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full article > http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/archive/2007/04/...bios-hacks.aspx

more info > http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/87709 via osnews.com

via osnews.com

via osnews.com

more info > http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2107715,00.asp via osnews.com

more info > http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vis...s_too_high.html via osnews.com

more info > http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2106626,00.asp via osnews.com

here's a guide I put together to teach you how to setup a RIS server in 3 easy steps. Note: this download is for Windows 2003 Server GOLD (ie: no service pack's installed yet) setup_a_ris_server_in_3_easy_steps.pdf and this download is for Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1 setting_up_a_windows_2003_SP1_server_as_a_RIS_server.pdf any questions ? just ask cheers anyweb

For those of you that don't know Service Pack 2 is now available (on windows update and as a separate download) for Windows 2003 Server. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en Some people may inadvertently upgrade their Windows 2003 sp1 servers to sp2 without reading the relase notes, and if that server was a RIS server (remote installation services via pxe boot) then you may be in for a surprise. Amonsgt other things (release notes) Service pack 2 upgrades your RIS server to act as a Windows Deployment Service, however in the process of doing so it effectively renders the 'old' Remote installation SERVICE obsolete (and this explains the cryptic errors below). What does this mean ? If they didn't know about it what they will see is all PXE boot attempts to their 'RIS' server will FAIL. Symptoms include:- Error on startup of the server immediately (and after every reboot) after installing Service Pack 2, stating 'a service failed to start, please check the event viewer for details'. PXE boot failure on the client (no boot filename received error). RIS service on the server fails to start with the following error if you try to start it manually - 'Could not start Remote Installation Service on local computer. Error 127: the specified procedure could not be found.' Steps to alleviate the problem:- Advise customers to open administrative tools and to click on 'services'. Scroll down to 'Windows Deployment Services server' service, it will NOT be started and it's state is set to 'manual'. Ask the customer to start the service (they may wish to set it's startup type to 'automatic'. Now, the customer should be able to PXE boot their clients as normal to the RIS server and deploy images exactly as they did before. Other things to note:- The new service is actually very useful to your customer, because now they can deploy Vista images via this server, however as SP2 is forcing the change gently from RIS to Windows Deployment Services what you will see are three modes for the new service (shown below). So effectively if the customer upgrades a SP1 RIS server to SP2, then they will be able to use the Windows Deployment Services in legacy mode to retain compatability with RIS. More info about this below:- Windows Deployment Services Overview on technet > http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista...3.mspx?mfr=true Initial server mode The method of installation and subsequent configuration actions dictate the initial server mode as follows: Task Procedure To get to Legacy mode: 1. Install the RIS optional component on Windows Server 2003 with SP1. 2. Install the Windows Deployment Services update. 3. Run RISETUP and add an image. To get to Mixed mode: 1. Install the RIS optional component on Windows Server 2003 with SP1. 2. Run RISETUP and add an image. 3. Install the Windows Deployment Services update. 4. Run WDSUTIL /initialize-server. To get to Native mode: 1. Install the RIS optional component on Windows Server 2003 with SP1. 2. Install the Windows Deployment Services update. 3. Run WDSUTIL /initialize-server. here's an example of that D:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools>wdsutil /verbose /progress /initialize-server /reminst:"e:\RemoteInstall" the /verbose command is very useful for seeing errors (such as access denied). I did receive access denied errors when running the Windows Deployment Services GUI wizard, and after much searching It turned out to be possibly related to 1. I had renamed my RemoteInstall folder to Remoteinstall2k3 (easy to rename back, but then you must re-share it to REMINST and then re-scan the domain controller in Active Directory users and computers, select the domain, choose properties, choose Remote install, choose verify, it will find errors and correct them. 2. verify your permissions on the REMINST share, if they are read-only for EVERYONE then WDS will fail with 'access denied'.

more info about where the rest of your 4gb ram goes here > http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

as per this article on osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=17390 i've posted this screenshot showing memory consumption on my 1gb laptop fyi cheers anyweb

http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/16/how-to-...-windows-vista/ cheers anyweb

spot the difference http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=o...rdforummvz8.png http://img463.imageshack.us/my.php?image=f...orummainqy8.png cheers anyweb

if you are testing vista and the 30 days are about to run out (and you want to preserve your MSDN keys...) then try this for an extra 30 days Approx 29.5 days in, press Windows + R and type cmd.exe then Enter. When the Command Prompt appears, type: slmgr -rearm (press Enter) cheers anyweb

welcome to the forums !

if you have windows vista and 4gb ram you might not see it all reported in the os, if so consider getting the 64bit edition of vista instead, but make sure that your hardware will run with it (plus 64bit drivers are harder to get) cheers anyweb

have a look at this photo (top) found on the intarweb today http://www.googlethedamnthing.com/mirror/v...owned/owned.jpg reminds me of this one (bottom) a few years back http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/3107/xplaunch8vs.jpg

during windows setup you got an error 'no hard disc drives found'. This is due to the fact that windows doesn’t know how to communicate with the AHCI sata controller, and hence, cannot see the hard discs, To solve this we first had to determine what Massstoragedrivers section he had to add to his winnt.sif file (same applies to unattended and Ris installs of xp..) Here's a sample one (note- the sample below is only for precision 470/ 670) [MassStorageDrivers] "Adaptec Embedded Serial ATA HostRAID Controller" = "OEM" "IDE CD-ROM (ATAPI 1.2)/PCI IDE Controller" = "RETAIL" The first line (in bold) is the line that tells the unattended (ris) install what driver it should be loading from the corresponding TXTSETUP.OEM file, Below we can see the reference to that in the TXTSETUP.OEM file Ok now that we know the above, let's apply that logic to the Precision Workstation 490, Looking at the TXTSETUP.OEM file (suplied from support.dell.com here > http://ftp.us.dell.c...ATA/R126479.EXE ) We can see the following sections:- However, adding the following secion to winnt.sif or ris.sif file does NOT work [MassStorageDrivers] "Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver" = "OEM" "IDE CD-ROM (ATAPI 1.2)/PCI IDE Controller" = "RETAIL" The above will still generate 'hard disc drive not found' type of error messages, so how exactly DO we determine the correct controller from the 9 listed, The answer is suprisingly straight forward, Go into device manager Once you've opened Device Manager,expand the IDE/AHCI/SATA controller listed double click on it and choose the details TAB. Scroll down to hardware IDs section with the drop down menu Now here's the important bit….. Make a note of the PCI\VEN….. Linesand verify if any of them MATCH with the corresponding lines in TXTSETUP.OEM In the case of the Precision Workstation 490 (no screenshots sorry, don't have the hardware) the pci ven/dev ID's matched to the following line in the Hardware.Ids.scsi section of TXTSETUP.OEM [HardwareIds.scsi.iaAHCI_ESB2] id = "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2681&CC_0106","iaStor" That line above in turn is tied to the second one in the 'scsi' list of TXTSETUP.OEM [scsi] iaStor_ESB2 = "Intel® ESB2 SATA RAID Controller (Server ESB2)" iaAHCI_ESB2 = "Intel® ESB2 SATA AHCI Controller (Server ESB2)" iaStor_ICH7MDH = "Intel® 82801GHM SATA RAID Controller (Mobile ICH7MR/DH)" iaStor_ICH7DH = "Intel® 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH7R/DH)" iaAHCI_ICH7R = "Intel® 82801GR/GH SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH7R/DH)" iaAHCI_ICH7M = "Intel® 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH7M)" iaStor_ICH6R = "Intel® 82801FR SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH6R)" iaAHCI_ICH6R = "Intel® 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH6R)" iaAHCI_ICH6M = "Intel® 82801FBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH6M)" So armed with this information you can now add the correct values to your [MassStorageDrivers] section of winnt.sif/ris.sif file for precision workstation 490/690 And in case you havn't figured it out yet, here's what it should now look like

I'm sure some of you have come across this problem (or will..) so I'm going to tell you how to solve it, Please archive this, you'll need it one day... Customers scenario:- The customer has a whole load of computers and they want to do RIS (remote installation services) installs on their new computerss and they want to use the OEM provided Windows XP SP2 OEM cd, I normally would NOT recommend this method as it is troublesome and may lead to activation issues amongst other things. If you use the OEM cd to install computers using RIS, please note that the OEM cd has modified files on it that can cause errors during the RIS process. The first error you may encounter is likely to be something along the lines of File iastor.sys caused an unexpected error (21) at line 3540 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c. The above error is misleading as you might think you actually need this file (and you most likely don't as the drivers you require can be installed properly via the oempnpdrivers path or install.bat). NOTE: This error can also be seen on workstations, and if so, have a read of this http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=7454 To get around this problem we have to understand where it's coming from. When risetup is run on the RIS server, a read only file called txtsetup.sif is created at risserver\risdrive\remote install\setup\english\images\<baseinstallname>\I386. Remove the read only properties from the file then open it in notepad and find the [sCSI Load] section. In this section you will find the driver that is causing the error. Comment out any lines that produce a similiar error when you try to load the system. DO NOT comment out all the lines in this section, as the system will not be able to find a hard drive after getting past the errors. What happens here is the OEM cd has several references to drivers (for raid/scsi and so on) that you won't find on a Volume License Key cd's txtsetup.sif file. Have a look at the two samples below, the first part is from a (danish winxpsp2) OEM txtsetup.sif file, the second part is from the VLK cd txtsetup.sif file. And now here's the same part from the VLK txtsetup.sif file… As you can see from above, there are quite a few differences between the OEM txtsetup.sif file and the one on the VLK cd. So the first step in resolving your customer's 'iastor.sys errors' is to very simply copy/paste the VLK section directly into their original OEM txtsetup.sif file's [scsi.load] section (marked in RED above) replacing the OEM references with the original VLK references (which leaves out the OEM iles which cause the issues in the first place). Once this is done, you can restart the RIS service and attempt another RIS install. Things will look much better but then half way through the RIS install there will be several references to files 'not found… press ESC to ignore' , the files that are 'missing' are likely to be any of the files below (or more) To resolve those issues we need to edit the TXTSETUP.SIF file some more. We need to locate another section in the TXTSETUP.SIF file called '[sourceDisksFiles]'. NOTE: you will find SEVERAL references to [sourceDisksFiles] in the TXTSETUP.SIF file, but only ONE of them is the one we need to edit, the one we need to edit will have the following line in it bootvid.dll = 1,,,,,,3_,2,0,0,,1,2 So once you've located the right one do as follows:- delete everything between [sourceDisksFiles] and bootvid.dll = 1,,,,,,3_,2,0,0,,1,2 so it now starts to look like... (the file list continues on and on and on, only delete the lines BETWEEN '[sourceDisksFiles] and bootvid.dll = 1,,,,,,3_,2,0,0,,1,2 Ok, now that you have completed editing the TXTSETUP.SIF file, save it, and restart the RIS service, then complete another PXE boot to the RIS server and enjoy the fact that it's working now !! For your reference I'm including a copy of the VLK TXTSETUP.SIF file and the Danish TXTSETUP.SIF file (there will be minor differences between the languages but the scenario will always be the same, to fix an OEM ris install, you must edit the TXTSETUP.SIF file. txtsetup.sif_fromVolumeLicenseKeyWINXPsp2CD.txt txtsetup.sif_fromOEMcd_Danish_.txt

Hi, In case you come across this one ... Problem:- Customer is using a windows 2003 server (probably Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition) and attempts to do a RIPREP install on their newly acquired computers. The first phase of the RIPREP install (ie: getting riprep to run on the computer and copy the contents over to the server) works fine, nothing to report. However, when the customer then boots the computer via PXE to test RIPREPing the image back they get the following cryptic error message: Unable to display the operating system (OS) choices. You may not have sufficient network permissions to view the OS choices on the server, or the server might not contain any OS images. For assistance, contact your network administrator. Workaround:- Verify if the customers Group Policy settings for end users on the active directory are set to the following settings:- (On the server select start/programs/administrative tools/group policy management or the GPMC snap in in MMC.) If they appear as above (and by default they do if you are using active directory on your domains….) then get the customer to set them as follows Restart the RIS service and the customer should be able to see the OS coices (sif files) stored on their server, please note that if they have only RIPREP'd one machine that the menu will auto RIPREP the machine without displaying the os list, you need at least 2 or more SIF files in order for RIS to list the 'choices'. If the customers Group policy settings are not being used then try editing the SIF file directly and rem out the HalName=halmacpi.dll entry and it will become visible...or enter the correct one. here's a list of HAL's you could experiement with HAL descriptive name HaLname=halmacpi.dll HaLname=halaacpi.dll HaLname=halacpi.dll HaLname=halsp.dll HaLname=halapic.dll HaLname=halmps.dll HaLname=hal.dll HaLname=halborg.dll

http://blogs.msdn.com/ts/archive/2006/11/2...y-released.aspx cheers anyweb

if you try to edit your hosts file (for example to add a local ip address as your webserver) manually in Vista you;ll be denied from doing so by the file security laid down in Vista. To fix it, you'll need to change the user 'users' file permissions to 'modify' on the hosts file. To do this right click on the file, choose properties, security, advanced, then click on 'Edit' Accept (continue) the UAC warning dialog, and click and highlight the 'users' username. click 'edit' and make sure to select all of the following attributes once those are selected and you apply your changes you can indeed 'finally' save the hosts file changes...

I logged in, and started windows update, and it told me there were 8 new updates, so I chose to install them. One of the updates was for Internet Explorer 7 ! so now it's available via windows update ! try it out

here's all the info I have Windows Vista RTM Announcement - 11AM PST Today - Vista - RTM = 6000.16386.061101-2205 cheers anyweb