As some of you might know, the Windows 8.1 Preview and Server 2012 R2 Preview (code name Windows Blue) will become available on the 26th of June. Personally I’m looking forward to both of them and can’t wait for it. Also for those who missed it, The Windows 8.1 / Windows RT 8.1 update will be free. The final RTM version of Windows 8.1 is expected to be available August 1st.
When you’re planning to install a new version, you might want to prepare for it. Even though I tried to keep it as generic as possible, some of the steps described are not applicable to Windows RT but you should be able to understand what the goal is. You can probably also re-use these preparations when you want to update from the Preview version to the RTM version.
Preparations could include, but are not limited to:
- Determining if you can/want to install the update.
- Determining how you are going to run the Windows 8.1 Preview. Some functionality is best tested on hardware installations, but virtualized installations can be more convenient/flexible.
- Virtualized (by example using Client Hyper-V)
- Install Windows 8 already and wait for the 8.1 Preview to become available.
- Will consume more space.
- Will allow you to install the 8.1 RTM.
- Wait for full Windows 8.1 Preview ISO to become available.
- Will consume less space.
- Might not allow you to install the 8.1 RTM version.
- Physical
- Create a new Windows To Go (WTG) installation.
- On an officially supported WTG certified storage device.
- On an unofficial non WTG supported storage device.
- Create a dual/multi boot environment on a physical disk.
- Create a new installation.
- Gather required drivers and store them in an easy to access location.
- Gather applications you want to install.
- Install.
- Installation directly to disk.
- Use the boot from VHD method
- Update your existing installation.
- Ensure your important data is safe prior to updating. Even though the update should not destroy data, there is always a chance that it might.
- Ensure you have recovery media and/or create a USB recovery drive.
- Move/backup your data.
- Verify if the new location / backup contains all your data. With backups, verify if you can restore
- Sync to cloud services (Skydrive, Dropbox, Google Drive).
- Realize this is not the same as a backup.
- Document the installed applications (using PowerShell):
- For Modern/Metro applications:
Get-AppxPackage | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -path “C:\MyMetroApplications.csv”
- For regular applications:
Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Publisher, InstallDate, HelpLink, UninstallString | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -path “C:\MyRegularApplications.csv”
- Check if your current Windows 8 installation is healthy and if it is not, make it healthy again before installing the 8.1 Preview.
- Install 8.1 Preview when it is available through the Windows Store
- In the past I’ve seen issues with Service Pack updates caused by anti-virus solutions. So you might want to disable it until the installation has completed.
- If you get an error “The windows 8.1 preview isn’t available right now. Please try again later.” take a look here.
With TechEd Europe 2013 in Barcelona and the Microsoft Build 2013 in San Francisco this week there’s probably a lot more news coming. So you might want to keep an eye on news on all websites. You can also check live streams on Channel 9.
I hope this was informative. If you have any other questions, suggestions or just want to share what you’re looking forward to the most, please leave a comment.
Tags: appx, Build, Channel 9, channel9, Computex, disk cleanup, DISM, ICT, Metro, metro application, Microsoft, modern application, New in Windows 8.1, Outlook 2013 RT, preparation, preparations, Preview, requirements, security, teched, treesize, treesize free, what's new in Windows 8.1, Wikipedia, Windows, Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 Preview, Windows To Go, WTG
In the past I’ve had numerous occasions where I wanted to run a program or system to run under the local system user context. Most of them involved customers and application administrators that wanted to have a service or scheduled task configured. They often weren’t able to tell me if it was sufficient to run the service or scheduled task as local system or that a special service account would have to be created.
The issue I always ran into when I wanted to test this, is that you had to provide a password that you didn’t know if you wanted to use “Run As” with the local system account.
Recently I ran into the “Run As System” application. It enables you to start a program or run command and script under a local system account. It is UAC compatible, but it requires administrative privileges.
Another use of the “Run As System” application is if you want to access files or folders that are normally not accessible for users. This can come in handy when troubleshooting Offline Files. The tool might not work correctly with Windows Explorer though, so you should consider using other tools like Total Commander.
Other methods to run something as system can be found here.
For more tools and applications, take a look at my website: http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/Lists/Applications/Summary.aspx
Tags: application, Explorer, File Explorer, ICT, local system, local system user context, Microsoft, offline files, Permissions, Run as System, scheduled task, Script, system, system user, tool, Total Commander, Windows Explorer
My blog reached 50.000+ views. Thanks everybody, this really exceeded my expectation and motivates me even more to keep going. Special thanks go out to my fellow bloggers in my blogroll and to those who shared my posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.
Even though my blog exists since January 2012, I really started to blog actively around August and ever since I’ve tried to keep posting on a regular basis. At the start of 2013 I even intended to blog every day. I was able to keep it up for a short while, but it was just too time consuming. Now I try to blog something at least once every 5 days. The blog post count is now at 170.
Personally I think Microsoft is on the right track. I’m really looking forward to all new Microsoft product (preview) releases including Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 and you can expect some blog posts about this in the near future.
Popular posts
From the stats, it turned out these are the blog posts that are being viewed most, if you’ve missed any of them you might want to take a look at them:
Stats
For those interested in the view stats, here they are:
Comments and suggestions
If you have suggestions about what I can do to improve, please let me know. Also if you’d like to see some things covered more or in more detail, just leave a comment.
Tags: Apple, blog, blog post, blogpost, Microsoft, milestone, Mountain Lion, Office 365, OS X, POST, Server 2012, Sharepoint online, views, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, wordpress
One of the least favorite tasks of many administrators is to document. Good administrators also don’t want to manually do things when it can be automated. This is where Active Directory Topology Diagrammer (ADTD) can help to automate documenting your Active Directory environment.
Recently I have been working on a new Active Directory OU design and used the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer to create a Visio diagram for the AS-IS situation. I have to say it worked great. Keep in mind though that it will show the OUs and not any other containers.
Besides documenting AD OUs, the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer can document many other things as well. Take a look at the article “How To Use The Active Directory Topology Diagrammer” or play around with it yourself to see what it can do.
The tool can also be very helpful when:
- You’re in a new environment and need to get a quick overview of the Active Directory.
- When there’s no documentation available or when the available documentation is outdated.
- When you’re auditing the quality of documentation.
For more tools, take a look at my website: http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/Lists/Applications/Summary.aspx
Tags: Active Directory, Active Directory Topology Diagrammer, AD, ADTD, automate, automation, Diagram, document, document active directory, document AD, documentation, Microsoft, tool, Visio, Windows, Windows Server
At TechEd 2013 North America, Microsoft has announced a lot of new stuff. Many of the TechEd sessions have been recorded and can be viewed on Channel9. I’ll try to blog more about it as well.
For Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 the Microsoft Virtual Academy is hosting jump start sessions next month. For more information and registration take a look at this blog post.
Tags: channel9, ICT, jump start, jumpstart, Microsoft, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, server 2012 r2, system center 2012 r2, teched, teched north america 2013, windows 2012 r2, Windows Server 2012 R2
Future events
Before starting with my summary of 2nd DuPSUG meeting, I want to inform you about some future events first:
- Dutch PowerShell User Group Meetings
- To keep track of news, use the links to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and the RSS feed on the DUPSUG website.
- In the future, the plan is to meet every June and November.
- The next meeting will probably be at November 7th at VX Company.
- The idea is that community members will also present their own experiences, use cases, scripts, tools, methods. If you want to do so, please contact the DUPSUG group.
- Remko Weijnen | Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn might be one of the people presenting at a future DUPSUG meeting.
- Jeff Wouters might be able to arrange one or more copies of the PowerShell Deep Dives book from Manning since he’s contributing to it. The book isn’t complete and released yet, but Manning has an Early Access Program which means that you will get access to the completed chapters now and will get the full version when it’s done. Until June 13 there’s even a promotion to get a 40%-50% discount and it also applies to other great PowerShell books.
- Inter Access Microsoft Summer Summit (Hilversum, July 2nd 2013 17:30-22:00 CET)
This event
Last Thursday I attended the second Dutch Powershell User Group meeting in Hilversum hosted at Inter Access and sponsored by Sapien Technologies Inc.
Just like I mentioned in the summary of the first meeting there were manu interesting sessions that provided me with more insight and inspired me for practical uses. It was also great to discuss current developments with other knowledgeable and passionate people. The main differences with the previous meeting was that:
- This meeting was completely in Dutch, while the previous one was completely in English. As such, the workshop descriptions were also in Dutch and you needed to bring your own laptop.
- The format of this meeting was more of a workshop, while the previous one was mainly presentations.
Thanks go out to all attendees, especially those presenting, organizing and sponsoring the event. Special thanks to Daniel Bot for helping me fix a (stupid mistake in a) script I was working on 🙂
Goodies and giveaways
Workshops / presentations
And now on with the really interesting stuff, the sessions/workshops. Below are the sessions with some info about the speakers and their sessions. I also added notes I took and other information I looked up afterwards. If you come across any errors or have comments, please leave a reply so I can fix it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: $PSBoundParameters, -asjob, -passthru, Azure, background jobs, Cloud, Compliance Settings, DCM, Desired Configuration Management, Desired State Configuration, devops, DHCP, DHCP failover, DNS, DSC, DuPSUG, Dutch PowerShell User Group, error handling, Event, Exe, Filters, flickr, forms, Functions, graphical user interface, gui, GUI applications, high availability, Hilversum, HTA, HTML Application, Integrated Scripting Environment, Inter Access Microsoft Summer Summit, InterAccess, InterAccess Microsoft Summer Summit, Interface Video Training, IPv4, ISE, Jaap Brasser, Jeff Wouters, job, jobs, Manning, module, msi, nslookup, Out-Gridview, parallel, parallelization, passthrough, Ping, PowerGUI, Powershell, PowerShell 3, Powershell 3.0, PowerShell 4.0, PowerShell Deep Dives, PowerShell GUI, PowerShell GUI applications, PowerShell Runspace, PowerShell RunSpaces, Powershell v3, PowerShell Workflow, presentation, PS2Exe, Resolve-DNSName, Richard Siddaway, runspace, runspaces, SCCM, script block, script blocks, scriptblock, scriptblocks, ShowUI, splat, splatting, System Center Configruation Manager, Test-Connection, The MSI Wizard, VisualStudio, VX Company, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8.1, Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, WinForms, workflow, workshop, WPF
The PowerShell Summit took place in North America in April and many of the prominent PowerShell people were there. And from what I read there were a lot of great presentations.
The PowerShell Summit 2013 North America conference schedule can be found here. Thanks to Don Jones and PowerShell.org (most of) these sessions are available for download: http://powershell.org/wp/2013/04/22/summit-downloads/
Videos are available here:
http://powershell.org/wp/2013/05/07/powershell-summit-videos/
So even if you weren’t able to attend, you can still learn from their presentations. Or if you did attend, you can review them again.
Tags: conference, conference schedule, Don Jones, download, downloads, North America, Powershell, PowerShell Summit, PowerShell Summit 2013, PowerShell Summit 2013 North America, PowerShell.org, schedule, session, sessions
The recordings for “Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles Jump Start” are available now on Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA).
These Jump Starts are a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights. So be sure to check out the Q&A log as well.
Tags: Cloud, Free, Hyper-V, ICT, jump start, jumpstart, Learning, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, Private Cloud, recording, Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles Jump Start, VDI, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, virtualization, Windows
Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is hosting the “Windows Azure for IT Professionals Jump Start” at May 16th. Information and registration is available on the website: https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/liveevents/Windows-Azure-for-IT-Professionals?CR_CC=200206715
I’ve attended a couple of Jump Starts and I think it’s a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights.
Also it’s only been a couple of weeks since Windows Azure IaaS is live in production backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and ready for your production applications. Therefore it is a great time to start learning more about it.
I hope to see you there.
Tags: Cloud, Free, Hyper-V, ICT, jump start, Learning, Microsoft Virtual Academy, MVA, Public Cloud, System Center, System Center 2012, virtualization, Windows, Windows Azure for IT Professionals Jump Start
By the end of June, the Surface RT will be available in 29 countries and the Surface pro will be available in 25 countries.
It’s a pity we often have to wait for new products like the Surface Pro, but at least it’s coming to the Netherlands. And the waiting will also be over pretty soon, since it will be available before the end of May.
Personally I’m not a big fan of Windows RT, but I really love Windows 8 tablets. Since I’ve gotten my Windows 8 tablet, I have been using it as my main device. And apparently I’m not the only one as you can read in this great article:
“Two months with the Surface Pro and how it replaced my notebook”.
If you’re considering a tablet and are not yet sure if a Windows RT, Windows 8, Android or Apple tablet best meets your needs, read the comparison from one my previous blog posts.
Tags: hardware, Microsoft, surface, Surface Pro, surface RT, tablet
blog.bjornhouben.com 