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August 2005 - Posts

Features, Features, Features!

Our first day in Silicon Valley was very producive. We have a whole list of feature ideas as a result of watching customers use our product in their environment. Here are some of the more realistic and interesting possibilities. Please let me know if Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005 9:12 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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Excellent Vista imaging article

Thanks again to Paul Thurrott. Read More...
Posted Monday, August 29, 2005 4:45 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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The unsigned driver warning

This is the best story I've ever heard about somebody trying to get around the unsigned driver dialog box. Actually, I get a lot of hits on my blog from search engines where people have searched on strings such as "how to get around Windows logo testing. Read More...
Posted Saturday, August 27, 2005 9:56 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Warning: long day ahead

We're going to Silicon Valley next week. I’m pretty psyched because our partners are flying people in from all over the country to learn about the DTM and our deployment tools. In an effort to get in a full day of work Monday we’ve booked a flight that Read More...
Posted Saturday, August 27, 2005 8:56 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Start.com blogs

As you know, I'm a big fan of Start.com . It is disappointing to me how little traffic there is on the Start.com news blog . However, if you follow the links to the blogs written by the individual team members you get much better content. Stever Rider: Read More...
Posted Friday, August 26, 2005 9:37 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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How to write a non-fiction best seller: chapter 4 review

Chapter 4 This chapter mostly makes the case that blogs are a better way to get your message out than traditional media because you don't have a reporter in the middle to edit you ideas and get the facts wrong. Also, they make the case that blogs are Read More...
Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 3:45 PM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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DTM Controller must be in the System pool

One thing that has thrown me for a loop more than once is the fact that you see the DTM controller in Studio's Job Monitor UI. In order to work properly, the controller must be in the System pool. DTM setup puts it in the System pool automatically, well, Read More...
Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 9:21 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Ximage exclusions

Ximage.exe is a rather simple interface. If you're interested in more fine grained control over your images, you can get that by using a configuration file. This is a .ini file that enables you to, among other things, define files and folders to exclude Read More...
Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005 9:01 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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c:\ongratulations.w95

See a copy of the Apple ad here . I still don't understand why they ran this ad. Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 12:06 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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No Joe, you're not alone

Joe Wilcox remembers Windows 95 much the same way I do. No Joe, you're not alone. Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 12:05 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Happy birthday Chicago!

It was exactly ten years ago, right now, that store keepers flung open their doors to let eager Windows 95 buyers in. They had been lined up outside for hours so they could be the first to own Windows 95 at 12:01am August 24, 1995. Comp USA was feeding Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 24, 2005 12:01 AM by craigrow | 8 Comments
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Microsoft Communities blog portal

It seems like everyone has a blog these days. The MSDN blog aggregator , I don't know what else to call it, might have been a place you could go, at one time, to find relevent blogs written by Microsoft employees. However, these days there are so many Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 23, 2005 10:58 PM by craigrow | 2 Comments
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Great article describing Longhorn, a.k.a. Vista, setup and deployment

Paul Thurrott's Super Site for Windows is one I think I've liked to before. Today I discovered this excellent article . It is a bit old, but a good description of the basic feature none the less. The one thing I noticed that has changed, the LDT is now Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 23, 2005 9:56 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments

Buggy drivers

If you are at all involved with developing drivers then just about everything Mark Russionvich writes should be required reading. In his most recent post he describes how a buggy driver can result int process which cannot be terminated, even by loggin Read More...
Posted Monday, August 22, 2005 1:16 PM by craigrow | 2 Comments
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I might finally cancel my newspaper subscription

I had some extra time this weekend and was playing with my Start.com page. I noticed the RSS feed from the Everett Herald was giving me only sports stories. It appears they have only one feed and the sports are always updated last. Anyway, that got me Read More...
Posted Monday, August 22, 2005 7:19 AM by craigrow | 4 Comments
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Driver Test Manager on domains

I've noticed some confusion recently in the newsgroups I monitor about the requirements for running a DTM controller. First, let's be clear, a server or server operating system is not required. Also, a domain or domain controller is not required. I have Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 17, 2005 12:28 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Business Desktop Deployment Accelerator

Steve Carbone has some new pointers to the Business Desktop Deployment Accelerator . He suggests this is a good place to start in preparing to for Windows Vista and the WIM image format. It looks like this could be an interesting blog to watch. Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 16, 2005 9:53 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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And I thought my posts were nerdy

I'm still trying to figure out what level of information is interesting and useful to everyone. The more I talk to our TAP partners the more I'm coming to the conclusion that I need to scale back the technical detail and just focus on helping everyone Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 16, 2005 9:21 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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WDK at the Intel Developers Forum

Friday we loaded up a set of systems with the latest beta build of the WDK and shipped them off to San Francisco for the Intel Developers Forum. Intel asked us to come down and speak and we're sending these systems so that everyone at the IDF will have Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 16, 2005 9:01 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Changes in Vista have broken the Automated Software Installer

If you're fortunate enough to have access to regular builds of Vista and you're using ASI, you may have noticed a change to the SKU parameter in Vista. The change went in around build 5212. Unfortunately that change makes it impossible to deploy current Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 16, 2005 8:50 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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How to write a non-fiction best seller: chapter 3 review

Chapter 3 I said in my review of chapter 1 that before I started blogging I might have said the authors were over reaching. In chapter 3 that is the case. Yes, it is the story of the Internet as a powerful marketing tool. It is also the power of the Internet Read More...
Posted Thursday, August 11, 2005 10:42 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Deleting files from a mounted image

You may find that you're unable to delete files from a mounted image when using Windows Explorer. The reasons is that, in Windows Explorer the 'delete' operation is actually a 'move' to the recycle bin. 'Move' is not supported by the WIM filter driver. Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 2:43 PM by craigrow | 7 Comments
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What does "OPK" stand for

Since I've started this blog I make it a point to check the search engines every day for key words related to the WDK, DTM, etc. I figure one way I can provide value is to act as a central point from which you can find everything on the web related to Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 9:11 AM by craigrow | 5 Comments
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WDK is in the blogsphere

This is the best description of the WDK that I've seen in a blog yet. Very cool. Also very cool, most of the site appears to be in Italian. Part of the post appears to be copied directly out of a press release. "We're very excited about sharing this important Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 9:03 AM by craigrow | 2 Comments
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I Love Start.com

Do the shortcomings of your homepage and the lack of responsiveness from the people who own the page get you down? Seven years ago I went to my first Microsoft company meeting. Company meetings were big dog and pony shows back then with every product Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 10, 2005 8:37 AM by craigrow | 3 Comments
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How to write a non-fiction best seller: chapter 2 review

This is my review of chapter 2. As mentioned in this post , I’ll be reading each chapter beginning-to-end and posting my thoughts over the next weeks. Chapter 2 : Ahhh, one of my favorite subjects, Microsoft. My main issue with this chapter is that it Read More...
Posted Friday, August 05, 2005 2:49 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Demystifying error codes

One of the things I find most frustrating with applicaitons is error codes without any explanation. Here's a switch that may help. asi -errorcode %code#% This will give you an explanation of any ASI error that you see. If you leave off the code# it will Read More...
Posted Friday, August 05, 2005 9:15 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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Using ASI on a system without inbox NIC support

This question came across the internal ASI support alias recently. Q: When using ASI to deploy the OS I have a problem with certain lab machines which all have a NIC for which no drivers exist in the OS. Hence, after the OS is installed testing cannot Read More...
Posted Thursday, August 04, 2005 12:31 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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More WAIK

I just heard from Glenn Fincher that the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) User's Guide for Beta 1 has been posted. From what I understand the WAIK is a SKU of Windows just like the Widows Driver Kit. Therefore it is available via the Windows Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 3:43 PM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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A 12 step program to get you hooked on ASI

Let’s be honest, the learning curve for ASI is a bit steep. ASI has huge value for anyone who has to install on OS more than once per release. It occurred to me that people might need an easy way to setup the server and investigate what it can do without Read More...
Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005 10:43 AM by craigrow | 1 Comments
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Driver Install Framworks (DIFx) Beta open to the public

I've been told that the DIFx beta is now open to the public. If distribute drivers you really should be aware of these great new tools from Windows. Oh, they'll be in the WDK also. Update: the guest ID to use is "difxbeta" Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 02, 2005 3:24 PM by craigrow | 2 Comments
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How to write a non-fiction best seller: chapter 1 review

This is my review of chapter 1 as mentioned in this post , I’ll be reading each chapter beginning-to-end and posting my thoughts over the next weeks. Chapter 1 is the best essay I've seen in terms of explaining why blogs are important and why you should Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 02, 2005 8:30 AM by craigrow | 2 Comments
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The value of a blog

If you’re reading this blog you’re probably aware that I’m new to the whole blog thing. After WinHEC 2005 I tried to sell my team on a team blog as a way of making the issues and solutions we’re working with a specific customer on readily available to Read More...
Posted Tuesday, August 02, 2005 8:00 AM by craigrow | 3 Comments
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Business Desktop Deployment

As an update to what I wrote earlier about the WAIK. This kit will be renamed and enhanced for Vista Beta 2. The new name will be Business Desktop Deployment kit. They have a web site now but it's focused on XP, as you would expect. I'll be keeping an Read More...
Posted Monday, August 01, 2005 4:11 PM by craigrow | 2 Comments
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Installing a mass storage driver via ASI/DTM

The question was asked, can I automate the install of Windows via ASI and the DTM if I need to install a mass storage device driver during setup. The answer is yes. The procedure is probably familiar to you if you work with these types of devices. However, Read More...
Posted Monday, August 01, 2005 6:00 AM by craigrow | 0 Comments
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