Another freebie must for your IT toolkit!

Windows Server 2003 Performance Advisor is a tool for diagosing, and analyzing performance on a Windows Server 2003 deployment. Very simple to use, easy to install, and very powerful.

" Microsoft ® Windows Server ™ 2003 Performance Advisor provides several specialized reports, including a System Overview (focusing on CPU usage, Memory usage, busy files, busy TCP clients, top CPU consumers) and reports for server roles such as Active Directory, Internet Information System (IIS), DNS, Terminal Services, SQL, print spooler, and others."

DOWNLOAD SPA!

If you are one of the few people that read my blog, you might be sick of hearing about Vista. Oh well, too bad - it's my blog, and I like Vista!

I have downloaded the final Vista release (build 6000), and it is running on every PC that I use - along with MS Office 2007. The only issue that I ran into was locating drivers for my Intel 2100 WLAN miniPCI card.  All of my other devices were detected, and automatically installed with absolutely no intervention!

Still haven’t experienced the glorious ‘Aero-Glass’ UI. I’m waiting on my Christmas Bonus check so that ‘Santa’ can by me a little more memory. From what I have heard – it ain’t all that!

As far as performance – I am running Vista on a Dell Latitude X300 with a Pentium 1.2Ghz CPU, and 512 MB RAM.  My prior OS was XP SP2, and I gotta say, I can hardly tell a difference. Obviously Vista is not faster than XP . Hopefully no one is expecting a performance boost by installing this bear of an OS. Remember – the OS is so large, it’s distributed via DVD. Keep this in mind, because drive space seems to decrease by the second once you go Vista!!

A couple of things to think about:

I can not find any AntiVirus software that is yet compatible. If you know of any – LET ME KNOW! If you plan on running the 64-bit version, be prepared to not have any of your stuff work! Driver development for the 64bit platform is slow-going! 

So why should I go 64 bit?

Due to all of the Rootkits / Malware that has surfaced over the past couple of years, MS has decided to lock down the Kernal in the 64bit version of Vista. This has been a controversial subject, as this will impair widely used third-party security software such as personal Firewalls, and Antivirus software.  Not sure how this will be addressed, but I believe MS will provide API’s to these vendors that will still allow them some sort of access into the deep layers of the OS. In theory, the 64-bit version of Windows will be significantly more secure that that of the 32 bit version.