Configure Windows 7 - XP Compatibility Mode

Here is a great way of having the latest Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System but still being able to use your old Windows XP software that wont run on Windows 7.

Create a Virtual PC

Available in Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate (32 and 64 Bit) is the Windows Virtual PC add in. This will run on any PC that Supports Hardware Virtualization. This will need to be enabled in your BIOS.

Once your Windows 7 OS is installed and patched, download the Windows Virtual PC add in from Microsoft and install. After a reboot you will have an extra entry in your START menu.

Help combat Autorun Viruses

There are Several Viruses that use Autorun.inf files on removal drives that launch a virus file stored in the Recycle bin to infect PCs. They also copy the virus to the c:\windows\ and c:\windows\system32\ folders.

Here is a list of just some of the viruses using this method as identified by Symantec.

• W32.IRCBot
• W32.Netsky.gen@mm
• W32Downadup.B
• Hacktool.flooder

and variants of each.

Clustering windows Server 2008 on VMWARE vSphere

Having clustered SQL 2005 on virtual Windows Server 2008 64 BIT servers on vSphere, I thought I would post a guide to the process.

The first step is to create the new virtual machines. This is pretty much a case creating new VM's with a couple of extra steps. So as an example for the first box here goes;

Open up your vSphere Client, and from Inventory host and clusters, or Inventory VM's and templates right click and select "new Virtual machine" and you are prompted with

Select typical and click Next

Windows 7 Sysprep and WDS

I decided to try the Sysprep process for windows 7 in advance of our roll-out early next year, to get a feel for the process.
UPDATE: I have added a new Blog Creating a Windows 7 Sysprep unattended XML with a breakdown of the unattended XML creation and configuration.
For the test base image, I want to create an "admin" image with administrative tools, AD, Exchange 2007 and SQL 2005 on 64 BIT Windows, to be used by the sys admins for further testing.

Upon searching, the majority of posts are Vista related, but this step by step guide was found to be very useful, particularly in creating the answer file using the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit), and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Brian Lee jackson.