BarryBKS

Its amazing how SysAdmin Appreciation Day happened to fall during the Summer Holidays when there are no management staff here to appreciate us? Oh well, Happy SysAdmin Day to all. Cheers.

The only item I can think of is if you are applying patches from WSUS during the image build? One of these patches could be the cause of your black screen. A long winded test would be to apply the basic image to a machine or VM, without the patches and then patch it manually after the image has finished. If you don't get the black screen during the deployment, but you do get it after the patching, then that is defiantly the issue. I patch my image and capture it back to WDS for deployment. This applies an up-to-date image and reduces the black screen from reoccurring. Hope that's of some help. Barry.

Timbo343, Thanks for directing me towards this post. I have only seen this issue on 1607. We are also running Impero, but I don't think it is related as it often happens on machines before Impero is installed and I have seen the problem occur on brand new home builds, including my own!! The problem seems to occur after Windows Updates has been run or while they are being applied. The DCOM event errors are written to the event viewer during the black screen state. Hardware seems to be irrelevant. HP, Dell, Intel CPU usually. Intel or ATI graphics. Often Intel chipset. I have asked Microsoft for some explanation / fix here, but I am yet to hear anything. As this is such an unpredictable issue, I get classrooms as well as IT suites with unusable PCs for over two hours!! Not a very practical working environment for a school, or any other corporate business for that matter. Looking forward to seeing anyone's solution as this is turning into one very big headache. Cheers,

Timbo343, The post on the Microsoft Community, linked to above, shows the DCOM error that appear in the event viewer during the black screen state. The power cycle does stop it, but it had appeared again on the same Pc when installing more updates a week later!! I did a search on here for 'black screen windows 10', but didn't find the above post. I will have a read. Cheers

Disk, I have seen this occur on Dell, Hp and other PCs. Intel and ATI graphics cards. If I tried to get hardware specific for every Pc, I would be here all year with a very long post!!

Symptoms of Error: After Windows Updates has been run, the PC is restarted and either before or after logging in, the screen appears black with just the mouse cursor, which can still be moved around the screen. The hard disk light on the PC may show activity, but this may only run for a short time. The PC stays in this state for some time. If left long enough, the screen my turn grey with an active mouse cursor, but the PC doesn't become usable. I have posted this problem in the Microsoft Community, with my diagnostics and progress of my investigation into the error. Please update either this post or the Community site with anything you find out about this on going problem. Cheers.

At what point of the install does this occur? Has the machine already restarted once and installed drivers, showing the 'Getting Ready' message? If so, then you may have some logged errors in your Event Viewer which may help identify the problem. I have encountered the black screen with a working cursor after a completed install, but not during the image process. Let me know what you find. Cheers.

The black screen with cursor is an issue that will occur on any Windows 10 1607 installation when Windows Updates have been installed. Currently Microsoft have not released any information as to why, but if a PC in this condition is left for about 2 hours, it may resolve itself or if powered down and restarted, should return to a working PC. See this post on Microsoft Community for more information. The black screen is not related to WSUS as I have seen it on home PCs running 1607. Hope this is of help to remove any red herrings.

Not to worry, I have found a GPO solution to my problem here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/165029-how-get-rid-candy-crush-soda-saga-other-windows-10-start-menu-junk-good.html Cheers.

Hi, I am trying to capture Windows 10 v1511, but my capture fails due to installed apps. My captures always worked on pre-1511 (November Update), so I know it is related to the extra apps that have been included in this update. These apps are: Candy Crush Soda Saga Twitter Minecraft: Windows 10 Beta Adobe Photoshop Express The Mirror I have tracked down several posts explaining how to use PowerShell to remove unwanted apps from AllUsers and this has been successful in identifying and removing the following: Candy Crush Soda Saga Twitter Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what search method I use, I can not find the full package name for the remaining three so I am unable to remove them. If anyone has managed to remove these already and knows what they are called, could you please let me know. Thanks, Barry.

Cheers Jona. I have had some feedback from iSAMS.... OK, who is up for a challenge? The only way to do it is to check for an active iSAMS session by checking the iSAMS cookie and then checking the User ID in the iSAMS User table with an SQL query. iSAMS have provided me with a document outlining the cookie lookup process. This is not a process I can see as a possible route with Joomla. If there is anyone out there who has done this, I would like to know how. Cheers, Barry.

Hi, We have recently set up the Parent Portal for iSAMS and have issued all our parents with login details. We are now looking at setting up a CMS system for parents to use to upload photos of students at sporting events. We want the CMS site to be locked down to parents and staff only. Does anyone know of any way to use the authentication process from iSAMS with a third party CMS, like Joomla. Cheers, Barry.

Hi, I've no doubt this question has probably been asked before so I apologise in advance if I am doubling up! Can anyone give a list of the definitive services required to be active / disabled on a remote PC in order to avoid this response: The machines in question are behind an enterprise firewall, as is the host, so Windows Firewall is turned off. Remote Procedure Call (RPC) - auto Remote Registry - auto Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) - auto Windows Management Instrumentation - auto These are the obvious enabled services, but I can not get an answer from any Microsoft website as to what needs to be set for remote administration. The error code seems to be very general, with lots of reasons for it. Not all related to remote access. Currently, with the above set, some Windows 7 machines work and some don't, hence my confusion. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers,

Thanks FN-GM, The script looks like it could be quite useful, but if it only runs the standard un-installer process, then I think it will probably fail with the missing un-installer file. Once the network is tidied up with respect to Java installs, I will certainly look at it as an option to keeping it tidy. Cheers, Barry.

Just out of interest, Has anyone had major issues with updating Java via Silent deployment recently. I pushed out 7u9 silently and it worked like a dream, (well it installed OK and showed as working). My next update was 7u11, which I pushed out silently over the top of 7u9, but after going out, discovered the new security feature which stopped everything from working! Investigated the required switches to deal with the security 'feature' and created an MST, tested and deployed. Once shipped out, I discovered that although no errors were reported during the install, it appeared that 7u11 wouldn't install over a previous version. Reason unknown. Now have over 300 PCs with a falled install of Java 7u11! Tried to auto-removed the deployment, but this caused an error. Did a manual un-install and got an error box complaining of a missing un-install file, but this made sense as the installer had just finished un-installing and deleting the jre7 folder, so the file it was looking for no longer existed! Thanks Java. OK, so 7u11 doesn't install correctly and you can't un-install the failed package due to the un-installer looking for a file after it has been deleted. On over 300 PCs! Repaired the important PCs by manually un-installing 7u11, clearing the error message and then manually installing 7u11 with MST. But this was not a practical solution for the amount of machines needed to cover. Then 7u15 is released. OK, tested installer. Works over existing 7u11 manual install. Created required MST, no, applied MST to msi using Orca as advised that his was more stable. Tested new 7u15 msi file on several machines randomly picked. Installs fine over manual 7u11. Ran several of the Java based packages which are used throughout the school and these worked fine. Excellent, or not. Deployed edited msi silently across network. Install shows as successful, but software doesn't work. Error message that no Java Runtime is installed. OK, auto-uninstall. No, same error message as before. Manual un-install and manual re-install. No java installed. Egh!!!! Installed Revo, (Revo Uninstaller Pro), used Revo to uninstall Java package, scan for remaining registry keys, (some PCs had over 2000!), deleted keys and stray folders. Manually installed edited 7u15 msi and Java now works! Still have the remaining 250 PCs to manually repair. Question 1: Has anyone else had this issue? Question 2: Has anyone had this or similar with 7u17, which I have just noticed, is now out? Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi, The above URL now returns a 403 error message, in what I think is German. Also, the URL above for emailing your serial number to, is now a dodgy serach results page. I am also trying to locate Drivers and Software for a Hitachi Cambridge IWB. If anyone can post any download locations, I would be greatful. Cheers, Barry.

Sted, You need to install VAMT version 3 (with SQL Server) to support Windows 8 and server 2012. You set your KMS server up using the KMS key for your 2008 R2 server. You the enter your Windows 8 Ent KMS key as an additional product key on VAMT, but note: You will need to have at least 25 machines running Windows 8 on your network before you can use your KMS server to activate Windows 8 machines. That is where I went wrong. Good luck, Barry.

Hedghog, Now that makes sence, although I had not found any comment regarding this point on any of the Microsoft documentation regarding upgrading to support Windows 8. I was going on the understanding that I needed 25 Windows 7 to get the KMS server going. I didn't expect Microsoft to want another 25 of Windows 8 before you could start to test it, but this is Microsoft so I should have considered it. I guess I will just have to use the MAK key for the testing environment and wait until we do a small roll out before we test the VAMT. Thank you to both of you for your thoughts. Barry.

Thanks for your replies. My comment regarding the difference in Windows 8 Pro keys was to ephisies the fact that the client was not getting the KMS key issued from the VAMT, but still held the original as it was shipped. Sorry I didn't make that clearer in my original post. THe VAMT contains all the required KMS keys, including Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, Windows 7, Windows 8, Office 14 and Office 15. The VAMT itself is licenced with the Windows Server 2008 R2 channel C KMS key. Hope this makes sense. Thanks, Barry.

Hi, This could probably go in a number of different forums, but as the main issue is with Windows 8 Pro, I have posted here. Please feel free to move / duplicate to Server 2008, if that is a better place for it. I am trying to activate a Windows 8 Pro machine on our domain network. In preparation for Win 8, I had already found out about the requirement to upgrade VAMT from 2 to 3 and I have downloaded the ADK and installed VAMT 3 (v6.2.9200.0) on the required 2008 R2 server with SQL 2008. This was a straight forward process and the VAMT service is running. I have installed all of my required keys, of which VAMT is quite happy with. I have also installed KB2757817, which is required when running VAMT 3 on 2008 R2. I ran slmgr /dlv to check that the server was running correctly and got an active response. VAMT has found lots of existing Windows 7 pcs and Office 14 which have been set against the KMS keys that we have been provided with. This tells me that the KMS service is running happily. To make sure I have looked at the Server Manager Event Logs. The KMS log shows lots of Event 12290, where the server is finding machines on the network, however the Windows 8 pcs in these events are returning an error code of 0xC004F042 in their data but, the Windows 7 pcs return 0x0 in their data. The VAMT log on the server shows an error event 1000 VAMT Runtime. Data for this is: Error while updating products: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800706BA): The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA) at System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHRInternal(Int32 errorCode, IntPtr errorInfo) at System.Management.ManagementScope.InitializeGuts(Object o) at System.Management.ManagementScope.Initialize() at System.Management.ManagementScope.Connect() at Microsoft.Licensing.VolumeActivation.WmiConnection.Connect() at Microsoft.Licensing.VolumeActivation.UpdateProductsProvider.RefreshMachineGenericInformation() at Microsoft.Licensing.VolumeActivation.UpdateProductsProvider.UpdateProducts() on machine using credential On the Windows 8 pc, I have run the slmgr /dlv, which tells me that the Product key ends: J8CK4, however my KMS key on the server ends: FKQW7. This report also says that I need to run slmgr /ato to activate the machine? (Doesn't this defeat the point of a KMS server if each machine has to be activated individually?) The KMS log on the PC is empty. The application log however, contains the following:- Information event ID 12288 - The client has sent an activation request. (The data for this shows the IP address of the VAMT server, so its trying to talk to the right server.) Information event ID 1003 - The software protection service has completed licensing status check. Error event ID 8198 - License Activation (slui.exe) failed with the following error code: hr=0xC004F074. As our network has its own Firewall, I have turned off the firewall on all internal machines on the domain so there should not be any restrictions on any network services or protocols. The RPC service is running on both the server and the Windows 8 PC. As you can see, this is becoming a little frustrating, especially as the VAMT server is functioning fine with all of the Windows 7 and 2008 machines on the domain. I have looked over the internet for any existing support or documents regarding this, but most point at upgrading to the 6.2.9200 version of VAMT, which I am already running. Any assistance you may be able to offer would be much appreciated. Thanks, Barry.

Hi, I stumbled across your post while I was searching for a solution to the same problem and as I managed to resolve the issue with my PC, I thought it only right to let you know how. I was unable to make the Epson calibration software move to the second display, but after a bit of digging I discovered that the Intel Graphics driver > Advanced settings > Multiple Displays - had the 'Epson PJ' as the primary display and my monitor listed as the secondary. The numbers where the opposite to the Windows setup. I switched these around by selecting the primary as the monitor and the secondary as the projector. Applied the settings and the numbers now matched the Windows settings. Ran the Easy Interactive Driver and Calibration and the calibration screen appeared on the secondary monitor and on the projector. Hope this is of help.

I know that all 4 iMacs are running 10.5.8 and they are all using the same HP printer driver. I haven't checked the cups configuration so that will be my next step. Thanks for the advise and i will let you know how I get on.

No. It just puts the job back 'On Hold'. There are no requests for authentication and it is doing this for all users, including the administrator.

Hi, Hoping you can help me out as this has got me completely stumped. I have 4 iMacs running 10.5.8 and connecting via ethernet to a HP Colour Laserjet 5550. 3 of the iMacs are working fine and printing without any problems. 1 however, has a printing issue. The iMac can see the network and I can connect to the HP via it's web interface. When I install the printer on the iMac as an IPD printer, I enter the IP address and the iMac auto-detects the correct printer driver, which is, (HP Color Laserjet 5550 v3010.107). I select the printer from the Print & Fax Preference Pane and the printer queue appears, then fro the Printer menu, I select Print Test Page. The testpage.ps appears in the queue, but is 'On Hold'. There is no request for authentication. This problem occurs if I try printing from any other program. I have installed the printer as IP -> IPD, IP-> HP JetDirect and More Printers -> HP IP Printing. The same problem occurs with all. I have also tried installing other printers such as a HP DesignJet 130 and I get the same problem with that as well. I have reset the iMacs printing system by holding down the Option key and clicking on the "-" button. This deleted all the installed printers and reset the printing system, I then restarted the iMac and re-installed the printer. The same problem occurred. Has anyone had this issue before and if so, please let me know how you fixed it? Cheers, Barry.