IT109 Microsoft Windows 7 Operating Systems Unit 06 lesson 07

Editor's Notes

• #3: Outline the material you are going to cover in this lesson. Do not go into detail as each of these points will be expanded on in the lesson. You may also want to mention the Technology Skills that are being covered for the Certification exam also.
• #4: Introduce Internet Explorer Version 8.
• #5: These are the topics that will be discussed on the following screens.
• #6: Explain the purpose of Compatibility View and use the screen shots on the slide to help you to explain how you would add sites to Compatibility View, if you cannot demonstrate. Discuss some of the Group Policy settings that can be configured on an Active Directory Domain.
• #7: Discuss the 4 types of add-ons supported by IE.
• #8: Explain that Bing is Microsoft’s default Search Provider when you perform searches in IE. You can add more search providers and select a different default Search providers are Add-ons.
• #9: Accelerators are another add-on that will allow you to send content to other resources, such as a blog, or to find it on a map. The above screen allows you select other Accelerators to add to IE. The use of Accelerators can also be controlled by Group Policy on an AD DS.
• #10: RSS Feeds allow users to subscribe to sites with frequently changing content. This allows them to see the new content without having to go to each site. Use the RSS Feeds button in IE (turns RED when a feed is available), and then you can view the content at any time.
• #11: IE has had problems printing web pages in the past (text cut off). With IE8, there is a Print Preview page will allows users greater flexibility in viewing and formatting pages to be printed.
• #12: IE 8 includes a number of important security enhancements. These are the topics that will be discussed on the following screens.
• #13: Explain Protected Mode and why this is a good defense against attackers coming through a web browser connection. The Protected Mode only works with IE8 running on Vista or Windows 7, not XP. Some older web-based applications may not run properly in Protected Mode. You can use Compatibility Logging to see what applications are not running properly and you can Move the site to the Trusted Sites zone, Disable Protected Mode in IE, or Modify the Application (difficult).
• #14: Explain that with Web-Based applications becoming more common, companies will often use them, but many will require less restricted access to the system than what IE8 will provide in Protected Mode. To provide different levels of access to specific applications, IE divides the addresses accessible with the webbrowser into security zones. Describe each of the 4 zones.
• #15: Discuss Social Engineering and Phishing. The SmartScreen Filter examines traffic for evidence of Phishing activity and displays a warning to the user. Describe the 3 techniques used by the SmartScreen Filter to identify potential phishing websites.
• #16: Discuss the type of information that is typically gathered as users browse the Internet (temporary files, cookies and browsing history). Define what InPrivate Mode does for the user and explain the two technologies listed on the screen.
• #17: Pop-up windows are now a fact of Internet web browsing. Some pop-ups are useful web site controls, most are simply annoying advertisements, and a few can even be dangerous sources of spyware or other malicious programs. Internet Explorer includes a pop-up blocker that you can configure to suppress some or all pop-ups.
• #18: Discuss good and potentially bad uses of cookies and that some people are uncomfortable with outside parties saving data on their drives for their own purposes.
• #19: Describe SSL and how they are based on a PKI that come from a CA. When a site is secured, a gold lock appears in the address bar and you can click on the lock to see certificate information.
• #20: One example of these features, data execution prevention (DEP), prevents applications from executing code in certain areas of memory. Another, mandatory integrity control (MIC), defines four integrity levels that Windows assigns to running processes, which specify the amount of access that the processes receive to system resources. As a result of features like these, some programs that run perfectly well in older versions of Windows, particularly Windows XP and earlier, cannot run on Windows 7.
• #21: Describe the Program Compatibility Troubleshooter Program and explain the two options shown on the screen shot.
• #22: Explain the process of setting an executable’s compatibility mode manually, meaning instead of using the Troubleshooter discussed in the last slide.
• #23: Discuss how enterprise network administrators would usually manage compatibility issues themselves and prefer that end-users do not see the compatibility warnings and try to configure compatibility issues themselves. Group policy can be used to suppress the compatibility warnings, and also can limit users’ access to compatibility mode controls. The two screen shots on the slide display settings for Application Compatibility Diagnostics and Application Compatibility. You can discuss a couple of the options.
• #24: Describe how the ACT is a collection of programs that enables administrators to gather information about incompatibilities between specific applications and Windows 7, and create customized solutions that enable those applications to run. It is a free download from the MS Download Center. Introduce the tools that will be discussed in the upcoming slides.
• #25: Designed primarily to help administrators ensure application compatibility for large-scale Windows 7 deployments, Application Compatibility Manager is a tool, shown in the screen shot, that gathers compatibility information and uses it to test your applications for compatibility issues. Describe the three basic steps shown on the screen.
• #26: Compatibility Administrator, as shown in the screen shot, is a central clearing house for solutions to known compatibility problems for hundreds of commercial Windows 7 applications. When you select an application in the left pane, the right pane lists existing compatibility fixes.
• #27: The Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool is a specialized program that collects compatibility information for web pages and web-based applications. Unlike the Application Compatibility Manager, this is a real time tool that examines the compatibility of the web sites you access with Internet Explorer 8. To use the Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool, you simple run the program, click enable, and use Internet Explorer to access the sites you want to test. An icon appears in the IE status bar, indicating that Internet Explorer compatibility evaluation logging is turned on, and log entries begin to appear in the tool’s Live Data window,
• #28: Describe the purpose of the Setup Analysis Tool.
• #29: The Standard User Analyzer is a tool that examines applications for compatibility issues caused by the User Account Control (UAC) feature of Windows 7. UAC can prevent applications from accessing resources that were available to them in previous Windows versions. The Standard User Analyzer identifies these resources, using either a manual or wizard-based format.
• #30: Describe Windows XP Mode and its requirements.
• #31: Restricting the applications that users can run on their computers is one step towards creating a consistent workstation environment. Workstations that are identically configured are easier to support and limit the possibility of malware infiltration. Windows 7 supports two mechanisms for restricting application, both of which you can deploy using Group Policy settings: software restriction policies and AppLocker. These mechanisms are discussed in the following slides.
• #32: Introduce Software Restriction Policies. Note that they have been around for a long time. Policies can be set for workstations running different operating systems, like XP and Vista and Windows 7. Rules can only be created manually and individually.
• #33: Describe the different types of rules that can be created.
• #34: Describe the 3 rule settings and how to create a secure environment. Also discuss resolving conflicts.
• #35: Introduce AppLocker and describe why it is better than software restriction policies and what its disadvantages are.
• #36: Describe the rule types and the criteria used to allow or block access to specific resources.
• #37: By default, AppLocker blocks all executables, installer packages, and scripts, except for those specified in Allow rules. Therefore, to use AppLocker, you must create rules that enable users to access the files needed for Windows and the system’s installed applications to run. The simplest way to do this is to right-click each of the three rules containers and select Create Default Rules from the context menu. The default rules for each container, as shown in the screen shot, are standard rules that you can replicate, modify, or delete as necessary. You can also create your own rules instead, as long as you are careful to provide access to all the resources the computer needs to run Windows.
• #38: Describe the great advantage of AppLocker is that when you create a new rule, the wizard starts automatically.
• #39: Describe the different pieces of information that the wizard prompts the administrator for.
• #40: Review the Skill Summary to wrap up your lesson.