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Sapien’s PowerShell Studio 2012 –The “Bruce Almighty” of all the PowerShell ISEs !!

2013-01-15T09:48:00Z

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DISCLAIMER

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Any views or opinions presented in this blog post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company (Microsoft®). Microsoft neither owns nor endorses the product being reviewed (Sapien® PowerShell Studio 2012). The review is solely based on the author's personal opinion and his experience with the product and should not be considered as the view or opinions of the company he works for. (MICROSOFT CORPORATION).

Microsoft makes no warranties about the information contained within this blog, and cannot be held responsible for any damage caused to hardware or any other problem caused by misuse of information. Any errors or omissions should be brought to the author's attention by contacting the Blog author.

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If your area of interest lies in the Microsoft Space, you probably have heard or worked with PowerShell. Since its inception, it has taken the world of Microsoft Infrastructure Administration by storm. There are no doubts that this is the best automation and scripting engine that the Redmond Company has come out with.

I have been working with PowerShell since version 1.0 was released. It is currently in Version 3.0 and use it for automating various repetitive tasks that I do as a part of my consulting practice.

Since, I work exclusively with PowerShell, I have played around with various ISEs (Integrated Scripting Environment) like the default that ships with Win7 / Win 8, Quest PowerGUI Pro, PowerShell Plus etc. All these ISEs are great but lack the flexibility of building GUIs with PowerShell. Though we can manually code the GUI using WinForms, it would take more than 1000+ lines to build a simple GUI. Investing so much of time in just building a simple GUI doesn’t make sense at all. To add to it, what about errors (both syntactical and logical). Fixing those would be a nightmare!!

A search for an ISE that would help me easily build the GUI based WinForms landed on the Sapien’s Page http://www.sapien.com/software/powershell_studio. Trust me, my world just changed after I started using this product. “AWESOME” is the world that defines Sapien’s PowerShell Studio 2012.

Sapien’s PowerShell Studio is packed with everything you need to work with PowerShell, be it a Console in STA mode, Scripting Editor, Script Debugger, Integrated Help System, Packaging and Converting your scripts to an executable and the best (woo hoo J) PowerShell Forms Designer.

Who can use PowerShell Studio 2012?

If you have ran the cmdlet Get-help or Get-Service, you can use PowerShell Studio 2012. It is really simple and intuitive to use. The Integrated Help System makes learning PowerShell easier than ever. Want to write an advanced function but don’t remember the syntax? With PowerShell Studio 2012, you can just insert a snippet and voila, the syntax is ready for your customization J

Look and Feel?

Love the Ribbon based interface of PowerShell Studio 2012. It just takes minutes to get up and running with PowerShell Studio 2012

What can I do with PowerShell Studio 2012?

Everthing! From creating a Windows Form or a Module or packaging a script to an executable!

Also, it easily integrates with PrimalMerge 2012 giving you features like side-by-side file comparisons

How simple is it to build a GUI using PowerShell Studio?

It is not only simple, it’s fun to use PowerShell Studio to build GUI Forms. I would not hesitate to say that it’s the “Visual Studio” of PowerShell.

All you need is to drag and drop the Controls, set their properties and customize it as per your needs. The code required to build the GUI is auto generated by PowerShell studio behind the scenes and is available in the Script View.

For example, the below Form just took a couple of minutes to build and get it working. This is just an example, you can build complex applications using PowerShell Studio 2012

To customize the script of the control, just double click on it and it will open in the script view

I am new to Windows Forms and GUI building, do we have a help file?

Yes, the Sapien’s Document Explorer has all the documentation you need to get started with PowerShell and with PowerShell Form Editor.

You can more information from the Sapien Blog or seek help from peers and experts via the Forums

Summary:

If you are a serious Windows Administrator or you are working with any “PowerShelled” Product, PowerShell Studio 2012 is an absolute must to have. Priced at $349, this is the “Bruce Almighty” of all the PowerShell ISEs out there in the market.

So what are you waiting for? If you PowerShell, then you need to PowerShell Studio It!

I will be writing more on WinForms using PowerShell Studio 2012 in my subsequent posts. Until then, Happy PowerShelling!!

Calculating the Average Bytes Transferred Per Minute during Office 365 Mailbox Migrations using PowerShell

2012-10-23T01:46:00Z

PowerShell is Fun. Yes it really is ! If it doesn’t give you a straightforward way to get things done, there is always a workaround. To substantiate my point, let me give you a scenario I recently came across. At Microsoft, I am a part of a Team that helps Enterprise Customers embrace Microsoft Cloud Solutions. For example, we help our customers migrate from their OnPremise Messaging Infrastructure (Lotus Notes / Exchange) to Office 365. Recently while working with a Customer, we noticed heavy network latency issues from the Customer’s end thereby resulting into slow mailbox moves. Their network backbone decided to take a day off thereby delaying their journey to the cloud. The Customer wanted to know what was the average data transferred per minute.

That’s simple! I exclaimed. The Get-MoveRequestStatistics CmdLet has the property “BytesTransferredPerMinute” that does exactly what it is named for. Let’s take a peek at the Get-MoveRequestStatistics CmdLet and see this in action. I have intentionally skipped the Alias and DisplayName Property of the Users for obvious confidentiality reasons. That’s irrelevant to the topic in discussion

Cool !. Now that we have the Property, we can simply Pipeline it to the Measure-Object CmdLet and calculate the Average Bytes Transferred Per Minute. This is what it would look like.

Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! Red Text…The dreaded red text… Something is wrong here. But as all PowerShell Gurus say, read the errors and not “Clear Screen” them . It is clear from the error displayed that the BytesTransferredPerMinute is not of the Integer Data Type and hence PowerShell cannot compute its average.

To get more clarity, let’s use the Get-Member CmdLet (One of the three weapons to master PowerShell. If you are wondering what the other two are, they are Get-Command and Get-Help)

As you can notice, while doing an implicit remoting to the cloud, the objects returned are deserialized. Serialization and Deserialization are topics that I would cover in a different blog post. So the question remains, can we actually calculate the Average Bytes Transferred Per Minute. Yeah, probably by copying the results in an Excel Spreadsheet and juggling around it till we get the numbers and using the Average Function. Naah, that’s not PowerShellish, isn't it?

To do this with PowerShell, we can convert the values into String Objects and then use the Methods the String Objects support to get our desired result. One of the values returned was 4.886 MB (5,123,667 bytes). What we are interested is the Part before the “MB”, in other words the Numbers, which in this case would be 4.866

This is an ideal case where we can use the SubString() and the IndexOf() methods of the String Object to get our desired output. Using the IndexOf method we will find the Index value of MB and then we will use the SubString() method to only extract the part starting from the first character at position 0 to the Index of MB, which is nothing but the numbers we are interested. This is illustrated in the screenshot below:

Now, lets bind all these together to get the Average Bytes Transferred Per Minute. This is demonstrated in the Screenshot Below

Code:

gc .\Users.txt | Get-MoveRequestStatistics | Select @{l="BytesTransferredPerMin(MB)";e={$_.BytesTransferredPerMinute.ToString().SubString(0,($_.BytesTransferredPerMinute.ToString().IndexOf("MB")))}} `

| Measure-Object -Property 'BytesTransferredPerMin(MB)' -Average -Sum -Maximum -Minimum

Even though it looks confusing, it actually isn't. What I did with the $var example above, I applied the same logic here. The only difference is that we used the ToString() Method to convert the value of BytesTransferredPerMinute Property to a String Object.

And that’s exactly what the Customer wanted. As always, we can play around the number formatting as detailed here and get more defined results. The same logic can also be applied for calculating the Average Data Transferred (BytesTransferred).

This might just be one way of getting the results we wanted. There might be others as well.

Hope you found this post useful.

Till then, Happy PowerShelling

Namma Bengalooru gets bitten by the PSBug on 28th July, 2012...City to celebrate PowerShell Blues...

2012-07-15T08:34:45Z

Passionate about "The only beautiful Blue Screen on Microsoft Windows?" Do you love to automate the world one line at a time.If you are in love with PowerShell the day you ran the your first command....Its time to meet fellow Bangaloreans who share the same passion.

We already have a lot of PowerShell Enthusiasts who avidly share their interest for PowerShell on the "Bangalore PowerShell User Group" on Facebook.

Ravikanth Chaganti, PowerShell MVP and Guru of PowerShell is a fostered the idea of bringing all the 'PowerShell Geeks' in Bangalore together. Ravikanth is passionate about automation and outside of work, he writes regularly on his blog http://www.ravichaganti.com/blog about topics related to Windows PowerShell, Microsoft SharePoint and Windows Server virtualization. He has got a couple of SeeShell licenses to giveaway at the UG meet, so make sure you make it to the meet :)

What's more, the community kept active by PowerShell Wizards like Sahal Omer, Pradeep Rawat, Dexter Dhami, Harshul Patel, Dilip Sant, Manas Ranjan Dash,Venkatanarasimha Kl, Srinivas Kadiyala and more...

See you on July 28th then... :)

Here is the Official Email sent out to the Bangalore IT Pro Community:

The Bangalore IT Pro (@bangaloreitpro) and the PowerShell Bangalore User Group (@PSBug) jointly announce the inaugural PowerShell user group meet at Bangalore. This is the first of several events to happen in the next few months.Join us for a fun filled knowledge sharing session on July 28th, 2012 at the venue below:

Discover Training Hall
5th Floor, Dell International Services,
Intermediate Ring Road,Domlur, Bangalore

The agenda is as follows:

2.45PM to 3.00PM - Registrations
3.00PM to 4.30PM - Welcome note by UG Leads, Introduction to Windows PowerShell 3.0 , Started with Windows PowerShell
4.40PM to 4.45PM - Tea/Snacks
4.45PM to 5.30PM - PowerShell Script Club (Bring your problems and lets script together)
5.30PM to 5.45PM - Closing note

RSVP: Ravikanth (9845192702)

Registration Link
http://aka.ms/psbug

Learn PowerShell from the "The Scripting Guy" himself

2012-03-06T15:17:40Z

No one can teach you PowerShell as good as the “The Scripting Guy”

Learn PowerShell from the “The Scripting Guy”

Presenter: Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy, Microsoft Corporation

‎2012 videos start next week. Live sessions (that will be recorded)

3/12/2012 11:00:00 AM - PowerShell Essentials for the
Busy Admin (Part 1 of 5): PowerShell 'SmowerShell'—Why You Should Learn Windows PowerShell?

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508049&Culture=en-US or http://bit.ly/AcFwkj

3/13/2012 11:00:00 AM - PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 2 of 5): Heard It through the Pipeline—How to Compound Windows PowerShell Commands for Fun and Profit?

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508051&Culture=en-US or http://bit.ly/AkTdtC

3/14/2012 11:00:00 AM - PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 3 of 5): Sole Provider? Not Hardly—A Look at Windows PowerShell Providers

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508053&Culture=en-US or http://bit.ly/x15fG5

3/15/2012 11:00:00 AM - PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 4 of 5): The Main Event—Windows PowerShell Does Event Logs

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508058&Culture=en-US or http://bit.ly/AiM2nN

3/16/2012 11:00:00 AM - PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 5 of 5): More Than Remotely Possible—Using Windows PowerShell to Manage the Remote Desktop

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508060&Culture=en-US or http://bit.ly/A3awsi

Events Home

http://msevents.microsoft.com

VMM 2012 cmdlet content now live on TechNet!

2012-01-30T02:28:42Z

The VMM 2012 cmdlet help topics and about topics are now LIVE on TechNet!!

Soon you will be able to use the –online parameter for any of the cmdlets and get directed to the appropriate cmdlet on TechNet

Link to the Cmdlet Help topics: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh801697.aspx

Link to the Cmdlet Help About topics: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh801913.aspx

An accompanying Cmdlet Reference has been published in the download center and its a whoping 2500+ Pages :)

Link to the Cmdlet Reference: http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/7/A/D7ABAD5E-24E2-414E-99D4-B786D6EBE189/SystemCenter 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager Cmdlet Reference.doc

TechNet Wiki - Using Powershell to automate the installation and configuration of RDS

2011-12-09T07:52:03Z

My Good Friend Freek Berson (http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/) and an established Remote Deskop Services MVP has created a Technet Wiki Page for Configuring RDS using PowerShell. If you come across any good resources about RDS and PowerShell, feel free to add it to the WIKI Page.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/using-powershell-to-automate-the-installation-and-configuration-of-rds.aspx

Happy PowerShelling!

RDS PowerShell : TFM – 8 Steps to automate your Remote Desktop Services Infrastructure using PowerShell

2011-12-02T11:25:11Z

After a lot of effort, I was able to write this 8 Part series on automating your Remote Desktop Services Infrastructure using PowerShell. Please find the links below and do let me know your valuable feedback, suggestions or corrections if any.

Titled as RDS PowerShell : TFM, this 8 part series dwells into the step by step procedure to automate the RDS functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2. I am a big time fan of Don Jones (http://www.shellhub.com) and Jeffrey Hicks (http://jdhitsolutions.com/blog/) and have learnt whatever I know about PowerShell through their TFM Series on PowerShell. As an inspiration, I decided to brand the blog post as TFM (Yes, the TFM of the Standard RTFM acronym) and the F by the way is Foney ….. and not what you thought initially

Introduction

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-introduction.aspx

Part 1

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-i-installing-remote-desktop-role-services.aspx

Part 2

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-ii-configuring-remote-desktop-session-host-server-using-rds-provider-for-powershell.aspx

Part 3

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-iii-configuring-remote-desktop-connection-broker-using-powershell.aspx

Part 4

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-iv-configuring-a-rds-farm-using-powershell.aspx

Part 5

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-v-configuring-a-rd-gateway-using-powershell.aspx

Part 6

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-vi-network-load-balancing-rds-farm-members-using-powershell.aspx

Part 7

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-vii-using-best-practice-analyzer-powershell-module-of-remote-desktop-services.aspx

Part 8

http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-viii-next-steps.aspx

Happy PowerShelling !!!

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part VIII : Next Steps

2011-12-02T11:09:00Z

Wow!! Now that was too much of a PowerShell dose. However you would now start truly appreciating the “Power of PowerShell”.

Having understood what you need to know about RDS PowerShell to automate it, you can start leveraging your new found knowledge to start scripting some advanced stuff.

Here are some additional references.

TechNet Script Center Repository

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/site/search?f%5B0%5D.Type=RootCategory&f%5B0%5D.Value=remotedesktopservices&f%5B0%5D.Text=Remote%20Desktop%20Services

RDS RemoteApp PowerShell Module by Jan Egil Ring (http://blog.powershell.no)

http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/PSRDSRemoteApp

If you recollect from the first part http://blogs.technet.com/b/manojnair/archive/2011/12/02/rds-powershell-tfm-part-i-installing-remote-desktop-role-services.aspx, you can use this Module to author a simple script that would pull the RemoteApps from Remote Servers.

Terminal Services PowerShell Module by Shay Levy (http://powershay.com)

http://psterminalservices.codeplex.com/

I hope you found the series informative. Please do let me know your valuable feedback by replying to this post.

Enjoy your quest to conquer PowerShell. Be what’s Automated…™

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part VII : Using Best Practice Analyzer PowerShell Module of Remote Desktop Services

2011-12-02T11:07:21Z

To use the Best Practice Analyzer for Remote Desktop Services, we will import the Best Practices Module for PowerShell

The Get-BpaModel tells you which all Scans are available for you to run on the box. As shown in the screenshot below, we do have access to the Microsoft/Windows/TerminalServices scan since the RDS Role has been installed on the server.

To run the scan, we will pipeline the Get-BpaModel to the Invoke-BpaModel Cmdlet as shown below:

The final step is to use the Get-BpaResult command to get the results dumped on the console. Note that we are in compliance with most of the Rules.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part VI : Network Load Balancing RDS Farm Members using PowerShell

2011-12-02T11:04:16Z

To avoid problems with stale DNS cache entries, you might decide to implement NLB or Network Load Balancing.

To configure NLB Cluster, we will install the NLB feature on each of the FARM members and then configure the cluster and finally add a DNS entry mapping the FARM name to the Cluster IP address.

Starting with Windows Server 2008, NLB was re-engineered so that implementing NLB in the unicast mode on one network adapter now allows for host to host communication.

To install NLB, yes, you guessed it right , use the ServerManager Module

So, we will install the NLB feature first on COLFAX.

Next, we will install NLB feature on the FUJI server. Note here, I would use the 1:1 Remoting Feature of PowerShell as shown below.

Like RDS, NLB also installs a PowerShell Module so that we can consume it to create NLB clusters via PowerShell

Next, let’s quickly examine the commands available in NLB Cluster Module. Note that we can use the wildcard characters to specify the name of the module. I am a bit lazy to type the entire name again J.

We will use the New-NLBCluster command to create a NLB Cluster as shown in the screenshot below:

You can get information about the NLBCluster just created using the Get-NLBCluster command.

Now, let’s add the COLFAX server to the NLBCluster

And that’s all about it.

Let’s check the same in the NLB Manager.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part V : Configuring a RD Gateway using PowerShell

2011-12-02T10:58:40Z

Now that we have our RDS Farm setup, let’s extend our RDS Farm over the internet by configuring the RD Gateway Role Service.

We will use our PYRAMID Server as our RD Gateway Server.

Using the Add-WindowsFeature, we will install the RD-Gateway Role Service.

Now that we have the RD Gateway Role Installed, it’s time to a configure it using PowerShell. Start by importing the RemoteDesktopServices Module and then by navigating to the RDS: PS Drive.

As you can see in the screenshot above, there are many settings you can configure via the GatewayServer container. In this blog post, I am going to concentrate on a few important ones.

Creating a Connection Authorization Policy (CAP)

RD CAP has the following configurations

Let’s take a quick look at some of the mandatory properties, AuthMethod and UserGroups

Alright, based on the description and information given above, let’s quickly create a CAP Policy which uses Password Authentication and grants Domain Users access to connect to RD Gateway Server

You can then further drill down and configure additional settings by navigating to the TestCAP Container.

Creating a RAP (Resource Authorization Policies)

RAP has the following configuration Settings

We will take a closer look at the ComputerGroupType Setting

Based on the above information, let’s create a RAP Policy using PowerShell

You can further drill down on the DemoRAP container to configure additional settings.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part IV : Configuring a RDS Farm using PowerShell

2011-12-02T10:53:34Z

So far, we have installed two RD Session Host Servers, added some RemoteApps, configured the Session Host Servers, installed the Web Access Server, installed and configured the Connection Broker.

We are all set to create a RDS Farm. I have already created the related DNS records (RDSFARM) as shown in the screenshot below:

Let’s connect to our RD Session Host Server COLFAX and navigate to the ConnectionBrokerSettings Container

Before we start creating a FARM, we need to figure out the corresponding value of the FARM membership as defined in the ServerPurpose Property.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the value 3 corresponds to the Farm Membership.

We also need to the IP address of the NIC attached to the Session Host Server (RedirectableAddresses)

To create a FARM, we can run the following command

Set-Item ServerPurpose -value 3 -ConnectionBroker <FQDN-OF-RD-CONNECTIONBROKER- GOES-HERE> -FarmName <FQDN-FARM-NAME-GOES-HERE> -IPAddressRedirection 1 -CurrentRedirectableAddresses <IP-ADDRESS-YOU-WANT-TO-USE-GOES-HERE>

Since, we have only one NIC card attached to each of the RD Session Host Servers, the value of the CurrentRedirectableAddresses can be substituted by the Name Property of the RedirectableAddresses as shown in the figure below

In the above case, we are storing all the contents of the RedirectableAddresses container into a PowerShell variable called $currentaddress.

Now, let’s take a look at the members of the $currentaddress

Notice that $currentaddress is a Custom TSObject and has the Name as a Property. To just display the contents of the Name Property, run $currentaddress.Name as shown below

Now, let’s re-examine the original syntax for creating the FARM

Based on our current environment, the values for the Parameters above would be as follows:

-ConnectionBroker - Liberty.powershell.ms

-FarmName – RDSFARM.powershell.ms

-IPAddressRedirection – 1 {this implies that IP address redirection is enabled}

-CurrentRedirectableAddresses - $currentaddress.Name {this implies that the value of the CurrentRedirectableAddresses can be obtained from the Name Property of the RedirectableAddresses Container}

So here is the logic that we would apply

1) Connect to the RDS PowerShell Drive

2) Store the value of the Name Property of the RedirectableAddresses in a PowerShell variable called $currentaddress

3) Run the base script for creating a farm by substituting the values

Step 1:-

Step 2:-

Step 3:-

That’s all about it. Let’s check the properties of the RD Session Host Server.

Now, you must be wondering why did I take the pain of storing the value of the IP Address into a variable and not just directly assign it to the CurrentRedirectableAddresses. Assigning the values directly will work for one or two servers, but when you want to add say about 10 servers into the FARM, you will have to go to each server and run this script.

Wouldn’t it be easier, if we could get a list of computers, pass it as an input to a script that will connect to each computer in the list and configure the FARM settings.

It is a pretty simple script as given below. Here, I assume that you have saved the computer names, one per line, into a Text file called Servers.txt in the C:\Scripts Directory

Get-Content C:\Scripts\Servers.txt | Foreach-Object {

$session = New-PSSession –ComputerName $_

Invoke-command –Session $session –ScriptBlock { ipmo RemoteDesktopServices;$currentaddress = dir –Path RDS:\RDSConfiguration\ConnectionBrokerSettings\RedirectableAddresses; Set-Item –Path RDS:\RDSConfiguration\ConnectionBrokerSettings\ServerPurpose –Value 3 –ConnectionBroker ‘Liberty.powershell.ms’ –FarmName ‘RDSFARM.powershell.ms’ –IPAddressRedirection 1 –CurrentRedirectableAddress $currentaddress.name}

Get-PSSession | Remove-PSSession

}

Now that we have our script ready, I just removed the Colfax server from the FARM Membership as shown below:

In this way, I can test whether the script is working as expected. I also created a text file called Servers.txt which contains the names of our two RD Session Host Servers. PowerShell Remoting has been enabled on both the Session Host Servers.

Now, it’s the time to run the script. I have changed the default script execution behavior of PowerShell to Unrestricted

Okay, we have a good start. The Script ran without errors and returned the cursor back on the next prompt. But did it do what it was supposed to do?

Let’s take a quick look at the RD Connection Broker Properties of both, COLFAX and FUJI.

COLFAX

FUJI

Yipeeeeeeee!!, it worked as expected. J This is the ‘Power of PowerShell’. By just using a simple logic, few lines of code, we were able to automate the creation of a RDS FARM.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part III : Configuring Remote Desktop Connection Broker using PowerShell

2011-12-02T10:46:00Z

Now that we have our two RD Session Hosts Servers (COLFAX and FUJI) and our Web Access Server (FUJI) up and running properly, let’s go ahead and install the RD Connection Broker Role on the LIBERTY Server

Upon Importing the RemoteDesktopServices Module, we see that there are two top level containers

We really don’t have to bother with the RDSFarms container. It will auto populated when we have configured the RDS Farm using the ConnectionBroker Container.

Let’s take a peek at the contents of the ConnectionBroker.

We will first configure certificates for digital signature settings. We will use the same SAN certificate we used for our RD Session Host and RD Web Access

Once we have the Thumbprint available, let’s assign it to the Connection Broker server by navigating to the Digital Signature Settings as shown below:

Next, we will populate our TS Web Access Computers Group by adding FUJI to it and the Session Broker Computers Group by adding FUJI and COLFAX (Our Session Host Servers) to it.

With Web Access Group Populated, let’s proceed with the population of the Session Broker Computers Group.

Here, we will again use the Microsoft.TerminalServices.PSEngine.UserGroupHelper Runtime.

Next, let’s populate the RemoteApp Sources by browsing to the RemoteAppSources Container and adding our session host computers there.

Note that while adding the RemoteApp Sources we just gave the NetBIOS names of the Session Host Computers (unlike the way we specified earlier with the @ symbol). I know its strange and you might be tempted to use the FUJI@POWERSHELL way to add a computer account but this might result in an error.

So while adding RemoteApp Sources, just follow the syntax below:

New-Item –Name <NetBIOS name of the Session Host Server>

To give our RDS a more personal look, let’s change the display name by setting the string value of the DisplayName setting within the ConnectionBroker Container as shown below:

In a similar way, we can configure the other settings like RD Virtualization Hosts etc. using the ConnectionBroker Container.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part II : Configuring Remote Desktop Session Host Server using RDS Provider for PowerShell

2011-12-02T10:37:57Z

If you have installed the RD Session Host Role via PowerShell, the first thing you will note is that the RD Session Host Server is set to “Don’t allow connections to this computer” and the Remote Desktop Users Group is empty.

To allow connections, we will browse to the SessionSettings Container and set the value of AllowConnections to 1.

Having set the value of AllowConnections to 1, we can verify if the RDS Server now accepts connections by going to the Remote Properties of the RD Session Server

Awesome, it worked. But it is using a less secure way to allow connections. In other words, it is not using Network Level Authentication.

To enable the NLA, we will have to browse to the path RDS:\RDSConfiguration\Connections\RDP-Tcp\SecuritySettings and set the value of the UserAuthenticationRequired to 1 as shown in the screenshot below.

If you are wondering where did I get this path, its all about browsing each directory and reading the help by using the dir <setting name> | format-list *

There are so many settings in Remote Desktop Services and hence it made sense to not to create a cmdlet for each configuration. Rather expose them via the RDS Provider and simply use the get-item or the set-item to retrieve and configure settings accordingly.

When we pop up the Remote Properties of the RD Session Host Server, we see that it has now be configured to use NLA

So we did set up the RD Session Host server to accept connections using NLA. Now, let’s populate our Remote Desktop Users Group.

To add Users to the Remote Desktop Users Group, we will use the Microsoft.TerminalServices.PSEngine.UserGroupHelper Runtime. To view a list of static members, I pipelined the runtime to Get-Member (alias is gm) and used the –static parameter

As verified earlier via GUI and now with PowerShell below, the Remote Desktop Users group is empty

[Microsoft.TerminalServices.PSEngine.UserGroupHelper]::ListMembers(“Remote Desktop Users”)

But if we use the same Runtime to list members of the Administrators Group which is obviously having the Domain Admins and the Administrator Account, we do get results displayed as shown below

Pay close attention to the syntax in which the Administrator (User Account) and the Domain Admins (Group) has been returned.

So if we need to add a group say Domain Users to the Remote Desktop Users Group, the input should go as Domain Users@POWERSHELL

We will now leverage the AddMembers member to add Domain Users to the Remote Desktop Users group

[Microsoft.TerminalServices.PSEngine.UserGroupHelper]::AddMembers(“Remote Desktop Users”, “Domain Users@POWERSHELL”)

Configuring Certificates for our RD Session Host Server:

To assign a SAN certificate to my RD Session Host Server, we will first need to obtain the thumbprint of the Certificate.

You can get this information either by accessing the Details tab of the Certificate or via PowerShell itself. Browse to the Cert: PS Drive as shown below:

Dir –path Cert:\LocalMachine\My

Copy the Thumbprint and provide it as an input to the following command shown below

Let’s verify via the GUI.

To digitally sign our RemoteApp Servers, we will assign the same SAN certificate to the RemoteApp Configuration.

Browse to the DigitalSignatureSettings container and first set the value of HasCertificate to 1 and then it will prompt you for the certificate thumbprint as shown below:

Check the RemoteApp Manager and refresh it if required. It should have the Digital Signature Settings use the SAN certificate we just assigned.

While on RemoteApps, let quickly populate our TS Web Access Computers Group with the name of our FUJI Server which is essaying the role of the RD Web Access Server

To do that, we will connect to the WebAccessComputers container (RDS:\RemoteApp\WebAccessComputers) and use the New-Item command to add the computer FUJI as given below

New-Item –Name FUJI@POWERSHELL

The following command will work from any location within PowerShell

New-Item –Path RDS:\RemoteApp\WebAccessComputers -Name FUJI@POWERSHELL

Configuring IP Virtualization:

To Configure IP Virtualization, we will first set the value of VirtualIPActive to 1 and then set the value of VirtualIPMode to 1 which defaults to Per Program

Again, remember the golden rule, to see what 1 or 0 means, refer the help by using the dir <setting name> | format-list * command

To add a Program to the list, we will use the new-item command as shown below

Installing RemoteApps:

To Add a Program to the RemoteApp Program List, you the following command. In the example below, we would be adding the Notepad application and set it to not use any CommandLine Argument

New-Item –Path RDS:\RemoteApp\RemoteAppPrograms –Name “Notepad” –ApplicationPath “C:\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe” –CommandLineSetting 0

You can further drill down and go to the Notepad Container to assign users to the Notepad Application

In this way, you can configure every setting that is available on the RD Session Host Server by using the RDS Provider for PowerShell.

Offline, I will install the RD Session Host Role on another server, FUJI, which also has the RD Web Access Role. Ideally we would separate out the workloads but since I have just a few VMs to play around with, we would use FUJI as our second RD Session Host Server.

Also note that the RD Web Access Role does not install the PowerShell Module for Remote Desktop Services which is quite obvious because in a typical environment there are only few instances of the Web Access role and it has just one time configuration involved.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Part I : Installing Remote Desktop Role Services

2011-12-02T10:30:52Z

To install any role or feature on a Windows Server 2008 R2 Server, we will leverage the Add-WindowsFeature command of the ServerManager Module. This Command is not installed by default but we can import the ServerManager module in the current PowerShell RunSpace.

To import the ServerManager module, use the following command

Import-Module ServerManager

To see what all commands are being loaded as a part of the import process, you can use the –verbose parameter

Import-module ServerManager –verbose

Because the names of the Roles, Role Services and Features are case sensitive, we will first get the names of the Roles Services, the way PowerShell understands them by using the command below

Get-WindowsFeature –Name *RDS*

The names are case-sensitive, so while using the Add-WindowsFeature, ensure that you use the correct case as shown above.

If you used the Server Manager module to install a Role, you will notice that while installing a Role, if there are any dependent features, the Server Manager automatically prompts you for installing them as well. In PowerShell, we can achieve this by using the –IncludeAllSubFeature parameter of the Add-WindowsFeature.

The best part about PowerShell is the –whatif parameter. When you use this parameter with any command that attempts to make changes to your system, PowerShell will notify you of the changes the command will make but actually doesn’t implement them. In this way, you can validate the changes being made even before making them. Let’s see this in action by running the following command

Add-WindowsFeature –Name RDS-RD-Server –IncludeAllSubFeature -WhatIf

Note that, PowerShell tells you that performing this action would install the Remote Desktop Session Host Role on the server and a restart would be required.

Let’s run the same command again but this time we will omit the –whatif parameter so that the role is actually installed.

To restart the server after the role is installed, you can append the –Restart parameter to automatically restart the server once the role is installed.

Once the Server has rebooted, run the Get-Module –ListAvailable command to see the RDS PowerShell Module installed as part of the RD Session Host Role installation.

Let’s import the module of RDS PowerShell and see what all commands are available within it.

Import-Module RemoteDesktopServices

Get-Command –Module RemoteDesktopServices

What!! Just 7 commands? How can you automate my RDS Infrastructure using just seven commands? Also note that I am using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, so I get additional commands that work with Virtual GPUs (RemoteFX is only available with Server 2008 R2 SP1)

RDS PowerShell adds a PS Provider (RDS:) that allows you to access your Remote Desktop Services Configuration like a file system. This is a known fact. To access the RDS Provider, run the following command:

Get-PSProvider

Oops! the name got chopped off. Let’s pipeline Get-PSProvider to Format-Table to auto fit the contents within the PowerShell Runspace.

To access the RDS PS Drive, we will change directory to it.

cd RDS:

To view the subdirectories with the RDS drive, run the dir or the Get-ChildItem (note that dir is an alias for Get-ChildItem)

We will tackle the RDSConfiguration and the RemoteApp Containers one by one.

RDSConfiguration

To access the RDSConfiguration container, change directory to it. You just need to type in the first few characters of the container name that makes it unique and hit the tab key to auto complete the name for you and as well as provide its absolute path.

The command commands you would use with the RDS Provider are as follows

Dir

Get-ChildItem {which is same as dir}

Get-item

Set-Item

Remove-Item

New-Item

To access the sub contents of the RDSConfiguration, let’s do a dir on RDSConfiguration

Let’s analyze this content a bit.

The first column displays the name of the container or setting. You can determine whether a particular item is a container or an individual setting by looking at the Type Column (the second column). Containers will have further subdirectories whereas the settings are leaf objects and will not have any further hierarchy below it.

The third column is the CurrentValue which as the name suggests indicates the current value of the setting. As you can see in the screenshot above, UserLogonMode is currently set to 0. What does 0 mean? Park that question for a moment and we will figure that out once we get into configuring settings.

The fourth column is GP which stands for Group Policy. This indicates whether the current setting is configured via RDS Group Policies or not.

The Fifth column is PermissibleValues which as the name suggests, indicates the permissible values that the configuration item can accept.

The Last column is PermissibleOperations that indicates current PowerShell cmdlets that are permitted to be used in the Configuration Item.

Note that this information is similar to what you see in the Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration Console under edit settings.

Let’s browse Connections and further drill down RDP-TCP.

Now, it’s time to set a particular configuration item.

To get more information about any leaf or configuration setting, just use the following syntax

Dir <setting name> | Format-List *

For example, dir .\ConnectionStatus | Format-List *

From the screenshot above, we can see that ConnectionStatus defines the “status of the connection” as given in the description. Setting it as 0 disables the setting and setting it as 1 enables it. By default, it is enabled.

We will take a step further and access the content of the LogonSettings Directory. Here, we will set the ClientLogonInfoPolicy to 0, which will ensure that the server’s connection will override the user’s connection settings

By default, it is set to 1 which means that the User’s Connection Settings will override Server’s connection setting. We can verify it via the GUI as well.

Let’s see the complete information of the ClientLogonInfoPolicy by running the command below:

dir .\ClientLogonInfoPolicy | fl *

Now, let’s set the value to 0 by using the command below:

Set-Item .\ClientLogonInfoPolicy 0

Note that I am running this from the Path RDS:\RDSConfiguration\Connections\RDP-Tcp\LogonSettings

If you running this from any other drive, you can use the –Path parameter and you need to explicitly provide the entire path. I have used this approach to revert the value back to 1.

Set-Item –Path RDS:\RDSConfiguration\Connections\RDP-Tcp\LogonSettings\ClientLogonInfoPolicy 0

To verify, let’s fire up the GUI for the same setting. Wow!, we see that the configuration change has been made. Huraaaaaaaaaaaaaay ! J

To revert it back, we will set the value back to 1. This will ensure that the client settings override the server’s setting

Do not forget to refresh the console. The setting will be in effect only if you refresh the console and explore the properties again

So let me reiterate, you should use the following commands to work your way out with RDS PowerShell

Dir

Get-item

Set-item

New-item

Remove-item

Use the Dir <setting Name> | Format-List * to get information about a particular setting

Installing Role Services Remotely:

How do you install a Role Service, let’s say RD Web Access Remotely. Unfortunately, the Add-WindowsFeature does not have the –ComputerName parameter wherein we can specify the name of the Remote Computer.

However, we do have a workaround in the form of PowerShell Remoting. To enable PowerShell remoting, you need to run the following command

Enable-PSRemoting

I am going to run this command on a remote server named FUJI

This will automatically configure the firewall exceptions and the WinRM (Windows Remote Management) service to allow the server to accept remote commands. Server 2008 R2 has GPOs to configure PowerShell Remoting which I will cover in a different blog post. You can use GPOs to automatically enable PS Remoting on all your server machines so that they can be remotely managed.

Now that I have enabled PS Remoting on FUJI, we will remotely install the RD Web Access Role Component on it.

For the time being, I will use 1:1 Remoting.

New-PSSession –Name FUJIRemote –ComputerName FUJI

Next we will enter the session that was just opened

Enter-PSSession –Name FUJIRemote

If you are able to connect to the session, you should now see the PowerShell to display the name of the computer before the PS Prompt

[fuji]: PS C:\Users\Administrator.POWERSHELL\Documents>

This indicates that you are now connected to the remote session and whatever you do at this prompt will be now performed on the remote server which is FUJI in our case.

Rest is simple. We will follow the same steps that we did to install the RD Session Host Role.

As you can see we were able to install the RD Web Access role on the Remote Server FUJI and PowerShell tells you that the server does not require a reboot after the installation of the RD Web Access. I knew that beforehand and hence didn’t specify the –Restart parameter J

We will verify the same by taking a look the Server Manager on the Fuji Server

This is just one example of PowerShell Remoting. You can also do a 1:Many Remoting wherein you can specify a bunch of computer names in a text file or so and then perform actions on each of those computers.

With this we conclude the first milestone of our Project, i.e. Installing Role Services using PowerShell. We also touch based upon some of the configuration settings.

RDS PowerShell : TFM – Introduction

2011-12-02T09:57:03Z

What? Are you kidding me? I never knew we could automate Remote Desktop Services using PowerShell. But, yes we can. You can almost automate everything within your Remote Desktop Services Infrastructure using Windows PowerShell.

So the burning question is, when should I use PowerShell and when should I prefer using a GUI?

To explain this, let’s discuss common scenario. You have about 10 Remote Desktop Session Host Servers in your Farm. You would like to do an inventory the RemoteApps running on each of these servers. Now ideally, it is recommended to run the same RemoteApps on RDSH Servers running in a Farm. But let’s take an exception here. What would be your approach in this case?

One way to tackle this is to use the RemoteApp Manager, connect to each RDS Server and check the RemoteApps running on it. Well, nothing very complex about this approach. But imagine the amount of time you’d spend on doing this! Consider there are more than 10 Servers participating in a Farm. You’d be just:

Clicking around,
Connecting to remote servers,
Taking a note of the RemoteApps and then
Drafting a report from the data collected from it.

The other way to deal with this scenario is, yes, you guessed it right, use PowerShell.

Ask yourself a question: If you were in charge of a team of IT administrators, which ones would you want in your team?

The ones who need several minutes to click their way through a GUI for each task?

The ones who can perform tasks in a few seconds after automating them?

It’s an obvious choice. PowerShell has given the term “administration” a new definition and very soon who will see the Microsoft IT Administration world split into two worlds:

Ones who would continue to ignore PowerShell, use GUI and continue to use GUI even if it results in skipping their meals to get the tasks done.
Ones who already are comfortable with the GUI and use it to perform one time tasks while harness PowerShell to automate bulk operations.

Now that I have set the background on “Why to use PowerShell?”, let me on-board you to a seven part journey to automate your existing RDS Environment using PowerShell.

Part 1 – Installing Remote Desktop Role Services

Part 2 – Configuring Remote Desktop Session Host using the RDS Provider for PowerShell

Part 3 – Configuring Remote Desktop Connection Broker

Part 4 – Configuring Remote Desktop Farms

Part 5 – Configuring Remote Desktop Gateway

Part 6 – Configuring Network Load Balancing for RD Gateway using PowerShell

Part 7 – Using Best Practices Analyzer to review our RDS Infrastructure

Part 8 – Using additional resources

Alright, so let’s dive straight into the first part, i.e. Installing RDS Roles using PowerShell. Let’s be immediately effective.

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 10 of 10 – Deploying Windows 8 Developer Preview using MDT 2012 Beta 2

2011-11-23T19:57:09Z

Deploying Windows 8 Developer Preview

We will use the Standard Client Task Sequence to deploy Windows 8 Developer Preview. First, we will import the OS binaries into the MDT Console.

The Screenshots below are self-explanatory.

This completes our 10 part series on Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2 but this does not mean that I am going to stop blogging about MDT. There are many more features which make MDT 2012 stand out and I will continue blogging more on it.

Thanks a whole heap for taking time to read my blog. If you have any valuable feedback or suggestion, please comment on the posts. I would truly appreciate your comments and make sure I write better next time

Till then, happy reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 9 of 10 – Integrating MDOP’s DaRT with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Beta 2

2011-11-23T19:49:34Z

Install the MDOP’s DaRT 7.0 using the MDOP 2011 R2 Media on the MDT Server (or any server or client machine, we just need the Tools.cab file)

The installation is pretty simple and is shown in the screenshots below:

Copy the Tools.cab file from the C:\Program Files\Microsoft DART 7\v7 and paste it into the Deployment Share\Tools\x64 directory.

Copy the x86 version of the Tools.cab file into the Deployment Share\Tools\x86 directory if you plan to deploy DART for 32 Bit machines as well.

Once you have copied the Tools.cab in the Deployment Share\Tools\x64 directory, refresh the MDT console.

Go to the Properties of the MDT Deployment Share and select the Windows PE Tab. Select the x64 Platform and click on the Features Tab below it.

Select Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT), this option will be only available if you have the DaRT’s tools.cab file in the Deployment Share\Tools\x64 directory.

Once we have selected the DaRT option, update the Deployment Share to regenerate the Boot Images with the DaRT tool.

Since we updated the Boot Images, replace the Boot Images on the WDS server with the new images generated within the MDT Deployment Share.

As you can see, we now get the “Run DaRT tools” option in the Welcome Wizard. To verify the functionality, we will use the Explore feature to navigate to our WinPE drive (X:)

In the next part of the series, we will cover the deployment of Windows 8 Developer Edition using MDT 2012 Beta 2.

Happy Reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 8 of 10 – Deploy to VHD Task Sequence

2011-11-23T19:43:35Z

Deploy to VHD Task Sequence (New in MDT 2012)

We will now create a Task Sequence to Deploy Windows 7 Enterprise x64 to a VHD and then boot of the VHD.

The screenshots below are self explanatory.

Let’s take a look at the steps configured in the Deploy to VHD Task Sequence by right clicking the task sequence, selecting properties and then selecting the Task Sequence Tab.

Note that the Deploy to VHD tab details that a Random Path and Name would be assigned to the VHD. You can configure this to the Path and name you prefer.

Let’s test the Deploy to VHD Deployment. We will boot a Bare Metal VM with a 60 GB Hard Drive and 1 GB RAM into PXE.

Select the “Deploy Windows 7 Ent x64 to VHD” task sequence (based on Deploy to VHD boot sequence) and follow the wizards as shown in the screenshot below.

Notice the step below, it is formatting and partitioning the VHD.

The Operating System was deployed successfully as shown below.

Also note that Microsoft Office 2010 was automatically installed and we were never prompted to run the Office 2010 installation wizard.

The Disk Management Tool on the Client verifies that we are indeed booting from a VHD File.

In the next part of the series, we will cover the integration of MDOP’s DaRT and MDT 2012 Beta 2.

Happy Reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 7 of 10 – Testing our MDT Driven Windows 7 Thin PC Deployment

2011-11-23T19:37:45Z

Boot a Bare Metal VM into PXE and press F12 when prompted.

Select the LiteTouch_x86 Boot File (our Windows 7 Thin PC is x86)

The Client will connect to our DeploymentShare and start executing various scripts.

Click on Run the Deployment Wizard to install a new Operating System

On the Credentials Page, provide the credentials of the Account that has access to the DeploymentShare.

Since we have only one Task Sequence, we will run the “Deploy Windows 7 Thin PC” task sequence.

Provide Computer Details (Computer Name, Domain or Workgroup Membership)

Since this is not a REFRESH or a REPLACE scenario, just a fresh deployment, select the “Do not restore user data and settings” as we do not have any saved User State.

Specify the Locale and the Time Settings.

Since this is a Thin PC deployment, we will not install any applications on it. Leverage RemoteApps for Thin PC environments

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755055.aspx

Now we are ready to begin our deployment.

Note that the Brand Name has changed to PowerShell Inc – Manoj R. Nair which was specified in the _SMSTSOrgName property in the Rules Tab of the DeploymentShare Properties.

The Default value is IT Organization.

As we can verify, the installation was successful which is also validated via the MDT Monitoring Pane.

In the next Part of this series, we will learn about the all new Deploy to VHD task sequence.

Happy Reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 6 of 10 – Integrating MDT 2012 Beta 2 with Windows Deployment Services (WDS)

2011-11-23T19:33:18Z

On our MDT 2012 Beta 2 Server, we will install the Windows Deployment Server Role as shown in the screenshots below:

Once WDS is installed, launch the Windows Deployment Services MMC under Administrative Tools.

By default, the WDS Server is not configured. To configure WDS, right click the WDS server and initiate the Configure Server Wizard. Follow the steps as shown in the screenshots below.

Refer http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766320(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_ConfiguringWDS for more Information.

If you select the default location (C:\RemoteInstall) to store the Images, WDS will throw a warning as shown below.

We will store the WDS Images on our E drive.

In the PXE Server Initial Settings, Select Respond to all Client Computers (Known and Unknown).

Once Configured, we will import the MDT Boot Files into the WDS Boot Files so that they can be downloaded via TFTP by our clients that boot via PXE.

Repeat the same steps to import the LiteTouch_x86 wim file into the WDS Boot Images Container.

In the next part of this series, we will test our MDT based Windows 7 Thin PC Deployment.

Happy Reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 5 of 10 – Creating Task Sequences and Updating the Deployment Share

2011-11-23T19:27:49Z

We will create a Standard Client Task Sequence for Deploying Windows Thin PC. Right Click Task Sequence and select New Task Sequence and follow the wizards as shown in the screenshots below.

We will select the Standard Client Task Sequence to deploy a Client Operating System.

Now that we have created the Task Sequence, we will now update the Deployment Share to generate the MDT Boot Images and the WIM files. Before that, we will personalize the Installation Display by using the _SMSTSOrgName value in the CustomSettings.ini or the Rules Tab.

New in MDT 2012 is Monitoring which is disabled by default. Let’s enable it so that we can monitor the deployments done via MDT 2012 Beta 2.

To generate the MDT Boot Images, Right Click on the Deployment Share and select Update Deployment Share and follow the wizard.

The Update Deployment Share might take a few minutes to complete as it will use the WAIK tools to inject drivers, create ISOs etc. Once done, the Boot Images and the ISOs would be created in the Boot Directory of the Deployment Share.

In the next part of this series, we will learn how to integrate MDT 2012 Beta 2 with Windows Deployment Services.

Happy Reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 4 of 10 – Importing Operating Systems, Drivers, Packages into MDT 2012 Beta 2

2011-11-23T19:20:00Z

Let’s take an example where we are tasked to deploy Windows 7 Thin PC. The first obvious step would be to import the binaries of Windows Thin PC into the MDT 2012 Console.

Right Click the Operating Systems Container and select tImport Operating System and follow the wizard as shown in the screenshots below:

Importing Drivers

We will import the Drivers for Dell within the Drivers container. As with MDT 2010, with MDT 2012 you can create a folder hierarchy for better organization within your MDT Default Containers.

The Specify Directory Pane will search for INF files and add it into the MDT console.

Importing OS Packages or Hotfixes

In our example, we will import a hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028749 within our MDT Packages console.

In the next part of this series, we will learn how to create Task Sequences in MDT 2012 Beta 2

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 3 of 10– Importing Applications (Office 2010) in MDT 2012 Beta 2

2011-11-23T19:13:07Z

Importing Office 2010 and customizing the installation using OCT

While you can add Office 2010 as an application to MDT, if you would like to perform a silent installation of MDT, you can use the Office Customization Tool or OCT. By default, the files required for OCT are available on the Volume Licenced Copy of Office 2010. If however, you want to use Office Customization Tool with the other SKUs of Office, you download the Office Admin Templates from the link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=18968

I have already downloaded the 64 bit version as shown in the screenshot below:

Double Click on the AdminTemplates_64bit.exe.

Accept the License Terms and click on Continue.

It is very important to extract the Templates to the Office 2010 Directory which you would be importing into MDT. The Extraction creates a folder called Admin within the Office 2010 Directory.

To launch the Office Customization Tool, browse to the Office 2010 directory and run the command setup /admin.

This will launch the Office Customization Tool.

You can create an msp file and save it in the Updates Directory within the Office 2010 folder. When you run setup.exe (the Office Installation routine) , it will search for any msp files in the Updates directory and run it. The MSP file provides answers to the questions that the Office installation wizard poses.

Refer http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179097.aspx for more information on Office Customization Tool.

However, you don’t have to launch the OCT using the setup /admin switch when you use MDT 2010 or 2012. Just import the Office 2010 directory (with the Admin Folder) into the Applications Container of MDT as shown below:

Once the Office 2010 Application is imported, you can access the properties of the Office 2010 and select the Office Products Tab. If your Office 2010 Directory had the Admin folder, you would see the Office Customization Tool button at the bottom right of the Properties window.

Make sure you hit the Apply button before you launch the Office Customization Tool if you made any changes.

The Office Customization tool will prompt you the save the answer file (MSP file) into the Updates Directory within the DeploymentShare\Applications\Microsoft Office 2010.

If you want silent installation of Office, configure the Licensing and User Interface section to accept the license agreement, provide the appropriate key and select the Display Level as None with Suppress Modal checked.

For help, hit the F1 key to display the help file for Office 2010.

Hope you found Part 3 informative and stay tuned for Part 4 – Importing Operating Systems.

Happy Reading!

Exploring MDT 2012 Beta 2: Part 2 of 10–Creating the Deployment Share–The Holy Grail of MDT 2012

2011-11-23T19:04:29Z

To create a Deployment Share that will house the Operating System Images, Applications, Drivers, Packages, Scripts, Tools etc., follow the steps below:

Right Click on the Deployment Share and select New Deployment Share.

In the Deployment Share Path, provide the Path where the Deployment Share will be physically stored. In our case, we are storing our Deployment Share on the E drive.

The Share Pane will prompt to specify the Share name. We will stick to the default name which is DeploymentShare$ (it is an hidden or an administrative share).

In the Descriptive Name Pane, we will continue with the Default Name specified “MDT Deployment Share”.

New to MDT 2012 is the Options Pane, which provides you with 6 Options that you can configure. You can configure these later as well. We will stick with the defaults as they work well with our environment.

Summary Pane reviews our configuration. Click Next to create the Deployment Share.

Notice the View Script button on the right. It displays the PowerShell script that ran underneath to create the Deployment Share. Whatever you do with MDT UI is actually accomplished with the help of a PowerShell command behind the scenes.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series where I show you how to import Office 2010 and customize it using Office Customization Tool or OCT.

Happy Reading!