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Month: January 2011

  • Migrating to Windows 7 from XP with OS Specific Desktop Policy

    This article is mainly focused on the issues which come with the migration for the user experience, as opposed to the task of getting new hardware or upgrading older hardware and installing the operating system on it. There are challenges which come with differences in the operating systems and the configuration settings that apply to…

  • MDT & Intel Arrrrrgggghhhh!

    Last year I spent a great deal of time learning how to use MDT. And it seemed like a good system. It worked well and there were only a few hiccups with it. Suddenly this year it is proving to be a great deal of trouble and I’m wondering why I bothered with it. Firstly,…

  • Deploying Native Boot VHDs [5]

    The steps for deploying a native VHD boot are the same as if you are using a third party imaging solution, such as Ghost. Effectively, copying a VHD is a kind of third party imaging solution, in that it is not a directly supported deployment scenario for the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, its predecessor Business Desktop…

  • Deploying Native Boot VHDs [4]

    The first time startup with the sysprepped VHD went reasonably well until an error message was displayed: After that the system was stuck in an endless loop of displaying messages which basically said “Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation”. Then the system would restart and, you…

  • Deploying Native Boot VHDs [3]

    OK so we start up Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) and create a deployment share, which is in my Setup share (where all the other setup files and images are stored). AIK uses something similar to MDT; as far as I can tell, MDT adds a few folders to a basic AIK deployment share. I’ve…

  • Deploying Native Boot VHDs [2]

    My first test was to set up the target computer with its hard disk and boot environment and copy the VHD directly from the VM to the target and then boot. This was successful; the main issues being the missing Sysprep and driver injection stages. Since then, thinking about it overnight, I have decided I…

  • Facebook food for thought

    Here’s some hard thoughts about FB. I’ve been on FB for over four months and I have chosen to have only 20 friends. These friends are real life friends. People that I meet and talk with regularly for the most part. I don’t post much on FB. I reserve it for serious stuff. I like…

  • Deploying Native Boot VHDs [1]

    Having discussed this lengthily in a previous series of posts it’s time to start working on a real world implementation – and by the way, happy new year! The following steps should be those needed to set up a Native Boot VHD from scratch: Develop the image Create a new VHD and attach it to…