Advanced MDT

My production deployment of the Win7EntX64 image has had a few glitches we are looking into. Two deployments had errors, but two worked more or less as expected. I have started to leverage the VM produced monolithic images by creating custom task sequences to deploy them to other platforms, which is one way we can prove the benefits of using a system like MDT to set up our computers.

The next task is to see how I can package Windows XP Mode and a preconfigured VM with certain legacy applications into the custom image deployment task sequence so that it is all set up and deployed to certain platforms ready for use.

Another part of MDT is to use it to do backup captures of machines, something we do regularly with Ghost. To do this I set up another deployment share and customised it with a different path (to my backup share rather than my setup share) then put in a capture task and disabled the sysprep on it. Captures get started using the LiteTouch script on the share rather than using a boot CD so it is very convenient. The first capture with this system has now been successfully completed for backing up a laptop and the system will be used again with all the laptops that we need to return at EOL as well as the other occasions in which we back stuff up.

Switchcraft EH Series [2]

We received our order today of the inserts and some plates we had also bought from Jansens to go with them.

Here is what one of these looks like straight out of the bag. You will see that the coupler looks like a standard VGA gender changer, and in fact that’s exactly what it is. This is good if you ever have to replace one of these, although the M/F changer is hard to find as it is actually a joiner, and I have never seen them in a supplier’s catalogue. The coupler is reversible when assembled (obviously only applies to the M/F type).

And here, assembled to a plate. It can only be front mounted unless you make cutouts in your places to clear the VGA plug locking screws. I had thought it would be necessary to do this anyway with the front mount as shown but the design of the thing is such that the screws don’t go on deep enough to have a problem with the plate behind.

Thanks to Jansens who have recently taken the Switchcraft agency as this EH Series design is pretty well unique especially with the range of different connectors (Neutrik produce RJ-45, USB and Firewire connectors in this XLR size insert style as well, but not all the other stuff that Switchcraft have come up with).

Building Windows 7 Enterprise x64 Image [5], Earthquake !!!!

On Friday I wrote about the difficulty I was having in getting proper support for software for schools making their own Windows images for HP laptops. After a very long and convoluted process involving the IT Helpdesk, Tela Helpdesk and Axon, which is the Tela laptop repair agent for HP, I have finally had my enquiry passed onto HP where they have advised me that software discs will be sent out to me. The process has been quite difficult but I hope that the HP discs will arrive soon. There is still uncertainty as to whether these discs will include WinDVD and Roxio DVD Creator which are supplied on the Tela laptop images. As it happens Windows 7 Pro/Ent include DVD playback in Media Player and the new Windows DVD Maker software for authoring, so it is not so critical now in Windows 7. However I have determined that the 6730b disks did include Roxio DVD Creator and have copied this to my new installation so that I can get on with it.

So I am continuing to put the image together with the necessary drivers in MDT, Windows includes some of these but one that will need to be injected is the network card driver, the same as I had to inject it into the Windows PE image, otherwise the deployment task fails partway through when it needs the driver to reconnect to the network share that contains the task. There will be some other drivers and bits of software like on the 6730b laptops. We are just moving ahead to get the deployment finished and the laptops out to their users as quickly as possible.

One thing we are changing with Windows 7 on laptops is utilising Offline Files as a backup system for documents stored on laptops. Basically we change folder redirection policy to put Documents onto the server and then sync it onto the laptop for offline use. We also change the policy settings so that Pictures, Video and Music are stored directly on the laptop itself and are not part of the offline files sync. Offline Files has been around since XP, but was pretty poor then. It is better in 7, although some users are reporting issues in Technet Forums.

Today what time I was able to focus on work was spent getting the Probook 6550b specific task sequence ready for a test run tomorrow. Basically there are three specific parts to the task sequence:

1. Make the Windows 7 Enterprise x64 generic install image (operating system and software) which I described in previous steps. This becomes the basis of a custom install task sequence for deploying Windows to the target platform.
2. Inject target platform-specific drivers
1. Create a platform specific folder to store the drivers and import them to it
2. Create a platform specific selection profile and include the above folder in it
3. In the Postinstall group of the task sequence, following the generic “Inject drivers” stage, insert a new custom named “Inject Drivers” task and configure it to use the selection profile configured above.
3. Install target platform-specific applications
1. Create a platform specific folder to store the application items
2. Determine the means of automating each application’s installation
3. Add the applications to the above folder along with their silent installation command. Configure each application item by checking the box “Hide this application in the Deployment Wizard” to avoid distracting the user who runs the automated installation task.
4. Create a custom group for application install in the State Restore group of the task sequence (suggested positioning is just before the generic “Install Applications”
5. Insert an “Install Application” task into this group for each of the required applications. Configure each application install task by checking the “Continue on error” box.
6. Determine how many reboots are needed and insert “Reboot computer” tasks between app install tasks as needed.

Now, err, that more delicate subject – the Canterbury earthquakes. There have probably been about 300 shocks in all since Saturday morning, but things took a bit of a new turn today when a number of shocks started to be centred in the Port Hills on the outskirts of Christchurch – or nearby, such as in Halswell or Quail Island. This explains why the Richter 5.1 quake at 7:42, widely cited as the most severe aftershock yet, centred in the Horotane Valley, could have such an impact with its far smaller magnitude than Saturday’s 7.1. I daresay that it has come as something of a rude shock for Cantabrians when things have seemed to be returning to normal. Civil Defence closed all schools in the region on Monday and Tuesday, then extended this to the whole week, then relented and left it up to individual Boards to decide if they wanted to open before next Monday – we will stay closed until then however.

The practical effect of the earthquake has been to throw a spotlight on our backup systems. The power has been off twice and each time a typical pattern of UPSs running down to flat batteries followed by servers going off has occurred. This brings its own challenges, on Saturday one of the UPSs failed to restart properly so that the servers could not automatically reboot as they kept losing power during POSTing in an endless cycle. Also the ISA server firewall service does not start automatically on a restart which means it has to be started manually each time. The UPSs don’t seem to last very long which suggests either inherent low battery capacity or battery life expired in any case.

Building Windows 7 Enterprise x64 Image [4], Thin Client, Home Computer

Firstly, thin client. The T5720 does have support for TS Gateway but in actuality is unable to run it, when flashed with the latest available XP Embedded image from HP. I am not going to delve too much into this but suffice it to say that with thin clients you are tied to the vendor for operating system support and if they can’t be bothered to support a particular functionality you are pretty well stuck. As I have not been able to get TSG functioning on the T5720 at the present, with our WS2008R2 RD Gateway server, I will just do some more testing to see if there is a compatibility problem with R2 by setting up a 2008 TS gateway inside our network. If this doesn’t work this is just another thin client I can use for something, albeit a more expensive one (the total amount I have spent on it to date is about comparable for T5720s in general secondhand, considering the extraordinarily low price I paid for the base unit in the first place). Whilst thin clients can generally run local apps quite well, the lack of space on the flash card (512 MB in this one) is a significant consideration with less than 100 MB free at the moment.

The home computer is progressing with the arrival and installation of the motherboard. In a day or two I will order the CPU and RAM.

The laptop image for Windows 7 Enterprise is still in progress as I need to get the software from HP. Whilst Toshiba are easy to get stuff for from the Laptop Company which is a domestic retail outlet, the HP agents Axon are a different kettle of fish to deal with altogether, being more geared towards the enterprise market. It has been previously quite convoluted with a big run around to find out how to contact the right person in Axon to get the software and at the moment what has been supplied is incomplete.

Tela have announced that in a couple of months they are switching over to Windows 7 on their laptops. Obviously we are still waiting to see the details. If what is shipped is x86 only then it will still be unsatisfactory as all new laptops with the amount of memory that is now being supplied should be shipping with x64. As such I expect to have to continue new laptop imaging until such time as x64 becomes supported on the standard desktops.

Building Windows 7 Enterprise x64 Image [3]

OK so recapping. Getting on with Windows 7 x64 imaging installing feature apps, then another capture, then testing full deployment. After that it will be customising with 6550b deployment task and testing the outcome on a 6550b.

The pre release of Update 1 had problems but the production release looks like working satisfactorily so I am migrating the previous (32-bit Pro) deployment share to it. Overall impressions of MDT are that it does what it says and that it is fairly straightforward for someone like me who does not use it regularly to pick it up again for a new deployment project at irregular intervals.

As MDT can do full captures it is probably the straightforward means for backing up old laptops as well. I haven’t used this yet but will probably look at it with the transfer of old laptops with these new ones we are setting up.

My second x64 capture, this time with the full apps, failed at first with the error message saying “there is not enough space on the disk”. I remember this situation happening before with MDT. Part of the capture stage is to create a reserved partition that, presumably, holds the Windows PE boot image, which is then used to reboot the captured system in Windows PE in order to carry out the actual capture process. If this partition is already present from a previous capture stage then this error results. The solution is simply to go to Computer Management, Disk Management and delete the reserved partition. After applying this step the capture worked normally.

The next step was to trial deployment to a target platform, in this case the same laptop I used to deploy the first x64 capture image. Once again this took about 40 minutes to deploy. The image is now a little over 6 GB which compares to about 2 GB for the base OS installation. I am unsure whether that really means 4 GB of stuff was installed or whether one is compressed and the other isn’t etc etc. The deployment was successful and everything on the laptop works about as expected.

This completes our task of building reference 64 bit images for the present. The next step is to create a platform specific task for deploying the Probook 6550b which I expect will be a similar process to that used to create the previous deployment for the 6730b laptops.