MDOP 2008 Available for download for Open Licensing Clients

This update must have appeared relatively recently, as we did not see it until we logged in today:

MDOP 2008 Download

The big thing for us and what was our current Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2007 edition was the discovery of not being able to work with a Windows Vista installation that had a lost local admin password. The user had set things up so that once they were configured they did not need the admin account for any changes.

Booting to ERD Commander 2005 (a part of MDOP 2007) to change that admin password led us to the message that ERD Commander could not find any supported operating systems!

The MDOP 2008 download is a compressed file that upon extraction we could see:

ERD Commander 2005 plus two new files for 2008

Prior to running the Recovery Tools setup, the following files will be needed:

• Install Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit Version
• Install Debugging Tools for Windows 64-bit Version (note Itanium version too)
• Download Windows Symbol Packages (if required)
• Debugging Tools for Windows - Overview page

We ran the x64 version of the MSI file as this workstation is running Windows Vista x64.

Here are some highlights from the install routine:

1. A Windows Vista DVD will be required to create the image:


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  Vista DVD required. ISO will not work.

2. Note that if the ERD setup is being run on x64 architecture, then the DVD for the image must also be an x64 based Vista OS.


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3. The setup will ask which tools need to be installed onto the bootable disk, we left the default which was the complete set.
4. Setup will ask for the Windows Debugging tools. Note the default folder location setup requests:


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5. Once the above files have been downloaded and installed, the folder location will actually look like this:


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6. The Standalone System Sweeper will request a definition download which we allowed. Note that the download may take a few minutes.
7. We are then presented with a request for additional drivers to be installed into the WinPE environment:


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8. Because we work primarily with Intel products, we made sure all of the regularly used RAID and NIC drivers were extracted and ready to install:


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9. We are then presented with the opportunity to add any additional files and folders that will be accessible once we boot to WinPE:


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10. Remember that any additional drivers and utilities that would be made available must be in the x64 flavour to work. We have a couple of bootable flash drives, one for x86 and one for x64 WinPE. We use them to install our lab images onto our lab systems. So, we pulled some of the necessary utilities from them to this WinPE setup too.
11. The ISO image will be generated to a folder we select.
12. Once the ISO image has been completed, we are presented with the option to burn it to a DVD.

The ERD Commander utility has more than paid for our Windows Vista Software Assurance. It provides us with a simple way to get into any system, whether DC, domain member, or standalone, to change the admin password. Thus we do not have to go through the pain of trying to figure out the plethora of other "admin password change solutions" out there.

There are also a huge number of additional utilities included with Windows Vista Software Assurance. It is well worth the expense.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

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