The Industry Insiders : Platform

Introduction to SCORM and SharePoint Learning Kit

Viral Tarpara — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:05:00 GMT

SharePoint has been a phenominal success as a product for Microsoft. It has successfully penetrated almost every industry as collaboration & portal platform. SharePoint's role in the enrichment of secondary education has been particularly strong. Read this article titled, "Introduction to SCORM and SharePoint Learning Kit" from Alex Pearce, Network Manager of Hillcrest School in Birmingham. Thank you Alex!

Windows Time and the W32TM service

Eileen_Brown — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:28:00 GMT

Nathan has put together a comprehensive and technical article explaining how the Windows Time service works and how the time on desktop machines are synchronised with the server. There are some useful best practices that you need to consider, tips as well as a comprehensive troubleshooting section at the end of the article. It's a very useful article, and one that simplifies quite a complicated topic.

Read the article here...

Duplicating Virtual Machines using SysPrep

Steve Lamb — Wed, 10 May 2006 10:30:00 GMT

This article was written by Mark Wilson.

One of the joys of virtualisation is the flexibility afforded by the ability to copy virtual machine files around the network for backup purposes or just to create a new machine (especially with Microsoft's new Virtual Server licensing arrangements). Unfortunately, just as for "real" computers, simple file copies of Windows-based virtual machines can cause problems and are not supported (see Microsoft knowledge base article 162001).

All is not lost though, as Microsoft does support the duplication of virtual hard disks using the system preparation tool (SysPrep) and Megan Davis has written about sysprepping virtual machines on her blog. I tested it today and it works really well - basically a 3 step process of:

Install and configure a source virtual machine as required (i.e. operating system installed, virtual machine additions installed, service packs and other updates applied), making sure it is in a workgroup (i.e. not a domain member).
Locate the appropriate version of the Windows deployment tools (I used the ones from the \support\tools\deploy.cab file on a Windows Server 2003 CD) and create an answer file (C:\sysprep\sysprep.inf). Then copy the sysprep.exe and setupcl.exe deployment tools to C:\sysprep.
Run SysPrep to reseal and shut down the guest operating system, then copy the virtualmachinename.vhd file to a secure location (make it read-only to prevent accidental overwrites, but also apply appropriate NTFS permissions). This file can then be duplicated at will to quickly create new virtual machines with a fully-configured operating system.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with SysPrep, check out Killan's guide to SysPrep (which, despite claiming not to be written for corporate administrators or OEM system builders, seems like a pretty good reference to me).

Incidentally, there are major performance gains to be had by moving virtual machines onto another disk (spindle - not just partition). Unfortunately my repurposed laptop hard disks were too slow (especially on a USB 1.1 connection), so I had to go out this afternoon and buy a USB 2.0 PCI adapter along with a decent external hard disk (a Toshiba 320GB 7200 RPM external USB 2.0 hard drive with 8MB data buffer) - that speeded things up nicely.

Using Automated Deployment Services to deploy Windows XP

jhoward — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 15:40:00 GMT

Mark has done some excellent investigation into deploying Windows XP using ADS (Automated Deployment Services). ADS is intended, from a support perspective at least, to deploy server images. As such, deploying client operating systems through ADS is not supported. However, with a little patience, several gotchas, it can be a very useful addition to your deployment arsenal.

Read his article here, which are edited extracts from entries on Marks personal blog.

Free Microsoft Support resources

Eileen_Brown — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:24:00 GMT

Blake has compiled an amazing collection of all of the support resources, newsgroups, how to articles, team blogs and tips and published it here... This must have taken an amazing amount of time to review and research and is just about the most comprehensive collection of resources on one page that I've ever seen.

Read, and bookmark this collection of tips here. An absolutely fantastic job. Thank you Blake...

Windows and Linux interoperability

Eileen_Brown — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 15:11:00 GMT

Jeremy is delivering a Webcast on Windows and Linux interoperability which explains the concepts in his article (which we published a couple of months ago) really well. Here are the details...

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Windows and Linux Interoperability: Shattering the Myths (Level 200)
Friday, October 7, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Jeremy Moskowitz, Author, Instructor, Infrastructure Architect and founder of www.WinLinAnswers.com
For many organizations, interoperability is critical to their technology environments. To cooperate with Linux, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (and the upcoming R2) is designed with interoperability in mind. If you are in an environment where you need to Linux and Microsoft Windows to work cooperatively, you need to know what Windows Server 2003 has to offer to make that communication easier. This webcast shows you the features built into Windows Server 2003 which help you make contact with Linux.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032281351&Culture=en-US

I'd really recommend that you spend some time watching the webcast to clarify some of the misunderstandings about interoperability between Linux and Windows.

Resolving Issues with RIS and Windows XP

jhoward — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 13:27:00 GMT

Mark Wilson has written a couple of great articles relating to the resolution of all to common problems you may encounter when performing RIS (Remote Installation Services) installs of Windows XP. RIS installation is not easy to get right, especially when you have disparate hardware to deploy to. I'm sure that these articles will get you going in the right direction as they have loads of great information and links to other sites where you can drill into detail further. You can read the articles here.

A fresh approach to a technology refresh

Eileen_Brown — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 11:02:00 GMT

Mark did some work for a local authority in the UK when they were going through their technology refresh recently. His article briefly summarises what would normally be a multi page case study of how a customer brought technology to bear in order to reduce...(read more)

Windows / Linux Integration -- Making sense in the enterprise

jhoward — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 09:00:00 GMT

Jeremy Moskowitz, the author of "Windows / Linux Integration Handbook" due for publication around September this year has published a great article based on an excerpt from that book. If you want to understand more about this topic area and can't wait until that book hits the shelves, take a look.

You can read Jeremy's article here.

An Overview of the Active Directory Design Process

jhoward — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 16:33:00 GMT

In this article, Dan outlines vital considerations when planning and designing an Active Directory implementation.

Dan covers the process end to end - from initial business decisions such as why you are undertaking the implementation, to high level Forest and Domain design considerations. Dan drills down into areas such as Sites and Domain Controller placement, OUs and administrative delegation, before rounding off with a discussion around how you can take better control of your new environment through the application of Group Policy.

You can read Dan's article here.