Tripredacus

When you go to edit your profile, you can choose what your Operating System is. Can you add an option for Server 2008 x64?

What do you need these computers to do? I have found no real reason to use Ultimate unless you are planning on taking advantage of Media Center. Otherwise, Vista Business should suffice for office computers. As far as the Vista vs XP options, it depends on the specs of your computers. If you can run 2GB RAM+ with a multicore CPU, then Vista would be better, but if below these specs you could use XP. That is, of course, if you can still acquire licenses to use XP. But if you do decide to go with XP, don't bother with Home Edition, even if it is cheaper, Pro is the only one you should use in an office environment mainly because of the security options and the higher network connections limitation.

When you are changing the setting, are you making this change in the Group Policy Object Editor? This is where I set this setting for all my Vista builds, and haven't had any problems with it. Alas, the GPOE is only available in Business and Ultimate, so if you have a different distro, then it won't help you.

Actually, there IS a way to create a WIM of the XP install, but its tricky. This is just a crazy idea I just had, and I have no clue if this will work but you can try it out. OK so we know that when you install XP, it goes into the blue setup screen, wants you to press buttons like R and L and F8 and stuff. Then it shoots that red bar across the screen to reboot. What happens here is that the XP CD copies the install structure of the CD onto the Hard Disk. When the computer reboots, it runs the install from the Hard Disk and not the CD. It may be possible to capture Drive C between the reboot prompt and the start of installation. However, I do not know if the installer makes any reference to the CD during install, but it may be possible to create a RAMDRIVE with applicable files to fool the installer if this is at all possible.

That's only for Vista. The ThreadOP didn't mention which operating system he was deploying.

I recommend Server 2003 for these specs. While you can try out 2008 to see if you like it, your need to consider a few things. First you need to check if your hardware is certified to work in 2008. Yes, you can get non-certified hardware (like motherboards) to work in 2008 but why would you do that in a business environment? Also, I don't see any point in running 2008 in a 32bit configuration, which your specs are on the low end, 64bit would be a waste on that system.

Also the X version of the CD you are using is probably different from the version on your COA.

Is it really hanging or is just the keyboard and mouse not working? For example, if you press the power button (not holding it in) does the computer start to turn itself off? I would first try a different keyboard and mouse.

I've encountered this before also, but have never seen where Windows didn't eventually come up.

Update about foobar2000, it did not support multiple outputs, or I couldn't figure out how to do it.

OK I took the second machine and loaded XP Pro SP2 onto it. I installed all the drivers for the motherboard and the 2 regular X-FI PCI cards, but only to find out that Creative does not provide a 32bit XP driver, only 64bit XP (supported but no driver) and Vista 32/64 provided drivers. Even the installer said I need to upgrade to Vista to install it. I did all the same tests with Winamp on this one and the results were the same. I also tried the a couple other programs, RED (which refused to output on 2 channels, only one) and another program (PCDJ) which did exactly what Winamp did. So I'm still stuck. I think its now time to get approval to contact Creative about this issue. I'll check out this foobar2000 thing next as a last resort, but if I can't get this to work with the customer's software, I'm not sure it will even matter. Its bad because one of the apps is designed to work in 98, and their website says to change the compatibility mode in XP to 98 to get it to work. I am not even going to attempt to install this on Vista...

Using multiple instances of Winamp did not work. I was able to configure each instance to use a different sound card, but the sound distorted once I hit play on the second card. I tried using two different source files as well. Perhaps it is an issue, there is only 2GB RAM on this machine...

OK so I have a new project. One of our customers has ordered a computer with 3 sound cards in it. They are 2 PCI X-Fi Xtreme and 1 PCI-E X-Fi Extreme. The first problem was that I was able to install the drivers for the PCI cards, but the PCIE refuses to accept the driver. Vista sees it as a High Definition Audio Device, and I currently have it set to be the default Sound device, so Windows sounds play through it normally. However, that isn't the issue I am experiencing. I need to prove that I can get reliable sound out of all three sound cards. I can get sound out of all three at once, but I'm encountering a problem. I want to make sure it isn't a resource or hardware problem before I approve this configuration for sale. So I have Winamp installed using the output select plugin. This allows me to use 1 Winamp instance (I have read about multiple instances but haven't tried that yet) and output to the two PCI sound cards (the ones with the drivers installed) to get simultaneous sound. Except I am having a problem. Using DirectSound to XFI-1: normal playback Using DirectSound to XFI-2: normal playback Using WaveOut to XFI-2: normal playback Using WaveOut to XFI-1: normal playback Now with either config, using BOTH DirectSound and WaveOut plugins, the song (using MP3) plays back too fast, and the output levels are too high for the soundcard. FYI, when the output levels are too high (think waveforms being cut off caused by exceeding maximum tolerance in electronics theory) you get distortion. This is common if you take a CD that has a high mastering gain from recording, encode an MP3 at a lower bit rate, and playback has a "choppiness" to the song because some of the sound information (the highs and lows) is missing. This is basically the best way I can describe this. Of course using a PC isn't as easy to configure as using sound equipment, so I can't just turn a knob this time to fix it. So, my issue is why does Winamp play the songs too fast and at the incorrect level? Also if there is another software program I can test with that supports multiple outputs (not WMP either) and it has to be free or a trial. We can't be spending money on software to do this testing. Also, is there a limiter in Vista that is not allowing the PCIE sound driver to install? FYI about the PCIE driver, when I tell it to use the updated one (its a different driver package than the PCI card uses) Windows reports that the best driver for the device is already installed. I will be trying out the multiple instance trick, and perhaps contact out Creative rep for help. Also I must add that Winamp refuses to output sound to the PCIE because the MS driver doesn't allow playback. Also, when playing back audio to the two PCI cards, the Windows sounds played on the PCIE sound normal. There is an onboard Audio controller (Realtek HD) that is disabled in the BIOS, and the Realtek driver/software package is not installed.

It may be better to install XP to a different volume than the one Vista is on. Either way, you should boot from the CD to install XP rather than running it from Windows. Especially if its an unattended CD since it would likely attempt to erase your boot volume. If you do it the way you want to, you need to read about how to edit the BCD after imaging.

The image is has been sysprepped and past the Windows Welcome Setup. Running sysprep on the image is not an option. Since I had received no information in a timely manner, I recreated base images for our customer to rebuild the final image with.

I've got a strange issue I am dealing with right now. We have a config that I have to evaluate a different video card for, but Windows is causing a problem. Our MS rep says that changing hardware shouldn't pop the WPA activation with our OEM VL that we use, but it does anyways. I'll be emailing him later today and see what kind of official explanation I can get, as recreating the image isn't a viable option for me at this time. Here is the gist of it. We have an XP Pro SP2 image that uses our OEM VL that we sent to a customer. They sent it back with their software and settings. We image that drive and redploy it over many systems and there is no problem. The image was created with a PCI-E MSI GeForce 8400GS 256/512MB video card. This video card is not designed to work within the chassis (case) that their config uses, and while the card actually works fine, it has some quality control issues from assembly due to the fact that it isn't supposed to be used the way we use it. It also has some possible heating issues as well. On my recommendation, we got in another card, the XFX equivalent of the 8400GS, with the hope that nVidia's scalable driver package would allow us to easily swap this card in without installing new drivers. And as far as I can tell, this is indeed the case. The XFX card also has a fan on it, which will help with the possible heating issues when these units are in the field. Here is the strangeness about the issue. When the image is deployed onto the config with the XFX 8400GS, it pops the activation due to "significant" hardware change. Now, if I drop the image onto the config that has an XFX GeForce 7300 LE video card in it, it does not pop the reactivation of Windows. So my question, is there a way to modify Windows so that it does not prompt for reactivation? I have the option of imaging the drive using the current hardware to imagex, mounting the WIM and either modifying a file or loading the registry hive to make any changes. The only reason I am asking this is because it would be preferable to fix the image here quickly (say 1-2 days) than have the customer remake the image again which could take a week at least. Thanks

I do not know how Winamp handles the crossfade when burning a CD. AFAIK, the m3u doesn't contain any playback or EQ settings, just what order and location of the songs (and some ID3? information). I only use Winamp because I used to use it to test crossfade timings (typical) between 5 and 20 seconds. Winamp doesn't support crossfades higher than 20 seconds, however.

wait... sorry about that part. OK all these pictures that aren't showing up are redirecting advertisements. They are not being hosted on the server that the website is on. While remote linking pictures is common today (with the whole 'paste this code into your website' fad) it is still far better to store the pictures on the webserver. If you are concerned about the websites those images link to disappearing or changing, just run a hyperlink validator on the site every month or two.

I'm not exactly sure what you are saying there, but unless you are installing an image into a VM/VPC session, I wouldn't recommend installing Windows while you are booted into another copy of it.

So far my SP1 experience has been very good. We don't actively use it yet, but we have finally gotten through our evaluation period and will adopt it very shortly. I have only had to use it twice, and in both instances, we used it to fix two issues we were having with hardware or software configs that weren't working properly with RTM. In both cases, the root cause of problem was sysprep, however.

http://www.quatech.com/support/mei_sds_faq.php

I have acquired an additional X-Fi card and I am going to test to see if this issue happens with SP1 as well.

OK rite now this shall be filed under phantom resolution. The three are working now after I reimaged them for the 4th time... Or at least they boot into Windows...

Yes they all have the same hardware, same BIOS version. Before imaging (the first time) we go into the BIOS and set to optimal defaults. Then change only the following: - date - time - set primary display adapter to PEG - disable onboard audio - set resume on power loss to last state All three work properly if I manually load with the CD. I'm going to make another attempt today to see if I can't figure it out. Does sysprep/windows welcome make a log file during the boot process that I can check once it stalls? I can use NTFSDOS to view anything on the C drive if needed.

Yes. It just seems like the Windows Welcome process is hanging. Also, I had previously attempted creating the master image on one of these machines, and that image was blowing up when I tried to deploy it. I just know there must be a hardware issue, I just can't find it.