Welcome to the final article in this series on Windows Deployment Services, WAIK and Windows 7.  Our first articled introduced WDS and its configuration with parts 2 and 3 focusing on our beloved WAIK tool and Windows System Image Manager and the creation of our XML answer files.  We conclude the series by introducing one of the enhanced features in WDS and Windows 2008 and that’s the ability to inject driver packages and have them deployed to our client computers along with the install image.  Note that this functionality is only available when you are installing images of the following...

We are back again and in today’s article we will continue our efforts in automating our Windows 7 deployment via Windows Deployment Services utilising the WAIK tool and the creation of our XML Answer files.  In Part 2 of this series we focused on the creation of the WDSUnattend.xml file that is required to automate the Windows Pre Execution Boot for our WDS clients and took care of the partitioning of our disks.  If you missed part 2 of this series, you can access it here. Today we continue our efforts in utilising the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) to create our ImageUnattend.xml which will...

Welcome back to the second part of this series and in the next 2 article’s I will be focusing our efforts on creating the necessary xml answer files to automate the deployment of our Windows 7 image via Windows Deployment Services (WDS).   In part 1, I provided you with step by step instructions on installing and configuring your WDS role on your Windows 2008 R2 machine. If you missed it, you can access part 1 here. Our focus in today’s article revolves around the creation of the WDSUnattend.xml file that is required to automate the Windows Pre Execution Boot for WDS clients. Our...

After yesterday’s announcement made by Apple with regards to the latest iTunes version 9 and iPhone OS 3.1, I decided to update both and take advantage of the new features. After updating iTunes to version 9, I docked my iPhone which then detected that an update was available in which it then proceeded and installed successfully. However! When I decided to look at my work Exchange ActiveSync Account I received the following popup as per the below screen shot. “The account “” requires encryption which is not supported on this iPhone” My iPhone is the 3G model which apparently does not...

I have been known to be at the cutting edge of technology, early adoption of Microsoft technologies is a must and this time round nothing is going to change.  I first played with Windows Deployment Services (WDS) back in the day when it was referred to as Remote Installation Services (RIS) and had first exposure to the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) back when it was in beta and so was Vista at the time.  I took the plunge and deployed Windows Vista using Light Touch deployment via WDS and the WAIK a month after Vista was released to the enterprise and today I will be providing you with...

A goal of mine earlier this year was to begin blogging and sharing with the IT Pro community my experiences, implementations and designs as an IT Infrastructure Manager who has a distinct passion for Microsoft Technologies.  So my first blog came about with the name of Everything IT and Everything Not which was soon changed to George Khalil’s everything IT. During the last 6 months of blogging I have definitely learnt a lot about using various web blogging platforms, social media and a lot about the content that I was providing my readers with. As you are already aware my passion is working with...

I am currently in the process of creating my first Windows 7 Enterprise Image for Light Touch Deployment via Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) and Windows Deployment Services (more on this at a later date) and am currently at the stage of organising my client applications for deployment.  Office 2007 is on the top of my list and in today’s post I will show you how you can incorporate Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 in the single installation also referred to as slipstreaming and in the second part of this post discuss how you can further customize an installation of Office 2007 via the...

Windows 2008 R2 has only been out for over a week however I have decided to introduce my first Windows 2008 R2 domain controller (DC) almost immediately into an existing Windows 2008 Active Directory (AD) Domain to eventually have a complete R2 forest functional level to benefit from some of the new R2 features.  For a seasoned IT Pro, introducing new domain controllers is fairly straightforward, however I have decided to provide you with a step by step guide on doing so and the pre-work that is required, so let’s begin! Now before we delve into the step by step guide I thought I would begin by...

If you aren’t already aware, or haven’t been notified for that matter through Forefront’s diagnostic notification system, Microsoft’s Forefront Server Security for Exchange and SharePoint is retiring 3 of its 9 engines on 1 December 2009.  Forefront server security products has been renowned for its multiple scanning engine technology that allows you to scan items using up to 5 of its 9 engines at any one time, but that is about to change.  So which engines are being deprecated and why? If you are running any of the Forefront Server security products such as Forefront Security for Exchange...

Welcome back to the final post in this 2 part series, Integrating Exchange 2007 MRM with SharePoint Document Libraries.  Today’s post will wrap things up by going through the process of mail enabling an existing SharePoint document library and creating a new managed content setting in Exchange 2007 providing us with the ability to journal a copy of all messages moved into our “Project XYZ” managed folder located in Outlook, into our Shared collaborative Document Library under our Project Team Site. Recall from part 1, that the objective of integrating Exchange MRM with SharePoint is to provide...