Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter 1.2

[sawo]

This is my latest app i wrote to make it easier for users to convert their Server os into a powerful Workstation!
Post comments and suggestions on how to improve it in this thread.

Image:

Readme:

Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter version 1.2 by sawo

A utility that allows you to turn Windows Server 2008 into a very powerful workstation!



WARNING: THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES ATLEAST .NET FRAMEWORK 2.0 (no need to install on server 2008)!

IF YOU RECEIVE ERROR WHEN RUNNING IT, SIMPLY TYPE THIS IN RUN OR CMD: ServerManagerCmd -install NET-Framework-Core

NO REBOOT IS REQUIRED!



LICENSE:

You can do whatever you want with this application as long as you give me credit!



****

Thanks to everyone who helped me with the testing, the tweaks and everything else!

****



Features supported so far:

1. Set owner name/organization

2. Enable windows audio

3. Optimize CPU performance for programs

4. Disable IE Enhanced Security Configuration

5. Install .NET Framework 3.0

6. Enable SuperFetch

7. Install desktop experience

8. Enable themes

9. Disable CTRL+ALT+DEL at Startup

10. Disable shutdown event tracker

11. Change computer name

12. Enable wireless networking

13. Enable offline files

14. Enable windows search service

15. Enable auto logon

16. Delay activation

17. UxTheme patch for x86 and x64 systems

18. Disable verbose messages at startup/shutdown

19. Install the vista aero cursors

20. Install the vista sidebar (x86 and x64)

21. Install the control panel item for game controllers(x86 and x64)

22. Enable Speech Recognition (require files from vista)

*Many of the tweaks require Admin account to apply so make sure you run the program as administrator.



Most of the tweaks are available using command line/shortcut parameter:

-audio      Enable windows audio

-cpu        Optimize CPU performance for programs

-ie         Disable IE Enhanced Security Configuration

-dotnet     Install .NET Framework 3.0

-superfetch Enable SuperFetch

-desktop    Install desktop experience

-themes     Enable themes

-cad        Disable CTRL+ALT+DEL at Startup

-events     Disable shutdown event tracker

-name       Change computer name

-wireless   Enable wireless networking

-offline    Enable offline files

-search     Enable windows search service

-autologin  Enable auto logon

-delay      Delay activation

-check      Check the remaining days left until activation

-uxtheme32  Apply the UxTheme Patch for 32bit systems

-uxtheme64  Apply the UxTheme Patch for 64bit systems

-sidebar32  Install the sidebar for 32bit systems.

-sidebar64  Install the sidebar for 64bit systems.

-joy32      Install the control panel item for game controllers on 32bit systems.

-joy64      Install the control panel item for game controllers on 64bit systems.

-cursors    Install the vista aero cursors.



Note that i do not work for microsoft - i created this program in my spare time so i cannot provide support

or patches for it. I will try to help the users and improve the program in the future, but i do not guaranteee

anything - USE IT AT OWN RISK!

If you want to contact me, mail me at [email protected]

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[aviv00]

wow gr8 one thx 🙂

btw “Optimize CPU performance for programs”

for what i read make the system slower, weird thing… 😕

q:

there gonna be converter to offline image soon ? too ?

[sawo]

It will make the applications you are using like browsers,chat clients etc more responsive and eventually faster. All of the workstation operation systems use this setting by default.

Im not sure what offline image converter you are talking about? Can you explain it a little more?

[Day2Die]

Nice job, I am just wondering if this work on both x86 and x86.

[aviv00]

@sawo wrote:

It will make the applications you are using like browsers,chat clients etc more responsive and eventually faster. All of the workstation operation systems use this setting by default.

Im not sure what offline image converter you are talking about? Can you explain it a little more?

sure

here a link with lots of info

http://www.msfn.org/board/GuideHow-to-modify-installwim-t111168.html

u could change the install.wim with imagex or gimagex and then when u gonna install the system its will be there[ the change]

all the time whice is gr8 😀

[sawo]

@Day2Die wrote:

Nice job, I am just wondering if this work on both x86 and x86.

It should work just fine on x64 if thats what you mean.

[valorisa]

Hello,

Excellent work that you have realized !

Great task.

Valorisa

[sawo]

The uxtheme patch took me a longer than expected, but the new version is out.See the changelog for more information.

[sawo]

Ok guys the new version is out 🙂
Now it support windows vista sidebar(x86/x64),windows vista cursors,windows game controllers control panel item(x86/x64) as well as several code and design improvements – large part of the code was rewritten and the application no longer uses embedded resources – now everything is stored inside the Data folder.The text is no longer bold formatted for better look, “Games” tab is added etc.

[aviv00]

thx, any news about offline image? [ on install.wim file]
so the changes will be in the setup files

[sawo]

Still no, but cant vLite do that?

[aviv00]

its change the install.wim but dont have the tweaks that

Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter have

it just need to hive the reg files from system32config and apply the regs there

Examples
load hive to regedit.exe:
REG LOAD HKLMTempHive TempHive.hiv

unload and save the hive:
REG SAVE HKLMSoftwareMyCoMyApp AppBkUp.hiv

mount a wim file:
imagex /mountrw d:imagingdata.wim 2 c:mounted_images

save the change and unmount the wim:
imagex /unmount /commit c:mounted_images

[sawo]

Well ill look into it when the current converter is stable enough – maybe week or so from now.

[aviv00]

thx 🙂

[blinder]

Thanks for this sawo,

I made most of the changes manually, then found this tool, it did the other things I hadnt done without any problems on 2008×64.

[sawo]

Thanks for the x64 testing, blinder! im working on some improvements, but version 1.0 is close 🙂

[notausgang]

Great tool, very nice. Thx in advance. 😀

[dOGHAIR]

This is a work of art, thank you so much
please tell me you are working on enabling speech recognition???
I’m running server 2008 enterprise x64
thanks again, awesome app

[sawo]

Yep, it is in the To-Do list for the next version as you can see in the first post 🙂

[aviv00]

hey sawo

just wondering when the new ver is out?
and if image offline option [ applying the changes on installation files] will be in the next ver?

edit:

btw i have idea that u could included at ur app

install packages and remove packages from the offline image

http://www.msfn.org/board/Win-server-2008-t104130.html&view=findpost&p=730473#entry730473

[sawo]

The new version will include only speech recognition and few other changes.Its basically ready, but i have to test it first.Im very busy these days, but it will be out at the end of the week.
After that im going to work on the next version, which probably will support the installation files.

[Arris]

Sounds good! Looking forward to test/use the new version! 🙂

[aviv00]

cool thx for hard working 🙂

[sawo]

Ok guys, its ready! 🙂
The speech recognition is not 100% automated because i cant include 200mb of windows system files with my program, but its close as possible.
I tested everything again and with the users feedback i think its enough to call this final version.
With version 2.0 i will start working on how to modify the installation files directly with the patcher.

[aviv00]

gr8 i will happy to help with it 😀

[dOGHAIR]

Hi there, regarding speech recognition;
I changed permissions on my 64 bit 2008 server folders to be able to copy over the contents from my vista 32 bit windows/speech and windows/system32/speech folders.
I ran around multiple times on that but always chose not to overwrite the existing files.
When I go to control panel/text to speech and choose the speech recognition tab I get the message “the requested task cannot be carried out because the necessary engine could not be created. Please select a different engine and/or a different audio device”
I have an x-fi fatality pro soundblaster in my machine and it is working in other programs (both mic and 5.1 speakers).
In the speech recognition dialog I can click on audio input and advanced but the microphone button is greyed out, even though I can get to the mic properties from the audio input/recording dialogs.
I checked the “run speech recognition at startup” and rebooted multiple times
Does the fact that I see the speech recognition tab indicate that I’m getting close to this working, or was that there before I moved the files and applied your reg tweaks?
Is there anything obvious to you that I have done incorrectly?
I would appreciate any help, can’t wait to get it going.
Thanks for all the hard work!

[dOGHAIR]

I don’t know if this info is useful or not
In your data/speech folder I can merge speech2.reg but cannot merge speech1.reg
I tried it in safe mode also but still get the error
“cannot import….not all data was successfully written to the registry. Some keys were open by the system or other processes”

[sawo]

Thats strange probably the registry causes this problem, did you run the file as admin? When i tested it the registry imported ok, but i have to install clean server on my virtual machine to check this out.
Also, do not overwrite the existing files on the server machine as i mentioned in the instructions.

[RemixedCat]

Great becuase I just bough S2k8x64 for my new system and I would love to use this.

[jabbera]

I am having the same problem. Windows Server 2008 standard x64. Some keys are in use.

[sawo]

Thats strange – even when having full permissions it still gives that error.. I will look into it.

[willko]

Heya Sawo

great work and a terrific tool! I’ve tested it on 2 more new x64 installs (actual PCs – getting rare these days ehh 😉 ). An ASUS p5e3 and an IBM 8840.

No probs at all.

Thanks for the effort & well done!!

PS – How about adding a tool to remove the hidden User Experience Tasks in the Scheduler as well…? Should be straight forward – I’ve been hearing some odd stories of the data that MS is hooking using these…

pps – love the carmeggedon avatar!

[sawo]

Thanks for the feedback willko! Your idea sounds interesting i will check it out 🙂

[Qnkel]

Maybe interested in a language converting to germany?

[frauhottelmann]

One thing I’d like to see would be the games explorer. Is it possible to extract the files for i.e. Side Bar from the Vista DVD? That way you wouldn’t have to include all the files!
BTW great tool!

[sawo]

@Qnkel wrote:

Maybe interested in a language converting to germany?

That should be easy – i will add language support in the next version, pm me if you want to start the german translation right away!

@frauhottelmann wrote:

One thing I’d like to see would be the games explorer. Is it possible to extract the files for i.e. Side Bar from the Vista DVD? That way you wouldn’t have to include all the files!
BTW great tool!

Unfortunately the games explorer isn’t working correctly yet, thats why i haven’t implemented it into the program.
Ofcourse its possible to extract the files, but if you do it yourself, whats the point of using automated program then 🙂

[frauhottelmann]

What I mean is for example when you hit install side bar button in the program it asks for the dvd and then extracts the files from the dvd and you wouldn’t have to include these files, thus making the package smaller!

[Marth]

Thanks for this! Everything worked great on my 2008 64-bit install except the gamesux.dll install – I had to manually do the install on this one. Your app crashed and burned. everything else I tested worked.

Now if only 2008 didn’t have lower FPS in games compared to Vista Ultimate 64-bit 😉

[itmaster68]

Has anyone else run into issues with .net errors when enableing wireless?

[sawo]

@Marth wrote:

Thanks for this! Everything worked great on my 2008 64-bit install except the gamesux.dll install – I had to manually do the install on this one. Your app crashed and burned. everything else I tested worked.

Now if only 2008 didn’t have lower FPS in games compared to Vista Ultimate 64-bit 😉

Actually, 2008 have higher FPS than vista x86/64, probably its just your drivers 😉
Maybe someone else should test the gameux patch on x64 and confirm if this is common issue, or its just you.

@itmaster68 wrote:

Has anyone else run into issues with .net errors when enableing wireless?

I noticed this issue too, its fixed in the current version im working on.

Also i uploaded the language file for the upcoming version 1.1 which will be included in the next version, if someone want to make translation, translate it and send it to my email.

[aviv00]

hello sawo

did u made any progress with offline image :)?
its will be on 1.1v or later ?

[itmaster68]

Thanks alot, i’ll be waiting… I appreciate all the work you’ve done and am throughly enjoying my w2k8 workstation

[sawo]

@aviv00 wrote:

hello sawo

did u made any progress with offline image :)?
its will be on 1.1v or later ?

Yes, but as i said before in the thread, it will be probably included in version 2.0, because i still have work on the current features and the offline image editor will be a major change to the entire app 🙂

[Qnkel]

I planned to make a similar tool for converting, but i hate to copy things and now i want to make this tool to the best.

I wrote you an PN because the translation.

My next idea is: At this time I collect all the vista files in german. So when you add language support, can you took all files in different folders or so on for the languages. So that on a german Workstation the people can install the german Gamecontroller Applet and so on?!

[stumped]

@sawo wrote:

@Marth wrote:

Thanks for this! Everything worked great on my 2008 64-bit install except the gamesux.dll install – I had to manually do the install on this one. Your app crashed and burned. everything else I tested worked.

Now if only 2008 didn’t have lower FPS in games compared to Vista Ultimate 64-bit 😉

Actually, 2008 have higher FPS than vista x86/64, probably its just your drivers 😉
Maybe someone else should test the gameux patch on x64 and confirm if this is common issue, or its just you.

i’m having the same problem with 2008 32-bit install.
unhandled exception, the target file “c:windowssystem32” is a directory, not a file. if ur interested i can post the details for it..?

[Beppe]

the game file installed fine for me. in vista x64 but isn’t it suppose to install it in system32 folder and the syswow64 folder as well? also the only thing that kept crashing on me was enabling wireless. anyways great work!

[impostor]

Solution for the problem with the registry key found:

Replace “Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00” with “REGEDIT 4”

the registry file is then mergeable…

[Kamika007z]

Hello All,

Thank you so much for this little utility.

I was wondering how to enable the Control Panel icon for the SideBar and found a way to show it via registry.

I have packed up both registry files in a zip file and would love to see this being encorporated into the utility.

Also, I run the 64 Bit Standard and at times, when you reboot the machine, the SideBar doesn’t always load. Does anyone have this issue and know a fix to it?

Thanks again,

-Kamika007z

[TeDeV]

can u plz check on the speech recognition? for 2008 64bit? i tried to make it work but it didn’t and i really need this to work. i copied the files, i run ur speech recognition file from the application but it is not working, i tried to download the sdk 5.2 version but still no luck. i am going crazy here. there is one guy who said that he fixed it, but he tried 300 things. if u can give us a full rar file with the speech files ready i would appreciate, so that we don’t have to make mistakes by transfering files from vista.

[insane_geek]

Thank you very much Sawo. I’m using Win Server 2008 on my lappy. Previously I
was unable to use my wireless internet modem (dialer program compatibility issues), but after applying your converter, I don’t know what happened but it started working ! Thank you again 😀

[Fullmetal99012]

the windows speech wont add all of the registry entries, it gives me an File In Use error for the registry keys, any way to install registry keys with full control?

[sawo]

So far i havent found or seen proper way to do this, sorry.

[JonusC]

We have the Vista logon screen working in both x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) versions of Server 2008 now, the solution is to use authui.dll from Vista without SP1, I don’t think there is any other way short of reverse engineering the existing Server 2008 authui.dll which is not very legal haha.

For more information on how I came to this, as well as my lengthy research/notes on our discovery here, check out the revelevent thread (from page four onwards) here on the forums. Link – viewtopic.php?f=11&t=296&start=30

Fancy putting it into the tool sawo? =D

[Russ_64]

Thanks for a great tool. Does 1.2 work on R2?

I never got Sidebar to run on Server 2008 but will try again when I install R2 ………..

[exaslave]

@Russ_64 wrote:

Thanks for a great tool. Does 1.2 work on R2?

most of it does, there’s some things that wont, in my case the “enable themes service” didnt work until the desktop experience was installed and the UxTheme patch didnt work either, also the “game controller option in control panel” does install however I cant see it in control panel but it is still available.

Never tried the sidebar option myself so i cant help you there.

[Kirill]

Hey Sawo!

I have mailed you because I´m going to translate your converter into Swedish but u haven´t reply back to me =/
So I´ll hope you are going to reply in here

And do you got the sourcecode for the app and will u release that to?

Cheers
Kirill from Sweden

[commodore]

Hi,

I registered on this forum only to do this post, to help others. I almost gave up getting speech recognition to work under Server 2008 but finally I nailed it.

Just running the program that merges the registry files and then copying the dll-files from a vista machine is not enough. As mentioned by this guy:
http://www.geekpedia.com/Thread16235_Windows-Server-2008-And-Speech-Recognition.html
you must also copy all CLSID-references. Now, on the contrary to his thoughts, I believe that the unique CLSID-guids are infact not machine-dependant. I’ve checked those on my Windows 7 Pro x64 machine and compared to a vista 32-machine and they seem identical.

This means that the total procedure to succeed is this:
* Run the Windows server 2008 workstation converter program (http://www.win2008workstation.com) and activate speech recognition.
* Follow the instructions and copy all required files from a vista-machine
* Now, all the copied dll-files must be registered in the registry. Here I found that
all the dll-files in the folder: C:WindowsSystem32SpeechSpeechUX can be registered
with the program regsvr32.exe. Simply do this in a command shell with admin rights:
– regsvr32.exe c:windowssystem32speechspeechuxSpeechUX.dll
– regsvr32.exe c:windowssystem32speechspeechuxspeechuxcpl.dll
– regsvr32.exe c:windowssystem32speechspeechuxSpeechUXPS.DLL
– regsvr32.exe c:windowssystem32speechspeechuxSPTIP.DLL
– regsvr32.exe c:windowssystem32speechspeechuxen-gbSpeechUXRes.dll
– regsvr32.exe c:windowssystem32speechspeechuxen-USSpeechUXRes.dll
(the latter is probably language dependant)
* Now, there are also some dll-files in C:WindowsSystem32SpeechEnginesSR that must be registered. Unfortunately, this didn’t work with regsvr32.exe for me. That is why I extracted out every occurance of the following dll files from a Win7 machine registry:
– C:WindowsSystem32SpeechEnginesSRspsreng.dll
– C:WindowsSystem32SpeechEnginesSRspsrx.dll
– C:WindowsSystem32SpeechEnginesSRsrloc.dll
This gave me 15 .reg-files for spsreng.dll, 10 .reg files for spsrx.dll and 40 .reg-files for srloc.dll. I attach these .reg-files in this post, because I believe they are not machine-dependant. Please note that I take NO responsibility of the consequences of using these.

Hope this sorts out some problems for some of you! I think these reg-files need to be merged in a new version of the converter utility!

Merry Christmas from Sweden!

[Arris]

@commodore wrote:

I registered on this forum only to do this post, to help others. I almost gave up getting speech recognition to work under Server 2008 but finally I nailed it.

Looks like you have put quite a lot of work into it! Nice job! 🙂 I hope these reg-keys help people to get the Speech Recognition in Windows Server 2008 fully working. 😎

For the lazy people that don’t want to click all .reg files manually: extract the commodore’s zip somewhere, cd to that folder using the command prompt and execute the following command:

for /F %i in ('dir /b /s *.reg') do @reg import "%i"

Merry Christmas! 😉

[asbtime]

Hello!

First of all, fantastic tool! Thank you!

I post here because I have a problem with the Speech Recognition, and maybe someone has encountered the problem before.

I’m trying to run Speech Recognition on a Windows Server 2008 R2 x64, but to no avail yet. There could however be some similarities to issues with Server 2008.

This is the error message I encounter when I try to start the recognition:

Speech Recognition could not start because the language configuration is not supported.
The recognizer language must match the language of the user interface. Please change the recognizer language in the Speech Recognition control panel under Advanced Options.

The strange thing is: setting up microphone as well as the training of the speech recognition work without problem (so the recognition works somehow). Moreover, the UI language as well as the locale is set to English/US.
Switching recognizer language or using a German language pack with German recognizer produce the same error.

When I click on “Start Speech Recognition”, the small speech recognition window at the top of the screen is visibile, states “Starting Speech Recognition”, and shortly afterwards the error message appears.

An audio device is online and fully working.

This is what I have done (with the help of the above posts of commodore and Arris, thanks!):

1. Copied Speech files from Windows 7 x64 (also tried Vista x64, same result)
2. Run the Windows Server 2008 Workstation Converter
3. Copied all the CLSIDs from a working Windows 7 client. Cross-checked every occurance afterwards.
   On a side note: not all .dll were registerable with regsvr32.exe, such as SpeechUX.dll and SPTIP.dll. Therefore I copied the registry CLSIDs from Win7.

I tried this all twice, on a fresh install. Analysing ProcessMonitor output from the not-working server and a working Windows 7 brought no usable results.

I would be really happy if some could help me with this issue. I would really appreciate it.

Thank you!

[commodore]

I have to confess something. I have not tried my solution all the way… I checked some sample program included in the SDK and that one reports a successfull creation of the engine and loading of the grammar. Also, the setup Wizard launches successfully and the configuration dialogs in the control panel are there. This made me confident that it now should work.

Unfortunately I did all this through remote desktop and VNC, some 200km from the physical server, which means I haven’t yet managed to go through the complete wizard and test the recognition code with an actual microphone.

I’ll of course try this asap, when I get access to the server (returning back home from the holidays). Most probably in the end of this week or in the beginning of next week.

I’ll keep you updated. Meanwhile, some questions:
asbtime: What language is your 2008? I’m running an english version. Also, I don’t know if R2 makes any difference, but I’m running the original version.

Also, you could try to regsvr32 every single dll that you find in c:windowsspeech and c:windowssystem32speech and their subfolders which is not yet in the registry. Also see if you can cross-check every occurance of not only those dll’s that are in my reg files, but all the others as well.

Finally, you could perhaps get something out of a google of the error message. This actually shows that many users on vista and win7 are having the same issue. The first hits:
http://www.sevenforums.com/sound-audio/3422-speech-recognition-error.html
http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/forums/windows-vista/i-get-error-speech-recognition-could-not-start-because-thelanguage-configuration-254882.html

Good luck!

edit: Also try running the sample from the latest Windows SDK v7.0. On my machine it’s in:
C:Program FilesMicrosoft SDKsWindowsv7.0Sampleswinuispeechcsspeechrecognition
compile and run this. This is the one I’m testing with.

[asbtime]

Hello!

I found a solution which satisfies my needs. As you pointed out, the speech recognition engine can be created without problems by self-coded programs using the SDK/.NET. That’s what I’m mainly interested in.

So far, everything works flawlessly, except when starting the Speech Recognition UI. However, for me, this is not important.

@commodore: I’m running an English version, with an additional German language pack. I can successfully switch to either language with UI and speech recognition. R2 doesn’t seem to make any difference.

Thanks a lot for your help and efforts! It saved me really a lot of time of experimenting (eg. regsvr32 -> less CLSID copying).

Unfortunately, I have no ultimate solution for anybody who wants to use the recognition UI.
I found no way to solve the “language configuration” error message.

I found some extra info, though:

The above procedure only works for applications running in x64 mode. If you want to utilize speech recognition in applications running in x32 mode, you need to copy a few files/entries from a Vista/7 x64. Otherwise you would receive a ComException like this:

Creating an instance of the COM component with CLSID {} from the IClassFactory failed due to the following error: 80004005.

The files/entries to copy are the following:

• %windir%SysWOW64Speech
• HKLMSoftwareWow6432NodeClasses (Here again, all references with “Speech” or above mentioned *.dlls of the speech recognition)
• HKLMSoftwareWow6432NodeMicrosoftSpeech

Thanks again – my problem is solved!
– asbtime

[toriless]

You should add “Enable Hardware Acceleration” for the Video adapter. It’s OFF by default.

[Roro7302]

A version for Windows Server 2008 R2 will be created?
Sorry for my English, I’m French and I use Google Translation 😆

[Author]

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