Jason Lee

After we configured MDT for our deployment we were ready to start testing the deployment.  This test was going to to be on the physical hardware that we would later roll Vista out to and also a VMWare ESX test machine.  The VMWare box was to limit the trips over to the hardware while we were ironing out the bumps.  We deployed Vista 32 bit in this scenario.

After you have your deployment setup in MDT you next need to select your boot image in WDS that you just created by updating your MDT Deployment Point. This boot image is located in the Deployment Point Share \distribution\boot\litetouchPE_x86.wim

 

Once your boot image is added you are ready to start your client machine and PXE boot the device.  (normally F12).

Once the PXE boot process starts, you will have to hit F12 a second time and then you should see windowsPE start up.  If all is configured correctly you should get the Task Sequence dialog box where you can select your Task Sequence you would like to perform in our case Vista 32 bit install.

Next You will be prompted to choose the applications that you want to install during the OS installation.  The applications are Displayed and Installed in the order in which you added them to MDT.

After you select the applications you want, select next and the process starts… after a few minutes the OS is installed, and you are looking at your desktop of a machined joined to the domain.

Some  “Got-Ya’s” general and Dell 755 specific.

SQL Database
Quite a few blogs indicate that you need to use the SQL Database in conjunction with MDT.  After talking with Tanner at Microsoft this is not needed in an organization with a couple hundred clients being installed from MDT, especially when you are managing just 5-10 flavors of workstations.

When we first booted our Virtual machine the LiteTouch environment started but we were stuck at a command prompt.  This was because of some issues with the database.  Once we removed the dependencies on the database we were able to move forward.

MultiCast
After using ghost for so may years we were thinking of Multi-Cast in the Ghost traditional sense and had enabled Multi-Cast in MDT and WDS.  This is actually not needed since our volume is small enough and WDS Multi-Cast works very differently.  WDS Multicast starts with the first client connection, it doesn’t wait until you tell it to ‘go’ like Ghost, so then when the next client connects it picks up where the first deployment already in progress is and then the third the same… After the first deployment is done number 2 picks up at the start and catches what it ‘missed’ and then the same for number 3.  With scenarios with only a couple hundred clients Muli-Cast isn’t needed.

WindowsPE Boot Error Dell 755 Specific “Got-ya”
During the start up of WinowsPE on the Dell 755 the clients would display a error: “A connection to the deployment share (\\servername\distribution$\) could not be made.  The deployment will not proceed.  Can not reach DeployRoot. Possible Cause: Network routing error or Network Configuration error.
We found two solutions… one to add more time for the client machine to get an IP address from the server by editing the StartNet.cmd file in the WIM or to connect the Dell755 to a 3com switch rather than thru a linksys switch.  Finding a switch on the network where the install would work from is a much easier solution than rebuilding your WIM file every time you update it.  NOTE: when you update the WIM in MDT it rewrites your boot image and you loose any changes that you have made to the StartNet.cmd.

To update the StartNet.cmd:
Run the following on your server:

Then go to the location that you extracted the files and then go to the \Windows\System32 and edit the startnet.cmd file to ping the WDS Server x number of times (where x is the amount of time you need to get an IP, in our case it was about one ping to the server 8-12 pings UPDATED 10/8/08).

After you have edited the file run the following on the server:

And don’t forget every time you Update MDT you will have to update your startnet.cmd file.

Errors Installing Applications
When installing applications with LiteTouch we had to play around with the sequence to get it to install without any issues.  There were 4 major bumps we had to figure out to make the Applications deploy without any issues.

• Don’t include SP1 for Office 2007 as part of the installation.  Office 2007 gives you the ability to ‘package’ updates when you install Office by putting those packages in the Updates folder of your installation source.  The Office 2007 install worked some times, but then would error out causing all the other applications to fail that were later in the sequence.  Once SP1 for Office was removed it worked without an issue.
• Adobe Reader and Flash would require user intervention stopping the deployment.  Adobe provides a customization tool called Adobe Customization Wizard 9 it is very similar to the Office OCT tool to but it allows you to deploy Acrobat and Reader.  After you customize the deployments you are able to run Acrobat or Reader installs silently.
• Don’t install flash from MSI, rather use the .exe installer with the /s switch to install silently.  For some reason MDT doesn’t deploy .msi installers well without changing the command line for the installer.  It was easier to not mess with .msi installers and just use the exe installer.  If you do have to install an application from .msi with MDT then you should plan to run the msi with the following:Command Line: msiexec /i “AppInstaller.msi” /qn from the source directory that contains the installer.
• The last issue is another Dell 755 specific “Got-Ya”.  The applications fail when you are installing them on a Dell 755 because there is no driver loaded by default for the SM Bus Controller.  Even though you add those drivers with the other Dell 755 drivers they didn’t load.  After looking into this with Tanner and Chuck from Microsoft we found that the Chipset driver for this dell is actually an application that extracts and installs the drivers, so the simple downloaded files don’t have the needed .dlls for MDT to pick up the drivers, even after you decompress the R174616.exe file from Dell.  The solution is to run the Intel – Driver (v.8.3.0.1013,A12) that you download from dell with a couple switches to give you an extracted version of the driver that MDT can import.  Once you download R174616.exe and extracted it (default locati
  on is c:\dell\drivers\R174616) run setup.exe -a -a -p c:\extract\INF to extract the drivers to c:\extract\inf.  After you have extracted the driver you n
  eed to add this directory to the OOBD list in MDT, then Update your Deployment Point and reboot the client.  Your applications should install as expected.

 

See other Posts on Vista Deployment with MDT:

• Vista Deployment
• Installing and Configuring MDT
• Deploying Vista to VMware Test box and Dell 755
• MDT and Dell 755 Network issues
• Deploying to Vista 64 bit to Dell 755

Church IT, Tech

The install and configuration process for MDT (Microsoft Deployment Tool Kit) is fairly well documented.

At the time of this post version 4.2 was the latest and greatest version of MDT and can be Downloaded from Microsoft.  Also a good resource for information on MDT is the Optional – MDT Print-Ready Documentation that can be downloaded from the same page.

Items you need before you can begin:

• Windows Deployment Services (WDS) – included as a role in Windows 2008 – Here is the download site for WDS for Server 2003
• Windows Automated Installation Kit 1.1 (WAIK 1.1)
• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 (MDT 2008)

Because of our problems in having success building the answer files to automated the OS deployment from WDS we have elected in our configuration to use WDS merely as a PXE boot server, so when you enable the service on your server there is little configuration for WDS since the LiteTouch (MDT) scripting will take care of everything for us.

Installing WDS:
You can download the Step-By-Step guide for WDS from Microsoft technet.  This document is a good resource for installing and setting up WDS.  Since we are using MDT we only needed to follow the first 10 pages, but the rest is a good resource to understand how WDS works.

At the first launch of the WDS console, you will have to configure the server. This will create and populate a folder called RemoteInstall. This folder is shared as reminst. It is recommended not to store this folder on the system partition.  In our case we mounted an iSCSI volume for storing our deployment data.

You can run WDS on the same server as your DHCP Server but you will have to modify which ports that server listens on.. In our case WDS and DHCP are on two separate servers so no worries there.

Lastly check to make sure that you are accepting all PXE boot requests.  This can be configured in the Server properties under the PXE Response Settings.  Since a boot image will only be active for us when we are deploying an OS to machines there isn’t a risk of unauthorized access.

Installing WAIK 1.1:

From MS’s Site:The Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) is designed to help corporate IT professionals customize and deploy the Microsoft Windows Vista™ family of operation systems. By using Windows AIK, you can perform unattended Windows installations, capture Windows images with ImageX, and create Windows PE images.

You must have WAIK installed prior to installing MDT, we won’t use it directly with MDT since LiteTouch configures the install for us, but you have to have it as a pre-req for installing MDT.

Installing MDT:

From MS’s Site: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit technologies eliminate interaction time required to install desktop and server operating systems. Interaction at the targeted computer may take a few moments using the Lite Touch Installation (LTI) method or it can be completely automated using Zero Touch Installation (ZTI). Zero Touch Installation utilizes Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or Systems Management Server 2003 with the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack. Lite Touch Installation can be used when software distribution tools are not in place.

Once MDT is installed open the Deployment Workbench MMC console. and Click on Distribution Share.  You will see a display of the tasks that need completed in order to deploy a workstation with MDT.

OS FILES – Next you need to add the operating systems you want to deploy (it can be either or both 32 bit and 64 bit OS) by mounting the ISO or inserting the DVD of the media in the server.  Right click Operating Systems and click New. Select Full set of source files. Give the drive letter of your OS DVD or mount iso file, and Finish. This takes a bit, so its a good time for a break here.

APPLICTATIONS – After you have imported the OS you will need to add any applications that you would like to install.When you right click applications and choose new you will have the choice of where your source files live.  For our applications we did install sources from a network file share.  Since its later going to map a drive to this location during the install its important to use the FQDN for this rather than a mapped network drive letter.

For Office 2007 applications you can have the installer run silently with the key embed by using the Office Customization tool.  To launch the OCT run the application installer with the  admin switch  (setup.exe /admin).  If you add the Office 2007 application from CD the customize tool is a tab later in the applications but it was easier to use the network share already configured.

Drivers  – Next you can add any drivers needed fort your specific hardware and group them by that model.

Task Sequence - After you have added your OS, Apps and Drivers you are ready to build the instructions on how you would like the OS to be deployed.  Building the task sequence builds the OS install instructions including the infamous unattend.xml.

Basic Task sequence instructions are:

-Click New in the Task Sequences context menu and fill in the General Settings. Assign your Task sequence ID, Task sequence name, and Task sequence comments.
-On the Select Template screen, select the Standard Client Task Sequence
-On the Select OS screen, select the OS you added in the Operating Systems
-On the Specify Product Key screen, type in your Product Key or Do not specify a product key at this time  if you are using a KMS to activate your OS.
-On the OS Settings screen, fill in your organization name and a home page for IE.
-On the Admin Password screen, type the local admin password of the target computer.

Deployment Point – the last step is setting up your deployment point, this is the network share where the client machines will connect to the server to pull the customized installation.

Basic steps are:
- Right click on Deployment Point and choose new.
- Choose a lab deployment point
- Name the Deployment Point (in our case Install and Build)
- Don’t Allow users to select apps on upgrade
- Don’t ask for a image to be captured
- Don’t set the local admin password
- Don’t ask for product key
- On network share use the defaults
- Don’t configure the user state.

Now that MDT is setup we need to make a few more final changes so that the OS installation runs with minimal user intervention.  This is done by editing the Bootstrap.ini and Customsettings.ini files.  A good reference of the settings that can be configured by these files can be found here in the Property Reference Guide.

Our CustomSettings.ini and bootstrap.ini files are configured so that we only have to answer two quest
ions while the OS is installing 1. Which OS to install and 2. Which applications we want installed.  Our .ini files look&nb
sp; like this:

Custom Settings.ini

[Settings]
Priority=Default
Properties=MyCustomProperty

[Default]
OSInstall=Y
UserDataLocation=NETWORK
SkipBDDWelcome=YES
SkipAppsOnUpgrade=YES
SkipCapture=YES
SkipAdminPassword=YES
SkipProductKey=YES
SkipBitLocker=YES
SkipComputerName=NO
SkipDeploymentType=YES
SkipSummary=YES
SkipUserData=YES
SkipLocaleSelection=YES
SkipTimeZone=YES
UserID=The user credentials for accessing network resources.
UserDomain=The domain in which a user’s credentials (specified in UserID) exist.
UserPassword=The password for user credentials specified in UserID.
TimeZoneName=Central Standard Time
OrgName=Orgainzation Name Here
AreaCode=309
JoinDomain=The domain that the target computer joins after the target operating system is deployed
DomainAdmin=The account is used to join the computer to a domain.
DomainAdminDomain=The domain in which a user’s credentials (specified in DomainAdmin) exist
DomainAdminPassword=Password used to join the computer to the domain
UserLocale=en-US
KeyboardLocale=0409:00000409
InputLocale= en-US
UILanguage=en-us

Bootstrap.ini
[Settings]
Priority=Default

[Default]
SkipBDDWelcome=YES
DeployRoot=\\ServerName\Distribution$
UserDomain=The domain in which a user’s credentials (specified in UserID) exist.
UserID=The user credentials for accessing network resources.
UserPassword=The password for user credentials specified in UserID.

***Note UserDomain, ID and Password are in bootstrap.ini AND customsettings without these in both places you are prompted for credentials when you first boot into WindowsPE.

After you are ready to deploy your OS right click on your Deployment Point and choose UPDATE.  This builds the WIM file that you will boot from.

See other Posts on Vista Deployment with MDT:

• Vista Deployment
• Installing and Configuring MDT
• Deploying Vista to VMware Test box and Dell 755
• MDT and Dell 755 Network issues
• Deploying to Vista 64 bit to Dell 755

Church IT, Tech

For the past few months it has been our plan to roll out Vista to our IT staff to start learning and becoming familiar with Vista.  Part of this planning has been to figure out how to customize and automate the roll out process.  After a bit of reading we decided that Windows Deployment Services was the best route to go rather than continuing to use Ghost to deploy our machines.  A large factor to this is WDS being free.

In the next few posts I will document our configuration and the tips and tricks we learned along the way.  This project only included one support case with Microsoft and a couple dents in the walls from my head banging activities.

Or Project Goal was to find a way to deploy vista with our Enterprise Open license on each machine with a basic set of applications that all our users will use.  In Vista the answer files for sysprep are quite a bit more involved than they were in deploying XP so using the Microsoft solution to deploy the OS seemed to be more logical than a Hybrid between Ghost and Sysprep.

Part 1:Installing WDS

Installing Windows Deployment Services is a very straight forward process, but you have to decided if you want to do the installation on a Windows 2003 server or a W2k8 server.  There are some new features installing on a 2008 server and since we are moving that way it made sense to roll this new server out as a 2008 box.

We downloaded the Step by step guide to Windows Deployment services. This document was a good resource to answer a lot of the questions about what each aspect of the service was doing.  This document includes good step by step instructions to capture a image of a workstation and then push it out to a second machine.

The catch with this process was the creating of the answer files.  When you are using WDS you boot into WindowPE which allows you to perform functions like format, partition and install the OS.  WindowsPE requires answer files for specific functions as well as the OS requiring an answer file.

There appear to be a vast number of resources on these answer files but some turn out to be very confusing.  MS provides a tool called the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK). The WAIK is designed to help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), system builders, and corporate IT professionals deploy Windows onto new hardware. The Windows AIK is a set of deployment tools supporting the latest release of Windows. The WAIK Includes Windows System Image Manger which is a GUI that creates the unattend answer files for the deployment of the OS.

One major issue with our answer files we found out later down the road you, which is contrary to all the documentation that we read you cannot partition an drive and format with that partition to 100%, you have to give a specific variable to the size you want the partition to be.  (per Tanner at MS, more on that later)

After fighting with the answer files for a while I turned to ITdiscuss.org and the CITRT IRC channel.  Micheal Sainz brought MDT to my radar.  MDT,  Microsoft Deployment Tool kit, is a great tool for prepping the OS with applications, drivers and updates and the MDT scripts the OS installation that can be done from disk or a PXE boot server.

So here are the details of the process:

• Vista Deployment
• Installing and Configuring MDT
• Deploying Vista to VMware Test box and Dell 755
• MDT and Dell 755 Network issues
• Deploying to Vista 64 bit to Dell 755

Church IT, Tech

Several of our ministry leaders have requested the use of Skype… No problems here on  using a free technology for ministry… but implementing it had a few issues:
1. Skype for conference calls isn’t great no matter how you try to setup the computer speakers and mic. 
2. Skype software is just one more application to manage.

So enter the IPEVO Solo Desk Phone. 

 We did some research into Skype handsets that don’t require a computer connection (there aren’t many that don’t connect to a computer and use the software and USB port).  We read the reviews and focused in on the IPEVO Solo Desk phone. 

It runs as a DHCP client, you enter your Skype account and password and start connecting with your contacts.  We have used the phone for several test calls and even a call to Germany.  The call quality is good (for a Skype call the expected clicks etc were occasional).  The speaker phone works great and several people can meet around a table an participate on a call.

The phone is actually a little smaller than we expected, and could fit nicely in a suite case.  IPEVO must have thought people would travel with it too… they include 4 different power adapter plugs to power up the phone in places where you might need a International Power adapter.  Nice added bonus IPEVO!

Church IT, Tech IPEVO

Its been about 3 weeks that I have been using the HTC touch.  And believe it or not, and for those who know me well, I have only gone thru 3 handsets in that period.

Historically I have gotten my money’s worth out of my handset purchases and the HTC Touch is really no different.

This post is more about the support provided by Sprint to resolve the issues with the HTC touch.  I have spent about 3.75 hours on the phone with different Sprint representatives in the past week. 

I first had issues with the handset always roaming rather than using normal service.  While traveling to Ohio to got to the Sonicwall RoadShow I was sitting in the car with Jeremie.  JK’s phone (a HTC Mogul) would have EVDO data service and full signal… mine roaming and one bar. 

I took the phone to the Easton Town Place location in Cols, OH and after a little arm twisting they exchange the phone.  The customer service rep (named NII) said I needed all the accessories and the box to do a warranty exchange.  I obviously objected and told him he could keep the box from my new phone… After a little discussion I was walking out of the store with my new Touch… not roaming I’ll add… all was well…or was it.

That night after waiting the 4 hour customary period to kick off the data, I noticed my handset wouldn’t provision with the data services… a 1 1/2 hour support call ended after the customer service person had asked to have my phone hard reset 3 times and it didn’t resolve the problem.

The next am I called again… another hard reset and the device is declaired bad.  So they say I need to go to store to exchange the phone again.  Well since we were leaving CMH after our Sonicwall RoadShow I had no choice but to wait until we drove thru INDY on the way home to swap my phone. 

We arrived in Indy and two wonderful ladies at the Sprint location swapped out my phone again… this time even giving me some of the goodies (cables, headphones etc) and the box.

When we arrived home 4 hours later… still no data.  Another hour on the phone and Sprint tech support tells my my Data is one account and my Voice is another account… they assure me they will fix it… and ask me to call back the next morning.

I connect again with tech support and wait another 4 hours.. no data.  Finally another 45 minute support call and data is working again.

All this to say, if you can find the right Customer Service or Tech Support person from the hold queue you are in good shape… otherwise prepare to repeat your story a few times.

I would say the past few days have given the Touch some serious use… battery life is still really great, except when you have been roaming for an extended period of time.  When roaming for a large portion of the time you can kill the battery in less than 8 hours of standby.

The call quality is great, you can hear all callers very clearly and the quality of the blue-tooth radio is good… very strong connection to the Jabra250 headset.

The one beef with the Touch, the QWERTY keyboard isn’t used except in totally random text entry fields… HTC, let me choose which input device I want to use.

Tech HTC Touch, Sprint Customer Service, Sprint PowerVision

Recently I came across a new beta service called OOVOO which provides a video conference interface for up to 6 participants.

I had a conference call thursday and we tried to use oovoo.com’s video chat/conference.   The service allows for 6 people to be on a video conference call at one time.  The interface is very clean, the setup is very easy and finding your ‘friends’ is as easy as entering their username or email address in the search.  You simply start the call by selecting the person from your contact list.

The instant messaging chat works well.  For callers who don’t have a microphone or camera on their computers, you can call them on their cell or land-line phone to include them in the audio portion of the conference call.  The quality of the audio only participants was very clear.

As for the participants using the video conference, the video was very smooth and clear.  But that is where the positives end, the audio for those who were on the video portion of the call was extremely choppy and poor; bad enough we used the telephone conference bridge for the audio on our call.

Well oovoo is still beta so maybe we’ll try it again…. but that still leaves me on a quest for a Free (or close to Free) video conferencing solution for 6-10 participants on a call.

Tech

I have to give credit to David Drinnon , he mentioned webware.com during a recent telephone call.  If you don’t know much about webware.com you should have on your list of sites to check out.  Their top 100 is a listing of ‘web 2.0′ sites and services.

A couple on the list that caught my eye…

 is a off-site storage/backup solution that provides a front end to Amazon S3.  They charge a $20 one time fee for their software and just $.15/gb for storage.

 is designed to make text messaging easier to use, more convenient and more accessible. Joopz allows users to send text messages from the Web to both individuals and groups, while enabling recipients to respond directly to the originating PC or Mac. Joopz web texts can be sent from any web-enabled device worldwide to any U.S. or Canadian mobile phone.

 converts voice into text for e-mails, text messages, and comments on blogs and Web sites. The new to me feature is the ability to send ‘jotts’ not to just my inbox as reminders but to specific people… staff, spouse, family etc…

 a IM client that lets you connect to 16 different messaging services… I have been using Pidgin (known to some as Piggin) and it works well for the #CITRT channel.

 have you ever wondered which planes on which carriers have power outlets, which seats are noisier than others, etc?  This site is a great resource to check the specs of the flight you are planning to book before you shell out the cash.  Its quite amazing that someone has taken the time to compile all this data.

Tech

After our recent DataCenter tours several have asked about the LED Patch panels we installed for our Telecom Rack.

These patch panels have a little LED above the RJ45 jack used to identify the port .  You plug a little device into the patch cable then into the wall jack and the LED on the Patch Panel lights up to identify the port.  No need to disconnect from a switch, the LED is green if not connected or red if connected to a switch. The little signal transmitter is $20.00 and runs on AA batteries.

We purchased these from a company called FireFold.com in North Carolina.  We frequently purchase random network ’stuff’ including bulk cat5e or cat6 from FireFold because historically their prices are really hard to beat. And when you do find a place that is less expensive on an item you normally are guaranteed the lowest price with with the “Lowest Price Guarantee” program on applicable products. FireFold.com will not match the price of any competitor they will beat it by 5%! So after finding a lower price and the price guarantee we paid $4 per patch panel over the normal patch panel price…

Now one note:  These patch panels are intended for Data wiring not telco wiring because the LED requires 2 pair to work.  So from the wall jack to the patch panel they don’t illuminate the LED on phone wiring.  But the value for us, is the ability to trace wiring from the PBX to the Patch Panel without having to go thru almost 200 extension’s patch cables.

Another cool tool firefold sells that I might buy if i knew worked as advertised and might be worth its weight in gold is the Magnepull – Model: 800A-KC.  Its a magnetic fish-tape… The claims even say you can fish wire under carpet with it.  If you buy it let me know if it works.

Tech