Vista Business Media

[thom]

We bought a media kit and 1 license from Ramesys of Vista Business.

A bargain at £30

 

I was expecting a nice shiny DVD that would be 32 and 64 bit on one disk.

 

However, instead I received 4 CDs of the 32 bit edition. Is this the norm? It reminded me of installing windows 95 on 20+ floppy disks.

 

Is there a simple way to merge them all on to one disk, the folder structure is completely different to XP/2000 media.

[StewartKnight]

I got 4cd as well, but I downloaded the dvd iso from the MS licensing site instead. The cd's are good, because most of the computers here don't have DVD drives, however, since you need 1gb of ram to reasonably run Vista, I won't be upgrading!!!!

[woody]

We got th 4 cds as well. I think ramesys must be trying to avoid compat problems in many schools there they won't have dvd drives. You could always ring them back up and ask for a DVD? If you've payed for one set, I don't think they will complain at sending you a dvd since they burn all their own nowadays.

[thom]

from ramesys

Yes that is the version we have been supplying from the launch of Vista, we can supply the DVD

version but we would need to order it direct from Microsoft,

It is listed on our educational price lists as available in both a 32bit or a 64bit version not a combined

version I am afraid, they would be £20 ex-vat each.

 

Don't think I'll bother wasting another £20. I will work on merging them and creating my own DVD

[woody]

I may order the DVD on my next order then.

[ajbritton]

Googling for MERGE .SWM yields a few possible leads

[thom]

I found the solution!!!

http://newton.montclair.edu:16080/weblog/jimi/techie/Windows+Vista/

It involves installing the Windows AIK and using imagex.exe to merge the install*swm files.

It took me about an hour to complete but was definately worth it.

Give me a shout if you have any problems.

I am only using it in WDS so I haven't tried to actually boot it from a DVD yet.

[thom]

***deleted double posting***

[zag]

As already mentioned if you have a Microsoft licensing account you can download any iso's you want cd/dvd.

 

If you have a media subscription then you can change the preferences of what type of media you get sent out.

[mrforgetful]

If you buy from Ramesys most they're arrangement with you will be different to most suppliers and you will not be able to download the media. But then they charge less than most so tit for tat.

 

They will send you a DVD if you ask, will cost £20 though.

 

The main problem is becuase the way Ramesys work you may only have acces to Vista Business, whereas most suppliers will be getting you Enterprise.

 

Again it's a tit for tat.

[woody]

I found the solution!!!

http://newton.montclair.edu:16080/weblog/jimi/techie/Windows+Vista/

It involves installing the Windows AIK and using imagex.exe to merge the install*swm files.

It took me about an hour to complete but was definately worth it.

Give me a shout if you have any problems.

I am only using it in WDS so I haven't tried to actually boot it from a DVD yet.

 

I'm having trouble burning onto a DVD so that it is bootable. The instruction is to 'Load the files into your favorite burning program and set the boot file to \boot\etfsboot.com'

 

How do I use nero to do this?

[thom]

There is a guide at http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=297 that goes through the process.

Also, have you tried using Nero's help? That's always a good place to start

[woody]

Followed that guide but it didn't work. The DVD won't boot. Those were for a windows 200/xp bootable cd though. Perhaps Vista works differently?

[zag]

Try http://www.imgburn.com/

[woody]

Try http://www.imgburn.com/

 

Thanks, but this only burns images. I want to burn all the individual files and folders for vista onto the DVD, and make it bootable.