News, updates and resources for UK developers

Visual Studio Team System Resources

2007-04-30T15:52:09Z

During the recent MSDN Roadshow events, we have concentrated on the up and coming technologies that you can use as building blocks for your applications. The most common questions we get beyond those are about Visual Studio Team System: hence this post which is a collection of useful resources for you:

General Information about the product can be found here:

Visual Studio Team System Homepage and Team Foundation Server Team Centre

If you need to persuade developers then check out this article: Get All Your Devs In A Row With Visual Studio 2005 Team System and then point them at these video resources to ensure that they can see the features for themselves. You'll also find this developer team centre will help them too.

Of course one of the major changes with Team system is how you can bring other roles into the development system so check out the specific resources for the other folk:

Database Professional

Software Architect

Project Manager

If you are already active with the products then the Team System Forums are always useful and some of the most useful blogs are: Rob Caron, Brian Harry and the general VSTS Blog.

Windows Vista Security Enhancements for Developers

2007-04-13T18:01:40Z

We hope this blog serves as a jumping in point for developers working with Microsoft technologies; to that end one of our UK evangelists, Paul Maher, has put together this security features primer. We hope you find it a useful resource for decoding some of the new language that has been introduced ...

Windows Vista provides a host of new security enhancements that might affect you as a developer. In this article, I will highlight several of these features and provide a brief introduction to each of them.

User Account Control

In Microsoft operating systems prior to Windows Vista, it is very common for users to log on to their computer as an administrator and run their applications with the administrator token. The problem this causes is that malware that manages to access the machine is running with administrator privileges and can cause a great deal of damage.

The User Account Control (UAC) feature of Windows Vista aims to address this issue, and you can read more in my previous MSDN Flash article User Account Control in Windows Vista

Internet Explorer Protected Mode

There are specific security risks associated with an Internet application because they are often exposed to untrustworthy content. Internet Explorer 7 with Windows Vista provides a mandatory integrity check through its Protected Mode feature.

Protected Mode uses three key technologies that are part of the Windows Vista security model. These are:

User Account Control (UAC), which as previously described enables users to run Vista without the need for administrator privileges.

Mandatory Integrity Control (MIC) which assigns an integrity level to processes, for example, Low, Medium, High, or System.

User Interface Privilege Isolation (UIPI) which prevents lower integrity processes from accessing higher integrity ones.

Service Hardening

Windows Vista introduces the concept of hardened services that run under the least possible privileges and limit their activities to the local machine or network. A restricted service program runs from the start with minimal privileges and capabilities. The restricted service approach significantly reduces the number of services that are capable of doing unlimited damage to a user’s machine.

Windows Vista uses four key features to provide hardened services that reduce the potential surface area for an attack: Running with least privilege, Service Isolation, Restricted Network Access, Session 0 Isolation.

BitLocker Drive Encryption

BitLocker drive encryption is a hardware-enabled data protection feature in Vista that helps to protect the data on a PC when the machine is in unauthorized hands. The entire Windows volume is encrypted, which prevents unauthorized users from accessing data on the computer.

Network Access Protection

Network Access Protection (NAP) is an extensible platform that provides a set of components and an API for Windows Server Longhorn and Windows Vista. Administrators and developers can use NAP to create a custom solution for validating the computers that connect to their private networks, providing updates where necessary or specifying limited access for computers that do not meet health requirements.

Summary

Windows Vista provides several significant steps in the ongoing security battle. Administrators can make use of features such as User Account Control, Network Access Protection, and Internet Explorer Protected Mode to benefit from the improved security that they provide. As a developer, you must ensure that your applications function as expected in the face of these new features.

Useful Resource: Microsoft Application Security Website

Keeping up to date with New Nuggets

2007-03-06T12:32:00Z

Someone at the Glasgow roadshow was interested in an RSS Feed for new Nuggets. You can consume the feed via Mike Taulty's website at this link;

UK MSDN Nugget Topics RSS Feed

This is a list of all the topics that we've recorded "Nugget" videos for. This is likely to be a fairly static list but as topics get added then the list will expand. The list contains feeds for all the videos for each particular topic so if you're interested in, say, "Windows Mobile" then there's a feed for that and as videos get added to that topic the feed will grow.

Alternatively you can visit the Nugget home page directly on the UK MSDN site to sift and search through the growing collection

Interoperability - UK Press Roundtable

2007-03-02T19:42:00Z

On the 1st March 2007 the UK Developer Group hosted a Roundtable for the Press with Microsoft spokespersons Jean Paoli, General Manager Interoperability and XML Architecture, and Thomas Robertson, General Manager, Standards. The purpose of the Roundtable was to update the Press on the progress Microsoft is making on the announcements it made to the industry in 2006 to focus more closely on Interoperability and to provide an opportunity for questions regarding the company’s strategy, commitments and initiatives in this area.

The discussion covered a number of subjects but predominantly focussed on the standards process, Microsoft’s approach to working with the industry including the setting-up of the Interoperability Alliance and questions about ECMA’s recent response to Microsoft’s submission of Office Open XML as a standard. The tone of the discussion was positive with Jean and Tom being open and honest, which was appreciated by the media. The acceptance by Jean and Tom that “Microsoft has form” in the area of trust was a key moment in the discussion, and well received by the media. We anticipate coverage from the Roundtable to start appearing in the developer press later in March and will update this posting with links to relevent content as it comes out.

Meanwhile, for a view from Roundtable co-host on-the-day, Matt Deacon, Microsoft UK's Chief Architectural Advisor, check out his blog post about Microsoft and Interoperability for the detail.

UK MSDN Roadshow 2007 - Resources

2007-02-15T19:17:00Z

This page is your one resource for following up from the sessions that were delivered at this year's MSDN Roadshow. Directly below, you can find links to the slide-decks from the delivery along with background materials that will give you more information about the topics presented.

If you're looking for more information on the Office 2007 sections of the Roadshow then the best place to start is here.

More generally, can we tempt you with...

Registering for the UK MSDN Flash Newsletter
Subscribing to UK MS Developer Community Team Blogs
Catching up with UK MSDN "Nugget" Videos on Developer Topics and if you want an RSS feed to be alerted, check out these instructions.

So back to the roadshow; here are the links as referenced by the presenters ...

Session 1 - Language Enhancements and LINQ (Daniel Moth)

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2003 Format.

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2007 Format.

Additional LINQ resources

Session 2 - AJAX Development (Mike Ormond)

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2003 Format.

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2007 Format.

Additional AJAX Resources

Session 3 - Advances for Data in VS "Orcas" (Mike Taulty)

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2003 Format.

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2007 Format.

Additional Data Resources

Session 4 - Rich Client Applications with XAML (Mark Johnston)

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2003 Format.

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2007 Format.

Additional Rich Client Resources

Session 5 - Developing for Windows Live (Martin Parry)

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2003 Format.

Slide Deck in PowerPoint 2007 Format.

Additional Windows Live Resources

And based on your questions, find out more about Visual Studio Team System here

Listening to our customers

2007-02-14T20:58:00Z

With all the noise in the online world, we in the Microsoft Developer Group have been listening to your request for a place to find the latest news from Microsoft for developers in the UK - and the result is this blog.

So what can you expect to find here:

Notice about upcoming events
Links to the materials used in those events
Updates about our programmes
News about product releases that might be interesting for developers

We'd love to hear from you so please drop us a note.