Adam Leinss does a nice job of giving an overview of the imaging process prior to Ximage and hopes Ximage "makes it" into Vista. Good news, since Vista setup is a client of Wimgapi and all of the Ximage functionality is actually in the Wimgapi.dll...

Jerry Honeycutt has a nice article on Technet . Jerry's web site is here . There is no blog as far as I know. I think he needs one because the article is getting a lot of links from blogs.

Since I posted the Automated Deployment Tools Quick Start guide I have been getting a steady stream of people who can't find Ximage in the Beta 1 build of the WDK. Unfortunately Ximage did not make it into the WDK for Beta 1. In Beta 1 you will find ASI...

I'm new to this blogging thing, so maybe I'm missing something. I'm just learning how search engines use key words and trackbacks to find relevent blogs. The other day I noticed one of my posts had a referral from http://newsisfree.com. The search term that somehow turned up my post on Ximage was for the terms "adult" and "emotions." I thought that was weird, but my post on Ximage error codes also got a referral from Newisfree using the same search terms. Is there some hidden meaning to the...

I didn't realize how old school the floppy disk had become. ...

For years now I've been talking to customers who want a way to supress the unsigned driver warning. This is a particular problem if you're selling an innovative device for which Windows doesn't have a logo program. The DQS program is the answer to this problem. Details about the DQS program have recently been published here. It is important enough information that I'm adding it to my link list. DQS testing will be fully supported in the WDK at Beta 2....

Stanimir has a new post today about Beta 1. The first feature he mentions is image based deployment via WIM files and Ximage. He also links to a previous post of his own with very geeky details about the WIM format.

One feature of Ximage that I don't think I'm communicating the value of effectively enough is the ability to mount images. Perhaps some specific examples will help. The question came across one of internal alias recently, can I edit the registry entries in an image? The answer is yes, and the process is easy....

Therefore, I was both surprised and amused to find that, of all the hundreds, or thousands of blogs that must have been reporting the news of the new name for Windows Longhorn, the Seattle P-I Microsoft Blog decided to link to craigrow. Apparently it was the suggestion that the “correct” pronunciation of Windows Vista is “vee-stah” that piqued their interest....

The pace with which news of Winodws Vista is spreading across the blog space as opposed to traditional media, even on the web, is really selling me again on the value of blogs. Here are some good blog entries related to Windows Vista... List of great...

Longhorn is now Windows Vista . I'm told it's pronounced vee-sta, with a long a. Apparently the name was announced yesterday at the Microsoft Global Briefing at the Georgia Dome. The email to everyone this morning says, "the name of our product captures...

I’ve been talking with our TAP partners who are using the Automated Software Installer (ASI) every day recently. First, I want to say how really cool it is that you’re willing to attempt to use a product in pre-beta form. Let’s be totally honest, using...

I ran across this blog entry today from a Teched attendee. He actually gives some additional details about Ximage that I didn't have in my blog yet. It is really great to see people getting excited about this tool both inside and outside of the driver...

Installment Three: Wimgapi.dll The Wimgapi.dll is the library which does all the work for Windows imaging. It exposes a set of public APIs which can be used to create WIM files, add images to the WIM file, view the images in the WIM file and, of...

Installment Two: The Windows Image File format To understand Windows imaging in Longhorn and Ximage you need to first understand a little about the Windows Image File (WIM) format. WIM files have five sections. The first three aren’t all that interesting...

People are often puzzled by the use of the term “images” when we’re talking about ASI. To understand why ASI labeled the directory that clients download "images" from “images” you need a little background information. This is the first of four installments...

When you install ASI, it creates a share on the server labeled “images.” This is the location to which you’ll copy the contents of your OS CDs. Of course, if you don’t create some sort of directory structure under images you’ll have all kinds of problems...

If you didn't get the opportunity to attend the DDC in Seattle this year, the DTM presentations are now available on Microsoft.com here Other WDK presentations from WinHEC 2005 and earier are also on the WDK page .

I’ve been reading the reports from the first set of conference calls with our TAP partners and a point of recurring confusion seems to be around the Driver Test Manager (DTM). First, let’s be clear, the DTM is a feature of the WDK . It is in build 5086...

The first build of the WDK was shipped to our TAP partners today. We're excited to start getting feedback from these important partners during our concalls next week. If there is an issue you discover which would be interesting to all TAP partners please...