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Interesting: search for “search engine” in GoogleMicrosoft's free Windows 7 deployment tools from the WAIK (partly) are essential for every Windows admin: Windows Deployment Services (WDS), Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), User State Migration Tool (USMT), Windows Easy Transfer, Key Management Service (KMS), Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT), Windows 7 Security Compliance Management Toolkit.
Once you have planned your Windows 7 deployment and prepared your Windows 7 master images with their answer files, you are ready to deliver the images to your PCs. This article gives an overview of Microsoft’s free Windows 7 installation tools.
WDS is one of the major enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and is also available for Windows Server 2003 SP2. This tool enables small and mid-sized organizations to deploy Windows. Its main limitations compared to more sophisticated commercial deployment tools are that you can only install Windows remotely within a subnet (see discussion below) and that it lacks scheduling features, and supervision capabilities. I reviewed the Windows Server 2008 WDS a while back. The Windows Server 2008 R2 version comes with the following improvements: dynamic driver provisioning, Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) deployment, additional multicast functionality, PXE provider for Transport Server, and additional EFI functionality.
You’ve probably heard that the European Commission (EC) is conducting a preliminary investigation about Google’s alleged anticompetitive behavior in Europe. The fact that Microsoft is probably partly behind this is no surprise. I am not really a friend of the EC’s antitrust cases and I don’t know if this one is justified. The outcome of this investigation is certainly interesting, but the mere fact that complaints about Google reached this level is much more remarkable.
By now, you probably expect another pro-Microsoft article and attack on Google. I am sorry to disappoint you, but this also an anti-Microsoft post. However, I won’t complain about Microsoft as the possible wirepuller as all the-web-and-only-the-web advocates out there do. If Microsoft is really behind this, then it probably is a strategic error because it is only a matter of time before Microsoft’s competitors will complain about Bing’s rankings.
This is why a search engine should only focus on search and nothing else.This article gives an overview of the most important Windows 7 Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) tools: WSIM, ImageX, DISM, Sysprep and Windows PE.
In my last article I introduced those free Microsoft’s deployment tools that help you plan Windows 7 deployment. Today, I will give you an overview of the tools that you can use to prepare the image of your Windows 7 master installation. The most important tool collection certainly is the Windows Automated Installation Kit. This kit is usually abbreviated as WAIK, but in Microsoft’s documentation it is called Windows AIK. The first four tools described in this article are most essential. The WAIK contains a few additional useful command line tools, such as BCDboot (set up a system partition) and DrvLoad (adds out-of-box drivers to a booted Windows PE image), but I don’t discuss them here. I will discuss the WAIK’s installation tools in part 3.
This article gives an overview of Microsoft's free Windows 7 deployment tools Windows Optimized Desktop Solution Accelerator, Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 4.0, Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT), and Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.
Microsoft has created a remarkable collection of free deployment tools for Windows 7. If the last OS you deployed was Windows XP, which was released nine years ago, then you might be interested in knowing about the available technology that helps you get rid of this hopelessly outdated operating system. In this post I will give you a short description of all Windows deployment tools that help you plan installations and evaluate hardware and software compatibility. In the next post I will discuss tools to prepare the Windows 7 master image. In the final post of this series I will introduce Microsoft’s free utilities to deliver the OS image—that is, install Windows 7 on your network.
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, then you might remember my Windows XP vs. Vista series. It was a reply to one of the most popular Vista bashers, Randall C. Kennedy, who published an in-depth “comparison” between XP and Vista on InfoWorld. It was no surprise that such an article would appear on InfoWorld because they are well known for their somewhat “critical” views about Microsoft (remember the populist save XP campaign?). To IDG’s (the publisher of InfoWorld) defense, it ought to be said that their German magazine Computerwoche published my pro Vista article which was also a reply to Kennedy’s InfoWorld article.
Full scale roll-out will begin around March 1
That is good to knowSome days ago, I reviewed WinPing, a portable ping GUI. Readers have suggested Nirsoft’s PingInfoView and PingPlotter. I will have quick look at PingInfoView in this post.
Like WinPing, PingInfoView is a standalone application requiring no installation. The main difference is that Nirsoft’s tool summarizes the host responses in a table instead of continuously displaying each reply separately, like you are used to, from the command line interface.
(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
Loading ... My advice: deploy new PCs with 8GB and 64-bit
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDNet believes there are seven reasons to stick with Windows XP. I would like to express my opinion about each of his claims in this post. But first read this warning: If you are a Windows XP fan and dislike sarcastic rants, you had better not only skip Windows 7 but also this article.
Okay, you obviously ignored my warning. So let me first raise your adrenalin level a little before we tear each of Kingsley-Hughes’ points into pieces.
I have already outlined that skipping an operating system version is a mistake in most cases. I know that a large number of admins are “skippers”. And it’s no wonder. Admins tend to be overworked, and operating system upgrades usually just mean more stress for a certain time period. That’s why they easily fall for such false arguments as those presented in this ZDNet article. The fact that the majority of the readers voted for this article proves it. Telling your boss that you don’t like to upgrade to a new operating system because you don’t want to work more for a certain time period is probably not the smartest thing to do. But repeating “arguments” published in a well-known magazine that even your boss finds appealing might foster your career and your leisure time as well.
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