Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings
Processors keep getting faster, hard drives keep getting bigger, memory keeps getting cheaper. Enterprises want their computers to last longer, too. So you would think that would mean that they would buy something close to the best in order to extend the life of the machine. Frighteningly though, I still hear from companies buying machines that are marginal in today's world. This is especially true with memory: given the price of RAM today, buying less than 2GB should be a crime. Yet I still hear from companies that are buying machines with half of that, or even worse. Maybe you can get by for three years (or more) with a slower processor or smaller hard drive, but limping along without enough RAM should be easy to avoid.
Don't do it, buy more RAM!
So what do you consider to be a mainstream computer configuration? I've been out of the corporate environment for four years now, so maybe I'm a little out of touch, but I would expect to see something like this:
So is that anywhere close to what your company is currently buying? (Replace "Core 2" with "Pentium 4" and put in slightly smaller hard drives and that's what I was recommending four years ago, although it was a tough sell at that point on the 2GB of RAM...)
On a related topic, machines with 4GB of RAM are becoming more and more common. Be aware that if you run an x86 OS on these machines you won't be able to see or use all 4GB. See http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx for some background information. Note that there are some changes in Windows Vista SP1 to show you that there is more RAM installed but it will still show the reduced usable number. Simple solution: use Windows Vista x64 to get access to all the memory you installed (assuming the chipset supports more).
I've seen quite a few "concise history" books recently -- apparently people like history, but don't like it to be long-winded or rambling. So keeping with that idea, let me present the history of the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) solution accelerator:
We will soon have two new entries to add to this table, with updates for BDD 2007 and Microsoft Deployment both planned for release around the time Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are released. As soon as that happens, I guess I'll need to update the table.
From a personal perspective, I've been working on BDD and Microsoft Deployment since Spring 2004. It's hard to believe that it's been that long already :-)
For several years, Microsoft has provided the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) to create custom installation packages with your own options and settings; that's no different with Internet Explorer 7, as you can download the IEAK via http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219543.aspx. But what about Windows Vista, where Internet Explorer 7.0 is built in? In those cases you don't want to (and actually can't) reinstall Internet Explorer with your customized version. So what do you do?
Well, there are four options:
All of these options are explained in more detail in the Internet Explorer 7 Deployment Guide, a 156-page document describing everything about the IE deployment process, as well as in the IEAK documentation.
Let's explore the fourth option a little more for a particular scenario: You want to include all the necessary Internet Explorer settings in your custom Windows Vista image, which you are building with Microsoft Deployment using a Lite Touch task sequence. How do you go about doing this? Here's the basic step-by-step process:
At this point, the specified build directory will contain an "IEBrand.msi" file that can be installed as part of a Microsoft Deployment Lite Touch task sequence. Follow these steps to set it up:
That's all it takes. Now the settings you specified will be applied to each new user that logs onto the computer.
One of my Christmas presents was a 2GB microSD card for my T-Mobile Wing phone (a very nice Windows Mobile 6 device, extremely happy with it). I thought it would be nice to sync some music to it so I could use it as a player. So I attached it to my Windows Vista PC, went into Windows Media Player, and went to the Sync tab. So far so good: it sees the device. But it doesn't see the storage card (even though Explorer does), and the internal storage on the phone can't store more than a few songs.
After swearing at Microsoft, I remembered that I work for Microsoft - makes the swearing kind of pointless :-) So I started searching for a fix, which led me to this KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931621/en-us
One reboot later and problem solved. One of these days Windows will proactively tell me about these types of things...
Did you ever read the title for a blog entry and have no idea what the posting is about? Well, this one might fall into that category. So first, some background information straight from the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 documentation (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb633291.aspx):
To deploy an operating system to a new computer without stand-alone media that is not currently managed by Configuration Manager 2007, the new computer must be added to the Configuration Manager 2007 database prior to initiating the operating system deployment process. Although Configuration Manager 2007 can automatically discover computers on your network that have a Windows operating system installed, if the computer has no operating system installed you will need to import the new computer information by using the Import Computer Information Wizard. This wizard supports importing information about a single computer, or importing information about one or more computers from an external .csv file.
Simple enough, but not very convenient: in order to do the import you need to have the MAC address and optionally the SMBIOS UUID of the computer. To get the MAC address of a computer that doesn't yet have an OS, you'd probably need to turn on the computer and go into the BIOS setup, write down the 12-character hex value, then go back to the server and type it in -- accurately.
So ideally we would like to automatically add the computer to the ConfigMgr database just-in-time. Now, there are two scenarios that can be used with ConfigMgr to deploy an OS to a new computer:
There are different challenges in each of these scenarios, so we'll focus on only the first one for now. When you boot a computer using ConfigMgr boot media, a wizard will start. The first screen don't require that the computer be present in the ConfigMgr database, but in order to complete the wizard it must be. So how can we hook into this wizard to do something about this? That's where the pre-execution hook, described at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb694075.aspx, comes in.
Microsoft Deployment provides a pre-execution hook script that runs a wizard of its own that will call web services to add the computer to the ConfigMgr database, as well as adding the computer to a collection for a task sequence advertisement. After that's complete, then the rest of the ConfigMgr boot media wizard can be completed and the task sequence starts.
So that brings us to the next challenge: setting up the web services. See the documentation at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978399.aspx for the details, although note that step #2 assumes you are using Windows Server 2008, so the steps are slightly different for Windows Server 2003.
Now, for an experiment. Instead of just trying to explain those steps, I thought it would be useful to record a screencast of the entire configuration process. So you can play the video below for the whole walk-through, which is about 13 minutes long.
Web Service Configuration and Troubleshooting Walkthrough
Assuming you can get this far, everything should be set up properly. (There are some potential additional complications: if you have a larger hierarchy, you may need to verify security to connect to each site, since the computer needs to be present in the ConfigMgr database for the computer's assigned site.) Then you just need to create a new boot image, enabling the pre-execution hook and specifying the URL of the web services. Yes, it's not a trivial setup. And yes, troubleshooting is more difficult than it should be. We'll work on that :-)
Going back to the experiment, if you think screencast recordings like this are useful, please let me know and suggest what additional ones you'd like to see (and hear - adding the audio is the most difficult part).
I've heard several people ask how to deploy Office 2003 using Microsoft Deployment, as they have been given the impression that Microsoft Deployment doesn't support Office 2003 deployment. While it's true that Microsoft Deployment provides no specific tools or documentation about deploying Office 2003, that doesn't mean you can't do it. Office 2003 is just another application that can be included in your reference image creation process or in your deployment process. You just need to know how to set it up, which is what I want to review in this posting.
(Now, I have to ask: Why are you deploying Office 2003 instead of the 2007 Office system? OK, I've got that off my chest.)
It seems like it's been ages since I worked with Office 2003, so I had to go back and review the steps myself. Here they are in a nutshell when performing a Lite Touch deployment:
Now you're ready to go. You can add this application to an existing task sequence, or you can choose it during the Lite Touch deployment process in the deployment wizard.
If you are performing a Zero Touch deployment using SMS 2003 or System Center Configuration Manager 2007, the steps are the same at least until step 6. Instead of creating an application in the Deployment Workbench, you would create a package with a program to run the same command line, distribution that package to all distribution points, and add it to the task sequences.
Yes, it's already past the middle of January, which means I'm already slacking on one of my New Year's resolutions: to post blog entries more frequently. Another resolution is to respond promptly to e-mail, but sadly I'm already behind on that too. It's just been one of those years (so far).
To start off the year, I'd like to call your attention to some new Office-related downloads. As you can see, the Office team has been very busy (although the last two items have been around for a while).
Document viewers for the 2007 Office system
Enable users to open, view, and print Excel workbooks, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and Visio diagrams without first installing any Office programs.
· Download Excel Viewer
· Download Word Viewer
· Download PowerPoint Viewer
· Download Visio Viewer
2007 Office system Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX, ADML) and Office Customization Tool version 2.0
This download includes updated Group Policy Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool OPA files for use with the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs. It also includes an \Admin folder with an updated Office Customization Tool, and ADMX and ADML versions of the 2007 Microsoft Office system Administrative Template files for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems, the ADM files are replaced by ADMX files, which use an XML-based file format to display registry-based policy settings. This download also includes a workbook (Office2007GroupPolicyAndOCTSettings.xls) that provides information about the 2007 Office system Group Policy settings and OPA settings.
· Download 2007 Office system Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool version 2.0
See http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/2aa26c81-d80c-4be4-9114-8ea205ef47f21033.mspx?mfr=true for more information.
The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 1 (SP1)
The 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1 delivers important customer-requested stability and performance improvements, while incorporating further enhancements to user security. This service pack also includes all of the updates released for the 2007 Office suite prior to December of 2007. You can get a more complete description of SP1, including a list of issues that were fixed, in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 936982: Description of the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1.
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats
By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.
· Download Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats
2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS
This download allows you to export and save to the PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs. It also allows you to send as e-mail attachment in the PDF and XPS formats in a subset of these programs. Specific features vary by program.
· Download Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS Add-In