Create tutorials and how to videos with Windows Media Encoder

Many have asked how we create tutorials and how to videos for SMS and general Windows Topics. Primarily, we use Microsoft Windows Media Encoder, a free Microsoft product. Media Encoder captures screen and microphone input to a WMV file for later distribution or editing.

I find that a little editing can go a long way in terms of speeding up demos and how to videos. There's no need to make viewers wait when something is going on in the background, just cut the video and use a transition (like dissolve) between cuts. Audio is something I generally lay down as a guide the first time, then replace it with a better sweetened up voice over for the final cut.

Understanding WQL for Collections and Queries

There are two main references we have for WQL related to SMS

• Microsoft SQL MSDN Article
• SMS 2003 SDK

The SDK brings a little more to the party and has excellent documentation on the SMS Classes which you can use in WQL to construct collections and queries.