Federated search on Windows 7  lets you search online repositories from within Explorer. Those repositories can be RSS feeds, or sites like you tube. It’s primary purpose is to provide easy access to search enterprise portals. fortunately people are already building providers for all sorts of services.

In the screenshot I was able to search the TLA blog for articles on Windows 7. To read any of these articles I just click on the results and then click open

You can find Federated Search connectors for all sorts of sites. For now of course you should download the TheLazyAdmin Federated search provider! 

To install, First you'll need Windows 7, then download the zip file from the link above, open the zip file and double click the Thelazyadmin.osdx file.

That's it, open Windows Explorer or browse to C:\Users\<username>\Searches and search the your favourite Tech Tips site right from your desktop!

Now that you have had a few weeks to test out the public Windows 7 beta, it’s time to think about how you’re going to deploy the goodness out to all your users. Fortunately the fine people at the Microsoft’s Solutions Accelerator group are on the ball. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 is already in beta. This edition of MDT will provide support for Windows 7 as well as Windows Server 2008 R2.

Some enhancements in MDT are:

Support for USMT 4.0. USMT or User State Migration Tools is like an extremely powerful user data migration tool. You can capture information from the hard drive, the registry, and other Windows data unique to specific users. Once the data has been captured a new OS can be deployed and then data can be restored. New in 4.0 is the ability to pull user data from offline media. This means that if something was lost, or the USMT state capture definitions change we can rerun the USMT capture against a backup image or even a Windows.old directory. A little known fact about the Vista/Win7 upgrade process is that the User state is first captured and then a clean installation of Windows is imaged to the computer. So for those who prefer to always “clean” install even upgrading provides a clean install experience now.

Support for the DISM (DISM.exe) tool. This tool combines the functionality of several tools. Including ImageX Package Manager (Pkgmgr.exe), the International Settings Configuration Tool (Intlcfg.exe), and the Windows PE command-line tool (PEimg.exe). With this tool you can mount WIM files, inject drivers and add in language packs, perform offline servicing, and many other useful tasks.

Finally the Windows Automated Installation Kit or WAIK has added the ability to create bootable VHD drives, (now that we can boot from a VHD drive we’ll need a way to make them bootable!)

Currently the only scenario being supported by Windows 7 is Lite touch deployment. As development on Windows 7 continues I’m positive will start to see the zero touch installation take shape around the SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager)

To download MDT 2010 beta you need to apply to the beta on Microsoft Connect: http://connect.microsoft.com

Interesting headline? Ever have a setup failure and wonder why? Ever notice a weird bug once you have just loaded up Windows?

There is a little known folder in your Windows directory which provides a ton info information about your Windows install.

The folder is called the Panther folder and is locate in:

C:\Windows\Panther

This folder contains several files. The most interesting is setupact.log

Most of the information is under the “info” heading, however if you encounter errors during your install this file is very verbose. It can quickly help you pinpoint the area in your system where you’re running into difficulty.

If you dig a little further you can find an additional log file in C:\Windows\Panther\UnattendGC which details setup information about the unattended portion of the Windows setup. For some additional details check out this Kb: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978390.aspx

Remeber you can find more help with Windows deployment at the Microsoft Springboard portal!

There is a lot of VHD integration in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.  We already showed how to boot from VHD but you can also mount a VHD from within a Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2 environment.

Open up Disk Management, you can Right-Click on Computer and choose Manage and then select Disk Management to do this.

Right-Click on Disk Management and choose Attach VHD.

Enter the path to the VHD.  You can choose to mark it Read-Only as well. Click OK.

The drive will mount and display in Disk Management.  You’ll notice the disk icon is also blue to help you distinguish it as a mounted VHD.

To dismount, Right-Click the disk and select Detatch VHD.

You will be given the option to delete the VHD as well, but it is not the default.  Click OK to detatch.

For more information be sure to check out the Windows 7 resource page on Technet.com

OK I found this while poking around and must say this is a helpdesk and developer savior.  How many times have you been on the phone with someone while trying to troubleshoot a problem and you just can’t tell what they are doing wrong?  While there are some remote tools that can help and you can try Remote Assistance I found this new tool in Windows 7 called the Problem Step Recorder.  In a nutshell it records the steps and takes screenshots as the user interacts with the OS (don't worry it won't record passwords).

Start –> Run –> PSR.exe

Click Start Record and begin reproducing the steps that cause the issue.  When done you can click Stop Record and the output will be saved into an annotated MHT file and zipped up ready to email.  The user can click Pause Record to pause (obviously) or click Add Comment to insert comments into the recording that will get noted in the MHT.

You can see a sample MHT here!

I can see so many uses for this little tool from troubleshooting to taking screenshots for future TLA articles :)

For more information be sure to check out the Windows 7 resource page on Technet.com

One of a new features in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is the ability to boot from a VHD.  It is pretty simple to enable this feature and have it ready at your disposal!  Before you begin you should note the following…

• You can only boot a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 VHD
• You must configure the boot editor from a Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 install
• You cannot use a Virtual PC VHD, I suggest a Hyper-V VHD
• You need to start with a clean slate, don’t try and reuse an old VHD

I am sure this will change as Windows 7 goes through the beta and RC stages on its way to RTM and we’ll update this as necessary but here goes…

Start by launching a Command Prompt and be sure to run as Administrator, once that is done run the following commands…

bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Boot_From_VHD”

Copy the CSLID that is displayed and then run…

bcdedit /set [CLSID} osdevice vhd=[C:]\vhdname.vhd

You can replace [C:]\vhdname.vhd with the path and name of your VHD.

Once that is complete reboot and you will have the option to “Boot_From_VHD”!  You can verify the bootloader is configured correctly with the bcdedit command which will list all the boot options.

For more information be sure to check out the Windows 7 resource page on Technet.com