Windows 8 - What IT Pros Should Know

Just to share a nice roundtable from Microsoft Technet about some features Windows 8 has that can help you get more of this O.S. and using it to improve, virtualization, deployment, security and devices.

Take a look here:

Windows 8 - Talking About with Stephen Rose

Here's a nice Channel 9 webcast about Windows 8 Enterprise with Stephen Rose.
This webcast called "Windows 8: The No Compromise Business Devices" approaches the following subjects:

• New User Interface Concerns
• What about the Start button?
• Will my Windows 7 applications work on Windows 8?
• Surface / Windows RT and Surface Pro - what's the difference?
• Why is a Windows 8 tablet a better choice for businesses than an iPad or Android-based tablet?

Get more info here:
Channel 9 - Windows 8: The No Compromise Business Devices

Windows To Go - Overview

Here's something that didn't give a lot of buzz, in my opinion because mainly it's intended for enterprises only  and because most of the enterprises didn't adopt this O.S., but it's a good showcase about how light and flexible Windows 8 can get.

Windows To Go is an enterprise feature of Windows 8 that enables the creation of a Windows to Go workspace that can be booted from a USB external drive on PC that meet the Windows 7 or Windows 8 certification requirements.

There are some consideration about this feature:

• Internal disks are offline to protect and adverted deletion of the physical machine
• You can use the capabilities of TPM
• Hibernation is disable by default
• App Store not available 

You can take a more deep look to this Microsoft Windows 8 feature here:

Technet - Windows To Go: Feature Overview

Microsoft Press - Free eBooks Available

Here's a nice one.

Microsoft has made available some free ebooks from Microsoft Press.
Some titles are:

• Introducing Windows 8 - An Overview for IT Professionals
• Introducing Windows Server 2012 RTM Edition

Get the full list here:

Microsoft Press - Free ebooks: Great content from Microsoft Press that won’t cost you a penny

BitLocker - What's New for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012

Although Microsoft BitLocker it's not the most widespread drive encryption solution, it's a free encryption system that Microsoft offers to all their business/ultimate customers.

With Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 there are some new interesting features:

BitlLocker Provisioning
In Windows Vista and Windows 7 BitLocker could only be activate post installation.
Now in Windows 8, you can enable BitLocker prior to operating system deployment, directly from WinPE (Windows PreInstallation Environment).


Use Disk Space Only Encryption
Unlike Windows 7 that demand that all data and free space on a volume to be encrypted, you can now encrypt data only



Standard User PIN and Password Change
This one was one of the big flaws on previous BitLocker versions. Standard users couldn't change the PIN or Password.
And...Now the can!


More info at:
Microsoft Technet - What's New in BitLocker