For the last 3 days I’ve been doing one thing: trying to deploy Vista on a new PC with SCCM 2007 R2.
Trying, because I never succeeded, until a few minutes ago. 

I noticed there are many people who have this problem and some of them still not resolved the issue and are using some workarounds or gave up.

So, suppose you have created a task sequence, advertised it and booted from task sequence media; if you receive an error at “Setup Windows and ConfigMgr” step, check the Product Key! It might be that the key is not correct, so either write another one or remove the Product Key at all from “Apply Windows Settings” step in PostInstall section and you will have to provide it during the install phase.

Next time I booted the PC from the TS media, at the Setup Windows and ConfigMgr step I was asked to provide a product key. I entered my Business edition product key and clicked next. Error!?! WTH is going on here?!! As Vista can be installed without providing a product key at the setup phase, I just clicked Next without entering it. This way, Windows Vista deployed successfully but not “as unattended as I wish”.

Maybe my experience with this will help some folks and save their time…

Reading the news this morning, I found out that Internet Explorer team released Beta 1 for Internet Explorer 8. I immediately installed it and using it all day today, I find it fine for being a beta (it never crashed ).

Activities and WebSlices didn't impressed me a lot, mainly because these won't be as useful in Romania as in US.

Found two small bugs and sent am email to the right persons I know , so I'm sure that the guys will take care of them in the next release.

I installed it and it runs perfectly on my Windows XP SP2 machine.

You can download this little (only 90 kb) utility from the official site.

I hope soon will be a link on http://ideas.live.com

Windows Live Messenger is stamped, certified, verified, sanctified, bona fide: OFFICIAL.

1. Windows Live Messenger is the first major global Windows Live product to release a final version.

2. Bye-bye beta means bye-bye big bugs.

3. Everyone gets it.

 

Features (vs MSN Messenger):

-          Cheap PC-Phone Calling

-          Sharing files with friends through Messenger

-          Unified Contacts between Messenger & Hotmail

-          Improved voice quality for free PC-PC calls

-          Totally updated look at feel.

-          Way improved connectivity & Performance

-          Messenger Duel Phone- works as a regular phone and a PC-PC phone for free calls

Yesterday, at WinHEC, Bill Gates announced that Windows Vista, Longhorn Server and Office 2007 are available for public download.

And as one the many new features of Word 2007 is “blog writing”, I’m writing this message in Word (except the  pictures bellow).

It looks great, although we all have to learn all these ribbons but it’s really cool! All toolbars that I had disappeared so now there is more space to write a document.

So far, I have only one problem: I can’t activate this new office suite. It’s complaining that I don’t have an internet connection, but I do have one. A good one :P

"Word is a great tool for writing stuff, right? Blogging is all about communicating with words (and pictures, too). So, why not use Word to write your blog posts?

Stop, don't jump to the end of this post to push the comment button yet. I'm not an idiot. I'm not endorsing you commit HTML suicide. If you've ever written a post in Word 2003 or before and then copied and pasted the text into your web browser you know what I'm talking about. Sure you can do it, but you have to run one of those HTML clean up tools so that your posts don't look mangled. Even then the HTML is not tight and clean, right?

Well no more. We've been working late into the nights and very late into our development schedule for Word 2007 and we have a special goody for all you bloggers in Beta 2 of Office 2007. That's right blog post authoring from Word. This is a very late breaking feature and is definitely beta software. That said, I hope that everyone is pleasantly surprised with where we are going with this feature. "

Read the full article.

Source: Joe Friend's blog.

Was released a new version of Windows Live Messenger, 8.0689.

I have to confess that this new look is the best! The default color and the backgroud image is wonderful!!

Congratulations to WLM team!

Check the new features here.

In the evening I will install it too and will update this post with my impressions, so stay tuned

Update #1: There are some add-ons available for this release of IE7.

Update #2: After running it for one hour it seems ok generally speaking. The problems I had still exist and I see only a few changes in the UI (I use classic theme and maybe here wasn't so many changes as in Windows XP Theme). There is more "background" changes I guess
Anyway, this 7.0.5346.5 version of IE 7 seems to be a little faster than the previous versions.

In the never ending search for better data transmission over the fiber optic backbones that hold our Internet together, Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications has teamed with Fujitsu to see how much data they could squeeze through one of those glass pipes. The results sure look good; by pumping light at various wavelengths they managed to squeeze 60 DVDs worth of data a second over a 100 mile link. The new 2.56tbps records smashes the old 1.28tbps record, and reminds us once again how much our cable connection really sucks.

No comments. Just sit and wait for it

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Vista Delayed...Surprise, Surprise

Microsoft just announced that Vista is delayed until the end of the 2006 to early 2007. Only upside is that (so far) they're saying it's only the consumer versions of Vista. Only thing is those are usually subsets of the Professional versions, so the outlook for those are a mite bleak. Then again, I'm a pessimist.

 

(via Real Tech News)

Now, why I decided to write this here, is because even after doing this I have the same problem. I have had pressed Install Now button for several times to make it work.

There are plenty of "secure" flash drives out there, but face it: if someone is really determined to get at your data, they'll probably figure out a way. That's where Kingston's Data Traveler Elite Privacy Edition comes in. The 4GB flash drive encrypts all data with 128-bit AES, and then adds an extra layer of security: a self destruct feature. If anyone tries to use a brute-force attack to guess your password, the drive will automatically erase itself after 25 wrong guesses. Of course, if you have a really easy password, and a data thief can figure it out in under 25 guesses, you're out of luck. For the rest of us, this could be a good solution for keeping on-the-go info out of the wrong hands.