If you ever consider using NGen with your .NET applications, then you simply MUST read the article The Performance Benefits of NGen in the current issue of MSDN Magazine. It can't get any more authoritative than that (the author Surupa Biswas works on the runtime's back-end compiler and focuses primarily on pre-compilation technologies).

During the MVP Open Day in Munich last week (Friday & Saturday), we had a presentation by Talhah Mir (ACE Team, Threat Modeling blogs) on threat modeling - which (I hope) everyone is familiar by now. During the talk, he pointed us to an interesting resource: A Chronology of Data Breaches from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Quite an interesting list of incidents, which gives you an idea of the ratio of actual hacking vs dishonest insider, as well as other types of security breaches.

There is one feature coming with IIS 7 (http.sys, as such it is more an OS feature) that I have been waiting for a long time: being able to see what's in the kernel cache! The key to this new supercool feature is the netsh command:

C:\Users\Administrator>netsh http show cachestate ?

Usage: show cachestate [[url=]<string>]

Parameters:

    Tag       Value
    url   -   Fully qualified URL. If unspecified, implies all
              URLs. The URL could also be a prefix to registered URLs

Remarks: This command lists all resources and their associated properties
         that are cached in HTTP response cache or displays a single
         resource and its associated properties.

Examples:
      show cachestate url=http://www.myhost.com:80/myresource
      show cachestate

Some information can be obtained in the article New Networking Features in Windows Server "Longhorn" and Windows Vista (you can even flush the cache), and here is how it works if you browse to the default Web site of IIS 7:

C:\Users\Administrator>netsh http show cachestate http://localhost

Snapshot of HTTP response cache:
--------------------------------

URL: http://localhost:80/pagerror.gif
    Status code: 200
    HTTP verb: GET
    Cache policy type: User invalidates
    Creation time: 2006.3.21:23.30.16:0
    Request queue name: DefaultAppPool
    Headers length: 187
    Content length: 2806
    Hit count: 1
    Force disconnect after serving: FALSE

URL: http://localhost:80/iisstart.htm
    Status code: 200
    HTTP verb: GET
    Cache policy type: User invalidates
    Creation time: 2006.3.21:23.30.14:0
    Request queue name: DefaultAppPool
    Headers length: 233
    Content length: 774
    Hit count: 1
    Force disconnect after serving: FALSE

Tracking caching behavior will be so much easier.

IIS 7.0 Beta: Operations Guide
IIS 7.0 Beta: Feature Reference

Aside from disabling UAP, I also went back to THE Administrator account. Doing so can get quite messy unless you join your Vista box to a domain, as outlined in the blog entry Trouble signing on as THE Administrator on 5308? Now I have access to applicationHost.config again. Good security does get in the way, but this is just way too onerous.

After 'killing' three Vista installations yesterday, laziness got the better of me. I launched msconfig.exe, went to the Tools tab, and did this:

A reboot later I am a happy (and no longer annoyed) camper. Security obviously went out the window, however, I don't think this installation will live long enough either for this to be an issue.

If you need to find out just what devices are running Web services in your network (aside from the obvious Web servers, this includes nowadays printers, access points and many more), then you should check out httprint. It doesn't rely on server banners or fall for other obfuscation techniques, so it is quite handy to find out just what software is running on that box.

In case you need it too: Configuring SSL Host Headers shows you how to get up and running with one IP, port and certificate but multiple host headers. All you need is a wildcard certificate (learn more here) and some CLI magic because there is no UI for it. Basically, it boils down to (for example):

adsutil.vbs set w3svc/siteid/SecureBindings ":443:host.wildcarddomain.com"

Don't know how this one could slip by me - Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) shipped a rather important update: you can run SSL in kernel mode (http.sys) instead of user mode. There are restrictions which are detailed here (most B2C SSL sites will do just fine), and the procedure to enable kernel-mode SSL shows how to get up and running in no time. Mostly you are only dealing with the registry key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters\EnableKernelSSL.

As you can see in this blog post, Windows Media Encoder allows for screen recording (option: Capture Screen). Till now I had no need for a screen recording on my x64 box, but today was the day:

I am really, really growing tired of all the x64 annoyances.

Update Installed the x86 version of Media Encoder alongside, et voila, the x86 version delivers.