alexkeller

I am glad that it helped you. For the future, you can refer to this site if you got a file with the extension that you don't know how to open. For example to find the description for the docx extension just type http://filext.com/file-extension/DOCX You can trick Word and make it remove the read-only flag from the titlebar by renaming (now it's exactly the case when it needed) the docx extension to doc. Because Microsoft Word opens documents based on its format and not extension you will be able to read the docx file and not see the read-only phrase in the document window header.

It's a document created in Microsoft Word 2007 and saved in a new Open XML format. This is a XML file put into an ZIP container. To be able to read it in Microsoft Office 2003 you need to set up the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats that you can download from here.

Wrong again. Because XP was released in 2001 then that is the BlackComb that will be released in 2010. Server will be released in 2030. Talking seriously, since the development of core LH features is completed in beta 3 release and then all the features will be just polished to glisten as a shiny OS till the RTM. From what I saw, there's lot of really useful new features that are great if it will be possible to see them as soon as possible.

Yes. When I said on-the-fly I meant that it's possible to configure the desktop based on the events. So what I do here. I deploy a standard OS image and configure desktops after according to what the configuration I assigned for the user. Desktop is configured automatically when user logs on to the system. I find such event based is very handy as there's no need to keep several preconfigured images as I did it previously. As an example from recent experience. We moved one room from one floor to another. And the bad thing with all that was that we have another network segment set up on that floor. Users have to lose their gateway configuration and the printer setup as the consequence. But the most handy thing I like from managing desktops with desktop authority is that such situations are easily fixable there. I just changed the profile settings and refreshed the policy for the OU with users from that room. But you'd better refer to their site for more details.

Try looking at these recommendations for implementing software restrictons using the group policy. Keep in mind here that since you will use the hash rule your software restriction policy will strictly depend on the version of the application you want to block. So with new service pack deployment the content will change. Also read this information, it might be helpful.

I mean that it's possible to apply settings to the user only at those times when it's needed by changing the desktop configuration right at the used side.

Well, I have some experience with memebership-based deployment. We are using the Desktop Authority management tool from Scriptlogic for that. I guess, you are probably talking about ability to configure the desktop configuration on the fly.

Info about sysprep and rearming:

You mean running LH as a guest? Yes. It works well at least Beta 3. The only problem for me is WiFi... Have you tried running VMs within LH? I mean the LH built-in emulation? I am planning to create yet one separate network with limited number of machines. I want to deploy a Sever Core installation.

As far as I know VMWare 5.5.3 and higher are capable of running Vista both like host and guest operating systems. At least I've seen no serious problems running a whole test network with Vista installed as a guest OS within the 5.5.3. According to this info VMware 5.5.3 and higher officially supports Vista running as a guest OS. I am currently testing desktop configurations which we have plans to deploy in the nearest future. The desktop management tool we are using here allows deploying desktop configurations right on virtual environments and then transfer it as-is to physical machines. Recently VMWare introduced their new VMWare Workstation 6 that supports Vista as a host operating system. So I guess, you can try rolling up Vista. At least that's what VMs are for: tests and trials. In both cases OS and application spaces are protected either by host os machine or by VM machine and OS syssytems manager. If either will crash no one will be affected by this crash. That being said, try not installing it on critical environments.

I am using Kaspersky at home. I've heard F-Secure used their core. Dunno what the situation is now. For corporate net we are using another distributed anti-spy protection installed on the 'perimeter' servers and is running 'in front' of workstations. Not by Kaspersky. Grisoft's AV+FW is great but it doesn't support server systems. I am also using Windows Defender. It helped me with JS threats. It looks (I see it from log files on my W2k3 server Anti-Spyware) like the web-site auto-install scripts are the most popular threats now. Comparing the traffic gives the result that computers where users use the web are more virus-prone than those where users are just using e-mail. So perimeter protection coupled with desktop protection and IPSec security filtering policies do their job well.