[halladayrules]

The solution is actually quite simple, but not exactly legal.

I have this loader which allows me to install an OEM:SLP of a Windows 7 Ultimate installation. Upon reboot my machine becomes Windows 7 essentially. I cannot run any server roles or features such as Windows Server Backup. When I do I am greeted with “Block Level Backup Engine cannot run on Windows client operating system.” The advantages of this is that practically any Windows 7 capable application now installs on my machine. AVG 2012 works, Avira, avast, (any AV)… I am just left with malformed server functionality. My installed server features work fine for the most part (outside Windows Server Backup), so I don’t find that to be a problem. If I ever need to use any server-specific features I have a loader that installs a SERVERSTANDARD key and reverts my machine back to a full 100% server again.

The software to convert from R2 to 7 is called Windows 7 Loader eXtreme Edition v3 (beta)
The software to convert from 7 back to R2 is called Windows Loader v1.9.3 by Daz

Doing this process will allow you to install any application designed for Windows 7 on your R2 machine, making compatibility virtually 99.9%.

This process is very similar to the old “tokens.dat” trick in the Vista/2008 days, where we had a vista-glorified 2008 server with limited server functionality. You cannot do much server stuff, and the funny thing is you will begin to get updates for Windows 7, so if you need to update your R2 machine with R2-specific updates then you need to revert. For the most part the updates for R2 and 7 are the same since the kernels are the same.

[halladayrules]

@Enigma wrote:

I’m just not getting how i can do daily backups of both Win and Linux plus bootloader is all……..

I see. Windows does not recognize the filesystem of Linux at all, unless its set to FAT, so if it was possible to back up both you’d have to do it in Linux. If you wanted to create a imaged-based backup of your Windows machine you most likely have to do it in Windows. However for File Backups in Linux you might be able to manually select your Windows Folder by specifiying the full path in the Linux Utility.

Say for example: /dev/sda1 is your Linux Partition]
/dev/sdb1 is your Windows Partition

You might navigate to /dev/sdb1/local disk c/Users/Enigma/Documents to backup the Documents folder… and so forth.

Because file structure of both OS are unique you are probably better off finding a package specificially for Linux and a separate package unique for Windows and backing them up to the same destination (different HDD, external HDD, network share, etc). Especially if you involve any registry settings I would highly recommend it this way.

Windows stores configuration files about settings, applications, etc. in the registry.
Linux stores all its configuration files in text files in mostly /etc.

[halladayrules]

SyncBack is a really simple to use freeware with a GUI that supports scheduled file backups as well as synchronization. With synchronization, you could backup a folder to say your external drive and the directory structure would always mirror the backup location you selected. So if you have File A, File B and File C on your internal, you would see File A, File B, and File C on your external. The minute you delete File C, you will see File A and File B on internal, and File A and File B on external. It’s like mirroring a drive…without the RAID. As usual (like many other file backup utilities) it supports the ability to restore files from your backup.

[halladayrules]

Try copying/accessing files on your external HDD on another physical computer to pinpoint if the problem is really software or hardware related. If it acts strangely no matter what computer you plug it into, all the policies/tweaks in the world can’t save you.

Did you try changing the drive letter assignment on the external HDD in Computer Management?

Try a different USB port possibly when you yanked out the cable accidently you damaged the port?

If possible try a different cable for external HDD.

When diagnosing hardware-related issues its best to eliminate as many obstructions as possible. For example if you have software that monitors the health of your disk like Acronis, you should disable it (and its services) in MSCONFIG. It could possibly be interfering.

Also try changing the drive to “Optimize for performance” in Device Manager. Open Device Manager, navigate to Disk Drives, select your External HDD, click on Policy tab…and then change to “Optimize for performance” .

Hopefully some of the above suggestions will lead you in right direction.

[halladayrules]

Clonezilla is a nice open source solution very similar to Norton Ghost.

To disable server manager – Open Server Manager. Scroll down to where you see stuff like “Remote Desktop” “Server Manager Remote Management” “Product ID”… right above Security Informatoin…you will see a box called “Do not show me this console at logon” Check that.

[halladayrules]

HP dockingstation software uses DisplayLink I believe. Download the driver from them I believe its the same thing as downloading the “HP version” of the driver. I’m not entirely sure though but the by the looks of things that should work. I tried installation on server and it worked fine.

http://www.displaylink.com/support/downloads.php

[halladayrules]

Silverlight crashed on me a few times when I was wanting to view some screenshots/previews of Microsoft Flight. I switched to the developer runtime and it fixed my issue. It might yours:

Download here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=146060

[halladayrules]

Battlefield 3 Open Beta works fine.

[halladayrules]

You can give the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit a go, but u’ll have to figure out how to use it and I don’t feel like explaining it.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=7352

You might be able to force the program to run under standard user privileges by issuing the RunAsInvoker registry value, though I am not sure Windows will automate the process for you (thats what the MAC toolkit is for).

1. Open up registry and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindows
NTCurrentVersionAppCompatFlagsLayers

2. Create a string value and name it the full path to your Naturally Speaking Software…

C:Program Files (x86)DragonNaturallySpeakingNaturallySpeaking.exe (whatever it is)

3. Double click on the newly named file and give it a value of RUNASINVOKER

4. Refresh registry to apply changes.

Try to run your program again and see if the same message is prompted.

Make sure UAC is disabled as well because UAC might be forcibly causing the app to run in privileged mode.

[halladayrules]

@Enigma wrote:

But I have heard that Hyper-V is one of the best things about 2008 R2 from a few other ppl from are currently running it as their main OS. I asked them and they said that they are not members of this forum/site and in fact have never heard of it. All of them have jobs in the IT sector.

The hypervisor in Hyper-V by design is very secure. Hyper-V is not monolithic which means the hardware device drivers do not directly communicate with the guest VMs. All the requests instead are made on behalf of a virtual bus (VMBus) that goes out to the physical machine and makes the request on behalf. This process makes Hyper-V very secure but you pay a price for 3D performance. This is the one of the main reasons why running Hyper-V as a workstation is not a great idea. This overhead causes a performance degradation of your UI. Things are less snappier, FPS in games decrease, etc.

This problem is even documented by Microsoft themselves.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961661

@Enigma wrote:

In your post you also state that Hyper-V has known incompatibility issues with the ITB and 3D graphics rendering. Can you provide documentation (hyperlinks) that back this up (especially the 1st comment)? Not saying I dont believe you, I just would like to read up on it. Tried searching Google but nothing specific there.

Check out user b0w_bender:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/Blue-screen-with-Hyper-v-on-T410/td-p/235107

This forum documents an issue with Turbo Boost directly with Hyper-V.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project_programmability/archive/2010/07/16/does-your-demo-laptop-with-intel-core-i3-i5-i7-cpu-bluescreens.aspx

The forum user suggests disabling virtualization in your BIOS and then installing SP1, then turning Turbo Boost + virtualization back on once SP1 is installed. But I think you already have SP1 installed so it doesn’t seem that this fixes the problem?!

@Enigma wrote:

What is the difference between the Hyper-V Role and the Hyper-V Feature? seems kinda redundant to me…………….

I think maybe you mean Hyper-V Server vs. Hyper-V role. Simply Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Server contains JUST hyper-V and thats it. Very small footprint…used for virtualization purposes only. Hyper-V role is included in the suite of additional 2008 r2 roles/features (DHCP,DNS, Active Directory, FTP, DirectAccess,etc). Hyper-V Server cannot be used as a workstation so its irrelevant to you. If you are interested in Hyper-V I would suggest looking into putting it on a portable USB drive. It’s a bit tedious but it can be done. Requires some technical knowledge though, so KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!

http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/BootHVSR2FromUSB

@Enigma wrote:

Would also like to get your take on Windows 8 Server/ Windows Server 8. has microsoft officially named it yet? how similiar/different will it be to Win8? I’ve tried the Win8 developers preview in a VM, it’s ok but needs alot of impovement before MS unleashes it upon the masses. I have heard that the Server version of 8 will include Hyper-V.

I was able to snag a copy of the windows 8 server developer preview and I tried it out in a dual boot on my laptop, but I was not impressed at all with it. It is not really a fair assessment right now but thats because the current build is very buggy, so I am going to hold off on my initial “true” reponse until ATLEAST it hits beta…even then my real judgement won’t come until the RTM of Windows 8 Server.

On the contrary, Hyper-V will be available on the home editions of Windows 8 (though not sure if just professional + ultimate editions) making the first time Hyper-V is available on client and server.

@Enigma wrote:

And the last thing i’d like to mention is that I feel i shouldnt have to do all this tinkering and modding etc just to get features like Bluetooth working correctly, whereas in 7 they work out of the box without all the extra effort. On the other hand doing such things are part of the joy of being a true hacker (NOT cracker!), they love to fix stuff. Thats part of the reason why i’ve been test-drive Linux and FreeBSD. Do you have any experience with either?

No experience with FreeBSD, but I hear its very secure.
I’ve played around on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Backtrack 5, OpenSUSE. Linux dominates the market share of web servers and the community is growing…i wouldn’t be surprised if they own a 10% market share in desktops by 2016. They used to dominate the netbook industry and some OEMs use a variant of the Linux kernel for their “Instant-on” technology which ultimately is based on Splashtop.

As Mark Russinovich has pointed out several times before the kernel differences of NT between Windows Server and its desktop counterpart are minimal. The difference you see is not the kernel itself, but rather the features that Microsoft restricts. For example Windows Server 2008 R2 standard is limited to only 50 RRAS connections while Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise is unlimited. The function of both behaves precisely the same. Both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are essentially derived from the MinWin kernel.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-minwin-is-in-windows-7-after-all/1690

This idea of compartmentalizing all your functions was introduced in Windows Server 2008. As a matter of fact you might be surprised to hear that Windows 7 is basically an evolution of Windows Server 2008, which in turn is an evolution of the previous Vista kernel.

http://www.tgdaily.com/software-features/37639-no-completely-new-kernel-in-windows-7-microsoft-says

The revamped Vista kernel that you see today is what people like to call “Windows 7”. Yes, Windows 7 is pretty much Vista 2.0. It is not a completely new kernel. If you notice, Windows Server 2008 R2 is a “minor” release which lead me to believe that we had to wait until Windows 8 to see a completely new kernel… and chances are we probably will…but I think it will most likely be an evolution of Windows 7/R2 kernel due to the hardware requirements Microsoft is pushing out due to its support for ARM processors now.

The purpose of running a Server operating system all boils down to practicality. Some convincing reasons to use Windows Server as a desktop include:

1. Security hardening
2. Minimalist by design
3. More management capabilities
4. Low hardware requirements
5. Small initial footprint
6. Remote Access capabilities
7. Simplified Backup Solution
8. High application/driver compatibility w/ 7
9. Centralized monitoring
10. Application/software control
11. Resource Allocation
12. SharePoint development
13. Virtualization
14. Advanced file sharing

I like having better control over my OS and I have never really cared to use any of the media features available in 7 (Homegroup, Media Center, etc). Compatibility is not an issue for the most part because I have a dual boot of Windows 7 to combat this problem. The point I am trying to make is you shouldn’t run Windows Server because its more light or because its free and you can “hack it”.. those are just some of the common logical fallacies I have heard.

“I run Windows Server because its light”

So what I could easily configure Tiny7 on my laptop with twice the less footprint of Windows Server.

If bluetooth compatibility is a must for you and you cannot find a proper way to get it to work on Windows Server then Windows Server is not the OS for you. I have segregated my partitions into functionality and not because I want to run Windows Server as a true desktop replacement. It will never be a true desktop replacement that it just foolish talk.

My 250GB HDD is partitioned as followed

1. 50GB Windows 7
Functions include:
Media functionality
Gaming functionality
Application compatibility (for those few apps that don’t work in server)

2. 200GB Windows Server 2008 R2
Functions include:
Running FTP Server
Remote Access capabilities
Virtualization/VM testing or production
“General Purpose OS”
Office productivity
General media playback (listen to songs, movies, etc)

So if I ever wanted to play video games I would reboot my machine and play on Windows 7 and if i ever wanted to test VMs I would boot into Windows Server. I wanted to make Windows 7 really light on resources and make it strictly my “gaming OS” so that way I could benefit the most out of it due to no extra services running. I don’t have any AV on 7 because I have disabled networking on 7… i copy all my ISOs and gamedata from server (where I downloaded all the games from) … and then simply offline install them onto my 7 partition. I don’t game very much so 90% of the time I am on Windows Server. As you have said you will undoubtedly run into compatability issues at one point or another (in your example with the Intel Turbo Boost monitor) so it might be wise to allocate your functionality (media, gaming on 7, general purpose on R2,etc)… to suit your needs. The performance increase you have seen as a result of running R2 is rather misleading.The performance benefit you see is most likely the direct cause of lowered resource consumption. A base Windows 7 Ultimate installation has over 40 services installed than a base Windows Server 2008 R2 installation. Even if Desktop Experience, .NET Framework 3.5, and Wireless LAN roles installed my laptop running R2 uses roughly 250MB less than its Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate counterpart. Also the behavior of the Disk I/O is designed differently in Server I believe which makes disk responsive behavior a little more responsive in R2 over 7… I have ran benchmarks of disk tests on 7 vs R2 and occasionally I do see a slight advantage toward R2. Theoretically I should not see a difference but ultimately I think this has to due with resource consumption than anything else.

@Enigma wrote:

Lastly,what is the main difference between 7 enterprise and 2008 r2? at first glance them seem very similiar. Which purposes are each best suited to?

Mostly you have to think of it from a client/server perspective. Windows 7 enterprise is optimized for a corporate environment. It has the ability to join a domain, connect to a DirectAccess server, enforce local policies (more so than Windows 7 home premium), BranchCache, BitLocker, ability to connect to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), as well as the string of media features you find in home edition of Windows 7. Pretty much in a nutshell Windows 7 enterprise has Windows 7 Home Premium features + enterprise-level functions…hence why it cost so much and you can only activate it via MAK or volume licensing. Keep in mind that all the corporate functions of 7 are purely client-side. You cannot become a domain, you can only join one. You cannot become a VDI you can only join one and so forth. As i said it all boils down to functionality.

[halladayrules]

Hyper-V has known compatibility issues with Intel Turbo Boost as well as performance issues with 3D graphics rendering when the role is installed. Installing Hyper-V will almost certainly slow down your machine to a crawl not to mention there are far better alternatives out there (VMWare Player, VMWare Workstation, or VirtualBox). Uninstall that POS Hyper-V and get a better solution.

Here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HDJ2P3TC

[halladayrules]

Disabling DEP will resolve your issue.

1. Start
2. Right-click Computer and choose Properites
3. Click Advanced System Settings
4. Click Settings… under Performance
5. Click Data Execution Prevention tab
6. Click Add…
7. Navigate to C:Program Files (x86)Lucas ArtsStar Wars JK II Jedi OutcastGameData
8. Click on jk2mp.exe to add it.
9. Click apply and close out of everything.

Launch “Play Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast” on Start Menu. When program opens, choose Multiplayer. It should now launch.

Proof of Screenshot:

[attachment=0:309xgiz1]starwars-outcast-mp.jpg[/attachment:309xgiz1]

[halladayrules]

LOL Sorry I couldn’t resist.

[youtube:31fzsaca]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yImkcG7IQeg[/youtube:31fzsaca]

[halladayrules]

Answer yes or no to following questions in reply.

1. In your Advanced System Setttings, is your processor allocating resources to Programs (not Background Services)?

2. Do you have the catalyst control center installed as well as the base display driver for your 4870?

3. Is your monitor running in a larger DPI (125%, 150%?)

4. Is Hyper-V role installed?

5. Is hardware acceleration on? (Right-click desktop, choose Screen Resolution. Click Advanced Settings. Click Troubleshoot tab. If the option is grayed out then its on. If it gives you an option to change it, check to see if its on full.)

6. Are you using the most up-to-date graphics driver?

7. Have you installed your motherboards chipset drivers? Does it work?

8. Did you save a lot of money on your car insurance by switching to Geico?

[halladayrules]

1. Try starting the Windows Installer service before beginning installation and see if that fixes problem. I’ve ran into that occasionally when Windows Installer is running in manual mode and the installation doesn’t always start the Windows Installer service for you. Don’t ask me why, i’ve just noticed it happen to me from time to time.

2. Install the latest possible chipset drivers for your MOBO (not the ones on the CD)so that your board can effectively communicate with your wireless USB bluetooth device. Your chipset may have driver support that includes your intel PROset bluetooth device and thus why its not working. I doubt this is the solution but its worth a quick fix if it does work.

3. Try installing the package as an “unsigned driver”. Restart your PC and continously hit F8 until you see advanced boot options, next choose “Disable Driver Signature Enforcement”

You might need to find a way to unpack that installation file and trick it into thinking your run 7…I’ve noticed a lot of Intel software packages hate R2. Example…Intel Desktop Control Center.

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