Here's my review.
What I like
- Reduced time needed to fully configure all my settings
- Wireless enabled to begin with. This is great because I don't have to wait to "configure windows features" for 10 minutes just to start surfing. Bam just click my available access point and begin surfing.
- Dreamscene. Nice to be play able to play some Stargate SG-1 clips in 1080p on my HD monitor
The OS is very polished and you did a very nice job. However there are some improvements to make the configuration tasks more simple.
1. Why not just integrate the entire Games Explorer (gameux + explorer) altogether (if its posisble)? It's as simple as disabling the Games link in Taskbar and Start Menu property and you don't have to go through the extra needed steps of enabling it in your tools.
2. I see you used the RT Server Customizer tool and you have the ability to integrate 3rd party applications into the ISO image. Maybe in your next edition you can integrate Adobe Flash Player for IE and Firefox as well as C++ 2008 64-bit SP1 redistributable, Java package, Shark007's Vista and Windows 7 Codecs. This way you have Media codecs and your machine is "YouTube" ready right out of the box. Another idea I had was taking downloading the INFs of the most recent versions of ATI and Nvidia drivers and integrating them into the ISO so if possible your graphics driver is installed out of the box. I'm not sure if that would work though and you can't always include every single persons driver so it might not be practical. Nice thought though.
3. Not a fan of the Logon image. I'm not saying I didn't like the artistic style of the image I just felt it didn't appropriately match the title of the Windows Edition you gave it. It's the "Director's Cut"! Maybe an image of a movie reel in 3D close up might be more suiting?
4. Another little idea of mine, how about changing the default URL page in Internet Explorer when you launch it for first time. By default you are prompted with
res://iesetup.dll/SoftAdmin.htmIf you navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
Change
Default_Page_URL to
http://www.google.comChange
First Home Page to
http://www.google.comChange
DisableFirstRunCustomize to 1.
Change
StartPage to
http://www.google.comAlso when you open a new tab in Internet Explorer, by default you are greeted with a blank page or a "you've opened a new tabs" message if you want to change this action to open your home page every time you open a new tab, do the following:
1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TabbedBrowsing
Change
NewTabPageShow to 1. Refresh registry. Notice how when you open a new tab in IE it opens your home page.
You can use Yahoo.com is you want or some other search engine. A little tiny step you might want to consider to simplify the configuration process.
Also, on a side (its not exactly legal but who cares I'm going to do it anyway) note, if you install the Standard edition of Windows you can use this SLIC load to activate Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard! Works fine too, even after installing the Windows Activation technologies update in Windows Update. Use at your own risk. In other words, "you didn't hear it from me"
http://www.vo2ov.com/Windows-7-Slic-Ldr ... 64015.html
I have a base image install of R2 to go back on so if i don't like it it won't be a problem, which I don't think will be a problem you must a lot of effort into this and I think it deserves some props.
