Jamo

Is that with MDT? If you deploy with CopyProfile = True I have seen a couple of instances where a Windows Basic theme would be applied in the default profile causing each new user to get basic rather than aero. You can set Windows 7 Aero Theme Not Enabled After Deployment - AutoIt Consulting in group policy or I have just not used the CopyProfile setup.

There are a few categories of OS which activate ONLY those groups BELOW the current group How to Choose the Right Volume License Key for Windows

Oh I see! Sorry, just set up datacenter using DISM it doesn't take long and will let you licence your Servers without entering licence keys

Goto Licenses->Relationship Summary and then click the licence agreement you bought then look down the list for KMS keys, we had ours in there, couldn't see the datacenter ones anywhere else.

You can't use the datacenter key on standard as such, but you can do an inplace upgrade. Requires restarts and things, I have done it to 3 servers here with no problem: To do this you just need to use the DSIM tool which is included with Windows Dism /online /Set-Edition:ServerEnterprise /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX Note that you can check which versions you can upgrade to by running: Dism /online /Get-TargetEditions Note that for KMS client product keys (ie ones that you can use to ensure they contact the KMS server for activation) see this article.Note this is useful for upgrading clients from Standard to Datacenter Example The below example works for our servers. Remember that the command requires a restart and takes around 10 mins. dism /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter /ProductKey:xxxxxxxxx

Drove me nuts, but once its set up it gets out of the way .... completely.... slightly worrying but it just seems to work... (famous last words!!) BTW when you are activating MS Office 2010 check out this site: Download: Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

This threw me when i was trying to set it up. On the MS Vol licence site Licenses->Relationship Summary and then click the licence agreement and select the product key tab. Install the Product key for your KMS version of Server 2008r2 using the command: cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk then to activate the KMS host, enter: cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ato That should be it, it will publish iteself in DNS and the clients should pick it up. You have to have 30 clients to get it going though, I just made 30 virtual hosts. If you run: cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /dlv You should see the client count increasing See this for more KMS info, its so badly documented. Basically its setup with the right version of server OS ensuring that your version of MS Server can activate all your clients (usually that is ok with standard, we have a datacenter licence so have had to migrate the KMS role to a datacenter server to keep up!) then thats it!! How to Choose the Right Volume License Key for Windows

Windows key + arrow keys does the Windows snap to screen. V exciting times!

Yeah don't go down the capture card route!! The lag is awful I did that originally for my Wii a few years back without realising there was about a 3 second delay!! Rather frustrating!

A 162 IP is a link local address meaning that DHCP isn't getting a chance to run. Usually this is because of a buggy driver and it requires the DHCP media sense to be turned off. This however leads to a 60 second wait on startup as the machine can no longer tell when the wireless connection is fully connected. We have a couple of laptops like this its a right pain!! Updating to W7 has sorted those laptops though. The key is: From the website : How to disable the Media Sensing feature for TCP/IP in Windows Start Registry Editor. Locate the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters Add the following registry entry to theParameters subkey:Name: DisableDHCPMediaSense Data type: REG_DWORD (Boolean) Value: 1 Note This entry controls the behavior of Media Sensing. By default, Media Sensing events trigger a DHCP client to take an action. For example, when a connect event occurs, the client tries to obtain a lease. When a disconnect event occurs, the client may invalidate the interface and routes. If you set this value data to 1, DHCP clients and non-DHCP clients ignore Media Sensing events. Restart the computer.

I would try the same site on another host just to rule out something silly with IIS. Are you hosting all the servers (SQL and IIS) on the same box?

I downloaded the CP last night. Was an interesting experience to say the least. Kind of a weird tablet desktop hybrid that made no sense on either. Would be great on a touch screen..... until you click on a setting which has to be configured in desktop mode ie proxy settings in which case using on a touchscreen is just like W7 again...... Would be great on a desktop until you open the start screen and have a HUUUUUUUUUGE START MENU WHICH IS IN YOUR FACE! - Also I REALLY do not like having to 'throw away' apps by clicking at the top and dragging down! its a really un-natural mouse movement!!

Its what we had to do anyway We have used it for linking the CCTV cabs together, otherwise we have used switch to switch GBICs which works interbrand in ours fine.

Yeah 2 media converters of the same brand. Check out the page for the media converter and just double check in case the fibre lines are knackered.

Media converters are sometimes proprietary, they aren't always using the standard formats for fibre modules. You usually have to have the same media converter on both ends. We have HP going to CISCO and it works fine, we do however have some weird media converters which only work together and have to be converted back to CAT5 before they can interface with the switches!

This is how I did my libraries as well, although I edited with Notepad++ I think its probably the best way of configuring libraries at the moment, I tried the VBS scripts to remove some of the libraries folders at first logon but the script was quite slow compared to doing the copy method! One thing I am looking at is profile speed, and was going to look into mandatory profiles. However I have just noticed that now in W7 active setup runs for each mandatory profile, since that seems to be causing most of my logon delays it no longer seems like such a good idea :s

Not really, we have just added all possible drive letters from D to H I think!! It has covered most stuff!

I have only set the database to install apps depending on make and model. Been very selective about the rules I have applied! Just the MMApps section for me

Are you using hte database to populate the timezone? If you are note the order of priorities of your sections in the rules.ini

Is this in MDT? You can edit a task sequence to add applications directly into it or select Mandatory applications on the Install Application task sequence and use the database to configure apps for certain client types.

With MDT 2012 I have the following: // Locale Settings InputLocale=0809:00000809 UserLocale=en-gb KeyboardLocale=en-gb;0809:00000809 KeyboardLocalePE=0809:00000809 // Timezone SkipTimeZone=YES TimeZone=085 TimeZoneName=GMT Standard Time That sets the timezone and the keyboard and language settings to UK Thats MDT 2012. You need to update the share after this.

You need to update the deployment share after the above I believe as well btw

Yup in the default section of the customsettings try: DisableTaskMgr=YES HideShell=YES

Yup MDT is really good at what it does. You can even create standalone media to deploy your apps and settings to a standalone PC without network connectivity. MDT 2012 is def worth looking at, it allows a lot of new settings such as stopping the little darlings from pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL during the task sequences Strangely enough playing with MDT is what got me most of the experience with it. Using the guides as pointers and weirdly.... the MS help guide within MDT describes each section really well. Its basically a bunch of scripts in a folder lol, albeit some very handy scripts!

Using PuTTY to create an SSH tunnel Any good? I haven't tried it myself as I was looking for something else but I remembered I had seen it a while back!