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May 2009 - Posts

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 11:43 AM

How to Install an Image onto a VHD file.

The last post I made talked about customizing windows image (.WIM) files, and the post before that talked about creating Virtual hard disk (.VHD) files. So the last step is to look at putting an image onto a VHD and making it bootable So the steps are
Posted by jamesone | 2 Comments
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:27 PM

How to: customize Windows images with DISM

In the initial release of Windows Server 2008 one of the the questions which always came up was “how do I add X” – the answer was we had tools named OCSETUP and OCLIST. These have been superseded in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 with the new Deployment
Posted by jamesone | 2 Comments
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 12:22 PM

How to: work with VHD files at the command line.

Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files have been given greater importance in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. They’ve always been used for hosting virtual machines (from the earliest Virtual PC through to Hyper-V) , and in Vista the complete image backup began to
Posted by jamesone | 2 Comments
Friday, May 22, 2009 2:16 PM

Windows 7 – how low a spec will it go to ?

Talking to people about Windows 7 one of the frequent things we mention is it works better on low end hardware. The major difference is the smaller memory foot print – using 100MB less memory makes little difference to a machine like my 4GB laptop, but
Posted by jamesone | 6 Comments
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Thursday, May 21, 2009 5:28 PM

How to configure iSCSI on Server 2008 R2 core or Hyper-V server

In my post a couple of days ago I talked about configuring my servers from the command line and one of my interests at the moment is finishing off some powershell tools to handle the configuration of Server Core and Hyper-V server. I mentioned in passing
Posted by jamesone | 0 Comments
Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:35 PM

Another reason why I like IE8 – dealing with broken scripts

IE 8 just locked up on me. This in and of itself is a Bad Thing. I’ve got into the habit of having lots of tabs open in IE - I checked it’s currently 70 (why … ? because I can, it’s a pile off stuff I’m thinking about, going back to or what ever). IE
Posted by jamesone | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009 5:15 PM

Boot from VHD – the joy of BCDedit and a nice hyper-v gotcha or two.

I’ve been updating two of my machines from the Beta to the RC of Server 2008 R2. It’s been quite a learning experience, and I’ve put together a video to show some of the things that Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 can do with VHDs which should be posted
Posted by jamesone | 3 Comments
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 1:37 AM

Making easily Tweetable blog posts from Live writer

Live writer is one of those tools which I don’t know how I managed without. Word has a blogging template and it works, but … I wouldn’t try to write a book in Live Writer, or a business plan, or even a letter. Writer is optimized for a single task in
Posted by jamesone | 1 Comments
Sunday, May 10, 2009 7:49 PM

Thoughts on uses of YouTube … and virtualization

I’m taking a breather from re-recording the voice track for a Video on Live Migration in Hyper-V. When it’s done it will end up on YouTube. Now YouTube is giving me pause right now: it is certainly the easiest way to put up videos so that people can find
Posted by jamesone | 13 Comments
Saturday, May 09, 2009 10:49 PM

A Windows 7 tip for (untidy) presenters

Do you have lots of icons on your windows desktop ? I do. And sometimes when I’m giving a presentation I think not only do they look untidy, there might be something given away by the icon and file name. The fix for that is to create a folder named “my
Posted by jamesone | 3 Comments
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Thursday, May 07, 2009 2:39 PM

Customizing the Windows 7 logon screen: no additional tools required

A few of people have noticed that I’m running Windows 7 with a customized logon screen, and a couple of them asked me if I used “logon studio” which (as I understand it) rummages round inside some of the image resources buried in DLL files. In Windows
Posted by jamesone | 11 Comments
Tuesday, May 05, 2009 1:35 PM

Buy the book(s)

I wanted to get let people know about books which I have been involved in (and one that I haven’t) which all seem to be hitting the shelves together. PowerShell is the common thread to all 5. First off the one with my name on the cover: I spent some of
Posted by jamesone | 0 Comments
Tuesday, May 05, 2009 12:28 PM

Windows 7 for everyone !

I don’t normally cut and paste things from mail straight to my blog but this arrived in ready to read format so here it is The Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) is now available to download for everyone , and is available until June 2009 to download. Download
Posted by jamesone | 1 Comments
Monday, May 04, 2009 3:31 PM

Windows 7 XP mode: helpful ? Sure. Panacea ? No.

ComputerWorld have an interesting piece up about XP Mode for Windows 7. Saying that it “could create support nightmares, analysts said today” They quote Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft as saying “I think that this will help the uptake
Posted by jamesone | 3 Comments
Sunday, May 03, 2009 3:16 PM

Virtual Windows XP … picking myself up off the floor.

Someone gave me a definition of insanity as “trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results”.  I guess trying something you expect to fail is somewhere between insanity and scientific thoroughness. Anyhow, that’s how I came
Posted by jamesone | 1 Comments
Saturday, May 02, 2009 11:33 PM

Exploring Windows XP mode for Windows 7

Windows Virtual PC is on Technet for people to download, the Windows Virtual PC  page says it will be available to everyone on May 5th, but the  evaluation guide is available already I’ve installed it and started to play. I’ve only got one application
Posted by jamesone | 2 Comments
Friday, May 01, 2009 4:20 PM

Easy transfer is not a sign of weakness

Someone from the office (no names, no pack drill) told me they had read my post from yesterday where I mentioned Windows Easy Transfer.  They felt that it might not be quite the done thing for a technical person to use it but since I was using it
Posted by jamesone | 1 Comments
Friday, May 01, 2009 11:49 AM

Clarifying: the new virtual PC, Windows XP mode for Windows 7, and MED-V

There is an interview with Scott Woodgate,  published as  press release on press pass   entitled Helping Small Businesses With Windows 7 Professional and Windows XP Mode. After starting to speculate about this a little too soon, I want
Posted by jamesone | 7 Comments
Friday, May 01, 2009 11:47 AM

F1 thoughts.

The first F1 season I remember properly is 1976: James Hunt being champion, winning the British Grand Prix (I was at the Benson and Hedges cup final – Kent vs Gloucestershire – that day), then having the win taken away as my first memory of the governing
Posted by jamesone | 1 Comments
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