Today, I was deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 using an image which I captured from another server using Sysprep and ImageX utilities.
After I deployed the image to my server using the same ImageX utility, and as soon as I started the server BOOM, got a startup error “BOOTMGR MISSING”
To fix this issue, I started my server using a WinPE CD to the Windows Pre Installation Environment, and typed the following command
BCDBOOT C:\Windows
Restart the server
That fixed the issue
One of my common task at work involves me to sign in to multiple Microsoft websites using different Live ID’s (.NET Passport addresses). The problem is that usually I have, like 15-20 Internet Explorer tabs open and sometimes one of these tabs uses one Live ID which I have signed in with, and when I try to open a new site and sign in with another Live ID, the newly opened site uses the already used Live ID, so have to go through every tab and sign-out and then use the other Live ID to sign in, this is a tedious process and a headache at times.
One easy way to solve this is Open a new browsing session. To do this
On the Internet Explorer window, click File => and then click New Session
This will enable you to start a new browsing session in which you will be able to use different Live ID’s.
This is what I have been waiting for quite some time now
an official version of Windows 8 to try it out. After they released the Developer Preview Pre-beta version of Windows 8 yesterday at the BUILD conference I managed to download the ISO.
Since it was a Pre-Beta I started to install on top of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V machine ( I know the touch features – but something I want to sacrifice until later)
I created a new hyper-V virtual machine and started to install and it was almost the same as a Windows 7 installation except for the Windows 7 starting splash screen being replaced with another (refer screen shot below)
Here you go!
Loading Files
The changed splash screen from Windows 7
Language Settings
Installation Confirmation
Setup is Starting
Installation Option
Disk Selection
Installation Progress
Restarting
Setting up registry for the fist time and first time only
Preparing to load
Preparing the attached hardware devices
License Agreement
Initial startup and configuration
Personalizing – Computer Name
Setup Option – I selected “Express”
Creating the first User Account
Finalizing
Loading User
Preparing PC
Icons “Tiles” which can be clicked
More tiles and icons
Desktop (revamped start button)
Ribbon enabled Windows Explorer
Built in Internet Explorer 10
My Computer
System Properties
Hover over start button
Other settings accessed through desktop settings
WOW… isn’t this mind blowing? 
Awesome stuff.. stay tuned.. I am to explore more and try this on my slate (reason why I was waiting till later)
The Official Pre-Beta of Windows 8 for developers is available for download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/
This was announced during the ongoing BUILD conference which started yesterday.
Recently after a Windows Server 2008R2 implementation I had to use the new Microsoft Command Shell the so called “Windows PowerShell” to run a script. After installing the server I opened up notepad and wrote a simple script and as you’ll know I had to save the file with a PS1 extension so that PowerShell can execute the script. and I did save the file with the PS1 extension.
As soon as Opened PowerShell and typed the path to the PS1 file and press enter, I got an error as shown below
Which says “File <filepath> cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see "get- help about_signing" for more details.”
If you get this error, don’t panic
by default PowerShell is designed like this for security reasons, The Execution Policy which is in Windows PowerShell is set to Restricted which means none of the scripts will run (even if you write with your user credentials).
In Windows PowerShell type Get-ExecutionPolicy to verify
In order to be able to run scripts using Windows PowerShell type Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
This would enable to run script using PowerShell on your computer
According to the Official Blog post by Microsoft http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/07/bringing-hyper-v-to-windows-8.aspx to have Hyper-V on an upcoming Windows 8 Operating System you will need to meet certain requirements.
One of the requirements for Hyper-V is that it requires a 64-bit system that has Second Level Address Translation (SLAT). This is a feature that the current processors comes along with.
How do we check whether our existing systems/processors support this feature? this is the ultimate question
According to this blog Intel and AMD have different types of SLAT, Intel calls this Enhanced Page Tables (EPT) and AMD calls it as Nested Page Tables (NPT).
Microsoft Sysinternals has a tool called Coreinfo which can be downloaded here, using this tool we can view whether our processors support either one of EPT or NPT depending on the processor make.
Once you download the Coreinfo, extract the software to your C: drive. Open command prompt and navigate C:\ and type Coreinfo.exe –v
This command will give you whether your processor supports EPT or NPT
With the recent release of Office 365 (previously known as the Microsoft BPOS) which is a complete Cloud Computing offering, Microsoft has made an e-Book authored by Katherine Murray available free which can be downloaded from here
There is a funny video in YouTube which I came across
As an IT Pro, we are required to do R&D a lot. At the rate of new technologies being implemented specially in the Microsoft arena we have to do a lot of research to be in par with the technology.
Mostly, what we do is virtualize the newly released products and test it out, but the common problem most of us face is that to have a descent virtualization solution such as hyper-v, we are compelled to install Windows Server as the base operating system.
I have a Lenovo W520 with a Core i7 vPro and 16GB of RAM and I run Windows Server 2008 R2 as my base OS, purely because I need to run Hyper-V. The Biggest problem I face is that once I enable Hyper-V, I cannot hibernate or put my Lenovo Notebook to sleep.
Hold on.. Microsoft just released a blog post on their Windows 8 Engineering Blog that Windows 8 will support Hyper-V on it
. This is something super cool and most of the IT Pros out their will love this for sure. The best part is that hibernation/Sleep ill still be there even if you install Hyper-V on Windows 8
The requirement is that you will need to have a Windows 8 x64bit OS and a minimum of 4GB of RAM.
For more information and for a video click Bringing Hyper-V to “Windows 8”
The Windows Engineering Team has launched a blog on technet called Building Windows 8
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/
The Blogs first post was posted by Steven Sinofsky who is the President of Windows and Windows Live Division yesterday.
On 1st of June 2011 Microsoft released a video which shows the preview of Windows 8 here
Click here to see videos of Windows 8 at the partner preview event in Taipei, Taiwan for COMPUTEX 2011 on June 2nd 2011.
Recently I was installing Windows Server 2008 R2 on my server and while installing the service pack 1, I came across an issue. The server downloads the service pack and starts the installation and restarts, once it restarts it goes to a black screen mode where it displays on applying update, after a while the server comes to a halt and freezes. Restarting the server also does not help.
After some research I found the solution by following KB 975484
The Brunei IT Pro User Group Meeting for June 2011 was held yesterday at the Tech One Global Training Room (Knowledge Hub) around 5 p.m.
Todays topic was Deploying Windows 7 using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. There was a presentation on Windows 7 as well as a detailed demonstration on how to create a Windows 7 image using MDT 2010, where the image includes other applications as well as several device drivers.
The next meeting will be on 29th of July 2011 and will be at the same venue. All are welcome for these sessions which are free..
Like most of the IT Pro’s I too use PSR to capture screenshots for troubleshooting, documenting, blogging and other tasks which require to capture a series of screenshots. Most of the times when I use PSR I have been facing an issue. Once the recording is done and the file has been saved, when I open the .mht file most of the screenshot at the beginning will be missing and the one’s at last will be displayed.
You may have a message on the missing screenshot as “No screenshots were saved for this problem step”. The reason for this is that by default, PSR only saves the last 25 screenshots to help reduce the size of the capture file. If you require to capture more than 25 screenshots you may increase this number (to a maximum of 100)
Starting from June 20th Microsoft has launched a new version of SkyDrive to make the experience much more interesting and make it much more easier to access and use. Microsoft has used the advantages of modern browsers and HTML5 to make SkyDrive faster, easier to navigate, and more beautiful for viewing photos.
With Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7, you can access your SkyDrive faster than ever before. The new SkyDrive enables you to pin it to your Windows 7 taskbar, and it has its own specific jumplist.
SkyDrive is just a click away on which you can create Word, Excel, PowerPoint files quicker than ever before.
Below is a snapshot of the new SkyDrives interface on IE9 and it will be almost the same on FireFox as well as Chrome
When you click on a Word, Excel or a PowerPoint file there will be an extended action item shown on the right side pain. Through which you can check the versions of the particular file, edit the permission, etc.
The new SkyDrive gives live thumbnail previews for pictures of any size.
Check the Windows Team Blog for more information
SkyDrive for the Modern Web
At TechED Atlanta, Microsoft has announced that the release of Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 will be end of June 2011.
The following are some of the highlights the Service Pack will deliver
- Outlook fixes an issue where “Snooze Time” would not reset between appointments.
- The default behavior for PowerPoint "Use Presenter View" option changed to display the slide show on the secondary monitor.
- Integrated community content in the Access Application Part Gallery.
- Better alignment between Project Server and SharePoint Server browser support.
- Improved backup / restore functionality for SharePoint Server
- The Word Web Application extends printing support to “Edit Mode.”
- Project Professional now synchronizes scheduled tasks with SharePoint task lists.
- Internet Explorer 9 “Native” support for Office Web Applications and SharePoint
- Office Web Applications Support for Chrome
- Inserting Charts into Excel Workbooks using Excel Web Application
- Support for searching PPSX files in Search Server
- Visio Fixes scaling issues and arrowhead rendering errors with SVG export
- Proofing Tools improve spelling suggestions in Canadian English, French, Swedish and European Portuguese.
- Outlook Web Application Attachment Preview (with Exchange Online only)
- Office client suites using “Add Remove Programs” Control Panel, building on our work from Office 2007 SP2
A more detailed list will be available once its released.
Information on SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1
More information can be found here
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