Microsoft TechNet is a resource site and service that is aimed at IT professionals and developers. Some of the information on the site are publicly accessible, while others only for subscribers.

Subscribers get for instance access to beta and development releases that may not be released to the general public at all. They on top of that get access to full-version software for the time of subscription and other benefits.

Microsoft distinguishes between a standard and professional subscription. Both share the following features:

• Access full-version software for 12 months with no time or feature limits (including Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows versions)
• Microsoft E-Learning access
• 24/7 online chat
• Priority support in TechNet forums

The professional version on top of that gets access to Microsoft infrastructure products (including Enterprise software), and two complimentary support calls.

Here are the current subscription fees

• TechNet Standard: $199 for one year, $149 renewal
• TechNet Professional: $349 for one year, $249 renewal
• TechNet Professional with Media: $599 for one year, $449 renewal

Before September 2010, TechNet Professional subscribers received 10 product keys for every version of Windows, Office and other Microsoft products they were eligible for. This got slashed to five product keys in that month, and has now been slashed again to three product keys according to ZDnet.

Beginning in mid-March 2012, subscribers to TechNet Subscriptions (excluding TechNet Standard which are entitled to 2 keys per product) may access a maximum allocation of three (3) product keys for Microsoft Office and Windows Client products in connection with their subscription. The allotted keys may only be used for software evaluation purposes. Once the maximum keys have been activated, no more keys will be made available. Additional product keys may be acquired through the purchase of an additional subscription.

The system has been abused in the past, as some subscribers (maliciously) began to sell some of the product keys off. With ten licenses for every Microsoft operating system and Office product available (think windows 7 Pro, Ultimate and Home Premium, plus Office 2010 and other products) for the price of a single $349 subscription, they were bound to make a huge profit with every subscription they signed up for.

As of mid-March, TechNet Professional subscribers get three product keys for Microsoft products that are offered to subscribers. According to Microsoft, additional subscriptions need to be made if additional keys are needed.

Are you a TechNet subscriber? If so, what’s your opinion on this?

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Today is February 16, and that means that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is officially available to a select few Microsoft customers – MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and Microsoft’s steadfast volume licensing customers.

As we’ve discussed a number of times, Windows 7 SP1 is basically no big deal. It’s composed mostly of security updates and hotfixes that have already been made available to customers, whether through Windows Update or otherwise – it doesn’t bring the wide-ranging changes and performance improvements required by, say, Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1.

Windows Server 2008 R2 users get two new features in RemoteFX, a feature that will allow server-side graphics rendering for thin clients using Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) system, and Dynamic Memory, which will allow a single server to host more virtual machines using the same amount of memory and resources.

These features are great if your organization is using Windows Server as a backend for thin clients, but for most consumers they’re of little interest.

The updates haven’t yet posted as of this writing (I’m looking at the MVLS volume licensing site at about 11AM EST), but they should go up sometime today. If the past is any indication, the download should be made available both as a patch for existing Windows installations, and as an .ISO of a Windows install DVD for fresh installations.

General availability to the public is still scheduled for February 22.

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Microsoft’s TechNet has long been a home for computer professionals to obtain full, legitimate copies of Microsoft software, these include all versions of Windows (up to Windows 7), Office and Windows Server for evaluation purposes.  As a result, and because these people would need to try the software on different PCs and in different configurations, each product would come with up to 10 product codes, each of which could be activated 10 times.

Technology blogger Paul Thurrott noticed last week though that the number of product codes available to subscribers had suddenly dropped.  He initially put this down to a problem with the website but it has now been confirmed that this indeed a permanent change that Microsoft have deliberately implemented.

 In a statement, Microsoft have now said “Microsoft is committed to helping prevent software piracy, which often results in end users being the victims of software counterfeiters. Counterfeiters abuse product keys to create fake software packages and distribute these to the public. These packages are not licensed, do not have support, and can also include malware and spyware. “

“Therefore, Microsoft has decided to limit the number of product keys available through TechNet Subscriptions, for all products, to five for TechNet Professional and two for TechNet Standard. TechNet Subscriptions is intended to support software trial and evaluation, versus a production environment. We offer other programs for volume purchasing and installation. We believe this change maintains a sufficient number of product keys for the majority of our customers based on usage data, while greatly reducing the overall risk of piracy and counterfeiting. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this action may have caused our subscribers.”

 There are legitimate concerns about the availability of TechNet and the software and licences available but I would not put these down to piracy, rather Microsoft’s balance sheet.  Thurrott himself had been telling listeners to his Widows Weekly podcast about the good deal that TechNet represented.  He did say that the copies were for evaluation purposes only and not for installing on the PCs belonging to your friends and family, but sadly people will inevitably do this.  There’s no evidence to suggest a link between the two events however.

Now TechNet standard subscribers will get only two product keys with 10 activations each.  TechNet Professional subscribers will get five product keys with 10 activations each.

This is a bad move by Microsoft certainly for people such as myself.  As an Author for Microsoft Press, a technology blogger and and IT professional I frequently find that I need to install an operating system for testing purposes.  TechNet was perfect for this and a great many people will hope that in time Microsoft have a change of heart.

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Microsoft began distributing the first builds of Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 during July earlier this year. Now reports are coming in that Microsoft have gone and updated a couple of those betas for a select few indiviuals over the last week or so.

Last Friday Zdnet reported that Microsoft refreshed a couple of the testers beta builds of Windows 7 SP1 and the new build number is now 7601.17077. The new build is said to have been made available to “TAP” partners, (Technology Adoption Program) and company officials have confirmed this.

“A private interim release went out Friday as part of our normal feedback loop with a small  group of our testers – our TAP and OEMs,”

So this shows that Microsoft are making progress on the service pack builds anyway, but Microsoft said that we shouldn’t expect to see the first service packs released for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Rs until the first half of 2011.

Then again, Microsoft said that we wouldn’t be seeing Windows 7 make an appearance until the beginning of 2010, but in fact it was released in October during 2009 thanks to positive feedback from testers and remarkable stable beta builds and release candidates.

Maybe there will be a similar situation with the first service pack, or maybe there wont be. Perhaps Microsoft are eager to get it out as soon as they can since many businesses traditionally wait until the first service pack before they update to make sure any bugs have been ironed out. Then again there’s the never ending debate that Windows 7 doesn’t actually need a service pack at all.

We haven’t heard of anything new in this latest build, it’s probably just got another little bug fix somewhere, that’s all that Windows 7 SP1 is mainly made up of anyway, there’s nothing really outstanding or amazing that the average user will notice.

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Microsoft have just ended support for Windows XP SP2 at long last, and now they’ve announced the availability of a the beta release of Windows 7 SP1 for businesses. As we know, the first service pack for Windows 7 probably won’t be released until much later this year, and it doesn’t include any ground breaking new features. It’s mainly composed of some minor tweaks and bug fixes, since there’s not a whole lot wrong with Windows 7 as it stands.

Back in June Microsoft said that they would begin releasing beta releases of it’s first Windows 7 service pack this month, and it appears they’re sticking to their word.

According to Microsoft’s TechNet site targeting IT professionals, “This early release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta is not available for home users. The SP1 Beta does not provide new end-user features, and installation is not supported by Microsoft.”  This has been the case with most recent service packs, which are mainly just composed of updates that are automatically delivered via the Windows Update center.

The service pack for the Windows 2008 R2 server has a bit more in it than the update for Windows 7. The two new big capabilities Service Pack 1 offers Windows Server both involve virtualization improvements: Dynamic Memory, and RemoteFX. The first allows Hyper-V virtualization servers to “pool available memory on a physical host and then dynamically dole that memory out to virtual machines running on the host, based on current workload needs,” according to the Windows Server 2008 R2 page

RemoteFX allows remote virtual desktops in Windows 7 SP1 to take advantage of 3D graphics such as Windows Aero, Video, Flash along with Silverlight and other 3D applications.

The trial versions of Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 are now available for download for Technet subscribers.

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Customers running Windows 7 now have an updated version of a package of solution accelerators available. Yesterday the updated version of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2010 was released. MSDN and TechNet subscribers have access to the MDOP 2010 Refresh bits and test drive the new release. Existing MDOP customers can download the new MDOP 2010 release at the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

What is MDOP?

Deploying Windows7 can be a costly endeavor. The purpose of the Microsoft® Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) is to help organizations to reduce the cost of application deployment, as well as to deliver those applications as services, and to manage desktop configurations. The MDOP applications can give customers a cost-effective and flexible solution for deploying and managing desktop computers.

Before - During - After

The Desktop package provides several elements that organizations must look at in preparing the deployment of Windows7

Asset Management

The first step is deployment planning. This is to collect and identify and classify an application inventory. This is the process of categorizing the applications in the system and removing duplicate, unnecessary, and unwanted applications.

Application Compatibility

The question here is, do the existing applications work with Windows7? By the time the deployment begins, the inventory should be complete. Here the companies will use the inventory to make the application-compatibility testing and mitigation process. The idea is that most popular applications will be compatible with Windows 7 and do not require mitigation. Since Windows 7 is based on the Windows Vista OS foundation, those applications that work with Windows Vista will also work with Windows 7. But keep in mind that those other applications that only work withWindows7 at a very low level, such as antivirus and disk utilities, will probably require updates. So application compatibility means testing the software to see if it is integrated with Windows7.

Application Management

As part of the identification process, companies determine how to deploy each application. Some will be updated, others will have to be replaced. The IT managers fine tune these operations while they are doing the compatibility testing and mitigation process.

Group Policy Management

During the early planning stages and continuing through deployment, companies will be thinking about how to manage Windows 7 after they have finished the deployment process.

Troubleshooting

Monitoring desktop PCs during deployment can help companies anticipate and identify problems before they escalate.

How can MDOP Help?

1. MDOP can help companies plan for deployment by using the AIS to create and to help rationalize an application inventory.

2. MDOP can ease the time and effort of performing the deployment. By using the App-V tool, companies can reduce the cost of deployment by reducing image size and count.

3. MDOP can help companies after deployment by providing a more responsive support. Organizations can use the System Center Desktop Error Monitoring (DEM) to help improve post-deployment stability and reliability.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft Optimization Pack

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The Technet October 2009 issue contains four interesting articles about Windows 7 which can be really helpful to users who intend to install and use the new operating system as soon as it is officially released by Microsoft. Not all of the articles apply to all editions of Windows 7. As you might know Microsoft has decided to start with Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise on top which are the only two editions with all features followed by Windows 7 Professional and then Windows 7 Home Premium. These versions contain at least all the basic features of Windows 7. The other editions, which are Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic are more or less limited.

Back to the articles: Here is a short description of each article of the Technet magazine.

77 Windows 7 Tips

The article lists 77 tips and keyboard shortcuts that have been contributed by various writers. Most of the tips are compressed into one or two sentences without proper explanation on how to do something. An example of such a tip is tip 24 which tells users that they should xcopy the Windows 7 DVD to USB for faster installations. These tips require some knowledge or research skills to be put to use. Other tips are straightforward like tip 25 which informs users that they can burn iso images by double-clicking them in Windows.

The article is definitely worth a look as it contains several helpful tips and tricks.

The 10 Things to Do First for Windows 7

The title seems to suggest another basic article for end users. It is however an advanced article aimed at system administrators and power users which becomes obvious from titles like “Remove your users’ local-admin rights”, “Expand the deployment scope” or “Learn Windows PowerShell”. It is a good read for system and network administrators with links pointing to knowledge resources about each subject that gets addressed in it.

What’s New in Group Policy for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Another article aimed at powerusers and system administrators. It contains information about, updated RSAT filters, automated GPO handling with Windows PowerShell, tabless interface for ADM and ADMX and built-in Starter GPOs and new policy settings.

Groovy Security in Windows 7

The final article takes a look at Bitlocker encryption, Direct Access, Applocker and protection against DNS poisoning and spoofing with DNSSEC. These features and functions are not available in all Windows 7 editions. These features are only available in Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise.

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Yesterday, on August 21st, Wave 3 of Windows 7 was released for developers and IT professionals via MSDN and TechNet. With Wave 3, all versions of Windows 7 have been released, with the initial English release for Wave 1, and then the Japanese, French, Spanish, German, and Italian releases for Wave 2.

As of yesterday, both MSDN and TechNet offer for download both the Retail and Volume License Editions of Windows 7, along with checked builds, localized versions, and language packs. The languages available are as follows:

• Dutch
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese
• Brazilian
• Polish
• Korean
• Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)
• Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong – SAR)
• Turkish
• Czech
• Portuguese
• Hungarian
• Swedish
• Danish
• Norwegian
• Finnish
• Arabic
• Hebrew
• Greek
• Ukrainian
• Thai
• Romanian
• Lithuanian
• Slovak
• Bulgarian
• Estonian
• Croatian
• Serbian Latin
• Latvian
• Slovenian

Additionally, all localized versions Windows 7 Starter are available, and so is the Windows 7 RTM SDK, Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK), and the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).

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Regular reader Frankie has just let us know that Windows 7 RTM is now available on the Technet and MSDN download sites.  All versions of Windows 7 are available for download, including Premium, Professional and Ultimate.

Software Assurance subscribers will be able to download Windows 7 RTM from Friday from the Volume Licence Software Centre website.  Other large businesses will be able to get access to the final version on 1 September.

Predictions that large corporations will skip Windows Vista and move straight to Windows 7 appear to be true.  My company with over 100k employees, sent an email around this week saying that the long overdue Windows Vista upgrade was going to be scraped and instead they will be moving to Windows 7 before the end of the year.  I was stunned by this as my company is not very progressive…they’ve only just increased mailbox sizes from 30MB to 150MB for instance…

I just hope they don’t create an awful corporate build that slows Windows 7 down to a snails pace.

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Yesterday, SolidBlogger reported that the LIPs (Language Interface Packs) or MUI (Multilingual User Interface) for the Windows 7 RTM have been leaked on various torrent sites.

Language Interface Packs allow users to display windows, menus, dialogs, welcome screens, etc. in their preferred language. Currently, Windows 7 supports 35 languages (apart from English):

Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonianm, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hong Kong Chinese, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian or Latin, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian

According to The Windows Blog, all language packs should be available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers by October 1st. For those interested in downloading the leaked RTM language pack images, please ensure that they match the checksums below to avoid getting malware or modified ISO files:

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.LANGUAGE.PACK.35.LANGUAGES.RTM.7600.16385.X64.DVD
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_langpacks_1-GRMCXLP1_DVD.iso
Size: 2,306,793,472 bytes
SHA1: 5AB13E8534FA
6E17DB2EDEDEAD0D219E9B99A794
MD5: 4FD12AD4C946DD145A67C3230650AB8B
CRC: 5EA0988F

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.LOCALPACK.20.LANGUAGES.RTM.7600.16385.X86.DVD
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_localpacks-GRMCLPCKFRE_DVD.iso
Size: 75,689,984 bytes
SHA1: 9CEB5A53910337DEBB76148F4DCF5D305D84D804
MD5: 7C5AA4B2F7B9B2D64F50257A121E816F
CRC: D9D70D72

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.LANGUAGE.PACK.CHINESE.TRADITIONAL.RTM.7600.16385.X64.DVD
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_langpacks_2-GRMCXLP2_DVD.iso
Size: 133,793,792 bytes
SHA1: E0B7FEB2812D6B8B240D6E7BBBC385BB283FF1FB
MD5: 725209E3F76719C1DC71EB93FC636B17
CRC: 7431C668

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.LOCALPACK.20.LANGUAGES.RTM.7600.16385.X64.DVD
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_localpacks-GRMCLPCKXFRE_DVD.iso
Size: 75,683,840 bytes
SHA1: 8FF188C287F764CC5801FD0E3B698DE712078D8F
MD5: 4D7B984F6DB0A7790DACE128370D1E09
CRC: 26E584D9

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.LANGUAGE.PACK.35.LANGUAGES.RTM.7600.16385.X86.DVD
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_langpacks_1-GRMCLP1_DVD.iso
Size: 1,936,062,464 bytes
SHA1: 9A04B246F132D929CDE04B14DD07FCF5F14D2F23
MD5: 0DDB893B76F27B184C48284A064D5049
CRC: 45A48C46

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.LANGUAGE.PACK.CHINESE.TRADITIONAL.RTM.7600.16385.X86.DVD
File Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_langpacks_2-GRMCLP2_DVD.iso
Size: 111,949,824 bytes
SHA1: 4A9F997BDC5DDBDF0CFF95AA1612133BF2EDBD16
MD5: C6C59A248E727765FA049DA40F480ED8
CRC: C40F8E55

Images with ‘localpacks’ in their filename contain regional themes and wallpapers. Language packs are only available to users running the ULTIMATE edition of Windows 7 and will be available via Windows Update.

How to install a language pack

If you’ve downloaded a language pack image, extracted the ISO file’s content and want to install it, here’s how:

• Click ‘Start’
• Type “display language” in the search bar
• Choose “Install or uninstall display languages” under ‘Control Panel (5)’
• (if the above step doesn’t work, try typing ”%SYSTEMROOT%System32lpksetup.exe” in the search bar)

The “Language Pack Installer” window should appear with two options.

• Choose “Install display languages”
• Since the Windows Update doesn’t provide language packs at this time, choose “Browse computer or network”
• Select the file “lp.cab” of the downloaded language pack from its location and click “OK”

The LIP information should appear in the list box.

Selecting Language(s) to Install

• Check it and click “Next”
• Choose “I accept license terms.” if you agree to the terms and click “Next”

Windows 7 will start installing the language pack. As already stated on the window, installation might take a long time. So you’ll just have to wait…

Installing a Language Pack

• Once installation is complete, Click “Next”

You will be provided with the list of installed languages, select the new language pack and click “Change display language”.

Changing the Display Language

What if you’d like to switch back to English, or another installed language? You can easily change the display language used by doing the following:

• Click ‘Start’
• Type “region” in the search bar
• Choose “Region and Language” under ‘Control Panel (2)’
• (if the above step doesn’t work, try typing ”%SYSTEMROOT%System32cmd.exe” in the search bar and then type the following in the Command Prompt window that appears: “C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe C:WindowsSystem32shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL C:WindowsSystem32intl.cpl”)
• Go to “Keyboards and Languages”
• Click on the combo box under “Choose a display language” and choose the language pack you want to use
• Click “Apply”

That’s it!

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Microsoft promised that the (official) distribution of the Windows 7 Release Candidate would begin on April 30 for MSDN and Technet subscribers. They were able to keep the promise as downloads are now live for both MSDN and Technet subscribers. Some users are reporting troubles downloading the MSDN releases currently but those are likely caused by the sudden storm of users who began downloading the release candidate immediately after receiving notice of its availability.

Here are direct download links to the 32-bit and 64-bit editions for Technet and MSDN subscribers:

Technet 32-bit
Technet 64-bit
MSDN 32-bit
MSDN 64-bit

Make sure to check out the official download pages for additional downloads and release notes.

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Users who decided to wait for the official release candidate are probably delighted to hear that Microsoft is still aiming for a public release on May 5. Technet and MSDN subscribers can start downloading the release candidate on April 30 which is less than a week from now. Waiting another five or eleven days should not be that of a problem for most users as there are not a lot of obvious changes to previous builds in the release candidate. Stay tuned, we will let you know as soon as the official download links begin to appear on Microsoft websites.

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Download links for the Windows 7 Release Candidate where showing up on Microsoft’s Partner Program website yesterday evening for a short time stating that the the new build was released and that it would be available publicly on May 5. This information has now been removed – once again – from the website which is now displaying Windows 7 Beta information.

It is very likely that this is the second blunder in short time by Microsoft staff (read: Technet publishes Windows 7 RC Information). This does not necessarily mean that the information that had been published was incorrect. A thread on Neowin mentions that only Microsoft OEM partners such as Dell or Siemens are allowed access to the release candidate at this point in time.

Having said this it seems likely that the Windows 7 Release Candidate will still be available on May 5. Thoughts on this?

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A very observant Neowin user discovered the change of the official Windows 7 Beta Customer Preview page. The page contents were changed to contain information about the Windows 7 Release Candidate release prematurely. Microsoft has since then discovered the blunder and restored the old page but not before the information that it contained made its way to various news sites on the Internet.

The page listed various information about the Windows 7 release candidate, the most important were:

• The Windows 7 Release Candidate will be at least available through June 2009 with no product key limitation.
• Windows 7 RC will expire on June 1, 2010.
• Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows 7 RC will be available for download in the five languages English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish

While the posted information are aiming at Technet subscribers they do reveal information that are important to anyone. Those that already have installed a beta build of Windows 7 will have the chance to continue working with the operating system as the beta builds are set to expire on August 1, 2009. The published information make it seem very likely that the release candidate of Windows 7 will also be publicly released.

The Windows 7 RC will ship with five languages instead of the seven that were available in the Windows 7 beta release. Both Hindi and Arabic are not available in the Windows 7 RC release.

Setting the expiration date of the release candidate to June 1, 2010 will also mean that Microsoft is planning to release the final retail version of Windows 7 before that day, most likely in the first quarter of 2010 to give all RC users enough time to switch to the final Windows 7 release.

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Microsoft is holding the event TechNet and MSDN Unleashed: Windows Vista to Windows 7 on February 28 7:45 AM Pacific Time. Everyone can register to participate in the event online although it is aimed at IT professionals and developers in first place:

This event is taking place live in the Irvine, CA office. For those who cannot attend in person, we are also simulcasting via Live Meeting. We will be utilizing 2-Way Audio directly from Live Meeting so you shouldn’t need to dial into a conference bridge. The Live Meeting link will be sent with your registration confirmation.

Interesting from a Windows 7 standpoint of view are the two sessions that provide an in depth coverage of the new operating system:

Welcome to Windows 7

This session will be an overview of the GUI and Feature improvements in Windows 7. This will include

• Task Bar/System Tray Improvements
• Aero Features
• System Improvements
• Control Panels and Features
• Desktop Improvements
• IE 8
• Under The Hood

Windows 7 Deep Dive

Deep Dive One and Two will dig into Windows 7 and the new or redesigned under the hood features in the product. The topics covered will be:

• Microsoft’s understanding of the needs of IT Pros when designing Windows 7
• Hardware Readiness
• Improved Applications
• Application Compatibility
• AIK
• VHD Images and Imaging
• DISM
• Dynamic Driver Provisioning
• Multicast Multiple Stream Transfer
• Streamlined Installation and File Migration
• USMT
• DHCP Hint
• Enterprise Application Compatibility
• Windows Troubleshooting Platform

Just click here to register for the event. A Windows Live Id is required.

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