Recent and Upcoming Speaking Engagements

I wanted to update you on my recent and upcoming speaking engagements. First, I’ve been hosting a series of virtual roundtables for the Springboard Series program. Springboard’s purpose is to provide a one-stop resource for IT Pros evaluating, deploying and managing Windows. The most recent roundtable, which took place at the end of September, focused on virtualization technologies such as App-V, XP Mode, MEDV, and Remote Desktop Sessions, and how you can use them to address application compatibility as you move from Windows XP to Windows Vista or Windows 7. At the table we had Microsoft application compatibility experts and industry partners and it was another great discussion of the issues and tradeoffs of various approaches. Check out the recording here and the previous roundtables here.

On September 22 I delivered a session at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco with Shiv Kaushik, an Intel Fellow, on how Microsoft and Intel collaborated during this release cycle to make sure that Windows takes advantage of innovations delivered by new Intel hardware, specifically the Nehalem platform. You can watch the presentation free on Intel’s IDF site here.

In November I’ll be speaking at TechEd Europe in Berlin and the Professional Developer’s Conference in Los Angeles. I’m delivering four sessions at TechEd, two of which, the Case of the Unexplained and Pushing the Limits of Windows, are based on blog post series I’ve been running:

  • Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Kernel Changes
    This session goes beneath the hood of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to describe and demonstrate the key changes in the kernel. Topics include: scalability improvements (such as removal of the global scheduler lock, support for more than 64 logical processors, and user mode scheduling), core parking and timer coalescing for power efficiency, trigger-started services, improved multi-function device support, core architecture changes to modularize Windows ("Minwin") and more.
  • Case of the Unexplained 2009...Windows Troubleshooting with Mark Russinovich
    Come hear Mark Russinovich, the master of Windows troubleshooting, walk you through step by step how he has solved seemingly unsolvable system and application problems on Windows. With all new real case studies, Mark will show how to apply the Microsoft Debugging Tools and his own Sysinternals tools, including Process Explorer, Process Monitor, and Accesschk, to solve system crashes, process hangs, security vulnerabilities, DLL conflicts, permissions problems, registry misconfiguration, network hangs, and file system issues. These tools are used on a daily basis by Microsoft Product Support and have been used effectively to solve a wide variety of desktop and server issues, so being familiar with their operation and application will assist you in dealing with different problems on Windows.
  • Pushing the Limits of Windows
    How many processes, threads, and handles can you make?  How does Windows react when it's pushed to the limit? This session goes deep into the kernel to explain what limits Windows from creating more processes, threads, handles, and what the real limits are for physical and virtual memory. How much more can you do with 64-bits? Live demos show the effect on Windows when various resources are exhausted.
  • Windows and Malware: Which Features are Security and Which Aren’t
    This session goes under the hood of a number of Windows features that all have the common trait of looking and smelling like security to present their true purpose and value. Learn which of technologies like Kernel Patch Protection, UAC elevations, Protected Mode Internet Security, Service isolation, Code Integrity, and virtual machines really make security guarantees and which are really designed to solve other problems.

At the PDC, I’ll be delivering the kernel changes talk and participating in the kernel portion of a Windows 7 boot camp pre-conference that’s free to everyone, whether you’re attending the PDC or not. Joining me will be Memory Manager architect Landy Wang and Windows Kernel architect Arun Kishan (who brought us great scalability in Windows Server 2008 R2 by removing the kernel’s dispatcher lock). You can find out more here.

I look forward to seeing you at one of my sessions!

Finally, a little off-topic, but I’ve signed up for Twitter and am shooting to be the anti-Ashton Kutcher. Actually, I’m setting my sites a little lower: I want to be the first user to get to 10,000 followers without ever tweeting or following anyone else (in other words, not using Twitter at all). Sign up to follow me here!