Important Update - 28 Jan 2009 A comment was posted to my December 22 post stating that the Elevate command in the Elevation PowerToys does not work correctly in the Windows 7 Beta. (Thanks Pete!) The application is launched elevated but the arguments...

I was recently configuring the User State Migration Tool for a customer’s MDT server when, during the testing phase, the USMT began failing with an error code (‘return code’ or ‘rc’ when you read the MDT log files).  I searched the USMT documentation...

In a previous post I shamelessly promoted my Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista. I recently was contacted by one of our support engineers about installing these tools. The customer wanted to install most of them in their Windows Server 2008 reference...

Just a small update on this topic. Microsoft has now published a Knowledge Base article, KB959753 , that documents the "automated profile copy" methods for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. The old "manual or scripted...

In MDT rules processing with CustomSettings.ini, some of the items that can be configured are List Items. List Items are essentially multi-valued custom properties. Examples of items that are List Items are Applications in LTI and Packages in ZTI. To...

Well Vista Service Pack 2 CTP is available. Information is scattered across the web, including the Windows Vista home page and the Springboard Series Site . It was first released to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. A public download link is now here ( http...

Ever wanted to add your own user communication and interaction to a Configuration Manager task sequence? Below is an HTML Application (HTA) that has a user interface for the task sequence with information about the deployment, a button to cancel or pause...

Two more tips for the blog. Actually, one is a tip and the other is the solution to a common problem I see! During the execution of a task sequence in MDT (normally while creating an image, or deploying one) the computer will display the Installation...

The below list is a list of the most common mistakes made when creating a LiteTouch task sequence. While not an exhaustive list, it might help to improve your deployment experience when using MDT to create LiteTouch deployments. 1.) Hard-code paths...

Many scenarios arise in which you may want to port your task sequence from one environment to another. Common scenarios include promotion through Lab and QA environments and migration between disconnected hierarchies. Configuration Manager allows you...

In SCCM 2007 SP1 the console will experience an error when you try to edit a Run Command Line step that was created in SCCM 2007 RTM. This can occur if you upgraded from RTM to SP1, if you import in SP1 a task sequence that was exported from RTM, or if...

In this second blog entry on VDI I will explain the benefits that using Citrix Xendesktop as the connection broker can bring. As explained in the first blog Microsoft does not provide a broker but partners with companies including Citrix, Quest and several...

Back in March, Richard Smith wrote a post about how to move the Task Sequence window to one side so that you can display a new window in the centre of the screen without it being covered up by the “Always On Top” Task Sequence window. Richard’s solution...

Two colleagues of mine in the UK, Adam Shepherd and Mark Aslett, are running a series of WebCasts around Infrastructure Architecture. The next in the series is on Desktop Deployment and it will run on the 15th October 2008 at 16:00 GMT. A brief description...

hdc Class Drivers One of the features in SCCM to facilitate deployment of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is the ability to inject mass storage controller drivers offline. Traditionally mass storage drivers had to be included in the image (present...

This is the first post in a series that will cover some of the more simple/basic tricks that you can do with MDT, but that are often overlooked.  I’ll be the first to admit that a couple of them I only learnt recently, even though I have been using...

Last week Mark Russinovich and a group of industry experts got together to talk about Windows Vista performance challenges, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, find out...

Thanks to Michael Murgolo another consultant in the East Region, the new version of this script logs not only Configuration Manager Variables but also SMS 2003 and the script's PROCESS environment variables. Please feel free to comment. The new version...

In this post I am going to cover off configuring the Windows Server 2008 firewall to support accessing the MDT database via named pipes. I started to write this post because I spent a very frustrating half hour or so trying to work out why my client would...

In this first post of a series I am going to talk about VDI. The first post, will describe what VDI is, why you may use VDI, describe the architecture and provide a guide for a test environment.  This blog entry is less technically deep than the...

When debugging a MDT based Configuration Manager Task Sequence, it is often helpful to know what certain built-in Configuration Manager variables are set to during a step in the task sequence. For instance, you may want to see if _SMSTSLastActionRetCode...

If you make regular changes to your WIM files with the use of the /MOUNTRW or /DELETE switches of IMAGEX, then you may have noticed that your WIM files do not shrink in size after you commit the changes back to the file.  You could delete 500mb of...

Often times, after creating an MDT or SCCM task sequence, you need to document it for yourself or your customers. Usually, this involves creating a table with the groups and steps, extracting their descriptions, identifying conditions and denoting the...

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit allows you to assign a “sequence” to package/programs within a role. However, what if you have 3 different Computer Roles and want to preserve an order within them? For instance say you have the following computer...

Installing ConfigMgr 2007 onto a Windows Server 2008 based server can be a challenge. Having recently been through the process for my own lab environment I thought I’d share the process in the hope that it will save you some time when you need to...