After a few long days of constant researching and studying, constant examining and editing, constant testing and debugging, and constant building and rebuilding, I’m finally about finished with this project.

I didn’t expect it to take so long, but things happen, things don’t always work out like they should.

For starters, I used a few different programs freely available, some of them didn’t really work properly, and others did, but other unforeseen circumstances led to more troubles and problems. I had finished up building the Windows PE image, but when I went to boot to it, it went through the first part like it normally would, but then started the setup process for some reason instead of booting directly into PE. Then, at the setup, it asks what language to use, but it wouldn’t let me select anything. I don’t know if that’s because I added all the available language packages, or if I had did something wrong. But that wasn’t the most frustrating aspect, I ran into many problems trying to set up the USB flash drive. Now I could install Grub4DOS directly to the drive, but when I tried to use a program like WinSetupFromUSB, or RMPrepUSB, or BootMyISO, it kept coming up with errors. It said it wouldn’t load GRUB to either the partition or the MBR, and I don’t understand why. Maybe it could have had something to do with the fact that I used the NTFS file system rather than FAT32, I don’t know.

Another problem I ran into was creating multiple partitions on the USB flash drive. I found out the hard way that using diskpart from the Windows Automated Install Kit (AIK) wouldn’t let me do it. I even used the lexar usb format program (BootIt) to flip the removable media bit (RMB), making Windows see it as a fixed disc rather than a removable one, but I still couldn’t create multiple partitions. So, I loaded up VMware Workstation, installed Ubuntu as a guest OS, and used GParted to make 4 partitions. Even so, though the partitions are listed in diskpart in Windows, no drive letters are assigned to any of them except the first, and I can’t even use the assign command to assign a drive letter to any of the other partitions. No matter, I’m just going about things the slow, hard way. I’ll setup each partition by first setting everything up on the first partition using WinSetupFromUSB within a Windows environment, and then boot back into the Ubuntu virtual machine so I can copy the contents onto the desired partition. Then I’ll start that whole process again, until I get everything finished. I decided to set it up in a different way than what I first had thought. The first partition is 7 GBs, and it will contain all my utilities and applications. I’ll use Grub4DOS to boot directly to any isos such as Parted Magic, Spotmau Powersuite Pro, Acronis, Ophcrack, and the Windows PE environment. I’ll also use it to keep all my portable apps on, those I have either downloaded, or created myself using VMware ThinApp. That way I can create a directory structure and create icons to the apps, and include them in the Windows PE build before I unmount the wim image. Actually, I’ve already finished that aspect of it all up, so all I have to do is get the modified Windows PE 3.0 to boot up. The next partition is about 5 GBs, and it will be strictly for Windows 7 installs. I’ve got an AIO version, so it’s got the 32 Bit and 64 Bit editions of Home Basic and Premium, Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise. The third partition will be for Windows XP Pro 32 Bit (Service Pack 3 slipstreamed, with all the latest updates, IE 8, and Windows Media Player 11; Microsoft decided to not offer WMP 12 for XP, or at least, so far they haven’t publicly released a genuine verison, but there are some places online where you can find an edited WMP 12 that will install within XP) already included in it. No need to copy all the apps to that partition, I can just make sure I use a specific drive letter for the first partition, and then create links to the programs from within XP. The fourth and final partition will be for XP 64 bit; although Microsoft never really pushed Windows XP 64 Bit, in my professional opinion, it’s better, faster, and more stable than Vista 32 bit or 64 bit. The issue is finding drivers for some types of hardware, because most hardware manufacturers didn’t really bother with writing drivers for XP 64 since Microsoft decided to not market XP 64 that much when it was released about 5 years ago.

As far as putting a live version of Ubuntu on there, well, I can use the first partition if I have enough space to do so, and then just edit menu.lst to give the option to choose to boot to it at boot-time if need be, or I can always install it on any system by executing wubi in a Windows environment.

No, no video this time, I’m still waiting for WinSetupFromUSB to finish building the next test version. So though this whole process is taking me longer than I expected, I’m also learning quite alot, so I’m getting more proficient and faster, because now I don’t have to look up so many things. Now I know certain commands to use, and I know what programs to use, and I’m perfecting my methods, so that I can recreate the project if need be. Once I finish with it, and I know everything is working right, I’ll make an image of the entire USB flash drive for a backup. That way I can easily make another copy if something goes wrong.

As I was learning what commands to use to mount wim images, and add packages to the mounted image, I began writing a script, so now I can really make things more automated. My plan is to make an unattended install process that requires very little input from the user, but my goal is to write a script that will automate the deployment process.

The next step is for me to incorporate Windows Server 2008 R2 into this, making a live version of it so that it will then be able to access the net and begin deploying operating systems to any computers that are on the same network. Actually, I’m thinking of bucking the system, and figuring out where exactly the PIDGEN aspect is, so I can hack it, and then I can activate ANY version of Windows using the hacked Windows Server 2008 R2 live version, as if it was a volume license edition. Because it won’t register on Microsoft’s servers, they’ll never know about it. I’ll figure out a way to bypass that stupid WGA feature since Microsoft is so greedy and corrupt, and I TRIPLE DOG DARE Microsoft to come try to shut me down! Hey, I’m the poorest of the poor, I’m just trying to figure out a way for me to survive. Besides, Microsoft may have some high priced attorneys working for them, and though I don’t know much about law, I DO KNOW A HECK OF ALOT about information technology!

Two things: First, the last time I attended some kind of class, or seminar, or received any official, formal training, was back in 2000 when I had a contract job at Enron. All I really learned then was how to migrate systems from a Windows NT platform to a Windows 2000 platform, and I really didn’t learn much. Before that, the last time I really received any official training was in 1995, when I was in the Marine Corps, going through Computer Science School (C.S.S.), where I learned how to build servers and workstations, and build, deploy, administrate, and maintain servers and clients using Banyan VINES as the server OS and either Dos or Windows 3.11 as the client OS. Ah, those were the hard days, when we had to manually configure jumpers if there was any IRQ or DMA conflicts, and when it took hours to install an operating system, because Banyan VINES was still using floppy discs back then. Second, I’m still teaching myself, I’m still WAY ahead of the learning curve.

Today, in 2010, it’s alot faster, we’ve came a long way, but in a way, things are also a little more complicated, because technology advances so fast anymore. I just found out that KDE SC 4.4.0 (Caikaku) was officially released yesterday, fresh out of beta, and I also found out that KDE SC 4.4.0 is included in Kubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx).

No doubt I’m speaking Greek to some of you out there, or rather, geek, hence the title of this blog.

This is Strictly 4 My G.E.E.K.s.

Better yet, this is strictly for my Gifted and Enlightened Entrepreneurs in the Know.

How ya like dem apples?