Earlier this year Microsoft released an update to USMT 4.0, adding support for Office 2010 and a few other minor updates:
- The XML rules included in the default Migapp.xml file are updated to include new rules that support migrating Office 2010 application settings.
- Changes that resolve an issue that creates many temporary files, that does not correctly remove the temporary files in a hard-link migration, and that causes poor LoadState performance.
- An issue that prevents migration in certain time zones is corrected.
You can download the update from Here.
When running certain applications and commands through the “Run Command Line” task sequence in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 for a 64-bit Operating System you might find that the task will fail. This is true for applications that don’t fully support 64-bit mode. Some commands are not available by default when running in 32-bit mode, for example “manage-bde.exe” or “winsat.exe.
To work around this issue, simply disable the “64-bit file system redirection” in the task sequence when running such applications or commands.
Our friends over at it-experts and the Colabora User Group is hosting a full day event with focus on Exchange and Lync (in Danish) , for registration and agenda please have a look at http://colabora-juni2011.eventbrite.com/
Enjoy.
Jason T. Lewis has just announced the release of System Center Updates Publisher 2011. Read the announcement here.
I’m happy to announce that we have released System Center Updates Publisher 2011 to the web today. This release was primarily driven by customer feedback over the past year. It all started last year at MMS (2010) where we got a lot of great feedback regarding the existing product. Out of that feedback a plan was created to greatly improve the product for both customers and partners. Updates Publisher 2011 is packed full of new features and additions with just a few of them listed below.
New in System Center Updates Publisher 2011
- Simpler setup with no database installation
- An improved user interface that allows better control of managing software updates
- Improved applicability rule authoring experience
- Improved performance when importing and managing software updates
- The ability to create software update bundles
- The ability to define prerequisite and superseded updates as part of a software update definition
- A new “Automatic” publication type with which Updates Publisher 2011 can query Configuration Manager to determine whether the selected software updates should be published with full content or only metadata
- A new Software Update Cleanup Wizard that you can use to expire software updates that exist on the update server, but are not in the Updates Publisher 2011 repository
To download and learn more about SCUP from TechCenter visit here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/bb741049.aspx
Over the next few weeks come back to the blog for a series of screencast cover all aspects of Updates Publisher 2011.
Mikael Nyström (aka The Deployment Bunny), has a new blog post on some of the undocumented Properties in MDT 2010 Update 1. Read the full blog post here.
Once again, at 33000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean on my way back from TechEd NA in Atlanta I started to think about all the different properties in MDT 2010 Update 1 that I use which are not really documented, trust me there are “some”. Some of them is, well, not really so useful, but some of them I really use and so should you. So this post is solely made for the purpose of giving you the same “relaxed” life that I have. Hmm, that did not really came out right I think, anyway, You know what I mean, right…
Now, since I not work on that team, I just happen to know the a bit. This is NOT any kind of official description, hopefully someone@microsoft.com will update he documentation sometime around this, especially when virtualization is getting to be more of the standard.
Continue to read the full blog post here.
Michael Niehaus has a new post on how to create a fully patched image using MDT 2010 Lite Touch. Read the full post here.
I’ve always been a fan of the thinnest image possible. Taking that to an extreme, that means using the original image straight off the Microsoft media. But over time if you did this you’d find that the time required to apply patches to that image becomes unmanageable. (Case in point: I started up a new laptop for the first time with an OEM-installed image that had hooks to require all patches be applied before first logon. It took three hours for that to happen.)
I’ve also been a fan of doing “just in time” patching, which is something that MDT can do too: Instead of patching the image in advance, you can inject updates offline after the image has been applied to the disk but before it boots for the first time. That does often improve the time required, but it doesn’t eliminate it – it adds time when initially injecting the updates offline, and then more time on first boot as the “online actions” for those “offline patches” are completed (you’ll see the messages on the screen during the first boot showing a percentage complete while this is happening).
So reading between the lines, that means I would suggest always creating your own master image containing at least all the current service packs and patches. (Don’t try to install the OS service pack yourself – just download “slipstreamed” media from the Microsoft licensing website, as that’s the ultimate time-saving technique.) So how should you do this? Well, there are a few ways:
- Mount the existing WIM image and just inject the updates offline with DISM. This is certainly doable, but there are three challenges:
- The online actions for these updates will still take some time
- It introduces a “human touch” into the process, unless you go through the effort of automating this to make it a repeatable process.
- It only works for operating system updates.
- Build a new image and install all the updates into that image before sysprepping and capturing the image using a completely automated process. This is my preferred approach, because it’s a consistent process for any other type of update being made to the image.
Not surprisingly, MDT 2010 Lite Touch provides a way to implement my preferred method above – and actually multiple methods that can be used. Let’s go through those methods.
Read the full post here.
Friday the System Center User Group Denmark hosted a System Center focused event held in Copenhagen.
The main goal for this event, was to show some of the most important news and updates from the Microsoft Management Summit 2011 in Las Vegas, to User Group Members that didn’t attend MMS.
The event was very popular and we’ve received lots of great feedback. Around 65 user group members showed up for this full event day.
PowerPoint slides from the event can be downloaded here, and all the pictures from the event are available on the link below.
Thank you all again for supporting this event and for all your great feedback.
Session 1: System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Application Lifecycle Management
Speaker: Ronni Pedersen, Configuration Manager MVP
Download slides here.
Session 2: System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Migration from ConfigMgr 2007
Speaker: Kent Agerlund, Configuration Manager MVP
Download slides here.
Session 3: System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012
Speaker: Brian Lauge, Microsoft Denmark
Download slides here.
Session 4: AVIcode & Opalis: A Microsoft Subsidiary
Speakers: Jakob G. Svendsen & Kåre Rude Andersen
Download slide here.
Enjoy,
