Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings
If you have created your own custom Windows Vista image (WIM file) and tried to use it with BDD 2007, Microsoft Deployment, or even with just the Windows System Image Manager tool, you may have run into the error above. For the fix to that issue, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941595. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully, as you will need to copy a new DLL into two places if you are using BDD 2007. (That's not necessary for Microsoft Deployment as it uses the files directly from C:\Program Files\Windows AIK.) And you'll need to create the new registry key before you'll be able to import any new updates or language packs.
Several people asked me how to do that, based on the Windows Live Messenger integrated into my blog blog entry. For those of you who would like to do this yourselves, check out http://settings.messenger.live.com/Applications/CreateHtml.aspx. That web page will let you generate the HTML that needs to be posted into your own pages. It's really a very simple process.
There are some things about Windows Live Messenger that are really cool. See the "News" information to the left? You can see whether I'm on line, and if I am, start an instant IM session.
And I can put a Windows Live Messenger form directly into the blog:
Just be aware that sometimes the noise is too overwhelming, so I'll hide...
For those of you in the USA, you are probably thinking that there is just one TechEd conference, a rather large event held every June covering just about any Microsoft software product you can think of. But for the past few years, there have been two events in Europe, catering to two different audiences:
This week, similar changes to the US event were announced. See Kevin's blog posting at http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde/archive/2007/11/05/teched-2008-breaking-news-big-changes-to-teched-u-s.aspx, and the TechEd 2008 FAQ at http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2007/teched2008faq.mspx for more details. Basically, the US event will now be like the European event (although bigger).
So what does that mean for the "other" big US conferences? Well, as the FAQ mentioned, PDC isn't going to be a regularly-scheduled event, instead aligning with Microsoft's platform technology waves. What about the Microsoft Management Summit? No mention of any changes there, so that will still be a more focused IT pro event, looking at management technologies.
There are also lots of regional TechEd events offered, all over the world. One of these days I'll be able to attend some of those events :-)
p.s. If you are planning to be in Barcelona next week, be sure to track me down.
We always receive invitations to attend user's group meetings around the country (and in some cases, in various parts of the world) but due to time (and money) limitations, we don't get to do too many of them, focusing instead on just the big conferences and a few other events here and there. It's always nice to get together with groups of people to "share the pain" and swap experiences.
But what if we did a virtual user's group meeting? Would you attend? We could talk about BDD 2007, Microsoft Deployment, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, SMS 2003, Configuration Manager 2007, Windows Deployment Services, and anything else related to Windows and Office deployment. With any luck, we could even do some "virtual door prizes" :-)
If you are interested, fill out the survey I set up at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=BhsoY4Vq4948YwWngk6Rfw_3d_3d just so we can gauge the level of interest and we'll see what we can set up.
The conference has officially begun in Barcelona, with over 5,000 IT pros, Microsoft employees, and partners talking about currently available Microsoft products and those due to be released in the coming months. It's going to be a busy week, full of lots of detailed technical information. (For those of you attending, please look me up during the week, at the very least to just say "hi".)
In the opening keynote, official announcements were made about:
See the official press release at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-12ITForumPR.mspx for all the details.
I have a few sessions scheduled during the week:
Lots of fun :-)
I guess I'm a little out of touch: I had noticed the "Click to activate" behavior in Internet Explorer 7, but never knew why it was like that. All I knew was that it was annoying :-) I wouldn't have guessed that it was a direct result of a lawsuit.
Well, fortunately, the behavior will soon be going back to the way it was. See IE Automatic Component Activation (Changes to IE ActiveX Update) for more details on the upcoming fixes, with availability beginning in December.
It's the typical Microsoft release cycle: lots of last-minute work to be done, lots of nights with little sleep. With that behind us, as you've probably seen through lots of blog entries and announcements about Microsoft Deployment (the next version of BDD 2007), now I need to catch up on e-mail. For those of you who wonder why I haven't answered your e-mail, I'll get there - I'm currently have 600 e-mails flagged for follow-up and plan to get that down as much as possible this week.