Future Server Service Packs

As an MVP we have MVP leads that share information and are our main connection to the MVP program.   Recently my MVP lead sent out a great Q&A that I wanted to share.  I checked with her to make sure this is not NDA information and it was not. (thanks Michelle!)

There are still a lot of organizations that still believe that they should wait for a service pack before deploying a new Server OS.   If you were around 10 years ago or more you might remember that Windows NT had seven service packs (1-6a).    Windows 2000 had four service packs   With that many service packs you can see why some old timers still think waiting for service packs is the way to go.

The days of four, six ,or more service packs are probably gone forever.   I can't speak for the future of the Microsoft development life-cycle; but with major releases being released every four years and R2 releases every two years there is not much room for service packs.  In addition Microsoft does a really great job with patch Tuesday patches and zero-day patches when applicable.

The point here is you can tell your manager that there is no reason to wait for a service pack.  Windows 2012 is ready now.   It is ready to be tested and deployed now.   I'm in the field just like the rest of you.   Looking forward to this journey.

TechGate Conference - Speaking Review

I spoke at the TechGate conference sponsored by Microsoft this weekend.  My topic was new Active Directory features in Windows Sever 2012.

I first want to thank Andy and DeLise from Microsoft.  The Microsoft facilities were outstanding and we were treated well. This was my first speaking engagement at a conference like this and I'm honored that they allowed me to speak.  I know they had a lot of people that wanted slots and glad I was selected for one of the featured slots.

The room was packed and some people had to stand.   There were some lessons learned on my part that I want to share for others that may be starting out on their speaker journey.  I would also love to hear tips from others that have been doing this for a while.

Lessons Learned

• 50 minutes is not enough time to give a talk with demos about Active Directory features in Windows 2012.  I should have either cut out sections or not attempted demos.  I definitely rushed a bit at the end.
• The crowd was about 80 percent developers/those not familiar with AD and 20 percent were IT pros that knew AD.  I let that fluster me for the first few slides.  When I asked how many people are familiar with dcpromo and only 4 people raised their hands I was thinking "oh shit" in my head....once I got over that I was fine.
• I tried to switch between the PowerPoint presentation view (slides with notes on my laptop monitor and slide show on projector) and the duplicate screens (for the demos).  Next time I will just use duplicate screens at all times and have my notes on the side.
• Dynamic Access Control is a great feature but I can tell that it's going to take a lot time for IT Pros to understand and "get it".  I might try and present 50 minutes just on that feature next time...but that might not be enough time either.
• Thanks to the lady in the back, the MCS engineer and a few others that did have a good working knowledge of AD...the questions and back and forths with you all was great.  
• I have seen speakers at other conferences having conversations after their talks in the hallways.  That happened to me too.  That was great, met some really great and enthusiastic people.  
• Thanks to my co-workers Shumbey, Nate, and Kurt for coming.
• Thanks to my AD buddies (Mark especially) who sat through some dry runs.

Overall I give myself a B-  I learned a lot and hope to go back in the spring.  Someday I want to be as good as Dean Wells (he had the #1 talk at TechEd North America 2012)....I know that won't happen but it is a good goal to strive for :)

Windows 2012 AD Schema Version

I previously posted  "quick-hitter" blogs about the schema versions in   Windows 8 Developers Preview, Windows Server 8 Beta

Windows Server 2012 was released today!!   The schema version did not change from the RC version.  The final version is  56 

I once again used adfind to quickly find the schema version.

The final Active Directory Schema version table is listed below.

Windows Server 2012	56
Windows 2008 R2	47
Windows 2008	44
Windows 2003 R2	31
Windows 2003	30
Windows 2000	13

MVP Brian Arkills posted a link to the changes made in adprep in Windows 2012 from version 48 to 56.  You can find that here

Windows Server 2012: Changes made by adprep.exe

You can download an evaluation copy of Windows Server 2012 and go start to learn and have fun.  This will be an OS that most of us will be using for the next 10+ years and it is an exciting day for those of us in the Windows Server world.   Thanks to all the hard work put in by the many people at Microsoft that made today happen.