Sysprep on Windows 2008

Talk about a nightmare! It was so much easier in 2003. Here is a good link that explains how to do that step by step.

What is Windows Azure?

Well in short, it is a cloud platform. I came across this really cool "hand drawn" video of this...take a look.

Vista/Windows 7 SMTP Server

I am doing most of my coding lately on my new Windows 7 box and last night I came across a problem sending mail. I looked and looked but saw no SMTP server! It seems that Microsoft has stopped including an SMTP server with Windows 7 (and it seems vista as well). I wanted something very simple and lightweight and something that did not require much configuration on my part. Below is a list of what I found online and my thoughts on each:

• XMail: Way more than I needed but a great one
• Hmail: For some reason I could not get it to work for me
• Gmail SMTP Service: I guess I could have done this...but did not even try
• SoftStack: See below
• Postcast: The winner (see below)
  

The one that I saw most people using and seemed easy enough was SoftStack. A simple install and was lightweight, but it had a fatal flaw! It seems that it can only send 10 emails per day! I needed something else, and I found it in PostCast. They have a free edition which was simple and lightweight and yet gave some advanced options if you needed it. It worked perfectly for me and is now my new SMTP server for Windows 7.

Having said all this, I don't get why Microsoft stopped including SMTP!

Notepad2 for Windows 7

I have been using Notepad2 for a long time as my default notepad. I just updated one of my machines to Windows 7 64 bit and I needed to set notepad2 up. The good news is that a 64 bit version is available but the bad news is that installation is not the same as vista for making it the default. Here is a batch script I found to get it to work.

@echo off
TITLE Notepad2 Install Script for Complete Windows Vista and 7 Notepad Replacement
echo.
echo Notepad2 Install Script for Complete Windows Vista and 7 Notepad Replacement
echo Version 1.2
echo.
echo (c) My Digital Life (www.mydigitallife.info)
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo Confirm to apply? (Press Ctrl-C and answer Y to terminate)
pause
echo.
echo.

if exist %Systemroot%\notepad.original.exe goto exist_notepad2_already
if exist %Systemroot%\System32\notepad.original.exe goto exist_notepad2_already
takeown /f %Systemroot%\notepad.exe
takeown /f %Systemroot%\System32\notepad.exe
icacls %Systemroot%\notepad.exe /grant "%username%":f
icacls %Systemroot%\System32\notepad.exe /grant "%username%":f
IF EXIST %SYSTEMROOT%\SysWOW64 (bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions "DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS")
copy %Systemroot%\notepad.exe %Systemroot%\notepad.original.exe
copy %Systemroot%\System32\notepad.exe %Systemroot%\System32\notepad.original.exe
echo.
echo Original notepad.exe has been renamed to "notepad.original.exe" in its original folder.
echo.
copy %~dp0\notepad2.exe %Systemroot%\notepad.exe /y
copy %~dp0\notepad2.exe %systemroot%\System32\notepad.exe /y
echo.
echo Notepad2 installation is completed.
echo If no error occurred, Notepad2 will now replace all Notepad functions.
echo.
pause
exit

:exist_notepad2_already
echo.
echo INSTALLED NOTEPAD2 ALREADY!.
echo.
pause
exit

Testing Windows 7 Beta

So I wanted to test Windows 7 after hearing some really great things about it. My problem is that I can't just walk away from Windows XP. Alas, we all eventually have to upgrade...here is the way you can do it easily and push it out on a VM:

1. Download windows 7: Windows 7 Beta
   
2. Download VMWare Free player: VMWare Player
   
3. Use EasyVMX to create your files: EasyVMX
   
4. Open up the vmdk with your free player
5. Run through the install (don't do an upgrade)

EasyVMX

1. Super-Simple for a quick way...or choose another option if you want sme finer details
2. Choose windows Vista as the operating system...64 or 32 bit depending on what your host OS is
3. Set memory...more you can spare the better
4. Tick the Live ISO CD checkbox at the bottom
5. Create and download

One last note is that you can always increase memory or change options in the My_Virtual_Machine_.vmx (or your name) file. Just open it up in notepad and change things like numvcpus or memsize.

Enjoy Windows 7!