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 DAG Maintance

When you need to performing maintenance on DAG nodes here is the process you want to go through In my environment I have two nodes in a dag. For more nodes the same process

All the commands below are run in an administrative exchange powershell prompt.

Type add first: cd $exscripts and press enter.

Now you are in the Exchange Scripts folder.

Exchange Node 1:
Process for running maintenance on exchange database servers
.\StartDagServerMaintenance.ps1 -ServerName <Dag Node 1>

Run maintenance on <Dag Node 1>

When you are finished on Node 1
.\StopDagServerMaintenance.ps1 -ServerName <Dag Node 1>

Exchange Node 2:
.\StartDagServerMaintenance.ps1 -ServerName <Dag Node 2>

run maintenance on <Dag Node 2>

When you are finished on Node 2
.\StopDagServerMaintenance.ps1 -ServerName <Dag Node 2>

When done performing maintenance on one or multiple servers (hopefully one at a time to maintain full database availability for end users!) you can end up with a sub-optimal active database layout, especially if you have a cross-site DAG. To resolve this you have to rebalance the databases based on the priorities set for them upon creation.

Rebalance databases across dag
.\RedistributeActiveDatabases.ps1 -DagName <Your DAG Name> -BalanceDbsByActivationPreference -ShowFinalDatabaseDistribution -Confirm:$false

If you get any errors you may have to re-index the search catalog for the passive database. Rather than hunting down which ones need to be fixed you can just fix them all with the custom script I wrote below (or for only the mail servers with issues). When finished running these commands then try to run the maintenance or rebalance scripts again.

Fix/Rebuild Search Catalogs
Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server <Dag Node 1> | where {$_.Status -like "Healthy"} | Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy –catalogonly

Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus -Server <Dag Node 2> | where {$_.Status -like "Healthy"} | Update-MailboxDatabaseCopy -catalogonly

Exchange 2010 SP2 RTM

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) has been released, raising the Exchange version number to 14.2.247.5. You can download Exchange 2010 SP2 here.

For those still unaware, the 530Mb+ file (1,4 GB extracted) contains the full set of binaries; you can use it to upgrade existing RTM or SP1 installations or deploy new Exchange 2010 SP2 installations.

Besides the usual set of hotfixes, SP2 introduces the following features:

Address Book Policies
Address Book Policies, also known as GAL segmentation, ABPs are meant to segmentize the address book, giving users a certain view of the address book like Address List Segregation did for Exchange 2003/2007.

OWA mini
This will be a lightweight browser like OMA in the past, meant for simple browsers.

Hybrid Configuration
This wizard is to make the configuration of an on-premise Exchange and Office 365/Exchange Online more simple, reducing the steps required from 49 to 6.

OWA Cross-Site redirection
This will allow clients to be silently redirected to the proper site if they log on to a CAS server located in a site different than the site where their mailbox is hosted and externalURL has been specified there.

After preparing your forest for Exchange 2010 SP2, the schema version number will have changed. Check the Schema Versions page for information on the new ObjectVersion and RangeUpper values for Exchange 2010 SP2.

Note that SP2 introduces an additional requirement, which is the IIS 6 WMI Compatibility feature; you can add this feature using the GUI or by using the Powershell cmdlets Import-Module ServerManager followed by Add-WindowsFeature Web-WMI.

The proper method to upgrade mailbox servers that are a member of a Database Availability Group is described here.

The releases notes are not available at time of writing; we’ll update this post when they become available.

VMware View Bootcamp

VMware is organizing a nine-part VMware View Bootcamp: every day a new video is published for you to view. At the end of this bootcamp, you will have a good understanding of the VMware View solution, how to roll it out and how to optimize View in your environment. A free e-book of all the presentations is included in this bootcamp series. A hope I can download the free e-book Smile . Because I am going on Holiday next week.

VMware View Bootcamp Series

Design Considerations Guidelines for VMware View – Overview

Speaker – John Dodge, Sr. Manager PSO Services, VMware
Overview of the technical considerations to keep in mind while you’re designing a View environment

Watch the Video

Storage Deep Dive – Considerations and Best Practices

Speaker – Jim Yanik, Sr. Systems Engineer, VMware
How to design your storage infrastructure to fit your environment
Sizing and workload considerations

Watch the Video

Network Considerations and Best Practices

Speaker – Shannon McFarland; Consulting Engineer for Data Center technologies and Enterprise IPv6 design on Cisco’s Consulting Engineering team in the Office of the CTO, Cisco
Network requirements for LAN and WAN
Bandwidth requirements deep dive
Security considerations – Security Server, AV, Encryption, Authentication

Watch the Video

Optimizing the Base Image for VMware View

Speaker – Todd Dayton, Staff Product Manager, Desktop Product Management, VMware
How to build and tune your desktop image
User and workload considerations
OS specific tips (XP, Win7)

Watch the Video

Delivering Applications

Speaker – Heath Doer, Sr Systems Engineer, VMware
Packaging and updates (applink and appsync)
Best practices-storage, image management and application deployment
Application migration, application conflict and compatibility

Watch the Video

PCoIP Implementation Overview and PCoIP Tuning Best Practices

Speaker – Chuck Hirstius, PSO, WW Advanced Services, VMware
How to optimize PCoIP for different types of workloads
How to optimize for LAN, mobile and remote users
Bandwidth requirements

Watch the Video

Automating View 4.5 with Powershell

Speaker – Tom Elliot, Sr. MTS, Enterprise Desktop, VMware
Introduction to View PowerCLI
Setting up an environment and basic tasks
Creating your own scripts
Integrating with vSphere

Watch the Video

Leveraging Security Server for PCoIP

Speaker – Mark Benson, View Architect, Enterprise Desktop, VMware
Introduction to Security Server

Watch the Video

VMware View’s Reference Architecture

Speaker – Mac Binesh, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager, Enterprise Desktop, VMware
Review of RA for stateless desktops
Description of test environment, equipment and lab results

Watch the Video

Microsoft Office 365 Jump Start

The Microsoft Office 365 Jumpstart series provides an excellent perspective of the overall value Office 365 provides to modern organizations in terms of productivity, access, familiarity, security, control and reliability.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Beta 1 Available

Microsoft has just released as a public beta the newest version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 with a few important updates:

Supporting System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012.
Using Lite Touch Installation (LTI), great improvements in the client side look-n-feel.
Also for LTI, behind-the-scenes enhancements for partitioning, UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), and user state migration.
Some minor bugs fixed.

MDT 2012 Requirements

Same as MDT 2010:

Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) 2.0. You can download it from here.
Note: The download page indicates that the WAIK version is “1”; but don’t worry, the actual version is 2.0.
MSXML 6.0
PowerShell.
.Net Framework 3.5 SP1. Available for download here.
Note: Even though .Net Framework 2.5 SP1 is not a requirement for MDT 2010 installation; one of its features, User-Driven Installation (UDI), does requires the latest Microsoft Framework installed.

MDT 2012 Look-n-Feel

For what I’ve seen so far, the user experience of the Deployment Workbench console is pretty much the same.

MDT 2012 Beta 1 Download

The beta is available in this link from Microsoft Connect,

Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool

The Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool provides analysis of your on-premises environment in preparation for an Office 365 enterprise deployment. The readiness tool is integrated with the guidance provided in the web edition of the Microsoft Office 365 Beta Deployment Guide.

Download HERE

I run the tool in my test environment. See below the results

Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool

Beta

Office 365 Deployment Resource Kit build 01.00.00.00
Click here for the Microsoft Office 365 Beta Deployment Guide for Enterprises

Domains

Deployment Guide: Adding Your Domain(s) to Office 365
All email domains discovered in your environment:
Total: 3

All primary email domains discovered:
Total: 2

Primary email domain suffixes with greater than 50 users:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

User Identity and Account Provisioning

Active Directory

Statistics

Total number of domains discovered in your forest: 1
Estimated total number of users: 59
Estimated total number of contacts: 0
Estimated total number of groups: 54
Estimated total number of mailboxes: 53
Estimated total number of objects for Directory Synchronization: 113

Note: Filters were applied to obtain the above object counts for an Office 365 deployment.

Forest and Domains

The following domains were discovered in your Active Directory forest:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

Trusts

No forest trusts found

You may deploy AD FS 2.0 and Directory Synchronization without multi-forest constraints

Schema and Forest/Domain Functionality Levels

Active Directory forest schema level: Windows Server 2008 R2
Exchange schema level: Exchange Server 2010 SP1
Domain Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2
Forest Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2
Domain Controller Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2

It appears that your Active Directory schema is prepared for Exchange Rich Coexistence
Deployment Guide: Exchange Rich Coexistence Requirements

Active Directory Cleanup

Deployment Guide: Active Directory Cleanup

samaccountname (user name) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

givenname (first name) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

sn (last name) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

displayname Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

mail (email address) Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

No duplicates found

mailnickname Attribute

Character length test passed

Unsupported character test passed

proxyaddresses (email addresses) Attribute

No duplicates found

Unsupported character test passed

Directory Synchronization

Object count assessment:
Estimated number of objects for Directory Synchronization (entire forest): 113
Deployment Guide: Object Count Considerations
Enterprise Admin rights:

It appears that you are an enterprise admin
Directory Synchronization admin requirement met!
Deployment Guide: Directory Synchronization Required Permissions
Active Directory recycle bin:

Active Directory recycle bin is enabled in your forest this may impact your total object count quota for Directory Synchronization.

Office 365 Single Sign On and Identity

AD FS 2.0 Directory Cleanup Check:

UserPrincipalName (logon ID for Office 365) Attribute

Update values once you have verified your organization does not have any other application dependencies on the UserPrincipalName attribute.
Deployment Guide: Active Directory Cleanup

Unsupported characters test passed

Spaces in logon value test passed

Unicode character test passed

Note: All Unicode characters will be converted to underscores (_) in the UserPrincipalName field.

No UserPrincipalName duplicates found

Discovered users without a user logon name (blank value) for UserPrincipalName
You will need to provide each user a UserPrincipalName in order for these users to sign into Office 365.

Below is a list of your UserPrincipalName domain suffixes in use:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

Note: During the Office 365 Beta only one namespace (root and child domains) per AD FS 2.0 farm
Example contoso.com and root.contoso.com would require 1 AD FS 2.0 farm and fabrikam.com would require an additional AD FS 2.0 farm

Password length per domain:

wardvissers.local = 7

Exchange Online

Discovered Exchange Server(s) on-premises:
Estimated total number of Exchange Servers: 1

Statistics:
Estimated total number of users with default mailbox size (True): 53
Estimated total number of users with larger than default mailbox size (False): 0
Estimated total number of objects with Exchange organization level quota: 6

Lync Online

Lync user assessment:
Estimated total number of users leveraging Office Communications/Lync on-premises: 2
Sip domains:

The following sip domains were discovered:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1

SharePoint Online

User object count assessment:

The number of user objects in your forest is supported.
Deployment Guide: Object Count Considerations

Client and End User Experience

Deployment Guide: Rich Experience Client Requirements

Summary of client computer readiness (Office 365 single sign-on and rich client checks):

Below is an estimate of computer operating systems NOT ready for Office 365 rich client experience:
Total: 0

Below is an estimate of computer operating systems ready for Office 365 rich client experience:
Windows XP Service Pack 3: 3
Windows 7 Service Pack 1: 3
Total: 6

Network

IP Configuration:
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.60
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.254

Trace route to your default gateway:
Tracing route to 192.168.150.254 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 1 ms 2 ms 2 ms 192.168.150.254

Trace Route test to Exchange Online:
Tracing route to outlook.com [65.55.94.40]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.150.254
2 * 24 ms 25 ms 82.169.11.254
3 25 ms 26 ms 26 ms 195.69.145.20
4 145 ms 146 ms 144 ms 10.14.234.234
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 10.14.234.234 reports: Destination net unreachable.
Trace complete.

For additional tests utilize the Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer

Port Query Tests:

Deployment Guide: Ports and Protocols

portal.microsoft.com
Made a TCP 443 connection to portal.microsoftonline.com

Outlook.com
Made a TCP 443 connection to outlook.com

Outlook.com IMAP
Made a TCP 993 IMAP connection to outlook.com

Outlook.com POP
Made a TCP 995 POP connection to outlook.com

Outlook.com SMTP
Made a SMTP TCP 587 connection to outlook.com

Active Directory Federation Services End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to nexus.microsoftonline.com

Directory Synchronization End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to adminwebservice.microsoftonline.com

Office 365 PowerShell End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to ps.microsoftonline.com

Outlook.com PowerShell End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to ps.outlook.com

Office 365 Community End Point
Made a TCP 80 connection to community.office365.com

Lync Online SIP Connection
Made a TCP 443 connection to sipdir.online.lync.com

Lync Online Federation
Made a TCP 5061 connection to sipfed.online.lync.com
Domain Name System (DNS) name records checks:

Found the following MX DNS record(s):
Server: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
wardvissers.local
primary name server = ward-dc01.wardvissers.local
responsible mail addr = hostmaster.wardvissers.local
serial = 761
refresh = 900 (15 mins)
retry = 600 (10 mins)
expire = 86400 (1 day)
default TTL = 3600 (1 hour)
Information Gathered On:
WARD-DC01
Date: za 07-05-2011
Start Time: 18:19
End Time: 18:21

GAL Photos in Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010

With Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 & Lync & Sharepoint 2010 you can finally get photos into your global address list (GAL) and see just who’s who on your emails. You can do this on 2 way’s

1. Using Powershell

A minor schema change

First stop, the AD Schema. A minor schema modification is required to flip the thumbnailPhoto attribute to make it replicate to the Global Catalog.

If you haven’t registered the Schema MMC snap-in on the server you want to make this change on, go ahead and do so using the following command:

Regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll
Fire up a MMC console (Start -> Run -> MMC) and add the Schema snap-in
In the Active Directory Schema snap-in, expand the Attributes node, and then locate the thumbnailPhoto attribute. (The Schema snap-in lists attributes by its ldapDisplayName).
In the Properties page, select Replicate this attribute to the Global Catalog, and click OK.

Figure 1: Modifying the thumbnailPhoto attribute to replicate it to Global Catalog

Loading pictures into Active Directory

Now you can start uploading pictures to Active Directory using the Import-RecipientDataProperty cmdlet, as shown in this example:

Import-RecipientDataProperty -Identity "Ward VIssers" -Picture -FileData ([Byte[]]$(Get-Content -Path "C:\pictures\wardvissers.jpg" -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0))

To perform a bulk operation you can use the Get-Mailbox cmdlet with your choice of filter (or use the Get-DistributionGroupMember cmdlet if you want to do this for members of a distribution group), and pipe the mailboxes to a foreach loop. You can also retrieve the user name and path to the thumbnail picture from a CSV/TXT file.

2. Using a Free tool like Outlook Photos from Exclaimer

Download the Tool HERE

The tool is easy to use Smile .

Prerequisites

User Preferences

Domain user – The logged in user’ account is required to be an Active Directory account.

Domain computer – The computer the user is logged into needs to be joined to an Active
Directory domain.

Active Directory permissions – The logged in user must have permission to upload photos to the required Active Directory accounts. (Alternate credentials can be supplied or control of the thumbnailPhoto field can be delegated to the logged in user.)

Operating System

Windows Server 2003 x86 (including all service pack levels).
Windows Server 2003 R2 x86 and x64 (including all service pack levels).
Windows Server 2008 x86 and x64 (including all service pack levels).
Windows Server 2008 R2 x86 and x64 (including all service pack levels).
Windows Small Business Server 2003 (including all service pack levels).
Windows Small Business Server 2008.
Windows Small Business Server 2011.
Windows XP x86 and x64 (including all service pack levels).
Windows Vista x86 and x64 (including all service pack levels).
Windows 7 x86 and x64 (including all service pack levels).

Other Software

Microsoft Outlook 2010 x86 and x64

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

Microsoft Exchange 2010 RTM and above

Active Directory

You must be logged into an Active Directory domain to run the application.

Active Directory Forest
Domain and Forest functional level of Windows Server 2008 and above.
For Domain or Forest functional level of Windows Server 2003, the Windows Server 2008 Forest preparation must first be complete.

Screenshots

Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals Jump Start

The “Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals” Jump Start is specially tailored for VMware and Microsoft virtualization technology pros. This cutting-edge course features expert instruction and real-world demonstrations of Hyper-V, many components of the System Center Suite, including VMM 2012, and a myriad of VDI solutions. This course is designed for Data Center Managers, IT Professionals, IT Decision Makers, Network Administrators, Storage/Infrastructure Administrators & Architects. Expert IT infrastructure consultant, Corey Hynes, and Microsoft Technical Evangelist, Symon Perriman, leveraged an engaging "team teaching" approach which makes the class as entertaining as it is educational Smile

Download all the Video’s:
Video: WMV | WMV (ZIP) | PSP
Audio: WMA | MP3

Now only finding some spare time to watch’s these video’s Winking smile

DPM 2010 Enabling/Disabling co-location of data on Tape

With this feature, you can achieve better tape utilization by co-locating data from multiple protection groups with similar retention range. This feature is disabled by default. You can use following PowerShell commands to enable and disable tape co-location.

Enable Tape co-location:

Set-DPMGlobalProperty -DpmServer <DPM Server Name> -OptimizeTapeUsage $true

After data co-location has been enabled, DPM will check for the following conditions before allocating a tape:

The expiry date of the current dataset should fall in between the following dates:
Upper bound: furthest expiry date among all the datasets on the tape – (furthest expiry date among all the datasets on the tape – current date) * TapeExpiryTolerance
Lower Bound: furthest expiry date among all the datasets on the tape + (furthest expiry date among all the datasets on the tape – current date) * TapeExpiryTolerance.
Current time should be less than first backup time of the dataset on the media + TapeWritePeriodRatio * RetentionRangeOfFirstDataset.

A dataset will be collocated only if both the above conditions are true.

When you add the value to the registry, set the DWORD to be the actual percentage in decimal. The Default is 17 percent if that value is not present. Most likely you need to increase that value to a higher percentage and in some cases you need to set it to 100 in order for tape co-location to work as desired.

TapeWritePeriodRatio – Indicates the number of days for which data can be written on to a tape as a fraction between 0 and 1. The default value is 0.15 – meaning by default, we will write to the same tape for 15% of the retension range period specified for each PG.

TapeWritePeriodRatio is not a registry. It is a global property for the DPM which needs to be set using DPM CLI command. Here is the command to set it:

Set-DPMGlobalProperty –DPMServerName <dpm server name> -TapeWritePeriodRatio <fraction>

EXAMPLE, to set the write period ratio to 50%, use the following command.

Set-DPMGlobalProperty –DPMServerName MY-DPMSEREVR -TapeWritePeriodRatio .50

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399230.aspx

Tag: Powershell

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 RC1

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Exchange 2010 DAG Maintance

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Exchange 2010 SP2 RTM

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VMware View Bootcamp

VMware View Bootcamp Series

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Microsoft Office 365 Jump Start

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