Congratulations to the CentOS team. They released CentOS 5.0 today, which is the free version of the Enterprise Linux OS. Basically they take the source for Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.0 and recompile and rebuild a solution so you can install and run it.. Free vs. $3K, easy choice if you know your way around the OS.

CentOS 4.x has been a rock solid solution for us at OWN and it runs pretty much everything from ExchangeDefender, to web, mail, dns and more servers. If you need a reliable solution this is the one you go with, not to mention 5 years of support. What do I mean by reliable?

[10:57 - 0.90] [root ns1] ~]$ uptime
 10:57:41 up 161 days,  2:53,  3 users,  load average: 1.63, 1.00, 0.92

(that’s 161 days of uptime, fully patched and up-to-date system that hasn’t needed a reboot in 6 months. And it ran happily ever after. Sounds like a fairly tale, doesn’t it?)

Kind of, sort of, maybe? You're not the only one unsure about it, as a matter of fact it is one of the most puzzling conversations on the Internet as of late - what kind of hardware will Vista demand to run efficiently? The latest beta builds have improved the performance quite a bit, I am typing this post on a laptop that now boots into Vista faster than XP. The same machine required close to a day to install November builds with the latest one completing in less than an hour - on battery. Chairs have been thrown people, the performance gains are there and it is looking solid. But how do you spec your next workstation so it can run Vista? Well, go with at least a beefy 64bit chip (no Celeron, no Sampron) and get as much ram as you can. That is about the end of the known minimum requirements but since Vista is overflowing with graphical gadgetry you might want to avoid the el cheapo brand of video card. You know the names… the S3's… the Trident's… the integrated Intel … Basically feel free to consider anything that Dell includes as inferior and upgrade to the nearest best (non-shared) alternative. Much more on this as we get closer to launch but in the meantime spend your money on memory. Looks like 512 is the new basement. What does Vista Capable mean? Basically its designed for Windows XP and will be capable of running Windows Vista Home Edition. In my humble opinion, save your money for a few months. Unless there is a smell of burned silicone in the air you might as well feed your piggy bank for the next year and run Vista the way its supposed to be run.

Good news for the folks that are willing to spend the weekend testing a new Vista build. Get to it before everyone else brings connect.microsoft.com to a crawl.

Dear Longhorn / Windows Vista Beta Tester, We are pleased to announce the availability of Windows Vista build 5342 this afternoon. This build is a snapshot of our progress on our way to the Beta 2 milestone and will allow you to verify fixed bugs as well as check for new regressions that may have been introduced. We need your feedback quickly so it can be evaluated for inclusion into Beta 2. For this reason we ask that you download and install this build as soon as possible. This is the first build we are making available to the beta program outside the CTP so please be sure to read this message completely.

For what its worth, I have been a passionate player-hater of Vista because performance was just NOT there. I mean not even remotely bareable on even a brand new PC. This turned around with the last build, it is almost as tollerable as XP if not quite finished/ready. Thats the beta world for you, its not something that you use in production. And while I'm on the beta tangent, several clueless people on the list were suggesting to someone that was relatively new to SBS to go ahead an install a beta product. The same beta product that Microsoft offers no support for (ie, you break your system beyond recognition and you can't call for help.) The same beta product that has disclaimers, warnings, FAQ's and big red BETA warnings. Yup. So if you're an IT Pro please be a professional and do not allow people to install beta/incomplete/unfinished software on production PC's. Not everyone has the same set of skills to handle experimental software so please don't pour people a poison and tell them to go ahead and drink it if they are thirsty. Fine in a lab, fine on an expendable box… but not in production unless you're on the TAP program and you have Microsoft to hold your hand. Nino from Exchange PSS recently posted on this topic, please take a sec to read it.

So the name changed but not the products cronic delays: Vista Launch Delayed I'm happy to see this and I'm sure everyone who has alpha/beta tested Vista so far will agree it needed a lot more time to be the next Microsoft platform. Not sure about it n eeding only "a few more weeks" though, they must have 5x as many Indians/Chinese working on it as I imagine. The product looks amazing but the performance piece is simply not there and there are simply too many issues with it that I have personally been bugging and I have not even made it to the server-side yet. Wonder what this does for the server lineup? Not sure yet but almost certainly a delay there as well. The server piece for its part looks a whole lot more stable than the Workstation component and it pretty much must. So strap on and wait about another year for the official Vista launch. Update: Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year… Lots of emails asking me about the cause for the delays. Honestly, I do not know the reason. I can speculate however from being on the beta team. The amount of feedback and scenario voting on the February CTP is simply insane. I think Microsoft is stepping back.. looking at the scenario and bug report and opting to really deliver a rock solid release from the ground up. Thats my guess, others would be integration of the new file system perhaps? Ah, wishful thinking

If you're having trouble installing Windows Vista or Longhorn in the Virtual PC environment here are a few tips I found over on the Virtual PC Guy's Weblog:

1. Create a new virtual machine with a 16GB (or larger) virtual hard disk and at least 512mb RAM
2. Boot off of the install media (note: most ISOs for the December CTP are under 2.2GB in size - which means that you can boot off the ISO directly under Virtual PC)
3. On the first page select 'Install now'
4. On the next page, hit 'Shift-F10' - this will bring up a command prompt window
5. Type in:
1. DISKPART
2. SELECT DISK 0
3. CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
4. EXIT
5. EXIT

Now you will need to reset the virtual machine (hit host-key + 'R') and boot off of the install media again. You should now be able to go through with the default installation of Windows Vista. When you are finished you should be able to log in and install the Virtual Machine Additions.

Yesterday brought the news of Windows Vista requiring, here's some jargon:

"Vista driver developers must obtain a Publisher Identity Certificate (PIC) from Microsoft. Microsoft says they won't charge for it, but they require that you have a Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate from Verisign. This costs $500 per year, and as the name implies, is only available to commercial entities."

How is this a bad social move? Well, there are several factors that play into this both from the standpoint of rights you have to run software of your choice on your PC/OS but also from the PR point that makes this look very disheartening towards the x64 archtecture. Lets look at them one by one. Social Problem When you purchase a computer should you be allowed to make a decision on whether or not you trust a piece of software to work on your PC and OS? Microsoft does not think so. There are far too many security implications which make this move more than valid but it effectively eliminates the ability for open source developers (read: kids playing around with software development at home) to publish software. The trouble for Microsoft is two fold now: it looks bad for discouraging young people from developing software for the Microsoft platform and it deals a blow to the open source movement which is thriving even for the Windows world. This is not a short-term bad move that you're accustomed to, this is a long term move of further encouraging software developers to seek more open platforms. Windows will be more secure though. Valid tradeoff? Business Problem Microsoft, right after Intel, should be blamed the most for the lack of 64bit adoption. They sided with Intel Itanium (or Itanic) chip on the server and nobody showed up. Same was done with the 64bit Windows XP but AMD X64 effectively cornered that market with cheaper, cooler and more powerful chips. But I challenge you to find people that are happy with Windows XP 64bit or that have had a positive experience. You will not find many. So what do we have here, enforcement and restriction of development on the 64bit platform while the 32bit one is free to roam. Is this a good business move for the platform that you are trying to encourage everyone to upgrade to? Certainly not. So what we have here is a tradeoff between security and rights of use, public relations confusion over whether to upgrade to X64 now or never. I have to admit, it bothers me, but I'll be fine with X64 and signed drivers. There will always be a way to pirate stuff even with the DRM junk. No more dealnews hardware though

Over the course of last two weeks I've been filling requests left and right for various Microsoft beta projects from Vista to Messenger and back to Mail. Tonight I got a rather paranoid email, essentially, asking why is it so hard to get on the beta and why is Microsoft (or Google, or Yahoo or…) so tight-fisted when it comes to software. Here are three categories that should explain what goes on in the beta process: Who is going to sue us? First question in the mind of a project manager is who is our competition? This is initially a SWOT (Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis that evolves into a paranoid guess work of who may be developing the same feature set you are. It goes through the concept, development, analysis and then through legal which makes a decision on whether this is going to get the company sued for developing a feature. BETA Answer: Let's formally announce our goal, our implementation and see what happens. Can this project scale? No matter the company or project scale there are always two finite resources: headcount (cash) and computer power (more cash). There is a really interesting phase of horrible project management that happens right after the concept becomes approved and funded, which is caused by two actions going in opposite directions. You have to prove that the concept is viable and you have to make it happen by the deadline. More often than not those two are mutually exclusive (also known as: every software product ever written). BETA Answer: Let's open up the project as an invitation-only beta. This will give us the ability to scale the project at the pace we define and can reasonably support without setting expectations too high. Oh lord, thank you for not owning us… yet. Finally, the concept of security by obscurity. Spaghetti code's natural predator is the unlimited customer base anxious to play with every feature in a way that the developers never could forsee on the project flowchart. Now should a company release and collect payment for such a product there would be lawsuits, questions to answer, etc. Instead the company gets a ton of bug fixes, feature suggestions and input from the user that feels they are helping instead of complaining about their buyers remorse. BETA Answer: Let's close the project and encourage positive feedback by humbly giving away beta hats to our beta testers. Is this why all my software sucks? No, not all software is inherently flawed from the get-go. However, we write software to solve immediate problems. Beta processes allow for immediate market feedback, for an ongoing PR through multiple sources that are reasonably educated about what they are looking at, not just rearranging the Associated Press wire feed. On a higher level it gives consumers (partners, customers, developers) a sense of ownership knowing that they have participated in the product development since inception. Lots of text for a Wednesday morning? You bet. Think about something you're scratching your head about and find a solution for it.

So in today's mailbag comes a question from Nick asking: "Love the SBS Show especially one thing questions and I have one for you: What should we do to prepare for the Windows Vista?"; Just among the many folks in the one thing fan base so let me look at this from as many angles as possible: Find or become Microsoft Small Business Specialist Microsoft Registered Partner Program is running towards extinction, rightfully so, and all the money is going into the SBSC program. If it were not for Microsofts insecurity about their monopoly (god forbid someone find out there are folks other than Microsoft writing software) the Action Pack would go off the cliff as well but the risk of having Action Pack on eBay and massive licensing fraud actively practiced by many small business consultants is a small price to pay for locking them into the Microsoft platform for decades. Those are the just the ugly realities of the marketplace, you can't expect everyone to behave ethically and MAPS does benefit a fair amount of partners that are just starting their businesses. In my humble opinion, that will be the only perk left for the uncertified partners. Now sit back, relax and even if you're a consultant consider who you would trust with your systems and your network. One-man-band or a Microsoft Certified Partner / Microsoft Small Business Specialist? That ought to be a really simple question to answer. Microsoft is thinking the same way. Microsoft is finding competent consultants and businesses that understand their platform and can support it. They are also Microsoft's sales force, and Microsoft is putting the money into the pockets of Small Business Specialists. For example, this month will be the last PEP (Partner Engagement Program) extended to people NOT in the Microsoft Small Business Specialist program. What does this mean? Better network deployments for the small business clients. Actually competent, certified and backed by Microsoft. It will also be cheaper. Yes, cheaper. Microsoft is throwing many incentives down the Small Business Specialist chain, for example you will almost be totally compensated for costs involved in consulting/deployment if you buy Windows XP / Office 2003. So if there is one, I repeat, one thing you should to on your road to Vista its to get a Microsoft Small Business Specialist certification or at least partner with someone who is. The second, third and fourth… In no real order there are more than a few non-business technical things you should pay attention to. Remember that you're looking at something that will not be available for another year (which probably means you will not be deploying it until at least next Spring/Summer). We still do not even know which features Vista will offer so its a little too presumptious to assume you'll even want to move up immediately (if even in the mid to long term). There are several features (such as Limited User Access) that might be very appealing but I'd argue its more a factor of the poorly written application than an OS. Either way, if you're sure you'll be upgrading your existing infrastructure right away Start purchasing AMD 64 X2 series workstations. Dual core is quite affordable and offers a lot more performance than single core processors. Look for things that have hardware DEP (or if you're going with Intel Execute Disable Bit switch) so you don't have to relive the recent WMF scare. Spend the extra money on the upgraded video card. Yes, really. Vista is very graphics intensive and there is a lot of talk about Microsoft DRM requiring hardware co-operation. Keeping that in mind you might want to get a video card that is actually supported by the designer (ATI, Nvidia) and not the El Cheapo of East Taiwan. Of course there is the going concern of turning your workforce into a big deathmatch party every Friday but those things do boost morale. Finally, the more things change the more they stay the same. Get more ram. Lot more ram. There are so many memory intensive things coming out already before Vista (like Microsoft Bloat-namics CRM which recommends over 1GB of ram just for the client piece) so spend the extra money on memory. Vista will (hopefully) include a feature that allows you to apply a security patch and reboot w/out losing your work state. Imagine a process by which a security patch is installed without you having to exit Excel or stop that long email to me There is a lot of evidence that Microsoft will make Vista easy to move up the feature chain. Media will include all the bits for everything from Home up to Enterprise, so if you ever need a feature that requires a higher-up edition of Vista you can do so by just re-entering the product code. Keep that in mind when you're making a decision on whether or not to spend extra $15 on a memory upgrade - if you do minimum spec for a Home edition and then one day need it to work in a domain the last thing you'll want to learn is how to add more RAM or try to swap out a CPU