Change from Legacy IDE Mode to AHCI Mode without Having to Rebuild

We still have some systems in the environment that the default bios setting are to have the SATA controller set to run in legacy Parallel ATA emulation mode. The other day a system was built with Windows 7 but the bios setting was not changed and therefore was running in AHCI mode. Most would concede that the system would need to be rebuilt, but alas a solution thanks to Marc Pottratz.

1. Enable AHCI Driver in the registry
   
   1. Locate and then click one of the following registry subkeys:
      

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
   

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV
   

   1. In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
      
   2. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
      
2. Install the standard Microsoft AHCI driver.
   
   1. Open device manager and locate the IDE/SATA controller.
      
   2. Open the controller's properties and on the driver tab select Update Driver.
      
   3. Select Browse my computer for driver software.
      
   4. Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.
      
   5. Uncheck Show compatible hardware.
      
   6. Scroll down the Manufacturer column and select the Standard AHCI driver.
      
   7. Click next and this should install the Microsoft AHCI driver.
      
3. Reboot and then change your bios settings over from IDE configuration to AHCI.
   
4. Install the appropriate AHCI driver for your motherboard.
   

IE7 Run-Once Customization Hangs on Applying Settings

I have experienced this issue with IE7 and the Run-Once customization hanging. Not sure exactly why this occurs, but it seems most often on clean systems that have had files and settings transferred over using the USMT. Most recommendations are to disable the run-once customization from coming up, even Microsoft has a knowledge base article that instructs users on how to do so. But this is a workaround and it doesn't resolve the issue. In fact if you use the work around you may notice that when you try to add or change default search providers that it doesn't work.
The solution is to change the key found in:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{EAB22AC0-30C1-11CF-A7EB-0000C05BAE0B}\1.1\0\win32

Most likely if you are experiencing this issue the default key will have the following value:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\shdocvw.dll
(Note if you are using a 64-bit O/S the value may start with C:\Windows\SysWOW64\shdocvw.dll)

Change the value to:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ieframe.dll
(Note if you are using a 64-bit O/S the value will be C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ieframe.dll)

Restart your browser and this should resolve the issue.

Configuring Services Startup Type from the Command Line

After installing a custom image using MDT2010 I noticed that aero was not enabled for my theme. In my task sequence I added the following command to run the Windows System Assessment Tool (Winsat)

winsat formal

This did not work and Aero still was not enabled.
To resolve the issue I found that the Desktop Window Manager service was not started and was set to manual. After starting the service, Aero was there in all its transparent beauty!

To have this happen during the build I added the following commands to the task sequence which start the service and set the service startup to automatic.

net start uxsms

Net can be used to start and stop a service but not to change the startup type of a service. To do so you must use the following command:

sc config start=

The values that can be used for mode are
auto: Automatically start the service
boot: Start service as a device driver loaded by the boot loader
demand: Manually start the service
disabled: Disable the service from running
system: Start a service during kernel initialization

For example,

sc config uxsms start= auto