For every installation of Windows Vista, you need an image in the WIM format. One great feature of WIM images is that you can mount and inject them with device drivers or other files. In this post, I will be explaining how to mount an image in a WIM file with ImageX. ImageX is the tool for capturing and applying images. But it can also be used to modify an image. This article is based on Windows Vista Beta 2.

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In this post, I am going to introduce some important concepts of Windows Vista’s imaging technology. Every Windows system administrator has to learn about this sooner or later since imaging is the only way to install Windows Vista.

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I am currently playing a little with Windows Vista Beta 2. I guess many system administrators will wonder how to map a network drive or access the folder options in Windows Vista when they open the Windows Explorer for the first time. Basically, it works the same way as in Windows XP. You go to tools in the menu bar and click on “map network drive” or “folder options”. The only question is where is the menu bar? Well, you have to press “Alt” to see it. I wonder what’s the sense in this?

I am preparing an article for a German magazine about Windows Vista’s new features from a system administrator’s point of view. I would like to share some of the results of my research here. In this post, you will find a list of Microsoft’s free deployment tools for Windows Vista with short descriptions.

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Preston Gralla reported that during the Black Hat security conference hackers managed to crack into Windows Vista. He acknowledged that any new OS is more prone to security leaks. The longer an OS has been made available, then the more of its security holes are found which are then patched.

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I think, only a few administrators have worked with Windows PE (Pre Environment) yet. This might change when Windows Vista finally comes out since Windows PE 2.0 is an essential component of Windows Vista Deployment Services (WDS), the replacement for Remote Installation Services (RIS).

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Today, I googled about the new features of Windows PE 2.0. I found a ZDNet page offering a white paper about this topic. When I clicked on the link, I was told that I have to register first to get the paper. Usually, this is the point where I go back to Google.

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Poptop is an open source VPN server supporting Microsoft’s PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol). It allows you to use a Linux Server as a VPN Server for Windows machines. This way you can encrypt any communication between the Linux server and your Windows workstation easily. You can use NAT (Network Address Translation) to hide your workstation’s IP address when you access the internet thru the VPN Server. Windows comes with a built-in and easy-to-configure VPN client. Nothing has to be installed on the Windows machine. In this post, I would like to share my recent experience installing Poptop.

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I just read in the German magazine Computerwoche (print) that the number of Linux viruses doubled in 2005 (863) compared to 2004 (422). These numbers come from Konstantin Sapranov who works as a virus analyst for Kaspersky Lab. Of course, one has to be always cautious with such numbers especially coming from an anti-virus vendor. However, it is obvious that the growing popularity of Linux makes it more attractive for virus writers and other villains.

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Pure Text 2.0 is the tool, I’ve been waiting for. I often copy and paste text from the web to different kind of applications. Usually, I only want to copy the content, but not its formatting, pictures, etc.. OLE (ActiveX) is a great thing, but sometimes, it can be quite annoying. Some applications have a “paste special ” function for this purpose. However, it is often too complicated. In Word, for example, you have to click several times to paste a text without formatting.

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