TechAgility

The T5545 Thin Client from HP is quite a neat mid-range device that has some nice features that can make your life quite easy, but so far it seems that it’s not all that easy to find out how to go about tweaking it to your environment and users?

I’ll update this later with some additional links to docs – but feel free to email me if you need additional info?

So some handy hints:
(This all applies to the latest Build 31 )

Logging on as Administrator – default password is root

Add HP or Debian Packages to T5545

• Fsunlock – unlocks file system (equivalent to XPe/WES’s EWF or FBWF)
• cd /media – or cd /mnt
• hpkg -i xxxx.hpk   or
• dpkg -i xxxx.deb
• fslock – locks the file system back up
• reboot

Use ezUpdate to automatically update image/packages/custom scripts/Stateless Settings/Persistent Settings
(This is also valid for the new ThinPro K2 build on the T5145)  
Do be aware that you do not need to endlessly reboot to test it – just call ezUpdate from the X Term Console?
·         If you need to validate what it’s doing then check the logs in ./writable/ezUpdate/log/ezUpdate.log using the MousePad from the Advanced area of the Control Panel
·         If you still do not have enough info then run “ezUpdate –d 5” to enable debug mode on the log
·         The order of what it will look for is:

• New Image
• Any new packages
• Custom
• Then check for valid Stateless profile
• Finally check for valid Persistent profile
  

  ezUpdate Admin Guide

·         If you’d like to test/demo the ezUpdate process then you could always *add* the rar package as shown here:

• Download this sample package: http://packages.debian.org/lenny/i386/rar/download
• Put the package in the packages directory on the ezupdate server
• reboot or simply run ezupdate
• Check the log and you should find that it has installed the package correctly
• Run “dpkg –list” in the Terminal to show that rar is now an installed package

·         If you’d then like to remove the application, then this is how we can go about it:

• fsunlock
• dpkg -r rar    (this might need to be hpkg depending on where the package came from?)
• fslock
• reboot/run ezUpdate
• if it still looks like it might be there, then use the dpkg –purge command?

How to deploy ThinPro Settings via Altiris or HPDM
Link to doc here:

Configuring TeamTalk
Have you ever been frustrated or in the dark on how to configure TT when it comes to GUI Menus?  There are a ton of specific GUI configs commands in the Team Talk 7.0 manual chapter 21 command line.   The commands can be added to teemtalk_wrapper.sh.  These settings will apply to all connections from HP Connection Manager.
The file to modify is – /usr/bin/teemtalk_wrapper.sh

Modifying the Menu
If your user has a need to modify the Menu under ThinPro (say they don’t want the Control Center up and available for users) – use the following technique.  You can use it to display commands as well as long as you select the right command.
1)      Login as administrator
2)      Right click on the Menu
3)      Open the menu editor
4)      Click the (+) to add an entry
5)      Then the command to start a connection is
a.      Connection-mgr start $ID
b.      connection-mgr start type:label  (under the usr/bin directory)
ex. connection-mgr start ica:”My ICA”

Get back in after locking down?
Pressing CNTL+ALT+SHIFT+S will bring up  hptc-shutdown – the Shutdown dialog that will give the Switch to Admin Mode Option.

written by dcaddick

So some of you may be aware that the new T5545 was released some while back with a new O/S designated ThinPro – this has recently been updated with a new release of Build 31 and now looks a little like this in Admin mode:

To switch to Admin mode there is a simple menu action in the lower left:

and the default password is “root”

Updated T5145 with ThinPro:

Now that by itself may not seem too significant but there has also been some significant changes to the T5145 – the old Admin Interface (ID:Admin\Pwd:Admin) looked like this:

But the newly released version HP ThinPro for HP t5145 Thin Client (128 MB) available for download since Jul 31st looks like the T5545?

In fact there appears to be very little difference between the two – even down to the fact that under the Advanced Tab there is an XTerm Console available?

written by dcaddick

Just like London Buses, you wait around for ages, and then they all turn up at once? (Whitepapers, that is?)

HP reference configuration for Citrix XenApp: 1,500 Microsoft Office 2003 users on HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server blades

This document illustrates multiple blades configurations using bare-metal configurations and converting them to virtualized ones.  The goal is to illustrate the value of virtualization and detail cost and associated power improvements.

There are three configurations discussed:

• Configuration 1: x64, bare-metal – Four HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server blades
• Configuration 2: x64, virtualized – Five HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server blades
• Configuration 3: x86, virtualized – Four HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server blades

But I think that even with just these two images they tell the story quite succinctly?

Figure 1. Reference configuration 1 – Four bare-metal HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server blades (x64) – 1,608 users

Figure 2. Reference configuration 2 – Five virtualized HP ProLiant BL460c G6 server blades (x64) – 1,700 users

written by dcaddick

**UPDATE** I have received the following comment:

has anyone had any luck with the Automating Citrix Xenapp whitepaper, as i have issues when trying to import the deploy XenServer Altiris job as both .bin files seem to contain the same jobs, which are for deploying clients.

And yes this is the case – I have contacted the Author and the doc should be updated, but if you need the *.bin file please drop me a line?

Essentially there are two PDF’s, the first is the Overview and the second contains the detail with the scripts embedded in the PDF document.

One key take-away from the Overview is this graph of how many users *you might* get from an x64 installation :

I don’t have the facilities or time to be able to test any of this but it certainly looks quite comprehensive and appears to leverage the HP RDP (Altiris Server) component quite well to Automate things as much as possible.

Two new white papers have been released to ActiveAnswers at HP.  These papers reflect a joint development effort by HP & Citrix which, when combined, provide customer value-add specific to our partnership.

"Data Center transformation – Citrix Deliver Center enabled by HP Adaptive Infrastructure" provides an overview of the collaboration:

"Automating Citrix XenApp on XenServer deployments on HP ProLiant servers" illustrates how HP Insight Rapid Deployment Software (RDP) can be used with Citrix-developed PowerShell scripts to automatically provision and manage XenApp on XenServer on ProLiant servers.  The paper provides the instructions and scripts to deploy a XenApp farm on XenServer from bare-metal to application publishing.

Please note that the scripts provided were originally developed for each company’s internal use and are not officially supported through tech support or escalation channels.  That said, the solution has been verified by the HP and Citrix engineering team and are being released to provide the scripts to customers who may find them useful.

written by dcaddick

***UPDATE***

Please check the comments below – but it appears I’m incorrect on the statement regarding Teradici PCoIP needing a PCI card, there is a SW/SW version in development and I’d be guessing this might be coming out sometime around VMworld as Beta? Just a guess on my part?

So just as we headed in to the weekend I noted Brian Madden’s post – Microsoft’s RDP host-side rendering (Calista) plans include optional GPU offload hardware & custom chips. (Oh, and Hyper-V is required!) as well as Alessandro’s post Is Microsoft silently building a better VDI? and realised that this also tied in with some recent articles earlier in the week from the MSDN side of things around the new Remote Desktop Services (RDS now effectively replaces the old Terminal Services) on Windows 2008, namely getting Aero Glass Remoting in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Running WS08 Terminal Server as a virtualized guest under Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

So now this started getting me thinking, there is an almost unbelievable amount of hype right now about VDI, where it’s getting to the point that as soon as we hear about either a Customer or a Partner telling us that they have installed a PoC/Pilot or deployed VDI we can almost guarantee the next thing they will be wanting to know is “how do I get decent Video/MultiMedia/USB performance, it’s not working correctly, and I want it fixed”.

Ideally what should happen when designing a Desktop Virtualization Strategy (in my opinion) is start with the Success Criteria that the design needs to meet as defined by the business units/stakeholders/users, and if they are unsure or don’t know, then the best way to think about this is to strive to provide a User Experience that is *indistinguishable* from a normal PC.

Which is why the first part of designing the solution should be deciding on the Remote Protocol that is needed to meet the Success Criteria?

• If you only need to supply standard Office Apps then RDP will likely be fine
• If it’s Office Apps plus some Video with some USB devices then you may find that you can get away with RDP plus one of the RDP enhancements like TCX, etc.
• If it’s Office Apps plus some Video with some USB devices and you need to make this work over something less than a 10Mb LAN with a possibility of anything greater than 150 – 200ms latency then you may want to seriously consider ICA as the only viable choice.
• Now if you have demanding users that require a true PC like experience regardless of how it’s done then there are a number of choices like RGS (from HP), PCoIP (from Teradici), SPICE (from Redhat?), etc. however as you start to examine the pro’s and con’s of each one you may find that each one of these may bring further limitations to yuor design?
  • The key takeaway from this is that you can have either a good 
    user experience *OR* low bandwidth – not neccessarily BOTH?

Desktop Virtualization today:

So my opinion is that currently there are two front runners out there today marketing, selling and deploying Virtual Desktop Solutions:

• Citrix XenDesktop
• VMware View

I know there are others of note, but generally these are the two main leaders today who are spending the most in Marketing trying to own the top spot in this area, and who both not only have a Solution and a Broker but also a Hypervisor that provides the grunt at the back end. However to a certain extent both of these solutions are fundamentally flawed in that neither of them *currently* have (or support) a Remote Protocol that delivers what I would refer to as a High Quality User Experience that is available today.

Side note on “High Quality User Experience”:

So far most of what I have seen in the field is examples of “Desktop Virtualization” that have been designed by IT for IT – not for the business or users. In some instances it has come as quite a shock to those designing the Solution that one or all of the various Stakeholders, Business or Users not only want the ability to view Training Video’s, but actually have the audacity to demand it as a Criteria of Success for the project? And USB redirection for their Blackberries too!

Bottom line, if your planned Desktop Virtualization solution does not include MultiMedia and USB as a measure of success then there is a good chance it’s fundamentally doomed? At the very least include some scope for a Phase 2 that will expand the project to include this and plan for it up front?

Yes VMware has announced a partnership with Teradici to develop PCoIP for VDI instances of View, (VMware does support HP’s RGS in View, but only to BladePC’s and BladeWS’s) but this appears that it will be based on a H/W PCIe card that will be capable of supporting 32 and 64 VDI instances from the hosted end, so there are some limitations like having to use Servers that can support PCIe cards, but the real kicker is that these cards won’t be available until mid-next year?

Yes Citrix has HDX, (re-Marketed term covering the ICA Protocol ) and although they have now started releasing the HDX-Flash add-on there is still no sight of the HDX-3D? For the life of me I can’t understand what is holding up Citrix on this, if it is really as good as it’s supposed to be then they should be releasing it now while they can beat VMware to the punch.

How to create a portable ver. of RDP7:

So with this in mind I looked a bit deeper at the RDP7 side of things to see what differences there were? First thing I noticed was that it’s still referred to as Ver. 6.1.7100.0 (this is Ver. 7, right?), and after some quick googling the next thing I came across is that it is relatively simple to take a copy of the MSTSC.EXE and save it to a folder on another machine and run this version (you will also need a copy of MSTSCAX.DLL and a folder beneath this named “en-US” and in this you’ll need a copy of MSTSC.EXE.MUI and MSTSCAX.DLL.MUI)

Once you have this accomplished you’ll be free to run the RDP7 Client to connect to either your Windows 7 or Server 2008 Host and see what differences there are. Essentially all of the differences are covered under the post:Aero Glass Remoting in Windows Server 2008 R2 but I must admit I was quite surprised at how well it was able to cope with a DiVX avi of Kung Fu Panda, the picture was really sharp and defined, the audio appeared to stay in synch and it didn’t appear to consume much more than 4 – 500Kb/s. When it came to Flash this again had good definition and sharpness – but there was lot’s of gaps in the playback – so on Flash it still scores a miss?

Putting this in context, here are some very rudimentary tests:

**NOTE** I did not test the Aero feature

Bandwidth was simply measured by using “Bandwidth Monitor” from www.bwmonitor.com
This also had the effect of causing 20 – 25Kb/s consumption just in the act of being displayed in the remote screen, so typically it was hidden until needed.

Conclusions:

• RDP7 is definitely an improvement – and provides a much clearer and cleaner display
  • Gone are the old days of RDP presenting the screen with 6 or 7 horizontal bars from left to right and top to bottom
  • It does appear able to deliver quite reasonable Video today
  • It does not appear to have delivered much or any improvements in Flash

written by dcaddick

If installing Citrix XenDesktop Receiver on any HP Thin Client with Windows XPe *prior* to the most recent release (Build 710) you may get an error, even after removing the original Citrix Client, that it is unable to install because of a previous Citrix Client install still exists…  I didn’t really waste any time on looking for the root cause as to whether it’s caused by the Uninstall routine of the preinstalled Citrix Client or other components…

Here’s the way I got it to work manually:

• Log on as Administrator
• Uninstall the Citrix Program Neighborhood client
• Delete the registry key HKClassesRoot\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\086B4262CB2…. (I didn’t write it all down)
             Search for “Citrix” in RegEdit, It’ll be very near the top
• Install Desktop Receiver Embedded Edition v11.10

The other alternative would be to re-image the device before you start with the most recent release?

And to set the the device to load the logon web page directly, set the registry entry:

• HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon
• Shell = c:\progra~1\intern~1\iexplore.exe –k http://<ddc>/Citrix/DesktopAppliance

written by dcaddick

Essentially, the printer needs to be configured locally first, pretty much the same way you have it now. There’s additional information, with screen shots on how to configure this for ICA starting page 22 of the attached guide: http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01367435/c01367435.pdf

I’ve also reference a guide to supported HP printers with Citrix, just in case:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA0-8465ENW.pdf

written by dcaddick

Over here in Australia we had a long weekend last week so I have only been using Windows 7 for three days so far, but for anyone else who has tried it on a Virtual Machine, I’d suggest they give it a try on the hardware – it’s not that bad at all – my thoughts so far:

Not forgetting that I found I couldn’t “upgrade” from Vista SP1 regardless of what the readme says? So this was a clean install, on a HP 2710p Tablet with 3Gb of RAM, and so far I’m quite impressed with the performance.

ISSUES:

• Had to manually install HP Universal Printer Driver
• Merlin XU870 PCI Express MobileBroadband Card – could not install “MobiLink” Software, fails to recognize O/S?

• Downloaded “Vista” compatible drivers without MobiLink SW and then manually added a “DialUp” connection using *99# as the phone number

TO DO:

• · Install Office 2007 – DONE (No issues with Outlook)
• · Install VMware Workstation 6.5 – DONE
• · Install ACA Capture Pro – DONE
• · Install Windows Live Writer – DONE
• · Install MS Communicator – DONE (needed the HP Root CA – see above)
• · Install FileZilla – DONE
• · Install WireShark – DONE
• · Install Google Chrome – DONE
• · Install LinkedIn Toolbar
• · Install UltraISO – DONE
• · Split Volumes to C and D? …..Still pending…..

So hopefully this will convince a few of you still sitting on the fence to give it a shot? If anyone is impressed with how easy it was to get it up and running in a VM then all I can say is try it on real hardware….

And when you do – try the Suspend/Resume – the speed it does this will blow you away!!

Cheers,
Dave

written by dcaddick

A colleague of mine was after some info on a tool that I had mentioned before and while I was at it I had some extra tools and links and other handy stuff that I thought I’d share?

The details regarding Fixed Mode below have proven to be very useful today in getting PXE working across multiple VLAN’s – very nice to see it burst in to life

Gui tool to check AD/LDAP context etc. (30 day free trial)

Softerra LDAP Browser

Altiris DS 6.8 Docs… (Very useful for additional info)

chapter-1-preparing-your-server-ds68sp2-installation
chapter-2-installing-deployment-solution-68sp2
chapter-3-introducing-ds-console
chapter-4-introduction-imaging-using-pxe
chapter-5-ms-dos-a-pxe-automation-option
chapter-6-winpe-pxe-automation-option
chapter-7-hidden-bootworks

Troublshooting PXE

Altiris KB – PXE not crossing subnets or VLANs
Altiris KB – Configuring PXE to work across VLANs
Altiris KB – Error: PXE-E53: No boot filename received (very comprehensive list of 11 possible causes and 14 possible resolutions, and a reminder that when using Wireshark filter down to BOOTP packets to focus on PXE)
Installing Altiris Deployment Server and Altiris PXE Server in a VLAN Environment this lead me to this link of a PDF (PXE Modes of Operation) regarding setting PXE in “Forced Mode” that has just worked a treat in a multi VLAN environment and essentially it means that you simply set Options 60, 66, 67 and 43 on the DHCP with the relevant details of where to find the PXE Server

Now setting the Option 43 correctly is not quite that simple, so I have added my explanation here:

All figures/values need to be in HEX
Example: 06 01 0B 08 0F AA AA 03 C0 A8 02 C8 C0 A8 03 68 C0 A8 01 66

06 01 0B 08 and AA AA are set by Altiris and should not be changed

0F = Specifies the number of octets that exist to be read after this one (the fifth octet) in this particular case it’s 15

03 = Number of PXE Servers, change as needed, in this example there are 3 PXE Servers

C0 A8 02 C8 C0 A8 03 68 C0 A8 01 66 = the IP Address of each PXE Server, defined in HEX, octet by octet

C0 A8 02 C8 = 192.168.02.200

Once you have crafted the Value of Option 43 as described above you simply need to add a zero value of 00 to indicate the end of the Value and then add this to the DHCP Server, paying particular care not to add any spaces or CR’s?

Alternatively I have also discovered a tool that can help in making this calculation at PXE Forced Mode Utility

written by dcaddick

So I have been asked a few questions regarding FBWF (File Based Write Filter) in the last few days and thought this might also be useful to others?

By default in XP Embedded there is a component called EWF (Enhanced Write Filter) that acts as an overlay to catch actions that require write access like the Cache for the browser and these are discarded during a reboot. As an Admin you can set up the XPe system as you like and then COMMIT the changes to the flash memory via Command Line or using the icon in either the system tray or the Control Panel.

The main difference between the older EWF mechanism and the newer FBWF is that the EWF is pretty much an “All or Nothing” affair, where as with the FBWF you protect the entire partition and can then selectively “punch holes” in the protection based on Files, Directories or Registry entries to allow persistent write access to the Flash Memory so that these changes will be committed and maintained.

Example of setting FBWF via Command Line:

fbwfmgr /enable
fbwfmgr /addvolume c:
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Program Files\Citrix”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Program Files\Citrix\ICA Client”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Program Files\TeemNT”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\ccm”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\ccmsetup”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\wbem”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\ntuser.dat”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\ntuser.dat.log”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\Desktop”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\ICA\Client”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\config”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\bginfo.bmp”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “RegfData”

As you can see from the above this was to allow the Thin Client to continue to be Write Protected, but at the same time allow the Users to effectively save their settings and have this maintained between reboots.

Anyhow, just one important point……  IF you need to punch in some RegFilter exclusions so that some registry keys “stick” between reboots then it is absolutely mandatory that you have a file exclusion for : fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “RegfData” because this is how the data is “saved” and it then gets injected in to the registry after the reboot has settled down – Does this make sense?

For the registry entry below you can see that the first two are in the image by default because they look after the TSCal and Domain membership, but after that I was adding additional Reg keys for information that I wanted to be persistent between reboots – my earlier comment was that you needed the additional file to be excluded at “fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “RegfData”” so that these keys will actually work, as the data is stored using RegfData and then “injected” on the next reboot.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”MSLic.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys1]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”MacAcc.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Security\Policy\Secrets\$MACHINE.ACC”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys2]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”TeemNT.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Pericom\TeemNT\Sessions”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys3]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”TtNTCon.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Pericom\TtNTConWiz”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys4]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”Citrix.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Citrix”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys5]
“ClassKey”=”HKCU”
“FileNameForSaving”=”ControlPnl.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Control Panel”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys6]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”Print.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys7]
“ClassKey”=”HCC”
“FileNameForSaving”=”ScreenRes.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video”

I have also found another article stating how it is possible to get FBWF working on XP Pro, and although I haven’t tested this it certainly looks like a much simpler way of achieving effectively the same thing as SteadyState? But I would consider modifying the registry components below to CurrentControlSet instead of ControlSet001?

Guide to using FBWF on Windows XP Pro

---

Hi there. my first post, hope its of use to people here. I am using FBWF on a standard Windows XP Pro installation (SP3 RC1 to be exact). Finding no guide available online, I thought I’d write this one.
–EDIT–
Quick note for those of you who don’t know what FBWF is. It is very similar to EWF, but FBWF (file based write filter) offers some important advantages. FBWF uses less ram (you can reclaim ram overlay space when you delete files), you can also commit on the fly (without restarting or disabling), and have persistent (write through) folders that write straight to the drive (so you can have a persistent My Documents for example).
–EDIT–
You will need the following files from the XPe feature pack 2007 trial.
fbwf.sys fbwfdll.dll fbwflib.dll fbwfmgr.exe
If you’re not sure how to extract these files, please see the “New EWF + MinLogon and CF instructions” thread by SFiorito.
1.Copy fbwf.sys to WINDOWSsystem32drivers
2.Copy all other files to WINDOWSsystem32
3.Add the following to your registry (it’s probably easiest to copy it into an empty txt file, rename it to fbwf.reg, and load)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWF]
"Start"=dword:00000000
"Type"=dword:00000002
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,44,00,
  52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,52,00,53,00,5c,00,66,00,62,00,77,00,66,00,2e,00,73,
  00,79,00,73,00,00,00
"Group"="FSFilter System Recovery"
"DisplayName"="File-Based Write Filter"
"Description"="File-Based Write Filter driver"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):46,00,6c,00,74,00,4d,00,67,00,72,00,00,00,00,00
"DebugFlags"=dword:00000000
"EnabledOnAllSkus"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWFFBA]
"EnablePostFBA"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWFInstances]
"DefaultInstance"="Fbwf Instance"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWFInstancesFbwf Instance]
"Flags"=dword:00000000
"Altitude"="226000"

4.Reboot

5.Go to your command prompt, and type in the following commands.

fbwfmgr /enable

fbwfmgr /addvolume X:

fbwfmgr /setthreshold S

X is the drive you want to protect (most will want to protect c. S is the size you want your ram drive to be in MB(mine is 256).

6. Reboot, and your done!

There are 4 other commands in fbwfmgr you may want to play with. /setpreallocation 1 reserves the ram space (I.E does not dynamically change with the amount of actual used space). /setcompression 1 compresses the date to save more ram space, but at the cost of CPU time. /overlaydetail tells you what files are being stored in ram, and how much ram space is being used. /addexclusion X: “persistentfolder” enables write through on the folder X:persistentfolder.

For those used to EWF, unfortunately there is no way to commit all data, and each file has to be committed manually with the following command /commit X: “windowsfile.exe”

I hope I haven’t left anything out! Hopefully this guide will be usable and somewhat clear…and if it breaks your puter, well, I’m sorry

Update:

For those wanting to try some testing I have uploaded the FBWF files here

written by dcaddick