802.1X Wireless Authentication Windows 2008 R2 Infrastructure Configuration - Part3

We have upgraded OS to WIndows 7 on all user machines last month. I needed to create a group policy for Windows 7 machines. It's very simple, just adding a Windows 7 Wireless Network policy to the Wireless Network (IEEE 802.1X) group policy which has been already created previously (See Part2)


1. Open Group Policy Management Editor
    Edit Wireless Network (IEEE 802.1X)
    Navigate Computer Configuration --> Policies --> WIndows Setting --> Wireless Policy
    Select "Create A New Wireless Network Policy for Windows Vista and Later Releases"


2. Right-click New Wireless Network Policy and select Properties
    Type Policy Name
    Click Add and select Infrastructure

3. Type Profile Name and SSID
    Click Add

 

4. Select the Security tab
    Select WPA2-Enterprise for Authentication and AES for Encryption
    Select PEAP for authentication method and User or Computer authentication for    authentication mode.
    Click Properties

5. Check Validate server certificate
    Select the CA certificate
    Click OK
    That's all for the group policy settings for Windows 7 computers.



Create Windows 7 Enterprise Image -Part2

If you try to sysprep Windows 7 Enterprise base image created by upgrading from Professional, you will end up with an error message "Sysprep cannot run on a computer that has been upgraded to a new version of Windows"

Delete the following registry key.  You should be able to sysprep.
HKLM\System\Setup\Upgrade

Create Windows 7 Enterprise Image - Part 1

It's about time that 6-year-old laptop computers retire and enjoy their retirement life in the dark storage room.

About 30 Toshiba Portege R830-S8332 arrived in my workshop.

I needed to create a Windows 7 Enterprise base image with standard applications such as Office 2010 to sysprep and then deploy with WDS.

First, I clean installed Windows 7 Enterprise and added necessary drivers. This was not a good idea. Even after the all drivers were installed, there were two devices with an exclamation listed on the device manager and point function keys were not working.

The laptop has OEM version of Windows 7 Professional preinstalled. I wondered if I could install Enterprise edition over to Professional somehow.

Yes, there is a way to upgrade Professional to Enterprise.

This could be done by changing two registry values.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\EditionID --> Change to Enterprise
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProductName --> Change to Enterprise

If both editions are SP1, you need to uninstall SP1 and upgrade.