Bootmgr not found after imagex deployment

Issue with deployment of Windows 8 wim with imagex deployment.

Applied image like below from WinPE

1. Diskpart
2. Select disk 0
3. Clean
4. Create partition primary
5. Select partition 1
6. Active
7. Format quick
8. Assign letter=c
9. Exit
10. Imagex /apply h:\lab\windows8.wim 1 c:

Afterwards system wouldn’t boot, giving error about bootmgr not found. Checked files and everything disk had been imaged correctly. Had to do the following to get the system to start:

1. bootsect /nt60 c:
2. bcdboot c:\windows

Strange, but short on time so this solution works for now.

Outlook disconnects ballon messages

On some customers Remote Desktop Servers (Terminal Servers) these messages just keep showing up. Though everything is working as it should, there’s just something with the way these messages update their status on TS-environment.

So to keep users from getting panic from these messages you can easily disable these by right clicking on Outlook in the activity field and uncheck Show Network Connectivity Changes

This doesn’t work very well on a TS-environment. So to solve this we push out a registrychange through Group Policy Preferences. In example below we are using Outlook 2007, therefore Office\12.0 . For 2010 use \14.0\.

 

1. Add Registry Item
2. HKEY_Current_User
3. Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Display Types\Balloons
4. Value: NetConn = 0

 

References:

http://raunomagi.blogspot.se/2012/06/disable-outlook-network-connectivity.html

Problems running applications using older dotnet framework on W8

When trying to download dotnet 3.5 automaticly the download fails. Oddly enough, using an previous offline package installer for dotnet3.5 this package also tells me that it needs the dotnet package.

Chew on that for a minute. The actual install package for dotnet 3.5 requires some older version of dotnet (that is included in this dotnet3.5 package) to installa on Windows 8.

Anyways, if you have a W8-disc you can use solution below.

Solution: This is using a w8 installationsdisc or image.

1. From elevated cmd
2. /> dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:netfx3 /all /limitaccess /source:x:\sources\sxs

Where x:\ is your mountpoint or discdrive.

/all enables all parent features of dotnet

/limitaccess prevents dism from contacting Windows Update

/source specifies location of files.

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh506443.aspx

Can I disable it? WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto….

Yes you can. This service takes away the user or network admin responsibility of knowing your proxies and allows the computer to autosense this settings from the network. In controlled situations where you know of all the services running on the network, you can safely disable this service.

Might even be a good security practice, for this service could be a gateway to man-in-middle attacks if not kept tabs on.

If there is a forefront server on the network you should probably leave it be, if these settings isn’t pushed out through policies.

References:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5783813_disable-winhttp-proxy-auto_discovery.html

Windows 8 PDF Reader

Lovely idea MS. Really.

However, after 3 months of using W8 I have finally caved and installed Adobe Acrobat Reader. The reasons are these:

1. I can’t have two pdf documents side-by-side.
2. No outlook 2010 integration. Can’t view pdf directly from email, which is quite handy most of the time. Though perhabs more insecure.
3. I can’t use snippet tool with Winpdf. Though I suspect this has more to do with WinRT, than the actual program.
4. I can’t go to specific page
5. Search leaves much to ask for.

Sometimes I need to compare documents or at least copy serials and knick-knacks from the pdf. So above points are dealbreakers for me. And most likely for many other users.