Windows SteadyState is ready for download from Microsoft now - you can get it right here! It’s free - you just need to pass the WGA test… Only pirate Windows users cannot pass that test, so what are you waiting for? :)

This toolkit is extremely efficient when it comes to protecting public available Windows XP computers (no support for Windows Vista unfortunately).

In short Windows SteadyState is:
- Easier to set up
- Easier to use
- More Secure

Windows SteadyState website:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

I was looking for a tool to resize the primary partition on my Vista workstation…you know something like Partition Magic but with the shiny “Works With Vista” logo?

Only after a few searches I discovered that Microsoft has baked into Vista automatic partition resizing.

I was very skeptical at first, and I worried that it might bomb out and destroy everything…so I made sure I backed up my system. From past experience I expected the resize would take hours. Amazingly it only took about 90 seconds to split my drive in half.

I will walk you through the process…I am going to go through every step for those who have not used Vista yet can easily find their way.

Click on start, then control panel

The control panel will popup and you will want to look for the administrative tools icon. (You will need to click on the classic view button on the left to see it). Double click it.

In the administrative tools window you need to find “Computer Management” Double click it.

Now that you have computer management open, look down the list on the left. Click on “Disk Management”. Now look at the top middle part of the window. Find the disk you want to resize and single click on it. Once you have done this a list of volumes on that drive will appear below.

Right click on the volume you want to resize and you will be given the option to shrink or expand it. If an option is grayed out it means you either cannot shrink it any smaller, or cannot expand it any larger.

I decided I wanted to shrink my drive in half. (Well almost)

When it is shrinking there is no progress…so just sit and wait for it to do its thing. It took about 90 seconds on my system…and bam it was resized

I have had a lot of people ask me about capturing a custom image manually using ImageX. First before I go into details on how to do this let me just point out a few things first.

1) You can use the process we went through previously to recapture a custom iteratively. Meaning you can slowly build up your image as you like using the custom tasks in the builds node to perform customer installs of customizations.

2) If you choose to manually customize an image make sure that you run sysprep, or use a utility like newsid to generalize the install before joining it to a domain or network. Note: Microsoft PSS does not support using New Sid so really you should use Sysprep to generalize your image.

Note: Generalizing an image means removing data about the Windows install that makes it unique. Usually this means removing the SID, and the name of the computer. The most important element here is the SID you really don’t want to machines with the same SID living in your network

The first thing we need to do before capturing our image is get a generic version of WinPE up and running on our WDS server. (Or burnt to a bootable CD)

• To do this we first need to create a generic version of WindowsPE.
• In the BDD workbench open the Deploy node.
• Click on Deployment points.
• Double click on the Lab option in the details pane.
• This will bring up the Lab Properties. Choose the Windows PE tab.
• Check off the Generate generic flat bootable ISO image, and the Generic bootable RAM disk ISO image.
• Click OK.

Right click on LAB and click choose Update.

This will build the Generic Windows PE.

Now if you look in the \Distribution\boot folder on your BDD drive you should notice a Generic_x86.wim and .iso has been created. (or X64 if you are deploying to 64bit.)

Open Windows Deployment Services

• Right Click on Boot Images then click add boot image.
• Click browse,
• browse to the Distribution\boot folder.
• Choose the Generic_x86.wim file.

• Click open.
• Click Next
• Click Next
• Click Next
• The Image will be added to the WDS service. When it’s done click Finish.

You should now see the Generic Windows PE image in the details pane.

Now go to the PC that has your customized XP image. Boot the PC using the PXE network boot. (Or use your Generic Windows PE boot up cd you burnt from ISO)

Once you have booted up you will now be presented with a boot manager menu. You can choose to boot using the Lite Touch Windows PE or the Generic Windows PE.

Choose Generic Windows PE and hit Enter.

Once the Generic PE image has booted up to the command prompt we need to Map the distribution share on the BDD server:

Net use m: \\<BDD_server>\ditribution$

M: is an arbitrary value. You may use whatever letter works best for you. You will be prompted for valid credentials to log into the server.

Type “m:” to switch the prompt over to the newly mapped drive.

Cange Directories into the Tools\x86 folder. This is where you can find ImageX:

ImageX creates file based images of your hard drive. This is great especially if you want to perform offline servicing. That is updating OS images with drivers and files without rebuilding the entire install image.

To create an image a typical command would be:

Imagex /compress maximum /capture c:\ m:\captures\custom.wim “custom_image_1″

This will create a new wim file called “custom.wim” with an image in the wim file call “custom_image_1″ it will also use maximum compression. To see all the options for imageX check out the very useful help file included with the Windows AIK documentation.

To restore the Image use the /apply switch:

imagex /apply m:\captures\custom.wim 1 c:\ /verify

 

… for first time test takers, only students and faculty members and only applies to North America.

 Pearson is offering a free exam promotion, which will end on June 30th, 2007. The exam that qualifies for this free exam promotion is all 072 academic exams.

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