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devmd01 posted:Developers are all getting new machines, so instead of installing 20 apps on 8 different desktops, the obvious solution is a specific image. I got a base install ready and handed it off to a developer for the app installs, and once I got it back ran sysprep and pulled the image up to our WDS server. Actually I just ran in to what you might have hit. You can only sysprep and activate a Windows 7/Vista image 3 times. After that, it's dead. You end up needing to keep a reference image and you add a line in to the answer file that keeps it from activating again and consuming that count again, then use that reference image to spin off your production images. The error when you hit this is really obscure and useless but basically the image no longer boots. Here's a KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929828 BangersInMyKnickers fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Sep 24, 2010 |
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Sep 24, 2010 19:15
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BangersInMyKnickers posted:Actually I just ran in to what you might have hit. You can only sysprep and activate a Windows 7/Vista image 3 times. After that, it's dead. You end up needing to keep a reference image and you add a line in to the answer file that keeps it from activating again and consuming that count again, then use that reference image to spin off your production images. The error when you hit this is really obscure and useless but basically the image no longer boots. Hmm, good to file away but i'm pretty sure that's not my issue, at least - it was a fresh install from disk. Good to know though, other than the occasional IT desktop install from disk we don't have any W7 machines in widespread use yet. That's a stupid loving limit, but I guess that ties in with them wanting you to use MDT2010/W7AIK for setting up your imaging process. Time to start getting familiar with that poo poo though, it's a little bit more complicated than having a nice unified sysprep folder I can drop on a machine and hit a batch file to make it go.
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Sep 24, 2010 19:21
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devmd01 posted:Developers are all getting new machines, so instead of installing 20 apps on 8 different desktops, the obvious solution is a specific image. I got a base install ready and handed it off to a developer for the app installs, and once I got it back ran sysprep and pulled the image up to our WDS server. At my last job, someone had a version of Ghost 2001 installed on a test system. It had some low-level driver installed so it could clone a Windows drive on the fly while Windows was loaded (no need to boot off a CD). That install was cloned to every computer the company used, and many were then shipped to the four corners of the country. Fast forward several years, and a Windows XP update from 2007 doesn't agree with the pre-XP 2001 DRV, causing the systems to STOP 0x0000007b (inaccessible boot device) on every startup. The easiest solution was to boot another OS (such as a Linux live CD) and delete the DRV from system32 so Windows could boot. Well, easy for me if I was sitting at the computer. An option was presented to mail out Linux live CDs to all the computer users and then talk them through booting from them, navigating the windows and menus, and have them delete the file. We ended up having a mess of hard drives and even complete Desktop units shipped overnight to us. I'm not a fan of making system images. Every person I've worked with have left sloppy poo poo all over, and they get duplicated to everyone.
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Sep 24, 2010 19:35
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Xenomorph posted:I'm not a fan of making system images. Every person I've worked with have left sloppy poo poo all over, and they get duplicated to everyone. System images are great if done correctly, it just takes someone who knows what the gently caress they're doing and has good attention to detail. Also, testing. The previous two people who did what I did here didn't have that, so poo poo is hosed up all over the place and i've had to do a lot of work to mitigate/clean it up as best I can. Minimalism is the key. There is no way in hell our helpdesk would be effective in getting anything else done if they didn't have images built for them to prep new/replace/repair machines. /adminchat
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Sep 24, 2010 19:41
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How do I see all the files I highlight and move around? I used to see every outline in Windows XP, but now I see three shadows that are faded and can't tell where the rest of the files end up.
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Sep 25, 2010 04:22
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edit: googled it.
Pr0phecy fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Sep 25, 2010 |
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Sep 25, 2010 05:35
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Pr0phecy posted:edit: googled it. Poor forum etiquette. Post the question and the solution you found!
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Sep 25, 2010 06:43
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Scalding Coffee posted:How do I see all the files I highlight and move around? I used to see every outline in Windows XP, but now I see three shadows that are faded and can't tell where the rest of the files end up. # Press Windows Key + R. # In the Run window, type systempropertiesadvanced, and click OK. # In Performance section, click Settings. # In the box, check Show window contents while dragging, and click OK.
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Sep 25, 2010 07:07
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Can you show me what you googled? It is a little better, but not completely helpful.
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Sep 25, 2010 14:43
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If I have several 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit windows 7, can the total addressed memory of these application exceed 4GB? I can't see why not but someone asked my and I wasn't 100% sure.
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Sep 28, 2010 14:03
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Boz0r posted:If I have several 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit windows 7, can the total addressed memory of these application exceed 4GB? I can't see why not but someone asked my and I wasn't 100% sure. Yes. Each individual 32-bit process is capped at 2GB but beyond that you are only limited by the amount of physical memory + page file.
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Sep 28, 2010 14:35
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Does anyone know if I can save two different ethernet connections on Windows 7? The network I connect to in my dorm room acquires its IP address automatically, but the one I connect to at my office requires me to specify an IP address, a netmask, and a DNS server. These settings carry over from one connection to another, which is a bit of a nuisance when I come back home or go to the office. TIA!
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Sep 28, 2010 18:24
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Montalvo posted:Does anyone know if I can save two different ethernet connections on Windows 7? The network I connect to in my dorm room acquires its IP address automatically, but the one I connect to at my office requires me to specify an IP address, a netmask, and a DNS server. These settings carry over from one connection to another, which is a bit of a nuisance when I come back home or go to the office. Under the TCP/IP4 properties for the network connection, leave the General tab set to Auto Obtain an IP. Then under Alternate Configuration, set your static IP. If you plug in at home and sees a DCHP server, it uses that. Plug in at work and it can't find a DHCP server, it uses the static you set as alternate.
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Sep 28, 2010 18:31
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BangersInMyKnickers posted:Under the TCP/IP4 properties for the network connection, leave the General tab set to Auto Obtain an IP. Then under Alternate Configuration, set your static IP. If you plug in at home and sees a DCHP server, it uses that. Plug in at work and it can't find a DHCP server, it uses the static you set as alternate. Fantastic, thank you so much!
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Sep 28, 2010 19:27
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So I just tried to install Win 7 Professional 32-bit and I'm running into a strange problem. The installation goes fine until it asks me to put in a product key, which it tells me is invalid. Obviously I have a bad key, right? Well something is wrong because I literally took the shrink wrap off the disks before I installed it. Also, when I put in the key correctly the system hangs for around a minute before telling me the key is invalid, but when I change even one character it spits back the same error almost instantaneously. In other words, the wrong key is recognized as wrong right off the bat, but the right key is doing something at least. Facts of note: - The copy is of course legit, but it is a faculty/student copy. - I'm installing from a usb flash drive. I used the official Microsoft usb installer converter. - The computer has no internet connection at the moment. What's going on with this thing?
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Sep 30, 2010 08:17
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Danger Mahoney posted:What's going on with this thing? The key to my copy of Win2000 was in a weird font that made "B" and "8" look identical, maybe it's something like that?
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Sep 30, 2010 11:06
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LooseChanj posted:The key to my copy of Win2000 was in a weird font that made "B" and "8" look identical, maybe it's something like that? Oh yes, the bane of my existence back when I worked for a computer recycler. Last night for some reason when I booted up, Win 7 freaked out, basically saying "WAAAAAAAA! your product may not be genuine!" and wanted me to reactivate it. I reactivated it and now everything's hunky dory. What the gently caress?
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Sep 30, 2010 12:03
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Landerig posted:Oh yes, the bane of my existence back when I worked for a computer recycler. It happens from time-to-time. I imagine there's some sort of call-home that Windows Update or something similar does. If that can't happen, it pops up that message. Happened to my in-laws last week. Rebooted and everything was fine (no reactivation necessary)
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Sep 30, 2010 13:59
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Landerig posted:Last night for some reason when I booted up, Win 7 freaked out, basically saying "WAAAAAAAA! your product may not be genuine!" and wanted me to reactivate it. I reactivated it and now everything's hunky dory. What the gently caress? My 32-bit install of Vista would de-activate if you looked at it funny. (Seriously, moving a PCI card made it need to reactivate.) And media center wouldn't work with my tv card and...then I bought new guts and installed the 64 bit version and all the bad things went away. Whoo.
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Sep 30, 2010 14:09
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If your computer is prompting to re-activate, then one of two things happened: Either hardware changed enough to prompt a reactivation (this is usually from a few motherboard, IDE controller, or hard drive, but multiple smaller things can trigger it as well) or the key that was used ended up getting blacklisted by the Windows Genuine Advantage program. If you can just re-enter the key, then it was a hardware change that triggered it. The OS can re-activate 3 times per install before it becomes hosed. Cheap/poo poo PCI cards can trigger this because some vendors are lazy and don't append a unique identifier to to the PCIid (it usually goes [vendorcode][unique#], but bad manufacturers do it as [vendorcode]00000000000) so if the card hops to a new PCI slot, the OS can't really verify that it is the same hardware in a different slot and sees it as a configuration change.
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Sep 30, 2010 14:16
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Danger Mahoney posted:So I just tried to install Win 7 Professional 32-bit and I'm running into a strange problem. The installation goes fine until it asks me to put in a product key, which it tells me is invalid. Obviously I have a bad key, right? Well something is wrong because I literally took the shrink wrap off the disks before I installed it. Also, when I put in the key correctly the system hangs for around a minute before telling me the key is invalid, but when I change even one character it spits back the same error almost instantaneously. In other words, the wrong key is recognized as wrong right off the bat, but the right key is doing something at least. Have you tried installing without the key, and then connecting to the Internet and plugging in the key later?
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Sep 30, 2010 15:47
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BangersInMyKnickers posted:Windows Genuine Advantage program I never had a problem with that, just that it would periodically ask for re-activation, and then refuse to do it over the internet; something XP didn't have a problem with.
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Sep 30, 2010 16:01
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BangersInMyKnickers posted:If your computer is prompting to re-activate, then one of two things happened: Either hardware changed enough to prompt a reactivation (this is usually from a few motherboard, IDE controller, or hard drive, but multiple smaller things can trigger it as well) or the key that was used ended up getting blacklisted by the Windows Genuine Advantage program. If you can just re-enter the key, then it was a hardware change that triggered it. The OS can re-activate 3 times per install before it becomes hosed. Cheap/poo poo PCI cards can trigger this because some vendors are lazy and don't append a unique identifier to to the PCIid (it usually goes [vendorcode][unique#], but bad manufacturers do it as [vendorcode]00000000000) so if the card hops to a new PCI slot, the OS can't really verify that it is the same hardware in a different slot and sees it as a configuration change. No hardware changes. Just clicked the activate button and went on my way. This is the first time it's done this and I've been running Win 7 for, what at least a month now. Maybe its mad at me for installing classic shell, or it could have been the daylight savings time update?
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Sep 30, 2010 18:07
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Landerig posted:No hardware changes. Just clicked the activate button and went on my way. This is the first time it's done this and I've been running Win 7 for, what at least a month now. The technet forums would be in an uproar if the DST patch did it. I could see classic shell doing something weird and triggering it, though. Anyway, if it was just a random blip then I say keep on doing whatever your doing and forget about it.
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Sep 30, 2010 18:09
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Is there a relatively easy way to automate adding a task to the task scheduler? I have a basic "run this program as admin on logon" task that I need to add to a bunch of computers.
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Sep 30, 2010 18:29
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Toast Museum posted:Is there a relatively easy way to automate adding a task to the task scheduler? I have a basic "run this program as admin on logon" task that I need to add to a bunch of computers. Group policy CSEs can do this for you. Or drop in a copy of the .job file on the targets.
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Sep 30, 2010 18:30
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Is there a quick fix for the Windows 7 taskbar bug where whatever you moused over last stays highlighted until you mouseover something else? It's kind of annoying because it'll often make open programs highlight with their usual colour and for some it looks like something is happening (ie if I mouseover AIM, it turns yellow-ish and looks like someone messaged me). Logging off and on fixes it but I'd rather not do that and it happens semi-frequently.
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Sep 30, 2010 19:46
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I have a niggling little gripe with Win7. You know the kind; you can live with it but it really pisses you off and reduces productivity. Pertinent System Info: Windows 7 Professional 32bit Yes, I've tried every google search I can think of! Gripe: In the taskbar, the preview thumbnail opens when you hover over an open program. And it opens a little preview box for EVERY instance of that program that's open instead of a neat little list. Synopsis:I want to turn it off! Reason: If I have 6 excel windows open and just want the darn cursor out of the way, it occasionally lands on the taskbar and a buttload (in this example buttload=6) of useless preview windows pop up. (previews of columns of numbers are SO useful) Attempted solutions: 1) Used GPEdit.msc to enable the "Turn off taskbar thumbnails" process Result: As I feared, since this is a Vista only process, it did not work. I am not surprised. 2) Using regedit, I added ExtendedUIHoverTime, with a 5 second delay. Result: This has partially solved the problem. When I move over the task bar quickly I'm not irritated with the previews. However, if I leave the cursor down there while working (which is mostly when I have the problem), I'm still irritated as my lower screen becomes covered with little windows. I have only delayed my irritation, not solved it. 3) Disable Aero theme Result: Success? The thumbnail previews are gone and are replaced with a (rather large font) list of open windows, but everything looks pretty terrible and I can't customize the colors at all. And I'm sure there's some functionality loss I haven't found yet... So bottom line. Is this an irritation I need to live with, or does some clever solution exist? PS. If anyone wants more details on any of these, I'm happy to oblige.
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Sep 30, 2010 19:47
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wildsprite posted:thumbnails AFAIK, it seems like it would be easier to just put your mouse cursor somewhere else. Push it towards the start menu corner where it doesn't do anything.
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Sep 30, 2010 19:55
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Parachute Underwear posted:Is there a quick fix for the Windows 7 taskbar bug where whatever you moused over last stays highlighted until you mouseover something else? ... We had a computer doing this occasionally (maybe a few times a month). Have you tried holding shift and right clicking on the taskbar icon? After doing that, it seemed to be gone on our system... It hasn't happened to us in a while. We updated a bunch of drivers including the video driver, so maybe that helped. It's hard to know with intermittent problems, it could crop up again tomorrow!
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Sep 30, 2010 20:01
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wildsprite posted:We had a computer doing this occasionally (maybe a few times a month). Have you tried holding shift and right clicking on the taskbar icon? After doing that, it seemed to be gone on our system... Hell yes, that fixed it. Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, I'm stuck with my current video driver (Catalyst 10.4a, Radeon HD 4850) because any other version of the driver more recent than this one will cause visual sync to break for all OpenGL games despite being set to Always On in CCC. But I've given up on that particular problem.
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Sep 30, 2010 20:18
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So if you drag a window over to the side of the screen it will auto arrange it to take up half the screen. Why does this not work on the shared edge of a multi monitor setup? The feature is pretty much useless if I can't use it to view two windows side by side on the same screen.
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Sep 30, 2010 20:27
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Thermopyle posted:AFAIK, it seems like it would be easier to just put your mouse cursor somewhere else. Thanks. I almost put a clarifier at the bottom of my post that I wanted something other than the obvious solution, but deleted it so I wouldn't sound like a smartass. Plus, when I do want to switch between windows, I'd much rather have a simple list of the files open. The thumbnails are really only useful for folks doing visual stuff. I work with spreadsheets and computer code, which are better identified by their names (which the thumbnail previews frustratingly don't show you).
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Sep 30, 2010 20:27
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fletcher posted:So if you drag a window over to the side of the screen it will auto arrange it to take up half the screen. Why does this not work on the shared edge of a multi monitor setup? The feature is pretty much useless if I can't use it to view two windows side by side on the same screen. Can you do this with Win+arrow keys, and Shift+Win+arrows to move a window from one screen to the next? I'm not on a multi-monitor setup right now, so I can't test.
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Sep 30, 2010 20:34
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smallmouth posted:Can you do this with Win+arrow keys, and Shift+Win+arrows to move a window from one screen to the next? I'm not on a multi-monitor setup right now, so I can't test. Yes!! Thanks! Win+Arrows let me move through each of the 4 positions im talking about. Very nice!
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Sep 30, 2010 20:39
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fishmech posted:Have you tried installing without the key, and then connecting to the Internet and plugging in the key later?  I didn't realize you could just click through to continue the installation. Thanks, worked a charm!
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Sep 30, 2010 20:46
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wildsprite posted:Gripe: In the taskbar, the preview thumbnail opens when you hover over an open program. And it opens a little preview box for EVERY instance of that program that's open instead of a neat little list. Just found a neat little solution. There's a registry entry that controls how many preview thumbnails will open before it switches to list view to prevent thumbnail overload. Apparently, the default can be as high as 16 before switching to list view (which explains why it's never done it for me... 16 windows is excessive!) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband add new DWORD (32-bit) Value “NumThumbnails” The number (decimal) is the number of preview thumbnails you want before it switches to list view. I tried 0 on the off chance it worked (it didn't) So I set it to 1, and now only get previews if there's a single instance of something open. This is fabulous! I still get to use aero, but have most of the functionality back. (I'd still like to disable the previews entirely, if anyone knows how)
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Sep 30, 2010 21:12
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BangersInMyKnickers posted:The OS can re-activate 3 times per install before it becomes hosed. I just got a reactivation request too. When I last shut down my computer there were two Windows Update patches to install. When I started it back up again it did a strange kind of double boot - it got almost to the login screen and then shut down and restarted. When it finally did come all the way up a box popped up asking me to click on a link to go to Microsoft to verify my OS was genuine. Given the odd boot behavior I got all  about it being a phishing scam and figured I'd check this thread to see if that kind of re-verify request is normal. Since it sounds like it does happen from time to time, is a pop-up box with a link the normal way the verification request is made?
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Oct 1, 2010 01:44
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PDP-1 posted:What does 'hosed' mean in this case? Or it means you can reactivate a genuine install three times before you have to wipe the hard disk clean and reinstall Windows, but I haven't reached that point, meself. WillieWestwood fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Oct 1, 2010 |
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Oct 1, 2010 10:20
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WillieWestwood posted:Or it means you can reactivate a genuine install three times before you have to wipe the hard disk clean and reinstall Windows, but I haven't reached that point, meself. You were right with the first thought. Windows Vista/7 will let you enter a new key as many times as you want, whether or not the old key is invalid. You get three chances to activate once the key is in, and then it goes into limited use mode for a week or two (two hours per run, certain features are disabled). After that stage you have to activate to even logon.
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Oct 1, 2010 16:49
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