Posts
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ConfigMgr 2012 SQL Database Collation
Overview I just tried to update my ‘default’ installation of System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM / ConfigMgr) 2012 RC1 to RC2. I got a failure at the pre-req check stage stating that my SQL 2008 R2 database was using the wrong collation type and that installation couldn’t continue. It turns out that the default collation…
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MDT and ConfigMgr Build Drivers for Windows 7
Overview When doing Windows 7 builds in either MDT 2010 or ConfigMgr 2007 you have to download and install a selection of drivers that are to be installed in your images. Some drivers are used for the WinPE boot image so that the boot image can access the local harddisk (a boot critical driver) and…
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Setting a UK Keyboard in ConfigMgr 2007 OSD
Overview In the UK, we actually get the US version of Windows 7 and Office 2010, so whenever I do any build engineering in either MDT or ConfigMgr one of the first things I need to customize are the regional settings. In particular the keyboard layout and location. There are many ways to achieve this…
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ConfigMgr 2007 OSD Folder Structure
Overview When configuring ConfigMgr 2007 Operating System Deployment (OSD) there are an endless number of applications, operating system images, operating system install files, drivers, source files, package files, temp files. Everytime I set it up I end up with a different structure so this blog post presents an example ConfigMgr 2007 OSD folder structure that…
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Get Selected Microsoft TechNet Library Content Offline
Overview No-one can ever know everything they need to know about Microsoft products and techies will freely admit that they spend half their time checking resources such as Microsoft TechNet while working on a problem or design. Sometimes I need to go on to a site where I won’t have internet access. As anyone who…
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App-V Recipe: AutoIt v3
Overview This blog post will show you how to sequence AutoIt using App-V 4.6 SP1 (the latest version at the time of writing). Now, AutoIt is probably the easiest application to sequence in the world and doesn’t really need a blog post describing how to do it. However, I intend to write some more posts…
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Windows 7 Aero Theme Not Enabled After Deployment
Overview An issue I saw a number of times at customers was that the Windows 7 Aero theme was not enabled after deployment. I saw this numerous times in early workshops and pilots for customers and completely forgot about it until I saw the question asked again a few weeks ago. So here is a…
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Windows 7 Self Optimizing Boot Process
Overview You may have heard the about the fact that Windows 7 (and actually, Windows Vista too) has improved boot up times over Windows XP and dismissed it as “that there marketing speak”. Surprisingly, it’s actually true! On top of that, the boot process is also optimized over time to make things even faster. This…
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Windows Performance Toolkit: Simple Boot Logging
Overview Troubleshooting slow boots and logons are a common request. In this post I will show you how to perform boot logging using the Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT) on a Windows 7 machine and perform some basic analysis of it. Preparation First, you need to install the WPT on the machine you wish to examine.…
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Windows Performance Toolkit: Installation
Overview The Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT) is a suite of tools designed for measuring and analysing system and application performance on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. They can be used by enterprises to log and analyse clients in order to detect and optimise performance problems. I intend to use the…