Tag: installations
September 16, 2009 by
Jason
There’s much to commend Windows 7 and our experiences with clean installs of the pre Beta, Beta and RTM releases have been mostly very positive, however, the one thing we haven’t tried yet is a Vista to Win7 upgrade.
If the reports now circulating the web are anything to go by, it’s not something we’ll be trying anytime soon. According to ars technica, reporting test results carried out by Microsoft, in a worst case scenario it could take more than 20 hours. The circumstances are not that unusual, either, it concerns a mid-range PC, with 40 applications and a drive containing 650Gb of data.
The tests covered a wide range of configurations and upgrade times varies from 100 minutes, on a high end PC with 20 applications and 70Gb of data to a 345 minutes on a heavily used (125Gb of data and 40 applications) low-end PC. Clean installations on most PCs typically took between 30 and 40 minutes, which chimes with our experiences, so the moral of this story is don’t upgrade unless you absolutely have to, and have plenty of time to spare.
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
February 21, 2009 by
Jason With the advent of the public Beta of Windows 7 Build 7000, Microsoft also made available for download a Beta release of the Windows Automated Installation Kit. The Windows AIK, or WAIK, is a collection of resources set up to streamline the process of configuring and deploying Windows platforms, in this case Windows 7. The WAIK contains ImageX, essentially a command-line tool designed to capture Windows images. GimageX, available in Beta, is a tool designed to enhance the WAIK by providing what is essentially a graphical version of the ImageX. Jonathan Bennett, a senior consultant with Microsoft Services, UK, emphasized that GImageX was not a Microsoft release, but a third-party tool.
“With the release of the Windows 7 beta and also the beta of the Windows Automated Installation Kit I’ve updated GImageX to work with these new beta versions. I’ve also tidied up parts of the documentation around installation and tweaked the “mount” functionality to provide better feedback during the operation,” Bennett explained. “Please note that GImageX is a third-party tool so please remember that you won’t be able to ring up Microsoft PSS to get support with it! However, it uses the official Microsoft published WIMGAPI SDK which is a supported way of working with WIM files.” Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
January 18, 2009 by
Jason Accompanying the public release of Windows 7 Beta Build 7000, Microsoft made available additional downloads, including the Language Interface Pack for the operating system, as well as the Windows Automated Installation Kit. The WAIK went live at the end of the past week, almost concomitantly with the Windows 7 Beta downloads, with the Redmond company emphasizing the connection between the solution and the next iteration of the Windows client. Serving a collection of resources aimed at streamlining the process of installing and customizing Windows installations, the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows 7 Beta) weighs in at 1376.1 MB and is packaged as an ISO DVD image.
“The Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) is a set of tools and documentation that support the configuration and deployment of Microsoft Windows operating systems. By using Windows AIK, you can automate Windows installations, capture Windows images with ImageX, configure and modify images using Deployment Imaging Servicing and Management (DISM), create Windows PE images, and migrate user profiles and data with the User State Migration Tool (USMT),” Microsoft explained. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
Although Microsoft has hammered away at Windows XP SP3 in order to provide an experience as seamless as possible for end users when deploying the service pack, failed installation scenarios are still a valid possibility. In the eventuality of a failed installation of XP SP3 RTM, there are some troubleshooting steps end users can take before running to Microsoft Support for help. The troubleshooting methods involve nothing more than basic actions on the part of the end user and are designed to resolve an unsuccessful installation process while, at the same, time ignoring the error message.
First of all, Microsoft advises all end users to turn to Windows Update for the primary source of the gold bits of XP SP3. “Sometimes an installation is unsuccessful because a previous operation was not completed. By restarting the computer, you close any pending computer functions and restart the process. Wait until the computer finishes the restart process, and then log on to your account. Visit Windows Update to reselect and install Windows XP SP3. Click Express Install (Recommended),” Microsoft stated. Read More»
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Sometimes one just isn’t enough. Plugins that is. Adding plugins to Firefox can be addictive, and once you start sometimes you can’t stop. After a while Firefox installations can end up getting very bloated and hard to use.
Luckily you can regain some control of your browser by installing the Menu Editor Firefox plugin. What this plugin does is allow you to remove useless or infrequently used items from the right click menu. This can be quite handy as a number of plugins have a nasty habit of adding commands to the contextual menu, which can mean that the right-click menu can get quite massive. Read More»
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On some XP Pro installations, when connected to a network (peer-peer in this case), the computer boot time is over 1:40. The system seems to freeze after logging in and the desktop may not appear or will freeze for a minute. As timed with the utility, Bootvis.exe, the problem was with the driver mrxsmb.dll, adding over 67 seconds to the boot time. Turning off and restoring file and printer sharing eliminated 65 seconds from the boot time. Read More»
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One way of disabling Internet Explorer in Windows XP is by using the Set Program Access and Defaults utility available as part of all Windows XP installations with at least Service Pack 2 installed.
Make sure you’ve installed and tested an alternative browser (like Firefox) and then follow the easy steps below to disable Internet Explorer using the Set Program Access and Defaults utility:
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: Disabling IE in Windows XP using the Program Defaults Utility usually takes less than 15 minutes
Here’s How: Read More»
Posted in Windows XP | 3 Comments »
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