More TechEd Australia news

An update to my post about presenting at TechEd Australia - it has gotten a whole lot busier!

I am presenting quite a few sessions!

1. Windows Vista Deployment precon -(seats still available!)

2. A breakout for the Server Track - Journey to the Centre or Terminal Services (an indepth look at Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008)

3. An Instructor Led lab introducing Deployment of Windows Server and Vista using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

4. A joint session with my good friend Gordon Ryan (of Longneck Consulting) in the Technology of TechEd track - this will be on how we prepare and deploy the Hands on Labs environment at events such as TechEd.

5. TechEd 101 - an introduction into TechEd and how to get the most out of it - if you have never been to TechEd (or if you think maybe you could do more with your time at TechED!) then this session is for you.

I have been in Sydney today meeting with folks about the event and I can tell you that everyone is pretty excited about it! While I was there I had some time with Jeff Alexander to record an interview about my roles at TechEd - when he publishes it I will make sure to add a link in. On his blog at the moment he has a few interviews from other speakers in the track - also a great place to visit and start working out what you are going to be doing at TechEd!

Cheers

kyle

Cheap Exams at TechEd Australia

Umm.. well the title says it all I guess.. but yes .. if you are attending TechEd Australia and you have been studying for a certification then now is the time to do the exam - at 50% the normal price - a Bargain $80 - but.. as the sales person always says - places are limited - I spoke with one of the TechEd folks today and the places are about 60% gone already - there is always a demand at the event for testing - so get in and book your exam now.

(Don’t forget to read my exam hints - one of the first posts in this blog)

Cheers

Kyle

Enabling the DVD library option in Vista

The problem is this - on my media centre machine I have stored my DVD’s - so that I can put the actual disks away and be able to watch to my hearts content without fishing for them.

In Windows XP there was an option for the DVD Library in Media Centre - but not in Vista - well not by default anyway.

But there is a KB article on how to do it - KB930526.

So .. (insert warnings about damaging your computer if you hack the registry here) here are the steps:

1. open Regedit and navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings (excuse the wobbly highlight!)

2. Change the setting from Play to Gallery

3. Then open up Media Centre again  - you will now have the option for the DVD library

There - not so hard is it?

Cheers

Kyle

TechEd Australia 2008

This year (as with the last 4 years!) I will be at TechEd Australia - this year in Sydney. I will be there in a few different roles - As part of the team that brings you the Hands On Labs and the Instructor Led Labs, as the readiness trainer for the Vista Deployment  2day precon training and presenting a Breakout session on Terminal Services in Windows 2008. \

TechEd Australia is going to be great - not only for the learning - but for the networking. I can honestly say that the networking side for me is the big bonus for TechEd - so use your time wisely - ask questions and talk to people.

I always go to TechEds with a prepared list of people that I want to meet and prepared list of knowledge that I want to walk away with - you should too!

There are still spots available at TechEd Australia - register soon!

Cheers

Kyle

An interesting question..

Recently a friend - who I will call "Baz" asked an interesting question. He was wanting to upgrade his hard drive to a larger drive - the issue was that the drive he wanted to upgrade was the windows system drive.. so what is an easy way to do this? What follows is my answer - hopefully if you are in the same situation it might help.

Heya "Baz"
Me, I would be using imagex and creating a wim file - you remember that USB Windows PE disk that I told you to make a while ago? Well now is when you whip that out and boot off it (I think from memory I included advise to download the full WAIK install and then you would have imagex.exe in there - if not then do it now and include it in the PE disk (again - referring to my fav blog site www.vistapcguy.net ;-))

Then boot off the USB disk - plug in an external drive - run:
imagex /capture c: d:\this_is_my_OS.wim "OS Drive" /verify
(assuming you OS drive is c: and your external drive is d:)

Then do your drive swapsies - boot off your USB stick (and unplug your drive with the OS wim on it - not really needed but I have come close to killing drives that I wanted to keep using the diskpart command :))

You need to create a new partition - diskpart will be the one to use so this is the command:
diskpart
sel disk 0 (assuming disk 0 is now your new drive - use Detail Disk to make sure it is the one)
create partition primary size=8000(whatever size in MB)
assign letter=c
active
(you have now create a new partition with the size you want, made it c: and then marked it as being able to boot from)
Then put the OS image back on the new disk in the new partition:
imagex /apply d:\this_is_my_OS.wim 1 c: /verify
(again assuming that the drives are as such)

Then.. reboot - now the thing to be aware of is that by doing this you "may" trigger the reactivation - shouldn’t as it is just one hardware change - but might as it is a pretty major one from the OS perspective (ie it is on a different drive)
The verify commands are not necessarily needed but I use them anyway - also you can use the same technique to create copies of your data as well - just don’t mark the partitions active - I now do WIM backups of my laptops before I got travelling - - the OS drive and the Data drive.

enjoy!
Kyle

Windows 2008 and Hyper-V

I have finally had a little time to build up the Windows 2008 partition on my Tablet PC (a HP TX2000) and have installed Hyper-V. So now I have great little demo machine that will not only serve as my Vista Tablet demo, my media centre demo machine but is also my Windows 2008 and Hyper-V demo machine! Ahh.. I love technology.

Cheers

Kyle

Using the MDT 2008 to get yourself promoted

For those that have attended any of my presentations - you would know that one of the things that I don’t think we do well enough is promote our successes - we only get known for the things we don’t do - end users never really notice us until something goes wrong and then we wear the end of their frustrations!

So I am always looking for ways that we can promote the good things that we do - and a successful deployment is a good thing - so editing the WinPE files to have the IT department’s name is a simple way to promote ourselves.

Now I have found a utility that allows the editing of the entire deployment wizard - without having to drop to HTML to do it. The MDT Wizard Editor - Grab it from here http://www.codeplex.com/MDTWizardEditor

Writing a blog

A quick aside - I am always impressed (and a little embarrassed) when I have people say "Hey - I have read your blog!" - particularly when it is followed by "There was that one thing that I read - man that helped!".

But the whole idea of writing a blog was born because I wanted to try and get across the bits and peices that I pick up and to have it as an extension of my training and consulting - to ensure that someone that I talk to, continues to gain knowledge - after I have left.

Now - there have been a few "blank" times in the blog - commitments etc have made it a secondary endeavour - and I will tell you now - it always will be - I don’t make money from this directly and I will not go down the road of putting advertising on the page - I just want to write when I can and pass on what I learn.

To do that in the past I have used a web interface - which meant that I had to have a web connection to write - which was a little inconvenient at times. I dabbled with using the blog page in Word 2007 but recently have started using Live Writer to write the pages. And I have to say I like it. I can write offline, add my categories and publish attachments, etc all before I connect to the internet.

If you are writing a Blog - have a look at it. The Live Writer team’s blog is here.

Cheers

Kyle

A blast from the past

In keeping with the idea that this is not just Vista (and Server 2008) but is also a chance to communicate with you the reader - I was sent today a link to a Gizmodo site that has pictures of what is supposedly a Lego Vault - with all the Lego sets ever made.

All I can say is WOW! I remember that I had the Space Cruiser set as shown - as with these things when I moved out of home they were all given away - but I still miss them - simple times and simple memories!

Cheers

Kyle

Oh.. and…

COME ON QUEENSLAND!!!! Good luck to the Maroons for the State of Origin tonight.

For those that have no idea what the heck I am referring to - State of Origin.

Cheers

Kyle