Jason Yoder, MCT

You can restrict the type of USB drives that are allowed on your clients be using group policy. I would like to give a word of caution when implementing this. You should consider having a “Support Device List.” This will allow your organization to formally declare what can and cannot be plugged into your USB drives. Without such a list, a constant flow of requests will come in to add more and more devices. It is best to draw the line early and have a formal review process to make sure that the number of supported devices does not become unmanageable. Settings to control USB Device Access: Policy Location Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ System \ Device Installation \ Device Installation Restriction Policy Name Prevent installation of devices not described by other policy settings Setting Enable Configuration   Description Prevents other USB devices from being installed unless they are specifically allowed in a policy. Procedure to get Pl...

It is possible that on some very advanced systems, the Windows 7 installer may not have the drivers for your hard drive.  Follow this simple set of instructions to load your drivers into Windows 7 during installation.   Boot from the Installation DVD.   Choose your language and click Next .   Click Install Now .   Check I accept the license agreement and click Next .   Click Custom .   Click Load Driver .   Browse to the media that contains your drivers.  Once loaded, you may need to click Refresh to see your hard drive.

While reconfiguring my WDS servers storage, I inadvertently changed a drive letter that contained my RemoteInstall folder.  This prevented the WDS service from starting.  Below is the event log error that I received:   Log Name: Application Source: ESENT Date: 6/23/2011 12:07:13 PM Event ID: 494 Task Category: Logging/Recovery Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: Description: svchost (1116) DDP: Database recovery failed with error -1216 because it encountered references to a database, I:\RemoteInstall\Stores\Drivers\Metadata\DdpDb.mdb', which is no longer present. The database was not brought to a Clean Shutdown state before it was removed (or possibly moved or renamed). The database engine will not permit recovery to complete for this instance until the missing database is re-instated. If the database is truly no longer available and no longer required, procedures for recovering from this error are available in the Microsoft Knowledge ...

In my 6294 class from Portland, ME, we had a individual concerned about Windows 8 and their investment in the 32 bit architecture.  I still advise organizations to purchase the 64 bit platforms.  The 32 bit architecture is next on the technology chopping block.    At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Microsoft demonstrated their work on Windows 8. They also announced support for Intel, AMD, and ARM chips. This included the x86 architecture. That means 32 bit will be around for another edition of windows. Below are two articles from Microsoft that talks about the platforms that Windows 8 will run on.   http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-05socsupport.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/jan11/01-05sinofskysoc.mspx

In Lab 12 of 6294: Planning and Managing Windows 7 Desktop Deployments and Environments, we had a question about the parameters for Wuauclt .  In our books, the short versions of the parameters were used. Despite the documentation at Microsoft on the wuauclt command , the help file does not display.  Here are the parameters that I have been able to find information on. /a   or /ResetAuthorization Initiates an asynchronous background search for applicable updates. If Automatic Updates is disabled, this option has no effect. /r   or /ReportNow Sends all queued reporting events to the server asynchronously. /detectnow Allows a client to start the detection process immediately. Below is the list of switches that I have not been able to get definitive answers on. /RunHandlerComServer /RunStoreAsComServer /ShowSettingsDialog /ResetEulas /ShowWU /ShowWindowsUpdate /SelfUpdateManaged /SelfUpdateUnmanaged /UpdateNow /ShowWUAutoS...

In the config.xml file, you can create merge rules for your data.  Below is an example of the xml code for a merge rule.  You can read the complete article from Microsoft here . <merge script>="MigXmlHelper.DestinationPriority()"> <objectSet> <pattern type="file">c:\data\* [*]<pattern> </objectSet> </merge> During ScanState, all the files will be added to the store. During LoadState, only C:\Data\SampleA.txt will be restored.     <merge script>="MigXmlHelper.SourcePriority()"> <objectSet> <pattern type="file">c:\data\* [*]<pattern> </objectSet> </merge> During ScanState, all the files will be added to the store. During LoadState, all the files will be restored (overwriting the existing files on the destination computer).     <merge script>="MigXmlHelper.SourcePriority()"> <objectSet> <pattern type="file">c:\da...

eThe USMT software will look through your fixed drives for the following file types: .accdb .ch3 .csv .dif .dot* .dqy .iqy .mcw .mdb* .mpp .one* .oqy .or6 .pot* .ppa .pps* .ppt* .pre .pst .pub .qdf .qel .qph .qsd .rqy .rtf .scd .sh3 .slk .txt .vl* .vsd .wk* .wpd .wq1 .wri .xl* .xla .xlb .xls* These files will be transferred to your new computer unless otherwise specified.

One of the issues that you may have when performing your application compatibility testing for your legacy applications to be moved to Windows 7 is the OS version.  Applications may query the OS version to determine how, or if to install.  Below is a chart provided by Microsoft on the different OS versions. Operating System Version Number Windows 7 6.1 Windows Server 2008 R2 6.1 Windows Server 2008 6.0 Windows Vista 6.0 Windows Server 2003 R2 5.2 Windows Server 2003 5.2 Windows XP 64-Bit Edition 5.2 Windows XP 5.1 Windows 2000 5.0 This may not be all that the application looks at.  Take a look at this data returned from the following PowerShell query. Get-WMIObject Win32_OperatingSystem | Format-List * The above PowerShell command will gather all the Opera...

Below is a PowerShell function that will allow you to use a text file to manage the Internet Explorer Security Zones in a Group Policy. To use this function: Copy the function and place it into the Windows PowerShell ISE. Save the file. Open your PowerShell Shell environment. Your execution policy will need to be either Unrestricted or Remotesigned . Type Get-Execution Policy and press Enter to see your current policy. Type Set-ExecutionPolicy <PolicyLevel> to set the policy if needed.  Replace <PolicyLevel> with either Unrestricted or RemoteSigned . We now need to load the function into memory.  Let’s say you used the file name IEZone.ps1 . We need to Dot Source this script into the shell.  When you execute a PowerShell script, once it is completed, all the functions and variables are removed from memory.  In this case, we want to use dot sourcing to this function to keep it memory.  This is how to do it. In the PowerShell shell en...

Using Group Policy to populate the favorites in Internet Explorer allows you to make sure your users have quick access to mission critical websites.  To do this, create or use an existing GPO that is properly scoped to the users you want to publish the links to. In Group Policy Manager right click the GPO and click Edit . Expand User Configuration / Policies \ Windows Settings / Internet Explorer Maintenance / URLs Double click Favorites and Links Click Add URL Provide a name and a URL.  You can even provide the location for a custom icon for the site. Click OK . Once you are finished, click OK in the Favorites and Links window. Close the Group Policy Management Editor to save the policy. Refresh the Group Polices on a client and test. Should the user delete this link, it will re-appear at the next Group Policy refresh.

Here is a good, real world question.  While examining the Group Policies settings for Internet Explorer in class.  The question came about as to whether or not the list can be modified in Group Policy by using PowerShell.  Well, yes you can. The first thing is to determine what registry key we need to modify.  For the Compatibility list, the key is: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\BrowserEmulation\PolicyList” To utilize PowerShell for this task, we first need to add the Group Policy Module. Import-Module GroupPolicy Next, to add the website names www.abc.com to the GPO named IE Settings , type: Set-GPRegistryValue –Name “IE Settings” –Key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\BrowserEmulation\PolicyList” –ValueName “www.abc.com” –Type String –Value “www.abc.com” Opening the GPO in the Group Policy Management Editor and manually entering the web site would be faster for a single site.  But ...

One of the strong management points of Windows 7 deployment is the ability to manage you images without having to apply the image, make the changes, and then recapture the image.  DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) allows you to mount a Windows image and make configuration changes to it.  All this while not having to take the time to first deploy the image. To begin working with an image, we need to mount it.  First, make a new folder to hold the mounted image.  For this demo, I made one called ImageMount .  Both the folder and the image file are on my D: drive. Next, open a command prompt with elevated permissions. The .wim file I’m using for this demo is the install.wim file from the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation media. Browse to the location where you stored the image file and the folder to mount it in. Type DISM /mount-wim /wimfile:d:\install.wim /index:1 /Mountdir:d:\ImageMount Depending on the size of the WIM file, this may...

ImageX allows us to work with images.  We can use ImageX to capture and apply them.  We can also mount the images for servicing. The /check switch will check the integrity of the .wim file when the command is executed. The /check switch is available to be used with the following ImageX operations: /append /apply /capture /delete /export /info /mountrw /split

The Capture image in Windows Deployment Service allows you to capture an image without having to create a WindowsPE boot disk.  This process will automatically transfer the captured image to the image storage location that you created when you set up WDS. First you need to have the WDS server setup correctly. Once you have installed your images from an installation DVD, click Boot Images . Right click the boot image and click Create Capture Image . Enter the Image name and a description for it. Click Browse . You now need to go to the Sources folder on your installation media and find the file called boot.wim . Click Next Once the image loads, check Add image to the Windows Deployment Server now and click Next . Click Next three times. Click Finish Next you need to boot your client to LAN.  You may have to reconfigure your BIOS settings or press a function key to get to your boot menu. Take note that depending on your configuration, you may have a...