jaclaz

Well, you can have in the "deploy" batch (say): SET Today=FOR /F "tokens=2 %delims==" %A IN ('TYPE i:\lenovo\domain\blank\last.ini ^| FIND "TheLast"') DO SET Today=%%AIF NOT DEFINED Today ECHO ERROR...&PAUSE"imagex /apply i:\lenovo\domain\blank\%today%\image.wim" and have in the "imaging" one: SET Today=%date:~10,4%-%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%IF NOT EXIST i:\lenovo\base\blank\%Today% MD i:\lenovo\base\blank\%Today%ECHO TheLast=%Today%>i:\lenovo\base\blank\last.iniimagex /compress fast /capture D: i:\lenovo\base\blank\%Today%\image.wim "Laptop Base Image"jaclaz

Not really-really. I mean there are several possibilities, one being that the batch (the one that creates the image in the %today% folder) also creates a hard link (I presume that you are using NTFS) in the main directory or, possibly even better/easier as hardlinks are a bit more difficult to manage, use a softlink (to the file) or a junction point from the %today% directory to a "fixed" place, let's say i:\lenovo\base\blank\last\ http://ss64.com/nt/mklink.html http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html The poor man's way (or on non NTFS) would be to have the "imaging batch" write a simple plain text file, let's say last_to_be_deployed.ini and have the "deploy batch" to parse it and get the actual value of the %today%, i.e. the folder name from which to get the image, or you could get rid of the subdirectories have all the images in i:\lenovo\base\blank\ and assign a meaningful name to the images themselves, like naming the actual image to %today%.img and have the deploying batch use last created one (which would be another advantage as you wouldn't have a zillion of files all named "image.img" and only differentiated - besides creation timestamp - only by the name of the folder in which they are). There are endless possibilities. jaclaz

Yep. It deserves a BIG thumb up. jaclaz

Well, with all due respect (though I understand how your nick over there is wastingtimewithforums), you are wasting time with forums. There is seemingly no way the good guys over there can understand how depriving anyone of choosing (in an informed way) what to do or what to not do is a form of depriving them of a degree of freedom. But, going only very slightly off-topic, in the past there have been quite a few issues with upgrades, particularly on specific hardware, and the good MS guys have historically attempted to brush off critics stating how the issue was limited to a small number of very peculiar hardware combos and that it is materially impossible for them to test an upgrade on every possible make/model of device, something that makes sense, and as a matter of fact it is one of the arguments often used when someone points out how usually Apple updates do not create the same kind of issues, since Apple produces BOTH the hardware and the OS and thus has to carry on a limited number of tests and has the possibility to catch any possible bug becayse the number of scenarios are pretty much limited. The good MS guys adopted the same strategy for a (seriously botched) Windows 8.1 Phone recovery (to go back from testing a Windows 10 release), but they seemingly forgot how in this case the hardware was as well MS : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/20/windows_10_phone_unbricking/ http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_repair/lumia-520521devices-unusable-after-using-windows/c5d072d5-c26e-4a02-907d-fde2ca5e34c7 Please note how UNOFFICIALLY they had to admit that a (small ) number of devices cannot bear the normal transfer speed (that other devices work fine with) and the "solution" is a recovery tool that transfers data (much) slower. Which translated in plain English means there is a (small ) number of defective or however below standard devices we sold you, they cannot be identified and we have no intention whatever to replace them with working ones, we will simply dumb down some parts of the tool to be able to deal with these slower devices. Worse than that the statements: are (to me) terrifying as they imply that till now NOT ENOUGH real-world testing was done and that they are NOT CONFIDENT in the current results of tests up to now. jaclaz

Yes and no. Of course x32 in itself supports UEFI boot, the problem might be in the "matching" of the architecture with the OS bitness, but it can be worked around: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/9b8b18b3-df53-4f00-a584-1b1617b57ea9/windows-7-32bit-uefi-installation?forum=w7itproinstall for 7, not so much, I believe, with 8/8.1. Mind you that this depends only partially on the OS, and quite a lot on the actual UEFI firmware implementation: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/olivnie/archive/2012/12/20/windows-8-uefi-support.aspx So it might be needed to boot to CSM mode and "switch" to a third party UEFI, such as Clover: http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/122 And of course there is the usual mish/mash of MBR vs. GPT, so each case is a bit different and may need one or another workaround, JFYI, with a trick or two it is possible to BIOS boot from a GPT disk without needing a hybrid MBR, and as well it is perfectly possible to UEFI boot from a MBR disk. jaclaz

BUT, strangely enough, they also represent the ONLY ONES that actually bought/are using Windows 8/8.1, as the Enterprises are traditionally slower to change an OS (as this will often include changing the hardware) and right now, set aside the few ones that are still clinging to XP, are en masse still using Windows 7 on non newly acquired hardware and many also on newly (last two years or so) acquired devices, exception made for new stupid tablets (please read as "Surface Pro" 1, 2 and 3 and similar) that however didn't seemingly sold that well (in absolute terms and even worse in the Enterprise market). jaclaz

Before I forget, OT but not much , look what happened recently to TV5 Monde: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/hacked-french-network-exposed-its-own-passwords-during-tv-interview/ please note how, besides being posted on the blackboard, the password for the YouTube account was a very complex one, i.e. "lemotdepassedeyoutube", and now, for NO apparent reason, a PASSWORD CLOUD https://web.archive.org/web/20150202135829/https://xato.net/wp-content/xup/passwordscloud.png jaclaz

Welcome to the club of people missing Ponch's points , Nuhi http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173766-wheres-the-download-gone/ jaclaz

Maybe the issue is not really an issue, if you know how to deal with it. I mean, what I normally do is to choose a theme for the week. In order to do so, let's say I choose "drones". I go on google and search for them, then click a couple of the results (NEVER the first few ones that are "sponsored ads"). I usually land to any among Amazon, e-bay or (more rarely) to the site of someone actually making the thingies. Then I am set for the whole week or so, any forum or site making use of google ads or similar will be tuned to "drones". Of course I never click of any of these ads, as a matter of fact I have not any intention to buy in any foreseeable future any drone. The funny thing is when I actually look for something to actually buy and after I have ALREADY bought it, wherever I go I find ads for that same something for a few days. I don't think (but I may well be wrong) that the good MS guys have some smarter strategy/mechanisms for targeting ads than the good Google guys, so all will be needed is to do a couple intentional "fake" searches, and you are good to go. The people running the senseless ads will be rewarded as they will believe (wrongly) that the money they spent for these impressions have an actual return in sales (it has not, at least in my case), the google guys are happy because they are given money for this, and all in all I prefer to see nice pictures of drones better than methods to earn money working from home or how to lose weight, etc. All in all I find much more intrusive, deceiving and what not other forms of online advertising, including specifically VigLink (which I believe is used on MSFN also ), in my humble opinion they are if not the root of all evil a bunch of mindless bastards, as periodically, notwithstanding my "opting out" here: http://www.viglink.com/opt-out/ the setting is somehow reset (and as a side note right now the above is not reachable through my Opera, unless I "cloak" it as Firefox or IE). jaclaz

Even worse, possibly , if I recall correctly In some cases this happens/happened the sheer moment you highlighted/selected the mail in the inbox list as it opens/opened a pre-view and executed the whatever the mail contained. jaclaz

... and I presume that not many people with a stupid Windows 8/8.1 tablet has a DVD, and will need to "convert" it to a USB stick or similar . Cannot say if updating the WinRE.wim would be of use in this scenario , however, just to keep everything as together as possible: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173779-is-it-possible-to-update-wimboot-recovery-image/ jaclaz

I am not sure to understand the whole question, it is possible to update the WinRE.wim, but I am not sure to understand what would be the usefulness of this. However check this whole thread: http://reboot.pro/topic/19874-windows-81-uefi-boot-issues/ particularly starting from here: http://reboot.pro/topic/19874-windows-81-uefi-boot-issues/?p=186461 but cannot say if it is what you want/need. jaclaz

And in the rather common case of "large OEM" computers this might be poossible ONLY IF they made the recovery set of DVD's (by definition NO ONE EVER makes them if not the people that have anyway other means to restore/reinstall the OS) OR IF they managed to NOT alter the recovery partition (or IF the new OS still allow the use of the Recovery partition). All in all my guess is that the people currently running 8.1 (from the start or as an upgrade from 8.0) have already had enough troubles and for some sort of karma they will experience less issues than the people still running 7, because all in all the mechanism with the WinRE.WIM are very similar if not downright the same, but I don't think that most OEM 7 used actually that approach, but rather one of the "third party" ones and this might mean troubles. jaclaz

Who knows? Maybe I would have been tricked into believing that it was a released, final program and would not have looked among the pre-release ones. Good , by applying a tiny amount of torture I managed to get the needed info, for the record: http://rloew.x10host.com/prerel.htm You see, it was not too difficult, now the specific info is here for all to be seen. jaclaz

You are welcome, I am sure , knowing that you have a program that can do that is something that I had really missed, maybe in a next stage of awareness I might be able to learn what is the name of the program and what is the that it can do. jaclaz

Thanks a lot for this exceptionally useful piece of news . jaclaz

I beg to differ to me it starts to make sense if you have 6 Gb or more of RAM, usually the "unused" 1/2 Gb between 3.5 and 4 Gb on 32 bit doesn't make any difference in practice, and if you need/want RAM you want MOAR: of it: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/172854-win7x64-vs-win7x86pae-patch/ jaclaz

Well, to be fair there is no real need for robocopy, the file is before and after on a same volume, MOVE (which will simply update the path of the file should be robust enough, or if you prefer in the given scenario there is not actually any "data transfer". But, even before that, it is the procedure that in itself can be simplified. The base assumption is that the "last previous" image is created in a "nameless folder", i.e. "I:\lenovo\base\blank" and when the batch is run the pre-existing image in the "nameless" folder is moved to a new, "named after date" subfolder, and then a new image is created in the same "nameless" folder. Wouldn't it be easier to simply create the image (also the "first" one) directly in a ""named after date" subfolder? I.e. all in all, something *like* : SET Today=%date:~10,4%-%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%IF NOT EXIST i:\lenovo\base\blank\%Today% MD i:\lenovo\base\blank\%Today%imagex /compress fast /capture D: i:\lenovo\base\blank\%Today%\image.wim "Laptop Base Image" /verifyPlease note how this way the "named after date" folder will contain an image taken on the same date of the name of the folder, whilst in the original implementation the "named after date" folder would have contained "the image that was taken last time BEFORE the date in the name of the folder" jaclaz

Ok , I will gladly re-phrase that into "too subtle for both myself and submix8c, i.e. those that represent the 100% of people taking the time to actually attempt answering the question you didn't ask or that you asked and answered yourself". If you prefer, due to the obtuseness or shortsightedness of the people that read your clearly posed and definitely unambiguous question and attempted to help you, you received answers to some other question that you never asked or asked and already answered yourself.. I would say that in order to not repeat in the future this kind of misunderstandings either of two actions are required: 1) phrase your questions in an even more elementary way, so that even simpler minds can univocally understand them 2) elevate the comprehension abilities of good willing helping members It seems to me like option #1 above is more practical, but obviously I may be not qualified to provide this kind of advice. jaclaz

Well, nice , but seemingly that is a workaround to have the VC8 compiler run in Windows 95 and actually compile a program in it (and the program needs the added stub), so I am not sure how this can be "exported" or "generalized". jaclaz

WHICH software are you talking of? There is NO "software", only software AND hardware, bundled in a icloak stick, more properly, as said a portable, "live", Operating Systems pre-configured/pre-deployed on a USB stick. You do own a icloak stick? And a PRO version while at it? In this specific case, "linux" is a tadbit too generic, is it Tails (modified) is it Ubuntu based, is it Debian modified? According to their documentation: https://icloak.org/support/ there is NO Microsoft Office in EITHER versions AND ONLY in the Pro version there are "alternatives", namely Abiword and GNU calc. Which, if this piece of info is accurate, are IMNSHO "meh" . Not that the documentation is in any way accurate, or updated or both, BTW: whilst Tails is Debian based: https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html jaclaz

Maybe a little too subtle as a hint, given that the thread is TITLED as a question: However, and JFYI: jaclaz

And you have to take into account how on "warm start" Office (all vesions of it) may use a pre-loader which may affect significantly the startup time. Some old data, JFYI: http://www.oooninja.com/2008/07/benchmarking-microsoft-word-95-2007.html And here is a graph showing how much Office utilities grew and (in my perverted mind ) smaller, leaner packages are faster : http://www.oooninja.com/2008/05/openofficeorg-microsoft-office-moores.html More on the "smaller is faster": http://reboot.pro/topic/8898-microsoft-office-viewers-2003/ jaclaz

Usually in those cases third party "key re-mapping" utilites are used, *like*: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remap-keyboard-free-tools-windows/ or: http://www.razumny.no/2008/09/remapping-the-caps-lock-key-windows/ Or do you mean the "alternate" functions of the FN keys, i.e. the "Asus Instant Key"? jaclaz

All in all this is good since the OP EXPLICITLY said that he DOES NOT want a DDO. However, in case of dubiously working floppies, they are actually not really-really needed: http://reboot.pro/topic/12255-need-help-with-virtual-floppy/ Actual "release" is here: http://reboot.pro/topic/12255-need-help-with-virtual-floppy/?p=107738 one can use memdisk or grub4dos fine once the floppy image has been made. jaclaz