New Website For Hosting Stuff

I launched a new website for everything related to Hosting services, comparison between the top providers, and many more stuff that every web master need! The website is in Arabic
https://www.hostingtops.net/

Creating Reference (Standard) Windows Images - Save Tens of Hours Installing Windows & Applications

We all install Windows on almost weekly (if not daily) basis, it takes up to 45 minutes to complete the installation, an hour or a bit less to install our apps (PDF reader, browser, Java, Office, and endless list), if you don't have WSUS also in the network, it will take forever to install all the updates (especially if you're still using Windows 7).

So isn't there a quick way to accomplish this? Sure there is, creating a standard image (sometimes called Master, Golden, Reference, Custom image), that will contain the applications you want, updates, and also drivers if you have the same hardware on a bulk of machines that you want to install Windows on.

There are some tools that help you to do this, and they are paid, like the famous Norton Ghost, which will clone the drive (C for example) for your device, and then you can deploy it on other machines, but what if I want to have multiple different copies for several hardware I have, and I don't want to buy multiple licenses from Norton Ghost?

The answer is easy, and very straight forward, with a fair amount of knowledge, you can do all that yourself, Microsoft provides you with the tools you need to get your Custom image ready to be deployed.

Here, in quick steps, we will explain everything you need to know to get your images ready, and if you are one of the people who prefers to watch practical rather than reading, you can find at the end of the article a link to course that explains every single step.

How to create your Custom Windows Image:

1. Install Hyper-V, or you can use any other Virtualization software you prefer, but I chose Hyper-V because it comes already with your Windows 8.1 & 10, for Windows 7, you can use VirtualBox or VMware.
2. Create your Windows virtual machine, whether it's Windows 7, 8.1, or 10, using the "Create New Virtual Machine" wizard in Hyper-V.
3. Install Windows on your machine using the standard ISO image you already have (If you don't have it, links are provided in the course below)
4. Customize your machine, install your applications, updates, files, and modify settings as you want.
5. Create a new local drive (D for example) so you can save the captured image of C drive on it.
6. Run Sysprep.exe with generalize option to remove all SID and other machine identifiers.
7. Turn off the machine.
8. Here you will need to get a WinPE with ImageX that matches your machine architecture, 32 or 64 bit, to create your own WinPE, follow this link:
   https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn293200.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
   Don't forget to add ImageX to your ISO
9. If you want it the easy way, you can download these ready-to-use WinPE ISO images:
   32-bit:
   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxixQsp11I0hYVBwcHVCMlh3aEU/view?usp=sharing
   64-bit:
   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxixQsp11I0hTnBQbGR1OHVmamc/view?usp=sharing
10. Identify your Windows volume, your other volume (named it D before).
11. Move to your WinPE ISO volume, and run the following command:
    F:\imagex /capture D:\ E:\install.wim "Windows 7 Pro 32-Bit" /flags "Professional"
    Where:
    F: The WinPE drive
    D: The Windows volume
    E: The storage volume (where we want to save our image to)
    "Windows 7 Pro 32-Bit": The image name
    /Flags: Where you identify the Windows edition
    For a full explanation of the Capture command parameters, you can check this link:
    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447%28v=ws.10%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
12. Once done, either boot to your machine and copy the WIM file, or mount the VHD of your virtual machine using the Disk Management utility to accomplish that.
13. Now, you can replace the capture WIM, with the WIM found on your ISO file under Sources folder, there are some paid apps to do this, or if you prefer the free way (we all do of course), ImgBurn, the ultimate free tool can do this for you, it's found under "Advanced" and "Bootable Disk", again, all this is explained practically in the course.
14. Burn your ISO to a flash USB, because eventually, it will be larger than DVD size (4.7 GB), you can use the free tool, Rufus, to do this, very easy and friendly tiny tool:
    https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Now you have your Custom image ready to be used, which will save you tens of hours installing Windows and applications on your machines, if you want to see all that in practice, and as a bonus, learn how to automate the installation process using Unattend.xml, enroll in this course, which will explain every minor step to get your image ready, and for the blog readers, we offer 50% discount using the coupon "Blogger", or just follow this link:

https://www.udemy.com/custom-windows-image/?couponCode=Blogger

Let me know how it goes, and if you face any issue or have any question, just drop a comment here, and it would be my pleasure to help,

Good luck,

Omar

Create Custom Windows Image & Automate the Installation

Do you want to have a custom Windows image that contains all the applications, files, settings, and drivers you want? So when you just install Windows, you will have it ready to be used?

I have a course that is a mix of many features and tools that are combined together, to make a master custom Windows image, that works on all desktops & notebooks you have.

It will walk you through each step, explained with all the information you need, and I'm giving it for my website visitors for 75% discount, want to know more? Check the below link

https://www.udemy.com/custom-windows-image/?couponCode=websitespecial

See you there!

WinPE ISO Download

If you need to get to Windows Pre-installation Environment (if you want it, you probably know what is it :) ), here you can find both WinPE images for 32 & 64 bit OS, just burn to a CD, or boot from any of the ISOs in case you use Hyper-V (or any other virtualization software), these ISOs contain ImageX, which you can use to capture or deploy OS, here is a very informative post about capturing and deploying images:
http://bit.ly/1DfMMTa

Here are the WinPE ISOs:
64 bit:
http://bit.ly/1Ryzfxp

32 bit:
http://bit.ly/1G2gEoR

Enjoy,
Omar,

SCCM 2012 Materials

After finishing my MCSA exams, I went to learn something was totally new for me, I've heard about ConfigMgr before, but never used it, they used to call it SMS before, but now it's well known as ConfigMgr, and SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager),

There is officially one exam from Microsoft for SCCM, 70-243,Administering and Deploying System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, exam link: https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-243.aspx

I've looked over a week for materials,  the MVA course starts in a weird way that I could not understand anything :), it may be intended for experienced ConfigMgr admins, anyways, take a look at this TechNet article, very useful (except the MVA part, at least for me):

http://blogs.technet.com/b/musings_of_a_technical_tam/archive/2012/06/08/system-center-2012-self-study-guide-part-3-system-center-configuration-manager.aspx

I've also found a great and long long discussion on a LinkedIn group about materials for SCCM, as the time of writing this, the discussion has 171 comments, which most of them are useful, here you go:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Whats-best-way-learn-SCCM-88758.S.53835904

The very first thing to know is how to install SCCM on your machine, I found this great video, which by coincidence, the guy faced two issues while installing SCCM and had to troubleshoot that in the video, very informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNJx6zb0wK4

Now once you have everything ready, take a look at this blog, I believe this amazing guy spent hundreds of hours creating this blog, with so much information about almost everything in SCCM:

http://prajwaldesai.com/sccm-2012-r2-step-by-step-guide/

One last website to share, here is some informative pages from Illinois State University, which happens to have a good related pages about installing software and application in SCCM:

https://helpdesk.illinoisstate.edu/kb/1875/Software_Packages_and_Applications_in_SCCM_2012/

Last thing to mention, CBT nuggets are also useful and have a solid information about SCCM, enjoy,

I hope this post will get you on the way to learn SCCM, feel free to contact me if you have any questions,

Thanks,

Omar,

70-412 Dumps

Here are some valid dumps I used, the files are converted to PDF

Exam Collection Premuim
ROD Dump (highly recommended by ExamCollection users)

Pay attention, BOTH dumps need to be checked online for some wrong answers,

Omar,

The Road to MCSE

Hello and welcome to my blog, I'll post some info I gathered during my journey to be an MCSE - Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (hopefully), at the time of writing this post, I've passed the first two exams, 70-410 & 70-411, please find the related posts for each, enjoy, and good luck,

Omar Dabbas,