Tales from the Datacenter » Windows 7

A Tale of Build Numbers and Deployment

Patrick — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:50:39 +0000

I’d just like you to know that I’ve been pulling my hair out all week. I’m practically bald now. We’ve been using MDT 2010 for quite some time and I’ve been super happy with it. Until this week.

So, I’ve been creating custom images this week and capturing them to my MDT machine. I got around to the x86 image, customized it, updated it, captured it, imported it, then tested and failed. I couldn’t figure out why – hence the hair pulling. And then I found it. Like a glowing pot of gold hidden under a rock in the deepest part of the forest, I found the problem:

The DVD I got the source files from in the top image was build number 6.1.7600.16385. Some update that I was running on the image I was customizing was updating this build to 6.1.7600.16481. So, when I would go back to try to test the customized image, I’d get an error at the start of the task sequence that goes something like this:

Operating System deployment did not complete successfully.

Error: Unable to find SETUP , needed to install the image
\\MDT_Server\DeploymentShare$\Operating Systems\W7x86_CAP_3-4-10\W7x86_CAP_3-4-10.WIM

I tried the Google route, and found a bunch of unrelated stuff. Turns out, if the build number is the same on a custom image as on an image with the full source files, MDT will not require setup sources for the custom image. It will take it from the existing sources in another OS. So, when it was looking for the setup sources for my 16481 build, it couldn’t find it.

There you have it. Be careful running updates on custom images. Make sure you have the sources with the same build number or it won’t work.

DVD Region

Patrick — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:21:33 +0000

In my playings-around with Windows 7, I’ve really loved the fact that it plays DVDs and AVIs nativly with no extra codecs or applications. I have to tell you, it’s really nice to be able to just pop a DVD in and have it play automagically. Until this happens:

Now, if you don’t get it at first, read it again. Anyway, I was forced to reset my region to 1 (from 1), taking up one of the five changes that I’m allowed. Not that I’m going to be changing my region to anything else, but still, I find this dialog box humorous.

Windows 7 Windows Management

Patrick — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:05:36 +0000

Around the office, most of us are used to using UltraMon to manage our windows on the beautiful 23″ monitors we have. Unfortunately, for the time being, UltraMon doesn’t provide support for 7, so some of us are left manually wrangling windows around.

In a rare moment of helpfulness, I managed to find some keyboard shortcuts to help. One of the plus sides here, is that when using the shortcuts below, a window can be docked to the inside of your dual monitor setup (since you can’t do it with the mouse).

Win + Up Arrow	Maximizes the window.
Win + Down Arrow	Minimizes a restored window. Restores a maximized window.
Win + Left Arrow	Docks the window to the left side of the screen. If the window is already docked, restores. If the window is docked to the right side of the screen, re-docks to the left side.
Win + Right Arrow	Docks the window to the right side of the screen. If the window is already docked, restores. If the window is docked to the left side of the screen, re-docks to the right side.
Win + Shift + Left Arrow	Moves the window to the left monitor, assuming dual monitors.
Win + Shift + Right Arrow	Moves the window to the right monitor, assuming dual monitors.
Win + Home	Minimizes all windows except the one currently in focus.
Win + Space	Shows the desktop (the “peek” feature).
Win + Plus Sign	Activates the magnifier and zooms in.
Win + Minus Sign	Activates the magnifier and zooms out.

Oh, and for those of you that I see using “Ctrl+Alt+Del” and pressing “Enter” to lock your computer, try Win + L.

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 Release Candidate

Patrick — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:47:59 +0000

For future reference, here are the remote administration tools for Windows 7:

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC)

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows® 7 RC enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server® 2008 R2, Windows Server® 2008, or Windows Server® 2003, from a remote computer that is running Windows 7 RC.