x(perts)64 : HowTo

SBS 2008 Backup in Hyper-V Server R2

Charlie Russel — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:11:25 GMT

Windows SBS 2008 prefers to back up to a removable USB drive, which is a problem if your SBS is virtualized in Hyper-V, which doesn’t support USB. There are workarounds, such as FabulaTech’s USB over Network , which I’ve used, and like. But the current...(read more)

iPods and iTunes with Hyper-V and TS RemoteApps

Charlie Russel — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:00:00 GMT

One of the problems I have working on many different computers and constantly rebuilding even my main workstation for whatever beta build of Windows happens to be available, is having a "stable" environment for some of the little things that...(read more)

Configuring Hyper-V Server for Remote Management

Charlie Russel — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:31:00 GMT

I've seen folks disabling the Windows Firewall on Hyper-V Server and on Windows Server Core in order to get Remote Management to work correctly. Bad idea, and not necessary. Instead, you should enable the appropriate firewall rules to allow Remote...(read more)

Hyper-V RC0 and Integration Components Workaround

Charlie Russel — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:05:56 GMT

If you've upgraded to RC0 of Hyper-V, you can run into a problem creating a new VM that is based on Server 2008 RTM, since the Integration Components (IC's) are out of sync. This means you won't have the drivers for the new synthetic NIC,...(read more)

Windows Server 2008 RemoteApps is COOL

Charlie Russel — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:24:00 GMT

Originally known as "TS Rail", the RemoteApps feature of Windows Server 2008 makes Terminal Servers an absolute essential on everyone's network. There is no way I won't have a TS running full time from here on out, and RemoteApps is...(read more)

Disable UAC Prompt for a Single Application

Charlie Russel — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:33:00 GMT

A useful KB (946932) just got posted on support.microsoft.com. It describes how to disable the User Account Control (UAC) prompt for a specific application, without disabling it for the machine as a whole. Now THAT's useful. There's no way I'm...(read more)

BIOS Update Workaround

Charlie Russel — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:20:01 GMT

Several manufacturers have provided 64-bit BIOS flash utilities, but there are still some holdouts. Acer, for one, can't seem to manage to create one for their Ferrari, even though there are a lot of Acer Ferrari owners out there running 64-bit Windows...(read more)

Kensington Mouse in XP x64

Charlie Russel — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:14:00 GMT

From a post on the microsoft public 64bit newsgroup today, we have a suggestion for how to get all four buttons of your Kensington Expert Mouse to work in XP Professional x64 Edition. I don't use a Kensington, but I thought it was both useful for others...(read more)

Fixing Dual Boot Problems with XP x64 and Vista x64

Charlie Russel — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:20:00 GMT

I've been running both XP x64 and Vista x64 in a dual boot scenario on my Ferrari 4005 laptop. It runs well, and I love it. BUT, every time I re-install a new Vista build, I run into problems. Should I do an upgrade (usually not a good idea) or a fresh install. And if it's a fresh install, should I format the partition. Well, this last time, I formatted the partition (C:). Which worked fine for getting in to Vista, but I lost my access to Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Bummer. Here's what I had to do to fix it.

boot from XP x64 CD
select Repair Console
select XP x64 as the Windows to boot to.
enter administrator password
run fixboot

run bootcfg /rebuild
Say yes to add the XP x64 to the boot list
Enter an identifier for it
Blank for OS Load Options
cd D:\
copy nt*.* c:\
exit

reboot - you're now in XP x64
run easyBCD

click Manage Bootloader
check Reinstall
Click Write
Exit

Reboot

Also, see my earlier blog post on multi-boot in general.

Update: Darrell suggests a link to Knowledge Base article 919259 would be a useful addition, and I agree. Title is: 919529 Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration

Thanks, Darrell

Charlie.

ATI Fresh Install Problems

Charlie Russel — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 06:10:00 GMT

We’ve seen this reported several times in the public newsgroup, but now that it’s finally happened to me, I guess I’d better write it up. The symptoms are this:

ATI Graphics card
Fresh install.
Installation appears to be fine, hard drive visible, etc.
The final boot, when you expect to be logging in to Windows, the screen stays black.

To fix the problem, you’ll need to get newer ATI drivers loaded. Not easy, since you can’t boot into the system. But you should be able to boot into safe mode. To boot into safe mode press F8 just as the boot process switches from the BIOS messages, to Windows. From the options that are presented, choose Safe Mode. Not anything else, just plain, pure, safe mode.

The steps to fix this you’ll need another machine you can use:

Download the latest drivers from ATI. They’ll come in a ZIP file
Expand the drivers into a temporary folder.
Burn the contents of the temporary folder to a CD.
(If you have an installation CD that came with the card, you _may_ be able to use that at this point.
In safe mode, open the Device Manager
Expand the Display Adapters.
Highlight the primary display adapter. Right click, and select Update Driver…
Choose Install from a list or specific location
Select Include this location in the search and point to the ..\Driver\XP6A_INF folder on the CD.
Click OK and Next sufficient times to get the driver loaded. It will probably complain at least once, possibly more. Don’t worry, just do it.

When you’ve got the driver loaded, you should be able to reboot and get into Windows XP x64 Edition normally.

Charlie.

Page File Size in x64

Charlie Russel — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:27:00 GMT

My thanks to Darrell Gorter once again. He posted a link today to a really useful KB article on the Microsoft site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;889654. Now it's true, the article doesn't give you a single "twice RAM" or other simple answer. But it does give you all the information you need to make an intelligent, performance enhancing, decision.

Charlie.

x64 Vista Beta 2 and SBS

Charlie Russel — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 05:16:00 GMT

You can’t join an x64 Vista computer to your SBS Premium network using connectcomputer, and you can’t even do it manually if you’re running the default ISA configuration. The solution is:

Open the ISA Management GUI
Scroll down to Configuration->Add-ins
Highlight “RPC Filter” in the Application Filters tab, and click Disable in the action pane.
Click the Apply button, and agree to stop and restart the service.
You can now join the x64 client to the SBS network manually.

This has been reported to MS and will be solved before Vista ships. But until it is, you’ll have problems. I have successfully run with the RPC filter re-enabled after the computer was on the domain, but did experience intermittent problems I couldn’t identify. Since I turned the filter back off, I haven’t seen as many problems.

Charlie Russel
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server R2 Administrator’s Companion

Removing x64 Edition

Charlie Russel — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 17:51:00 GMT

Two common questions I get in email these days around Windows XP Professional x64 Edition are how to upgrade the eval version to the released version, or the reverse — how to remove it. As I’ve said before, XP x64 isn’t for everyone, so this second one doesn’t surprise me.

Removing x64 Edition (or any other operating system that you dual or multi-boot into from the Windows boot manager) is a straight-forward process. (Well, except for Vista, that’s a whole new process.) The two steps required are:

Remove the system files (and optionally format the partition) while booted into another operating system
Edit the boot.ini file on your boot drive to remove the entry for x64

Removing System Files

The first step is straightforward – boot into 32–bit Windows and from Windows Explorer, delete the system files on the x64 Edition partition. These include the following folders (and their sub-folders):

\Windows
\Program Files
\Program Files (x86)
\Documents and Settings

This last one is tricky – you may well have important documents that you created when you were booted into x64 Edition. Please copy those documents before you delete the folder! You could also use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard to transfer the files, but whatever you do, make sure you’ve got a copy of them before you start deleting or formatting.

An alternative to manually deleting folders is to simply format the disk. This is only an option if your boot disk is not your x64 disk! Don’t format your boot disk. (I know, that should be obvious, but just in case.) How do you know if x64 is your boot disk? Well, the most obvious way is if it’s your C: drive. A general rule that is usually true is that the first operating system installed is on C: and is your boot disk, though it is technically possible to do it differently. (If you’re using Vista, all bets are off – it automatically makes Vista your C: drive regardless of which partition it is on.)

Edit boot.ini

Once you’ve removed the x64 Edition files, you’ll want to remove the entry from your boot menu. You can do this with any ASCII text editor, including Notepad. Or you can go to My Computer ->Properties ->Advanced tab ->Startup and Recovery and click on the Settings button and then click on the Edit button. Seems like a lot of clicks to me, I’d simply open a CMD window and type:

C:
cd \
attrib -r -s -h boot.ini
Notepad boot.ini <-edit the file and then save and close
attrib +r +s +h boot.ini

From within Notepad, remove the line that points to your x64 Edition installation. If you have x64 installed on D:, it should look something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition"

Make sure your default OS is pointing to the operating system you want to be the default, and then save the file and exit.

That’s really all there is too it. But keep in mind that Windows Vista uses a different boot manager entirely.

Charlie.

Upgrading x64 Edition from the Trial to the Full Version

Charlie Russel — Mon, 29 May 2006 05:11:00 GMT

Microsoft makes a trial version of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition available free for the download, and many of you have taken advantage of the offer to test out x64 Edition. A great way to make sure it's really appropriate for you and that you are appropriate for it. :)

However, once that decision has been made, and you're approaching the 120 day time limit of the Trial, you need to upgrade to the released version, or remove the x64 Trial from your computer. There are two ways to upgrade - an "in place upgrade" that you run from within the working Trial version, or a "repair install" upgrade that you run almost as if you're installing fresh.

You can use either one when up until the time your Trial expires, but once your trial has expired, your only choice is the Repair Install. Fellow MVP Michael Stevens has superb details about how to do a repair install on his site, so I won't repeat them here. Just go read his instructions: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm.

If you haven't allowed your Trial version to expire, you can do a repair install, or you can do an in place upgrade. I strongly recommend an in place upgrade - you don't have to reinstall any drivers, for example, because they'll all get picked up by the process. To do an in place upgrade, simply insert the XP x64 Edition CD into the CD/DVD drive, and follow the installation steps. Easy peasy, and in no time you'll be done.

Charlie.