Install and configure Windows Vista

1. Setup

• Do not enter a serial number at this stage.

• When you are prompted to create a user, press Ctrl + Shift + F3 instead. This will take you to the desktop logged as the built-in Administrator. Windows Welcome will open, remove the checkmark besides "start with windows" and close it. Also close the Sysprep window. The Sysprep window will be opened each time you reboot.

OBS! Because Oobe has been interrupted, you did not get a chance to configure the network.Click on Start > type services > <enter>. In the list, find the Network List Service, right click, choose Properties, set it to Automatic and apply, then start the service. This will give you internet connectivity immediately if you are on a wired connection and after you specify security parameters (ssid, encryption type, password) if you are using a wireless one.

2. System configuration: Boot options

Vista's boot manager stores drive signature and partition number and relays on this information for subsequent boots. Unfortunately some actions, like cloning and reimaging, will change that information and lead to a "winload.exe not found" error at boot.

Sysprep, which we will use later, "generalizes" the information in the boot manager, but we might want to image the OS before applying sysprep, so I usually start by running the following script to tell the boot manager that "whatever device/partition I booted from, that's the device/partition I want to use" (copy and paste in notepad, save as bootedit.bat). We will also include this script in the actions to be taken when the new image is deployed on a new PC.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot

bcdedit /set {default} device boot

Save the file in C:\Windows\Setup and double click to run. The settings will be applied next time you boot the system.

bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot

bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot

Another feature that is known to cause compatibility issues is DEP (Data execution prevention). DEP can be disabled by adding another line to the above script:

bcdedit /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

Last line to the above script will re-enable PAE (Physical Address Extension) which was disabled when disabling DEP:

bcdedit /set PAE ForceEnable

Next week: explorer, defender and desktop settings.

How to configure a reference PC that once imaged can be deployed to multiple PCs

Overview

Requirements
• An x86 or x64 based computer running Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2003 SP1 operating system. This will be the machine where WAIK gets installed and various files created.
• A PC where windows Vista is to be installed. Can be a virtual machine. Should have internet/network connectivity, preferably wired. This will be the reference PC
• CD/DVD burner and CD/DVD burning software, one blank CD, one blank DVD
• Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK)
• Windows Vista install DVD

Assumptions
• These instructions are based on the Ultimate or Business versions of Vista
• These instructions assume a clean install of Vista
• means press the Enter key
• You know how to open an elevated command prompt in Vista and perform simple file operations like copy/paste, find a specific location in Explorer…..

Steps
• Install and configure Windows Vista along with any needed applications on a reference PC.
• Prepare the reference PC for imaging.
• Install WAIK on the work PC
Download, change the .img ending to .iso and either mount in a virtual CD drive on the work PC, or burn to a CD and install. Leave all settings to default.
• Create a Sysprep.xml file that will automate the configuration of Windows Vista.
• Run Sysprep.exe on the reference PC to "prep" the Vista installation for imaging.
• Create a WinPE 2.0 CD
• Boot the sysprepped PC with a WinPE CD and capture an image of the hard drive.
• Save the image to a removable media.
• Apply the saved image to other PCs.

On first boot up of the newly imaged PCs, mini-setup, using sysprep.xml, will run and auto-configure Windows Vista.

In following posts I will detail each of these steps.

Install Windows Vista (any edition) – Is it a good idea?

My definition of a successful clean install:

1. Accomplished within the minimum possible time
   
2. All devices work
   
3. All software installs and works
   
4. No loss of personal data
   
5. All maintenance tasks are automatic
   
6. System optimized for best performance
   
7. Reinstalls will require a fraction of the initial amount of time
   

Several scenarios are possible, depending on your specific needs:

1. Install Vista and start using it as it is, any applications and tweaks will be applied in the future on an "as needed" basis: fair enough, it will take some 30 min
   
2. Install Vista with all your apps and system tweaks, you don't plan to repeat the process on another machine: approximately 10 hours depending on how many and which apps you need. A reinstall will take 3-4 hours
   
3. As above, but you plan to repeat the procedure on several PCs: 15-20 hours. Subsequent installs will take 5-6 hours.
   

The one major factor that prolongs installation time and makes it into a long suffering is problems that occur during the installation process. Most of these can be avoided though. In the case of a Vista (any OS really) install, the following check-list is a must

-Hardware: does your hardware support Vista?

• The PC as a whole: the manufacturer's web site will give an indication, I highly recommend googling for some reviews and user feedback
  
• Any attached peripherals: web cams, printers, USB flash drives, external hard drives........... Same as above: check manufacturer's web site and independent reviews and user feedback.

• Hardware requirements (real world, not MS defined)

  -CPU: AMD or Intel, but Dual Core. The AMD platform is still cheaper, the latest Intel CPU are faster and don’t run as hot as they used to.

  -Motherboard: tough choice! There’s a plethora of them out there in a wide range of choices. The most important question is “What do you plan to use the PC for?”. If you are into movies and music and intend to hook the PC to a wide screen HDTV and watch protected content.....don’t get Vista. The work around where you pipe in the sound to the graphics card for HDMI output in Vista has the added twist that you can no longer use the PC speakers.

  -Memory: 1GB of RAM. Anything less and you're in for a very frustrating experience.
  

  -Graphics: get a good card that supports DirectX 10, but beyond that.....all the fancy HDMI/HDCP stuff comes at a premium cost and “allows for playback of high definition content on HDMI enabled devices”. Emphasis on “allows”: it will play, but if you are a true media type you won’t enjoy it as the video might be what you expect, but with all current implementations the sound part takes a hit. The only reason to pay the extra money for this kind of feature is if you already have a top of the line HDCP compliant TV which you want to hook up to your PC (most of them don’t allow video display if the source is not also HDCP compliant)

  -Sound: most sound cards will work in Vista. More advanced features like echo cancellation and EAX won’t. Partly re-written architecture, mostly DRM-related, it’s going to be a while before more advanced features will work in Vista. Soundblaster’s Alchemy is the only software that often/almost works, and is only available for high end cards.

-Software: make a list of all the apps you use and repeat the steps above for each of them.

-Personal data: is it recently backed up? Is the backup readable from within Vista? A "user files backup" should include documents, music, pictures, video, but also mail folders (mails, contacts), favourites and user names/passwords for various sites, various kinds of digital certificates, licenses and serial numbers for proprietary software, personalized settings for applications that allow personalization, saved games.

At this point you might face some hard choices, if all your hardware and software is not Vista-compatible. In most cases there are workarounds or a newer edition available. The first option might result in loss of functionality, performance or both. The second might prove expensive. If installing Vista is still an option we will start gathering the various bits and pieces necessary for a successful installation in my next post.

Core Vista experience-for business users

XPS Document support: the new format pushed by Microsoft.

Microsoft XPS is designed as a direct competitor to Adobe PostScript and PDF. Just like PDF, an XPS document is displayed identically on every computer and will represent the "printed page". XPS uses XML to describe the layout of documents and how they should be rendered.

It does however suffer from several problems: MS is only providing viewers for Windows, all other platforms will have to wait for specific viewers to be created; if your default browser is not IE, you need to set the xps files to open with IE (not the xps viewer). Not to mention that MS intended this as non editable, or at least not easily editable (there is a component that ships with the SDK that can accomplish this, so it's aimed at....developers????). For the average user, if you ever want to edit an xps file you're good for 100 to 300 USD in fees for 3^rd party software.

Network Diagnostics and troubleshooting

Yet another wizard.....The feature existed in XP pro, but was rather difficult to use, not to mention well hidden (Start >Help And Support > On the Help And Support Center page, select the Tools button under the Pick A Task category > select Network Diagnostics from the scrolling list in the Tools panel....). Most of these functions are now performed automatically b a user friendly wizard. For those who insist on knowing what the MaxBaudRateToSerialPort is configured to, the netsh command still works.

My personal grief with these wizards is that they don't help at all in 9 out of 10 networking problems. The usual "disable and reenable adapters-reboot router/modem-check all your cables-reseat cards-disable firewalls" is still what works most of the time, and they are much faster to just do then to go through a wizard which will eventually tell you the same thing.

Improved wireless networking

The GUI is much improved, and while you still need to know what kind of encryption your network uses, it is as easy to set up a wireless network as it used to be to set up a wired one (that kind is practically plug-and-play in Vista)

Improved peer networking

The much debated wireless ad-hoc PC to PC connection. The ability existed in XP also, but it has been improved and polished for Vista, with added security and the possibility to opt out of being "seen" by other PCs

Improved VPN support

Setting up a VPN connection has also received an overhauling of the GUI. However the web is full of people having trouble VPNing to and from Vista.

Improved power management

Allows for a much more granular configuration of the power options. Besides 3 built-in scenarios, users can change timings independently for hard disk, wireless adapter, USB, display and multimedia streaming. So why is this "for business users"?

Windows HotStart: Launch an app from a button mapped to it.

This feature allows the user to immediately start any application regardless of power state (sleep, hibernation, on or off) by pressing a pre-mapped button. Not something you can't live without, and you need a machine with a BIOS that supports this feature, but it is kind of neat to resume your session directly into the power point presentation you are about to give.....

Sync Center

That's what replaces the XP's Offline Files. All the devices/networks shares you want to synch with are gathered in one location, with scheduling capability. Sadly still no versioning support, but definitely usefull.

Improved file and folder sharing

In XP you could share or not share a file/folder. In Vista you can decide with whom to share, and give different users different permissions for different files/folders. Definitely useful.

Ad hoc backup and recovery of user files and folders

You can' schedule the backups in Vista Basic, but you can choose which types of files to backup and from which partitions/drives, however no edition allows a more granular choice (files in specific folders only, for example). Once again, how is this labelled "for business users"?

Vista Basic vs XP: IT pros

These are the features Microsoft labelled the "core vista experience". There are quite a few of them, so in this part I will go through those more specifically targeted at IT professionals.

Pluggable logon authentication architecture: correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this something that has been available in Unix systems for years? Anyway, Vista has it. The way I understand it, this feature sits between an application requiring user-authentication and the actual user-authentication method used by the system. The application requiring the authentication does not need to know what the system uses in order to authenticate users. The request is passed on to the authentication module who communicates with the system and returns the appropriate response.

Application Compatibility features: no kidding, it's actually listed as a feature in the official MS documentation.

And some steps have been taken to ease the transition from older systems, the most relevant of which is the virtualized folders and registry keys. When an application tries to write to folders/registry keyes for which it has not been granted write permissions, a folder will be created under the logged-on user's name and the app both allowed to write it's data there and "fooled" into thinking it's writing it in the intended location.

Another step is the "Program compatibility" tripod, comprised of

• the "assistant" which is supposed to detect when an application needs to run in Windows XP operating system compatibility mode and does the necessary modifications allowing the app to run.
  
• The properties tab in the right-click context menu which enables the user to manually do what the assistant is supposed to do automatically.
  
• The "wizard" which will pop-up when the above mentioned methods have all failed and offers to look for compatibility fixes.
  

Sadly running in compatibility mode or writing to virtualized locations is far from sufficient for running many older applications, so a thorough research is highly recommended before spending hard earned cash on either Vista or newer versions of software. Microsoft is aware of this and in at least one document (Windows Vista Product Guide) mentions Virtual PC as an interim solution "Virtual PC 2007 makes it possible to simultaneously run multiple operating systems on a single PC. This allows you to migrate your computers to Windows Vista for a more secure and manageable experience, while keeping a previous Windows environment available to run non-compatible applications until developers can modify them." No mention however of how this modifies hardware requirements (2GB of RAM, hard disc space for the virtual discs....)

File-based image format (WIM): for people who spend their lives installing and maintaining PCs, this is truly the best thing since sliced bread. It's not very easy or intuitive to use, and it has it's quirks, not to mention an extremely poorly written documentation, but

• hardware-agnostic image file
  
• multiple images stored in one file + use of compression and single instancing
  
• service the image offline, including adding and deleting optional components such as patches and drivers without starting up the desktop or creating a new image.

Vista Premium features

In one word video: Media center, DVD playback and authoring and themed slideshows are only available in the Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.

Let's look more closely at these features:

1. Windows media center
   

I confess that I am not into this entire media on your PC stuff. I don't even own an Xbox. I watch DVDs and TV shows on a 30" HDTV connected to a DVD with integrated HD and to a high quality wireless 7+1 surround system. I do computer work on the PC. I listen to music mostly on the PC. So, for what's different in Vista as opposed to the XP Media Center (besides the fact that is a part of the OS, of course), see Jeff Atwood's review "Windows Visa Media Center" and some of the comments to that review.

For non US users, please note that HDTV and cablecard are not officially supported outside the US.

As far as I know, of all "preVista" media center extenders, the only one compatible with Vista is the Xbox. On the other hand Microsoft has a lot of things coming in this area, some of which will ship this autumn and will probably not be backwards compatible with XP.

1. DVD Maker, Movie maker HD, native DVD playback
   

This is something I'd really like to have some time to play with: Windows DVD Maker. It sure does have some unresolved issues that mainly boil down to DVD maker not playing nice with any non vista codecs and/or sound software that might be installed on the PC. But it also has the potential to do some really cool things with your home movies and pics, not to mention editing some other video material.

Just one thing: this is designed for home users. It's not a professional-grade video editing/creating application. The people who will use and like this app are users who are either new to video editing or have tried and been put off by a steep learning curve for more advanced applications.

1. Themed slide shows
   

I would probably not pay extra for it, but if I have it anyway, it's one of those cool visual features you get with Vista. When you open a pictures folder in the Windows Photo Gallery and click on the large middle button, you get to choose between several ways to view he slideshow. The "pan and zoom" one makes me motion sick, but the "spin" thing is a big favourite.

That's it. Not really what I use a PC for, but if you're into videos/pics/ music, Vista Premium is your Vista edition of choice. And it's way better looking and more features rich than even the Media Edition of XP.

The case against Vista Ultimate and Business editions

Two last features are only available in these editions of Windows Vista: support for 2 CPU's (two sockets) and support for more than 16GB of memory. In the context of a home user, the two should prove totally irrelevant.

Let's recap:

Bitlocker, Multilanguage support and native support for Unix based applications are the only bits that are exclusive to the Ultimate version. Of course Microsoft couldn't make it his easy on users to skip their flag OS.

Not listed as a feature is the "Ultimate extras" section of windows updates. To date here are 3 "ultimate extras" (except for the language packs of course): a poker game, enhancements for bitlocker and EFS, and Windows Dream Scene.

I'll skip the poker game part. The main Bitlocker enhancement is that you no longer need to preconfigure he harddrive in order to use Bitlocker. As to Dream Scene, I'll quote from the source:

"Your desktop background comes to life with Windows DreamScene™. When you download this Ultimate Extra, you can select a video for your desktop background the same way you select a stationary picture. You can choose one of the high-quality looping videos that we've included, or use a video from a company that produces content for DreamScene. You can even use your own video as a background."

As cool as the idea sounds, it's the most distracting piece of desktop enhancement I've ever stumbled upon.

 

The features available only in Ultimate and Business are heavily ITpro oriented, and might be needed if the PC is to be used to VPN to work. Might is the operational word here. My best advice is to ask your IT department. If the business is small enough that you don't have a dedicated IT department, you won't need all of this stuff.

The mobility center is one cool feature you might miss if you choose to skip Business. As to the Fax and Scan center, it is a nice centralized way of doing things, but it will only work with hardware new enough to be Vista compatible and it is only truly useful if you fax/scan a lot.

 

Conclusion

For home users the Vista version of choice should be the Premium edition. In exchange for missing out on the above described features, you get the whole Windows Media package.

Price wise, the difference between Vista Premium and Vista Ultimate, on Amazon is as follows:

OEM versions: £55 (110USD)

Upgrade versions: £68 (136USD)

Retail versions: £115 (230USD)

I have provided a link to an article that describes pretty well the limitations that go with an OEM license. In brief: either 32 or 64-bit edition on the DVD, no free 90 days support, and you might not be able to reuse it if you change your motherboard.

For the upgrade version, the only limitation is that you have to have a previous version of Windows installed. Microsoft has provided a list of available upgrade paths, which I find confusing at best and not entirely accurate when it comes to real life experience.

Retail versions: can be installed as a new OS and you get 90 days free support from MS, but only after you have activated your copy. Can also be transferred to a new PC as long as you only use it on one PC at a time.