Thankfully my good friend Greig Mitchell has undertaken this task and has started to write a series of guides in which he explains the basics of Active Directory to help a novice get their feet wet, as well as going into the advanced configuration to help even some “experts” get the most out of their deployments.

So without further ado, I leave you with a link to his guides. At the time of this writing he has parts 1 and 2 complete, with the other parts expected to be finished soon.

View: Greig’s Active Directory Guides

If you guys have any requests for things you would like to see guides written on in this space, please post a comment and ask!

I apologize to everyone for not getting to this sooner, but I’m just glad to have it running again.  When the crash first happened I was really worried about the amount of information that was lost, but thankfully 95% of it was recovered.  I will be posting here regularly now so you can check back every so often and feel free to re-subscribe to my RSS feed .

-Chris123NT

Well not only did they fail to see why the 64 bit player should be the default, they also locked the user’s ability to switch the default player.  They locked the registry keys that the old Vista command altered.  Their excuse for this is that it “adds security” so that malicious code cannot modify the WMP play/enqueue commands.  Fine, I can buy that, but then alter the tool so that it can change those keys.  Well apparently this wasn’t on the timetable, and I decided to find a way around this, because after all, who wants to have to install TWO sets of codecs to watch stuff in Media Player (x86 player used by default) and also watch stuff in Media Center (which is x64).

So for those of you who recognize that the 64 bit media player SHOULD be the default in Windows 7, I have made a script with the help of Kristan Kenney that automates the entire process for you.  It unlocks the necessary registry keys, and then uses the old vista command to make the switch.  We have also included a script that allows you to switch back to the 32 bit player if you choose to do so.

So Microsoft, specifically the WMP team, you guys didn’t want to fix it, so we did it for you.  Now users can have some consistency in their 64 bit user experience.

NOTE: After changing the default Media Player to x64, remove the media player shortcut from the taskbar, start media player via the start menu and then re-pin it.  If you don’t do this you will see 2 WMP icons on your taskbar.

If anyone has any other questions or comments, either post in the comments section or contact me privately and I will answer them.

Download: Windows Media Player x64 Switch Script

ZDNet Blogger Ed Bott had taken the time to read the fine print on the Apple upgrade offer and has come to an interesting conclusion.  Windows 7 is CHEAPER than Snow Leopard for the majority of the market.

You see, you can only actually get Snow Leopard for that 29.99 price if you’ve bought an Intel based Mac AFTER October 2007.  Anything before that will cost you $169 and anything before 2006, well you’re SOL, no upgrade for you.  Kind of puts things in perspective doesn’t it?  At the end of the day the Microsoft offer is actually pretty darn good, at least it’s cheaper than Vista right?

Here’s a chart Ed made that breaks things down nicely:

Full Story: Ed Bott’s ZDNet Blog

From AeroXP:

Just about everyone has seen the shots of the new Windows 7 retail packaging, but pictures of the new Anytime Upgrade packaging are much harder to come by. Nearly impossible to find are any current examples of the packaging besides press shots and renders, so having said that, here are a few good hands-on shots I managed to take.

(There’s nothing relevant inside the boxes themselves; just a fake key and a CD of Visio inside the retail box of which I was also taking some pictures.)

Have at it:

Source: AeroXperience

From the Windows Team Blog:

Simple, Clean and Easy To Open…

We approached the packaging for Windows 7 the same way we approached the product – by listening to what our customers told us they wanted: make it a simple clean design, easy to open, and reduce waste.

Simple Design

Customers told us they liked the big bold Windows logo and how it clearly communicates that it’s Windows 7. They like larger typefaces to make it easy to read and they like background colors for each edition to make it easier to differentiate between Windows 7 Home Premium all the way to Windows 7 Ultimate. In their own words, the “clean” design gives off a “fresh” feel.

Make It Easy To Open

We’ve reduced the number of elements in the package down to three: the plastic case, the paper sleeve, and a simple Getting Started Guide. The plastic case opens easily like a standard DVD case and it will have a single easy-to-remove seal at the top – And that’s it!

Reduce Waste

The plastic case protecting the Windows 7 disk is lighter and is recyclable. The packaging itself has a 37% weight reduction and a 50% improvement on it’s econometrics score over the predecessor.

Essentially, this packaging is what customers told us they were most interested in picking up to learn more about Windows 7. We hope you do the same.

Look for the new Windows 7 packaging to hit this fall!

View: Original Post @ Windows Team Blog

As for who the author is, I have no Idea, but whoever it is, they definitely know what they’re talking about because their information is accurate.

Read: Windows 7 Nightmares

So firstly I should answer the million dollar question that some of you may have.  What is a VHD?  Well to put it simply, a VHD is the image file format used by Microsoft VirtualPC and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization technologies.  Some of these builds leak in these forms because internally Microsoft does a lot of their staging/testing in Hyper-V environments.  One cool thing to note, is that these images are already staged, so all we have to do is capture the contents to a WIM file.

What you will need to follow this guide:

• Windows 7 Ultimate (we’re using the built in VHD mount utility)
• Windows 7 AIK RC
• UltraISO (Or another Utility to edit ISO Files)
• Windows 7 ISO (Any build 7100 or newer will work)

So, the first thing you need to do is obviously make sure you have your VHD downloaded to the desired location. Once you have done that, do the following:

1. Go to start and type compmgmt.msc and press enter.
2. Click on “Disk Management”
3. Go to the Action Menu and click “Attach VHD”
4. Browse to the location of your VHD, select it and click OK.
5. It will install a drive to your system, take note of the drive letter, you will need this later.
6. Install the Windows AIK and take note of the installation path.
7. Now start an instance of command prompt as administrator.
8. Navigate to X:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86 or X:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\amd64 depending on your architecture. (X being the drive you installed the AIK to)
9. now type imagex.exe /compress maximum /flags “Ultimate” /capture L: D:\install.wim “Windows 7 Ultimate”
10. Let that process run (should take a few minutes) and you will have your WIM.

Now we need to put this shiny new WIM into an ISO.  For this do the following:

1. Open your ISO in UltraISO (make sure your ISO is the same architecture as what you downloaded)
2. navigate to the sources folder and delete install.wim
3. Drag your new install.wim into the sources folder.
4. Save the ISO with a new name.
5. Burn the ISO and install.

And that’s it, using the above method you can quickly convert a VHD into a WIM and insert it into an ISO and install it like any normal build of Windows.  The above can be accomplished in under 10 minutes, so it’s a pretty quick process as well.

•   Windows Media Player
•   Windows Media Center
•   Windows DVD Maker
•   Internet Explorer 8
•   Windows Search
•   Handwriting Recognition
•   Windows Gadget Platform
•   Fax and Scan
•   XPS Viewer and Services

To turn features on or off you go to the Control Panel, open the Programs and Features applet, and select the link ‘Turn Windows features on or off’.  Here you will see all of the features you have control over.

One other thing I want to post for your viewing pleasure, is a guide by Infoworld blogger J. Peter Bruzzese.  You may also remember him as the author of the book “Tricks of the Microsoft Windows Vista Masters”.  He has prepared this free ClipStart guide to quickly outline some of the new things in Windows 7 that you may or may not already be aware of.

View: Windows 7 ClipStart Guide