gshaw

Learn something new every day, thanks for the link That's a rather awesome set of links you've compiled in the MDT sticky, good work!

Interesting, MS making DirectAccess work with ipv4 I guess with WinRT the whole idea is that MS stuff is managed as that's what Windows does... what they really need to do is crack the split user \ organisation owned content idea so you can have a device that's yours, with personal pics etc on but with the company sensitive data encrypted and remote-wipeable without nuking the personal files.

Would be nice if Lenovo and Stone did this but small price to pay for not having to deal with Dell

That's good news, hopefully means it'll go through smoothly on our EES this year after the nightmare we had last time with VLSC not enabling it

Why the hell should I need always on Internet to play a single player game?! Glad I've moved back to PC

No I mean the charms menu and hot corners, doesn't feel natural at all on a touchpad

Very true, some really nasty stuff out there that makes a few naked people look tame

I still find it irritating if using a laptop touchpad, more bearable with a mouse but need to see the next iteration after the Consumer Preview to see if the bugs I found have been ironed out yet. Still concerned by how much control admins will have over the Metro start screen and apps though...

MDT gives you additional Task Sequence steps over the base SCCM ones and I think also helps if you want completely zero-touch image installation from build to capture to deployment. Personally I haven't used the SCCM integration and haven't felt like I'm missing anything. Worth a play if you have spare time but not essential imo...

I'm doing mine on vSphere at the moment so it's in a central location but you could do it on Hyper-V or Virtualbox as both support snapshots. As for your current reference machine it'll work fine but I'd back it up to a USB hard disk with something like Redo Backup first so you've got a copy before capturing it. Deploy Windows 7 Enterprise - www.windows-noob.com These guides are really good The section where I deviate is Build and Capture, I don't uss SCCM for the build process, only capture but that's down to individual preference and the type of software you have on the base image. Also comes down to whether you want a completely thin base image and software installed to it or a more complete base image but less easy to change over the year (not an issue for us)

SCCM with driver packages and your reference (gold) image made on a virtual machine. A lot of people bundle MDT in as well but I haven't had a burning desire to add anything extra onto my SCCM method as it does everything I need. All your domaining etc can either be done as a manual step at the start of the task sequence (for new machines needing PXE boot) or completely automated (if you have the SCCM client installed on your PCs' existing OS beforehand) I also fly in the face of a lot of SCCM documentation and build my image manually rather than as an automated sequence. Reason being that I have a lot of open-source and freeware that isn't worth my time and effort packaging into MSIs. With a manual image build I document everything clearly and get the image exactly as I want before capturing. Then I just run the capture ISO and it gets on with it no trouble Also if you use a VM to create your gold image snapshot it before the capture process then you can go back and alter it afterwards if necessary. I personally don't like working with a base image after it's been sysprepped so reverting back to a "clean" state is much better imo.

Another sneaky backdoor way of getting China-style restrictions on our Internet. Classic tactics... use kids as a scare tactic and who would disagree with making the Internet "safer"

Those shapes look a bit like the Windows flag and you know what a design agency did with that for Win8

Just applied my XP BGInfo GPP \ GPO settings and it worked first time with no modifications required I use a mix of GPP to create files in a dedicated folder for BGInfo along with some vbscript to set the correct wallpaper for each resolution we use (4:3 and large widescreen)

Thanks for the confirmation, wasn't sure if it was bundled into SP1 or was one of the many updates waiting for SP2. Having quickly read through this http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/78718-windows-7-bginfo-background-issue.html I don't think we'll have a problem as I've always done BGInfo via a folder created on the C: drive of each machine (using GPP so it only copies once), never had an issue with it that way and looks like it should still be OK

Just squeezing down my mandatory profile and the wallpaper is next on the hit list. Is general consensus that the solid colour background issue is fixed (with the hotfix or without these days?) I'm going to be using BGInfo anyway so prefer no background in the profile if possible...

Here we go Using PowerShell to Check Task Sequence Package References for a DP Just need to put the Powershell components in the required places and away you go! This is also the original Technet article for reference Make sure a ConfigMgr task sequence has all the packages it needs - Michael Niehaus&#39 Windows and Office deployment ramblings - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

It's got more expensive this year as MS have started charging per machine for it even on EES... along with the SQL (ripoff) licensing increase I'm not a happy bunny with Microsoft this year... what they giveth with one hadn (Office 365 for staff) they taketh away with the other...

town.mid is very useful, the quickest path I can get to when needing to test audio on suspected faulty PCs

It's better to get a core switch you can expand on in future that's a bit more expensive than to get something lesser that only just meets capacity now and has to be replaced 1-2 years later imo And ye I love my 5406zl as well

I've got a handy little script I found that goes through your Task Sequences and lets you know if any of the packages are missing from DPs. Will post on Monday as it's saved me pulling hair out a few times now

Wow 8350GB's... we used to have those... used to have the "pleasure" of sitting next to them all day long... no wonder I used to get headaches! If they start packing up and you need spares let me know as we have some laying around along with GBICs, stack cables etc. I'd get some Procurves in there first of all, will be money well spent and much better management than the AT stuff then go virtual. Take a look at Office 365 for your Lync features, saves running all that on-premise and gets you up and running straight away

Does it have the feature to put permanent VMs on a separate storage pool to Golden images \ disposable VMs? Just reading an oldish link (6 months ago) where it was saying everything goes into the same storage. Ideally you'd have Gold images and the throwaway VMs on the SSD then the permanent ones (or difference disk data depending on how Kaviza does it) on standard HDDs to give the capacity required. Just had a look at HP official server HDDs... wow and ouch spring to mind!!!

I guess if you make an n+1 redundant grid you could get away with one node going down if the drive packs up - I'm guessing the Gold images are replicated across nodes anyway (as are any "permanent" VMs?) Will see if I can get up to you that day as it's one of the first places I've seen going down the VDI route I think is the best value \ performance as it stands

If that's the Kaviza demo have replied in your other thread Interesting point of note on power saving; I remember a presentation about server virtualisation stating that if you actually calculate the cost of the power it would take 10yrs+ to get back what you pay out on the system initially... of course it's good to be going green but sometimes the monetary savings aren't as quick to pay back as you'd hope on their own. The thin client \ VDI method definitely has benefits but on the other hand you do lose certain features as well and the way our budgets work I still need to see savings on the initial purchase cost as well as longer-term. Hence Kaviza being of interest as you only pay for the server not silly money going on storage systems The other reason I'm interested in your Kaviza day is to see what the optimum number of machines you can fit onto each server i.e. do you just take say 2GB \ 1 core per VM and multiply up or is it more \ less efficient than that...