

I want to announced the availability of a “PHP on Windows Training Kit” to the MSDN download center.  The kit includes demos and hands-on labs to help you understand how to build PHP applications using Windows, IIS 7 and SQL Server 2008.

We will expand the kit over time, but the current version contains the following information.

Starting today, MSDN and TechNet subscribers can access the Windows 7 RC release candidate, with general public availability coming next week.

Generally speaking, the Win7 Beta that came out a few months ago was pretty feature complete, so the changes in the RC are primarily bug fixes and some UI changes.  There are a few new things to look out for though, like FireWire camera support, Virtual Windows XP, and Multitouch support.  Functionality to add Legacy Hardware is available too.

On TechNet Edge, we've been putting together some new videos with the latest news and info on Windows 7, so keep an eye out for that over the coming weeks.  In the meantime, there's lots of good Win7 content out already that you should take a look at, if you haven't already:

- Win7 What’s New

- Win7 Feature Walkthrough

- Inside Win7

- Engineering Windows 7 Blog

- Win7 Networking Overview

- Win7 Networking Enhancements for Enterprises

- Branch Cache Demo Video

- Direct Access Demo Video

- Migrating from XP to Win7 with MS Deployment Toolkit 2010

- Be ready for Win7: Application Compatibility

- Win7 Manageability Overview

- Win7 Questions & Answers

- Win7 Beta Installation Instructions

- Installing the Win7 Beta with Virtual PC 2007 SP1

- Installing Win7 in a USB stick

- Boot from VHD in Win7

- BitLocker To Go

- AppLocker

- Resource Monitor (resmon)

Joey happened to be walking through building 44 and met the team putting together the demos for day 2 of the Microsoft Management Summit. What they are planning is pretty exciting, where they are going to wake up 20 laptop through wireless and the using User State Migration Toolkit, show how you can migrate all the laptops from XP to Windows 7 in about 15mins.

Each of the machines has about 4GB of user data on this, so this is pretty impressing.

Anyway, a great view of the kind of work that we do to ensure that the demos at large keynotes have impact and have a greater chance of working….

Here is the full link to the post on EDGE ( Microsoft Management Summit 2009 Keynote Demo )