Using non en-US English variants with Windows unattended install
Posted by Richard in Automation, Deployment Services, nugget, Unattended Installation, Windows on October 27, 2010
This was driving me mad. It seems that not all of Windows is localised. This means that whilst your keyboard and currency may be set to English(United Kingdom) the GUI is set to English(United States).
This has repercussions, that may not be immediately obvious, for unattended or WDS installations. However you do it, to use English(United Kingdom) as a installed language you must set the following under Windows-International-Core for specialize and oobeSystem:
| InputLocale | en-GB |
| SystemLocal | en-GB |
| UILanguage | en-US |
| UILanguageFallback | en-GB |
| UserLocale | en-GB |
Notice that UILanguage is set to en-US.
Apache certificates and IIS
Some certificate providers do not supply certificates in a format suitable for IIS, only Apache. Whilst you can import and assign the .crt to IIS it will not work. This is because IIS (like Apache) require both public and private keys. Apache stores these in separate files, IIS does not. In order to use an apache certificate set both parts need to be combined in to a PEM. The easiest way of doing this is probably
C:\copy <cert.crt>+<cert.key> <cert.pem>
from a command prompt. You will then need to install OpenSSL for Windows (or move the .pem onto a *nix box) and run the following:
C:\OpenSSL\certs>..\bin\openssl pkcs12 -export -passout pass:"<password>" -in <cert.pem> \ -out <cert.p12> -name <domain>
You should get the response
Loading 'screen' into random state - done
You should now be able to import the certificate into Windows with the Certificate MMC Snap-in and assign it to the IIS virtual server with Inetmgr.
Swap the text above in <> for suitable values for your certificate.
Winmo 7 initial impressions
Posted by Richard in Opinion, Windows Mobile on February 16, 2010
Whilst I appreciate the amount of effort that MS have put into this I can’t help but think that it is a step backwards in some ways. Really not too happy at all that I can’t replace the shell with something else (HTC Sense is really nice). The amount of customisation that you can do with 6.5 to tune it to what you want is incredible useful. If APIs are available to aggregate and query incoming the incoming stream of information I don’t see why a user cannot replace it. Sure you may specify to the vendor/carrier that they must ship with the default interface but once a user has bought the device it is theirs, not yours, and you no longer have a say in what they do with it. Please remember that you are not Apple and for that I am grateful. If a pre can multitask why can’t this? Or am I missing the point. Regarding backwards compatibility I can see why a break would be needed but does this stop apps written for .Net CF working correctly? Can I install my own apps from an SD card or do I have to get everything from Marketplace? If I have to use the store then I won’t be buying one. I would like to be able to put apps on my phone that I have written that may be of zero use to anyone else. Android has a developer mode for this purpose. For me the iPhone is too locked down an environment and the openness is the reason I have stuck with winmo even if it is perhaps not as stable/polished as the others.
What I do like about winmo 7 is the minimum hardware specs. This is excellent and means that people will know exactly what they are getting. I am glad you have specified something decent and not opted for something cheap like an MSM7200. The xbox live integration is also a fabulous idea.
Fix Calgoo connect under Snow Leopard
From: http://www.calgoo.com/JForum-2.1.6/posts/list/1282.page.
Just make sure you reset the soft link for the 1.5.0 JVM when Apple upgrades Java (and they will).
Fix Juniper network connect under Snow Leopard
From: http://forums.juniper.net/jnet/board/message?message.uid=25056
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/juniper/nc/6.4.0/
sudo mkdir /Applications/Network\ Connect.app/Contents/Frameworks
Reusing Windows 2003 Security Policies
INGREDIENTS:
One Windows 2003 server with a security policy already configured (we will call this server1).
Another Windows 2003 server that needs a policy applied (we will call this server2).
RECIPE:
Log into server1 and start a command prompt. Type
secedit /export /cfg policy.inf /log policy.logThis will export the security to a file called policy.inf. Pick a filename that makes sense to you. The command will log to policy.log again pick a filename that makes sense to you.
Now copy the policy.inf file to server2 and run the following from a command prompt:
secedit /import /db policy.sdb /cfg policy.inf /log policy.log
secedit /configure /db policy.sdb /cfg policy.inf /log policy.log
gpupdate /force
This will apply the policy. You should probably restart the machine at this point if no errors are observed. Check the log file for details.
Creating a bootable Windows 2003 ISO
TIP: If using a mac do not use hdiutil as it cannot make use of a boot catalog.
INGREDIENTS:
mkisofs (from http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html)
isobuster (from http://www.isobuster.com/) or equivalent.
Windows 2003 (or R2) installation files
RECIPE:
Using ISObuster open an existing BOOTABLE windows ISO.
Find the Bootable Disc from the tree on the left of the ISObuster window and extract BOTH the “BootCatalog.cat” and the “Microsoft Corporation.img”.
Copy these to your *nix box and place them in the root of the directory containing the Windows installation files (you will need all of the files from the Window disk/installation source).
From a shell cd into the Windows directory and run this
mkisofs -b Microsoft\ Corporation.img -c BootCatalog.cat -V CRSFPP_EN \ -no-emul-boot -o ../iso/w2k3.iso -boot-load-seg 1984 \ -boot-load-size 4 -iso-level 2 -J -l -D -N -joliet-long -relaxed-filenames .
This will create the ISO image in ../iso. This can be anything you want but you should keep it outside of the Windows installation files directory. I use a directory called flat to store the installation files.
Some of these switches need a little explanation
-b and -c represent the boot disk image and the catalog file previously extracted. You need both the boot image and the catalog which is why you can’t use hdiutil on a Mac. If you put the catalog and boot files outside of the CD root mkisofs will complain that it cannot find them. So whilst it would be nice to specify ../BootCatalog.cat as the location of the catalog file it will not work.
-no-emul-boot, -boot-load-seg and-boot-load-size are ElTorito options. You need these as specified otherwise the ISO won’t boot.
-joliet-long -relaxed-filenames you need these because some files in the installation folder exceed the ISO limits on filenames. These are mainly .NET assemblies.
At the end of this you should have a bootable Windows CD and a baseline you can use to start customising.
(c) Richard Bellamy 2009. Please link to this site and let me know if you need to include this in something.