Reinstall Windows 7 with OEM Key using Retail DVD

So you are looking to rebuild a Windows 7 machine using an OEM licence but have lost / didn't create the OEM recovery media?

Or you want to do a clean rebuild using an OEM key without the bloat ware, silly partitions etc?

  In short, yes you can!

 Within a few simple constraints, I got this info from an MS MVP and have tried it myself, there are a few simple caveats;

 1/ OEM Key and retail media must be of the same edition Home Premium OEM key works with Home Premium retail disc etc.

 2/ You will have to do the phone activation using the automated system.

 3/ You are of course re-installing the OEM licence on the machine it came with arn't you?

I have only done it once as I generally don't have OEM licences, but using a Win 7 home premium (non SP1) retail DVD I reinstalled the OS to an Advent Roma laptop without a hitch.

 Hope this helps somebody.

 Anyone else tried with different versions please feel free to comment.

Call logging software

Not sure if this qualifies as a post or just a random rant.

We run a shared phone system with our sister company in the same building

and use a fairly expensive call logging and costing system to record who owes

what when the bill comes in.

We don't have that many calls any more, the world and his wife being on email

however the logging software still manages to bring machines to a staggering halt

with 100% cpu load though apparently doing nothing!!!

How do people get away with charging so much for such utter crap is beyond

me, multiple setups, hardware changes and now on our fourth build in three

years. New machine is server spec, high end networking, server class cpu

the whole nine yards......... I give it six months, maybe nine!

Anybody else out there lumbered with some god awful application they have

no escape from???

Defraggler - a useful defragmentation utility.

Quick one for anyone that needs a free but very useful MS defrag tool.

Defraggler far better than the inbuilt MS utility, runs very happily on desktop and server versions.

Piriform Defraggler

Its free but they do accept donations, and have various other useful little apps on the site.

Untangle with BT Infinity

Sorry for the delay, as promised here is a quick run down of how to ditch the BT fibre hub and just use the mini fibre nte with your own router.

This guide will focus on Untangle, as that as the security appliance we use, however it should be very easy to configure to your hardware.

To start with take the BT supplied cable from your mini NTE to router, unplug from fibre hub and place into untangle WAN port. Store BT fibre hub somewhere of your chosing (I opted for cylindrical floor based storage also used for empty cups, sandwich wrappers etc.).

First the simple protocol, set your WAN port for PPPoE.

Then add your username and password. For home connections this may be generic, for the business version you will need the BT supplied information.

If you have a dynamic IP address all that should remain is to restart the Mini NTE (this takes a while to establish its connection so dont panic) click renew lease from within Untangle for the WAN port and you should be done, simples.

If you have static IP addresses just add them in as above, set any port forwards you need and job done, all should be working.

Hope this helps those who had similar experiences to myself in asking a certain large provider for advice on using their products.

BT Infinity Broadband and Untangle

So a little while ago we decide to upgrade our "Oh crap" fail over broadband line to BT's latest and greatest Infinity offering. Its fairly quick but it most certainly isn't a replacement for a leased line, not even close.

Packet loss horrendous, and trying to use it to upload files via vpn to a remote ESX hosted ms server, forget it. 60MB file failed 4 times, infinity at this end, 100 mb leased line at the other. Call me a skeptic but i'm not about to start blaming the leased line even a little bit.

On the plus side infinity very fast for downloads, and cheaper than our historical BT broadband offering by around £20 per month. No major cost saving but every little helps I guess.

The physical delivery is via a mini fibre nte into BT's fibre hub. Well it was, the BT hub now back in its box where it is staying. Theres a fair amount of noise on the web that you can't use your own router with infinity, YOU CAN! All you need is a cable router that supports PPPOE, and you connect that to the mini NTE, which is to all intents and purposes a modem.

Next post will give a few more details on connecting an Untangle server direct to the mini NTE for all firewall and routing duties.

Virtualisation Tools

Been using hypervisor clients for a while now, successfully used a virtual NT server to do a swing upgrade to Server 2003 and Active Directory late 2006 using virtual PC.

Despite its uses, VPC 2007 seems to hate Linux distributions, but for an alternative I have been using this http://www.virtualbox.org/

Outfit recently aquired by SUN but the app is still availiable open source for personal use.

Successfully run on Server 2k8 and vista ultimate x64, with Ubuntu and Kubuntu Hardy, and Open Solaris. Also Run it on Gutsy and Hardy with Legacy MS os's. Highly recommended.
A bit funny under MS with its networking, so for serious use needs two NICS in the machine but definatly a great app, particulaly with its cross platform support. Copy over the virtual hard drive file and off you go.

Server 2008 as a desktop OS

Having had a total mare running Vista Ultimate for the past year or so I came accross this and decided to give it a go.

http://weblogs.asp.net/israelio/archive/2008/02/21/windows-server-2008-as-workstation.aspx

Basically it details all the settings you need to change to make server 2k8 look and play like a desktop os. I have to say after about a month of using it at work, it blows Vista clean out of the water. Granted its an expensive prospect, Misco have the OEM version listed at £369.99 plus VAT at the time of writing, but If you have corporate licensing as I do it makes a fantastic platform for a workstation.

Reliability far higher than Vista, which frequently takes 3 boot attempts to find my keyboard each morning (yes, its a microsoft keyboard! :S ), and regulaly locks up under heavy load.

Also it is far more responsive in real world use, application switching is faster and apps load far quicker.

I haven't tried any synthetic benchmarks as I don't find them particulaly indicative of day to day use, if you have the chance give it a go. I'm sure you'll like it.