Upgrading Windows 7 RC to RTM

If you’re like me, when you had Windows 7 beta on your system, you more or less expected to have to rebuild to move to the release candidate. With the release candidate, based on past history you fully expected to be able to upgrade from RC to RTM.

Surprisingly, that’s not the case. I don’t know the whys and wherefores of this decision, but I do know I don’t want to go through it. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to upgrade to Windows 7 RTM from RC, courtesy of Ron Schenone. Note that, strictly speaking, this scenario is not supported by Microsoft (though I highly doubt the question will ever come up). I’ll summarize the procedure here:

1. Mount your legal copy of Windows 7, either with the physical DVD or by using MagicDisc to mount the ISO.
2. Copy the contents to a writeable location (network file share, usb key / drive, etc.). I used a network file share that was available to all clients.
3. Browse to the \support folder.
4. Edit cversion.ini.
5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the build you’re running. If you’re running the RC, lower the number from 7100 to 7000.
6. Save the file.
7. Run setup from this modified copy, and the version check will be bypassed.

A few other notes from my upgrade experience:

• Log off all other users on the computer.
• Deauthorize any iTunes accounts for the computer. You can easily re-auth them when the upgrade is complete.
• I don’t know this last one for sure, but I believe the upgrade goes MUCH faster if you offload non-essential files from the system during the upgrade. When I upgraded my desktop computer that had a replicated file share with about 100 GB of data, the upgrade took forever. When on my second upgraded system I moved this kind of data off, it ran much faster. I do know that the Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 upgrades are actually a sort of wipe-and-load upgrade compared to the previous overwrite-in-place upgrade method, so it’s plausible.
• Use Treesize Free to compare (and clean up!) your disk space before and after the upgrade. You may find you’ve burned some space that can be reclaimed.
• You can also reclaim space after a successful upgrade by going into Disk Cleanup for the system drive (Right-click on the drive letter in Windows Explorer, Properties, the Disk Cleanup button by the pie chart). The list of of items that can be cleaned up will include “Files discarded by Windows upgrade”, but it will NOT be checked. In my case it saved about 1.4 GB of space.
• Before you copy all those files back (and you’re in the disk properties dialog anyway), go to the Tools property sheet and defrag your nice new upgraded system!

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,upgrade,RC to RTM,MagicDisc,TreeSize Free

W2K8 Metadata Cleanup without NTDSUTIL

I just learned that when you aren’t able to normally demote a domain controller in Active Directory and have to perform a metadata cleanup, if you’re running Windows 2008 or R2 it’s become much easier.

The classic method for cleaning up the DC’s metadata in Active Directory has been to go into NTDSUTIL and running through a sequence of commands to point at the right computer object representing the domain controller, then removing it. What I just learned from one of the Microsoft directory services guys is that

…you can use Active Directory Users and Computers to clean up server metadata. In this procedure, deleting the computer object in the Domain Controllers organizational unit (OU) initiates the cleanup process, which proceeds automatically.

The only place so far I’ve found this documented are those two sentences in this TechNet article. Simple! Just delete the computer object! Now I need to go try it in my test lab…

Technorati Tags: Windows 2008,Windows 2008 R2,Active Directory,DCPROMO,metadata cleanup

3.74!

…out of a possible 4.0 in the evaluations for my session yesterday. 74% were “very satisified”, 26% were satisfied, and no one was anything less. One comment was that the title should have been “Activation and Licensing Demystified” (good idea), another said “Thanks for that session. Finally got it.” 91 attendees for a session on (zzzzzzzz) volume activation!

On the strength of the session, the track chair verbally invited me back next year on the spot :).

Technorati Tags: volume activation,Windows 7,Windows Server 2008,Vista,R2,Windows Server 2008 R2,microsoft

IT Manager panel discussions at Tech Ed

I had a chance yesterday morning to participate in a great IT Manager track on real-world challenges around virtualization. It was great to be able to simply sit on the panel with Edwin Yuen (aka “Ed-V”) from the virtualization team, Baldwin Ng for solution accelerators, Kevin Remde (all-round technical evangelist),  Peter Meister from Microsoft working on cloud computing efforts, Art Wittman from InfoWorld Analytics, and all the audience members that participated in the back and forth conversation. Great insights, and great fun as well!

Technorati Tags: Tech Ed,Edwin Yuen,Baldwin Ng,Kevin Remde,Peter Meister,Art Wittman,virtualization

Recession Tech (Ed)

I've gotten lazy about blogging in the last few weeks, and it suddenly occurred to me yesterday that duh, this week probably merits some comment. I'm spending the week at Tech Ed 09, Microsoft’s main conference for IT professionals.

Attendance is understandably down; there are supposedly 6,000 attendees – about half of a good year’s population. The Los Angeles Convention Center is big, and though there are a lot of people here it definitely doesn’t feel as packed as in the past.

For the first time at a conference I'm wearing three different hats. Usually nowadays I’m at a conference because I’m presenting, and this week is no exception. I’m doing a session on volume activation. (It’s not my main area of expertise, but I had to do it for Intel, it’s confusing at first look, and people really need to know about it.) For the first time, I’m working with a Microsoft product team, Technical Audience Group Marketing (TAGM), to assist them in meeting with and talking to IT pros and IT managers in sessions and roundtables. Finally,  I’m also acting as an attendee and trying to get in as many System Center and virtualization sessions as my other duties allow. So it's a busy week!

I also always try to take time to reconnect with my professional colleagues and friends - Gil, MarkM, MarkR, Rhonda, Brian, Ulf, Laura, Karen, Jeff, Sheila, Kim, Kevin - that's I'm lucky enough to know and new friends that I make while here. Probably the biggest, but least appreciated benefit of speaking at conferences is that you can develop a network of really interesting, world-class people you'd never meet otherwise. I'm a person that's perfectly content working without the minute-to-minute in person people interaction that happens in an office; I've been working from home full time for the last nine years. My circle of colleagues doesn't necessarily communicate a lot with each other in between functions. After all, they're similar personality types as I am: kinda schizophrenic because they do long periods of working by yourself, interspersed with bursts of very public presenting to hundreds of people and visiting with your friends. But we do have a great time when we get together!

Technorati Tags: Tech Ed,Microsoft

RichCopy

Just saw that my friend Joe has commented on an article by  another friend Joshua about a killer file copy utility called RichCopy. It certainly looks like the successor to the ubiquitous RoboCopy, and far more.

One of my great failings in life – besides not investing in Starbucks in the early 90’s when I did understand the value of a latte – is I never got around to writing a GUI for Robocopy, which is a command line utility. Derk Benisch of Microsoft finally did, and Josh mentions that his article on it has been viewed more than 220,000 times. <sigh> Fame and fortune continue to elude me :). So it’s a pleasure to see this integrated, GUI-based, multithreaded utility available to us all. Tell your admin friends!

DEC 2008, Chicago

I've spent the last few days up here in Chicago, at the Chicago Hilton on Michigan Avenue, attending DEC (Directory Experts Conference) 2008.

It's unquestionably the premier conference for Microsoft directory and identity geeks. There are sessions that dive into directory topics deeper than you'll find anywhere.

DEC is a little bit of a different conference because, though it's expanded to nearly 1000 attendees, it retains its small conference feel and proudly has small conference traditions. Where else would you have

• Reverence for the recurring theme of rubber chickens
• An annual, and usually bizarre, challenge from a high level Microsoft program manager to a customer
• Over 100 Microsoft attendees, which is about a 1 to 7 ratio. This is the place where you almost have to avoid having lunch or 1:1 talks with Microsoft directory or identity service team members.

It's also the one time in the year you can be sure to catch up with a broad range of your fellow directory experts. The DS MVPs have a second chance a month or so later at the annual MVP Summit in Redmond, but for the many many really good and broad-ranging experts that aren't MVPs, this is the place. So, it's been nice doing the catch-up dance, especially as I've changed jobs and people are curious.

Technorati Tags: DEC,DEC 2008,DEC2008,Chicago,Microsoft,directory services,AD,rubber chicken

Time To Change

"Nothing endures but change." Heraclitus

After ten years, today's my last day with Intel. It's only the second company I've ever worked for as a grown-up. I wouldn't have left, but management edicts forced my hand, and it looks like it's going to be a very positive move. I've accepted a position as an enterprise solutions strategist with Advaiya, who provides high-level strategic consulting to Microsoft. I get to work with Microsoft on some strategies, develop white papers and presentations on its new technology, and deliver this content in a variety of situations both in the States and internationally.

If you haven't done much of this sort of thing, leaving a big company is pulling out by degrees. When you're ready, you take a deep breath and make the plunge to tell your manager. That gets the ball rolling, and you're now really committed (even if you've kidded yourself that you could back out of your offer acceptance from the new company). Then you start telling individuals, and send out the big "goodbye letter". Then responding to all the well wishes. Then working on the handoff of all your duties. I'm proud of the fact I made all my meetings (and even contributed to them :) ) right to the end.

I was spared the daily "So you're really leaving, eh?" conversations around the water cooler because I'm 1400 miles from my nearest co-workers. As cliche' as it sounds, it really is true that your employer isn't nearly as wrapped up in you the employee, as you the employee have your head wrapped around the job: the Intel termination process is a matter of processing a little paperwork and bang, you're done.

Two weeks' notice doesn't seem like much after ten years and the depth of the big program - the Numonyx NOR Flash divestiture - I was working on. But with a well-thought out transition and some advance notice to my successor Derek Weigel, it was pretty well done with a few day's to spare. And you don't want to be a lame duck in the office for too long.

It's a good time to make little resolutions, change things. I've been hitting yoga class more regularly - in fact just before my LDO (last day office) meeting. I don't enjoy it as much as other forms of exercise, but conversely I notice the results of practicing regularly more than almost any other form. We're having house work done after seven years in the place - tile, fence, carpet - so that will be good. And I'm throwing out or shredding a lot of old papers :). I have a new bike that needs some riding (see below).

As I settle into a new job and routine, I'll certainly be posting here on whatever I find to be interesting - technical, personal, or otherwise.

Technorati Tags: Intel,leaving intel,quitting intel,advaiya,Numonyx,quitting your job

MVP Again!

Happy New Years to me! Every New Years Day for the last four years I've received a message from Microsoft that says

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2008 Microsoft® MVP Award! The MVP Award is our way of saying thank you for promoting the spirit of community and enhancing people’s lives and the industry’s success every day. Your extraordinary efforts in Windows Server System - Directory Services technical communities during the past year are greatly appreciated.

A very nice way to start the year. Well, I got that message again this morning, so it marks five years of my involvement in the MVP community. At first I wasn't sure what to make of it, but as time has passed by I've become very grateful for the interaction with Microsoft, the community of very sharp fellow MVPs, and the professional exposure it's given me.

Thanks, Microsoft!

Technorati Tags: MVP,Most Valuable Professional,Microsoft,Windows Server,Directory Services