How to Use Microsoft Ready-Made VM Images for VMware and VBox

Microsoft Officially Offering Ready-Made VirtualBox And VMWare Images

Microsoft Offering ready made pre-installed windows operating system to test Internet Explorer  , virtual machine images are available for windows ,mac and linux virtualization solutions , for cross browser testing , so you can test your site in different operating systems .

IE versions being offered are:

• IE7 on Vista
• IE8 on Windows 7
• IE9 on Windows 7
• IE10 on Windows 8

Offered  VMs that will run on:

• Windows
• OSX
• Linux

The VM software choices are specific to the OS you choose:

• Windows – Hyper-V, Virtual PC, VirtualBox & VMWare Player
• OSX- VirtualBox & VMWare Fusion
• Linux – VirtualBox

Cross-browser testing
simplified

You have to just download and open vbox files with virtualbox or vmx files with vmware and you will get all pre-installed windows operating system , and you are good to go ,
there is pre-installed windows 8 virtual image if you want to test drive windows 8 🙂

How to Install virtual images :

1. Download Virtual Images
2. extract it somehwhere
3. open vmware player or workstation
4. click on file >> open
5. locate  ” somefile”.vmx
6. it will load up virtual image component

How to install Windows 7 from a USB - part 1

So after reading our review of Windows 7, you’re ready to take the plunge and upgrade to Microsoft's new OS. You’ve read our upgrade guide, decided whether you want 32- or 64-bit Windows 7, and bought your retail box. But what if you want to install Windows 7 on a netbook or other computer without an optical drive?

Fortunately, you’re not out of luck, because Windows 7 (and Vista, for that matter) can be installed from a USB storage key. Not only does installing from a USB key remove the need for a DVD drive, the install time is also greatly reduced – we shaved off minutes from the total install time. Our step-by-step guide will have you rocking the new version of Windows in no time!

Note: This guide will only work within Windows Vista or 7.

Time = 1 hour

What you need:

• 4GB USB key
  $10, www.newegg.com
• WinRAR
  Free Evaluation Copy, www.rarlab.com
• Windows 7
  $99 (OEM)

1.    Format Your USB Key

Plug in your USB key and back up any existing data stored on it. You’ll need to format the key before you can make it a bootable device.

Open up a Command Prompt as an Administrator. You can do this by finding the cmd.exe in yoru Windows/System32 folder, right-clicking the executable, and selecting “Run as Administrator”. Alternatively, type CMD in the Start Menu search field and activate the Command Prompt using Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

You should be under c:\Windows\system32 (assuming your Windows partition is the C drive). Type “diskpart” in the command line to enter the Disk Partition command line tool, which lets you format and create partitions on active disks.

Type “list disk” to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity. In our screenshot below, our USB drive is Disk 6 (8GB).

Next, type the following commands, one at a time:
Select Disk # (Where # is the number of your USB disk. We typed “Select Disk 6”)
Clean (removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including any hidden sectors)
Create Partition Primary (Creates a new primary partition with default parameters)
Select Partition 1 (Focus on the newly created partition)
Active (Sets the in-focus partition to active, informing the disk firmware that this is a valid system partition)
Format FS=NTFS (Formats the partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your USB key.)
Assign (Gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive “L” was assigned.)
Exit (Quits the DiskPart tool)

md5sum.exe introduction

After you download all the Shorten (.shn) files for a particular disc or show, you want to verify that the files are not corrupted or otherwise unusable before you burn them to disc or host them on your file server. We do this by checking the downloaded Shorten (.shn) files against an .md5 file. An .md5 is a simple text file that contains a "fingerprint" of each Shorten file.

When you perform an md5 check, you are comparing the fingerprint from the files you downloaded to the fingerprint of the files on the server you downloaded from. If the md5's (fingerprints) match, you have an uncorrupted Shorten file.

 md5sum.exe - 48KB         88170 Downloads since 9/29/00

Windows 95/98/Me: Download md5sum.exe to c:\windows\command

Windows NT/2000: Download md5sum.exe to your c:\winnt\system32

 

Open an MS-DOS window and go to the directory of the show you want to check. When you are in that directory, type:

md5sum -c [filename].md5
 

You must insert the name of the .md5 file [without the brackets]. Below is an example of a successful md5sum check:

   

On the other hand, if a track does not pass the md5check, you will see the following:

If any Shorten files do not pass the .md5 check, you should delete the offending file(s), and try re-downloading. Then run the .md5 check again. The file(s) should now pass the .md5 check.

If the same files fail an .md5 check more than twice, you should contact the FTP Siteop you downloaded the files from and let them know what tracks are giving you a problem. They may be hosting a corrupted track without knowing it.

Open an MS-DOS window and go to the directory of the show you want to create an .md5 file for. When you are in that directory, type:

md5sum *.shn > [filename].md5
 

NOTE: You must insert the name of the .md5 file [without the brackets]. Example:
 

md5sum *.shn > ph94-06-26d1.md5

An .md5 file will be created and placed in that directory. Please remember to adhere the etree.org naming scheme when naming .md5 files!

Please remember to always .md5 check your Shorten files before burning!

  
Special thanks to bruce@gridpoint.com and the PCP community for compiling this special version of md5sum. Documentation and graphics by Mike Wren.


 

Windows Server 2012: Free EBook!

For the last few months I have been talking about Windows Server 2012, and I am thrilled to see that so many of you are downloading it and using the Release Candidate.  When the product does release so many IT Pros will be ready to hit the ground running! 

If you, like me, are one of these who wants the newest and the best and want to take the time to learn it properly, there is a great new book from Microsoft Press (By Mitch Tulloch and the Windows Server Team) available for free on-line.  You can download it by clicking here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9811411

Now if you were fortunate enough to be at TechEd last week, they were handing out hard copies (which is my personal preference).  I assume that they will be doing the same next week at TechEd Europe…

By the way, the book is based on the beta release, not the Release Candidate.  So there may be some changes that you have to be aware of.  Relax though… it’s still pre-release software, and will be ready when it goes to market!

How to use FTP with Command Line (Command Prompt)

How to use FTP from the command line. 

 FTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows you to transfer files between your PC and other Internet systems (hosts). You can transfer files, work with local or remote directories, rename and display files, and execute system commands.

Before you start, you must know how to log on to the remote system and have a userid and password on that system. Note: Some systems allow anonymous ftp access. To use anonymous ftp, use anonymous as your userid and your e-mail address as the logon password. Logging Onto and Off of a Remote System To begin using Microsoft's FTP client, Open a command prompt and switch to the destination directory (where you want the download file).

To start an FTP session, enter: ftp host_name where hostname is the name or IP address of the remote system. You will then be asked to enter your userid and password.

Once you have successfully logged onto a remote system, you will be able to use ftp commands to view a listing of files on the remote system and transfer files between the two systems.

Example: Download i386.exe (Windows NT 3.5 Resource Kit) from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt35/i386 to C:\Temp\Download

1. Open a command prompt. Enter CD C:\Temp\Download (assuming that directory exists).
   Enter: ftp ftp.microsoft.com
   
   You should now see a prompt similar to this:
   Connected to ftp.microsoft.com.
   220 Microsoft FTP Service
   User (ftp.microsoft.com:(none)):



2. For the userid, Enter: anonymous
   
   You should see a prompt similar to this:
   331 Anonymous access allowed, send identity (e-mail name) as password.
   Password:



3. Enter: userid@domain.com as the password at the "Password:" prompt.
   Note: Any e-mail address in a userid@domain.com format should work. You will not be able to see the password as you type it.



4. To download i386.exe from the bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt35/i386 directory, Enter: get bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt35/i386/i386.exe
   Note: You could have also used ls to view the directory and file names, cd bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt35/i386 to switch directories, and get i386.exe to download the file from within that directory.



5. To end the FTP session, Enter: quit or bye.

Note: Once you have extracted the resource kit, you will have to expand individual files 
example: expand choice.ex_ choice.exe

FTP Commands

For a list of FTP commands, at the "ftp>" prompt, Enter: helpWhen using ftp from the command prompt, the following list of supported commands will be displayed:
Note: Hover your mouse over a command to see what the output of "help *" is for that command.

!	delete	literal	prompt	send
?	debug	ls	put	status
append	dir	mdelete	pwd	trace
ascii	disconnect	mdir	quit	type
bell	get	mget	quote	user
binary	glob	mkdir	recv	verbose
bye	hash	mls	remotehelp
cd	help	mput	rename
close	lcd	open	rmdir

The question mark (?) command is equivalent to the help command. Typing help or ? followed by the name of a command will display a brief description of the command's purpose. The exclamation point (!) can be used to shell to the system (command) prompt. Type Exit to return to the FTP session.

You can also issue a subset of system commands to perform as you shell out, e.g., ! dir %windir% | more. When the commands in the shell have completed, you will be returned to the FTP session. The pwd command will list the current directory on the remote machine.

To change directories on the remote machine, use the cd command. To create a new directory on the remote machine, use the mkdir command followed by the name you would like to assign to the new directory. The lcd command can be used to change directories on the local (PC) machine.

To display a listing of files on the remote system, enter: ls or dir.



To download a file (copy a file from the remote system to your PC), you can use the command get or recv followed by the name of the file you would like to download. Optionally, you can follow the filename with a second filename which will be assigned to the file when it is downloaded to your PC.

To download multiple files, you can use the mget command followed by a descriptor for the files you would like to download (e.g.: *.f for all files ending in ".f" or *.* for all files).

You will be prompted to indicate whether you would like to download each file in turn. To turn off this prompting, enter the prompt command prior to entering the mget command; you will receive the message "Interactive mode OFF" indicating that prompting has been deactivated. By default, files are downloaded and uploaded in ASCII file transfer mode.

To download or upload files using Binary format mode, enter the command Binary at the "ftp>" prompt prior to downloading or uploading the file(s). To return to ASCII file transfer mode, enter the ASCII command. To upload a file (copy a file from your PC to the remote system), you can use the command put or send followed by the name of the file you would like to upload.

Optionally, you can follow the filename with a second filename which will be assigned to the file when it is uploaded to the remote system. The mput command can be used to upload multiple files.

You can use the close or disconnect command to drop the current ftp connection without exiting from the command enironment and then use the open command to connect to a new host.