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Major Incident in ITIL? What are the roles and responsibilities? How to avoid common mistakes? What to do After the Resolution?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:11:27 PST

What is a Major Incident?
Definition of a Major Incident has to be clear to every employee in Service Support. Therefore it has to be clearly described in a separate document, Major Incident Procedure.

What makes a Major Incident? It is usually defined by the impact outage has or could have on customer’s business process. Also, it may be determined by priority of the incident or by its urgency.

How come that the impact isn’t allways the only factor in defining the Major incident? For example, an incident of high impact can be resolved by Service Desk thru a simple resolution procedure, like switch resetting after network down event, or connecting a backup provider after internet down event.

Both examples are definitely high impact but we don’t have to recruit a bunch of higher level people on it just yet. We just have to have in mind that they are Priority 1 and they have to be resolved ASAP. In case they can’t be resolved by standard procedure, THEN they can be marked Major and handled with appropriate procedure and policy. That’s why most leading Incident Management tools on the market have a separate checkbox Major or Hot incident.

This was all theory. In practice, to simplify the procedure and make it easier to Service Desk staff, this is what I usually advise: all priority 1 incidents are Major Incidents, if they are not exceptions. Exceptions can be easily defined for particular customers, contracts and incident categories. For example: Major incidents are all Priority 1 incidents except cash register tickets, which are urgent but can be fixed by technicians, no need to involve for more important people. Or: all categories except end user incidents. Simple.

Major Incident Team

OK, now we have determined it’s a Major Incident. What next? We establish a Major Incident Team. Members are:

Service Desk Manager – he will be responsible for communication with resolution team and timely reporting to the customer
Incident Manager – in reasonable service organizations Incident Manager is usually also the Service Desk Manager. If not, then these two have to work closely together.
Major Incident Manager: a frequent mistake is to promote Incident or Service Desk Manager into Major Incident Manager. This doesn’t have to, but can cause some serious conflicts of interests: he has to survive somewhere between Incident Management, Problem Management, Business Management and the customer.
Major Incident Manager has to be a liaison between all internal parties involved, also acquainted well to technical aspects of the outage. So he will often be recruited between people formerly engaged in a project, or those involved in service catalogue definition.
Problem Manager: remember him? He will be most helpful here in investigative phase, towards closure phase, and a life saver in post mortem reporting. Better keep him on our side. Mind you, Major Incident is still an incident, but usually has some underlying cause which will be recognized as a Problem. Hence Incident and Problem Manager have to work closely here, each with his own goal in mind (service restoration vs. underlying cause).
Other members of Major Incident Team: representatives of all people involved, impacted users, competent technical staff, vendors... Good practice would be to choose people here the same way you would choose ECAB (Emergency Change Advisory Board) members. There is always a chance that you will be implementing an Emergency Change during a Major Incident resolution process.

Resolution Process

Major Incident resolution works on tight SLA parameters. Service Desk takes care of them. Also, ticket updates and frequent feedback to customers is performed by Service Desk. Remember, customer hates to be kept in the dark, even if news are bad (no progress) they must be updated frequently.

Major Incident Procedure has to define the escalation policy in case of SLA breech. Usually the incident is escalated vertically to higher level IT / Business management and to vendors of services/equipment underpinning the service.

After the battle

Upon the resolution, Incident Management Team stays “on call” and monitors the service for the period defined by Major Incident Manager. He also schedules a short team meeting for the next day.

Incident Review is performed on this meeting, points for improvement and lessons learned are defined and Post Mortem Major Incident Report is created.

Incident Manager sends the report to the customer.

Password Reset: Service Request, Incident or Change?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:09:45 PST

what is a Password Reset procedure: is it a Service Request, Incident or Change?
We can take for granted that these portals consider the simplest case of Password Reset event: the user forgot hers/his password. In a consolidated service desk of 2000s this was the most frequent event, making 50-80% of all calls.

Is it an Incident?
So, could it be an Incident? Obviously NOT. Incident definition requires a service downtime or probability of downtime. No service downtime here, only end user can't log in, by his own fault.

Why then a plenty of Service organizations treat these events as Incidents? Because of the Service Desk TOOL they (miss)use. They have a nice little tool which is ITIL approved by some elephant. It can do all the process, you name it. But implementation of additional modules costs money and time. They already have Incident Management. Their implementer sucks, their ITSM consultant could do better, and they are often the same person. So they created a category "Password reset" in Incident Management module and they treat password reset as an incident. That's why it has to be an incident. If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. Let's move further.

Is it a Service Request?
Is password reset request a Service Request? Of course it is, there it is in the ITIL definition of a Service Request:

A request from a User for information or advice, or for a Standard Change or for Access to an IT Service. For example to reset a password, or to provide standard IT Services for a new User. Service requests are usually handled by a Service Desk, and do not require an RFC to be submitted.

So it's a small preapproved standard Change which is processed thru Request Fulfillment process.

Yes, it is a Change, but no need for Change Manager and CAB to get involved since it happens frequently and can be dealt with on the 1st level. And thank you God for technology you provided so that lately any end user password can be reset via a simple self-help portal. User just answers a secret question, puts in his employee ID and receives the new password via text message or such.

What other special flavors of password reset are there?

Simple web application user passwords are a mild example of the above described case.
Enterprise domain user password is closer to what first comes to our mind when we think about password reset. Now, we said it is a Service Request. In which cases it escalates to a Change Request? Well, if you have a strong security policy, implemented SOX or ISO/IEC 27001 and influential security officer, then it's possible that they require formalized approval cycle and implemented operational Standard Change procedure.
VPN account passwords which enable user to connect from the outside of the company to internal network are a very sensitive security case, so all concerns regarding domain user accounts apply to them, and then some. A special case is a VPN account given to a 3rd party employee. Usually such a request has to have defined start and end of usage and approval from a high position (chief security, IT manager or CEO).
Application Administrator account passwords enable the user to create a significant amount of damage to a company according to the importance of the application to the business. Examples: Intranet applications, CRM, ERP. Which one contains the most sensitive data for your company? Probably the ERP application.
System Administrator Account presents the highest possible level of trust to an employee. Only security officer , Operations or IT Manager should approve these account creations and their password reset requests.
Service Accounts under which different IT services are executed. These have to be taken care by the security officers, their catalogue has to point to services they enable (1:M relation) and access to their passwords has to be restricted only to most confidential people. Usually these accounts have broad authorization and they are set to rarely or never expire, so they should be maintained with utmost care, especially in organizations with frequent employee fluctuation. Best practice is to deposit them in a safe box by a single person.

Note: there are significant changes lately in best practices and recommendations with large vendors and consulting companies about the password lockout policy.
Until recently, the recommendation was to lock the user account after three to five unsuccessful attempts. What changed? Implementation of security standards and best practices introduced higher password complexity and more frequent user password changes. Majority of users have some kind of mobile device for connecting to an enterprise mail system. These devices cache user credentials and often lock-out user's accounts after password change. Virtualization also contributed to simplification of lockout policy since various user credentials can be cached on different physical and virtual machines.
Brute force attacks are measured in hundreds if not thousands of attempts in a short period of time, so it is now advised to lift the lockout attempt number to 60-100, or to turn the policy off completely and survey security logs with adequate tools.

Mobile Phone Display Technologies LED, OLED, MOLED, LCD, TFT

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:55:17 PDT

Mobile phone touch screens Technologies --- Capacitive & Resistive

LED (Light-Emitting Diode)
A semiconductor diode that emits light when charged with electricity. They come in diverse colors and some LEDs even contain multiple elements and are therefore capable of emitting light with different colors.
LEDs are used for displays, for keypad or display backlighting, etc. Bright white LEDs also can be used as flashlights and flashes for mobile phones. Even if they are not as bright as the xenon flash, LEDs are much more compact and require less energy - and also can be used as video light.

OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode)

A display technology that consists of small dots of organic polymer which emit light when charged with electricity.

OLED displays have several advantages over the LCDs. They are thinner, lighter, brighter, need less power, have better viewing angles, contrast and response time for video and animation. OLEDs are also cheaper and easier to manufacture.

On the other hand, LCDs offer better legibility in bright ambient light.

AMOLED display (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode)

AMOLED is an emerging display technology used in portable devices like mobile phones. Active-matrix OLED displays provide the same performance as their passive-matrix OLED counterparts, but they consume significantly less power.

This advantage makes active-matrix OLEDs well suited for portable electronics where battery power consumption is critical.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

A liquid crystal display is the most common display type among mobile phones because of its low power consumption and good image quality. They are generally easy to read, even under direct sunlight.

The smallest element of an image displayed on a LCD is the pixel. Each pixel normally consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, and two polarizing filters.

Some of the types of LCD displays are STN, TFT and TFD. The first one, STN, offers low cost and low power consumption, but low image quality. TFT features greater image quality and response time, yet its displays are more expensive and need more power.

Three other types of LCDs are transmissive, reflective, or transflective. Transmissive displays offer nicer image quality in low or medium ambient light, while reflective ones work best in bright ambient light. Transflective displays combine the best of both.

TFT (Thin Film Transistor)

TFT is one of the best Liquid Cristal Display technologies in terms of image quality and response time. However, it also consumes more power and is more expensive.

TFT, like TFD, is an active-matrix technology. This means a transistor is located next to each pixel, allowing it to be turned on and off individually. This ensures faster response time and greater contrast.

Test ur VirusScan Installation

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:23:00 PDT

virus

How do I Test My VirusScan Installation?

Description

After installing VirusScan, you may logically wonder, how do I know if it’s working? The answer is a test virus. The EICAR Standard AntiVirus Test File is a combined effort by anti-virus vendors throughout the world to implement one standard by which customers can verify their anti-virus installations.
Solution

To test your installation, copy the following line into its own file, then save the file with the name EICAR.COM. More detailed instructions are found below.

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
The file size will be 68 or 70 bytes.

If VirusScan is running and configured correctly, when you try to save the file, VirusScan will detect the virus. If VirusScan is not running, start it and scan the directory that contains EICAR.COM. When your software scans this file, it will report finding the EICAR test file.
Note that this file is NOT A VIRUS. Delete the file when you have finished testing your installation to avoid alarming unsuspecting
users.

The eicar test virus is available for download from the following website:
http://www.eicar.org/download/eicar.com
Creating Eicar.com
1. Click on Start.
2. Select Run.
3. In the Open box type: notepad
4. Maximize the window.
5. Highlight the following on the following line of text:
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
6. Right click on the highlighted text and choose ‘copy’.
7. Switch back to Notepad.
8. Right click anywhere inside of Notepad and select ‘paste’.
9. Click the File menu and select ‘save as’.
10. Change the ‘Save as Type’ to ‘all files’.
11. Name the file eicar.com.

Difference Between 32-bit and 64-bit Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:21:00 PDT

Most of you are running Windows XP or Vista in its 32-bit iteration. But as hardware gets cheaper, people are curious as to what the 64-bit operating system has to offer. First let’s see if we can grasp the difference between 32- and 64-bit.

Think of your computer as a series of tubes that can either be 32 or 64 bits wide. When you have the smaller 32-bit size, there is more potential for bottlenecks to occur. Bottlenecks slow down your system because one process has to wait for another to finish before it can begin. But if you want to have 64-bit wide tubes, your computer needs to be thinking in 64-bit so your software and hardware all need to support 64-bit.
If you do not know the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit, I would have told you in the past that you are running a 32-bit version of Windows. But now with Windows 7 I am seeing more and more 64-bit operating systems shipped by default without the end users knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, a 64-bit system is better but you also need to be running 64-bit programs and have a 64-bit processor or else all the trouble of setting up the 64-bit operating system would be worthless.

On a 32-bit operating system, you are restricted to a maximum of 4 gigabytes of RAM. On a 64-bit operating system, you really do not have a limit. Let’s look at Wikipedia and find out the maximum amount of RAM for a 64-bit operating system

What is the difference between a 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating system?” Most of you are running Windows XP or Vista in its 32-bit iteration. But as hardware gets cheaper, people are curious as to what the 64-bit operating system has to offer. First let’s see if we can grasp the difference between 32- and 64-bit.
Think of your computer as a series of tubes that can either be 32 or 64 bits wide. When you have the smaller 32-bit size, there is more potential for bottlenecks to occur. Bottlenecks slow down your system because one process has to wait for another to finish before it can begin. But if you want to have 64-bit wide tubes, your computer needs to be thinking in 64-bit so your software and hardware all need to support 64-bit.

If you do not know the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit, I would have told you in the past that you are running a 32-bit version of Windows. But now with Windows 7 I am seeing more and more 64-bit operating systems shipped by default without the end users knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, a 64-bit system is better but you also need to be running 64-bit programs and have a 64-bit processor or else all the trouble of setting up the 64-bit operating system would be worthless.

On a 32-bit operating system, you are restricted to a maximum of 4 gigabytes of RAM. On a 64-bit operating system, you really do not have a limit. Let’s look at Wikipedia and find out the maximum amount of RAM for a 64-bit operating system.

That is a huge amount of RAM! Normally when you exhaust your physical RAM on a 32-bit system, it has to use virtual memory or hard disk space to pick up the slack. On a 64-bit system, you can install as much RAM as you can to cover your overhead. From here on, 32-bit operating systems will be referred to as x86 and 64 bit operating systems as x64. You can tell what you are running by right clicking on My Computer and choosing Properties.

If you are running 3D modeling systems or AutoCAD systems, you can benefit from a x64 bit architecture but remember, you need to be running ALL x64 applications, print drivers and anything else you are setting up on your system to realize its full potential. Not all programs have been created for x64 yet and you will find yourself installing applications to your Program Files x86 directory. On a x64 machine, you will have two Program File directories — one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit applications.
So after reading through that and you still want to run a x64 operating system, you will need to make sure your processor supports x64. Most new servers and new computers bought this year or beyond will support x64 but you will still need to check.

Almost all new servers sold within the last two years from AMD or Intel will have x64 capability.

Most mid- to high-end desktop processors from AMD or Intel within the last year have x64 capability.
Some higher-end Semprons have x64; lower-end Semprons do not.
No AMD Durons have x64.
All AMD Opteron processors have x64.
All AMD X2, FX, and Athlon64 chips have x64.
All Intel Pentium D and Celeron D chips have x64.
All AMD Turion notebook processors have x64.
All Intel Core 2 processors (mobile, desktop, and server) have x64.
No Intel Core Duo notebook processors have x64
No Intel Pentium M notebook processors have x64.

If you are running a server that has all its hardware and software certified for x64, then you should install the 64-bit version but beware of device drivers and any 32-bit environments because if I used the word difficult, it would be an understatement!

New updated Group Policy Interview Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:36:00 PDT

Q. What is Group Policy?
A. Group Policy is an infrastructure used to deliver and apply one or more desired configurations or policy settings to a set of targeted users and computers within an Active Directory environment. This infrastructure consists of a Group Policy engine and multiple client-side extensions (CSEs) responsible for writing specific policy settings on target client computers.

Q. What are Group Policy objects (GPOs)?
A. Group Policy objects, other than the local Group Policy object, are virtual objects. The policy setting information of a GPO is actually stored in two locations: the Group Policy container and the Group Policy template. The Group Policy container is an Active Directory container that stores GPO properties, including information on version, GPO status, and a list of components that have settings in the GPO. The Group Policy template is a folder structure within the file system that stores Administrative Template-based policies, security settings, script files, and information regarding applications that are available for Group Policy Software Installation. The Group Policy template is located in the system volume folder (Sysvol) in the \Policies subfolder for its domain.

Q. What are the differences between Group Policy, Registry-based policy, and Security policy?
A. Group Policy is an infrastructure in which IT administrators can implement standard computing environments for groups of users and computers and includes both Registry-based and Security Policy. Registry-based policy is one of the many features of Group Policy that uses Administrative templates to modify the registry settings for policy-enabled components included in Windows. Security Policy, another feature delivered by Group Policy, includes a variety of security-related settings for Microsoft Windows.

Q. Are the new Windows Vista features of GPMC available in an update to the current version of GPMC?
A. You can join a Windows Vista workstation to your existing domains in order to benefit from the new features in GPMC. GPMC is integrated directly into the Windows Vista operating system (Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate versions only) and is the standard tool for managing Group Policy along with Group Policy Object Editor. New Windows Vista features are not included in the current version of GPMC, downloadable from the Microsoft Download Center.

Q. Is there a maximum number of Group Policy objects that I can store in a domain?
A. Creating a Group Policy object will create a Group Policy container object, stored in Active Directory, and a Group Policy template, stored on the Sysvol of the domain controller. Both are limited only to the amount of free disk space.

Q. What is the maximum number of Group Policy objects a user or computer can process?
A. A user or computer cannot process more than 999 Group Policy objects. Windows Vista writes a Windows-GroupPolicy error event with an event ID of 1088 to the system event log when a user or computer attempts to process more than 999 Group Policy objects.

Q. Can I apply a Group Policy object directly to a security group?
A. You cannot apply a Group Policy object directly to a security group. However, you can use security filtering to refine which users or computers will receive and apply Group Policy settings. The Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) is the tool to manage security filtering. For more information about security filtering, see the Core Group Policy Technical Reference.

Q. What tools do I use to manage Group Policy?
A. Microsoft provides two management consoles to administer Group Policy. The Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) consists of a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in and a set of scriptable interfaces for managing Group Policy objects (but not Group Policy settings). Group Policy Object Editor, also a Microsoft Management Console, is used to edit the individual settings contained within each Group Policy object.

Q. How often is Group Policy applied and how do you change it?
A. Group Policy for computers is triggered at computer startup. For users, Group Policy is triggered when they log on. Versions of Windows before Windows XP as well as Windows Server 2003 use synchronous processing, meaning that computer Group Policy is completed before the logon dialog box is presented. User Group Policy is completed before the shell is active and available for the user to interact with it. Windows XP defaults to asynchronous policy processing. By default, Group Policy is refreshed every 90 minutes with a randomized delay of up to 30 minutes, for a total maximum refresh interval of up to 120 minutes. This interval can be changed using the computer policy setting Group Policy refresh interval for Computer located in the Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy namespace. The processing of Group Policy is explained in the Core Group Policy Technical Reference.

Q. How long does it take to process policy settings?
A. Under synchronous processing, there is a time limit of 60 minutes for all of Group Policy to finish processing on the client computer. Any client side extensions (CSE) that are not finished after 60 minutes are signaled to stop, in which case the associated policy settings might not be fully applied.

Q. What is processed under slow link behavior?
A. Administrative Templates and Security Settings are applied over a slow link and the behavior cannot be changed. By default, Software Installation, Scripts, and Folder Redirection will not process over a slow link. You can change the default Policy process behavior for these client side extensions using Group Policy Object Editor. These settings are located at Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy.

Q. What is Security Policy?
A. Security policies are rules that administrators configure on a computer or multiple computers for protecting resources on a computer or network. The Security Settings extension of the Group Policy Object Editor snap-in allows you to define security configurations as part of a Group Policy object (GPO). The GPOs are linked to Active Directory containers such as sites, domains, or organizational units, and enable administrators to manage security settings for multiple computers from any computer joined to the domain. Security settings policies are used as part of your overall security implementation to help secure domain controllers, servers, clients, and other resources in your organization.

Q. Where is the local Security Policy stored?
A. The security database in Windows 2000 had a specific table to store local security policy settings. This approach was changed in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Local security policy settings are written directly to their respective locations in the registry.

Q. I removed some security settings but they are still in effect. Why?
A. Under some circumstances, Windows Security Settings remain in effect after being set to undefined. In some cases, these security settings need to be explicitly overwritten to be removed. For more information, see Windows Security Settings remain in effect after removal.

Q. What is loop back processing?
A. Group Policy loop back processing can be used to alter the application of GPOs to a user by including GPOs based on the location of the computer object. The typical way to use loop back processing is to apply GPOs that depend on the computer to which the user logs on.

Creating And Maintaining System State Backups On Your Windows Server 2008 Domain Controller

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 06:30:02 PDT

Requirements

a. A secondary hard drive on the domain controller. It cannot be a network drive.
The only storage point possible for backing up your server is using a secondary hard drive that can only be attached locally.

b. Having the Windows Server Backup feature installed.
The first thing that you must know to start backing up data from Windows Server 2008 is that the backup tool is not installed by default, like it was on Windows Server 2003 with ntbackup. To install it:

a. Open Windows Server Manager snap-in

b. Access Features section and click on Add a New Feature

c. Select Windows Server Backup including the sub-item “Command Line Tools”

i. This will also need Powershell

d. Click on Install.

Scheduling System State Backup

If you check the GUI of the Windows Server Backup you’ll see that there’s no way to backup the system state from there:

The only way to backup the system state using this tool is using the command line. So, to use this backup feature as a scheduled task, we are going to create a .bat file and schedule this batch file to run on our desired time (actually you can skip creating the .bat file, and just use task scheduler with the right parameters).

1. Open notepad and insert:
@echo off
WBADMIN START SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP –backuptarget:e: -quiet
“e:” is your local hard drive where the backup catalog will be stored.
“-quiet”: is the parameter used to not ask for confirmation

2. Save it as a batch file. Like: systemstatebackup.bat
3. Open Task Scheduler and create a “New Task”. The task properties window will open.

4. On the “General” tab select:

a. “Run whether the user is logged or not”

b. “Run with the highest privileges”

5. On the “Triggers” tab, click on “New”:
Here is where you select how often the backup task will run. This is an example of a task running weekly:

6. On “Actions” click on “New” and select to “Start a Program” and browse the batch file you just created.

7. Click on “OK” and the schedule task is ready.

You can manually run this task on demand by right-clicking it and selecting “Run”.
This task to complete takes between 40 minutes to 1 hour (or even more), depending on the system state data (Active Directory, DNS, registry, certificates, etc).
This is the process running

I have the backup… but what a hell is this??

Probably your first impression on the backup won’t be the best:
You don’t have permissions to see the backup files at first

You don’t see a simple .bkf file as it was when you used ntbackup

The size of every backup (that means every time you run the task) is as much as the size of the system drive

After all that, maintaining those backups sounds a little bit hard to do, the backup hard drive will significantly increase in a few weeks and for sure, you won’t be feeling much comfortable if you just try to delete.

Keeping It Simple… and smaller

But not of these annoying things are here to just making our work a little bit hard and awkward. Besides from adding a new layer of security to our backups, it also the maintenance of the old backups will actually get simpler.
You can create a new scheduled task that will keep every week (if that’s your case) only the newer backups on your catalog:

WBADMIN DELETE SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP –backuptarget:e: -deleteOldest –quiet
This way you will prevent from the backup hard drive to easily increase enormously. A good thing to keep in mind if you are working with virtual machines, you’ll probably know that it’s REALLY annoying having a big size virtual disk, and not being able to decrease their size (not an easy way anyhow).

This is the cmd running and deleting an old backup from system state (without the -quiet parameter).

Converting Fat32 To Ntfs File System

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 06:29:31 PDT

Converting to NTFS

Your hard drive must be formatted with a file system such as FAT, FAT32 or NTFS so that Windows can be installed on to it. This system determines how files are named, organised and stored on the drive. If you’re not using it already, NTFS (New Technology File System) is recommended for Windows XP because of the additional functionality it offers. If your PC came with Windows XP pre-installed then there’s a chance that you’re already using NTFS. If you’ve upgraded from Windows 98 or Windows Me you may still be using FAT or FAT 32. The option to change over to NTFS would have been available during the upgrade process. Don’t worry if you skipped this as it’s possible to convert at any time from within Windows XP without losing any data.

The recommended option

There are a number of features in Windows XP that will only work if the NTFS file system is present, which is why it’s suggested you make use of it. File and folder permissions, encryption and privacy options are just some of those you’ll be able to access. In particular, those of you who have set up user accounts will find NTFS invaluable. For instance, if you continue to use FAT or FAT32 anyone with physical access to the drive will be able to access the files and folders that are stored there. However, with NTFS you’ll be able to use a level of encryption (Professional Edition only) that will enable you to protect your data.
You’ll also find NTFS more reliable in that it’s more able to recover from disk errors than its FAT or FAT32 counterparts. A log of all disk activity is kept so should a crash occur, Windows XP can use this information to repair the file system when your PC boots up again. To find out what file system you’re using, open My Computer, right-click your main hard drive and choose Properties. Take a look at the General tab to see confirmation of the file system that’s in use.

Convert now

You can use the convert tool in Windows XP to change the file system on your hard disk from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS. The whole process is safe and your existing data won’t be destroyed. To begin, click Start -> Run, type cmd and press [Return]. At the command prompt type convert c: /fs:ntfs and press [Return] (where ‘c’ is the letter of the drive you’re converting). When you try and run the convert utility, it’s likely that Windows XP will be using your paging file so the process won’t be completed immediately. Therefore, you’ll see a brief message on screen informing you that the conversion will take place instead the next time Windows starts up. Having restarted, the Check Disk utility will run, the conversion will be performed automatically and you may find that your PC will reboot twice more.

The benefits

With your drive now running NTFS, it’s time to take advantage of the new options that are available. Having created a number of different user accounts you can now control the level of access that’s granted to individual users. For example, there are going to be certain files and folders that you’ll want some users to be able to access but not others. If you have Windows XP Professional Edition you can do this immediately.
Right-click any file or folder, choose Properties and select the Security tab. A dialog will be displayed showing the names of all your users. Alongside will be two columns which enable you to select levels of access for each of them, the permissions include Full Control, Modify, Read and Write. You can then check the appropriate box to determine whether or not to Allow or Deny a particular permission. For Windows XP Home Edition users, the Security tab won’t be immediately available. To access this option you’ll need to restart your PC, pressing [F8] until a menu appears. Next select Safe Mode and wait for Windows XP to start up. You can then set your options in the same way.

Another feature is NTFS compression. It’s quick and seamless as your file or folder is decompressed automatically when you access it. (Don’t confuse this with a Zip compression utility where the files need to be extracted before they can be accessed.) Although you may have used NTFS compression on a file or folder, there’s no way of telling just by looking at it. To remedy this, open My Computer, click Tools -> Folder Options and select the View tab. Under Advanced settings, scroll down and check the option ‘Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color’, then click Apply and OK. Take a look at your compressed items in My Computer and you’ll see the text label has changed from black to blue. Something else that’s exclusive to Professional Edition users is the Encrypting File System (EFS). You can use this to protect your important data so that no one else can read it. Your encrypted files and folders will only be accessible when you have logged into your user account successfully.

Do you want to share large file(s) with your friends? Free Utilities To Download Files From Free File Hosting Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:59:31 PDT

Rapidshare.com, Megaupload.com, FileServe.com, HotFile.com are some examples of the file-hosting sites. Anyone can use them to Download / Upload their documents, music, movies, applications etc.,

Just follow the 3 steps:

Upload your files there.
Get the download links.
Share those links with your friends through e-mail.

If you are the premium member of those sites, you can enjoy download / upload without any limitation. These sites are not user friendly for non premium members. If you are the free user, you need to wait before download, and need to enter CAPTCHA for sometimes. Parallel and resume download options are not available for free users.
Here I’m listing the most popular and freeware utilities to download files from Rapidshare, Megaupload, Hotfile, FileServe sites.

JDownloader
Open source and java based cross platform downloader. It helps to download files from Rapidshare, Megaupload. It provides parallel download, CAPTCHA recognition. It needs JAVA as prerequisite.

Mipony
It automates the downloading process. It has an embedded web browser. You do not need Premium account. It manages all restrictions against non premium members. It updates automatically and constantly adding new free file hosting sites.

MDownloader
It has builtin OCR engine to recognize CAPTCHA, but sometimes it needs manual CAPTCHA validation. It needs Microsoft Dot Net Framework 3.5 SP1 as prerequisite.

viewing the forest and domain functional level in the active directory.

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:41:07 PDT

Step 1 :- Open the active directory users and computers mmc snap in console. By executing the command dsa.msc .

Step2 :- Right click on the root domain and click properties. now domain properties will open. From there we can view the domain and forest functional levels under in the general tab.

We can view the information from windows xp and windows server. In windows xp , windows 2003 support should be installed to view the information .For more information watch the below video.

XenApp6.5 Technical Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 09:21:05 PDT

Now at Tech Preview stage, XenApp 6.5 (previously known as Project Iron Cove) has been in development for over a year, and since this beta is now available for public download the final release should available in around August 2011.
The downloads can be found here:
http://citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1861926&productId=186
You'll need a MyCitrix logon which access to XenApp, and make sure you get both parts - the (huge) iso file and the license file. The ISO is too big to burn to a single layer DVD anyway, so just extract it with 7zip or a similar product to a shared location all your servers can use.

XenApp 6.5 is clearly less of a revolution than the last two major releases, XenApp 5 and XenApp 6. Both of these introduced support for new Operating Systems as a big part of the release, and though nearly every main component of XenApp is upgraded in the release of XenApp 6.5, its more of a gradual evolution from version 6. The look and feel of both the management tools and the front end should be pretty familiar to anyone with a good knowledge of XenApp 6.
New features introduced in XenApp 6, such as PowerShell management capabilities, Active Directory policies and the unified management management console remain and are developed further. The Operating System requirements for XenApp 6.5 are unchanged – the 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 only (I would strongly recommend SP1 as well). As in XenApp 6, some components such as Web Interface can probably go on older OSs, but I would personally use 2008 R2 for all server roles.
One interesting change in the client tools is that the Citrix Online Plugin v12.1 seems to be replaced by the Citrix Receiver v13 – not something everyone might welcome.
This is a version number comparison of the main components between the Tech Preview of XenApp 6.5 and its predecessor, XenApp 6:

Component	XenApp 6	XenApp 6.5

EdgeSight	5.3	5.4
EdgeSight for Load Testing	3.7	3.8
License Server	11.6.1 build 10007	11.9.0 build 11007
Offline plug-in	6.0.1 (later 6.0.2)	6.0.37
Online plug-in	11.2 (later 12.1)	Citrix Receiver v13
Power and Capacity Management	2.0	2.1
Secure Gateway	3.2	3.3
Streaming Profiler	6.0.0.1	6.5.0.6
Web Interface	5.2 (later 5.3)	5.4
Single Sign-On	4.8	5.0

New Features
This is a quick rundown of the new features in XenApp 6.5, as seen in this Tech Preview. I’ll cover some of these in more depth later, once I’ve documented the installation of a test farm.

New Server types – this is similar to a feature which was meant to be in XenApp 6, but which never appeared. That was the idea of having dedicated Data Collectors – XenApp servers which could only be DCs and which presumably would be stripped down. This is that idea in reverse, with servers being either capable of doing all roles (“Controller Servers”), or only hosting applications (“Session-Only Servers”), and not being Data Collectors. They lack features such as XML service and don’t participate in Zone Data Collector elections.
XenApp Connector for Configuration Manager 2007 – Lets you use SCCM to manage windows updates and publish applications on the XenApp servers
Session Prelaunch – for client PCs with v13 or later of the client only, Session Linger creates a connection with the farm under configurable conditions, such as a user logging onto a PC. This sounds great, although those sessions will take up both server resources and concurrent user licenses. And frankly users can achieve something like this by putting a Citrix application in their Startup folder. That said, its innovative and will be very useful for some people. As long as it doesn’t become compulsory.
Session Linger – extending the other end of a normal Citrix session, Linger means that when a user closes all their apps, their connection stays open for while in case they launch another app, saving the time to log back into the farm. Streamed to Server apps in XenApp 5 and 6 work this way already by default, with a 5 minute linger. Personally I turn this off already to save load.
Fast Reconnect – unlike Linger and Prelaunch this doesn’t need to be configured. It claims to reduce the time to reconnect to existing sessions. We’ll see.
Power and Capacity Management – This is now enhanced with the ability to power on Hyper-V and VMware based XenApp Servers.
Load Evaluator changes – Load Evaluators are no longer assigned to servers, but to Worker Groups or OUs.
Application Streaming support for VHDs - This feature copies the profile contents into the VHD and mounts it in the RadeCache location at application launch.
Application Streaming improvements – other changes to streaming include handling the AppHubWhiteList registry key better (it was a pain in XenApp 6) and launch time improvements, especially in Outlook apparently! Outlook 2010 streamed was not good in XenApp 6 so that sounds good.
AppCenter – yes, they’ve renamed the management console AGAIN.
Migration Center – a tool to help migrate from previous versions of XenApp
Printer Optimizations – printing has been getting better and better recently, with the dynamic printer mappings being added to XenApp by a Hotfix and the 12.1 being especially good. XenApp 6.5 builds on this, further improving printing.
Windows Desktop Integration Experience – A Windows 7 look and feel for published desktops – it has to be said this wasn’t terribly hard to accomplish in XenApp 6, but it sounds easier to turn on. It’ll be interesting to see whether this includes Aero.
HDX Enhancements – Generally better apparently.
Multi Stream ICA Client – v13 of the client is now multi streamed, meaning it can connect over multiple ports at the same time (this is configurable), improving performance.

install Windows 8 on VMware virtual machine

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 10:38:05 PDT

How to install Windows 8 on VMware virtual machine

We have seen couple of Windows 8 leaks by now and most of you may like to test it.Installing and reinstalling may be a tedious task so today we would like to write a tutorial as how to install Windows 8 on VMware virtual machine which would ease your work.
First of all the minimum system configuration of Windows 8 is similar to Windows 7 so you should atleast have the following configurations-

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

Here are the steps to install Windows 8 on VMWare Virtual machine-

First of all you need to have Windows 8 build which you have to install on virtual machine.
Download VMware player from here or from here. After downloading VMWare player just install it.VMWare can be installed on Windows XP,Windows Vista or Windows 7.
Select Create a New Virtual Machine option from the list

Now choose Installer disk image file (iso) and browse for the Windows 8 image file

In the next menu select Microsoft Windows as operating system and Windows 7 x64 if you are installing Windows 8 x64 or select Windows 7 if installing 32 bit version.

In the next menu leave the Windows Product key empty and just enter the name and password (optional).

Set the name of the Virtual machine and browse the location where you want to install it ( select where you have average 40 GB free when installing Windows 8 x64)

In the next menu enter the maximum disk-size, prefer to keep it minimum as 40 GB

In the next menu click on Customize Hardware and modify the memory if installing Windows 8 x64. Keep the memory minimum as 2 GB. You could also change the number of cores depending on your processor.

Finally click on Finish button and your Windows 8 installation on Virtual machine would start

Thanks
windows8beta

google+ wiki, google+ new social networking sites.

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:51:10 PDT

HOMEPAGE

Google+ is a social networking service operated by Google. The service launched on June 28, 2011, in an invite-only testing phase. Google+ will be built as a layer that not only integrates different Google social services, such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz, but also introduces many new features including Circles, Hangouts, Sparks and Huddles. It has been said that this is Google's biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook, which had over half a billion users in 2010.

Users of Google+ will be able to see updates from those in their circles through the "Stream," which is similar to Facebook's news feed. The input box allows users to enter a status update or use icons to upload and share photo and videos.
google+ invitation, google+ project, google+ login, google+news, google+reader, google+maps

How to get List all member of a group in AD

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:45:01 PDT

Copy the below code and edit as ur requirement and save it as extension .vbs

On Error Resume Next

Set objGroup = GetObject _
("LDAP://cn=Scientists,ou=R&D,dc=NA,dc=fabrikam,dc=com")
objGroup.GetInfo

arrMemberOf = objGroup.GetEx("member")

WScript.Echo "Members:"
For Each strMember in arrMemberOf
WScript.echo strMember
Next

How to Backup and Move DHCP Server to another server

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:43:00 PDT

Step 1 :- In Server, navigate to a command prompt.

Step 2 :- Type the following command :netsh

Step 3 :- Type the following command :DHCP

Step 3 :- Type the following Command: server <\\Name or IP Address >

Step 4 :-  Type the following Command: export c:\w2k3DHCPdb all

Note : - you should have local administrator permission to export data.

Import the DHCP database

1.       Copy the exported DHCP database file to the local hard disk of the Windows Server 2008-based computer.

2.       Install the DHCP Role on the server.

3.       Stop the DHCP server service on the server. To do this, follow these steps:

4.       Log on to the target DHCP server by using an account that is a member of the local Administrators group.

5.      Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.

6. At the command prompt, type net stop DHCPserver , and then press ENTER. You receive a"TheMicrosoft DHCP Server service is stopping. The Microsoft DHCP Server service was stopped successfully" message.

7.      Type exit, and then press ENTER.

8.       Delete the DHCP.mdb file under c:\windows\system32\DHCP folder.

9.       Start the DHCP server service.

10.       Right-click on the Command Prompt (cmd) and select run as administrator, to open the cmd prompt using elevated privileges.

Note you should have local administrator permission to Import data..

11.   Type the following Command: netsh

12.   Type the following Command: DHCP

13.   Type the following Command: server <\\Name or IP Address>

10.   Type the following Command: import c:\w2k3DHCPdb

11.   Restart DHCP and verify the database has moved over properly.

Simple command to disable inactive accounts in active directory, the command dsquery.

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:42:00 PDT

"dsquery user -inactive 24 | dsmod user -disabled yes"

Here i have specified 24, is equal to 24 weeks. if u want to disable inactive accounts last two weeks, just u need to specify only 2.

List of Ports required for Domain Controller and Clients

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:41:48 PDT

UDP Port 88 for Kerberos authentication
UDP and TCP Port 135 for domain controllers-to-domain controller and client to domain controller operations.
TCP Port 139 and UDP 138 for File Replication Service between domain controllers.
UDP Port 389 for LDAP to handle normal queries from client computers to the domain controllers.
TCP and UDP Port 445 for File Replication Service
TCP and UDP Port 464 for Kerberos Password Change
TCP Port 3268 and 3269 for Global Catalog from client to domain controller.
TCP and UDP Port 53 for DNS from client to domain controller and domain controller to domain controller.

Desktop Engineer FAQs / IT Interview Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:54:00 PDT

1) What is Active Directory?
A central component of the Windows platform, Active Directory directory service provides the means to manage the identities and relationships that make up network environments. For example we can create, manage and administrator users, computers and printers in the network from active directory.
2) What is DNS? Why it is used? What is “forward lookup” and “reverse lookup” in DNS? What are A records and mx records?
DNS is domain naming service and is used for resolving names to IP address and IP addresses to names. The computer understands only numbers while we can easily remember names. So to make it easier for us what we do is we assign names to computers and websites. When we use these names (Like yahoo.com) the computer uses DNS to convert to IP address (number) and it executes our request.
Forward lookup: Converting names to IP address is called forward lookup.
Reverse lookup: Resolving IP address to names is called reverse lookup.
‘A’ record: Its called host record and it has the mapping of a name to IP address. This is the record in DNS with the help of which DNS can find out the IP address of a name.
‘MX’ Record: its called mail exchanger record. Its the record needed to locate the mail servers in the network. This record is also found in DNS.
3) What id DHCP? Why it is used? What are scopes and super scopes?
DHCP: Dynamic host configuration protocol. Its used to allocate IP addresses to large number of PCs in a network environment. This makes the IP management very easy.
Scope: Scope contains IP address like subnet mask, gateway IP, DNS server IP and exclusion range which a client can use to communicate with the other PCs in the network.
Superscope: When we combine two or more scopes together its called super scope.
4) What are the types of LAN cables used? What is a cross cable?
Types of LAN cables that are in use are “Cat 5″ and “Cat 6″. “Cat 5″ can support 100 Mbps of speed and “CAT 6″ can support 1Gbps of speed.
Cross cable: Its used to connect same type of devices without using a switch/hub so that they can communicate.
5) What is the difference between a normal LAN cable and cross cable? What could be the maximum length of the LAN cable?
The way the paired wires are connected to the connector (RJ45) is different
in cross cable and normal LAN cable.
The theoretical length is 100 meters but after 80 meters you may see drop in speed due to loss of signal.
6) What would you use to connect two computers without using switches?
Cross cable.
7) What is IPCONFIG command? Why it is used?
IPCONFIG command is used to display the IP information assigned to a computer. From the output we can find out the IP address, DNS IP address, gateway IP address assigned to that computer.
What is APIPA IP address? Or what IP address is assigned to the computer when the DHCP server is not available?
When DHCP server is not available the Windows client computer assigns an automatic IP address to itself so that it can communicate with the network computers. This ip address is called APIPA. ITs in the range of 169.254.X.X.
APIPA stands for Automatic private IP addressing. Its in the range of 169.254.X.X.
9) What is a DOMAIN? What is the difference between a domain and a workgroup?
Domain is created when we install Active Directory. It’s a security boundary which is used to manage computers inside the boundary. Domain can be used to centrally administrator computers and we can govern them using common policies called group policies.
We can’t do the same with workgroup.
10) Do you know how to configure outlook 2000 and outlook 2003 for a user?
Please visit the link below to find out how to configure outlook 2000 and outlook 2003. http://www.it.cmich.edu/quickguides/qg_outlook2003_server.asp
11) What is a PST file and what is the difference between a PST file and OST file? What file is used by outlook express?
PST file is used to store the mails locally when using outlook 2000 or 2003. OST file is used when we use outlook in cached exchanged mode. Outlook express used odb file.
12) What is BSOD? What do you do when you get blue screen in a computer? How do you troubleshoot it?
BSOD stands for blue screen of Death. when there is a hardware or OS fault due to which the windows OS can run it give a blue screen with a code. Best way to resolve it is to boot the computer is “Last known good configuration”.
If this doesn’t work than boot the computer in safe mode. If it boots up than the problems with one of the devices or drivers.
13) What is RIS? What is Imaging/ghosting?
RIS stands for remote installation services. You save the installed image on a windows server and then we use RIS to install the configured on in the new hardware. We can use it to deploy both server and client OS. Imaging or ghosting also does the same job of capturing an installed image and then install it on a new hardware when there is a need. We go for RIS or imaging/ghosting because installing OS every time using a CD can be a very time consuming task. So to save that time we can go for RIS/Ghosting/imaging.
14) What is VPN and how to configure it?
VPN stands for Virtual private network. VPN is used to connect to the corporate network to access the resources like mail and files in the LAN. VPN can be configured using the steps mentioned in the KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305550
15) Your computer slowly drops out of network. A reboot of the computer
fixes the problem. What to do to resolve this issue?
Update the network card driver.
16) Your system is infected with Virus? How to recover the data?
Install another system. Install the OS with the lates patches, Antivirus with latest updates. Connect the infected HDD as secondary drive in the system. Once done scan and clean the secondary HDD. Once done copy the files to the new system.
17) How to join a system to the domain? What type of user can add a system to the domain?
Please visit the article below and read “Adding the Workstation to the Domain” http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologi /directory/
18) What is the difference between a switch and a hub?
Switch sends the traffic to the port to which its meant for. Hub sends the traffic to all the ports.
19) What is a router? Why we use it?
Router is a switch which uses routing protocols to process and send the traffic. It also receives the traffic and sends it across but it uses the routing protocols to do so.
20) What are manageable and non manageable switches?
Switches which can be administered are called manageable switches. For example we can create VLAN for on such switch. On no manageable switches we can’t do so.

ADS FAQ / Active Directory based Interview Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:53:00 PDT

1. What is Active Directory?
2. What is LDAP?
3. Can you connect Active Directory to other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name a few options.
4. Where is the AD database held? What other folders are related to AD?
5. What is the SYSVOL folder?
6. Name the AD NCs and replication issues for each NC
7. What are application partitions? When do I use them
8. How do you create a new application partition
9. How do you view replication properties for AD partitions and DCs?
10. What is the Global Catalog?
11. How do you view all the GCs in the forest?
12. Why not make all DCs in a large forest as GCs?
13. Trying to look at the Schema, how can I do that?
14. What are the Support Tools? Why do I need them?
15. What is LDP? What is REPLMON? What is ADSIEDIT? What is NETDOM? What is REPADMIN?
16. What are sites? What are they used for?
17. What’s the difference between a site link’s schedule and interval?
18. What is the KCC?
19. What is the ISTG? Who has that role by default?
20. What are the requirements for installing AD on a new server?
21. What can you do to promote a server to DC if you’re in a remote location with slow WAN link?
22. How can you forcibly remove AD from a server, and what do you do later? • Can I get user passwords from the AD database?
23. What tool would I use to try to grab security related packets from the wire?
24. Name some OU design considerations.
25. What is tombstone lifetime attribute?
26. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 DC in a Windows 2000 AD?
27. What do you do to install a new Windows 2003 R2 DC in a Windows 2003 AD?
28. How would you find all users that have not logged on since last month?
29. What are the DS* commands?
30. What’s the difference between LDIFDE and CSVDE? Usage considerations?
31. What are the FSMO roles? Who has them by default? What happens when each one fails?
32. What FSMO placement considerations do you know of?
33. I want to look at the RID allocation table for a DC. What do I do?
34. What’s the difference between transferring a FSMO role and seizing one? Which one should you NOT seize? Why?
35. How do you configure a “stand-by operation master” for any of the roles?
36. How do you backup AD?
37. How do you restore AD?
38. How do you change the DS Restore admin password?
39. Why can’t you restore a DC that was backed up 4 months ago?
40. What are GPOs?
41. What is the order in which GPOs are applied?
42. Name a few benefits of using GPMC.
43. What are the GPC and the GPT? Where can I find them?
44. What are GPO links? What special things can I do to them?
45. What can I do to prevent inheritance from above?
46. How can I override blocking of inheritance?
47. How can you determine what GPO was and was not applied for a user? Name a few ways to do that.
48. A user claims he did not receive a GPO, yet his user and computer accounts are in the right OU, and everyone else there gets the GPO. What will you look for?
49. Name a few differences in Vista GPOs
50. Name some GPO settings in the computer and user parts.
51. What are administrative templates?
52. What’s the difference between software publishing and assigning?
53. Can I deploy non-MSI software with GPO?
54. You want to standardize the desktop environments (wallpaper, My Documents, Start menu, printers etc.) on the computers in one department. How would you do that?

Sharepoint FAQs / Interview Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:52:00 PDT

What is Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services? How is it related to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services — a key piece of the information worker infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 — provides additional functionality to the Microsoft Office system and other desktop applications, and it serves as a platform for application development.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide additional capabilities including collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence.
What is Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server?

SharePoint Portal Server is a portal server that connects people, teams, and knowledge across business processes. SharePoint Portal Server integrates information from various systems into one secure solution through single sign-on and enterprise application integration capabilities. It provides flexible deployment and management tools, and facilitates end-to-end collaboration through data aggregation, organization, and searching. SharePoint Portal Server also enables users to quickly find relevant information through customization and personalization of portal content and layout as well as through audience targeting.
What is Microsoft Windows Services?

Microsoft Windows Services is the engine that allows administrators to create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services provides additional functionality to the Microsoft Office System and other desktop applications, as well as serving as a plat form for application development. SharePoint sites provide communities for team collaboration, enabling users to work together on documents, tasks, and projects. The environment for easy and flexible deployment, administration, and application development.
What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows Services?

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible deployment and management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team collaboration, while Share Point Portal Server connects these sites, people, and business processes—facilitating knowledge sharing and smart organizations. SharePoint Portal Server also extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organizational and management tools for SharePoint sites, and by enabling teams to publish information to the entire organization.
Who is Office SharePoint Server 2007 designed for?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, and application developers.
What are the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.
* Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management of their electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar, everyday applications.

* Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners across organizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Services–driven solutions.

* Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through the facilitated information-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, access to back-end data is achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can be personalized.

* Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, and system administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.

* Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office Business Applications, that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease of deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box application services, developers can build richer applications with less code.
What is the difference between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usage rights are different.
If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase client access licenses. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition can only be used for Internet facing websites and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to non-employees. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an Intranet Portal scenario. See the previous section on licensing for more information on the usage scenarios.
What suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system work with Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries, discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.
Microsoft Office Groove 2007, included as part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enable bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries.
Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be enabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.
Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the new Office Excel 2007 file format (XLSX).

How do I invite users to join a Windows SharePoint Services Site? Is the site secure?
SharePoint-based Web sites can be password-protected to restrict access to registered users, who are invited to join via e-mail. In addition, the site administrator can restrict certain members’ roles by assigning different permission levels to view post and edit.
Can I post any kind of document?

You can post documents in many formats, including .pdf, .htm and .doc. In addition, if you are using Microsoft Office XP, you can save documents directly to your Windows SharePoint Services site.
Can I download information directly from a SharePoint site to a personal digital assistant (PDA)?

No you cannot. However, you can exchange contact information lists with Microsoft Outlook.
How long does it take to set up the initial team Web site?

It only takes a few minutes to create a complete Web site. Preformatted forms let you and your team members contribute to the site by filling out lists. Standard forms include announcements, events, contacts, tasks, surveys, discussions and links.
Can I create custom templates?

Yes you can. You can have templates for business plans, doctor’s office, lawyer’s office etc.
How can I make my site public? By default, all sites are created private.
If you want your site to be a public Web site, enable anonymous access for the entire site. Then you can give out your URL to anybody in your business card, e-mail or any other marketing material. The URL for your Web site will be: http:// yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com
Hence, please take special care to name your site. These Web sites are ideal for information and knowledge intensive sites and/or sites where you need to have shared Web workspace. Remember: Under each parent Web site, you can create up to 10 sub-sites each with unique permissions, settings and security rights.
How do the sub sites work?

You can create a sub site for various categories. For example:
* Departments – finance, marketing, IT

* Products – electrical, mechanical, hydraulics

* Projects – Trey Research, Department of Transportation, FDA

* Team – Retention team, BPR team

* Clients – new clients, old clients

* Suppliers – Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3

* Customers – Customer A, Customer B, Customer C

* Real estate – property A, property B
The URLs for each will be, for example:
* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance

* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketing
You can keep track of permissions for each team separately so that access is restricted while maintaining global access to the parent site.
How do I make my site non-restricted?

If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site on the Internet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of the site), follow these simple steps:
1. Login as an administrator

2. Click on site settings

3. Click on Go to Site Administration

4. Click on Manage anonymous access

5. Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:
*

o Entire Web site

o Lists and libraries

o Nothing
Default condition is nothing; your site has restricted access. The default conditions allow you to create a secure site for your Web site.
Can I get domain name for my Web site?

Unfortunately, no. At this point, we don’t offer domain names for SharePoint sites. But very soon we will be making this available for all our SharePoint site customers. Please keep checking this page for further update on this. Meanwhile, we suggest you go ahead and set up your site and create content for it.

What are picture libraries?
Picture libraries allow you to access a photo album and view it as a slide show or thumbnails or a film strip. You can have separate folder for each event, category, etc

What are the advantages of a hosted SharePoint vs. one that is on an in-house server?
* No hardware investment, i.e. lower costs

* No software to download – ready to start from the word go

* No IT resources – Anyone who has used a Web program like Hotmail can use it

* Faster deployment
Can I ask users outside of my organization to participate in my Windows SharePoint Services site?

Yes. You can manage this process using the Administration Site Settings. Simply add users via their e-mail alias and assign permissions such as Reader or Contributor.

Are there any IT requirements or downloads required to set up my SharePoint site?
No. You do not need to download any code or plan for any IT support. Simply complete the on-line signup process and provide us your current and correct email address. Once you have successfully signed up and your site has been provisioned, we will send a confirmation to the email address you provided.

I am located outside of the United States.
Are there any restrictions or requirements for accessing the Windows SharePoint Services?

No. There are no system or bandwidth limitations for international trial users. Additionally language packs have been installed which allow users to set up sub-webs in languages other than English. These include: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.
Are there any browser recommendations?

Yes. Microsoft recommends using the following browsers for viewing and editing Windows SharePoint Services sites: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 with Service Pack 2, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 with Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later.
What security levels are assigned to users?

Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels by default and additional levels can be composed as necessary.
* Reader – Has read-only access to the Web site.

* Contributor – Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.

* Web Designer – Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.

* Administrator – Has full control of the Web site.
How secure are Windows SharePoint Services sites hosted by Microsoft?

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Technical security measures provide firewall protection, intrusion detection, and web-publishing rules. The Microsoft operation center team tests and deploys software updates in order to maintain the highest level of security and software reliability. Software hot-fixes and service packs are tested and deployed based on their priority and level of risk. Security related hot-fixes are rapidly deployed into the environment to address current threats. A comprehensive software validation activity ensures software stability through regression testing prior to deployment.
What is the difference between an Internet and an intranet site?

An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.msn.com, www.microsoft.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by anyone without any user name and password. The internet is used for public presence and a primary marketing tool managed typically by web programmers and a system administrator.
An intranet (or internal network), though hosted on a Web site, can only be accessed by people who are members of a specific network. They need to have a login and password that was assigned to them when they were added to the site by the site administrator. The intranet is commonly used as an internal tool for giving employees access to company information. Content is driven by business relevance, business rules and has increasingly become a common tool in larger organizations. An intranet is becoming more and more the preferred method for employees to interact with each other and the central departments in an organization, whether or not the organization has a Web presence.
What is a workspace?

A site or workspace is when you want a new place for collaborating on Web pages, lists and document libraries. For example, you might create a site to manage a new team or project, collaborate on a document or prepare for a meeting.

What are the various kinds of roles the users can have?
A user can be assigned one of the following roles
* Reader – Has read-only access to the Web site.

* Contributor – Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.

* Web Designer – Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.

* Administrator – Has full control of the Web site.
Can more than one person use the same login?

If the users sharing that login will have the same permissions and there is no fear of them sharing a password, then yes. Otherwise, this is discouraged.

How customizable is the user-to-user access?
User permissions apply to an entire Web, not to documents themselves. However, you can have additional sub webs that can optionally have their own permissions. Each user can be given any of four default roles. Additional roles can be defined by the administrator.
Can each user have access to their own calendar?

Yes there are two ways to do this,
* by creating a calendar for each user, or

* by creating a calendar with a view for each user

How many files can I upload?
There is no restriction in place except that any storage consumed beyond that provided by the base offering may have an additional monthly charge associated with them.
What types of files can I upload / post to the site?

The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc, .idq. Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content that violates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.
Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?

SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint can be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external data source.

Can SharePoint be linked to a SQL database?
SharePoint 2007 Portal Server (MOSS2K7) allows connections to SQL based datasources via the Business Data Catalog (BDC). The BDC also allows connecting to data via Web Services.
Can I customize my Windows SharePoint Services site?

YES! Windows SharePoint Services makes updating sites and their content from the browser easier then ever.
SharePoint includes tools that let you create custom lists, calendars, page views, etc. You can apply a theme; add List, Survey and Document Library Web Parts to a page; create personal views; change logos; connect Web Parts and more.
To fully customize your site, you can use Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Specifically, you can use FrontPage themes and shared borders, and also use FrontPage to create photo galleries and top ten lists, utilize standard usage reports, and integrate automatic Web content.
Will Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 run on a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows?

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.
How Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help you?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help us:
Manage content and streamline processes. Comprehensively manage and control unstructured content like Microsoft Office documents, Web pages, Portable Document Format file (PDF) files, and e-mail messages. Streamline business processes that are a drain on organizational productivity.
Improve business insight. Monitor your business, enable better-informed decisions, and respond proactively to business events.
Find and share information more simply. Find information and expertise wherever they are located. Share knowledge and simplify working with others within and across organizational boundaries.
Empower IT to make a strategic impact. Increase responsiveness of IT to business needs and reduce the number of platforms that have to be maintained by supporting all the intranet, extranet, and Web applications across the enterprise with one integrated platform.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities can help improve organizational effectiveness by connecting people, processes, and information.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides these capabilities in an integrated server offering, so your organization doesn’t have to integrate fragmented technology solutions itself.
What are the features that the portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include?

The portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include features that are especially useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet Web sites, and divisional portal sites. The portal components make it easier to connect to people within the organization who have the right skills, knowledge, and project experience.
What are the advanced features of MOSS 2007?

* User Interface (UI) and navigation enhancements

* Document management enhancements

* The new Workflow engine

* Office 2007 Integration

* New Web Parts

* New Site-type templates

* Enhancements to List technology

* Web Content Management

* Business Data Catalog

* Search enhancements

* Report Center

* Records Management

* Business Intelligence and Excel Server

* Forms Server and InfoPath

* The “Features” feature

* Alternate authentication providers and Forms-based authentication
What are the features of the new Content management in Office SharePoint 2007?

The new and enhanced content management features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 fall within three areas:
* Document management

* Records management

* Web content management
Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management functionality provided by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning, metadata, and role-based granular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver enhanced authoring, business document processing, Web content management and publishing, records management, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.
Does a SharePoint Web site include search functionality?

Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you find documents and information fast.

Write the features of the search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007?
The search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been significantly enhanced by this release of SharePoint Products and Technologies. New features provide:
* A consistent and familiar search experience.

* Increased relevance of search results.

* New functions to search for people and expertise.

* Ability to index and search data in line-of-business applications and

* Improved manageability and extensibility.
What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

* Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.

* Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.

* Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.

* Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.

* Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across disparate systems.

* Connect people with information and expertise.

* Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.

* Share business data without divulging sensitive information.

* Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in one central location.

* Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.
Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?

The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.
What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?

If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provides error handling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security exceptions may cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the Web Part appears.
How can I raise the trust level for assemblies installed in the BIN directory?

Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the CLR to provide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The following table outlines the implications and requirements for each option.
Option Pros Cons
Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server. For more information, see “Setting the trust level for a virtual server” Easy to implement.
In a development environment, increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increased permissions while allowing you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resetting IIS. This option is least secure.
This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server. There is no guarantee the destination server has the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may not work once installed on the destination server.
Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see “How do I create a custom policy file?” Recommended approach.
This option is most secure.
An assembly can operate with a unique policy that meets the minimum permission requirements for the assembly.
By creating a custom security policy, you can ensure the destination server can run your Web Parts.
Requires the most configuration of all three options. Install your assemblies in the GAC
Easy to implement. This grants Full trust to your assembly without affecting the trust level of assemblies installed in the BIN directory.
This option is less secure.
Assemblies installed in the GAC are available to all virtual servers and applications on a server running Windows SharePoint Services. This could represent a potential security risk as it potentially grants a higher level of permission to your assembly across a larger scope than necessary
In a development environment, you must reset IIS every time you recompile assemblies.
Licensing issues may arise due to the global availability of your assembly.
Does SharePoint work with NFS?

Yes and no. It can crawl documents on an NFS volume, but the sharepoint database or logs cannot be stored there.
How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?

Site Server has search capabilities but these are more advanced using SharePoint. SPS uses digital dashboard technology which provides a nice interface for creating web parts and showing them on dashboards (pages). SS doesn’t have anything as advanced as that. The biggest difference would be SPS document management features which also integrate with web folders and MS Office.
What would you like to see in the next version of SharePoint?

A few suggestions:
1. SPS and STS on same machine

2. Tree view of Categories and Folders

3. General Discussion Web Part

4. Personalization of Dashboards

5. Role Customization

6. Email to say WHY a document has been rejected for Approval

7. More ways to customize the interface

8. Backup and restore an individual Workspaces

9. Filter for Visio

10. Better way to track activity on SPS

11. Ability to Save as from Adobe to space on My Network Places
Why Sharepoint is not a viable solution for enterprise wide deployments?

Planning an enterprise deployment using SharePoint features is a very difficult task unless you can establish a Service Oriented Architecture, using AD for managing security with well defined roles based information access(EISA). Sounds reasonable, although it seems difficult to deploy with the tools limitations in document storage.
Document management does not scale beyond a single server, but scales great within a single server. For example, a quad Xeon machine with 4GB of RAM works great for a document management server that has about 900,000 – 1,000,000 document, but if you need to store 50,000,000 document and want to have them all in one single workspace then it does not scale at all. If you need a scenario like this, you need to plan your deployment right and it should scale for you, it just does not right out of the box. If you are using your server as a portal and search server most for the most part it scales great. You can have many different servers crawl content sources and have separate servers searching and serving the content.
If you have <>What are the actual advantages of SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) over SharePoint Team Services (STS)?

SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has MUCH better document management. It has check-in, check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc. STS does not have these features, or they are very scaled back. SharePoint team Services (SPS) has a better search engine, and can crawl multiple content sources. STS cannot. STS is easier to manage and much better for a team environment where there is not much Document Management going on. SPS is better for an organization, or where Document Management is crucial.
How Does SharePoint work?

The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because of the existence of this command, the packet is passed off to msdmserv.exe, who in turn processes the packet and uses EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results back to the user in the form of XML.
How do I open an older version of a document?

Normally, all previous versions are located in the shadow, so if you right click a published document from within the web folders, go to properties and then the third tab, versions you can view older versions.
If you want to do this in code:
strURL = “url of the last published version”

Set oVersion = New PKMCDO.KnowledgeVersion

Set prmRs = oVersion.VersionHistory(strURL)

Set oVersion = Nothing
prmRS will contain a recordset, which contains the url to the old versions in the shadow.
Why do the workspace virtual directories show the error “stop sign” symbol in the IIS snap-in?

If World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC) starts before Microsoft Exchange Information Store (MSExchangeIS), “stop sign” symbols appear under the Default Web Site folder of the Internet Information Services console in Microsoft Management Console (MMC).
There is a dependency between the local paths of the SharePoint Portal Server virtual directories and the MSExchangeIS. You must start MSExchangeIS first, followed by W3SVC.
Complete the following steps to prevent the stop signs from appearing each time you restart:
1. Change the Startup type for W3SVC to Manual.

2. Restart the server. The MSExchangeIS service starts automatically.

3. Start W3SVC.
What newsgroups are available?

There are two,
* microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver and

* microsoft.public.sharepoint.portalserver.development.
What is SharePoint from a Technical Perspective?

Technically SharePoint illustrates neatly what Microsoft’s .net strategy is all about: integrating Windows with the Web. Microsoft has previously made accessing stuff on a PC easier, (Windows) then on a network (NT) and now on the web (.NET). SharePoint is an application written to let a user access a web accessible directory tree called the Web Storage System.
SharePoint was written with a set of technologies that allow the programmer to pass data, functions, parameters over HTTP, the web’s medium. These are XML, XSL and SOAP, to name a few I understand the basics of!
To the user it looks easy, like Hotmail, but every time they click a button or a link, a lot has to happen behind the scenes to do what they want to do quickly and powerfully. Not as easy as you might think, but SharePoint does it for you. Accessing this Web storage system and the server itself is also done using technologies like ADO, CDO, PKMCDO, LDAP, DDSC, ADSC. More on these later. SharePoint is a great example of how the Internet Platform can be extended and integrated into an existing well adopted technology, Windows.
What is SharePoint from an Administration Perspective?

Administering SharePoint mainly consists of setting it up, which is much easier than you expect, adding the content, which can be just dragging and dropping in whole directory structures and files, and then organizing the files better by giving them categories or other metadata. This is done either through the Web interface or through the SharePoint Client: a program what means you can access SharePoint as a Web folder and then right-click files to select options like “edit profile”. Or add files by dragging them in individually or in bulk.
Setting the security is also important, using NT accounts, either NT4 or Active Directory (or both in mixed mode) you can give users access to files/folders the same way as you do in standard Windows. Users can be grouped and the groups given access privileges to help manage this better. Also SharePoint has 3 Roles that a User or Group can be given on a particular item. Readers can see the item (i.e. document/file or folder) but not change it, Authors can see and edit items and coordinators can set security privileges for the part of the system they have control over. Thus, you could set 12 different coordinators for 12 different folder trees, and they could manage who can do what within that area only.
What is SharePoint from a Users Perspective?

From a Users perspective SharePoint is a way of making documents and folders on the Windows platform accessible over the web. The user visits the SharePoint Portal web page, and from there they can add documents, change documents & delete documents. Through this Portal, these documents are now available for discussion, collaboration, versioning and being managed through a workflow. Hence the name “Share-Point”. Details about the document can be saved too, such as: who wrote it, when, for whom, its size, and version, category or target audience. These can then be used to find the document through SharePoint’s Search facility. Even documents not “in” SharePoint can be included in the search engine’s index so they become part of the portal. All in all, it’s a great way to get stuff up on the web for users with average technical skills, and for administrators to manage the content.
What are the various Sharepoint 2003 and Exchange integration points?

Link to Outlook
This is a button on contacts or events lists that lets Outlook 2003 add a pst file named Sharepoint Folders and it links to the data on the site. It’s read-only, but you could make the home page for that PST be the Sharepoint site for easier viewing. The link to outlook feature seems more to be where some can public a calendar, but not want too much collaboration. For example, a holiday schedule, company meeting schedule, etc, can be made available for people to be able to view from Outlook without having to go to a web browser. Another nice thing about OL2K3 is that you can compare these calendars with others side by side.
Searching Public Folders
With SPS you can index Exchange’s public folders with the search engine so that all that precious public folder content is searchable. You’ll want to look at content sources and indexing in Sharepoint administration.
Displaying Public Folders in a web part
Since exchange web-enables public folders, you can create a web part that displays that content. IE, http://exchangeserver/Public/IT/Helpdesk will display the IT/Helpdesk public folder via OWA. So you add the Page Viewer web part to a page and point it at that URL. The key here is to add ?cmd=contents to the end of the url if you don’t want the navigator pane on the left.
Smart web parts
Some of the web parts that come with SPS allow you to add a web part to a page that actually takes the users outlook info (calendar, inbox, contacts, tasks) and put them into the page.
The SmartPart Web Part project template for Visual Studio allows developers to create quickly a project which contains the base infrastructure to:
* write a web user control (ASCX)

* wrap the user control in a SmartPart instance

* generate a SharePoint Solution file (WSP) for easy deployment

* generate a setup package for a wizard driven installation
Can SharePoint compare two document versions?

“In Word 2003, you can compare documents side by side. Open two documents. Then, from the Window menu of one of them, select the Compare Side By Side command. If you have only two documents open, the command will automatically choose to compare them. If you have three or more documents open, you’ll have to select which document to compare with the current file.
A floating toolbar with two buttons will open. If the button on the left is selected, Word will scroll both documents at the same time. Press the button on the right side of the toolbar to return to where the cursor was located when you started comparing.”
What are the integration differences between SPS 2003 and the various Office versions?

SPS webpage can detect you have installed the Office 2003 and run local dll to implement some SPS function, e.g. multi-file upload only works when you have office 2003 installed.
Integration with Office XP is gone.
You will get guys telling you that you can integrate with SPSv2 if you install a backwards compatible document library – but that’s really just putting a bit of SPS 2001 on the server.
Believe me, check-in, check-out, which are themselves very basic, are not available from inside Office XP, or even from the context menu in Windows Explorer.
The ONLY option you have is to use the web interface to check-in or check-out.

Windows\System32\config\system” file missing or corrupt - When I start my computer, I get error message:

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:56:00 PDT

Solution::
Boot using Windows Setup CD and enter into “Recovery Console” by pressing “R”. Now Log into windows installation and enter admin password. Now give following commands at prompt:
copy %windir%\Repair\system %windir%\System32\Config
If it doesnt work, then again boot into “Recovery Console” and give following commands:

fixmbr
bootcfg /scan
bootcfg /rebuild
fixboot

Networking FAQs / Interview Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:52:00 PDT

1. What is an IP address?
2. What is a subnet mask?
3. What is ARP?
4. What is ARP Cache Poisoning?
5. What is the ANDing process?
6. What is a default gateway? What happens if I don’t have one?
7. Can a workstation computer be configured to browse the
8. Internet and yet NOT have a default gateway?
9. What is a subnet?
10. What is APIPA?
11. What is an RFC? Name a few if possible (not necessarily the
12. numbers, just the ideas behind them)
13. What is RFC 1918?
14. What is CIDR?
15. You have the following Network ID: 192.115.103.64/27. What is the IP range for your network?
16. You have the following Network ID: 131.112.0.0. You need at least 500 hosts per network. How many networks can you create? What subnet mask will you use?
17. You need to view at network traffic. What will you use? Name a few tools.
18. How do I know the path that a packet takes to the destination?
19. What does the ping 192.168.0.1 -l 1000 -n 100 command do?
20. What is DHCP? What are the benefits and drawbacks of using it?
21. Describe the steps taken by the client and DHCP server in order to obtain an IP address.
22. What is the DHCPNACK and when do I get one? Name 2 scenarios.
23. What ports are used by DHCP and the DHCP clients?
24. Describe the process of installing a DHCP server in an AD infrastructure.
25. What is DHCPINFORM?
26. Describe the integration between DHCP and DNS.
27. What options in DHCP do you regularly use for an MS network?
28. What are User Classes and Vendor Classes in DHCP?
29. How do I configure a client machine to use a specific User Class?
30. What is the BOOTP protocol used for, where might you find it in Windows network infrastructure?
31. DNS zones – describe the differences between the 4 types.
32. DNS record types – describe the most important ones.
33. Describe the process of working with an external domain name.
34. Describe the importance of DNS to AD.
35. Describe a few methods of finding an MX record for a remote domain on the Internet.
36. What does “Disable Recursion” in DNS mean?
37. What could cause the Forwarders and Root Hints to be grayed out?
38. What is a “Single Label domain name” and what sort of issues can it cause?
39. What is the “in-addr.arpa” zone used for?
40. What are the requirements from DNS to support AD?
41. How do you manually create SRV records in DNS?
42. Name 3 benefits of using AD-integrated zones.
43. What are the benefits of using Windows 2003 DNS when using AD-integrated zones?
44. You installed a new AD domain and the new (and first) DC has not registered its SRV records in DNS. Name a few possible causes.
45. What are the benefits and scenarios of using Stub zones?
46. What are the benefits and scenarios of using Conditional Forwarding?
47. What are the differences between Windows Clustering, Network Load Balancing and Round Robin, and scenarios for each use?
48. How do I work with the Host name cache on a client computer?
49. How do I clear the DNS cache on the DNS server?
50. What is the 224.0.1.24 address used for?
51. What is WINS and when do we use it?
52. Can you have a Microsoft-based network without any WINS server on it? What are the “considerations” regarding not using WINS?
53. Describe the differences between WINS push and pull replications.
54. What is the difference between tombstoning a WINS record and simply deleting it?
55. Name the NetBIOS names you might expect from a Windows 2003 DC that is registered in WINS.
56. Describe the role of the routing table on a host and on a router.
57. What are routing protocols? Why do we need them? Name a few.
58. What are router interfaces? What types can they be?
59. In Windows 2003 routing, what are the interface filters?
60. What is NAT?
61. What is the real difference between NAT and PAT?
62. How do you configure NAT on Windows 2003?
63. How do you allow inbound traffic for specific hosts on Windows 2003 NAT?
64. What is VPN? What types of VPN does Windows 2000 and beyond work with natively?
65. What is IAS? In what scenarios do we use it?
66. What’s the difference between Mixed mode and Native mode in AD when dealing with RRAS?
67. What is the “RAS and IAS” group in AD?
68. What are Conditions and Profile in RRAS Policies?
69. What types or authentication can a Windows 2003 based RRAS work with?
70. How does SSL work?
71. How does IPSec work?
72. How do I deploy IPSec for a large number of computers?
73. What types of authentication can IPSec use?
74. What is PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) in IPSec?
75. How do I monitor IPSec?
76. Looking at IPSec-encrypted traffic with a sniffer. What packet
types do I see?
77. What can you do with NETSH?
78. How do I look at the open ports on my machine?

Exchange Server 2003 FAQs / Interview Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:51:00 PDT

1. Tell me a bit about the capabilities of Exchange Server.
2. What are the different Exchange 2003 versions?
3. What’s the main differences between Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000/2003?
4. What are the major network infrastructure for installing Exchange 2003?
5. What is the latest Exchange 2003 Service Pack? Name a few changes in functionality in that SP.
6. What are the disk considerations when installing Exchange (RAID types, locations and so on).
7. You got a new HP DL380 (2U) server, dual Xeon, 4GB of RAM, 7 SAS disks, 64-bit. What do you do next to install Exchange 2003? (you have AD in place)
8. Why not install Exchange on the same machine as a DC?
9. Are there any other installation considerations?
10. How would you prepare the AD Schema in advance before installing Exchange?
11. What type or permissions do you need in order to install the first Exchange server in a forest? In a domain?
12. How would you verify that the schema was in fact updated?
13. What type of memory optimization changes could you do for Exchange 2003?
14. How would you check your Exchange configuration settings to see if they’re right?
15. What are the Exchange management tools? How and where can you install them?
16. What types of permissions are configurable for Exchange?
17. How can you grant access for an administrator to access all mailboxes on a specific server
18. What is the Send As permission?
19. What other management tools are used to manage and control Exchange 2003? Name the tools you’d use.
20. What are Exchange Recipient types? Name 5.
21. You created a mailbox for a user, yet the mailbox does not appear in ESM. Why?
22. You wanted to change mailbox access permissions for a mailbox, yet you see the SELF permission alone on the permissions list. Why?
23. What are Query Based Distribution groups?
24. What type of groups would you use when configuring distribution groups in a multiple domain forest?
25. Name a few configuration options for Exchange recipients.
26. What’s the difference between Exchange 2003 Std. and Ent. editions when related to storage options and size?
27. Name a few configuration options related to mailbox stores.
28. What are System Public Folders? Where would you find them?
29. How would you plan and configure Public Folder redundancy?
30. How can you immediately stop PF replication?
31. How can you prevent PF referral across slow WAN links?
32. What types of PF management tools might you use?
33. What are the differences between administrative permissions and client permissions in PF?
34. How can you configure PF replication from the command prompt in Exchange 2003?
35. What are the message hygiene options you can use natively in Exchange 2003?
36. What are the configuration options in IMF?
37. What are virtual servers? When would you use more than one?
38. Name some of the SMTP Virtual Server configuration options.
39. What is a Mail Relay? Name a few known mail relay software or hardware options.
40. What is a Smart Host? Where would you configure it?
41. What are Routing Groups? When would you use them?
42. What are the types of Connectors you can use in Exchange?
43. What is the cost option in Exchange connectors?
44. What is the Link State Table? How would you view it?
45. How would you configure mail transfer security between 2 routing groups?
46. What is the Routing Group Master? Who holds that role?
47. Explain the configuration steps required to allow Exchange 2003 to send and receive email from the Internet (consider a one-site multiple server scenario).
48. What is DS2MB?
49. What is Forms Based Authentication?
50. How would you configure OWA’s settings on an Exchange server?
51. What is DSACCESS?
52. What are Recipient Policies?
53. How would you work with multiple recipient policies?
54. What is the “issue” with trying to remove email addresses added by recipient policies? How would you fix that?
55. What is the RUS?
56. When would you need to manually create additional RUS?
57. What are Address Lists?
58. How would you modify the filter properties of one of the default address lists?
59. How can you create multiple GALs and allow the users to only see the one related to them
60. What is a Front End server? In what scenarios would you use one?
61. What type of authentication is used on the front end servers?
62. When would you use NLB?
63. How would you achieve incoming mail redundancy?
64. What are the 4 types of Exchange backups?
65. What is the Dial-Tone server scenario?
66. When would you use offline backup?
67. How do you re-install Exchange on a server that has crashed but with AD intact?
68. What is the dumpster?
69. What are the e00xxxxx.log files?
70. What is the e00.chk file?
71. What is circular logging? When would you use it?
72. What’s the difference between online and offline defrag?
73. How would you know if it is time to perform an offline defrag of your Exchange stores?
74. How would you plan for, and perform the offline defrag?
75. What is the eseutil command?
76. What is the isinteg command?
77. How would you monitor Exchange’s services and performance? Name 2 or 3 options.
78. Name all the client connection options in Exchange 2003.
79. What is Direct Push? What are the requirements to run it?
80. How would you remote wipe a PPC?
81. What are the issues with connecting Outlook from a remote computer to your mailbox?
82. How would you solve those issues? Name 2 or 3 methods
83. What is RPC over HTTP? What are the requirements to run it?
84. What is Cached Mode in OL2003/2007?
85. What are the benefits and “issues” when using cached mode? How would you tackle those issues?
86. What is S/MIME? What are the usage scenarios for S/MIME?
87. What are the IPSec usage scenarios for Exchange 2003?
88. How do you enable SSL on OWA?
89. What are the considerations for obtaining a digital certificate for SSL on Exchange?
90. Name a few 3rd-party CAs.
91. What do you need to consider when using a client-type AV software on an Exchange server?
92. What are the different clustering options in Exchange 2003? Which one would you choose and why.

Whenever I start my computer, Scandisk starts running even I proper shut down the PC last time.

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:52:00 PDT

Solution:
Do as following:
A. Open regedit and goto:
Code:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
In right-side pane, change the value of BootExecute to:
autocheck autochk *
B. If the above trick doesnt help then give following commands in Command Prompt:
chkntfs /x drive_name
for e.g., if ScanDisk runs automatically for C: and D: drives, then give following commands one by one:
chkntfs /x C:
chkntfs /x D:

MySQL FAQs / Interview Questions with Answers

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:50:00 PDT

What’s MySQL ?
MySQL (pronounced “my ess cue el”) is an open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database. Because it is open source, anyone can download MySQL and tailor it to their needs in accordance with the general public license. MySQL is noted mainly for its speed, reliability, and flexibility. …
What is DDL, DML and DCL ?
If you look at the large variety of SQL commands, they can be divided into three large subgroups. Data Definition Language deals with database schemas and descriptions of how the data should reside in the database, therefore language statements like CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE belong to DDL. DML deals with data manipulation, and therefore includes most common SQL statements such SELECT, INSERT, etc. Data Control Language includes commands such as GRANT, and mostly concerns with rights, permissions and other controls of the database system.
How do you get the number of rows affected by query?
SELECT COUNT (user_id) FROM users would only return the number of user_id’s.
If the value in the column is repeatable, how do you find out the unique values?
Use DISTINCT in the query, such as SELECT DISTINCT user_firstname FROM users; You can also ask for a number of distinct values by saying SELECT COUNT (DISTINCT user_firstname) FROM users;
How do you return the a hundred books starting from 25th?
SELECT book_title FROM books LIMIT 25, 100. The first number in LIMIT is the offset, the second is the number.
You wrote a search engine that should retrieve 10 results at a time, but at the same time you’d like to know how many rows there’re total. How do you display that to the user?
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS page_title FROM web_pages LIMIT 1,10; SELECT FOUND_ROWS(); The second query (not that COUNT() is never used) will tell you how many results there’re total, so you can display a phrase “Found 13,450,600 results, displaying 1-10″. Note that FOUND_ROWS does not pay attention to the LIMITs you specified and always returns the total number of rows affected by query.
How would you write a query to select all teams that won either 2, 4, 6 or 8 games?
SELECT team_name FROM teams WHERE team_won IN (2, 4, 6,
How would you select all the users, whose phone number is null?
SELECT user_name FROM users WHERE ISNULL(user_phonenumber);
What does this query mean: SELECT user_name, user_isp FROM users LEFT JOIN isps USING (user_id) ?
It’s equivalent to saying SELECT user_name, user_isp FROM users LEFT JOIN isps WHERE users.user_id=isps.user_id
How do you find out which auto increment was assigned on the last insert?
SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID() will return the last value assigned by the auto_increment function. Note that you don’t have to specify the table name.
What does –i-am-a-dummy flag to do when starting MySQL?
Makes the MySQL engine refuse UPDATE and DELETE commands where the WHERE clause is not present.
On executing the DELETE statement I keep getting the error about foreign key constraint failing. What do I do?
What it means is that so of the data that you’re trying to delete is still alive in another table. Like if you have a table for universities and a table for students, which contains the ID of the university they go to, running a delete on a university table will fail if the students table still contains people enrolled at that university. Proper way to do it would be to delete the offending data first, and then delete the university in question. Quick way would involve running SET foreign_key_checks=0 before the DELETE command, and setting the parameter back to 1 after the DELETE is done. If your foreign key was formulated with ON DELETE CASCADE, the data in dependent tables will be removed automatically.
When would you use ORDER BY in DELETE statement?
When you’re not deleting by row ID. Such as in DELETE FROM techpreparation_com_questions ORDER BY timestamp LIMIT 1. This will delete the most recently posted question in the table techpreparation_com_questions.
How can you see all indexes defined for a table?
SHOW INDEX FROM techpreparation_questions;
How would you change a column from VARCHAR(10) to VARCHAR(50)?
ALTER TABLE techpreparation_questions CHANGE techpreparation_content techpreparation_CONTENT VARCHAR(50).
How would you delete a column?
ALTER TABLE techpreparation_answers DROP answer_user_id.
What’s MySQL ?
MySQL (pronounced “my ess cue el”) is an open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database. Because it is open source, anyone can download MySQL and tailor it to their needs in accordance with the general public license. MySQL is noted mainly for its speed, reliability, and flexibility. …
What is DDL, DML and DCL ?
If you look at the large variety of SQL commands, they can be divided into three large subgroups. Data Definition Language deals with database schemas and descriptions of how the data should reside in the database, therefore language statements like CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE belong to DDL. DML deals with data manipulation, and therefore includes most common SQL statements such SELECT, INSERT, etc. Data Control Language includes commands such as GRANT, and mostly concerns with rights, permissions and other controls of the database system.
How do you get the number of rows affected by query?
SELECT COUNT (user_id) FROM users would only return the number of user_id’s.
If the value in the column is repeatable, how do you find out the unique values?
Use DISTINCT in the query, such as SELECT DISTINCT user_firstname FROM users; You can also ask for a number of distinct values by saying SELECT COUNT (DISTINCT user_firstname) FROM users;
How do you return the a hundred books starting from 25th?
SELECT book_title FROM books LIMIT 25, 100. The first number in LIMIT is the offset, the second is the number.
You wrote a search engine that should retrieve 10 results at a time, but at the same time you’d like to know how many rows there’re total. How do you display that to the user?
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS page_title FROM web_pages LIMIT 1,10; SELECT FOUND_ROWS(); The second query (not that COUNT() is never used) will tell you how many results there’re total, so you can display a phrase “Found 13,450,600 results, displaying 1-10″. Note that FOUND_ROWS does not pay attention to the LIMITs you specified and always returns the total number of rows affected by query.
How would you write a query to select all teams that won either 2, 4, 6 or 8 games?
SELECT team_name FROM teams WHERE team_won IN (2, 4, 6,
How would you select all the users, whose phone number is null?
SELECT user_name FROM users WHERE ISNULL(user_phonenumber);
What does this query mean: SELECT user_name, user_isp FROM users LEFT JOIN isps USING (user_id) ?
It’s equivalent to saying SELECT user_name, user_isp FROM users LEFT JOIN isps WHERE users.user_id=isps.user_id
How do you find out which auto increment was assigned on the last insert?
SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID() will return the last value assigned by the auto_increment function. Note that you don’t have to specify the table name.
What does –i-am-a-dummy flag to do when starting MySQL?
Makes the MySQL engine refuse UPDATE and DELETE commands where the WHERE clause is not present.
On executing the DELETE statement I keep getting the error about foreign key constraint failing. What do I do?
What it means is that so of the data that you’re trying to delete is still alive in another table. Like if you have a table for universities and a table for students, which contains the ID of the university they go to, running a delete on a university table will fail if the students table still contains people enrolled at that university. Proper way to do it would be to delete the offending data first, and then delete the university in question. Quick way would involve running SET foreign_key_checks=0 before the DELETE command, and setting the parameter back to 1 after the DELETE is done. If your foreign key was formulated with ON DELETE CASCADE, the data in dependent tables will be removed automatically.
When would you use ORDER BY in DELETE statement?
When you’re not deleting by row ID. Such as in DELETE FROM techpreparation_com_questions ORDER BY timestamp LIMIT 1. This will delete the most recently posted question in the table techpreparation_com_questions.
How can you see all indexes defined for a table?
SHOW INDEX FROM techpreparation_questions;
How would you change a column from VARCHAR(10) to VARCHAR(50)?
ALTER TABLE techpreparation_questions CHANGE techpreparation_content techpreparation_CONTENT VARCHAR(50).
How would you delete a column?
ALTER TABLE techpreparation_answers DROP answer_user_id.
How are ENUMs and SETs represented internally?
As unique integers representing the powers of two, due to storage optimizations.
How do you start and stop MySQL on Windows?
net start MySQL, net stop MySQL
How do you start MySQL on Linux?
/etc/init.d/mysql start
Explain the difference between mysql and mysql interfaces in PHP?
mysqli is the object-oriented version of mysql library functions.
What’s the default port for MySQL Server?
3306
What does tee command do in MySQL?
tee followed by a filename turns on MySQL logging to a specified file. It can be stopped by command note.
Can you save your connection settings to a conf file?
Yes, and name it ~/.my.conf. You might want to change the permissions on the file to 600, so that it’s not readable by others.
How do you change a password for an existing user via mysqladmin?
mysqladmin -u root -p password “newpassword”
Use mysqldump to create a copy of the database?
mysqldump -h mysqlhost -u username -p mydatabasename > dbdump.sql
Have you ever used MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser?
Describe the tasks you accomplished with these tools.
What are some good ideas regarding user security in MySQL?
There is no user without a password. There is no user without a user name. There is no user whose Host column contains % (which here indicates that the user can log in from anywhere in the network or the Internet). There are as few users as possible (in the ideal case only root) who have unrestricted access.
Explain the difference between MyISAM Static and MyISAM Dynamic. ?
In MyISAM static all the fields have fixed width. The Dynamic MyISAM table would include fields such as TEXT, BLOB, etc. to accommodate the data types with various lengths. MyISAM Static would be easier to restore in case of corruption, since even though you might lose some data, you know exactly where to look for the beginning of the next record.
What does myisamchk do?
It compressed the MyISAM tables, which reduces their disk usage.
Explain advantages of InnoDB over MyISAM?
Row-level locking, transactions, foreign key constraints and crash recovery.
Explain advantages of MyISAM over InnoDB?
Much more conservative approach to disk space management – each MyISAM table is stored in a separate file, which could be compressed then with myisamchk if needed. With InnoDB the tables are stored in tablespace, and not much further optimization is possible. All data except for TEXT and BLOB can occupy 8,000 bytes at most. No full text indexing is available for InnoDB. TRhe COUNT(*)s execute slower than in MyISAM due to tablespace complexity.
What are HEAP tables in MySQL?
HEAP tables are in-memory. They are usually used for high-speed temporary storage. No TEXT or BLOB fields are allowed within HEAP tables. You can only use the comparison operators = and <=>. HEAP tables do not support AUTO_INCREMENT. Indexes must be NOT NULL.
How do you control the max size of a HEAP table?
MySQL config variable max_heap_table_size.
What are CSV tables?
Those are the special tables, data for which is saved into comma-separated values files. They cannot be indexed.
Explain federated tables. ?
Introduced in MySQL 5.0, federated tables allow access to the tables located on other databases on other servers.
What is SERIAL data type in MySQL?
BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT
What happens when the column is set to AUTO INCREMENT and you reach the maximum value for that table?
It stops incrementing. It does not overflow to 0 to prevent data losses, but further inserts are going to produce an error, since the key has been used already.
Explain the difference between BOOL, TINYINT and BIT. ?
Prior to MySQL 5.0.3: those are all synonyms. After MySQL 5.0.3: BIT data type can store 8 bytes of data and should be used for binary data.
Explain the difference between FLOAT, DOUBLE and REAL. ?
FLOATs store floating point numbers with 8 place accuracy and take up 4 bytes. DOUBLEs store floating point numbers with 16 place accuracy and take up 8 bytes. REAL is a synonym of FLOAT for now.
If you specify the data type as DECIMAL (5,2), what’s the range of values that can go in this table?
999.99 to -99.99. Note that with the negative number the minus sign is considered one of the digits.
What happens if a table has one column defined as TIMESTAMP?
That field gets the current timestamp whenever the row gets altered.
But what if you really want to store the timestamp data, such as the publication date of the article?
Create two columns of type TIMESTAMP and use the second one for your real data.
Explain data type TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ?
The column exhibits the same behavior as a single timestamp column in a table with no other timestamp columns.
What does TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP data type do?
On initialization places a zero in that column, on future updates puts the current value of the timestamp in.
Explain TIMESTAMP DEFAULT ‘2006:09:02 17:38:44? ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP. ?
A default value is used on initialization, a current timestamp is inserted on update of the row.
If I created a column with data type VARCHAR(3), what would I expect to see in MySQL table?
CHAR(3), since MySQL automatically adjusted the data type.
General Information About MySQL
MySQL is a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server.
MySQL is free software. It is licensed with the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE http://www.gnu.org/.
What Is MySQL
MySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database, is provided by MySQL AB. MySQL AB is a commercial company that builds is business providing services around the MySQL database. See section 1.2 What Is MySQL AB.
ySQL is a database management system.
A database is a structured collection of data. It may be anything from a simple shopping list to a picture gallery or the vast amounts of information in a corporate network. To add, access, and process data stored in a computer database, you need a database management system such as MySQL. Since computers are very good at handling large amounts of data, database management plays a central role in computing, as stand-alone utilities, or as parts of other applications.
MySQL is a relational database management system.
A relational database stores data in separate tables rather than putting all the data in one big storeroom. This adds speed and flexibility. The tables are linked by defined relations making it possible to combine data from several tables on request. The SQL part of MySQL stands for “Structured Query Language” – the most common standardized language used to access databases.
MySQL is Open Source Software.
Open source means that it is possible for anyone to use and modify. Anybody can download MySQL from the Internet and use it without paying anything. Anybody so inclined can study the source code and change it to fit their needs. MySQL uses the GPL (GNU General Public License) http://www.gnu.org, to define what you may and may not do with the software in different situations. If you feel uncomfortable with the GPL or need to embed MySQL into a commercial application you can buy a commercially licensed version from us.
Why use MySQL?
MySQL is very fast, reliable, and easy to use. If that is what you are looking for, you should give it a try. MySQL also has a very practical set of features developed in very close cooperation with our users. You can find a performance comparison of MySQL to some other database managers on our benchmark page. See section 12.7 Using Your Own Benchmarks. MySQL was originally developed to handle very large databases much faster than existing solutions and has been successfully used in highly demanding production environments for several years. Though under constant development, MySQL today offers a rich and very useful set of functions. The connectivity, speed, and security make MySQL highly suited for accessing databases on the Internet.
The technical features of MySQL
For advanced technical information, see section 7 MySQL Language Reference. MySQL is a client/server system that consists of a multi-threaded SQL server that supports different backends, several different client programs and libraries, administrative tools, and a programming interface. We also provide MySQL as a multi-threaded library which you can link into your application to get a smaller, faster, easier to manage product. MySQL has a lot of contributed software available.
It is very likely that you will find that your favorite application/language already supports MySQL. The official way to pronounce MySQL is “My Ess Que Ell” (not MY-SEQUEL). But we try to avoid correcting people who say MY-SEQUEL.
The Main Features of MySQL
The following list describes some of the important characteristics of MySQL:
Fully multi-threaded using kernel threads. That means it can easily use multiple CPUs if available.
C, C++, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP, Python and Tcl APIs.
Works on many different platforms.
Many column types: signed/unsigned integers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 bytes long, FLOAT, DOUBLE, CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, BLOB, DATE, TIME, DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, YEAR, SET, and ENUM types.
Very fast joins using an optimized one-sweep multi-join.
Full operator and function support in the SELECT and WHERE parts of queries. Example:
mysql> SELECT CONCAT(first_name, ” “, last_name) FROM tbl_name
WHERE income/dependents > 10000 AND age > 30;
SQL functions are implemented through a highly optimized class library and should be as fast as they can get! Usually there shouldn’t be any memory allocation at all after query initialization.
Full support for SQL GROUP BY and ORDER BY clauses. Support for group functions (COUNT(), COUNT(DISTINCT), AVG(), STD(), SUM(), MAX() and MIN()).
Support for LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN with ANSI SQL and ODBC syntax.
You can mix tables from different databases in the same query (as of Version 3.22).
A privilege and password system that is very flexible and secure and allows host-based verification. Passwords are secure because all password traffic is encrypted when you connect to a server.
ODBC (Open-DataBase-Connectivity) support for Win32 (with source). All ODBC 2.5 functions and many others. For example, you can use MS Access to connect to your MySQL server. See section 18 MySQL ODBC Support.
Very fast B-tree disk tables with index compression.
Up to 32 indexes per table are allowed. Each index may consist of 1 to 16 columns or parts of columns. The maximum index length is 500 bytes (this may be changed when compiling MySQL). An index may use a prefix of a CHAR or VARCHAR field. Fixed-length and variable-length records.
In-memory hash tables which are used as temporary tables.
Handles large databases. We are using MySQL with some databases that contain 50,000,000 records and we know of users that uses MySQL with 60,000 tables and about 5,000,000,000 rows
All columns have default values. You can use INSERT to insert a subset of a table’s columns; those columns that are not explicitly given values are set to their default values.
Uses GNU Automake, Autoconf, and libtool for portability.
Written in C and C++. Tested with a broad range of different compilers.
A very fast thread-based memory allocation system.
No memory leaks. Tested with a commercial memory leakage detector (purify).
Includes myisamchk, a very fast utility for table checking, optimization, and repair. See section 15 Maintaining a MySQL Installation.
Full support for several different character sets, including ISO-8859-1 (Latin1), big5, ujis, and more. For example, the Scandinavian characters `@ringaccent{a}’, `@”a’ and `@”o’ are allowed in table and column names.
All data are saved in the chosen character set. All comparisons for normal string columns are case insensitive.
Sorting is done according to the chosen character set (the Swedish way by default). It is possible to change this when the MySQL server is started up. To see an example of very advanced sorting, look at the Czech sorting code. MySQL supports many different character sets that can be specified at compile and run time.
Aliases on tables and columns are allowed as in the SQL92 standard.
DELETE, INSERT, REPLACE, and UPDATE return how many rows were changed (affected). It is possible to return the number of rows matched instead by setting a flag when connecting to the server.
Function names do not clash with table or column names. For example, ABS is a valid column name. The only restriction is that for a function call, no spaces are allowed between the function name and the `(‘ that follows it. See section 7.39 Is MySQL Picky About Reserved Words?.
All MySQL programs can be invoked with the –help or -? options to obtain online assistance.
The server can provide error messages to clients in many languages. See section 10.1 What Languages Are Supported by MySQL?. Clients may connect to the MySQL server using TCP/IP Sockets, Unix Sockets (Unixes), or Named Pipes (NT). The MySQL-specific SHOW command can be used to retrieve information about databases, tables, and indexes. The EXPLAIN command can be used to determine how the optimizer resolves a query.
atabase Basics
Databases are managed by a relational database management system (RDBMS). An RDBMS supports a database language to create and delete databases and to manage and search data. The database language used in almost all DBMSs is SQL, a set of statements that define and manipulate data. After creating a database, the most common SQL statements used are INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and SELECT, which add, change, remove, and search data in a database, respectively.
Database
A repository to store data.
Table
The part of a database that stores the data. A table has columns or attributes, and the data stored in rows.
Attributes
The columns in a table. All rows in table entities have the same attributes. For example, a customer table might have the attributes name, address, and city. Each attribute has a data type such as string, integer, or date.
Rows
The data entries in a table. Rows contain values for each attribute. For example, a row in a customer table might contain the values “Matthew Richardson,” “Punt Road,” and “Richmond.” Rows are also known as records.
Relational model
A model that uses tables to store data and manage the relationship between tables.
Relational database management system
A software system that manages data in a database and is based on the relational model. DBMSs have several components described in detail in Chapter 1.
SQL
A query language that interacts with a DBMS. SQL is a set of statements to manage databases, tables, and data.
Constraints
Restrictions or limitations on tables and attributes. For example, a wine can be produced only by one winery, an order for wine can’t exist if it isn’t associated with a customer, having a name attribute could be mandatory for a customer.
Primary key
One or more attributes that contain values that uniquely identify each row. For example, a customer table might have the primary key of cust ID. The cust ID attribute is then assigned a unique value for each customer. A primary key is a constraint of most tables.
Index
A data structure used for fast access to rows in a table. An index is usually built for the primary key of each table and can then be used to quickly find a particular row. Indexes are also defined and built for other attributes when those attributes are frequently used in queries.
Entity-relationship modeling
A technique used to describe the real-world data in terms of entities, attributes, and relationships.
Normalized database
A correctly designed database that is created from an ER model. There are different types or levels of normalization, and a third-normal form database is generally regarded as being an acceptably designed relational database.
MySQL Command Interpreter
The MySQL command interpreter is commonly used to create databases and tables in web database applications and to test queries. Throughout the remainder of this chapter we discuss the SQL statements for managing a database. All these statements can be directly entered into the command interpreter and executed. The statements can also be included in server-side PHP scripts, as discussed in later chapters.
Once the MySQL DBMS server is running, the command interpreter can be used. The command interpreter can be run using the following command from the shell, assuming you’ve created a user hugh with a password shhh:
% /usr/local/bin/mysql -uhugh -pshhh The shell prompt is represented here as a percentage character, %.
Running the command interpreter displays the output:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 36 to server version: 3.22.38
Type ‘help’ for help.
mysql>
The command interpreter displays a mysql> prompt and, after executing any command or statement, it redisplays the prompt. For example, you might issue the statement:
mysql> SELECT NOW( );
This statement reports the time and date by producing the following output:
+———————+
| NOW( ) |
+———————+
| 2002-01-01 13:48:07 |
+———————+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql>
After running a statement, the interpreter redisplays the mysql> prompt. We discuss the SELECT statement later in this chapter.
As with all other SQL statements, the SELECT statement ends in a semicolon. Almost all SQL command interpreters permit any amount of whitespace—spaces, tabs, or carriage returns—in SQL statements, and they check syntax and execute statements only after encountering a semicolon that is followed by a press of the Enter key. We have used uppercase for the SQL statements throughout this book. However, any mix of upper- and lowercase is equivalent.
On startup, the command interpreter encourages the use of the help command. Typing help produces a list of commands that are native to the MySQL interpreter and that aren’t part of SQL. All non-SQL commands can be entered without the terminating semicolon, but the semicolon can be included without causing an error.
The MySQL command interpreter allows flexible entry of commands and SQL statements:
The up and down arrow keys allow previously entered commands and statements to be browsed and used.
The interpreter has command completion. If you type the first few characters of a string that has previously been entered and press the Tab key, the interpreter automatically completes the command. For example, if wines is typed and the Tab key pressed, the command interpreter outputs winestore, assuming the word winestore has been previously used.
If there’s more than one option that begins with the characters entered, or you wish the strings that match the characters to be displayed, press the Tab key twice to show all matches. You can then enter additional characters to remove any ambiguity and press the Tab key again for command completion.
Several common statements and commands are pre-stored, including most of the SQL keywords discussed in this chapter.
To use the default text editor to create SQL statements, enter the command edit in the interpreter. This invokes the editor defined by the EDITOR shell environment variable. When the editor is exited, the MySQL command interpreter reads, parses, and runs the file created in the editor.
When the interpreter is quit and run again later, the history of commands and statements is kept. It is still possible to scroll up using the up arrow and to execute commands and statements that were entered earlier.
You can run commands and SQL statements without actually launching the MySQL command interpreter. For example, to run SELECT now( ) from the Linux shell, enter the following command:
mysql -ppassword -e “SELECT now( );” This is particularly useful for adding SQL commands to shell or other scripts.