A fundamental condition that I always encountered when gathering workflow requirement is to get the user's manager approval, a tedious amount of coding to connect to active directory retrieve user profile information, get his manager login name, pass it as a parameter to the workflow, create a custom task for the manager with a notification. 

SharePoint 2010 Designer to the rescue, you can do all the above in 15 clicks, with ZERO code involved. Just by doing the following:

1. Open SharePoint Designer 2010 and connect to your SharePoint site.

2. Click Workflows and select the workflow type you need, for this presentation I'll use reusable workflow with All content types as my scope. But this doesn't affect the following logic, the same steps applies for the List and Site workflows.

3. From the Workflow ribbon select Actions > Collect Data from User, you can also select assign a to-do task but collect action from user allows you to create a custom task for the manager

4. This will show you the Action in the workflow editor.

5. The action is constructed from three parts:
   1. The data, which is the custom task that will be collected
   2. This user, which in our case the manager
   3. Output to variable: collect. Collect is  the task ID which you can change it, use it to refer to the task when you need to pass a variable through this task.

6. Clicking on data will allow you to create the custom task by starting the task wizard, open the wizard and click Next.
7. You will need to specify a Task name, and you can also specify a description. For now lets call the task "Review Task". And click Next

8. Now you can Specify the Task custom field by clicking Add and select the field type, I will specify two field:
   1. Approved as a choice with Yes/No.
   2. Comment as a text area.

  9. Provide the choices values, and hit Finish

10. Now it should be looking like this, with both fields listed

11. After finishing creating the Task, the condition will change in the editor to reflect the task name.

12. Now to the Fun part, getting the user manager. Simply click this user, Select "Workflow lookup for a user...", and click Add

13. Now you need to specify data source, in other situation you will need to specify the active directory, create a connection and the rest of this headache. All you need to do now is to select "User Profile" from the end of the list.
14. This will display all the user profile attribute that you can select from, such as manager. Select "Manager" and specify the out as "login name". This will lookup for the user manager and return his login name as a parapater in order to assign the task for this user's manager

15. Find the list item section allows you to select the user which you need his manager approval. In our case we the manager for the user who started the workflow.  So I will select the Field as "Account Name" and click on the formula button in the value field.

 16. Specify the data source as workflow Context, the Field source is the Workflow "Current User" , and Return Field as "Login Name". Click OK, OK and OK.

 17. The Action should be looking like this now.

 



 

Voila, Now you have your custom task that will be sent to the user's manager with a notification in his task list.

 

Enjoy.

It’s possible to reset your Windows Sever 2008 / R2 Domain Controller administrator password using your installation CD.

1. Restart your Windows server 2008 DC with the installation CD


2. Choose your language and click next

3. Select your partition and installation version and click Next

4. Click on Comm and Line Prompt

5. Change directory to the access the system 32 directory. Then your original C:drive is changed to D: or E: depending on the number of drive and partitions you have on that system.

6. Rename the file Utilman.exe to Utilman.exe.bak using the comm and Copy Utilman.exe Utilman.exe.bak.

7. Using Command Move Cmd.exe Utilman.exe to move CMD.exe file into Utilman.exe. Press O or Y to accept after that restart your Computer normaly

8. At the user logon screen, press a combination of Windows KEY+U, then the CMD.exe will appear. Type net user “Username””new password”;

Then your system Admin Password is reset. Please don’t forget to rename back Utilman. Exe ->Cmd.exe and Utilman.exe.bak-> Utilman.exe after getting back access.

It’s my pleasure to announce the beta release of the first Windows PowerShell snap-in for Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) Server 4.6 SP1. This snap-in provides a set of PowerShell Cmdlets to enable IT admins to easily manage and automate App-V Server complex tasks using Microsoft Windows PowerShell.

This release contains 23 cmdlets that cover around 80% of GUI wizards and tasks with more deep details on what happens in the back. :-)

Cmdlets

System Options

• Get-AppVSystemOptions

• Set-AppVSystemOptions

Packages

• Get-AppVPackages

• New-AppVPackage

• Remove-AppVPackage

Application Groups

• Get-AppVApplicationGroup

• New-AppVApplicationGroup

• Remove-AppVApplicationGroup

Applications

• Get-AppVApplications

• New-AppVApplication

• Remove-AppVApplication

• Set-AppVApplicationPublishingSettings

Administrators

• Get-AppVAdministrators

• New-AppVAdministrator

• Remove-AppVAdministrator

Server Groups

• Get-AppVServerGroup

• New-AppVServerGroup

• Remove-AppVServerGroup

Servers

• Get-AppVServers

• New-AppVServer

• Remove-AppVServer

Providers

• Get-AppVProviders

• Remove-AppVProvider

Download: PowerShell snap-in for Microsoft App-V Server 4.6 SP1

Regards,

Sherif Talaat (Twitter: @Sheriftalaat)

This software is provided "AS IS", without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

This software is 3rd party tool not part of Microsoft App-V Server.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how to migrate a Windows XP machine to Windows 7 using System Center Configuration Manager 2012. A few assumptions are made. You have a fully functional Configuration Manager site installed with USMT 4.0 packages installed (one of the prerequisites when install SCCM 2012). Your XP machine has Configuration Manager agent installed and active in the SCCM Console. You have a reference/captured image (Windows 7 image). (a post on how to do reference images soon)

What's the plan ?

Create a USMT Package

Distribute the USMT Package to a Distribution Point

Create a migration task sequence using an already captured Windows 7 image

Create, Edit, and Deploy an OS Migration Task Sequence

Create Deployment collection

Deploy the Task Sequence to the Migration Collection

Add Windows XP system to Migration Collection

Did it work ?

Create the USMT Package

Logon on the configuration manager machine, open the Configuration Manager Console

Navigate to Software library, Application Management, Packages

Right-Click Packages, Click Create Packages

On the Package screen, enter a name USMT 4.0

Select  This package contains source files, click Browse

specify the source folder of the USMT 4.0 . (Usually in C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\USMT unless you've this folder to share location)

On Program Type, select  Do not create a program. Click Next twice, then Close.

Distribute the USMT Package to a Distribution Point

Right-Click on USMT 4.0, click Distribute Content.  On the General Screen click Next.

On the Content Destination Screen, click Add.

Click Distribution Point. Select your distribution point. Click Ok, Next, Close.

Create, Edit, and Deploy an OS Migration Task Sequence

Navigate to Software Library, Operating System, Task Sequences

Click Create Task Sequence

On the Create Task Sequence screen, Select Install an existing image package and Click Next

Click Browse, select your image name, click Ok

Select Always use the same administrator password and type your local admin password, click Next

You can join a domain or leave it at workgroup, up to you. If you select Join a domain , next to domain click Browse.

You can leave the domain OU empty. Select Always use the same administrator password , click OK, Next.

On the Install Configuration Manager screen, click Browse and select Configuration Manager Client Package , click OK, Next.

On the State Migration Screen, click Browse and select the Microsoft USMT 4.0 package, click  OK.

Keep the remaining defaults and click Next.

On the Include Updates screen, if there are no software updates click next , otherwise select All software updates , Next.

On the Install Application screen, click Next, Next, Close

Select the task sequence you just created and click Edit

Select Apply Data Image 1 and click Remove

In the task sequence editor, select Partition Disk

Double-Click the second partition listed on the Properties tab

a new window will open Partition Properties

Select Use a percentage of the remaining free space (leave it to 100%)

Type OS in the Variable Name and click OK to close the partition properties.

Select the Apply Operating System task sequence step and change the Destination (at the bottom of the screen)  drop-down to Logical drive letter stored in variable.

Type OS in Variable Name, click ok to close the task sequence editor.

Create Deployment collection

 Navigate to Asset and Compliance, Overview, Device Collections.

Select Device Collections, and Click Create Device Collection

Enter a name of Windows 7 Migration

Click Browse next to limiting Collection

Select All Systems collections and then click Ok, then Click Next.

Uncheck the Schedule a full update on this collection group. Click Next

Ignore the warning for empty collection. Click Next, Close.

Deploy the Task Sequence to the Migration Collection

Navigate to Software library, Operating System, Task Sequences

Select the Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 with USMT task sequence

Right-Click , Deploy. Click Browse in the collection field , select the Windows 7 Migration collection. click ok.

Ignore the empty collection message. Click Next.

On the Deployment Settings screen, select Required as the purpose. (I.e unattended migration), click Next.

On the Scheduling Screen, Click New, Click Ok, Change the Return behavior to Never rerun deployed program.

Click Next four times and then Close.

Add Windows XP system to Migration Collection

Navigate to Assest and Compliance, Device Collections.

Select All Systems, click show members. Click Home.

Right-click xpmachine, Add selected items to an Existing Device collection select WIndows 7 Migration Collection.

Let the Magic begin ....

Logon onto the XPClient Machine with any user, but remember this user. You will logon with the same user after the migration.

Open Control Panel, Double Click Configuration Manager. On the action tab, select Machine Policy & Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle and click Run Now.

A lot of flickering is going to happen, and setup running in the background. Well done !

Did it work ?

Well, if you see Windows 7 and your pervious logon user still sees his/her files, then it worked!

Gartner recently published a report by Jim Murphy, Gene Phifer, Ray Valdes and Eric Knipp: the 2010 Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals.  In the report, Microsoft not only maintains its Leadership ranking but moves into the #1 position on the report – highest on both the Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision axes – overtaking IBM.

Five vendors dominated portal selections during the latter part of 2009 and into 2010: Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP and Liferay. Microsoft SharePoint is a consideration in more Gartner portal inquiries — over 70% — than any other vendor.

Source: Gartner (September 2010)

http://blogs.technet.com/b/cbortlik/archive/2010/10/19/congratulations-to-sharepoint-product-team-for-achieving-1-ranking-on-gartner-s-2010-horizontal-portals-magic-quadrant.aspx