Category Archives: Microsoft

Computers, Downtime, General, Microsoft, Random Thoughts

The price of convenience…

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Well, as the title states, this post is about conveniences of sorts. What conveniences am I talking about? The computer kind of course 🙂 Essentially, the file/web server server and power to get more specific. I may have mentioned a few times here and there about moving this to another server, or etc…and I have done it several time. Just trying to save me some money, but in the end I spend more.

Currently, as I pointed out most likely a bunch of times, this server is a VM off a pretty decent (at the time anyway) quad core AMD CPU and using VMware as a type two hypervisor (in Windows). The system runs fine, and in fact I just upgraded it in some aspects. However the main issue are two fold:

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1) Performance
This system may have been great in ~2009 and it still is in some cases. Currently its on a AMD Phenom II X4 955 with 16GB of RAM. I wish I can extended the memory more, however with 16GB its max limit – I am stuck. When I try to launch another VM, I have to be sure I have enough of resources or else the system will get really bogged down and barely respond. Worse case, I need to shutdown this site and bring it back up when done (which is why there is frequent downtime at around midnight or so).

2) Price
So what does this have to do with price? You may ask yourself, well he has the hardware and the software – so whats the issue? Those questions are valid, but I have to explain some. Right now in the North East USA, it is starting to become spring and then summer (like you knew already). The problem is AC cost and power.

The price of the computer alone, without AC is around $30-$35 a month. With AC, cause you can’t leave your electronics toasty, it goes up a bunch more. In the end it still maybe cheaper than say renting out a server from a dedicate server farm, or even a VPS though.
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The bad thing about this…if I want to save money, I need to spend money. Which bring me back to the title of this post – “The price of convenience…”. Sometime ago I was going to get myself one of those RAID systems in a box. I just didn’t like how it sat in my mind though – using a non-open sourced OS (in some cases) and low-end hardware. Granted it doesn’t take much to run a file server, but a file plus a VM server – IMHO requires a decent box, which is why this system is still running to this day.

I just need to think about this and maybe someone could offer a suggestion or two. Till then – good night and hopefully we get no more snow… 🙁

Microsoft

Windows 8 Release Preview

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Windows 8 RP is now live.

Here is the link to the ISO files: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

64-bit (x64) (3.3 GB) Sha 1 hash — 0xD76AD96773615E8C504F63564AF749469CFCCD57

32-bit (x86) (2.5 GB) Sha 1 hash — 0x8BED436F0959E7120A44BF7C29FF0AA962BDEFC9

Windows 8 RP Setup: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download

Enjoy!

Microsoft

Windows 8 CP

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Looks like Windows 8 CP is finally out.
Here are the links to get it (thank you to Neowin.net for the links):

Windows Consumer Preview site: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

Windows Preview site: http://preview.windows.com

TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/us-en/evalcenter/default.aspx

Windows 8 CP Other languages: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

Windows 8 CP Admin Tools: https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/search.aspx?q=windows+8+consumer+preview

Windows 8 CP x64 (3.3 GB)
Sha 1 hash — 1288519C5035BCAC83CBFA23A33038CCF5522749

Windows 8 CP x86 (2.5 GB)
Sha 1 hash — E91ED665B01A46F4344C36D9D88C8BF78E9A1B39

Product Key: DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J

Microsoft

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 now out…

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Just to let everyone know that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 are now out and you can get them from the following links:

Download SP1 RTM EXE (32-bit) (537.809 MB)

Download SP1 RTM EXE (64-bit) (903.196 MB)

Download SP1 RTM ISO (32-bit & 64-bit) (1953.3 MB)

Thanks to askvg.com for getting those links. Also, I have them over at mirror.jmckee.net as well if anyone is interested.

Microsoft

Bootable Vista/Win 7 USB drive

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I was looking for a way to install Windows 7 on my netbook since it never came with a CD/DVD drive. So instead of buying a drive, I looked online and found a nice article here.

It surprised me to find that there are very few dead-simple guides to creating a bootable USB thumb/pen/flash drive for a Vista and/or Windows 7 installation. I cobbled together the following from VistaPCGuy and another source I don’t remember right now.

This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it.

Required:

* USB Flash Drive (4GB+)
* Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7)
* A computer running Vista / Windows 7

Step 1: Format the Drive
The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]

1. Plug in your USB Flash Drive
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
3. Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
diskpart
list disk
The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step. I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1.
4. Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “1” with the number of your disk below.
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1. Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
2. Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
d:
cd d:\boot
3. Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
bootsect /nt60 g:
4. You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive. After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option.

I used these instructions to get my new Dell Mini 9 laptop loaded with Windows 7 (the PDC bits). HTH.