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Wow ExpertUser, you’re amazing already getting a jump on this. My pet wish for the Server 8 Converter would be some way to enable the Start Menu/Button that works like 7 or XP, and then Metro is launched as an application (the way it should be on a Workstation IMHO). I have read that someone was hacking around in one of the earlier Windows 8 Beta’s explorer.exe and some of the DLL it uses with a Hex Editor and found he could enable a functional Start Menu — but that it was not stable.
This is probably going to be very impractical or a kludge that requires a second ‘fake’ application running some sort of ‘Start Button’ application like Start Menu XP, a cheap hack like this one on HTG… The best solution IMHO would be a really ambitious project like free open source project Classic Shell — which may even work as Server 8’s shell, but I haven’t had the time to try it…
I miss your Cat picture btw.
:ugeek:
@halladayrules wrote:
The Linux community is great. I found a lot of my solutions by simply using the built-in irc called XChat in Mint.
Agree, but there are sooo many Linux IRC channels: in fact I think Linux Users, Developers and Admins compose the bulk of IRC Users now on most IRC servers. The problem is while there are often many willingly helpful people, too often they really don’t have enough core competence in Linux internals to offer the best solution or even understand what they’re explaining as they only have proceedural knowledge…
Then there are the truly capable and knowedgable that often don’t have the time and patience to articulte in any more detail then the bevity typical of Linux documentation; so when I’ve gone looking for an explination in terms of understanding I still often come up short, turning the understanding of what should be a simple reference matter into long and circuitous research project.
Unfortunately, I’m not a Fan of the Mint distro, so that sort of limits what that distro’s venus have to offer… I’d love to find a Linux forum, or heck even IRC channel though like this friendly one for Windows Server that covered the range of talent, enthusiasm, knowledge and good will represented here…
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Glad ya haven’t given up the ship! For me Windows Sever 2003 has been the ‘go to‘ OS out of the 1,100 or so in my collection for reliability, compatibility and robustness — with Windows Server 2008 R2 running a very close second for just getting things done (with your, Arris’s and ExpertUser’s help)…
For good or bad I can’t imagine a high utility machine without a Microsoft Sever OS as a boot option (though the Microsoft’s embedded products have gotten really good too and play nice on the weird hardware platforms I experiment with). Have you found any really nice Linux forums, or other venues that are especially helpfull?
:geek:
Aww, I missed this post! And I’ll miss your helpful and insightful posts here halldayrules! I well understand the appeal of Linux though; I’ve collected operating sytems for over 30 years, and a lot of the adventure and exploration of the OS as frontier is sadly marginalized.
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Let us know if you find a Linux Venue (forum or channel) that you feel supports the OS the way win2000workstation.com has for Microsoft Server OS so we can find ya!
I personally don’t feel either of the monolithic operating systems fulfil all the fun areas of interest one can enjoy and explore, and strongly vet OSNews to anyone interested in looking outside the box…
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Hi runeazn, if you haven’t already discovered it for yourself there’s a comparitor widget on Microsoft’s site here (use the right panel to navigate options); but the Comparison By Technical Specification Grid is probably what you’re looking for.
Service are pretty uniform across all editions of Server 2008 R2, some will have a few additional services to support specific features, but it’s essentially the same OS regardless of edtion; so any tweaks you you choose will work regardless of edition…
:geek:
Just a short adendum to the IE8 x86/x64 saga; the only limitation I’m aware of in running with x64 as the main browser you link on your desktop or make convenient by placeing a shortcut where ever your particular desktop setup preferences have you putting it, is to get Flash to work you need to install the 64-Bit Flash Beta…
There may be other limitations and compatibility issues when using IE8 x64, though I’ve never experienced any, and as far as I can tell the 64-Bit Flash Beta is well behaved, but I’m hardly the acid test for browser prowess and robustness…
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Yup, works a charm!
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Just a ‘heads-up‘: the IE8 on desktp reg file above will launch the x64 iteration of IE8, you need to edit it if you want to launch the x86 iteration…
:geek:
That’s brilliant Arris! How ever do you discover or sort this out? Just looking at the keys you have there I can understand how some of it works, but not the context menu etc.
Would it be possible to do this with the other default desktop icons you get with Desktop Experience like:
· Computer
· Network
· Control Panel
· Your Root Account DirectoryWithout installing Desktop Experience?
:geek:
Ah, I reread Arris’s post and it looks like perhaps the mui is required for getting the shell integration with the control panel to work… Unfortunately for reasons I can’t uncover “rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL appwiz.cpl,,2” did not add this to my control panel link… Still the exe works so I’m a happy camper, but a curious one…
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Yes, I quite know that, thank you… Perhaps I didn’t make that part of my post clear; why does Arris include the English “OptionalFeatures.exe.mui” with his little download, when OptionalFeatures.exe doesn’t need it for English? All the menus present properly in English without it… Or, does the English “*.mui” have to be present for other languages to work? Similarly why all the launch options?
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This has been one of my favorite Arris tweak/tips; as it lets you uninstall and selectively install with more granularity the Server Manager. I’m curious though Arris (or perhaps halladayrules knows); why you include “OptionalFeatures.exe.mui“? It doesn’t seem to be needed by the “OptionalFeatures.exe” in any way I can discern… And why the elaborate launch method, when just running the exe directly or with a shortcut appears to work just as well?
I’m assuming there’s something I’ve missed here, but just dropping “OptionalFeatures.exe” in “%SystemRoot%System32” directory and running it seems to work fine. The Windows 7 help file is still installed for “OptionalFeatures.exe” in Server 2008 R2 which strikes me as kind of funny/odd…
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Lastly, might anyone know where “OptionalFeatures.exe” reads it’s on/off or install/remove information from? Perhaps from .inf files or script somewhere? I’m thinking that still other features, components, and sub-systems might possibly be added to this dialog, similarly to what you could do with some simple ;hide; edits and feature additions to the Server 2003 “sysoc.inf” script for it’s Add/Remove Programs dialog…
:geek:
I haven’t really been following ‘what’s in SP1‘ — are there any new features in SP1 ExpertUser or is this more like one of Mirosoft’s update ‘roll-ups‘?
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Interesting, and thank you for posting halladayrules! While I did see a sort of (pretty ragged really) gradual slow down for about the first 20 minutes with my minimal service complement, it stayed at about 50 w/m for two hours at which point I gave up; perhaps this is hardware/driver specific…
Regardless, I found an interesting solution for SSD users that want to minimize writes to disk in the 64-bit edition of the Windows 7 Embedded Demo in the form of the Enhanced Write Filter.
It was a bit of a trick to port and install on Server 2008 R2, but I did get it to work, and as it caches all writes to RAM, it even offers some performance (and security) enhancemnt on HD systems. Pretty nifty driver/feature Microsoft has made with this as it can be disabled live flusing any changes to disk, and then reset at boot.
:ugeek:
Yes, the NT 6.1 event system is somewhat FUBAR; ie. it doesn’t appear to behave at the kernel level the way Mark Russinovich describes. Disabling the Windows Event Log Service does not stop disk writes as the NT Kernel still attempts to write events, and though no event is stored, a disk write still takes place… I thought if the proper interface were used and logging were halted with /e:false in UNIX fashion this would stop, but this doesn’t appear to work either…
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