(Please visit the site to view this video)

Over a billion people on the planet use Microsoft Office to get more done at work and at home. Every day we hear from you how important it is to have a great productivity experience on all the devices you use. We take that very seriously – we know that means you want the authentic experience of Office, made right for the device you’re using.

Starting today, you can download Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPad from the App Store.

The apps have the robust capabilities and familiar look and feel that is unmistakably Office, while offering a fantastic touch experience built from the ground up for iPad. With the free versions of the apps, you can read your Word documents, view your Excel data and present with PowerPoint.

Your documents will look as good as they do on your PC and Mac®, and better than ever on your iPad. With an Office 365 subscription, you can edit and create new documents with the iPad. When you edit a document, you can be sure that content and formatting will be maintained across Office on PC, Mac, tablet and phone. And, you always have access to your up-to-date documents in OneDrive.

Your Office 365 subscription not only gets you the Office for iPad apps installed on up to 5 tablets, but also 5 copies across Office for your PCs and Macs.  With one subscription all of your devices are covered, so you can work the way you want.

You can find out more and read the FAQ right here!

I often ( frequently, not someone who has lost his parents* ) find that while I am testing FIM joins and attribute flows, I would like to maintain contact objects in forest B for the users I am creating if forest A, or vice versa.

Rather than setup FIM to do classic GALsync, since I don't really care about the GAL, just having AD user and contact objects in alternate forests that I can project, join, etc..  I just use this simple powershell script.

All it does is find every user in the OU specified in forest A ( I call mine ForestA, yes VERY creative ) and if that user has a primary SMTP address, I create a contact object in the specified OU in forest B ( I'll let you try and guess that forest name ) with a target address matching the primary STMP from the user, along with the same display name, first name, last name and so on...

As the title implies, this is VERY ugly, and does almost no error checking, but it does duplicate users as contacts between forests ( I actually have 3, you'll never guess the 3rd forest's name ) with minimal effort.  

It uses the Quest Active Roles powershell cmdlets.

It does NOT do deletions, only additions, again "ugly" ... 

$localusers=Get-QADuser*-SearchRoot"OU=test,DC=forestA,DC=local"

$forestBPW=read-host"Password for Administrator on ForestB and ForestC"-assecurestring

$targetB=Connect-QADServiceforestb.local-Connectionaccount"forestB\Administrator"-connectionpassword$ForestBPW

$targetC=Connect-QADServiceforestc.local-Connectionaccount"forestC\Administrator"-connectionpassword$ForestBPW

foreach ($localuserin$localusers)

{

if ($localuser.primarysmtpaddress -ne$null)

{

$ForestBOU="OU=contacts,DC=forestb,DC=local"

$ForestCOU="OU=contacts,DC=forestc,DC=local"

$BProperties= @{"targetaddress"=$localuser.primarysmtpaddress;"givenName"=$localUser.givenName;"sn"=$localUser.sn;"mail"=("$($localuser.sAMAccountName)@forestb.local")}

$CProperties= @{"targetaddress"=$localuser.primarysmtpaddress;"givenName"=$localUser.givenName;"sn"=$localUser.sn;"mail"=("$($localuser.sAMAccountName)@forestb.local")}

New-QADObject-Connection$targetb-Name$localuser.displayName -Type'Contact'-DisplayName$localuser.displayName -ObjectAttributes$BProperties-ParentContainer$ForestBOU

New-QADObject-Connection$targetc-Name$localuser.displayName -Type'Contact'-DisplayName$localuser.displayName -ObjectAttributes$CProperties-ParentContainer$ForestCOU

}

}

* Extra points if you can name the horrible movie.

Have you thought that you’d like to set up  Exchange Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 to work together to support your organization’s compliance goals? Or have you wondered how to take advantage of Windows Azure to host a SharePoint farm? If cross-product solutions based on Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Lync Server, Windows Azure, and Office 365 interest you, and you’re going to be at MEC, come join us for a half-hour discussion to hear about solutions help content we’ve been working on. We’d also like to hear about solutions content that you’d like to see.

Where? Austin Convention Center at MEC – 3rd floor, room 8C

When? Monday, March 31st, at 6pm

RSVP – Let us know you’ll be coming by writing to the Solutions Advisory Board alias at sab@microsoft.com. However, you don’t have to RSVP to attend.

Guest Blogger: Harold Kless

If you try to edit an Office file (Word, PowerPoint or Excel) from a SharePoint 2010 Document Library while using an iPad with MS Office applications installed, the file will not open and there is an error “there is no SharePoint Foundation application available to open
the app.”

SharePoint 2010 requires a plugin or active X to launch client applications, and neither of those are allowed on the iOS platform. SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online support protocol handlers that work with iPad.

To work around this behavior:

Option 1 – Add a Place within the application that will connect to the SharePoint Document Library.

1. To do this open any of the installed Microsoft Office applications
   (Word, Excel or PowerPoint).
2. On the opening window choose Add a Place.
3. In the Add a Place window click on SharePoint Site URL
4. In the SharePoint URL window enter the url or internet address of the SharePoint Document Library.
5. Click Next - when prompted enter the username and password.

Option 2 – download a copy of the file

1. When in the Document Library click on Download a copy.
2. The document will be displayed in the browser window with the option to choose how to open in the appropriate application.
3. When the file opens it will be read only with the option to edit and save.

Guest Blogger: Harold Kless

If you try to edit an Office file (Word, PowerPoint or Excel) from a SharePoint 2010 Document Library while using an iPad with MS Office applications installed, the file will not open and there is an error “there is no SharePoint Foundation application available to open
the app.”

SharePoint 2010 requires a plugin or active X to launch client applications, and neither of those are allowed on the iOS platform. SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online support protocol handlers that work with iPad.

To work around this behavior:

Option 1 – Add a Place within the application that will connect to the SharePoint Document Library.

1. To do this open any of the installed Microsoft Office applications
   (Word, Excel or PowerPoint).
2. On the opening window choose Add a Place.
3. In the Add a Place window click on SharePoint Site URL
4. In the SharePoint URL window enter the url or internet address of the SharePoint Document Library.
5. Click Next - when prompted enter the username and password.

Option 2 – download a copy of the file

1. When in the Document Library click on Download a copy.
2. The document will be displayed in the browser window with the option to choose how to open in the appropriate application.
3. When the file opens it will be read only with the option to edit and save.

My name is Aditya and I am a Sr. Support Escalation Engineer for Microsoft on the Windows Core Team. This blog is a continuation of the previous Servicing Part 1. So to understand this blog better, it is recommended that one reads the previous blog post.  As mentioned in the previous, this is a 4 part Blog series on Windows Servicing.

What’s New in Windows Servicing: Part 1
What’s New in Windows Servicing: Reduction of Windows Footprint : Part 2

Before we dive into Single Instancing and Delta Compression, I thought it would be a good idea, to talk about why this was introduced and how it worked in the previous Operating Systems. The reason for both Single Instancing and Delta Compression was to reduce the Windows (Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2) footprint. Here is how and why:

Windows Footprint Reduction Features:The disk footprint of a Windows directly affects end-users, as it reduces the amount of available space for music, videos, pictures, and all other content. Even as we shift more user content to the cloud, factors such as high-resolution photos and videos, limited and costly bandwidth, and safety/security concerns over cloud storage mean that local storage requirements would remain constant for the next few years.

The disk footprint of Windows also directly affects our OEM partners. Available storage is one of the most important metrics, that an end-user looks at when purchasing a system, and OEMs are pushed to provide higher storage capacity. The current trend is that many of the OEM’s are shifting to SSD storage, due to its small footprint (enabling smaller, sleeker devices), low power consumption, low noise, and improved performance. Unfortunately, SSD storage can cost as much as 10x the price of conventional spindle based storage, which means that OEMs can only add limited storage to their systems before the cost becomes too great.

If Windows consumes less of the available disk footprint, while still providing a great end-user experience, this provides end-users with more disk space for their content, without requiring the OEM to spend more on storage, thus reducing the price of PCs.

For rollback purposes, the previous versions of Windows Components are sometimes kept in WinSxS store after installation of new updates through Windows Updates. The MUM Servicing feature which was introduced in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 ensures that the disk space growth due to GDR installations can be reclaimed after a Service Pack (SP) installation by running Disk Cleanup Utility manually.

Windows strives to constrain servicing footprint growth, which are due to GDR installations either before or after a SP installation. The feature also focuses on enabling the servicing footprint reduction support at the Component Based Servicing technology level that targets for the following scenarios:

1. Consumers opt in for automatic updates on their Windows 8 devices, and notice that the WinSxS store footprint no longer grows significantly over time.

2. Consumers notice that the WinSxS store footprint has grown due to update installations over time, and then run Disk Cleanup Utility to reduce the WinSxS store footprint and reclaim disk space on their devices.

3. OEMs service their golden images in technician labs over time to keep them up-to-date and secured. Before the image is delivered to ODM for deployment at factory floor, they clean up the image by running DISM to scavenge away all the superseded components and recapture the smaller sized image.

4. Similarly, IT Admins service master images in their image libraries to keep them up-to-date and secured. Before the image is ready for deployment to Client machines, they clean up the image by running DISM to scavenge away all the superseded components and recapture the smaller sized image.

The feature to reduce the disk space used by Windows with the focus on Windows Components. Windows Update routinely installs patches on released Windows machines but does not always remove previous content that is replaced by the patches and which are not in use anymore. The purpose of this feature is to reduce disk footprint growth over time and also to provide a means by which power-users can reduce the original disk footprint of Windows.

This feature reduces disk footprint grown over time by uninstall and deletion of content that can be removed from the system and compression of unused content that may not be removable from the system

Reducing the footprint of Windows also improves deployment performance, which benefits consumers, Enterprise, and OEMs.

1. Single Instancing Catalogs: This feature contributes to the component store footprint reduction by single-instancing catalogs across the CATROOT, and Windows Servicing Stack stores. 

 The redundant catalogs are single-instanced by hard-linking them across the three stores, nullifying the Windows Servicing Stack footprint overhead. To minimize impact to other catalog clients, changes were scoped to just those catalogs installed by the Servicing Stack.

More information on how hard-linking affects and works in the Windows Servicing Stack, one can refer to this TechNet article:

Manage the Component Store

2. Delta Compression of Superseded Components: Thisfeature contributes to the component store footprint reduction by significantly reducing the size of files that have been superseded by later updates, yet they remain on the computer in case the user needs to uninstall a recent update. 

Superseded components are kept in the component storein case a user uninstalls the winning component (by uninstalling an update, for example). End-users infrequently uninstall updates, making those updates a prime target for reclaiming space. This feature uses a type of compression known as delta compression to dramatically reduce the size of superseded and latent components.

Delta compressionis a technology based on the differencing of two similar files. One version is used as a baseline and another versions is expressed as baseline + deltas.

The delta compression is performed against the winner component at the time of compression. This means the deltas for a specific component is different from machine to machine, depending on which winner was available at the time of compression.

Let me explain this by use of the following diagram Figure 1, in which V1, V2, and V3are all installed components prior to compression. During compression, V1 and V2 are compared against V3, the current winner, to create the necessary deltas.

Figure 1

In the next example, refer Figure 2 below, where V1 and V2 are installed, with V2 being the winner. After compression, V1 delta is created using V2 as the basis. Subsequently, V3 is installed. After the next compression, V2 delta is created using V3 as the basis.

Figure 2

Decompression or Rehydration:If the winning component is uninstalled, Windows Servicing Stack decompresses any components that are using the uninstalled version as their baseline, and makes the next highest versioned component the new winner. The uninstalled version is marked for deletion, and later when the Servicing Stack’s maintenance task runs, the uninstalled version is deleted, and any remaining superseded files are compressed against the new winner. For example refer to figure 3 below.

Figure 3

There may be cases where a file needs to be decompressed, but its basis file is also compressed. In these case, the Windows Servicing Stack would decompress the full chain of files necessary to decompress the final winning file.

Figure 4

At this point the big question that comes to mind is When Do We Delta Compress Components? The answer is pretty simple, Delta compression of superseded and latent content in the component store happens as part of the Servicing Stacks maintenance task. This process can be triggered either manually, or automatically.

• Manual maintenance:Manually triggered by dism.exe.

Dism /online /cleanup-image /startcomponentcleanup

• Automatic maintenance: Triggered by a scheduled maintenance task when the system is idle.

Task Scheduler Library  -->  Microsoft  -->  Windows  -->  Servicing

The automatic case is interruptible and resume-able. It automatically stops when the computer is no longer idle, and resumes when it becomes idle again.

For more detailed information, please refer to What’s New in Windows Servicing: Part 1.

Definitions:

I hope this blog would have helped in understanding the efforts, put in the background by all the Windows team, in order to reduce the size of WINSXS considerably in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

The next blog in the series we would be discussing about the Servicing Stack improvements in KB2821895for Windows 8, and why it will assist your upgrade to 8.1?? Till then happy reading….

Aditya
Senior Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Platforms Support

Earlier today in San Francisco, Satya spoke about the wide-ranging work Microsoft is doing to deliver a cloud for everyone and every device. Satya’s remarks certainly covered a lot of ground – including big announcements about the availability of Office on the iPad, as well as the release of what we call the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Regarding the Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), I want to share some additional details about the upcoming general availability of Azure Active Directory Premium, as well as our latest updates to Windows Intune. READ MORE

Inspired by nonprofit Code.org, we’ve launched the Asia Pacific Week of Code, 21-27 April, through Microsoft’s YouthSpark Initiative. We are promoting the learning of code by inviting everyone, beginners to advanced coders, to do an Hour of Code. Learning to code opens up a world of opportunities. For more information, please visit www.wespeakcode.net.

本日、米国にて、Office Mobile に関する発表がありましたが、日本での提供形態は以下の通りとなります。

• Office Mobile for iPhone および、Office Mobile for Android phones の無償化

昨年6月より、Office 365 利用者向けのみに提供されていた両製品が、本日より日本市場を含むすべてのユーザーへと無償提供されることになりました。

Office Mobile for iPhone は Apple の App Store から、Office Mobile for Android phonesは Google Play から直接ダウンロードしてすぐにご利用いただけます。

• Office for iPad®の 提供開始について

本日より Office for iPad の提供が開始されましたが、日本市場ではこのタイミングでの提供は行いません。

今後、本アプリケーションの日本市場への提供については引き続検討を行ってまいります。最新の情報は本ブログにてご案内させていただきます。

Office Mobile の詳細につきましては米国にて公開されている Blog記事(英語)をご覧ください。

Some great new reporting features just released for Office 365.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj984325.aspx

A lot of these reports can be very useful in troubleshooting your environment. Especially the connection oriented ones for troubleshooting application connectivity into Office 365. Which is a big generator of support calls we see into Tier 3 support!

I will be adding some PowerShell snippets to this blog post soon...

As the debut of Kinect for Windows v2 nears, the Kinect for Windows team revealed Thursday the hardware’s final look.

As you can see, the sensor closely resembles the Kinect for Xbox One, except that it says “Kinect” on the top panel, and the Xbox Nexus — the stylized green “x”— has been changed to a simple, more understated power indicator.

The sensor needs other components to work: the hub and the power supply. Head over to the Kinect for Windows Blog to see them and get more details on this hardware.

You might also be interested in:

• “Kinect Sports Rivals” kicks off world championship with big cash and amazing vacation prizes
• Video: Check out six teams that made it to this weekend’s “Call of Duty” championships
• Be a Force to be reckoned with in “Star Wars: Assault Team” for Windows Phone, PCs and tablets

Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff

After about a month of being in closed beta, Crytek’s “Warface” is now in open beta for all Xbox Live Gold subscribers as a free download.

The open beta will carry over three Versus modes that feature several maps, plus two initial Co-op settings with multiple mission types and difficulties. There will also be a constant flow of new settings, modes and missions built for beginners and experts.

Trying out “Warface” for the first time? Major Nelson’s blog gives some pointers from Crytek to help you hold your own against closed beta competitors. For instance it’s important to be fast and make maximum use of your chosen class’ abilities in Versus games.

You might also be interested in:

• Create a new experience using Project Spark and Linkin Park’s new music video
• Video: Check out six teams that made it to this weekend’s “Call of Duty” championships
• Be a Force to be reckoned with in “Star Wars: Assault Team” for Windows Phone, PCs and tablets

Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff

Posted by Brad Smith
General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft

Last Thursday, news coverage focused on a case in 2012 in which our investigators accessed the Hotmail content of a user who was trafficking in stolen Microsoft source code. Over the past week, we’ve had the opportunity to reflect further on this issue, and as a result of conversations we’ve had internally and with advocacy groups and other experts, we’ve decided to take an additional step and make an important change to our privacy practices.

Effective immediately, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property from Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer’s private content ourselves. Instead, we will refer the matter to law enforcement if further action is required.

[Read more...]

On March 20, news coverage focused on a case in 2012 in which Microsoft investigators accessed the Hotmail content of a user who was trafficking in stolen Microsoft source code. In a blog post Friday, Microsoft General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs Brad Smith outlined an important change to the company’s privacy practices.

“Effective immediately, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property from Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer’s private content ourselves. Instead, we will refer the matter to law enforcement if further action is required,” Smith wrote.

In addition to changing company policy, in the coming months, this change will be incorporated in Microsoft’s customer terms of service, so that it’s clear to consumers and binding on Microsoft, Smith wrote.

For the rest of the story, head on over to Microsoft on the Issues.

You might also be interested in:

· Sneak a peek at Kinect for Windows v2 hardware
· OneNote, Office Lens and “Avengers Alliance” among latest batch of favorite apps and games
· Be a Force to be reckoned with in “Star Wars: Assault Team” for Windows Phone, PCs and tablets

Jeff Meisner
Microsoft News Center Staff

On Thursday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivered a press briefing where he outlined the company’s mobile-first, cloud-first approach and introduced Office for iPad, the Enterprise Mobility Suite and more. It didn’t take long before the coverage started rolling in, and you can read excerpts in our new Top Stories page.

You might want to start with “Microsoft Office for iPad review: Finally! True productivity on your tablet” by PCWorld’s Mark Hachman. Or “How Microsoft Started Over and Built Office for iPad” by Lance Ulanoff at Mashable. There’s lots of great coverage to choose from.

You might also be interested in:

• Satya Nadella: The cloud and mobile can be first at the same time
• Office arrives on the iPad
• Microsoft unveils the Enterprise Mobility Suite

Steve Clarke
Microsoft News Center Staff

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to find processes with a process ID that is less than 1000.

 How can I use Windows PowerShell to find all processes that have a process ID less than 1000?

 Use the Get-Process cmdlet, pipe the resulting objects to the Select-Object cmdlet, choose the process name,
          and create a custom property that displays True if the process ID is less than 1000:

Get-Process | select name, @{L='Pid below 1000';E={$_.pid -lt 1000}}

Data enthusiasts & Microsoft talk about Big Data in the enterprise at Gigaom Structure Data 2014

Last week in New York, our data solutions experts spent a few days with more than 900 big data practitioners, technologists and executives at Structure Data for a conversation how big data can drive business success.

The rich conversations with attendees at the event were inspiring, and the broad range of speakers was impressive.  Our discussions over the two days in New York centered on what the Big Data solution looks like inside an enterprise and the challenges around accessing and processing big data to make better data-driven decisions. 

Structure Data attendees want to combine data from multiple sources to do a couple key things -- to gain deeper insights and to ask new questions and get answers.  However, without the right technology to support that, it can be very challenging to do this.  That's where Microsoft comes in -- and where we continued the dialog with attendees as our data experts used a huge Microsoft touchscreens to show how easy it can be to transform big data to insights using simple, front-end tools (like Excel or Power BI for Office 365) and back-end technology for scale, power and speed (like Windows Azure HDInsight and SQL Server). 

Microsoft Research Distinguished Scientist John Platt also spoke at Structure Data and shared the latest on our work in machine learning, which is quite pervasive throughout many Microsoft products. If you missed it, take a moment to watch the short chat here. 

Our data experts also gave attendees an insiders’ view at how Microsoft’s Cybercrime Center is using data to fight worldwide organized crime and BotNets. (See the video below for more.) 

Take the first step and learn more about Microsoft Big Data solutions:

• Use simple tools, to easily analyze Big Data, experience it by trying Power BI
• Take the latest SQL Server for a test drive
• Use cloud power to work with Big Data, try Windows Azure HDInsight

Or, connect with us on Facebook.com/sqlserver and Twitter @SQLServer and learn how Microsoft’s approach to data, big and small, helps employees, IT professionals and data scientists quickly transform data into insight and action.

And don't forget about the April 15^th Accelerate your insights event where Microsoft will unveil the details of new capabilities for the appliance that has both scale-out relational data warehouse and Hadoop in the same box, thus evolving PDW from a solution built for high performance relational data warehousing to a true turnkey Big Data Analytics appliance.