fizban2

if you are worried about losing data or potenial problems i would stay away from the beta, or at least get a second HD to install vista on its own, there is an upgrade option and also a clean install, dual booting your machine probably would not be an option for you. if you really would like to try vista and not wreck your machine, a 2nd HD would be the best idea, you can unplug your main drive and plug in the vista one and vice versa, the 2 then would never interact with each other.

i am really interested in the single image process and such, also my company is working on implementing WIM images instead of ghost, saving them a good 70k a year in ghost license... have to learn fast if you want to stay up with the curve

correct, i use a diskpart script that i wrote to format and partition the HD, then the image is laid down on the HD, the machine reboots and moves into the minisetup

it is different to make a bootable DVD with vista, use the method i listed above and it will work

take a read on Ximage and BDD 3.0

very fancy GSM i'll have to give it a try

use OSCDimg, you can find it in a number of support packs for Ms you can probably just google it and find it also, off of your original DVD there is a file etfsboot.com, use this in conjuction with oscdimg to rebuild the DVD c:\oscdimg -n -m -b<path>\etfsboot.com <sourceFolder> <locationofISO> works everytime

been testing it for the last year or so... it is doing pretty good, the newest release (5456) is a very good build. hope it or another similar build will be release as RC1, you probably will get alot both sides of the fence here, but take all opinions with a grain of salt

you can capture a WIm image of your XP standard image for those machines you need to do and copy the image into the PE 2.0, i just complete the same thing this morning it works well

if you mean installing from the install media (ie DVD or multiple Cds) then you will kick of the installation through the winpeshl.ini file, this needs to be created on your Windows PE disk, apply your winpe wim to a folder in the windows\system32 folder of the PE you would create the ini file [LaunchApp] AppPath = %SYSTEMDRIVE%\windows\system32\cmd.exe [LaunchApps] "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\imageX\ImageX.exe", the file above is a very simple ini file, to kick of the command prompt after winpe starts and start imagex from here you could start the install of programs and such i will try and write up something more detailed a little later on this

is this a dual head video card? they will show up as a twin monitor is vista. also are you using vga or dvi to hook your monitor to the video card?

the Monthly CTP was suppose to happen but was pushed to the wayside in favor of giving out build that were of better quality, every one remeber how bad some of the old CTP builds were, they are still releaseing builds on a regular schedule so it still works well

Notes is quite cumbersome though i think it is worse the Exchange, another thought is does your company use alot of PDA devices?(ipaq, axiom, treo, blackberry etc) cause with exchange 2003 sp1 or greater you can do direct push mail to those clients, so that they can get mail in real time. of course they have to be on the web but at any hotspot or for sales people at other companies that have wireless available for travlers, they can logon and get there mail right away. Sales folk love it

by default the only true "admin" is the local administrator, even if you are part of the admin group you will still be restricted from some things. logon as the local admin to make any changes that you need to or install software.

2000$ was being on the cheap side and not scaring him... SBS has exchange and SQL built in, if this a shop with only 10 - 15 people accessing only a couple of applications Sharepoint Services will Suffice, it will run on SLQ 2005 Express (which i might add is an amazing little DB) total up SBS and Cals and you can be at aroun 2000$, you are right in the proper scenario were there is a large IT budget involved 2 servers would be the ideal solution (actaully i would go with 4 built that is a coming from a Infrstructure part of me that believes in redundency) SBS - ~700$ Cals - 10 cals for ~ 800$ 5 cals come with SBS and so 15 users will suffice but if they need more that is and added cost, so feasibly on the low end they could do it with 2000$ for the software but it would be the minimum that they needed

TD i would still recommend getting the BDD 2007, it has the new Setup Manager that also for easier Manipulation of the unattend file. There are several dozen if not hundred other options that i did not include in this basic unattend file. McoreD, you got an error with the first line? that is odd... but any case i am getting the same error in VS 2005 or Virtual PC about the Missing wim image, but when i built and actually burned my DVD it worked fine... still trying to figure out why it is happening. My bet is the X drive isn't assigned in WinPE like it noormally is defaulty when you boot into it

reverting to an old build in not available, the windows.old file is there incase you chose to use the migration wizard to migrate files from it, also so you can pull anything that was missed by the migration, you can delete it if you have all your files and folders that you need in vista.

OK sorry about the not posting thing here we go Unattend Vista Things you will Need Vista Beta 2 DVD software to recreate the image (i will use OSCDimg) Blank DVD or Virtual PC to test ISO in Notepad or Text Editor 1.First we are going to need to extract all the folders off of you Vista DVD, create a folder on your computer and extract all files and folders there. 2. Once everything is extracted navigate into <folder>\docs. Here there will be two sample unattended.xml files. we want to work with the unattend_sample.xml file 3. open the xml file with your text editor, we will see all the entries that you can use, you will have to sort through them and see what is needed for your situation ( i will go over a few that are needed for the Unattended) 4. this unattend file gives you alot of the options that are avialable for you do to with the unattended install for those who just want a unattended install and nothing more all you will need it this <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend"> <settings pass="windowsPE"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <DiskConfiguration> <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> </DiskConfiguration> <Display> <ColorDepth>32</ColorDepth> <HorizontalResolution>1024</HorizontalResolution> <RefreshRate>60</RefreshRate> <VerticalResolution>768</VerticalResolution> </Display> <DynamicUpdate> <Enable>true</Enable> </DynamicUpdate> <ImageInstall> <OSImage> <InstallFrom> <Path>x:\source\install.wim</Path> </InstallFrom> <InstallTo> <DiskID>0</DiskID> <PartitionID>1</PartitionID> </InstallTo> </OSImage> </ImageInstall> <UserData> <ProductKey> <Key>ProductKey</Key> <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> </ProductKey> <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula> <FullName>InsertName</FullName> <Organization>InsertOrg</Organization> </UserData> </component> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <SetupUILanguage> <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage> </SetupUILanguage> <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale> <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale> <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage> <UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback> <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale> </component> </settings> <settings pass="specialize"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <Identification> <JoinWorkgroup>Workgroup</JoinWorkgroup> </Identification> </component> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale> <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale> <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage> <UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback> <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale> </component> </settings> </unattend> things like Disc ID and Partition may have to change but if you only have 1 disk and are going to install it to the first partition, then it is already setup for you. in the installto section. For <Name> <Key> <Organization> you can change those values to what ever you want. For the installto location you can substitute the partition and disk entries for the following <InstallToAvailablePartition>true</InstallToAvailablePartition> This will install Vista to what ever partition is available 5. Once you have edited the file the way you want you need to, save the file as Autounattend.xml. Save this file to the root of the folder with all your vista files so that it sits with the setup.exe 6. Now we have to rebuild our DVD, I will use OSCDimg Here is the command to use to rebuild the DVD oscdimg -n –bc:<Vistafolder>\boot\etfsboot.com c:\<VistaFolder> c:\WindowsVista.iso The first part -b is to make the CD bootable, the etfs file is located in the boot folder in the vista files you copied to your machine, the second folder is the folder that contains all the Vista files you copied from your DVD, the third is the location for the ISO to be placed 7. Burn ISO with your favorite DVD burning software then test, testing is a virtual Machine first would be suggested so that you don't go through DVD perfecting this. 8. Enjoy an Unattended Vista install Leave feedback if you have any issues with this One issue i have noticed is in a Virtual PC or Server 2005 the install will miss the WIM at teh X: location, on a actual CD this work though as PE takes X as its CD rom

from Nathan Mercer's Blog How to download the Windows Vista AIK, WDS and Windows PE 2.0 After last months Windows Vista Technical Training Sessions @ Connect, one of the frequent questions I had both during the presentation and in email after the event, is how do people get their hands on the tools that I talked about and demoed. I promised I would publish the info on how to download it once we had the process in place Well, overnight the bits were released onto the Microsoft Connect portal https://connect.microsoft.com/programdetail...amDetailsID=682 You can sign in there with your passport (click the above link), register your details and get immediate access to the download What we've actually released is a beta version of the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) tools for Windows Vista, which just so happens to contain the bits that we showed off during the event. The file you probably want to download is BDDVista_Full.cab: This file contains dependent and related tools and guidance, including: Windows AIK with Windows Deployment Services (WDS) and Windows PE 2.0, User State Migration Tool (USMT) 3.0, Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0, Enterprise Learning Framework guide and a deployment whitepaper targeted to mid-sized organizations.

Wrong folder, look tommorow for a short guide on doing an unattended Vista Disk @McoreD The old way is by writing out the XML by hand, vista will only accept XML unattend files. they have broken down the all the old inf files and they all can be expressed in on XML through a series of Passes. More tommorow

version control for documents? no. the closets thing you would get to with that would be Volume Shadow Copy, but that is really more of backup solution then anything else, you would have to look into a 3 rd party system for that, i believe windows Share point services does some limited version control but i guess it would be better if you explained more what you needed the version control for expect to spend around $2000+ if you want to do this whole server implemintation thing. you will spend around 2000$ in software, be it SBS2003 and CALs or another OS, you also have to take in account the Hardware you need to purchase to run all of this. if this is going to truly be a server it would be better to handle all the costs upfront rather then find out 6 months down the road that this machine and software will not handle what you want it to do

you can integrate the Second CD right into the First CD, they will both fit on a single CD still extract both CDs to a folder and created a bootable CD from it

1. Answered 2. Creative Does have vista 64x drivers, though if they don't work you can download the Windows XP equivelent and it will work 3. CA has a antivirus software that you can try for a year for vista, it is quite good http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/ if nothing else you get a really good AV free for a year 4. the is a Application compatiablility ToolKit used by IT departments that you might be able to get ahold of on Microsofts webpage, if not, trail and error would be the way to go

O.o 64x is the dream of the mail Server at least for many, the biggest restriction for most mail server is memory, only having 4 gb available is weak, lots of commands have to written to the page file and that makes for slowness in the system, with x64 you have 128gb maximum available, think of never having to written commands out to the page file again, everything stays nice and fast in ram, makes everything run so much more smoothly. Beta 2 of Exchange will be out end of summer ish, if you can, i would suggest at least taking a look at it. what do you use as a email client? outlook? notes?

the beta in question was the beta for Vista/longhorn, so no they aren't taking anymore applicatants for it, teh BDD will be released publicly soon (i hope) but till then you will have to make your Unattended Vista installs by hand