Unofficial Support Site for the Windows 7 Resource Kit

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9780735627000f[1]The Windows 7 Resource Kit (ISBN: 9780735627000) is a great resource. Created by Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northup, Jerry Honeycutt, Ed Wilson, and the Windows 7 team at Microsoft, the book includes 32 chapters, nearly 1800 pages, and the Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack and sample PowerShell scripts on its companion CD.

And MVP Mitch Tulloch’s unofficial support site for the book is also a great resource. In “Site Table of Contents,” which is organized by the book’s parts (e.g., “Part 2, Deployment”), make sure to click through to see the resource kit’s chapters. Then, you can further click each chapter to see questions from readers about the chapter’s subject matter and answers from Mitch. Here’s an example:

Q-1. How do I move the CSC folder to another location on a Windows 7 computer?

A-1. The default location of the Offline Folders cache is %systemroot%\csc. If you need to move this cache to another location on your computer for some reason, follow these steps:

1. Set the following REG_DWORD registry key to a value of 1:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters\MigrationParamters

Doing this ensures that all items in the cache are migrated (the default behavior is to migrate only dirty items).

2. Run the Windows Easy Transfer wizard. Once the data has been scanned, a Customize link is displayed. Click this link and make sure that Windows Settings is checked for all items displayed in the list.

3. Once you have collected the data, set the following String registry key to specify the new cache location:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters\CacheLocation

For example, to move the cache to a folder named CSCCache on your D: drive, specify the following value:

\??\D:\CSCCache

4. Now reboot your computer, run the Easy Transfer wizard again and apply the previously gathered files. Then reboot one more time when prompted by the wizard.

Another example:

Q-1. How do you enable Wake-on-LAN (WoL) on a Windows 7 computer that supports this feature?

A-1. Depending on your computer's network adapter and on how your computer's BIOS is configured, you may be able to use Wake-on-LAN (WoL) to wake your computer from power-saving states such as Sleep, Hibernate or Hybrid Sleep. To make sure your computer is configured to use WoL, follow these steps:

1. Open Control Panel.

2. Click System and Security.

3. Click Administrative Tools.

4. Double-click Computer Management.

5. Under System Tools, select Device Manager.

6. Under Network Adapters, right-click on your network adapter and select Properties.

7. Select the Power Management tab.

8. Make sure that the following checkbox is selected: Allow this device to wake the computer. Doing this will cause your network adapter to listen for the following types of network packets:

  • A directed packet to the MAC address of your network adapter
  • A NetBIOS name resolution broadcast for your local computer name
  • An ARP packet for the IPv4 address of your network adapter
  • An IPv6 Neighbor Discovery packet for your network adapter's solicited-node multicast address

If your network adapter detects any of these packets, Windows will wake up. If your computer wakes up too frequently however, you can repeat steps 1-7 of the above procedure and then make sure that the following checkbox is also selected: Allow only a magic packet to wake the computer. Doing this will cause your network adapter to listen only for a special type of packet called a magic packet, which is a standard wake-up frame typically sent from a systems management station that targets a specific network interface on the network.

Mitch also lists Additional Resources in some chapters. For example:

Additional Resources: Remote Access

The Routing and Remote Access Team Blog has some useful  information concerning remote access improvements in Windows 7 and how to design and deploy a remote access solution using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The following posts in particular may be useful:

Enjoy!