RM CC4 PC builds, Windows 7 & PCs with NVM Express (NVMe) PCI Express (PCIe) SSDs

[cbsc]

We recently purchased some Dell OptiPlex 7040 PCs, which came with M.2 PCIe SSDs and Windows 7 Professional 64bit pre-installed:

 

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/optiplex-7040-desktop/pd

 

However we struck a problem when attempting to build these PCs on our RM CC4.5 network. It turns out that RM do not currently support computers with an NVMe interface as part of their standard build process, in any version of Windows. The only current option available is to use their Smart Client process. This is manageable on a small number of computers, but not the numbers that we have purchased or intend to purchase.

 

RM have advised that they intend on addressing this issue for Windows 10 only. Please see attached RM tech article (TEC5129318):

 

TEC5129318.pdf

 

However we have no intention of using Windows 10 at this point in time, and need a solution for Windows 7. It appears that not many customers (that are still using Windows 7) have informed RM that this would be a problem, so they don't believe that it is worth investing their time and resources in resolving.

 

Could I ask any RM customers out there who are intending on purchasing hardware with PCIe SSDs, and Windows 7, to please contact their RM account manager ASAP. Hopefully RM will start to take this issue more seriously.

 

Many thanks

Edited April 27, 2016 by cbsc

[Arthur]

We recently purchased some Dell OptiPlex 7040 PCs, which came with M.2 PCIe SSDs and Windows 7 Professional 64bit pre-installed. However we struck a problem when attempting to build these PCs on our RM CC4.5 network.

Edit. Why not simply integrate the KB2990941 hotfix and the relevant NVMe driver into your Windows 7 build image? RM provided the solution in their TEC article?

Edited April 27, 2016 by Arthur

[cbsc]

Edit. Why not simply integrate the KB2990941 hotfix and the relevant NVMe driver into your Windows 7 build image? RM provided the solution in their TEC article?

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Just to be clear, my post relates to Microsoft Windows 7 builds on CC4, and not vanilla Windows 7 builds (which can be solved by injecting KB2990941 and relevant drivers to the installation media).

 

As per the TEC article, RM have confirmed that once a PC has been successfully built with vanilla Windows 7, it will still need to be Smartcliented on to the CC4 network. This is a laborious task, that we want to avoid.

 

RM do indeed use WIM images as part of their CC4 build, but even after injecting the hotfix and drivers, the RM build client fails. Therefore the ball is firmly in RM's court.

[steve_forbes]

Hi,

 

I've just spoken to our support team and we don't believe that the suggestion above will work (it was a long explanation as to why it won't so I won't post it but if anyone wants to know the details then just let me know!) @cbsc thank you for the feedback, we are going to have a look into this again - we do have to prioritise and make tough decisions on the things that we fix and develop based on customer feedback and the number of customers affected. That said, every customer is important to me and I will take every piece of feedback on board.

 

I'll post an update as soon as I have got the team together to discuss. In the meantime if you have any further questions or feedback then feel free to drop me a message or I am happy to come to your school to meet face to face.

 

Regards,

Steve Forbes

Head of Network Solutions

RM Education

[cbsc]

Hi,

 

I've just spoken to our support team and we don't believe that the suggestion above will work (it was a long explanation as to why it won't so I won't post it but if anyone wants to know the details then just let me know!) @cbsc thank you for the feedback, we are going to have a look into this again - we do have to prioritise and make tough decisions on the things that we fix and develop based on customer feedback and the number of customers affected. That said, every customer is important to me and I will take every piece of feedback on board.

 

I'll post an update as soon as I have got the team together to discuss. In the meantime if you have any further questions or feedback then feel free to drop me a message or I am happy to come to your school to meet face to face.

 

Regards,

Steve Forbes

Head of Network Solutions

RM Education

 

Thank you Steve for your comments.

 

I have spoken at length with one of your senior support consultants, and so I do appreciate the dilemma RM are in. The technology is relatively new, and perhaps there aren't yet many RM customers that have purchased PCs with PCIe SSDs. However I suspect, come the Summer, you will have many more in a similar position to ourselves. The purpose of my post was to highlight the problem to other customers, so they can let RM know whether it will affect them.

 

We have never had to use the Smart Client process to build a PC, in over 10 years as an RM customer.

 

Microsoft have provided NVMe support to Windows 7 (KB2990941), and hardware manufactures that sell PCs with PCIe SSDs currently support Windows 7. RM will officially continue to support Windows 7 until 2020, and I understand that the vast majority of your customers are still using Windows 7. Therefore I would suggest that it was in RM's best interests to support this technology (for Windows 7 customers) as part of the CC4 build. Customers should surely be uninhibited in their decision making when it comes to purchasing hardware, and not restricted to old(er) technologies.

[superaz300]

As far as I was concerned, didn't RM talk about using DISM to inject updates and patches into the CC4 WIM images? I believe it was shown at a technical seminar they hosted this year. Could be wrong, but it might be something worth looking into.

[cbsc]

As far as I was concerned, didn't RM talk about using DISM to inject updates and patches into the CC4 WIM images? I believe it was shown at a technical seminar they hosted this year. Could be wrong, but it might be something worth looking into.

 

That's interesting, thanks for letting me know. I didn't attend the most recent RM technical seminar, but I can see that one of those presenting is the same senior support consultant whom I have been dealing with on this issue, so I suspect that this won't help when it comes to building Windows 7 PCs (with PCIe SSDs) using the CC4 build. Perhaps @steve_forbes can confirm?

[steve_forbes]

I have checked with our support team and unfortunately using DISM will not help in this instance as we would still need to have:

 

• The CC4 Build Client changes to recognise the new NVMe Interface to the SSD

• The KB2990941 needs to be in both the W7 installation media (i.e. the WIM file) AND in the Boot.wim file (together with the NVMe drivers) that we use in the PE phase of the build (which is where it currently fails).

 

Apologies not to have better news on that, we are continuing to look at the situation and I'll let you know if anything changes.

 

Thanks

Steve

[GeekyPete]

To add some weight, We run a CC4 network and we'll be replacing 70% of our hardware over the next 15 months. The remaining 30% the year after. We won't be looking at Windows 10 until Sept 2017 at the earliest. If we have to limit our Hardware choices to continue to run Windows 7 it would give grounds to re-evaluate using CC4.

[steve_forbes]

Thanks for the feedback. One of the contributing factors in our decision was around the fact that the new Intel (and AMD) shipsets after "Kaby Lake" will only support Windows 10 and will not be backwards compatible to Windows 7.

 

"Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming “Kaby Lake” silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming “8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bristol Ridge” silicon."

 

Taken from this Windows blog post: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/

 

 

I would be interested in your thoughts on this, if having the fastest and newest technologies is important to you (or at least an option) then will you not be upgrading the OS to get access to the faster chipsets?

 

Thanks

Steve

Edited April 29, 2016 by steve_forbes

[MAP]

We will have the same problem - we will be looking to run NVMe on windows 7 for at least 18 months.

 

 

The smart build process is not reliable enough as a serious contender here. It also kind of removes many of the benefits of using RM.

 

Yes Steve I would like to see the detailed explanation you mentioned on 28th April 2016, 09:52 AM.

[cbsc]

Thanks for the feedback. One of the contributing factors in our decision was around the fact that the new Intel (and AMD) shipsets after "Kaby Lake" will only support Windows 10 and will not be backwards compatible to Windows 7.

 

"Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming “Kaby Lake” silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming “8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bristol Ridge” silicon."

 

Taken from this Windows blog post: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/

 

 

I would be interested in your thoughts on this, if having the fastest and newest technologies is important to you (or at least an option) then will you not be upgrading the OS to get access to the faster chipsets?

 

Thanks

Steve

 

Thank you Steve for your comments.

 

Devices featuring the ‘Kaby Lake’ chipset are unlikely to be available for purchase until the latter end of 2016. Therefore for the large part of 2016, and importantly for schools that predominantly purchase hardware in the Summer months, the chipset of choice will be ‘Skylake’.

 

The main reason we often purchase hardware featuring the latest technologies is to future proof our investment, and not for an immediate performance gain.

 

We are licensed through the Microsoft EES agreement, so in normal circumstances we can opt to upgrade the OS at any time of our choosing (before support is withdrawn). We waited until Summer 2013, as did many RM customers, to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. This decision was driven by Capita and Microsoft withdrawing support, Autumn 2013 and Spring 2014 respectively.

 

It is interesting that Microsoft (and Intel) will be forcing customers using the ‘Kaby Lake’ chipset to upgrade to Windows 10 long before support is officially withdrawn. However I suspect that this will result in prolonging the shelf life of devices featuring the ‘Skylake’ chipset that support Windows 7.

 

Windows 10 was only recently supported by Capita (Spring 2016), and we have been advised by RM to wait until at least the Windows 10 Build 1511 is ready (Summer 2016) before considering deploying Windows 10. This doesn't give schools much time to plan for a Windows 10 deployment, especially on a large network. Our users are quite happy to continue to use Windows 7 for the foreseeable future, and I suspect they will be willing to forego any performance benefits from using Windows 10.

 

The standard RM build process is fundamental to the success of the CC4 system. A sizeable number of devices that schools will purchase in 2016 and perhaps long into 2017 will feature the ‘Skylake’ chipset, some of which will also feature PCIe SSDs. RM customers may therefore assume and expect that if the devices come supplied with Windows 7, that they will be supported by RM. They do, after all, pay RM a substantial amount of money for licensing and annual support.

 

I urge RM to reconsider their decision.

 

P.S. The RM Support Newsletter (issue 11) that was emailed out to customers today included a typo that may confuse people. In the section “CC4 Windows 10, Build 1511 and beyond...” it stated that “This summer a new WIM file for Windows 10 will be released based on the “Threshold 2/Build 1511” release (Nov 2016)…”. This should have stated Nov 2015.

[steve_forbes]

Hi,

 

Thanks for your feedback, it is most appreciated. @cbsc - thank you also for pointing out the typo in our Support Newsletter

We are going to complete the Windows 10 work and have a look at Windows 7 to see if it's something we can do in a reasonable amount of time. I will keep you updated with our progress and for those customers that we have received feedback from via other methods as well as here, I will arrange to come and see you (on the basis that we have your contact details) - obviously only if I am welcome!

@MAP - here is the explanation from our support team, this probably isn't any different from the information available via the tech article so if you want to know anything else then please let me know.

 

The CC4 Windows 10 computer build fails at Disk Partitioning

 

Community Connect® 4 (CC4) Windows 10 build fails at the Disk Partitioning build action on computers with the NVMe interface specification. This is a limitation in build client as it does not recognise the PCI ID string of the NVMe interface and therefore does not recognise the drive. The PCI ID of these devices starts with SCSI\NVMe or similar and the build client will not recognise this. This results in the drive not being recognised at the partitioning stage of the CC4 Windows 10 build.

 

The CC4 Microsoft Windows 7 build fails at the WinPE3.0 point of the build

 

Microsoft® Windows 7 (WinPE3.0) build will fail to recognise the drive and fail immediately. NVMe interface support is not inbuilt to Windows 7 or WinPE3.0 so the drive will not be recognised at boot and the build will fail at the WinPE part of the build.

 

Windows 10 builds on CC4

 

This issue affects computers with a NVM Express (NVMe) interface. The PCI ID of these devices is similar to: SCSI\DiskNVMe_PM951_NVMe_SAMSUBXV7.

Build client cannot recognise the prefix SCSI\Disk so fails to detect the drive. Native support for the NVMe interface was introduced in Windows 8.1 and continues in Windows 10. We are currently working on a fix for this in Windows 10 builds and this will be delivered by the Windows 10 Build 1511 (Threshold 2) update in Summer 2016. We recommend that, in the interim, you use the Smart Client process to add these computers to a CC4 network.

 

Microsoft Windows 7 builds on CC4

 

On Microsoft Windows 7, remedial action is needed to add support for this interface. KB2990941 adds native driver support for the NVM Express (NVMe) interface that uses the PCI Express (PCIe) bus in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1). This update (and any relevant drivers) needs to be added to the Microsoft Windows 7 (SP1) installation media in order for the drive to be recognised. Once updated, this media can be used to install the operating system and the computer can then be Smartcliented on to the CC4 network.

[AlanD]

I have been reading this with some interest...and fed some comments back to RM in relation about their recently released tec note - which basically was advising you to use Smart Client for PCs with NVMe. (Smart client - has always seemed to be a misnomer!) My own experience was that I can't even get SMART client to work with special Disk arrangements. In my case it was some high end work stations that had RAID drives for performance. Even with Windows 7 fully installed with all RAID drivers and working fine - the Smart client process fails :-(

 

I told RM about it at the time - and didn't get much interest...apart from them telling me it should work. I don't think they have _actually_ tried it with CC4. Worked fine for CC3 though.

 

Like the other comments above - I don't understand why the drivers can't be installed into the "pre" image (as well as the main windows image) so that it would work with a PXE boot....but right now I'd settle for it working with "not so smart" client.

[cbsc]

@steve_forbes Can you please provide us with an update?

 

I can see that the fix for Windows 10 builds is in field trial. How is the field trial going?

 

What progress has been made with regards to Windows 7 builds? It's been about 5 months since I raised the issue.

[truebluesteve]

We've got the Windows 10 field trial and it seems to work very well - we have a number of Surface 4 Tablets that we couldn't build because of the NVMe disks but can now. Can't help with Windows 7 I'm afraid