Earlier this week it was announced that Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 had been released for public beta, most people would therefore assume that the final release date would be later this here however we are gong to have to wait until the first half of 2011.

By design Windows 7 Home Basic does not allow the user to change the wallpaper if you right click on the desktop the "Personalize" option is missing.

However the option is simple hidden and not removed, the workaround is to open the start menu and type "Change desktop background" in the search box and press enter.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2005592/en-gb

I am starting to look at deploying Windows 7 to some of our Laptops.

Our Domain controllers are mostly Windows 2003 and there is a single Window 2008 controller. I was a little un-sure if we needed to upgrade our DC's to 2008 R2 before we could set Windows 7 GPO's.

Essentially the answer is no your don't have to upgrade a single one of your DC's before you can set Windows 7 GPO's but you will need a Windows 7 client with the Remote Server Administration Toolkit (RSAT) installed, alternatively you can use a 2008 R2 Server to configure the policies.

I recently had a need for a script to write to the Windows event log, I was about to go to the trouble (fun) of scripting the task until I came across the Microsoft Eventcreate Utility which does it all for you.

It even has a switch to write the log on a remote computer.

More info can be found here

I recently found these pics on Flickr and had to share them.

See if you can spot what is wrong in these pictures of one of the presentations by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.