Group Policy for
Everyone
Eric Rux’s “3 Tools to Manage Group
Policy” (November 2007, Instant-
Doc ID 97228) is a great article. I
didn’t find a wasted line of text. Eric
explains things so that a systems
administrator at my level—that is,
the kind who knows enough to be
dangerous—can easily follow along.
Users at higher skill levels—say,
Mark Minasi’s level—will also find
something valuable. There’s great
information here for everyone,
regardless of skill level. Keep these
articles coming!
—Tim Bolton
IT Innovator Illusion
Maybe I’m late to the party, but
it seems to me that that the Windows
IT Pro November 2007 cover
illustration should qualify for your
Ctl+Alt+Del section. If those three
gears in the IT innovator’s head
actually move, all he’ll get is metal
shavings and broken teeth. Two
interlocked gears can’t move in the
same clockwise/counter-clockwise
direction, so three interlocked gears
can’t move at all.
—Benjamin R. Wahlquist
16 Flavors of
Windows Server 2008
I read Paul Thurrott’s Web-exclusive
article “Microsoft Muddies
the Windows Server 2008 Waters”
(November 13, 2007, InstantDoc
ID 97570). As a longtime Windows
server administrator, I look forward
to the Server 2008 product. But why
is Microsoft making things so confusing
and murky lately? Honestly,
doesn’t someone at Microsoft have
common sense? No one benefits
from 16 flavors of Server 2008.
Microsoft is making better products,
but some of the company’s recent
decision-making and marketing
choices are enough to make you
scratch your head.
—COMPWIZ
Ready to Deploy
Vista?
In her online column, “Windows
Vista Deployment News: ROI Study,
MDOP, BDD, Springboard” (November
15, 2007, InstantDoc ID 97599),
Karen Forster asks, “What does
Microsoft need to do to convince
you to deploy Windows Vista?” I’m
not convinced that Microsoft has the
tools a domain administrator needs
to manage a domain from within
Windows Vista.
I think Microsoft needs to put
up a virtual “Domain Administration
with Vista” lab that features all
the technology the company can
provide. I know the Active Directory
Users and Computers Microsoft
Management Console (MMC) snapin
isn’t up to par, as outlined in the
Microsoft article “You experience
installation errors and compatibility
problems when you install
Windows Server 2003 management
tools on a Windows Vista-based
computer” (support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;930056&x=13&y=13).
I talk about this problem in
my Scripting Pro VIP article
“Using Saved
Queries for
Active Directory
Management”
(October 2007,
InstantDoc ID
97087). If Microsoft
were to indeed
embark on this
kind of lab, the
company would
need to make its
follow-up feedback
pages oriented more
toward customer satisfaction than
marketing.
I’m also a bit concerned about
Vista compatibility with older hardware
such as old HP printers, legacy
scanners, and expensive plotters.
People and companies won’t want
to spend a lot of money on new
equipment just so they can have a
newer OS.
—Jim Turner
Women in IT
In “Can You Hear Me Roar Now?”
(Your Savvy Assistant, October 2007,
InstantDoc ID 97461), Christan
Humphries asks whether women are
shut off in the IT community. They
aren’t shut off from my IT community.
I recently hired an assistant—
one bona fide, technical assistant,
qualified and ready to work. When I
was looking for a new employee, one
of my personal goals was to hire, yes,
a woman.
In a two-“man” shop, I understand
the different kind of thinking
that a woman can bring to IT processes.
I acknowledge that women
solve problems differently than men
do. I can also see that women tend to
be more compassionate to end-users.
Whereas I might lose patience with
a user who has forgotten “his” password
for the 27th time, she thinks it’s
funny and moves on. Don’t even get
me started on how women approach
training. I could go on and on about
the benefits that women bring to the
table in the IT world.
However, when considering
the lack of female winners
for IT Innovators
(Windows IT Pro,
November 2007), you
need to look at the
sheer numbers of
men versus women
in IT before you start
lamenting that all
the winners were
men. We can’t
simply ignore an
innovator because
we don’t have
enough females on the list.
How would you feel if you were put
on the list of innovators not because
you were an innovator but because
somebody thought they needed a
“token” female on the list to appear
politically correct? If you start putting
one gender before another,
you’re simply going back to what we
had before: gender bias.
—Scott Gutauckis (MALE)
End of Article
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