The world of Marc O'Polo – Blog

Windows 7 provides excellent control over the Start menu. You can choose which commands appear on the Start menu and how they are arranged. You can add options for Control Panel, Devices And Printers, Network Connections, and other key tools. You can also enable or disable personalized menus on the All Programs menu.

Read the rest of this entry »

This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS.  These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.

Required:

• USB Flash Drive (4GB+)
• Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)
• A computer running Vista / Windows 7

Read the rest of this entry »

Requiring the user to enter credentials when his computer starts is an important part of Windows security. If a user account automatically logs on, anyone who has physical access to the computer can restart it and access the user’s files. Nonetheless, there are scenarios where a computer is physically secure and automatic logon might be desired. To configure a workgroup computer (you cannot perform these steps on a domain member) to automatically log on, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, type netplwiz, and then press Enter.
2. In the User Accounts dialog box, click the account you want to automatically log on to.If it is available, clear the Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer check box.
3. Click OK.
4. In the Automatically Log On dialog box, enter the user’s password twice and click OK.

The next time you restart the computer, it will automatically log on with the local user account you selected. Configuring automatic logon stores the user’s password in the registry unencrypted, where someone might be able to retrieve it.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe) is a new command line tool that you can use to service a Windows image or prepare a Windows PE image. The DISM tool replaces the Package Manager (pkgmgr.exe), PEimg, and Intlcfg tools used with Windows Vista. DISM consolidates the functionality found in those three tools, as well as delivers new functionality to improve the experience of offline servicing.

• Add, remove, and enumerate packages and drivers.
• Enable or disable Windows features.
• Apply changes based on the offline servicing section of an unattend.xml answer file.
• Configure international settings.
• Upgrade a Windows image to a different edition.
• Prepare a Windows PE image.
• Take advantage of better logging.
• Service down-level operating systems like Windows Vista with SP1 and Windows Server 2008.
• Service all platforms (32-bit, 64-bit, and Itanium).
• Service a 32-bit image from a 64-bit host and service a 64-bit image from a 32-bit host.
• Make use of old Package Manager scripts.

Command-Line Options

A series Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 issues have been reported to Microsoft customer support. From these issues, we figured out several hot issues and authored Knowledge base articles to explain the solutions.

To identify and troubleshoot these issues, you can find more information from the KB articles:

• 975787  Adjust User Account Control settings in Windows 7
• 976832  Error message when you insert a smart card in a reader on a Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer: “Device driver software was not successfully installed”
• 975784  Enable the Quick Launch bar in Windows 7
• 975785  Customize the notification area in Windows 7
• 975786  Customize the notification area in Windows 7
• 975788  Turn off the secure desktop in Windows 7
• 976034  Get a detailed Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report for your computer in Windows 7
• 976170 Troubleshoot Aero problems in Windows 7
• 976877  Troubleshoot Aero problems in Windows 7
• 976736  How to install Windows PowerShell on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Core           
• 2006291 Error message When You Bring up the Server Manager Console and click on Add / View Roles: “0x800B0100″
• 977510  Authentication fails when an external client tries to log on by using a read-only domain controller in a perimeter network

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/ferris/default.aspx

Last week I posted an articel about running the vSphere client on a Windows 7 workstation. This was a problem, but now after Update 1 for vSphere Windows 7 and Windows 2008R2 are now supported.

Read the rest of this entry »

VMWare has recently launched a work around for the problem of running the vSphere client on a Windows 7 workstations.

Link to the document : http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011329

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I received the following error on my Windows 7 x64 Enterprise laptop when I tried to logon.

The User Profile Service Failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.

Then the logoff message appeared en I was back where I was started.

The strange thing is nothing had changed when I shutdown the laptop last night. No update’s installed, no software installed. So I started searching the internet. The following article resolved my problem. It is an article about Windows Vista, you can read it here. Link.

 The first thing I tried was the system restore to an earlier restore point. That worked for me..

One of the great things about the Vista and post-Vista operating systems is that the installer subsystem allows you a great deal of flexibility when it comes to installing multiple operating systems. It is fairly easy to put together a single installation DVD or USB stick that will allow you to install Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2 – in a variety of x86 and x64 flavors.

A couple of things to note about this guide:

• I do not use Vista — I have never really used Vista and now with Windows 7 out there really is no reason to; however the steps here will work just fine with Vista installation sources
• I have only tested this using a USB stick and will only cover that method here – it’s much more flexible (and faster) for installation than using DVD — but DVDs should work just fine: you can find plenty of tutorials on the web that will tell you how to use oscdimg.exe to take the files we create here and turn them into a burnable ISO

 WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• USB stick, at least 4 GB (perhaps larger depending on how many OSes you plan to integrate, I use a 16 GB) that has been properly formatted using Steps 1 and 2 here
• ISOs or DVDs of the operating systems that you plan to integrate
• imagex.exe (can be found for download on the web, or you can download the full 1.7 GB WAIK here)
• computer running Vista or newer operating system (XP should work but I have not tested it)

Read the rest of this entry »

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have a really useful feature called “VHD Boot”. With that you can boot your entire Windows out of a Virtual Hard Disk file (as those used with Virtual PC or Virtual Server).