fizban2

for the sake of consitancy i would stick with the same drive type/model if possible, technically you can use any 2 drive of the same size or greater for a mirror, i have heard of some problems when you mix drives from different vendors and speeds, i would go after the same drive you have just to be on the safe side

vista DVD won't work as the boot manager was deleted by the Xp install, only was to get it back is to reinstall vista to that partition

possible the drive is going bad, are you guys using a configuration file to filter backups?

enterprise has games becasue the base wim has games in it, and no joll69 is right that media center extensions are not part of the Enterprise version

having a mirrored HD would be the Ideal situation, you get 2 HDs of equal size (the mirror can be bigger) make sure they are both dynamic disks and then you can mirror the drives through Disk management

seperate partitions or seperate HDs, becuase if it was partitions on the same HD, vista will not work after the XP reinstall

1.yes, you will need the WAIK to make the unattended files for your images. 2. good luck, i am not sure there is any documentation on doing this, my only thoughts would be building the Linux machine to the stage you want it at and the booting with winpe or bartpe and capturing the image with imagex

For the most part yes, Since 80% of the their users barely know how to turn on the computer, let alone manage firewall or AV settings and configurations. Think about companies, 90% of the users there just want to get their work done, they don't care about aV updates or configuring there machine or defragging their HDs. they want to come to work and do their job. Same goes for home users, they want to accomplish a goal or task with their PC. not worry about if it is being invaded by spyware or viruses. the PC enthusist is a small portion of the market,

if Vista didn't have the drivers for your Card, as it didn't for mine, injecting the drivers into the Vista image is a pretty dang easy job to do now with WIM format, just copy out all the Vista files to your computer, download the WAIK for VIsta and then use ImageX to mount the WIM of vista to your Harddrive and use drvload to inject your drivers into vista. Rebuild your DVD and presto, the next time you have to install vista your drivers are there!

if you plan on using apps that are very resource intensive, defiantly give 64 bit a try, but like cluberti said, PLEASE check you Hardware first and make sure there is stable drivers for it, cause that will either give you an excellent experiance or will drive you insane

are there any errors in event viewer?

because GDI+ rendering on the GUI was old and out dated, WPF (windows presentation foundation aka, aero) is faster, easier to render with and will support the up and coming version on DX10, having aero on or off costs you very little in terms of resources, if all MS did was realease a fixed and cleaned version of XP, what incentive would anyone have to go to it other then it fixes a few bugs that would most likely by fixed in XP sooner or later? Features and fucntionality are primary reasons for upgrading an OS.

can your clients email anyone else out the office without issue? is this a specific issue with just this client?

spooky, goo dlinks got PS setup last night on longhorn without issue, good to know it at leasts works with vista and LH, and is only a packing issue they are working on!

better to post in the Unattended vista forum (moved), you will need to downlaod the entire WAIK to create an unattended Vista installation.

you are right spooky, (even said it all right minus the coffee ) the KMS tools out right now were not designed to do more the authenticate the keys you are using in your org, the MOM pack for KMS with give more detailed information about the machine that are being authenticated

netmeeting was replaced with the Vista meeting space application, i am not sure if visit even shipped with netmeeting as part of the OS

this is true, but XML is still a pain to read (i hate it myself) but it does the job **** well once you get used to it

<WIM> <IMAGE INDEX="1"> <NAME>FabrikamWIM</NAME> <DESCRIPTION>FabrikamCustomWindowsImage</DESCRIPTION> </IMAGE> </WIM> ok let me see if i can explain this correctly the meta data allows you to specifiy a data image on the DVD, with a base Vista image you have 6 data images (home, premium, business, premium, ultiamte) using the metadata tags that exist for each you can specifiy which data image to apply to a installation. doing in imagex /info <wimfile> will give you the following information Available Image Choices: ------------------------ <WIM> <TOTALBYTES>1485261025</TOTALBYTES> <IMAGE INDEX="1"> <NAME>Windows Longhorn SERVERENTERPRISE</NAME> <DESCRIPTION>Windows Longhorn SERVERENTERPRISE</DESCRIPTION> <FLAGS>SERVERENTERPRISE</FLAGS> <WINDOWS> <ARCH>0</ARCH> <PRODUCTNAME>Microsoft« Windows« Operating System</PRODUCTNAME> <HAL>acpiapic</HAL> <PRODUCTTYPE>ServerNT</PRODUCTTYPE> <PRODUCTSUITE>Enterprise</PRODUCTSUITE> <LANGUAGES> <LANGUAGE>en-US</LANGUAGE> <DEFAULT>en-US</DEFAULT> </LANGUAGES> <VERSION> <MAJOR>6</MAJOR> <MINOR>0</MINOR> <BUILD>6001</BUILD> <SPBUILD>16406</SPBUILD> </VERSION> <SYSTEMROOT>WINDOWS</SYSTEMROOT> </WINDOWS> <DIRCOUNT>7005</DIRCOUNT> <FILECOUNT>38647</FILECOUNT> <TOTALBYTES>6003304564</TOTALBYTES> <CREATIONTIME> <HIGHPART>0x01C71B78</HIGHPART> <LOWPART>0xD8170011</LOWPART> </CREATIONTIME> <LASTMODIFICATIONTIME> <HIGHPART>0x01C71B82</HIGHPART> <LOWPART>0xA8E3F93C</LOWPART> </LASTMODIFICATIONTIME> </IMAGE> <IMAGE INDEX="2"> <NAME>Windows Longhorn SERVERENTERPRISECORE</NAME> <DESCRIPTION>Windows Longhorn SERVERENTERPRISECORE</DESCRIPTION> <FLAGS>SERVERENTERPRISE</FLAGS> <WINDOWS> <ARCH>0</ARCH> <PRODUCTNAME>Microsoft« Windows« Operating System</PRODUCTNAME> <HAL>acpiapic</HAL> <PRODUCTTYPE>ServerNT</PRODUCTTYPE> <PRODUCTSUITE>Enterprise</PRODUCTSUITE> <LANGUAGES> <LANGUAGE>en-US</LANGUAGE> <DEFAULT>en-US</DEFAULT> </LANGUAGES> <VERSION> <MAJOR>6</MAJOR> <MINOR>0</MINOR> <BUILD>6001</BUILD> <SPBUILD>16406</SPBUILD> </VERSION> <SYSTEMROOT>WINDOWS</SYSTEMROOT> </WINDOWS> <DIRCOUNT>3205</DIRCOUNT> <FILECOUNT>21197</FILECOUNT> <TOTALBYTES>2553830079</TOTALBYTES> <CREATIONTIME> <HIGHPART>0x01C71B74</HIGHPART> <LOWPART>0xF30A09E1</LOWPART> </CREATIONTIME> <LASTMODIFICATIONTIME> <HIGHPART>0x01C71B83</HIGHPART> <LOWPART>0x0A4715D4</LOWPART> </LASTMODIFICATIONTIME> </IMAGE> so based off the following information if i wanted to write an unattended file that would install the core edition of Longhorn Server i would use <WIM> <IMAGE INDEX="2"> <NAME>Windows Longhorn SERVERENTERPRISECORE</NAME> <DESCRIPTION>Windows Longhorn SERVERENTERPRISECORE</DESCRIPTION> </IMAGE> </WIM> this is the same with Vista, specifying the data image is done by adding a meta data tag to the install OSinstall tag under x86_Microsoft-Windows-Setup__neutral_31bf3856ad364e35_nonSxS during the WinPE stage. you can add this metadata tag by right clicking on the install From icon under OSImage and choosing insert meta data. on a custom WIM, you will have added the images in your own order and you will need to do an /info to find out what index it has, you will have also had to add a description tag when you captured your WIM. (you can also add it later) hopefully i explained it well enough! let me know if there are still any questions!

if you are using a generic VIsta DVD, with the install.wim in the normal location, you do not have to specify a install from location. vista will search there and install the version specified by your meta data

the offline code tells the waik where the WIM file and data image from that WIM is located, this is needed for the express purpose if you ever had to edit the XML file again, it will look in this location first for that WIM, if it has moved it will ask you to locate the WIM again.

Powershell RTM will not currently run in Vista or Longhorn, you will need to wait till the vista version becomes available at the the end of january. there was an older version on PS that worked on vista, if you can still find it you can install that one.

correct, with the DC going out to the Router first for DNS queries it will slow things down till it times out on the router and then tries itself for DNS. change it to the 127.0.0.1 and add a forwarder to the router in DNS and see if that fixes the issue

is the DC also the router? or do you have a routing device that bring in internet? truly the DC should point to itself for DNS and then have forwarders setup in DNS to direct any queries out too the router if it is needed

for most tweaking tools you are going to have to wait for those companies to release tools that are compatiable with Vista. I have a 7950 X2 also and am waiting patiantly for Nvidia to release some new drivers for vista that will accomadate the second gpu