How cool is that?

I know, right.. seriously cool

But – what could you use this for? well say you have an application that you just cannot make work in Windows 7 – you have followed all of Chris Jackson’s methods, you have used the ACT, you have consulted the Application Compatibility Cookbook and you still cannot get it to work – that my friends is when you roll this baby out.

Jeremy Chapman (aka deployment genius) has sat down with AdamBomb (aka AdamBomb) on Edge to demonstrate how this works – http://edge.technet.com/Media/P2V-Migration-for-Software-Assurance-Beta-with-Jeremy-Chapman/

Now – you do need to have software assurance to get access to this – in the short term (while it is in beta) you can get it from connect – http://connect.microsoft.com (and while it is in beta you do not need to have SA)

Some of you may have already played with the Sysinternals DISK2VHD tool – this leverages off that same tool but then does much more!

Cheers

Kyle

It helps you with the migration to both the 32 bit and 64 Bit versions of Office and helps you to check for things like VBA Macros that might not convert over as well. Better to know before than after!

You can get it from here.

Cheers

Kyle

I made a promise to have a post of links and a post of Windows PowerShell Commands.. so here it is:

Deployment Links (referred to in the Pre-Con and also in the 2 deployment presentations with Mike Neihaus)

First Stop for deployment – www.microsoft.com/deployment

Windows 7 Springboard http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/default.aspx

Mike’s Blog Site http://blogs.technet.com/b/mniehaus/

The Deployment Guys Blog site http://blogs.technet.com/b/deploymentguys/

Application Compatibility Cookbook Vista and Windows 7

TechNet How do I? Videos http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/cc138021.aspx

Ask the Directory Team blog http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/

Windows 7 Proof of Concept Jumpstart Kit http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=26301cd1-cc72-4dd8-819e-12ef48322743&displaylang=en

Windows PowerShell

Australian PowerShell User Groups:

Brisbane http://psugbne.org/

Perth http://www.psugau.org/

Commands used in the Demo:

Thanks for all that attended the sessions – great to see you and I hope to see you again next year!

Cheers

Kyle

In the good old days of Windows XP if you deployed an application with Group Policy then when it was being installed you got feedback from Windows about what it was doing. Such as “Installing Office 2007” – the same operation in Windows 7 shows “Please wait..” but doesn’t tell you what it is waiting for. If you are deploying multiple apps then you really have no way of what is going on.

Turns out there is a group policy setting that has been around for a while but has the opposite default in Windows 7 (normal status messages) than it does in Windows XP (verbose status messages).

So the answer is to head to Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System then look for the setting "Verbose vs normal status messages" – enable this setting then it overwrites the default of Normal status messages and you then get all the messages you are missing.

Enjoy!

Kyle

I have a general discussion about some of the tools that are available for us as IT Pros to be able to deploy Windows. If you have been to one of my presentations you probably have heard about them already and if you have read posts on here then you would know about them!

Cheers

Kyle

Written by Jeremy Chapman it offers some good high level steps for IT Pros like us to start the process of enterprise deployments. Starting with Windows XP and then moving to Windows 7.

Sounds too good to be true? well it is isn’t and it is free.

Cheers

Kyle

The Proof of Concept Jumpstart kit – this looks really handy.

From the website:

This self-contained, self-service kit will help you complete a Proof-of -Concept (PoC) at your organization, allowing you to quickly evaluate the new Microsoft desktop technologies, including Windows 7, Office 2010 Pro Plus, Internet Explorer 8, and Application Virtualization with Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack technology App-V. It will also familiarize you with some of the important deployment tools provided by Microsoft to assist with your broader deployment efforts. This PoC is not meant to be comprehensive training mechanism but rather an introductory set of modules to familiarize you with tools and technologies.

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition – A platform that helps IT Professionals increase the flexibility and reliability of their server infrastructure.

• Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) – A tool to assess your hardware readiness for Windows 7 and Office 2010.

• Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) – A tool to assess your software readiness for Windows 7 and Office 2010.

• Microsoft Office Migration and Planning Manager (OMPM) – A tool to assess and upgrade Office versions and files.

• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit – A tool to create, configure, and deploy custom images, applications, and components.

• Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day Trial image – This evaluation edition forms the base image for deployment on client computers.

• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 – This system is the best productivity experience across the PC, Phone, and Web.

• Office 2010 with Application Virtualization – This system is deployed virtually to streamline and centralize operations.

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition – This database system is used to store application compatibility and Microsoft Office assessment data for the ACT and OMPM tools.

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition – This database system is used to store image and task sequence data for MDT Deployment Workbench.

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Evaluation Edition – This database system is used to store hardware assessment data for the MAP tool.

The PoC Jumpstart is intended to show you that an upgrade to new Microsoft Optimize Desktop technologies can be seamless, feasible, easy and cost-effective. The PoC Jumpstart will also shed light on the deployment process (tools and technologies) and give your organization confidence for undertaking a broader deployment motion. After completion of the PoC, you should have a test environment setup that will allow you to evaluate the various features of the Microsoft Optimized Desktop and help you make informed decisions to meet your business needs.

So – go get it.. from here

Thanks to DreamensioN for pointing this out..

If you are looking to deploy Windows using an unattended installation file, and you want to set the locale to en-AU – there are some incorrect entries on the MS websites for the codes to be used for en_au in the unattend files..

Listed as English_Australia here…

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/win2k/setup/lcid.mspx

Listed as English_Australia here…

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb895996.aspx

In both locations Australia is listed as 0c09:00000409 but it should be 0c09:00000C09 (so the 409 at the end is incorrect – that is the correct entry for US not AU)

Cheers

Kyle

So .. all was working well until as part of a demo I used the only machine that was available at the time and used that box to demo converting the disk drive to a dynamic disk – this then enabled me to do volume spanning etc..

So – fast forward to me the booting up into my VHD boot again – and then once more getting Blue Screens – mmm.. i thought I had solved that problem .. indeed.. I had – then I created another one!

So the issue was that for boot to VHD to work – it cannot be stored on a parent disk configured as a dynamic disk – this I did not know – and only found when I was hunting to see what the issue might have been.. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799282(WS.10).aspx

So.. therefore I needed to convert from Dynamic to Basic – not an operation to be taken lightly as it traditionally involves taking the option to “Convert to Basic Disk” in Disk Management – and by convert it means – wipe everything and start again. So I was ready to do a complete rebuild – when a friend (Kim – you know who you are!) suggested to use the image backup in Windows 7  to do the full back up – destroy the disk and then start again – good thinking.. so I set about do this. For good measure I also used the backup facility on my Windows Home Server to create another copy… so far so good..

Then I began the process of doing a system restore – and then the troubles started

So .. what it seems (and further reading leans this way – but more testing is required and will be forthcoming – that doing image backups of a dynamic disk is not a good idea – I have found on various blogs (including the Windows Backup Team’s blog) that there is issues with backing up to a dynamic disk – basically you can do it but not restore from it – but I have also found that the image backup itself will not restore if it was from a dynamic disk in the first place. The backup completes – the files are certainly there – but the restore process does not work.

When I tried to use the system image restore option of the Windows 7 disk – I was given an error about not having the correct version of winpe (the 64bit version – which is what I was using) or the image was corrupt.

So – I went looking for other options – and found this. A handy hex editor that will edit the disk configuration. So there is a non-distructive way of changing from Dynamic to Basic disks (with a very large addendum as you will see!) Also read the whole thing before you start – you will see that there are some big gotcha’s..

The steps that I used were:

WARNING – THIS HAS THE ABILITY TO COMPLETELY DESTROY ALL ACCESS TO YOU YOUR DATA  – DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK – DO NOT BLAME ME IF IT GOES HORRIBLY WRONG – just saying is all .. this is all on you

1. Do a complete back up – I did 2 – the image backup and the WHS backup.

2. Download Hxd – I used the non-install version – and put it on a USB disk – you could equally download the install version – but I used the non-install version so I did not have to put anything on the HDD.

3. Run the exe. As this is on a Windows 7 machine I needed to run it as Administrator (yes – I run my own boxes with UAC turned on

4. I then selected my disk – using the menu –

then – in this case I knew the drive that I wanted to convert back – so I selected the disk 1 – disk 2 here is actually not a drive but a mounted VHD – more on that later. When you uncheck the Read-Only – which you need to do and then click on ok here you get a warning about the drive and what you are doing and how it could destroy your data – just in case my warning above was not enough.

5. Now you will see the contents of your drive – in hex form – do not change anything apart from what you need to – otherwise bad things will happen to your data (plague of frogs, etc)

Basically look in the Sector 0 1B0 – 1F0 area for the value 42 – logically you will have one for every volume you have – I had 3 – and then change the 42 to 07 – that is it – no changing any thing else.. at all .. then close and save changes.

6. I went then to Disk Management and found that disk 1 was now a basic disk – hooray – then I refreshed the view and got a Blue Screen of Death – ok – so this was not so cool.

7. Rebooted machine and Windows started fine – but then when I opened up Disk Management I found that my data drive had corrupted – mmm.. ok .. so why was that? Well – it was a spanned volume that had different parts of the drive – and that didn’t transfer across to the basic disk.

8. So that was fine as I had my backups right? yeeeeahhhh.. I went to the image restore option in Windows 7 and it could not find a valid image in the location that it was.. ok .. so I then head to Windows Home Server (remembering that I had backed up to both locations). Windows Home Server shows the backups – but I can’t restore the data drive – gets to 97% and then fails – mmm .. ok .. so Kyle is starting to get a little worried now – I noticed in WHS backup that the location for the backup for this machine is “missing” well.. that could be the problem – I wonder if that is due to the dynamic disk (a quick check of other backups restore fine and they have a location – but they are all for basic disks – so more testing to come on that)

9. So – I then looked in the location that I had put the system image backups – the vhd’s that were created were there – so the backup did work – it was just the restore process. No mind… I crack open Disk Management and then mount the VHD of the data drive and then manually copy the files to the newly recreated data partition on my laptop.

So – not the prettiest solution – but what the heck – it works – and it meant that I did not have to do a complete rebuild to convert from Dynamic to Basic.

I will be doing some more testing to see if any of the backup issues were actually from the Dynamic Disk or if it was just strange coincidence.. I am betting against strange coincidence.. but we shall see..

Anyway – enjoy!

Cheers

kyle

Microsoft have released a really good ebook on deployment – covering a full range of topics:

A really great place to start your planning… ebook

Cheers

Kyle