How to backup Outlook 2016 account settings

The Outlook 2016 email settings are maintained in a registry key.

You can export that key and import it back in to Office 2016 on a reinstall. This will put all of the settings for your previously configured email accounts, and data files, back into Outlook.

The key is: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\Outlook

This key does not store any the actual emails, just the email account and data file (pst and ost) settings in Outlook, which will save you from having to reconfigure all of that stuff. If you are using pop3 accounts, the emails will be in your pst files, which you must backup externally before you reinstall Windows. The pst and ost files will not be deleted, but will remain if all you are doing is uninstalling/reinstalling Office 2016. If you are using Exchange email, then your emails will be in an ost file, retained locally and online.

Keep in mind that when you reinstall Office, even though you have local copies in your backed-up pst file, it will probably download ALL of the emails in your online pop3 accounts (which could be several thousand). If you have your pop3 Outlook settings configured to delete the emails from the server (after 14 days is the default) after you retrieve them, then your old emails will be in your backed up pst file, and the new Outlook install will only be downloading the 14 days of emails that you left on the server. If you don't backup the pst files, and you have your pop3 accounts configured to delete your emails after 14 days, then you will have lost all of your old emails forever.

And that, my friend, is why you should always back stuff up.


Original post found on Microsoft Answers:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-outlook/how-to-backup-email-account-settings-in-outlook/d3a63184-da06-4ba8-93ba-7c3494185af5?auth=1

Weber BBQ Gourmet System compatibility with older Weber gas grills

I have a vintage Weber Genesis Gold model B from circa 2002 and was eyeing the new Weber BBQ Gourmet System in the stores the other week.

Unfortunately Weber only lists as compatible BBQ models the Weber Spirit 300-series from 2013- (part #7586), Weber Genesis-series from 2010- (part #7587) and Weber Summit-series any year (part #7585).

After a lot of searching on the net I found out that Weber does not publish any dimensions of their BBQ grates and accessories - only packaging sizes. After another couple of hours of searching I found some third party replacement grate listings with dimensions on eBay and Amazon for my old banger and I double checked the online found dimensions (17 1/4" x 11 3/4") against my BBQ which checked out rather well at (440mm x 300mm) per side (two grill grates side-by-side).

So off I went to the local Weber retailer in high hopes that I could possibly modify one of the BBQ Gourmet System grates to fit my old BBQ. When I managed to talk one of the shop clerks to open one of the sales packages to take measures I was greeted by slightly larger dimensions of the BBQ Gourmet System Grille for the Spirit 300-series (#7586) of 442mm x 302mm. I decided to take a risk and believe it was still within measurement tolerances being off a couple of thousands of an inch in both dimensions and bought one anyway.

As luck has it it fit perfectly into my old Genesis Gold B as a drop-in replacement to the old grille and now I have a nice shiny BBQ Gourmet System stainless steel grille and a bunch of the BBQ System accessories to go with it in my old trusty Genesis Gold. Good to go for another 10 years!

How to enlarge a drilled hole without a drill press

I, like undoubtedly many others, have bumped into the problem of how to enlarge a drilled hole without a drill press.

Today I made a little roller board for my mitre saw and as a good engineer I measured the padded feet of the saw to the millimetre and drilled holes for all four feet that were 1mm larger in diameter than the feet.

Now you would wonder why this wouldn't be a great feat of engineering and just how it should be done, since the saw feet did fit perfectly into the holes. The catch is that in order to get all four feet into their respective holes you have to align the 21kg (46 pounds) saw perfectly to a board on casters...

So to make life good again I had to enlarge the holes from 26mm to 35mm to just drop the saw somewhere there-about-ish and be done with it. Unfortunately drilling free-hand with a drill-driver using a 35mm Forstner bit around an existing hole with no centre spike location isn't exactly easy - I'd dare to call it next to impossible.

Enter the world of good old jigs and a simple trick. Since guiding a driver with a Forstner bit free-hand is impossible you can simply make a guide-jig by drilling a hole into a piece of scrap wood with the larger bit and then centre the jig over the hole you are enlarging and clamp it down.

Insert the Forstner bit into the hole you previously drilled into the jig and rev the drill up before lightly making contact with the edge of the work piece  Use the guide-hole to keep the drill from wondering and you get tear-free ingress edges as a bonus since the jig works as a tear-out protector at the same time.

Superdrive jammed up empty, not accepting discs - solution

I just experienced an weird lockup of the MacMini SuperDrive: It was empty, but would not accept a disc in more than half way in i.e. it had ejected the previous DVD successfully, but the eject mechanism had not returned back to its 'accept new disc' position.

After trying all possible tricks to eject a jammed disc i.e. boot with the mouse button depressed, use iTunes to eject disc, try resetting the PRAM and SMC, etc. I stumbled on this bit of advice worth its weight in gold:

Just gently force a DVD into the drive by tapping it gently strengthening the tapping force until it cycles the eject mechanism mechanically.

It took a dozen taps with increasing strength but eventually my drive found itself and cycled the mechanism and accepted the new disc. It spit it out 2 sec later, but after a second normal insertion the drive has worked flawlessly. 

Is it safe to move spanned drives between SATA ports?

With Windows 7 Home 64-bit this worked flawlessly and entirely automatically for me.

I tried this with a spanned volume of 9TB (3x2TB + 1x3TB) where by mistake I had connected the 3TB drive to a JMicron 363 SATA-port and the rest were connected to the integrated nVidia nvraid ports. The use of the JMicron port worked reasonably fine in IDE-mode, but when I tried to configure it in AHCI-mode it acted randomly giving varying write speeds between 18MB/s to 67MB/s whereas the same drive now connected to the nForce SATA-port clocks in a steady 80MB/s both read and write. (SATA-300).

Procedure:
1. Update all SATA controller drivers to the newest version just in case. My Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> Storage Devices -> <controller> -> Update Driver -> Update Automatically
2. Reboot computer to verify that the drivers work properly.
3. Shutdown computer, switch power supply off or unplug from wall before detaching the SATA cables
4. Move SATA cable to desired new SATA-port on the motherboard/SATA-controller card.
5. Replug the power supply. Start computer.
6. Login to Windows normally, wait for automatic device driver installation to finish and when prompted, reboot. (Device driver association is per port, but clearly volume information is writen on each disk in the spanning group and is not dependent on SATA-port numbers)
7. After reboot your are done. Have Fun!

Fixing Windows 7 Print Spooler crashing constantly (Event ID: 7031)

I got bitten by an irritating bug Microsoft introduced in some update during 2011 which causes the print spooler of Windows 7 64-bit (Home Premium and Xerox Phaser 6140DN network printer in my case, reported to do so on other flavours of Windows 7 and other printer manufacturers especially HP and Epson as well.)

Symptoms observed are: 

• Printer stops responding
• Network printers vanish from the Start -> Devices and Printers dialogue
• Event viewer will report in System evenlog continuous crashes (ID 7031) whenever the print spooler restarts (ID 7036)
• At least Xerox drivers cannot be reinstalled because the print spool service is down
• The print spooler service can be started and will promptly crash within seconds of restart

Mostly you get direction to run the Microsoft Printer Fix-it utility, which does absolutely nothing to this problem. Other suggested remedies are tweaking the registry which is printer manufacturer specific and might work for you or not. 

What works for me, though does not remove the problem permanently (it has reoccurred once for me and being fixed with the instructions below both times) is presented below:

Clear Printer Spooler files and enable the spooler service

1. Click the Start Button, type "Services" (without the quotation marks) in the open box and click OK.
2. Double-click "Printer Spooler" in the Services list.
3. Click Stop and click OK.
4. Click the Start Button, type "%WINDIR%\system32\spool\printers" in the open window, and delete all files in this folder. 

If you're not running with Administrator privileges you will be prompted to take control of the directory before you are shown the contents of it. 

Or if you can make a new shortcut on your desktop to CMD.EXE and right click the icon and select 'Run as Administrator...' since you need admin privileged to delete the spooler files. Then 

CD %WINDIR%\system32\spool\

DEL printers\*.*

Answer Y when prompted

5. Click the Start Button, click Run, type "Services" (without the quotation marks) in the open box and click OK.
6. Double-click "Printer Spooler" in the Services list to restart it

Fixing The Biggest Fault in Sun Sniper Pro Camera Strap

I bought a Sun Sniper Pro (SSP) camera strap a while back and since found that even though it is comfortable to use and many times over better than conventional camera straps it has one main fault - the shoulder pad slides on to your back after a while of repeated usage.

I solved this problem by acquiring a Blackrapid BRAD-strap which is an additional under your armpit extra strap for the Blackrapid camera straps, but happens to also fit the Sun Sniper Pro camera strap. It is a snug fit and when inserting on to the SSP-strap the integral steel wire is a bit in the way, but once you get the strap into the slots it works & fits perfectly. No more sliding!

So you can get the best of both worlds:
- the less clunky ball-bearing SSP camera connector and
- the Blackrapid BRAD-strapped shoulder pad.

HOWTO: Using Larger Than 2TB Drives on Areca ARC-1220 Raid Controller

I got my hands on a Western Digital 3TB Caviar Green drive (WD30EZRS) and promptly put it through some tests on my home server.

The Areca ARC-1220 raid controller detects the drive fine as a 3TB drive with the newest firmware (Firmware v1.49, Boot ROM v1.49).

After booting up my Ubuntu 11.10 Server 64-bit (oneiric) I tried to format & mount the drive in my usual fashion with fdisk /dev/mapper/areca-lv1 and mke2fs /dev/mapper/areca-lv1 and ended up with a 2TB partition. Fail.

So I Googled a bit and found this excellent article on making GPT partition tables for >2TB drives. I will reproduce the steps required to get the partition up and running here for convenience. Substitute /dev/sdb with your raid controller device node like /dev/mapper/areca-lv1 in my case:

To create a partition start GNU parted as follows:

# parted /dev/sdb

Output:

GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sdb

Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted)

Creates a new GPT disklabel i.e. partition table:

(parted) mklabel gpt

Sample outputs:

Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue?
Yes/No? yes
(parted)

Next, set the default unit to TB, enter:

(parted) unit TB

To create a 3TB partition size, enter:

(parted) mkpart primary 0 0

OR

(parted) mkpart primary 0.00TB 3.00TB

To print the current partitions, enter:

(parted) print

Sample outputs:

Model: ATA ST33000651AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 3.00TB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
 1 0.00TB 3.00TB 3.00TB ext4 primary

Quit and save the changes, enter:

(parted) quit

Sample outputs:

Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
Use the mkfs.ext3 or mkfs.ext4 command to format the file system, enter:

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

OR

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Sample outputs:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
183148544 inodes, 732566272 blocks
36628313 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
22357 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group

Superblock backups stored on blocks:

32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968, 102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 31 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

Type the following commands to mount /dev/sdb1, enter:

# mkdir /data
# mount /dev/sdb1 /data
# df -H

Sample outputs:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 16G 819M 14G 6% /
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 1.6G 123k 1.6G 1% /dev
tmpfs 1.6G 0 1.6G 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1 3.0T 211M 2.9T 1% /data

Make sure you replace /dev/sdb1 with actual RAID or Disk name or Block Ethernet device such as /dev/etherd/e0.0. Do not forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary. Also note that booting from a GPT volume requires support in your BIOS / firmware. This is not supported on non-EFI platforms. I suggest you boot server from another disk such as IDE / SATA / SSD disk and store data on /data.

Algae removal instructions from the Bosch Ecologixx 7 Dryer

STEP-BY-STEP CLEANING INSTRUCTIONS

1. Remove the Condenser Tank from top left corner of the machine

2. Pour 2½ dl of raw white vinegar down the drain opening on the front floor of the Condenser Tank cavity into the Water Reservoir

3. Run the dryers Warm-program without the Condenser Tank in place for a few minutes and observe with a flashlight that the vinegar is circulating up from the Water Resevoir back up into the the Condenser Tank (eject hole at the back ceiling in the Water Tank Cavity).

The solution will drain down the secondary drain in the middle of the cavity back to the Water Reservoir while the Condenser Tank is not present.

4. Half fill the Condencer Tank with hot water to rince and dilute the vinegar out of the system

5. Reinsert the Condencer Tank with hot water and run the Warm-program for 30min

6. You might experience mild vinegar smell in the first few dryerfuls of clother but after that it will subside.

7. Repeat treatment every 3-6 months and before leaving the dryer unused for multiple weeks at a time.

8. If the algae clog is bad enough to result in the indicative ”Condencer Tank Full”-warning even thou the tank is nearly empty you might need to first have the pump changed by a Bosch technician for a clean one.

HOWTO: Run a mixed release Debian or Ubuntu Distribution

By inserting the following statements into your APT preferences file you can tell APT to prioritize the testing-repository and only if there are no suitable packages in testing to dip into the unstable-repository for the missing dependencies in testing.

/etc/apt/preferences

Package: *
Pin: release testing
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release unstable
Pin-Priority: 600

To enable this prioritization to work you must download both testing and unstable package lists. You do this by adding both repositories in your sources.list -file.

/etc/apt/source.list

deb ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ testing main
deb ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ testing main
deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ unstable main
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main

Note: Security updates are released against the stable-repository and your geographical mirror will depend on your location. The above example uses Finland as the FTP mirror.

After running apt-get update you will be able to install packages directly from unstable by issuing the command:

apt-get install <package_name> -t unstable

Now the dependencies will be fulfilled primarily from the testing repository and secondarily from the unstable repository. This prioritization is also valid for running normal apt-get update && apt-get upgrade.

HOWTO: Add capasity to an existing hardware raid-5 set on a Areca ARC1220 8-channel PCIe raid-array running Ubuntu 7.10 64bit, LVM2 and ext3?

Preparation

First order of business is, as usual, BACKUP ALL DATA on the array.

After this you might want to insert the new disk into the array either with a hot-swap carrier (like in my case a IcyDock MB455SPF) or incase you are running the array with permanently attached drives by shutting down the computer and adding another drive to the controller.

Begin Hardware Volume configuration

The raid controller will begin automatic detection of the new drive instantly after insertation (or after boot if not hotswap). The new drive will be marked as unused free space / unallocated.

At this point you should be in a running instance of Ubuntu. Fire up the Areca Linux Control HTTP-service 

bash #> archttp64

in my case since I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit Alternative install.

Connect to the WebManagement interface at http://localhost:81 if you have the management daemon running with defaults.

Default values for console authentication are admin:0000

Once you have successfully authenticated to the console check the status of the array from the front page. You should see the new drive(s) as free space and unused.

Now begin the array expansion by selecting

RaidSet Functions -> Expand Raid Set

Select the RaidSet you want to expand and click the submit button -> select the free volumes you want to add to the RaidSet and check the confirmation tick-box and click on submit.

Wait for the RaidSet to rebuild. This will take a long time depending on the size of your array. With a 1TB expansion the rebuild time is around 24h.

After the RaidSet Expansion is complete (you'll see progress from the WebAdmin Console in the Volume State field) you will need to add the new space to the current VolumeSet by selecting

VolumeSet Functions -> Modify Volume Set

and entering the new volume size into the size field and if you are expanding the array over 2TB you might need to set the 2TB limit circumvention to off depending on your OS and filesystem.

Wait for the VolumeSet expansion to complete. This will take about 3-4h for 1TB expansion.

LVM2 and ext3 resizing

You may resize your LVM2 volumes online with atleast LVM v2.02.26 shipping with Ubuntu 7.10.

Issue the command

bash #> pvdisplay

to view current volume information. Then you issue the command

bash #> pvresize /dev/sda

This will happen almost instantly.

At this point you will want to reboot the server to update the kernels view of the logical volumes.

Now you may check the new size of the physical volume by issuing the command

bash #> pvdisplay

again. Write down the available PE-count (Physical Extents) of the resized volume. This information will be needed in the next step.

Next we will expand your logical volumes to max available size by issuing the command

bash #> lvresize -l (insert Total PE-number) /dev/areca/volume-name

Wait for volume resizing. This will take abt. 3h per TB.

After stopping of all networking services that use the volume and unmounting the volume

bash #> umount /dev/areca/volume-name

(not strictly nescessary since resize2fs supports nowadays online resizing) you may begin priming the system for the expansion of the ext3 filesystem by issuing the command

bash #> e2fsck -vtf /dev/areca/volume-name

This will run a filesystem check on the current filesystem and reset all check-bits so that the resizing utility will run. This will take about an hour per terabyte of data in the array. e2fsck is very bad at telling what it's doing so don't panic if it seems to hang.

Resize the ext3 filesystem by

bash #> resize2fs -p /dev/areca/volume-name

This will take another 30 min - 1h.

After the resize successfully completes reboot the server.

Same as above in a flow chart format

HOWTO: Move the Users-tree to another drive in Vista/Windows 7

WHY MOVE THE C:\Users -TREE TO ANOTHER DRIVE?

Why would someone want to move the C:\Users-directory tree to another drive?

One reason: Storage Capacity.

Windows Vista and 7 store all user- and shared data under the C:\Users -tree and therefore a fast system drive like a smallish SSD or a Velociraptor will inevitably lead to the filling of the whole C:\ -drive because user data like home videos and digital pictures will consume easily hundreds of gigabytes of storage space.

So say you've invested in a fast 64GB SSD-drive and would like to play World of Warcraft and tryout the occasional Public Test Realm versions of it. Your WoW-installations alone will consume 35GB of your limited storage capacity and ass Windows Vista/7 data at about 15-20GB and a few hundred RAW-images and you're out of space badly.

Installing Windows Vista or Windows 7 will replace the old 'Documents and Settings' directory tree as the repository of system users home directories as well as the shared Public-directories like C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft.

Unfortunately the directory tree contains the user registry and other system files so you cannot just move it to another drive and walk away with a working Windows installation.

As a matter of a fact, your Windows won't be able to logon if something gets screwed-up during the following instructions. -> So make a full image backup NOW!

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

Here are some step-by-step instructions on how we do this - I don't claim authorship to any of these - I collected the different ideas together that were floating around the blogosphere and tried the different methods until I got it right.

1. Make a full backup image of your system drive (C:\) before you proceed

I found out the hard way that System Restore CANNOT restore a broken linkage of C:\Users nor will renaming the original directory back to its original name fix the error that Windows will crash & burn with if something goes awry.

So you'll want to make a full system backup-image with the Windows Vista/7 Backup/Restore -tool or another similar backup utility that support full volume imaging to get back up after a failed attempt.

2. Make a System Repair Disc with the Vista/7 backup tools for yourself or have the install DVD handy for command shell

Start Control Panel -> System and Security -> Backup and Restore -> Create a system repair disc. You will be asked to insert a CD or DVD into your DVD-burner (either will work since the image is small enough to fit on a normal CD-R disc). Make the disc and label it.

Alternatively, albeit a slower way of getting to a command shell is to boot from the original installation media and select 'Repair system' from the installation menu -> Use recovery tools -> Command Prompt.

3. Make sure your second drive where you're relocating the C:\Users -tree is in such a place that it will be given the same drive letter during a System Repair Boot as it has during normal boot.

This is imperative since the hard linking used in the guide requires you to be able to give the whole drive path including the destination drive letter to link to the new destination and this will fail if the drive letter during SysRepair is different from normal runtime.

In practice this means you need to make the secondary drive the D:\ -drive since the SysRepair command shell will boot to X:\ itself, have an empty C:\ -drive, D:\ will be in its normal place and the ordinary boot drive will be located at E:\ in a two hard drive and a DVD-drive scenario.

I found out this the hard way too with the secondary drive mapped to Z:\ normally and during the System Repair command shell it would end up being D:\ and mess the linkage totally and result in a full restore.

4. Boot into the command shell with the System Repair disc or your original Windows intallation DVD and do the following:

1. Type 'E:' and press 'Enter' to go to your normal boot-up drive

(this may be a different letter if you have a different drive configuration)

2. Type 'robocopy E:\Users D:\Users /MIR /E /XJ /COPYALL DCOPY:T'

(possibly also 'robocopy E:\Users D:\Users /MIR /E /XJ' will be enough - tried both when I succeeded) and press 'Enter'

3. Type 'rmdir /S /Q E:\Users and press 'Enter'

4. Type 'rmdir E:\"Documents and Settings" and press 'Enter'

(Documents and Setting is a hidden hard link (Junction) to C:\Users that won't work if it is pointed to a hard link Junction)

5. Type 'mklink /J Users D:\Users and press 'Enter'

(Note: here the originating link point i.e. C:\Users must and can be given as a relative reference without a drive letter so it can be done even thou the C:\-drive will reside as E:\ -drive during the System Repair command shell.)

6. Type 'mklink /J "Documents and Settings" D:\Users and press 'Enter'

(Note: Same goes for this relink. Also here we link Documents and Settings directly to the real new Users-directory tree to avoid the nested linkage.)

7. Type 'Exit' and press 'Enter' to exit the command shell
8. Reboot the computer normally and you should have a working hardlink to D:\Users from C:\Users and all the space consuming data will end up on the secondary larger drive transparently to the OS.

There are some rumors that this linkage might confuse some backup utilities to make an image backup of both drives and breaking the image doing that.

HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive

WHY INSTALL FROM USB FLASH DRIVE?

Why would someone want to install a client OS from a thumb drive instead of a DVDROM or over the network?

One reason: Performance.

Installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive is in my experience the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install.

This is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit ethernet, or possibly even some external USB 2.0 hard drives, due to differences in access speed & transfer rate.

To put this into perspective, y'know how installing Windows on a Virtual PC virtual machine from an .ISO CD image is really, really, really fast? Imagine something roughly just as fast, except for doing installations of the OS on to actual workstations.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

Here's some step-by-step instructions on how we do this, some of which was adapted from Josh's instructions, again, kudos to Josh.

1. Acquire an ultra-fast USB 2.0 flash drive

The drive I and my coworkers recommend is the Apacer 4GB Handy Steno USB Flash Drive HT203, 200X Hi-Speed USB 2.0. It's the fastest USB 2.0 Flash Drive that we've found - it has a read speed of 25MBytes/sec. & a write speed-14MBytes/sec and also works great as a ReadyBoost cache.

Incidentally, once you've got Windows Vista up and running, you may want to consider getting an ultra-fast SDFlash card, installing it into your laptop or desktop, and leaving it there as a ReadyBoost cache. Why? It can't hurt and they're so cheap that it's worth getting. I personally got a SDFlash card for every one of my machines - the A-DATA 2GB Secure Digital Memory Card, 150X Turbo SD Card has a read speed of more than 22.5MB/s and a write speed of more than 15MB/s.

2. Format the Apacer Flash Drive

Run CMD.EXE and type the following.

Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as "disk 1". you should double check that by doing a list of the disks (type "list disk") before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives, like an SDFlash drive or a Multibay drive, you could end up wiping your second drive using this command. (This was a warning that Josh added to his post along with the following commands that I copied from him, so kudos to Josh)

1. diskpart
2. select disk 1
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

3. Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.

> xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

And that's it. Boot up the machine, have it boot off the USB drive, and watch how fast the installation completes. If you thought Windows Vista installed quickly before then let's see how you like it now. The slowest part of the install will probably be the computer waiting for you to type in information in the setup fields, and even that can be automated using the "Windows Automated Installation Kit".

(Original Blog Entry Copied from http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DA410C7F7E038D!1665.entry)