AZSMUG Meeting Oct 2nd

I know you miss me by now, its been about six months since you saw me last at MMS, back then I worked for a different company and Vista was still brand  new, ConfigMgr was just in its first public beta, and the Chargers has a head coach.  Well next Tuesday is your chance to come and see me again I will be presenting at Mike Terrill’s user group meeting on, you guessed it, ConfigMgr for two hours.  I am not a huge fan of PowerPoint so I will be doing as much demo as possible.  Mike is giving away some books and other stuff so if you are in the area follow the link below and register and we will see you on Tuesday.

We are planning on having our fourth quarter meeting.  This meeting will be held at Microsoft’s downtown Phoenix Office: 2929 N Central Ave, suite 1400 on Tuesday, October 2nd.  The meeting will start at 5:30 PM (welcome time is 5:15 PM), but BE SURE to arrive early, and remember that you cannot enter the building after 6:00 PM.

If you haven’t already heard the news, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 was release to manufacturing (RTM) on Friday, August 24^th.  What could possibly be a better topic for this meeting?  Come and get an inside look at the next version of SMS.

As always, we will be raffling off some goodies.  This time we will have some books and software to give away.

Please register for the meeting here so we can plan accordingly:
http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=120679

Job corner:

Jeremy Nichols is a recruiter in the Phoenix area and has a few SMS and packaging roles available.  If you are interested, you can contact him at Jeremy.Nichols@modisit.com.  Here is the description:

“I have multiple SMS roles, I have 2 SMS Admin/Engineer projects, a Scripter – scripting MSI based installation packages, and a Desktop technician to create install packages and work around/fixes for a very large deployment of Office 2007.  These are great clients, and decent length contracts (6mos each and 12mos for the Desktop).”

Thanks,
Mike Terrill
AZ Systems Management User Group
http://www.azsmug.org/
http://www.myitforum.com/groups/group87/

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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System Center Certifications - Coming Soon

If you have certs in any of the Microsoft management suite of tools, SMS and MOM, or would like to get a head start on getting your first cert in any of the newly branded System Center tools Microsoft has put together two sessions on what’s coming for System Center Certifications.  They have two but they are the same sessions just at different times to try and cover the different time zones for everyone.

There will be two different tracks one Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, or MCTS, which is due to begin in Q1 2008, and Microsoft Certification for IT Professionals, or MCITP, which will be available some time after MCTS. 

If you are interested in attending either of these online Live Meeting event you can register for them by following the links below.

Oct 24, 7:30 AM PST

Oct 24, 5:00 PM PST

Continue to sources here and here.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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Vista’s Partition Magic

Did you know that Vista natively supports partition resizing in Windows Vista?  If you go into Computer Management and navigate down to Storage, and then Disk Management in the right window pane you can select a volume, shrink that volume by right clicking on the volume and selecting Shrink Volume. 

This will open a dialog box to shrink the volume where you can configure how small you would like to make it, of course it cannot shrink it past the size of the data on the drive, if you want to completely remove the partition you can simply remove it and use its available space to increase the size of another partition.  In this case I only shrunk mine by 1 GB and it took just a few seconds.

After you are done shrinking the partition you can then select the other volume and right click it and select Extend volume which launches the Extend Volume wizard. 

Some things to note:  For a boot partition to be expanded the new space must be adjacent to it, so if I shrunk the utility partition to the left of the Recovery partition, I would not be able to use it with my boot drive, also you can only expand on a disk that is a dynamic disk.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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BDD 2008 Beta 3 Available On Connect

The ConfigMgr compatible version of BDD (Beta 3), which I will call BDD 2008 for now, is available through open beta on the Connect site.  The RTM version is expected to be out in November of this year.  In this version there is the previously discussed multicasting, USMT, WAIK, and ACT 5.0.

On Friday October 5th there is also a webcast on deploying an OS with ConfigMgr, you can register for it here.

Official announcement below.

Deployment 4 is the code name for the next version of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 and unifies the tools and processes required for desktop and server deployment into a common deployment console and collection of guidance. For the thousands of IT professionals already trained on BDD 2007, Deployment 4 requires minimal extra training to perform large-scale Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 deployments, while offering a further enhanced desktop deployment experience. Deployment 4 adds integration with recently released Microsoft deployment technologies to create a single path for image creation and deployment, including:

• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Operating System Deployment
• Windows Automated Installation Kit
• Windows Deployment Services with new multicast technology
• Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0
• User State Migration Tool 3.0.1
• Windows Server 2008 Server Manager for automated server role definition (coming soon)

Enhanced Beta Program on Microsoft Connect

This Beta release also offers an enhanced Microsoft Connect portal including technical frequently asked questions, deployment tips and tricks, a recommended 10-step program for new users to quickly get acquainted with deployment accelerators, customer-ready Solution Accelerator informational materials, and deployment-related conference presentations.

Accelerator Description

Deployment 4 Beta 3 combines the guidance and toolset from previous releases of Business Desktop Deployment and Beta releases of Windows Server Deployment. This release continues to support Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) of desktop operating systems using Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 with the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack and adds new deployment and task sequencing capabilities for desktops and servers using System Center Configuration Manager 2007. Deployment 4 also continues to provide Lite Touch Installation (LTI) support without infrastructure requirements and adds capabilities for Windows Server 2003 and pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008.

New features in Deployment 4 Beta 3

• Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 support, with the following features:
  • Full support for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 deployments with Deployment 4 and Configuration Manager 2007.
  • Complete integration into the Configuration Manager 2007 admin console and task sequencing capabilities.
    • Quick start Configuration Manager 2007 operating system deployments using one wizard to create needed task sequences and packages.
    • Extends the Configuration Manager 2007 task sequencing capabilities with new actions.
  • Feature parity with BDD 2007 and SMS 2003, including dynamic package installation, automatic determination of state store location, computer backup, database settings.
• Lite Touch Installation (LTI) support for Windows Server 2008:
  • Support for deploying Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 and potentially RC0 (to be verified after RC0 release), including support for Server Core installation options. (Windows Server 2008 TAP customers only.)
• Lite Touch Installation (LTI) enhancements:
  • Enhanced disk and network interface cards (NICs) configuration options, including support for static TCP/IP configuration.
  • Design changes to ease the migration from LTI to Configuration Manager 2007.
  • Support for multiple task sequence templates. New sample templates include:
    • Client template: Windows Vista, Windows XP
    • Server template: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008
    • Replace scenario template
  • Ability to invoke web service calls Support for web service calls from rules
    • Web services can be invoked as part of the rules processing performed by Deployment 4, using new rules that can be defined in CustomSettings.ini.
  • Support for side-by-side installation with Deployment 4 and BDD 2007 installed on the same machine.
• Lite Touch Installation (LTI) multicast support:
  • Deployment Workbench supports multicast transmission of operating system images when performing LTI deployments from Windows Server 2008 servers that are running Windows Deployment Services.

Where to Find Deployment 4 Beta 3

Deployment 4 Beta 3 is part of the Windows Server 2008 Beta and TAP Programs. It is also available as an open beta download.

To join Deployment 4 beta 3 program, follow these steps:

1. Visit the Microsoft Connect Web site (http://connect.microsoft.com).
2. Click Invitations on the Connect menu.
3. You will need to sign in using a valid Windows Live ID before you can continue to the Invitations page.
4. Enter your Invitation ID in the box. Your invitation ID is: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
5. Click Go.
6. If you have not previously registered with Microsoft Connect, you might be required to register before you continue with the invitation process.
7. To download Deployment 4, click Download Now.
   

(If this link does not work for you, copy the full link and paste it into the Web browser address bar.)

Thanks for your participation.
Deployment 4 Team
Microsoft

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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Microsoft ConfigMgr Community Forums Now Live

In another move to get away from the newsgroups Microsoft has opened up the System Center Configuration Manager Community that includes a web based forums section.

On the front page you will find a link to the subforums of ConfigMgr, Microsoft employee blogs, MVP blogs (not mine however?), and links to related communities like myITforum.com.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

Technorati Tags: ConfigMgr, SCCM, CM, Config manager, Microsoft, TechNet

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SoftGrid SMS Connector Discontinued

The SoftGrid connector will be deprecated in the near future and replaced with Windows Installer Application Virtualization Extension or WIAV.  The reasons they are moving away from the SMS Connector is due to future plans and interoperability with old and new products.

What is it?

Yes, you in the back, you have a question?  Ah, yes what is it he asked.  It is essentially a tool to take your sequenced applications and turn them into Windows Installer packages (MSI’s).  Another question?  Go ahead.  Her question was why?  The reasons given are so that you can now distribute the package on a file share, a CD, a USB key, through ConfigMgr, Group Policy by leveraging the Windows Installer service.  It will be loaded into the SoftGrid cache in stand alone mode, not requiring a connection to the the SoftGrid server itself.  This essentially moves away from the model of SoftGrid apps being streamed down to the SoftGrid client as a video file and replaces it with a locally executed installer package. 

New Features

Here are some of the new features reported to be in WIAV:

• Installing on a single computer by targeting the computer
• Deploying SoftGrid sequenced apps to computers without a user being logged in via ConfigMgr
• Compatibility with SoftGrid 4.2+
• Works with ConfigMgr
• New distribution models

Two things to note, first this is due out by the end of 2007, the second is that this only applies to stand alone SoftGrid clients, for those that are connected to SoftGrid app server they will continue to use streaming for application delivery, WIAV is intended for application delivery to stand alone clients.  Which is why you still end up with the normal three files after you sequence an app and then use a MSI packager utility.

Source here and here.

In other news…Over on the SoftGrid Blog they have just started a multi-part series of articles titled “Inside The Grid” that is a supplement to their training and has some very good, in depth, information in it.  You can check out part one here.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

1 comment.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Released

The other day SCVMM went RTM.  So what does this mean?  This is a management tool that will allow you to rapidly deploy/create VM’s, manage the resources they are using, suck in a physical server to a VM config file (or P to V) and add new virtual resources to existing VM’s.  If you use Virtual Server you should spend some time looking at this to see if it will benefit you or your organization, for larger Virtual Server farms it will be a no brainer.

Here is a link to a webcast that better describes and shows VMM in action.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Is Here

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, part of the Microsoft System Center family of system management products, provides a simple and cost-effective solution for unified management of physical and virtual machines, consolidation of underutilized physical servers, and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines by leveraging the expertise and investments in Microsoft server technology.

Top 10 Benefits of Virtual Machine Manager 2007

Here are the ten most valuable benefits that System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 can provide to your organization.

 Maximize datacenter resources through consolidation

A typical physical server in the datacenter operates at only 5 to 15 percent CPU capacity. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 can assess and then consolidate suitable server workloads onto virtual machine host infrastructure thus freeing up physical resources for repurposing or hardware retirement. Through physical server consolidation, continued datacenter growth are less constrained by space, electrical and cooling requirements.

 Physical-to-Virtual conversions are a snap!

Converting a physical machine to a virtual one can be a daunting undertaking – slow, problematic and typically requiring you to halt the physical server. But thanks to the enhanced P2V conversion in Virtual Machine Manager Beta 2, P2V conversions will become routine. Because of this improved P2V technology, IT administrators will be able to convert a running server to a virtual machine at disk speed — saving time and reducing complexity.

 Quick provisioning of new machines

In response for new server requests, a truly agile IT Department delivers new servers to its business clients anywhere in the network infrastructure with a very quick turnaround. Virtual Machine Manager enables this agility by providing IT administrators with the ability to deploy virtual machines in hours or days instead of weeks or even months. Through one console, Virtual Machine Manager allows administrators to manage and monitor virtual machines and hosts to ensure they are meeting the needs of the corresponding business groups.

 Intelligent Placement minimizes virtual machine guesswork in deployment

Virtual Machine Manager does extensive data analysis of a number of factors before recommending which physical server should host a given virtual workload. This is especially critical when administrators are determining how to place several virtual workloads on the same host machine. With access to historical data — provided by System Center Operations Manager 2007 – the Intelligent Placement process is able to factor in past performance characteristics to ensure the best possible match between the virtual machine and its host hardware.

 The Library helps keep virtual machine components organized

To keep a datacenter’s virtual house in order, Virtual Machine Manager provides a centralized library to store various virtual machine “building blocks”, off-line machines and other virtualization components. With the library’s easy-to-use, structured format, IT administrators can quickly find and reuse specific components thus remaining highly productive and responsive to new server requests and modifications.

 Templates speed the creation of new virtual machines

Virtual Machine Manager allows IT administrators to create templates of commonly deployed virtual machines. Thus once a virtual machine is optimized and performance tuned, an administrator can use it as the basis of a template. From there, the template can be used over and over again, increasing the speed with which administrators deploy similar virtual machines and eliminate much of the post-installation adjustments that are required after building a machine from scratch.

 Virtual Machine Manager looks familiar and is easy to use

Virtual Machine Manager’s interface provides IT Administrators with a reassuringly familiar interface which is intuitively easy to use and requires little retraining. This is particularly true for those who use System Center Operations Manager 2007. Similarly, IT administrators familiar with producing reports in SQL Server can continue without missing a step as Virtual Machine Manager uses an instance of SQL for performance and configuration data.

 Works with the rest of the datacenter

Because of its Windows Server and System Center pedigree, Virtual Machine Manager works well with the rest of the datacenter. Virtual Machine Manager takes advantage of foundational Windows Server services like Active Directory and Distributed File System, among others. Virtual Machine Manager does not require the introduction of non-native services or applications which can increase infrastructure complexity and require additional IT resources to manage and maintain.

 Leverages datacenter investments in SAN storage

Virtual machine images can be large and therefore slow to move across the network. Virtual Machine Manager enables virtual machines to be moved quickly over the SAN thus enabling even faster provisioning of new virtual machines and migration of existing virtual machines.

 Windows PowerShell provides rich management and scripting environment

The ability to automate common operations using a command line interface is core to the Virtual Machine Manager. The entire solution is built on the new command line and scripting environment, Windows PowerShell. This enables GUI operations to be quickly exported to PowerShell scripts for customization and automation.

Sources, here and here.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

1 comment.

Downloads: XML Notepad 2007

If you don’t have one already this is a great tool for editing all those XML files in ConfigMgr.

Direct download.

Brief Description

XML Notepad 2007 provides a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML documents.

Overview

Handy features include:

• Tree View synchronized with Node Text View for quick editing of node names and values.
• Incremental search (Ctrl+I) in both tree and text views, so as you type it navigates to matching nodes.
• Cut/copy/paste with full namespace support.
• Drag/drop support for easy manipulation of the tree, even across different instances of XML Notepad and from the file system.
• Infinite undo/redo for all edit operations.
• In place popup multi-line editing of large text node values.
• Configurable fonts and colors via the options dialog.
• Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath.
• Good performance on large XML documents, loading a 3mb document in about one second.
• Instant XML schema validation while you edit with errors and warnings shown in the task list window.
• Intellisense based on expected elements and attributes and enumerated simple type values.
• Support for custom editors for date, dateTime and time datatypes and other types like color.
• Handy nudge tool bar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree.
• Inplace HTML viewer for processing xml-stylesheet processing instructions.
• Built-in XML Diff tool.
• Support for XInclude
• Dynamic help from XSD annotations.
• Goto definition to navigate includes and XSD schema information.

 Source.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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Multicasting in Server 2008

 Kevin is right, this has already been talked about, but he does a nice job of explaining the two types of multicasting.  Two drawbacks to this however…First you cannot multicast across subnets, well you can but if your network supports this you are wide open to a SQL Slammer type of attack where one laptop brings your network to its knees.  Second, you have to have Server 2008 to make this work.

A simple, less costly solution, that you can utilize now is to use the 1E OSD Plus Pack, or SMSNomad Branch to accomplish this - now.

One of the gazillion new and improved features of the soon to be released Windows Server 2008 is that we now have the ability to perform enhanced multicasting when deploying OS images right out of the box.  The new Windows Deployment Services (WDS) will now support an enhanced multicast feature which will allow you to multicast out your Windows OS’s from Windows Server 2008.  This is not ‘new’ news as I believe we have documented that this will be a feature for quite some time, but one that I feel is overlooked given all of the other many features of the new product. 

There will be two types of multicast supported:

• Scheduled-Cast:  This is your traditional multicast scenario where you can specify a time or certain number of clients requesting an image before a session begins for all at the same time.  You can also start the session manually once all clients are in the ‘waiting’ state and ready to go.
• Auto-Cast:  As soon as an allowed client requests an image, a multicast transmission begins.  Other clients can then join this same session in progress and can ‘make up’ what they missed earlier by dropping back to a unicast session at the end.  To me, this is a pretty cool feature as it allows one to set up an ‘always on’ multicast session to your environment that can be invoked at any time and by multiple different folks pulling down the same image.  This gives you maximum flexibility and efficient use of bandwidth.  Below is a screen shot from my lab that show two machines on the same multicast session - note the different session times and % complete:

I know that this has been a huge ask from my HED and K12 customers responsible for installing entire labs of machines on a regular basis.  Now we have a solution ‘in-the-box’ with W08 to address this.  Now all that is left to do is to integrate this multicast functionality with SCCM’s OS deployment features - don’t worry, this is already being worked on!!!

Kevinsul’s Management Blog : Multicast OS Deployments - At Last (and in-the-box with Windows Server 2008)

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer

In larger environments this new tool to identify GP configuration and dependency problems should be a great time saver and really help with the administration of GPO’s.  As a Solutions Engineer that works with customers who have workstations all over the globe and seats that number in the six figures I have seen some really complicated GP configurations.  Logon times that are calculated in minutes sometimes.  This is not exclusive to large environments however, the worst group policy settings I have helped to cleanup was only about 3,000 seats.

Links to download the tools are below.

Overview

The Microsoft Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer (GPDBPA) for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is designed to help you identify Group Policy configuration errors or other dependency failures that may prevent settings or features from functioning as expected.

Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer for Windows Server 2003

Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition

Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer for Windows XP

Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer for Windows XP x64 Edition

For my US readers enjoy your long weekend!

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E Inc.

http://configmgr.com

© 2007 Anthony Clendenen

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