Tech Ed 2006, day 5

June 16, 2006 &bull uncategorized

The last day of TechEd is always bittersweet. I love this conference so much that I’m always a bit sad to say good-bye. At the same time, though, I’m always so wiped out at the end that I can barely drag myself to the airport. This year is no exception. I’m starting to feel sick and am so tired I can barely think straight. Having coworkers to hang out with at TechEd is also sort of a mixed blessing. While it’s fun to have company and friends around to talk to, it does tend to get me out of my hotel room and, in the case of Boston, into various Irish pubs all over the city. But, it’s always nice to make the best of a trip and to get the most out of wherever you’re at or whatever you’re doing.

In my typical TechEd “get every last drop” fashion, I was able to shake off my ever-so-slight hangover and oncoming cold and make the most of the last day. Here are the sessions I attended today:

SVR427R Windows 2003 Resource Kit Tools: How Can They Help Me?
MGT425 Troubleshooting Group Policy
CLI321 Using Windows PE to Customize Your Windows Vista Deployments

The first session on ResKit tools was OK, but not the best. However, the Group Policy troubleshooting talk was awesome — perhaps one of the best sessions I attended during the conference. A lot of the stuff was review for me, but it’s always nice to have refresher and get some new insights into stuff you work with a lot. Derek Melber gave the talk and he was pretty impressive.

The last session I took was on Windows PE, which was another very good session. I’ve known about Windows PE for years, but have never really took the time to learn how to customize it. I’ve been under the impression this was kind of a pain in the past. However, with 2.0 it sounds like it’s going to be a lot easier. Plus, since Windows PE is going to be part of both the Vista and Longhorn installation processes, it’s likely this technology will receive continued support and improvements.

I was also able to finish up a couple labs on the new Windows Deployment Services and Windows Storage Server R2. Storage Server looks pretty cool. It’s about time Microsoft released a product capable of becoming an iSCSI target. It’s too bad, though, that it’s only available in the form of an OEM-only appliance. My hope is that they will add this functionality at some point to the standard Windows Server platform.

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