Install Solutions.net Community

Deploying XP SP3 with the Remote Software Installation Utility guide...

Yarbi — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:43:00 GMT

I know many of you are going to have problems with this so I thought I would do a quick write up and provide some helpful tools to make this task easier. Deploying Service Pack 3 is not like most deployments since it affects the operating system so much. In fact, at some point it disconnects WMI (which is the connection method for RSI) and can cause the application to hang. The solution is pretty simple though. Deploy SP3 but don't wait for the installation to complete. I have created a small Windows XP SP3 Launcher Wise Script that kicks off the SP3 install (you have to download that yourself) silently and forces a reboot at the end of the install. To change this you can dowload the script yourself and edit in Wise. For you first time Wiser's it's a good way to get started with a great tool.

Here are the steps for creating a SP3 Installation package using the Quick Install Maker (A free tool we offer):

Download the Quick Install Maker http://www.installsolutions.net/FreewareOverview.aspx
Download the XP SP3 Network Installation http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5b33b5a8-5e76-401f-be08-1e1555d4f3d4&displaylang=en
Download the Windows XP SP3 Launcher http://www.InstallSolutions.net/Community/files/folders/wisescripts/entry38.aspx
Put the XP SP3 install and the SP3Launcher.exe in a folder together like this:
Install and Launch the Quick Install Maker application and make your settings look like this:
Deploy the resulting installation exe (SP3Installation.exe in this example) using the Remote Software Installation Utility and an admin account

Here is what happens behind the scenes. The SP3Installation.exe you created is actually a self-extracting zip file. Once it unzips the files, which will take a while, it will kick off SP3Launcher.exe which kicks off the main SP3 Install. As soon as it does the SP3Launcher.exe will exit and return a successful value while leaving the SP3 install to run and reboot eventually.

The SP3 Install takes quite a while, over an hour in some instances. So be patient. Please let me know if you have any questions.

- Good luck!

What to do when Virtual PC 2007 Console is hidden or disappears...

Yarbi — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:06:00 GMT

Well it has been a while since I have written anything out here. I found this information to be very helpful so I thought I would share it. About a week ago I noticed that I could not see my Virtual PC Console, you know the main interface that shows the thubnails of the various virtual PCs you have running or saved. After doing a little Google search I found the problem. Virtual PC saves it's last window position in a file called Options.XML. For some reason it thought it should be at position 4996495494466 or something strange like that. What do you do? Simply open the options.xml file and edit it:

Make sure Virtual PC is not running!
Go to C:\Documents and Settings\<Your ID>\Application Data\Microsoft\Virtual PC (This folder is hidden. Also, the path is C:\Users in Vista)
Open the options.xml file in notepad or your favorite XML editor
Change the following lines:

Just save the Document and your are good!

Windows Home Server...

Yarbi — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:02:00 GMT

I was at Microsoft a few days back and a buddy of mine that works there mentioned something about a new product called Home Server. He was eager to get one but they didn't have them available yet. In short Home Server is a long awaited solution for managing the growing amounts of content for families in the digital age. I for one have 3 computers in my home and only 1 is regularly backed up. I hear the horror stories of tech friends that don't have any kind of backup. Pictures, videos, documents...essentially years of data gone when their hard drive fails. Although there are several backup softwares out there not many of them are very user friendly. Also, unless you have a PC dedicated as a file server that is backed up or has a raid array with tons of storage, you can't easily back up all of data from multiple machines. Home Server addresses these issues, but does it do it well and for a fair price?

At around $750 you get an HP MediaSmart Home Server with 1 TB (that's Terra Bytes or 1,000 GB) with a 1.8Ghz AMD processor and 512 MB of memory. For about $150 less you can get the same setup with only 500 GB. Let's talk about what you get for that price.

One selling point of Home Server is that it not only acts as a backup solution but also a central point for all of your media. This is something that Media Center tried to do by allowing multiple computers to talk to a Media Center PC. In Home Server you can setup your own web site and share folders that contain your digital library. My original skepticism was that if there is no backup for Home Server then what happens when one of the disk should fail? All of your centralized media would be lost. Never fear, Microsoft has developed a new technology called Drive Extender. It allows you to specify backup locations on additional hard drives (whether local or connected through USB\Firewire) to keep copies of the content in your shared folders. Essentially this should protect you against a single hard disk failure. Nice!

Another nice feature is the ability to create a private web site that allows you to share content from other PCs in your home to other people on the web. You can create up to 10 accounts with Home Server. Part of the setup process for Home Server allows you to register a sub domain name of homeserver.com for free! So you can have http://<myFamilyName>.HomeServer.com as your domain name which allows you to access your shared information and remote control other PCs in your home from virtually anywhere there is a web connection.

Keep in mind that some of the features that Home Server touts will require some pretty good technical knowledge. Firewall and Router ports may need to be forwarded and\or opened. Microsoft provides all of that information for you but knowing how to do it and understanding the purpose behind it will be something most people lack. Once again keeping it from the reach of main stream users. Techs that have this savvy may already be doing some of these things, just not in a pretty fashion. To be honest, if the price was about $200-300 less a lot more people would jump on it. If Home Server features also included administering your other PC accounts, like what computer someone was allowed to log onto and what times of day or limit total time on PC (I am thinking about parents monitoring if you can't already tell) then that would certainly add some more value. As other competitors jump on the scene we should see the hardward prices coming down a good deal. Overall Home Server really seems like a fine product. As more features are added it can certainly become the center piece of the modern home technical infrastructure.

Mike Huckabee for President...

Yarbi — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:15:00 GMT

This year I decided that I wasn't going to settle for the candidate I am given by the status quo and would support a candidate I truly believed in. Mike Huckabee is that candidate. In the last few months I have heard a repetative statement that has become a pet peve of mine "I really like Huckabee but he just can't win...". This is usually do to the fact that he hasn't been as well known as some of the other candidates. I said this myself at first and then realized that attitude means that I vote not based on what I believe but what I think other people believe. It is a vote in fear instead of faith. I won't do that this time around and I won't wait until the presidential candidate has been choosen for me and then complain because I am once again voting for the best of the worst.

One of the ways we can support this candidate is through spreading the word of his name and his message. We can also help out financially. I have already given some but now pledge to do more each month. The counter is below to see how we progress as a team when others give by clicking on the widget below or use my donor code. Let us be the generation that our children and grandchildren look up to because of how we fought for our values.

Go Huckabee!

Contribute Here:

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contribute.Home&r=387

Want to know who Mike Huckabee is and what he supports. Check out his web site http://www.MikeHuckabee.com. Want to do more? Join Hucks Army http://www.HucksArmy.com.

Virtual PC 2007

Yarbi — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:23:00 GMT

Microsoft has release Virtual PC 2007 for free. Well technically it's free if you are using it for personal stuff, for corporations it's a different issue. So far I haven't seen many differences from VPC 2004. However, for anyone that does software deployment, application testing, or QA this is a must have product.

Getting your image setup may take some time. For some reason loading Windows initially takes forever. After that you will see pretty good performance doing most task. Unlike Virtual Server, VPC 2007 doesn't allow you to make templates and restore to new VPC's at the click of a button. Most of us would like to take a snapshot of the state of the VPC and save it off somewhere in case we need to revert back to that point as we often do. However you can simply enable Undo Disk in your virtual session and handle it that way. With undo disk enabled you have the option of "Merging the changed data to disk". What that means is that once you get your image to the point you like it, before you begin and destructive testing, close your VPC session and check the box for "Commit changes to hard disk". This will take a while but what it is essentially doing is saving the data and creating a restore point. You can revert back to this point at any time. You can also copy your VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) to another location and restore it later if need be which is a sure proof way to ensure you don't loose anything.

BioShock thoughts...

Yarbi — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:12:00 GMT

This is a game I have been waiting for some time. When I first saw the initial screen shots and images from the game I was stoked. It just looks like a game that has had a lot of care and detail built into it which it certainly does. I love the 50's futuristic era theme in games. I first saw this in Stubbs the Zombie which I thought was super fun to play. That same idea is carried out in Bioshock in a much much darker manner. This time the new futuristic 1950's style city is underwater. The idea was to have a "perfect" city. Perfect through gene manipulation which of course turns bad. Now the mutated creatures run the town and are hacking away at anyone who comes to close.

For a details description of the plot go here. First off the game is stunning. The graphics are very good. You will almost get your highend video card money's worth here. The one thing I noticed is that you can't save by simply using F5 on the keyboard. You have to use the options menu. No biggie, but I save often. The other thing I noticed is how hard the game is. I am playing on medium difficulty and getting it handed to me every turn. One of the tough things about this is that you never know where a Splicer is going to jump from. The weapons run low on ammo really quickly and so does your Eve (powers your genetically altered abilities). Also, the controls for selecting weapons are a lot different from most straight shooters. The reason is that you have one hand for your guns, crowbars etc, and the other for shooting your Plasmid powers. This causes some confusion from the usual scroll up\down for weapons selection.

That being said the atmosphere is pretty intense and you are in the action immediately. The game is fun and cartoonishly gorey. I prefer that over trying to make the gore so realistic that it just turns your stomach. I will probably keep playing the game but in god mode so that I can actually make it through it in this lifetime. I am looking forward to the next Call of Duty and Medal of Honor as well.

Warm welcome to software resellers...

Yarbi — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:04:00 GMT

I recently setup a reseller portion of the site. This is something that should have been done a long time ago, but truth be told I wasn't quite sure what it would look like. CompuCom contacted Install Solutions and asked about reselling and if we were interested. Oh yeah, interested for sure...but ready? Not quite. They actually had a customer ready to place and order which was great, so we took care of them first and the automated portion of the site came about 3 days later.

Thanks to CompuCom and their patience and direction on what they and other resellers might be looking for. Anyhow, resellers can now order software directly from our site with a Net 30 agreement and a substantial discount. If you are interested in reselling Install Solutions products please contact sales@installsolutions.net and we will get you setup.

Quicktime + Vista + Intel RAID = Blue Screen?

Yarbi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:33:00 GMT

Sounds like an odd equation right? But it is the real deal. I have had Vista up for a few months now and apparently hadn't tried to play any Quicktime movies. When I finally did the video kept locking up, actually the whole screen was locking up. Now at the same time I was encoding an MOV file into Flash so I was cursing Flash 8 Encoder. A few seconds later BAAMM! Blue screen of death! Now this is Vista...all of that stuff is supposed to be fixed I said to myself. No problem right? Just reboot and uninstall Flash or Quicktime and I am on my way. Oh no...not so fast. I get a nice little RAID "Failed" message when I reboot and a pretty little NTLDR is missing, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot! Ugh! So after about an hour of searching on the net and looking in the BIOS for some kind of reset I gave up. Started thinking about a rebuild. So what did I do to fix it?

Here are the steps: (BTW - This is on a Dell Dimension 8400 but the steps should be about the same for any PC with an Intel RAID Controller)

Reboot
When the screen comes up verifying your RAID array it should said Status = Failed & Bootable = No
Right then press CTRL+i to go into the RAID Configuration screen.
A message that says something to this effect will pop up: "A Recoverable error has been detected. Member disk have been found that may belong to this RAID. If the member disk belong press "Y"..."
Press "Y" or which ever is the positive button to push.
Reboot again
Windows will run CheckDisk, Reboot a few more times for good measure and you should be set.
Uninstall Quicktime

Well that's about it. I couldn't find this info anywhere on the internet so I decided to write it up. I have also tried the Quicktime Alternative, which I generally recommend, but had nearly the same issue. PC started to freeze so I did a hard reset before it could blue screen. I read others have tried it with success so give it a shot. I don't know who's responsible for the fix but I will keep my eyes peeled.

Using WiseScript and VBScript together...

Yarbi — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:49:00 GMT

You really do learn something new everyday. I have been using Wise script for a number of years and have managed to do some neat things the product was probably never intended for. I did not know that it could so easily interface with VBScript. In case this is new to you as well I have created a sample Wise Script and VBScript. In this example Wise passes VBscript a date that VBScript passes back to Wise in a pretty formatted style. You can use this to read in WMI variables and other things as well that your install package may need.

- P.S. In one scenario where I was doing process counting using this method, I called the vbscript in a loop within Wise. The WiseScript completed but threw some kind of error which caused my debugger to pop-up. That's no good. May be a bug...or it may have just been me.

Here is the sample: http://installsolutions.net/Community/files/folders/wisescripts/entry19.aspx

VSLive 2007, WPF and Silverlight...

Yarbi — Fri, 11 May 2007 03:43:00 GMT

I just got back from VSLive Orlando 2007 and have some new insight into Silverlight and the path Microsoft wants to go in the development area. First of all let me say VSLive this year had several things to be commended on and a few short falls as well. At the top was the location and star like treatment we received. The conference was held at the Royal Pacific Resort at Univeral Studios. What a great place! Also, when I read they (meaning the VSLive folks) would provide lunch I had no idea it would be so well done. In short, we were seated and served an incredible meal each day of the conference. One of the highlights of this was that more discussions took place bewtween the other attendees than previously. However this is where the low points came up as well. Unlike last year and other events I have been to, several of the ooh and aahh moments never happened. The problem here was that the technology that was being shown was so far from where most of us developers are right now. Many of us were still working through ASP.Net\AJAX integration, which was last years big ta-da, and now we are walking into a room with some guys acting like it was just a fad or is really out dated now. Normally I would have just thought it was me but I got the same feeling from most everyone I talked to. Not until the last day did we hear a real person view about what developers are going through. Billy Hollis did an incredible job rallying the troops and saying what we were all thinking which was this, when is all of this going to get easier? At what point can we just work on the creative process and not get tied up on the next new thing which seems to come around every year now. Way to go Billy! He also taught some excellent classes on moving to the next generation of development, where UI and simplicity will be the main focus for developers that want to succeed in their field. The focus here being WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight.

Silverlight is actually based greatly on WPF but doesn't support 3-D modeling like the full WPF does. It also has some security restrictions, like Flash, that prevent it from harming the local computer since it is supposed to be hosted in a browser. However, Silverlight does look like a promising replacement for ASP.NET. Yes I said replacement. Now I don't see anyone jumping to move their existing sites over to Silverlight, but for new projects I would certainly recommend looking into it.

WPF has a lot of power for creative UI interaction. I often think of the cool programs that you see hackers or CIA agents on TV using. They have all of these semi-transparent dialog boxes floating all over the screen showing satelite footage, voice analysis, and 3-D blue prints all on one screen with no lag. Well that is where WPF takes us, and very soon if not already, users will come to expect it. So what are we waiting for?

A good 3-D designer that integrates easily with WPF applications. Expression Blend doesn't support 3-D so you have to break out your geometry books and start editing XAML to make it happen.
More controls for WPF. Infragistics has realeased a set of controls that do some cool stuff, I look forward to seeing the types of things they come out with.
Graphics and Video editors\creators working together with programmers. Right now the real creative crowd is using Flash, Photoshop, and Video editors to emulate those cool CIA screens in a fake environment. Getting them to come over to the world of development may take some time.
Better video cards for typical systems. The integrated 128MB Intel probably won't cut it for medium to high-end WPF apps.

WPF certainly has potential though, just look at Vista. Many of the features you see with the windows use WPF in the shell. I am actually pretty excited about Silverlight and WPF. They both seem pretty raw to me right now but knowing Microsoft they probably already have something in the works to address the drawbacks.

Microsoft Silverlight

Yarbi — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:52:00 GMT

I remember the day when someone mentioned Microsoft you thought of Windows and Office and that was it. I am amazed at how many areas of technology they are in now. So many products are getting released sometimes I feel stupid because I never heard about it. Since my job often involves many different areas of technology I try to stay up on everything, but it's becoming more and more difficult. Not that I'm complaining though. I think it's great and it is a good way to find out what products work for the community vs forcing a community into using a certain technology simply because MS says so.

So I am checking out Microsoft's Expression Studio web site and lo and behold I see a slick looking logo for Microsoft Silverlight. The name alone is so "Un-Microsoft" I was immediately interested. In short Silverlight is like Flash (vector based graphics, media, and text) but with the ability to interface with all of the stuff .Net developers are used to such as C# (and I am assuming VB .Net too?), web services, as well as familiar Visual Studio and Expression Studio design support. Now here comes the pitch, Silverlight is supposed to ensure a seamless web experience for any type of browser and it is supposed to make interactive web design easier and more efficient. That's a pretty tall order considering Frontpage, Visual Studio 2005, Windows Presentation Foundation, and Expression Web are supposed to do that as well. In my experience they have all helped the development of web content but not necessarily the design. My perspective may be a little skewed though since UI design is not my strong point. However, I think that is the audience Microsoft really needs to help out; creative oafs like me. I know when I see something I like but it's the original concept that I get stuck on. Essentially, and I know this isn't very probable, I need an application that inspires an artistic progression in my mind and then makes doing all of those cool things easy. Maybe Silverlight will be the ticket?

Since Silverlight is still in beta I guess I'm not too far behind the curve on this one. If you haven't seen it check it out, it deserves a look. I was impressed with the quality and clarity of the Fox movie trailers and how fast it loaded. You may initially think, "Doesn't Flash already do all of these things?", and the answer is kind of. But Macromedia, now Adobe, never did them in a way that Microsoft followers felt comfortable with. If MS can make it easier for developers and creative teams to work together then they will have bridged a great divide.

Application Virtualization, what's the big deal?

Yarbi — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 03:04:00 GMT

I have to admit the idea behind virtualizing software is really cool. So cool I can't really grasp exactly how it works. I mean you have applications that run in their own memory pool and access the necessary resources that are also bundled within the pool without messing with the other system memory but still allowing the user to have input? The way they "stream" down to the desktop only the pieces of the software that is necessary at the time? It's like figuring out time travel. And all of the buzz around "virtualizing" everything, as if our entire work environment wasn't completely virtual anyhow right! Now we need to be virtually virtual, completely not real at all. So I am still stuck with the question of why? What great purpose does it serve so that companies would want to invest another $25-$50 per node or user along with infrastructure and training cost?

There are 2 main players in the Software Virtualization market right now. Altiris with Wise Software Virtualization Service, and Microsoft with their aquired SoftGrid from Softricity. On just a strange note I think it is weird that MS kept the Softricity name with SoftGrid. Instead of just calling it MS SoftGrid it looks like MS Softricity SoftGrid, maybe I am missing something. Anyhow, every virtualization solution seems to tout the same benefits:

Software Virtualization Benefits:

No application or OS conflict - Virtual Apps run in their own memory bubble. Essentially this means that everything necessary for the application to run should be contained in the virtual package that you create. If you have an app that uses Java 1.3 and another that uses Java 1.5 the application package should have the necessary Java Components inside it so that regardless of the version of Java on the desktop it will work.
Software is available On-Demand - When the software is needed clicking on the icon will "Inflate" (Altiris SVS) or "Stream" (SoftGrid) to the users PC. When no longer need the resource is stored in cache until needed again.
Reduced testing time - Once the package is finished it should work on any OS that the clients support. Regardless of spam or improperly installed components on the target systems, the software should work flawlessly. This also greatly reduces the number of support calls after rollout since the application won't be affected by spam, or improperly installed pre-requisite components.

So it all sounds good right? And certainly the Virtualization services seem to work as advertised so what could be problem? Well there are a few caveats as well they all seem to share:

Software Virtualization Limitations:

No core OS configuration support - This means that software or services that reside and interact with the actual desktop OS or physical hardware can not be deployed virtually. This means no patches for the OS or Anti-virus as well as no plug-in or configuration support for Internet Explorer. Any off the wall items that need to be updated in the registry or file system will need to be "deployed" instead of virtualized.
All applications must be sequenced or packaged - Gone would be the days of simply deploying a well written manufacturers MSI or EXE installation package, which are becoming more common. For virtualization to work you have to repackage every application you want to use, and even worse you have to use them just as you would in a real world scenario. This is necessary so that the virtual version can emmulate the calls made by the app in a memory pool. It also allows the sequencing software to see what other dll's and registry keys etc are being used so they can be included with the final package.

The question then is if you still have to deploy patches, AntiVirus definitions and updates, drivers, and other updates via different means are we really saving that much time? Also, if every application has to be re-packaged how much time does that add to the typical deployment scenario? How many conflicting applications does the typical corporation have? Wouldn't it be better to update the app or go back to the developers with grievances versus investing in an expensive work around? How do apps that access specific information on the desktops work? Like for product activation or getting the current timezone, registry value or environment setting etc?

I have a feeling that we won't know until down the road a bit. I know this, when I first saw a virtual PC I thought of a hundred uses for it, but for virtual software I simply don't see it.

For those embarking on this journey here are a few links:

Altiris SVS

Microsoft SoftGrid

SoftGridGuru.com - A lot of useful info here for those using the MS virtualization solution.

I like Vista

Yarbi — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 12:30:00 GMT

OK, normally I try to hold off on my enthusiasm for a product until I have test driven it for a while. Even then when I see so many other people saying they like something I hold back even more just to be sure I really do and am not being sucked in by mass-hypnosis. But I have to say without a doubt I really like Vista. Good job Microsoft!

I played around with the beta in its early release form but it was fairly unstable on my test machine. Since then I haven't really used it. I finally loaded it up on my dated laptop and thought, yeah this is kind of neat. But that was the "Business" version. Once I got Ultimate installed on my main system it was a world of difference. Mainly because my main system has a high end graphics card, memory, and processor and all of the bells and whistles could be displayed.

Apart from the new look & feel one of the features I really like is the integration into Windows Update for products other that Microsoft ones. For example, my Infrared Receiver for my Firefly remote was not working and before I had even tested it out I got a notification that Windows had discovered some problems with my system and some potential solutions. Sure enough it directed me to a site to download the new drivers. While installing Visual Studio 2005 the same messages happened. Some might be weary of this since it means that when you install something, be it hardward or software, Windows takes a trip to a MS database to make sure all is well. This could mean that Microsoft records everything as well...although they are most certainly not doing that. No worries though, if you want to disable this, like you most certainly will for managed systems you can follow this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931709.

I'm sure I will have other things to add about Vista as time goes on. My main focus will be on using Vista in a managed environment and heading off potential issues before most of us start using it in our businesses.

Welcome to the Install Solutions community!

Yarbi — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 17:50:00 GMT

Hello,

My name is Michael Yarbrough and I am the author of the Install Solutions tools. Like many of you visiting this new community I work in the IT field in the area of software installation packaging and deployment as well as various other areas of systems management including Active Directory, Microsoft SMS and custom websites and utilities that help bring it all together. I have been at this for about 8 years now and want to use this community as another way to help others that face these same challenges I do. Although I feel that I have a good bit of knowledge to share I am humbly aware that there is still so much left to learn and with this endeavor I look forward to seeing what others have to share as well.

About the Install Solutions tools: The suite of tools that I sell on the main site were created for the purpose of making life easier on me and my co-workers in the daily task of managing 50,000+ systems. They are primarily used as secondary management tools used for hitting smaller numbers of systems (one to a few thousand) that our primary methods did not or could not get. They have proved invaluable for me and many customers have said the same thing. I am eager to hear your feedback as well.

Not about the Install Solutions tools: My goal for this community is one that I can not alone achieve. It is to provide another place for questions to be answered, newbies to be mentored, and ideas to be shared. To do this I am counting on the good will of others to pitch in and grow this thing. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and ideas on this blog and I certainly look forward to hearing from you.

- Yarbi