Locale codes for Windows Deployment

Posted by kyle on January 31st, 2010 filed in Vista Deployment, Windows 2008, Windows 7, Windows 7 Deployment
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Thanks to DreamensioN for pointing this out..

If you are looking to deploy Windows using an unattended installation file, and you want to set the locale to en-AU – there are some incorrect entries on the MS websites for the codes to be used for en_au in the unattend files..

Listed as English_Australia here…

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/win2k/setup/lcid.mspx

Listed as English_Australia here…

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb895996.aspx

In both locations Australia is listed as 0c09:00000409 but it should be 0c09:00000C09 (so the 409 at the end is incorrect – that is the correct entry for US not AU)

Cheers

Kyle

Tweakui for Windows 7

Posted by Wayne on December 16th, 2009 filed in Windows 7
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G’day all,

One of the great little utilities that I used for Windows XP has surfaced for Windows 7. It’s not made by Microsoft – the original tweakui was a “Power Toy” and available as a download from Microsoft. This one is from http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-v2-a-tweak-ui-for-windows-7-vista and works the same way: it makes changes to the registery for you. I used it the remove the ugly shortcut arrow on the desktop and to remove the word “shortcut” itself. Give it a try.

targets down, patch out.

Wayne

Sharing connections?

Posted by kyle on December 13th, 2009 filed in Windows 2008, Windows 7
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I came across a handy little tool the other day – for sharing out network connections wirelessly. Basically this takes your wifi card and makes it an access point – not an ad-hoc point – but a full access point. It uses the new virtual network capability of Win7 and Win2008 R2.

So it means that you can happily share your network connections via your wireless card – with full WPA2 security. I right now have my wireless data card shared via my built in wifi card.

Works with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 – and works with a bunch of wireless cards.

Check out Connectify here

Cheers

Kyle

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 on my Lenovo T61p

Posted by Wayne on December 13th, 2009 filed in Entertainment, Windows 2008 R2
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Morning all!

It’s the first day of my holidays; Kyle is at work teaching a class I would have done except …. I’m on holidays!! Oh, I said that already? Sorry (not). Last week at work I decided it was time to go to Server 2008 R2 on my laptop, a Lenovo T61p. It’s a great laptop, once I push the ram up to 8 Gb and add a second 500gb drive I’ll be even happier!

The install went fine … the third time around. The first time I tried using the Workstation 2008 http://www.win2008workstation.com/ program to convert my server build into a desktop. This utility works fine, for Server 2008 RTM! It trashed my system, so I re-installed … twice! Don’t ask, ok? Oh, you want to know … well, I thought it was something I did first time around .. so I ran the convert utility again … so call me stupid. There is (now) a link to the R2 utility http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/ I turned features on by hand, all works fine, Server 2008 R2 rocks as a desktop!

I installed IIS and Virtual Server R2 sp1 – I need this for the Microsoft courses I run. A link http://blogs.infosupport.com/blogs/ericd/archive/2009/08/31/running-virtual-server-2005-r2-sp1-on-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx helped with the steps, it all works fine.

Next was Hyper-V and modifying the boot order using bcedit. Don’t re-invent the wheel. try http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/04/14/creating-a-no-hypervisor-boot-entry.aspx for the full steps and screenshots.

So, it’s Monday morning and I need to read my daily Dilbert … but Lorraine’s working on some flaming project to do with 1959 on the main pc (Lorraine’s the Minister for War, Finance and Entertainment – disturb at your own risk!) No worries, let’s fire up the laptop. No connection to the wireless … ok, troubleshooting, this’ll be easy, probably just a new driver needed. Nope, Server 2008R2 is remarkably up to date … let’s try Intel. Oh good, a newer driver! Hmm, that didn’t work. Time to swear and and sweat a bit, messages about “contact your administrator” don’t really help! My Bing-fu doesn’t help, let’s revert to Goggle-fu. Oh no. (Music in the background changes to “folks are dumb …”) Let’s go visit the Features .. oh look, Wireless LAN Support (not installed by default on a Server) is poking its tongue out at me. *mutter* Shut up Kyle.

Nowhere near as many drama’s or as geeky as Kyle’s previous, just a reminder to those who would like to run a Server build as their Desktop.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

targets down, patch out.

Wayne

Dynamic Disks and Recovery

Posted by kyle on December 10th, 2009 filed in Misc, Windows 7, Windows 7 Deployment
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So – you might recall my post a little while ago about my boot to VHD issues – that I solved by making room on the drive.

So .. all was working well until as part of a demo I used the only machine that was available at the time and used that box to demo converting the disk drive to a dynamic disk – this then enabled me to do volume spanning etc..

So – fast forward to me the booting up into my VHD boot again – and then once more getting Blue Screens – mmm.. i thought I had solved that problem .. indeed.. I had – then I created another one!

So the issue was that for boot to VHD to work – it cannot be stored on a parent disk configured as a dynamic disk – this I did not know – and only found when I was hunting to see what the issue might have been.. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799282(WS.10).aspx

So.. therefore I needed to convert from Dynamic to Basic – not an operation to be taken lightly as it traditionally involves taking the option to “Convert to Basic Disk” in Disk Management – and by convert it means – wipe everything and start again. So I was ready to do a complete rebuild – when a friend (Kim – you know who you are!) suggested to use the image backup in Windows 7  to do the full back up – destroy the disk and then start again – good thinking.. so I set about do this. For good measure I also used the backup facility on my Windows Home Server to create another copy… so far so good..

Then I began the process of doing a system restore – and then the troubles started

So .. what it seems (and further reading leans this way – but more testing is required and will be forthcoming – that doing image backups of a dynamic disk is not a good idea – I have found on various blogs (including the Windows Backup Team’s blog) that there is issues with backing up to a dynamic disk – basically you can do it but not restore from it – but I have also found that the image backup itself will not restore if it was from a dynamic disk in the first place. The backup completes – the files are certainly there – but the restore process does not work.

When I tried to use the system image restore option of the Windows 7 disk – I was given an error about not having the correct version of winpe (the 64bit version – which is what I was using) or the image was corrupt.

So – I went looking for other options – and found this. A handy hex editor that will edit the disk configuration. So there is a non-distructive way of changing from Dynamic to Basic disks (with a very large addendum as you will see!) Also read the whole thing before you start – you will see that there are some big gotcha’s..

The steps that I used were:

WARNING – THIS HAS THE ABILITY TO COMPLETELY DESTROY ALL ACCESS TO YOU YOUR DATA  – DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK – DO NOT BLAME ME IF IT GOES HORRIBLY WRONG – just saying is all .. this is all on you

1. Do a complete back up – I did 2 – the image backup and the WHS backup.

2. Download Hxd – I used the non-install version – and put it on a USB disk – you could equally download the install version – but I used the non-install version so I did not have to put anything on the HDD.

3. Run the exe. As this is on a Windows 7 machine I needed to run it as Administrator (yes – I run my own boxes with UAC turned on

4. I then selected my disk – using the menu –

then – in this case I knew the drive that I wanted to convert back – so I selected the disk 1 – disk 2 here is actually not a drive but a mounted VHD – more on that later. When you uncheck the Read-Only – which you need to do and then click on ok here you get a warning about the drive and what you are doing and how it could destroy your data – just in case my warning above was not enough.

5. Now you will see the contents of your drive – in hex form – do not change anything apart from what you need to – otherwise bad things will happen to your data (plague of frogs, etc)

Basically look in the Sector 0 1B0 – 1F0 area for the value 42 – logically you will have one for every volume you have – I had 3 – and then change the 42 to 07 – that is it – no changing any thing else.. at all .. then close and save changes.

6. I went then to Disk Management and found that disk 1 was now a basic disk – hooray – then I refreshed the view and got a Blue Screen of Death – ok – so this was not so cool.

7. Rebooted machine and Windows started fine – but then when I opened up Disk Management I found that my data drive had corrupted – mmm.. ok .. so why was that? Well – it was a spanned volume that had different parts of the drive – and that didn’t transfer across to the basic disk.

8. So that was fine as I had my backups right? yeeeeahhhh.. I went to the image restore option in Windows 7 and it could not find a valid image in the location that it was.. ok .. so I then head to Windows Home Server (remembering that I had backed up to both locations). Windows Home Server shows the backups – but I can’t restore the data drive – gets to 97% and then fails – mmm .. ok .. so Kyle is starting to get a little worried now – I noticed in WHS backup that the location for the backup for this machine is “missing” well.. that could be the problem – I wonder if that is due to the dynamic disk (a quick check of other backups restore fine and they have a location – but they are all for basic disks – so more testing to come on that)

9. So – I then looked in the location that I had put the system image backups – the vhd’s that were created were there – so the backup did work – it was just the restore process. No mind… I crack open Disk Management and then mount the VHD of the data drive and then manually copy the files to the newly recreated data partition on my laptop.

So – not the prettiest solution – but what the heck – it works – and it meant that I did not have to do a complete rebuild to convert from Dynamic to Basic.

I will be doing some more testing to see if any of the backup issues were actually from the Dynamic Disk or if it was just strange coincidence.. I am betting against strange coincidence.. but we shall see..

Anyway – enjoy!

Cheers

kyle

Proof of the improvements in Windows 7

Posted by kyle on October 28th, 2009 filed in Entertainment, Windows 7
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I am currently in Paris – ramping up for TechEd EMEA and tonight came across conclusive proof that Windows 7 is: Smart, has a small footprint and is available in multiple languages..

What can I say? I am a geek at heart..

cheers

kyle

tastes like free…

Posted by kyle on October 26th, 2009 filed in Windows 7, Windows 7 Deployment
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mmm.. free is good..  what about a free ebook that gives you the lowdown on deploying Windows 7 – would that make you a happy and contented person.. well.. what do you know.. here is one..

Microsoft have released a really good ebook on deployment – covering a full range of topics:

Deployment Platform

Planning Deployment

Testing Application Compatibility

Developing Disk Images

Migrating User State Data

Deploying Applications

Preparing Windows PE

Configuring Windows Deployment Services

Using Volume Activation

Deploying with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

A really great place to start your planning… ebook

Cheers

Kyle

WIM to VHD utility and Physical to VHD utility

Posted by kyle on October 22nd, 2009 filed in Windows 2008, Windows 7
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Every now and then I come across a very very handy tool – this past couple of weeks I have found 2! Both that are useful for creating Virtual Disks.

So.. first one is used to create a VHD file from a WIM file – uses for me are to be able to create a fresh Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 boot to VHD vhds without having to actually do an install – just boot create the install and then boot to the VHD to finish the install (basically you pick up from the Out of Box Experience OOBE) – grab it from here.

Second util is just as cool – basically using this tool you can take a running Windows system and create on the fly a VHD file. Then you could take that VHD file and mount it as a Hyper-V virtual disk.. sweet eh? So this one you can get here.

So – go virtualise!

Cheers

kyle

Windows 7 readiness training

Posted by kyle on October 13th, 2009 filed in Windows 7, Windows 7 Deployment
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Last week I ran the first round of the Windows 7 Deployment readiness training in Melbourne and Sydney – not without its teething issues but nonetheless I think everyone got something out of the training – thanks for your patience!

As advised here are the slides from the presentation -  

Cheers

Kyle

Boot to VHD issue solved

Posted by kyle on September 19th, 2009 filed in Windows 2008 R2, Windows 7
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So – last week at TechEd AU on the last day and the last session – that is of course when I ended up having issues with a demo. Minutes before doing the presentation I booted into my Windows 2008 R2 VHD boot and was greeted by a screen that was blue – dang .. a BSOD moments before a demo – great.

So – now that the dust has settled – I have had a chance to do a little investigation – and found that it was a self inflicted injury. Basically the boot to VHD was set to 40Gb maximum – that means that when the system starts it looks for 40Gb of space available (even though it was not actually taking up that amount out of the box).

So – on the disk that the VHD was living on I had copied a few other files onto it and the free space was below 40Gb – hence on boot it failed.

So – lesson learnt for next time!

Cheers

Kyle