Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant

ExchangeTeam the announce the availability of the Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant at http://technet.microsoft.com/exdeploy2013. The Exchange Deployment Assistant is a web-based tool that helps you deploy Exchange 2013 in your on-premises organization, configure a hybrid deployment between your on-premises organization and Office 365, or migrate to Office 365. It asks you a small set of simple questions and then, based on your answers, creates a customized checklist with instructions to deploy or configure Exchange 2013. Instead of trying to find what you need in the Exchange library, the Deployment Assistant gives you exactly the right information you need to complete your task.

The first scenarios available show you how to deploy Exchange 2013 in an organization with no previous installations of Exchange and show you how to configure a hybrid deployment between your on-premises Exchange 2013 organization and Office 365. We’re working hard on additional scenarios, such as upgrading from Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010. These additional scenarios will be added in the coming months.

The Deployment Assistant for Exchange 2013 is supported on most major browsers and has a completely redesigned interface that’s no longer dependent on Silverlight technology. Here’s a screenshot from the Deployment Assistant after the initial set of questions were answered and the customized checklist was generated.

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FREE e-Book: The Hands-on Guide: Understanding Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012

The Hands-on Guide: Understanding Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 gives you simple step-by-step instructions to help you perform Hyper-V-related tasks like a seasoned expert.

You will learn how to:

  • Build clustered Hyper-V deployment
  • Manage Hyper-V through PowerShell
  • Create virtual machine replicas
  • Transition from a legacy Hyper-V environment, and more

Download the first 5 chapters (180 Pages) today! Klik on the Picture to go to the Veeam Website 

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Remove the Windows 8 Animation during MDT Deployment

In Windows 8 there is a movie that is played for the first time logon and there is a Group Policy setting you can use to disable it. Mikael Nystrom writed a nice MDT Application you can download and install and put it into your task sequence for Windows 8 and you will never ever see it once more. Happy deployment!

Download the zip file, extract it and create a new Application in MDT 2012 Update 1.

Select Application with Source Files

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Edit Task Sequence

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MDT & SAMSUNG ATIV Smart PC Tablet Part 1

Last week i was playing with Samsung ATIV Smart PC.

Samsung ATIV Smart PC is a great device. This is one of many Touch laptops from Samsung. This Laptop is also usable as Tablet PC. Because it run Windows 8 x86 you can run al your applications on this device.

De Samsung ATIV Smart PC does not have fast Ethernet nic onboard only a Wifi NIC.

I would like to deploy our company “image” to this device.

1. Download Software Update http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/XE500T1C-A01US

2. Install Software

3. Search for XE500T1C-A01NL

4. Download al the Drivers and Software

5. Extract all Packages en sort this in Driver and Applications

6. Import the drivers in MDT

7. You need the a NIC I uses the USB 2.0 to Gigabit Ethernet NIC Network Adapter

8. Download the Driver SMSC_LAN7500.zip

9. You find after unpacking in de Windows Folder de driver LAN7500-WDF-v1.2.0.0.exe

10. You can Extract the Driver with “LAN7500-WDF-v1.2.0.0.exe /extract d:\downloads\LAN7500”

11. Import the Drivers in to same Driver Store als descripted in 6.

12. Update Deployment Share Wizard

13. Create A Task Sequence

14. Create a selection Profile descripted here: MDT 2010 Importing automatically the right driver

15. Change import driver on the Task Sequence

16. You need at Least a 4GB USB Stick

17. Format the USB stick with FAT32 How to create a bootable USB drive from an ISO image for UEFI systems

18. Mark the partition als Active
1.Open Command Prompt

2 Type: diskpart

3. At the DISKPART prompt, type: list partition

Make note of the number of the partition that you want to mark as active.

4. At the DISKPART prompt, type:

select partition n

Select the partition, n, you want to mark as active.

5. At the DISKPART prompt, type: active

19. If you’re on Windows 8, double-click your ISO image to mount it. If you’re on earlier versions of Windows, use a 3rd party utility to mount the ISO. Just search the web and you’ll find options. Or, burn the ISO to a DVD and then mount it. Once the ISO is mounted, copy all files and directories over to your newly formatted USB drive by dragging and dropping. You can also do this from the command line using robocopy or xcopy.

20. Delete the install.wim and boot.wim from the sources directory

21. Copy LiteTouchPE_x86.wim from the Boot directory on the MDT server to de Sources Map on the USB Stick

22. Rename LiteTouchPE_x86.wim to boot.wim
WP_20121221_002

23. Disable Secure Boot:
WP_20121221_001

24. Boot From USB

25. You Can deploy now your OS to your Tablet.

Part Two I will write about installing Touch Driver Software/Driver

2012 Blogging

This blog was viewed about 110,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2012, there were 88 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 485 posts.
The busiest day of the year was March 13th with 616 views. The most popular post that day was Exchange 2010 Opening multiple shared calendars & additional mailboxes.

These are the posts that got the most views in 2012. You can see all of the year’s most-viewed posts in your Site Stats.

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Deploy Office 2013 with MDT 2012

When you want to deploy Office 2013 with MDT 2012 you must first create a MSP File and saved in Updates Folder:
How to:  Create custom configurations of Office 2013.

1. Copy de Office 2013 install to the Applications folder

2. Create a application:
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2. Change the Command Line

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Change Quiet install Command: setup.exe /adminfile \\servername\deploymentshare$\Applications\Microsoft Office 2013 NL x86\Updates\setup.msp

4. Change the Task Sequence:
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5. Final Deployment

MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta released

The MAP Toolkit team announced that MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta is available. MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta has rich feature set to plan and prepare your environment to adopt next wave of Microsoft products and cloud services. The MAP Toolkit has readiness assessments that range from desktop to cloud — Windows 8 to Windows Azure.

The MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta program is open for general testing today and you need to register to download and try MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta in your environment as you prepare your IT infrastructure to evaluate and deploy the latest Microsoft products and cloud services.

MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here

MAP Toolkit 8.0 has completely revamped modern user interface, which provides easy and clear access to assessment scenarios supported in MAP Toolkit and assessment summaries and results. If you have used a prior version of the MAP Toolkit, you will find MAP Toolkit 8.0 much easier and simpler to navigate, find and run assessment scenarios you are interested and review the assessment results.

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Following are some of the key assessment scenarios in the MAP Toolkit 8.0:

Windows Server 2012 Readiness

MAP 8.0 Beta assesses the readiness of your IT infrastructure for deploying Windows Server 2012. This assessment includes detailed and actionable recommendations indicating which machines meet Windows Server 2012 system requirements and which may need hardware updates. A comprehensive inventory of servers, operating systems, workloads, devices, and server roles is included to help in your planning efforts.

Windows 8 Readiness Assessment

MAP 8.0 Beta assesses the readiness of your IT environment for a Windows 8 deployment. This assessment evaluates your existing hardware against the recommended system requirements for Windows 8. It provides recommendations detailing which machines meet the requirements and which may need hardware upgrades.

Office 2013 and Office 365 Readiness Assessments

MAP 8.0 Beta assesses readiness for Office 2013 and provides an in-depth assessment of client desktops for upgrading or migration. It also offers support for Office 365 features such as web apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, or full Office 365 client support.

Windows Azure Virtual Machines Migration Recommendation

MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Server and Linux machines to determine if a migration to Windows Azure Virtual Machines is possible. The toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration. Key features help you reduce the operating costs of hosting on-premise servers as well as estimating the required size and monthly network and storage usage required to migrate on-premise Windows and Linux servers to Windows Azure Virtual Machines using the data from the environment.

Software usage assessment for Lync

MAP 8.0 Beta’s Lync Enterprise and Usage Tracking feature counts the number of Lync Enterprise/Plus users as well as device activities for determining the number of required client access licenses (CAL). For Lync 2010, MAP provides a server inventory and software usage by device and user for Lync Standard features. MAP’s updated Software Usage Tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft products including Windows Server, SQL Server, System Center, Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP), and Lync.

Starting today, beta program will be open for six weeks and will end on Dec 14th, 2012. You can participate in beta by downloading and running MAP Toolkit 8.0 beta in your environment.

MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 7.0 Now Available

Get ready for Windows Server 2012 with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 7.0. The latest version of the MAP Toolkit adds several new planning scenarios that help you build for the future with agility and focus while lowering the cost of delivering IT. Download MAP 7.0 and begin planning your server deployments today!

New capabilities allow you to:

· Understand your readiness to deploy Windows Server 2012 in your environment

· Determine Windows 8 readiness. For more info, see this blog post.

· Investigate how Windows Server and System Center can manage your heterogeneous environment through VMware migration and Linux server virtualization assessments

· Size your desktop virtualization needs for both Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and session-based virtualization using Remote Desktop Services. For more information, see these blog posts.

· Ready your information platform for the cloud with the SQL Server 2012 discovery and migration assessment. For more info, see this blog post.

· Evaluate your licensing needs with usage tracking for Lync 2010, active users and devices, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012. For more information, see this blog post.

Download MAP 7.0 now from
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?&id=7826

Free E-book: Introducing Windows 8 for IT Professionals

Augusto Alvarez Wrote a nice e-book “Introducing Windows 8, an overview for IT Professionals” (preview version).

This book has some quite important topics that every IT guy which is considering implement Windows 8 in their company should read it carefully. Here’s a short summary for the topics included (I’m just naming a few; the entire list is available in the download):

  1. 1. Overview
  2. 2. Experiencing Windows 8
  3. 3. Windows 8 for IT Pros
    • Customizing and configuring Windows 8
    • Client Hyper-V
    • Redesign NTFS
    • PowerShell 3.0
  4. 4. Preparing for Deployment
    • Windows 8 SKUs
    • Application compatibility
    • User state migration
    • Windows To Go
  5. 5. Deploying Windows 8
    • Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit
    • Deployment and Imaging
    • User state migration tool
    • MDT 2012 Update 1
    • e. SCCM 2012 with SP1
    • f. Desktop Virtualization
  6. 6. Delivering Windows Apps
  7. 7. Windows 8 Recovery
    • DaRT
  8. 8. Windows 8 Management
    • Group Policy Improvements
    • Windows Intune
    • Mobile device support
  9. 9. Windows 8 Security
  10. 10. Internet Explorer 10
  11. 11. Windows 8 virtualization
    • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
    • Application Virtualization
    • User State virtualization

I did not read it completely, but for what I’ve seen so far the content is not fully detailed with step-by-steps but contains valuable information and guidance that must be read it if you are implementing / managing Windows 8.

Free E-book Deployment guide for Office 2013

 
This book supports a preliminary release of Microsoft Office 2013 and provides deployment instructions for Office 2013. The audiences for this book include application specialists, line-of-business application specialists, and IT administrators who are ready to deploy Office 2013.

Deployment-guide-for-Office-2013.pdf

Deployment-guide-for-Office-2013.doc

Deployment-guide-for-Office-2013.epub

Deployment-guide-for-Office-2013.mobi

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