How to make a Windows 7 "universal disk"

From the ISO file of Windows 7 Ultimate, any language, x86 or x64, you can make a "universal disk" that will prompt you to select which version to install (Home, Pro, etc.).

Use the excellent ei.cfg Removal Utility to edit your ISO file.

From the site: "The resulting ISO images are bit-for-bit identical with those posted on MSDN or TechNet, and their SHA-1 hashes should match the official hashes posted by Microsoft. This tool works by toggling the deletion bit in the UDF file table, eliminating the need for unpacking and rebuilding the ISO."

USB multifunction printer on a W2K3 TS

First, I know that you should not install unsigned third-party printer drivers on a TS, but sometimes you just have to...

A remote user have at home a "Brother MFC-8500 USB" multifunction printer. This is the name of the driver on his XP computer. I wanted to install the driver on our W2K3 TS to enable him to print at home. I went to the Brother web site and downloaded the "Add printer wizard" XP driver for this machine, since there was no W2K3 driver available.

Alas, when I added this driver to the Terminal Server, the name was "Brother MFC8500". So when the remote user logged in I had the infamous Event 1111 on the server's event log:

"Driver Brother MFC-8500 USB required for printer Brother MFC-8500 USB is unknown. Contact the administrator to install the driver before you log in again."

The thing is that the driver's names must match exactly for W2K3 to "see" that it is the good driver and load it.

Since it was only a name issue and I knew that the binaries were OK, I opened the OEMMF01A.INF from the extracted driver files and I seached for the "Brother MFC8500" string. I edited it to read "Brother MFC-8500 USB" and I ran the "Add Printer Driver Wizard" again. As expected the name was in the list and it installed OK.

Create a Vista SP2 slipstream installation disc

Here is an excellent post on how to create a Vista SP2 slipstream installation disc: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/230249-sliptream-vista-sp2.html