Tag: Deployment

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 RC1

The Solution Accelerators team released Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 RC1 is available for download on Connect now.

Download the MDT 2012 RC1 release now

New features and enhancements:

Support for Configuration Manager 2012 RC2: This update provides support for Configuration Manager 2012 RC2 releases. MDT 2012 fully leverages the capabilities provided by Configuration Manager 2012 for OS deployment. The latest version of MDT offers new User-Driven Installation components and extensibility for Configuration Manager 2007 and 2012. Users now also have the ability to migrate MDT 2012 task sequences from Configuration Manager 2007 to Configuration Manager 2012.

Customize deployment questions: For System Center Configuration Manager customers, MDT 2012 provides an improved, extensible wizard and designer for customizing deployment questions.

Ease Lite Touch installation: The Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) is now integrated with Lite Touch Installation, providing remote control and diagnostics. New monitoring capabilities are available to check on the status of currently running deployments. LTI now has an improved deployment wizard user experience. Enhanced partitioning support ensures that deployments work regardless of the current structure.

Secure Deployments: MDT 2012 offers integration with the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager (SCM) tool to ensure a secure Windows deployment from the start.

Reliability and flexibility: Existing MDT users will find more reliability and flexibility with the many small enhancements and bug fixes and a smooth and simple upgrade process.

Support for Windows 8: The RC1 release of MDT 2012 provides support for deploying Windows 8 Consumer Preview in a lab environment.

Key Benefits:

  • Full use of the capabilities provided by System Center Configuration Manager 2012 for OS deployment.
  • Improved Lite Touch user experience and functionality.
  • A smooth and simple upgrade process for all existing MDT users.

New Features:

For System Center Configuration Manager customers:

  • Support for Configuration Manager 2012 (while still supporting Configuration Manager 2007)
  • New User-Driven Installation components for Configuration Manager 2007 and Configuration Manager 2012
    • Extensible wizard and designer, additional integration with Configuration Manager to deliver a more customized OS experience, support for more imaging scenarios, and an enhanced end-user deployment experience
  • Ability to migrate MDT 2012 task sequences from Configuration Manager 2007 to Configuration Manager 2012

For Lite Touch Installation:

  • Integration with the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) for remote control and diagnostics
  • New monitoring capabilities to see the progress of currently running deployments
  • Support for deploying Windows to computers using UEFIAbility to deploy Windows 7 so that the computer will start from a new VHD file, "Deploy to VHD"
  • Improved deployment wizard user experience

For all customers:

  • Integration with configuration templates from the Security Compliance Manager Solution Accelerator, ensuring Windows is secure from the start
  • A simple mechanism for running Windows PowerShell scripts during a deployment, with task sequence environment and logging integration
  • Better partitioning support, creating the recommended partitioning structures on new computers and ensuring deployments work regardless of the current structure
  • A smooth and simple upgrade process for all existing MDT users
  • Many small enhancements and bug fixes

Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 Change in CAS to CAS Proxy

The Exchange Team did a change in CAS to CAS proxy behavior between servers running Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 and servers running older versions of Exchange.

The SP2 RU1 package introduced a change to the user context cookie which is used in CAS-to-CAS proxying. An unfortunate side-effect is a temporary incompatibility between SP2 RU1 servers and servers running earlier versions of Exchange. The change is such that earlier versions of Exchange do not understand the newer cookie used by the SP2 RU1 server. As a result, proxying from SP2 RU1 to an earlier version of Exchange will fail with the following error:

Invalid user context cookie found in proxy response

The server might show exceptions in the event log, such as the following:

Event ID: 4999
Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchange Common
Task Category: General
Level: Error
Description: Watson report about to be sent for process id: 744, with parameters: E12, c-RTL-AMD64, 14.02.0283.003, OWA, M.E.Clients.Owa, M.E.C.O.C.ProxyUtilities.UpdateProxyUserContextIdFromResponse, M.E.C.O.Core.OwaAsyncOperationException, 413, 14.02.0283.003.

Not all customers are affected by this. But since we received a few questions about this, we wanted to let you know about the change. Many Exchange customers do not use proxying between Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007 but rather use redirection, which is not affected by the change. However, if you are using CAS-to-CAS proxying, where an Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 Client Access server is proxying to an earlier version of Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2007 Client Access server, then you are affected by the change.

If you are affected, it is important to note that this issue is temporary and will exist only until all of the CAS involved in the CAS-to-CAS proxy process are updated to Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1. Thus, if you are affected by this problem, simply deploy SP2 RU1 on the relevant Exchange 2010 servers and the issue no longer exists.

If you use CAS-to-CAS proxy between Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007, we will have an interim update (IU) for Exchange 2007. Availability of the IU will be announced on this blog.

Server proxy version
Server being proxied to
Action to take

Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 –> Any version of Exchange 2010 older than SP2 RU1
Apply Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 to all servers involved in proxy process

Exchange 2010 SP2 –-> RU1 Exchange 2007
Hold off deployment of Exchange 2010 SP2 RU1 until you deploy the Exchange 2007 interim update (IU)

SOURCE: Exchange 2010 sp2 ru1 and cas to cas proxy incompatibility

Enable TPM devices on HP Laptops trough MDT

Yes, It can be done and it is pretty simple to. Here is what you need and how you should do it. Basically, the only thing you need is “BiosConfigUtility.EXE” and a text file with settings in it, add that to the TS and it will work like a charm, 🙂

Step One – Get the utility

The utility is a part of HP’s SSM (SP49507), SSM stands for “HP System Software Manager” and version I have been playing with is 2.14 Rev A. Download that from the ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp49501-50000/sp49507.exe and if you need to see if your PC is in the list, check ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp49501-50000/sp49507.html

Step Two – Create the file

This is how the file should look like and it should have the name TPMEnable.REPSET

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If you look at the picture, you can see that in every section there is a *. That is our default value that will be pushed into the bios.

Step Three – Create a Command and verify that it works

Now, be a bit careful, TPM is a security device and if you look your self out, it could be “tricky” to get back, so now you have been notified at least. So, we need a command to set all this and also to set a BIOS password and here it is:

BIOSConfigUtility /SetConfig:TPMEnable.REPSET /NewAdminPassword:"Password1"

So, if you take the BIOSConfigUtility.exe and TPMEnable.REPSET and put them in the same folder and run the command (elevated) with a password that is better then mine and then reboot the machine, you will see that it is going to enable the TPM chip and now you can just enable BitLocker on the machine.

Step Four – Getting stuff into the TS

Now, this can be done in different ways, one is to create a Script, or a batch file or an MDT Application. The reason for me to have an application, is very simple. When I work at customers I create a lot of “things”, if they are applications, they are pretty easy to copy inside the deployment workbench, from my personal Deployment share to the customers and vice versa. I like drag and drop, it makes life more…relaxed…:-) One other story, if they are applications, you could use the “MandatoryApplications001=” in CS.ini

So this is how it looks in my Task Sequence

image image

(No, sorry, my password for TPM is not 111-something, trust my…)

Now when I have the application I can open my Task Sequence and modify that like this:

image image

In the first picture you can see that I have added the application called “CUSTOM – Hewlett-Packard – BIOS Configuration” and in the other picture you can see that I have one condition to run this and that is same condition as the task “Enable Bitlocker” has.

So, that was pretty easy, right 🙂

Step Five – some more things…

Configure BitLocker:

image

This is my settings (also default)

Just one small thing. Modify/Set this BDEKeyLocation= to something, otherwise the keyfile ends up locally on the c: drive…:-)

MDT 2012: New Features – Hide Shell

Here is a common scenario. You are deploying an operating system using MDT Lite Touch, during the deployment you install some user specific applications. However the users think that the deployment is completed an they close the application installs or perhaps start messing with the machine while it is still logged in as the local administrator. Now you could simply inform the user that they should not touch the computer until the deployment is completed. However in my experience this “don’t touch” approach has not always been 100% successful.

Well now we have a better way, you can hide explorer shell while MDT is “doing it’s thing”!

So how do we do this? It is simple, just add the following line to the customsettings.ini file:

HIDESHELL=YES

I have included before and after shots below:

Look explorer…

,image

No explorer…. that’s better!

image

Glimlach

MDT 2012 Beta 2 Monitoring

Today I upgraded a MDT 2010 installation to MDT 2012 Beta 2.

One of the new features is monitoring Glimlach

To Configure monitoring you find a tab Monitoring on properties of the Deployment Share.
You must set a V Enable monitoring of this deployment share

image

Under the root of the Deployment Share u see now Monitoring. When you click on Monitoring you can see running deployments.

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MDT 2012 Beta 2 Released

The latest version of MDT is now available on Connect (Join the MDT 2012 Beta 2 Connect program here!)

MDT 2012 Beta 2 offers new User-Driven Installation components and extensibility for Configuration Manager 2007 and Configuration Manager 2012 as well as integration with the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) for Lite Touch Installation remote control and diagnostics.

Key benefits include:

  • Full use of the capabilities provided by System Center Configuration Manager 2012 for OS deployment.
  • Improved Lite Touch user experience and functionality.
  • A smooth and simple upgrade process for all existing MDT users.

New features For System Center Configuration Manager customers:

  • Support for Configuration Manager 2012 (while still supporting Configuration Manager 2007)
  • New User-Driven Installation components for Configuration Manager 2007 and Configuration Manager 2012
    • Extensible wizard and designer, additional integration with Configuration Manager to deliver a more customized OS experience, support for more imaging scenarios, and an enhanced end-user deployment experience
  • Ability to migrate MDT 2012 task sequences from Configuration Manager 2007 to Configuration Manager 2012

New features For Lite Touch Installation:

  • Integration with the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) for remote control and diagnostics
  • New monitoring capabilities to see the progress of currently running deployments
  • Support for deploying Windows to computers using UEFI
  • Ability to deploy Windows 7 so that the computer will start from a new VHD file, “Deploy to VHD”
  • Improved deployment wizard user experience

MDT 2012 the final release will be available download through to January 2012 I think.

Optimizing Windows 7 Images for use in VDI

One of our MCS deployment guys in the UK – Jonathan Bennett (you may know Jonathan as the author of the autoit tools and GImageX) has developed a tool for configuring Windows 7/Windows Vista/Server 2008 images for use in a VDI environment. The tool called VDI Optimizer outputs a VBScript (based on the selections you make in the GUI interface), which can then be used to apply performance and configuration settings to images that will be deployed via VDI platforms – this is particularly useful if you are using MDT 2010 for your image engineering process as the VBScript can bolted into the task sequence using a Run Command Line task.

image

You can make machine based selections for turning off services and functions that may not be required when the operating system is running in a VDI environment such as hibernation, system restore, and background defrag, as well as adjusting some user based settings such as visual effects, font smoothing and off-screen composition for Internet Explorer.

The beta of this tool is available from http://www.autoitscript.com/files/tools/VDIOptimizer.zip but please remember The tool is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, confers no rights, and is not supported by the authors or Microsoft Corporation.

Source: Optimizing Windows 7 images for use in VDI

The Deployment Guys released Deployment Mindmaps

"Why deployment is so hard?", “Where can I find all related information?” What else I need to consider?”

Those or similar questions are normal during my any projects. After getting the same questions again and again, The Deployment Guys decided to create a Mindmap with all common links you need to know if you in the deployment space.

Attachment: MINDMAPS.zip Source:Deployment-Mindmaps

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Performance on vSphere 5

A white paper has been published that examines how Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 performs on vSphere 5 in terms of scaling up (adding more virtual CPUs) and scaling out (adding more VMs). Having the choice to scale up or out while maintaining a positive user experience gives IT more flexibility to right-size system deployments and maximize total cost of ownership with respect to licensing and hardware purchases.

Testing shows the effectiveness of vSphere 5 to add compute power by scaling up Exchange Server VMs, in increments, from 2 to 12 virtual CPUs. This allowed the total number of very heavy Exchange users to increase from 2,000 to 12,000 while sendmail latency remained well within the range of acceptable user responsiveness. Processor utilization remained low, at about 15% of the total host processing capacity for 12,000 very heavy Exchange users.

Testing also shows that scaling out to eight Exchange Server VMs supports a workload of up to 16,000 very heavy users, with the load consuming only 32% of the ESXi host processing capacity.

Additional tests were undertaken to show the performance improvements of vMotion and Storage vMotion in vSphere 5. vMotion migration time for a 4-vCPU Exchange mailbox server VM showed a 34% reduction in vSphere 5 over vSphere 4.1. Storage vMotion migration time for a 350GB database VMDK showed an 11% reduction in vSphere 5 over vSphere 4.1.

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For the full paper, see Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Performance on vSphere 5.

HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

At the moment I am busy to design a Exchange 2010 environment.
The customer where I going to implement Exchange 2010 use only HP equipment.

A great tool is the HP sizer for Exchange 2010.

About the HP Sizer tool:
Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 is a complex application that requires intensive knowledge of deployment strategies, interdependencies, server and storage performance related issues.HP has developed the HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to assist customers with proper server and storage sizing for their Exchange Server 2010 deployments. The algorithms developed and implemented in this tool are based upon extensive testing of Exchange Server 2010 server roles and technologies, HP’s deep experience with Microsoft Exchange, and intricate knowledge of server CPU, memory, and I/O subsystems. This tool is free to download and use, and is designed to simplify configuration across a broad range of deployments. This newest Microsoft Exchange Server Sizer provides support for multiple site deployments, varied client types and access methods, all Exchange Server 2010 server roles, Database Availability Group (DAG) high availability options, choice of tower, rack mounted, or HP BladeSystem server platforms, and either direct attached or SAN-based storage solutions. Based on your input, the tool provides a comprehensive bill of materials along with a deployment overview of the Exchange Server 2010 server roles and storage configurations. Once this Sizer is installed, updates can be downloaded automatically to the underlying software engines that are necessary to provide support for HP server and storage product information details.

Please see the ‘What’s new” link on the home page of the Sizer (when installed on your system) for the most recent information.

Download: HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

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