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arr sorry you are controlled roll out site sorry thought were field trial site ok my mistake.
Can see your point on engineer (internal communication is something I nag rm about a lot...)
As for number 9 me knowing about no that wouldn't indicate they known about it for long time.
Russ
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thesweeney
Cannot compute.. cannout compute.. ::head explodes::Quote:
just been released by RM on their support site, of the ability to make a bootable USB pen drive
This aspect is regular Microsoft WAIK technology. To make a USB that boots a PE image you need to add a Vista boot sector to the USB and then throw a standard set of folders and file on it, including the WinPE2 *.wim file. You can do the boot sector part on Vista, If on XP/2K3 you can use the MS tool Bootsect.exe. All of this just works.
The difference for CC4 is that they provide a custom version of a PE *.wim file (that you may have added drivers to) and an XML file with some parameters for the RM build app that runs as soon as PE has loaded. You can copy those with Explorer. In short you don't/didn't need RM to build CC4 boxes via USB. Not sure why they wrote their own utils, but perhaps they're more friendly.
That XML file is why you can't take build CDs to other sites. It would have been nice if the build app got that from the network (chose one from a list). Apart from saving making CDs, it would also mean that PXE builds, yet more regular Microsoft WAIK technology, would work.
The fact that slow workstations take the same time to build as new workstations would indicate to me that there is either a Network bottleneck - or a Server bottleneck. When you say "switched 100mbit" do you mean this is the workstation speed or the server speed (or both?)Quote:
Originally Posted by Thesweeney
Andrew
@ Butuz: Everything is 100BaseTX...
I would suggest then that the bottleneck could be because your server is connected at 100 TX. I would reccomend you try upgrading the switch to 1000TX so that you can run the server 10x faster than it is currently.
That may help. I don't have CC4 so I can not test!
Also, out of interest - what is the specification of your CC4 server?
Andrew
The one thing that really bugs me with building clients is why can't they get it to build using PXE ?
I've used unattened.sourceforge.net to build machines with a boot usb/floopy/cd, so it's not difficult.
Server is brand new...
Twin Xeon 1.60GHZ
2Gb DDR2
Twin 500Gb SATA HDD
Integrated Intel Dual-Channel Gb Ethernet
Plus the other usual stuff...
So yeah, it could well be down to the infrastructure.. But it is a small primary (no more than about 80 pupils), and consequently has a limited budget...
Oh you don't need to.. lots of 100Mbps workstations simultaneously grabbing lots of big files from one 100Mbps server is going to be slow with or without CC4. They needed a better switch when they first got CC3 back whenever.Quote:
I don't have CC4 so I can not test!
Uhh? They had a CC3 system and chose to spend £££s on a CC4 upgrade which won't make much difference to the user's desktop experience, as opposed to getting a £2-300 switch that would immediately improve network performance? Or was this a recent CC3 installed as a stop-gap until CC4 was ready?Quote:
it is a small primary (no more than about 80 pupils), and consequently has a limited budget
"ours is not to reason why...." To be honest I have not got a clue how all this came about. We have only been providing support for this particular school for the last 5 months or so.. From reading between the lines of what the head down there has been saying they have had a string of very poor support and advice from both the LEA and the secondary school local to them that used to provide the support.Quote:
Originally Posted by PiqueABoo
The wheels were already in motion for the CC4 upgrade by the time we took over, plus the teachers there seemed happy with CC3 even though they themselves have said it's carp...
Had a few plays now on build 27 (when is a final release candidate scheduled?), i understand they have patches available for build 28.
1) Update feature not implemented, don't know date for implementation.
2) CC3 package for CC4 network nowhere to be seen.
3) Drivers could not be added to the boot disk for initial boot (so it couldn't find the network drivers for a dell laptop). I can think of a work around for this.
4) Exchange mail integration package?
5) DVD builds?
6) CC4 MMC network programme in taskman freezing a few times.
7) Impressive and powerfull management console.
8) 1-2 HR client build times.
9) package import, distribution and installation smooth.
Not as confident, but have a few months before our install.
This is exactly why we are setting up CC4 as an essentially new network parallel to our current one, configuring and testing, and only migrating user data and applications once we are happy it's working.
To us, the single upgrade step of Windows 2000 CC3 to CC4+SAN+300 workstations on a 6-year-old network during the summer holidays is asking for trouble.
Anyone got ay updates on CC4....
I've had a play with CC3 package importing, not many of our packages seem to be working. The big 'office' ones are ok, but dreamweaver mx etc crash.
Custom PE drivers can now be inserted, but the network car driver insertion doesnt have as much info as the normal drivers section, so you cant accuratly identift drivers easy. No OS listed for PE drivers, so adding a vista driver (which you cant tell if you've got a large pool of drivers) crashes an XP build disk creator.
No exchange integration till late in the year.
Buggy task management, i've had loads of tasks sitting waiting to be done, with no force through buttons...
Day 1
4 Hour installation script runs on the server (server supplied by RM)
2 Hour upgrade script runs on the server, it seems the first script just gives you the pre-release version of CC4. The second script makes it work.
Day 2
Before proceeding the engineer need to check in with RM House as there had been quite a few errors during the instalation and he wasn't happy about continuing until they were resolved or explained.
Two hours later RM House says go ahead they are OK????
What appears to be a very long document of installation instructions need to be hand entered by the engineer.
First WS build attempted Dell. Boot disk created installation proceeds until XP kicks n then fails.
Having failed we moved onto the new RMOnes, this should be easy. After an hour of trying we discover that the RMOne is not compatible with CC4, new drivers at the end of the week. The engineer has to leave as he has another job to go to tomorrow.
Day 3
No engineer, RM promise one for the end of the week.
I realize that the default boot disk has enough of an idea about the NIC to boot and start the installation once Windows XP starts up you also need the correct driver in the Database.
P.S. fi there s a folder called drivers on my driver CD why can't I just point the Database Import routine at it and get all the drivers installed in one go, and if I am installing the first one for XP surely I should be able to tick a box to say they are all going to be for XP tis time. Any way I have to keep selecting inf files and telling the box its for XP for all my drivers.
Loaded all Del drivers into the database. RM seems to need four dotted notation on the version numbers as well so need to add a few ".0".
The build worked, 2 hours with no other apps installed.
Day 4
On the fourth day I rested!
Day 5
A new engineer arrived.
I pointed him at all the errors in the Application Event log on the server and left him to it
Most errors gone or explained.
Now for the RMOne, it appears that all that was needed was renaming the NIC driver in the database. RMOne working.
Screen saver locks, unlock it and it reboots, The engineer hadn't seen this before. Tried the same thing on the Dell with the same effect. hone call to RM house and there is a patch / package that appears to solve the problem.
I load the drivers for the Dell Latitude into the database and the build seems to work fine.
Job signed off, training on Monday
I'll be back! :getmecoat:
Great we go CC4 in a week, RM have sheduled 2 days to upgrade 3 dcs an exchange box and and a damm if they cock it up i think that will be the final straw for RM at our site, they made a hash up with our Forest Root migration last year and as it stands at the moment i think i would rather have the vanilla LEA solution.
The installation progresses.
Post sales techie spent a day with us and resolved some of the issues.
Have now built several different models of workstation and a laptop.
Got the boot working off a usb stick for the machines without CD drives. Some of the older machines don't seem to know how to boot of the usb stick though. More work to be done there tomorrow.
Package builds loom on the horizon.
Another training session on Tuesday next week.
Users imported from a csv but you can't import the passwords however these can be done with a net user command in a batch file.
Users divided into folders by year of entry, originally put them in folders denoting their year group but decided this would be impractical so year of entry seemed better.
I'l be back :getmecoat: