Windows 7 imaging

I've looked into couple of different imaging solution to plan, test and validate our process to migrate under 200 XP SP3 workstations to Windows 7.
I started with Synatec (good old ghost...), WAIK, Terabyte and few others.
Smart Deploy was the best product by far.
We installed SD on a physical box along with Vmware workstation. then created our base image as a virtual machine (remember? take the hardware components out of the equation...) then took a captured that vm into a 8GB USB key and went ahead to deploy the image...
Granted, small tweaks here and there, but overall it was as simple as that...
Good work Prowess...

Prowess SmartDeploy Eases Windows 7 Migration!

Here is a quick video to wrap it up

Who Am I? Ip? DNS? Domain Name?

What is an IP address?

Every device connected to the public Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

to find out what is your IP address, visit http://whatismyipaddress.com/ for example.
Many other sites and services will show you that info.
If you are using FF, there is a great add-on that can displays your current IP address.
check it out here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/show-myip/


Every time you visit a website, you are interacting with the largest distributed database in the world.
This massive database is collectively known as the DNS, or the Domain Name System.
Without it, the Internet as we know it would be unable to function.

A domain name is the information that you enter into a web browser in order to reach a specific website. When you input a URL like www.example.com into a web browser, its domain name is example.com
So, a domain name is the human-friendly version of an IP address = easy to remember!

The DNS's job, then, is to take domain names and translate them into the IP addresses that allow machines to communicate with one another.

Number of Recent Documents listed in MS-Office

How many files can you handle at once?

You decide – and then set up the list of recently used files so that you are informed, but not overwhelmed (IT recommends between 8 to 12 recent documents). Here’s how:

If you are using Excel:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Excel Options.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Under Display, in the Show this Number of Recent Documents list, click the number of files that you want to display.

If you are using PowerPoint:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click PowerPoint Options.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Under Display, in the Show this Number of Recent Documents list, click the number of files that you want to display. If you do not want to display any files, click 0.

If you are using Word:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Under Display, in the Show this Number of Recent Documents list, click the number of files that you want to display.

“Pin up” what you want to keep.

This function allows you to keep a file on the recent documents list where you can see it, even if you can’t get to it just yet. Here’s how it works:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button
2. Click Pin this Document to the Recent Documents list .
   When a document is pinned to the Recent Documents list, the pin button looks like a push pin viewed from the top: .

Are you ready to clear the list of recently used files? If you set the number to zero, the list is empty. You have to turn on the feature and set the number to something other than zero, and then update the list by opening the files again and resetting the pin. Here’s how it works:

If you are using Excel:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Excel Options.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Under Display, in the Show this Number of Recent Documents list, click 0.

If you are using PowerPoint:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click PowerPoint Options.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Under Display, in the Show this Number of Recent Documents list, click 0.

If you are using Word:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Under Display, in the Show this Number of Recent Documents list, click 0.

Internet Explorer slow?

We are using pointing all of our internet traffic thru ATT web filtering solution to protect from malware, viruses, inapropriates sites, bandwidth hoggers and etc.
Using Group policy, we are forcing all IE7 browsers to go out to the intenernet via proxy server (ATT, who bought SCANSAFE). the proxy points traffic to ATT towers where they filter and monitor the traffic. once in place, end users reported slowed internet performace. pages would load after 15 seconds, mostly Facebook, twitter and gmail for whateverf reason.
we deployed FF to some user and pointedthem to the proxy as well - no issue.
here are few things to consider:

Upgrade to a newer IE version - this was the fix in our case - upgrade to IE8. (yes, i know, why use IE to begin with? FFis a great alternative....unfortunately it was not an option for us)

Reset IE settings:tools>Options>Advanced tab> reset button

Disable Add ons

We also tried to increase the number of connections. by default IE7 has 2-4 connections.
IE8 has few more 6-8 while FF has even more....(he...he....why not?.....)
registry fix will helpyou doing so, but inour case that did NOT solve the issue...
but opened the stage for few FF users...
:-)

Configure Network Level Authentication for Remote Desktop Connections

I was trying to RDP from a WIN XP SP3 box to one of our W2K8R2 servers and got an error.
Went ahead and checked the RDP setting on the server and adjusted - see below...All set now..

Network Level Authentication completes user authentication before you establish a remote desktop connection and the logon screen appears. This is a more secure authentication method that can help protect the remote computer from malicious users and malicious software. The advantages of Network Level Authentication are:

• It requires fewer remote computer resources initially. The remote computer uses a limited number of resources before authenticating the user, rather than starting a full remote desktop connection as in previous versions.
  
  
• It can help provide better security by reducing the risk of denial-of-service attacks.
  
  

To use Network Level Authentication, you must meet the following requirements:

• The client computer must be using at least Remote Desktop Connection 6.0.
  
  
• The client computer must be using an operating system, such as Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP with Service Pack 3, that supports the Credential Security Support Provider (CredSSP) protocol.
  
  
• The RD Session Host server must be running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008.

For now, I just lowered the security, but if you'd like to do it right, follow the procedure below:
To configure Network Level Authentication for a connection

1. On the RD Session Host server, open Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration. To open Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, point to Remote Desktop Services, and then click Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration.

2. Under Connections, right-click the name of the connection, and then click Properties.

3. On the General tab, select the Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication check box.

   If the Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication check box is selected and is not enabled, the Require user authentication for remote connections by using Network Level Authentication Group Policy setting has been enabled and has been applied to the RD Session Host server.

4. Click OK.

Disabling COM and LPT from the Virtual Machine BIOS

1. Power on the virtual machine.
2. Immediately click in the virtual machine window to place focus there.
3. Press F2 when you see the VMware logo.
   
4. Arrow right to choose the Advanced tab.
5. Arrow down to I/O Device Configuration and pressEnter.
6. Arrow down or up to highlight a device in the list. Shift-+ to change that device to Disabled.

change the default to have all LPT/COM ports disabled. They take resources and after deploying few servers it gets annoying to disable on a per server basis.

Building a new virtual machine on VSphere 4.0

First, log on to Dell Equallogic SAN, create a new Volume (we separate between the boot volume, 100GB LUN, thin provision, OS sees only 60GB) and a new Data volume (same settings like the boot volume).
Once done, went to our ESX servers from Vsphere client->Configuration tab->chose Storage adaptor and rescan fornew storage devices and new vmfs volumes (so the ESX can 'see' the new LUNs on the SAN).
Once done, go to STORAGE and Add new storage -you should be able to see the new LUNs.
(I then got an error: multihost access is not enabled for this target - missed a check box on the SAN while creating the LUN).









that's it. now you should be able to create a new VM and point it's file to the respective LUN(s).

Hello World !!!

Let's see...I'm hoping this would serve as a repository for future reference, interesting KBs and solutions for my self and anyone else who might find the info here valuable.

Every day I encounter technical problems from about 175 end users: MS-Office documents, VoIP issues, printers, email routing as well as core networking issues (DNS, DHCP, NTP, ping, SSH and etc).
The network at my workplace includes VMware infrastructure (including SRM) Dell equallogic iSCSI SAN, in house Exchange 2010, SQL servers , File and print, AVAYA pbx with IP phones, Win XP SP3 (moving to W7 within few months) OCS (moving to Lync) and many other 'moving parts' for monitoring the enviroment, Disaster Recovery, Remote access....you know...never a dull moment...
:-)
And this is exactly why i love it...always interesting, always different, always a new trick to learn...
I plan to document solutions and fixes here for i can refer back to them as needed.
Thanks for stopping by...
Best,
Ilan.