CBS Package Inspector

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Microsoft just released a tool for Windows Embedded Standard 7 (but also interesting for the upcoming POSReady 7) called CBS Package Inspector.

Installing Windows Embedded POSReady 7 CTP

The installation of the yesterday released CTP version of POSReady 7 is very easy and straight forward.

Here is a tutorial about the whole setup procedure.

Windows Embedded POSReady 7 CTP is available!

Microsoft has published the Community Technical Preview of the next version of Windows Embedded POSReady 2009.

Windows Embedded POSReady 7 is based on Windows 7 and is specially designed for Point of Service solutions with an easy installation wizard.
The new version comes with enhancements for security and manageability and additional embedded features such as a keyboard filter.

To download and test the CTP go to Microsoft Connect and add “Windows Embedded POSReady” to your dashboard.

Preventing account expiration in XPe/WES

Per default user accounts will expire in Windows XP Embedded and Windows Embedded Standard.
To avoid this you can run the following commands for each user created:

net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited
net users Username /expires:never
net users Username /active:yes

POSReady 2009 and BGInfo - missing Network information

If you like to use BGInfo on POSReady you will notice that the Gateway information and other network information is missing from imagethe output.

Cloning images using WAIK and imagex

This video demonstrates you the usage of imagex together with either Windows Vista AIK or Windows 7 AIK.
A detailed command description can be found here.

The video shows the capturing of an installed “ready-to-clone” image where it will be saved to an external harddrive.
The second part will show the deployment to a fresh system where the target disk still needs to be prepared.

Hide “Windows is starting up”, “Windows is shutting down”, … windows

There are two ways how you can remove these messages in Windows.

1. Use Minlogon
  Minlogon will remove all the status messages and the logon window and logs the system on using the SYSTEM account.
  Normally this works fine but if you need to access domains this solution will not work for you.
  Also there are some other things (Cardspace,..) which will not work with Minlogon as it’s a minimum implementation of Windows Logon.

How to add/remove languages to a finished POSReady image?

Installing and removing languages in POSReady is really easy.

All you need is the installation DVD.

  1. Insert it into the target machines DVD drive and an autorun splash screen will appear.
  2. Click “Install additional languages for the POSReady user interface”
  3. Select the languages you wish to install
  4. Select the language you wish to use as default languages for all new users accounts from the dropdown below the language list
  5. Click Install
  6. Reboot

To change the language for an existing user