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Allen Marsh

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Everything posted by Allen Marsh

  1. Can't seem to find anything about a Latitude 7525. But, based on what you are describing sounds like it could be the network driver. What we would really need to do is create a platform pack for this model. And if you were to end up purchasing them, if you could ship us one with the dock then we could ensure it worked perfectly. Aside from that, you could try creating boot media from an existing pack that has the Dell Thunderbolt Dock Realtek USB Ethernet driver in it. The Precision 5510 pack would work for this. Download that pack, run through Media Wizard, and select just this 5510 pack to create boot media. That will get the correct Realtek driver in there. If that doesn't fix it, then it could be more complicated like needing Thunderbolt or other drivers. Email us back at support @ SmartDeploy.com. Thanks!
  2. Believe we have a fix for this error in the next release. If you want to email us directly at support@smartdeploy.com, we can send you some instructions to run that new piece of code before the next release comes out. Thanks!
  3. If you have any snapshots on the VM, then you might not be capturing the content you are seeing when the VM is running. If there are snapshots, then you can try to capture that VM by booting the VM to the SmartDeploy.iso and capturing it that way. This will capture the content of snapshots, where as capturing with it powered off will not.
  4. We recommend not installing the VMware Tools in your reference machine, because the uninstall process does not clean up everything. Drivers and services are left behind even after uninstall, and you'll then be deploying those things to all your endpoints. To verify if the VMware Tools are installed, we check the following registry locations. HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{FE2F6A2C-196E-4210-9C04-2B1BC21F07EF} HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\VMTools HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\VMwareTools So, check your VM and if any of those exist, delete them. Capture Wizard will then work. Please feel free to email us directly at support@smartdeploy.com if you have any further issues. Thanks!
  5. In order to successfully deploy the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with SmartDeploy, you'll need to use SmartDeploy version 1.1.5010 or later. Additionally, this UEFI Class 3 device automatically adds a BCD firmware entry for any present bootable USB media on each boot. This means that even with the UEFI "Alternate System Boot Order" set to "SSD Only", the machine will still boot to a bootable USB device on each boot. Therefore when deploying the machine via offline USB media, the machine would reboot back to SmartDeploy once the image had been applied and the machine rebooted for the first time. Not only is this not desired, but it causes an issue with the deployment if you then remove the USB stick, reboot the system, and let the deployment continue. To this end SmartDeploy 1.1.5010 adds an additional Deploy Wizard advanced feature to shutdown the machine when the Deploy Wizard ends. By selecting this, it will provide a chance to remove any bootable media, and then power on the machine. The deployment will then continue and complete successfully. If you use PXE boot either from the USB dongle adapter or the dock, and there is no USB boot media present, then you can let the machine reboot as normal. If you have any issues, please contact us at SmartDeploy Support.
  6. The current version of SmartDeploy, 1.1.3010 doesn't support UEFI. You can change the machines into Legacy mode in the BIOS to load them. The next version of SmartDeploy, 1.1.4000, will support UEFI and should be out very soon. When you purchase a machine with Windows preloaded on it, that is an OEM license. You can’t use OEM licenses for reimaging, so what you are supposed to do is purchase a single VL license. You then just need Microsoft to grant you activations on that VL key equal to the total number of OEM machines purchased. Which is outlined in the Microsoft reimaging guide. See FAQ #7. It's also discussed in this Microsoft blog. We have a couple resellers that understand this arrangement, that we can put you in contact with. Or, you can ask your preferred reseller about it. Just email us at support@smartdeploy.com if you need more information.
  7. You should be able to use the Deploy Wizard to generate an answer file that has multiple tasks. If you do so, it would look like... <tasks> <task> <phase>FIRSTLOGON</phase> <command>C:\Systemupdate506-01-15-2015.exe</command> </task> <task> <phase>FIRSTLOGON</phase> <command>msiexec.exe /i C:\logmein.msi</command> </task> </tasks> Need to preface the msi with the executible. Both of these would also need silent command line switches if you didn't want them to run interactively. In most Lenovo platform packs we do now try to include the ThinkVantage System Update utility. So, we can add that to a Lenovo pack if it is missing.
  8. Please submit all platform pack requests here. http://www.smartdeploy.com/download/platformpacks/platform-pack-request Thanks, SmartDeploy Support
  9. Try the following: Open an administrative command prompt Diskpart List Disk (determine which disk is your USB stick, probably disk 1 if you only have 1 physical hard drive) Select Disk 1 (use the correct disk number here) Detail Disk (ensure you have your USB drive selected) Clean (this destroys all data) Create partition primary Active Format quick fs=ntfs Assign letter e: (any available driver letter is fine) Exit Re-run the Media Wizard to create the bootable USB drive.
  10. We've seen issues with these new ThinkCentre's if the USB drivers are in PE. So, can you build boot media from just the single M73 pack from our website? Can't be combined with any other pack. This pack does not have USB drivers in the Windows PE node, and that has fixed the same issue on the M93. Thanks, SmartDeploy Support
  11. Seems like you can force detection with "wuauclt.exe /detectnow" but you'll probably need to have group policy configured to automatically install the updates you want in order for it to actually start installing any updates on its own.
  12. We've seen this before with certain VPN software installed in the virtual reference machine. But, using HP OEM install media could also be causing the problem.
  13. This is from UAC. Right-click on the Media Wizard and select Run as Administrator.
  14. Microsoft is doing some pretty cool things within Windows 8 to allow you to Refresh and reset your PC to a known good starting point. This should be a much cleaner WinRE implementation than the PC Manufacture's implementations with Windows 7. It also appears to have given us USMT Hard-Link Migration for the masses. In this related article, talking about improvements in Windows Setup, and more specifically about the new web based purchase/download/upgrade process... they mention the following: “After this optimized package is created we compress it using an improved compression algorithm specifically for Windows 8 setup, which provides an additional 28% savings. In this example (using the Windows 7 x86 ISO) the size of the download would be reduced from 2.32GB to 1.51GB.” Considering that the install.wim is nearly 90% of the ISO size, this seems incredible. There has to be some new .wim trickery, since modern compression algorithms run against .wim only produce low single digit percentages. Interesting! -Allen
  15. Hello, If you are asking about how to capture multiple images into a single .wim using SmartDeploy Enterprise, then in the Capture Wizard on the Save Image screen you simply browse to an existing .wim and the Capture Wizard will ask you if want to add this image to the existing file or not. In other words, if you had 2 virtual machines, one with Windows XP and the other with Windows 7, you would walk through the Capture Wizard twice. The first time selecting the Windows XP virtual disk and having the Capture Wizard create your image.wim. The second time you'd browse to your Windows 7 virtual disk and tell the Capture Wizard to save to the same image.wim file you previously created. You cannot store a .dwm in a .wim, they are a parent/child relationship. The .wim and .dwm together form an image. You can have multiple differencing images, but they are stored individually. If you are using the SmartWIM component, then there is a Boolean parameter to the CaptureImage method. Look under Control Reference, Methods, CaptureImage method. http://www.smartdeploy.com/Products/Support/docs/smartwim/ Thanks! Allen
  16. For years people have struggled with the best way to capture and share dialog boxes or other objects they see on their computer screen. The old tried and true method: PrtScn & Alt+PrtScn The PrtScn button by default captures the entire desktop, and using Alt+PrtScn captures only the active window on the desktop. This is a good start to get what you want captured. You can then open the Microsoft Paint application (mspaint) and paste in what you have captured. The trick here is to make the area in Paint that you’re about to paste into smaller than what you are pasting, this way the resulting image will be exactly what you captured and not have any white space. This works fine, but what if you want more than one window, but not the whole desktop? You have to capture the whole desktop, paste it into Paint, then select just the area you want, copy that, create a new instance of Paint and paste it in. So, it can be done… but it’s tedious. The obscurity of this process and the desire to have more functionality has led many people to purchase 3rd party software like Snagit. While these 3rd party tools aren't that expensive and provide a lot of functionality, I think many people end up purchasing them just for basic functionality. Microsoft steps in: The Windows Snipping Tool With Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft includes a handy utility for screen capture called the Snipping Tool. It's installed by default in almost all versions of Vista and 7, other than the basic and lower editions. Its part of the “Tablet PC Components” so if you can’t find it, be sure those components are installed under Windows Features. The easiest way to launch the Snipping Tool is to use Windows Vista and Windows 7’s built in search. Click the Start Button, type in “snip” and it should be at or near the top of the list. Or, if you really just want to go to it, it sits under All Programs, Accessories. By default the Snipping Tool opens to a rectangular snip, in which you can draw a rectangle around anything you want and it will capture it. There are other options… The Windows Snip option is much like Alt+PrtScn, but can capture any window you hover over and highlight. There are also configurable options… With Windows Vista, probably the first thing I like to change is that by default all captures have a red ink boarder. So if you uncheck the "Show selection ink after snips are captured”, that won’t happen anymore. In Windows 7, this is unchecked by default. Also, here lies another neat feature. By default the Snipping Tool is set to “Always copy snips to the Clipboard”. With this, if you really just want to paste what you’ve captured into another program, you don’t have to save the capture first because it’s already in the Clipboard. For example, you can snip something and then just paste it into an IM conversation or email to share it with someone. Editing tools after capture are fairly limited. You can highlight, use a pen to draw, or directly email the capture. Beyond this is where you would really need a more fully functional 3rd party application if you wanted to resize, add text, or other graphics. In Windows Vista both Paint and the Snipping Tool default to saving their files as JPEG’s. However, in Windows 7 they have switched both to default to PNG’s. Microsoft has always bounced back and forth on this, but I prefer PNG’s, so I like that they have gone that direction with Windows 7.
  17. In a follow-on to my previous “Windows 7, BitLocker and Recovery” blog, I was wondering what would happen if you installed Windows 7 to an existing partition so that you ended up with a single partition instead of two, and then ran the BitLocker wizard. Or, if you made a 300MB active partition in the beginning of the disk and then told Windows setup to install to the free space. In the “Hardware requirements for BitLocker Drive Encryption” section of the Windows 7 Help and Support, it states that the system partition must be at least 200MB. Then in the “Set up your hard disk for BitLocker Drive Encryption” section it states… “If your computer does not have a system partition, the BitLocker wizard will create one for you using 200 MB of available disk space.” Yet the BitLocker wizard follows the Windows PE User’s Guide recommendation of 300 MB. Plus, it moves and reconfigures the Windows Recovery Environment from the boot drive to the newly created system drive. Let’s summarize what you end up with the 3 scenarios: Perform a clean install from the Windows 7 product DVD, enable BitLocker after installation. Install from the Windows 7 product DVD to an existing single partition, enable BitLocker after installation. Pre-create a 300MB active partition, have Windows setup install to the free space, enable BitLocker after installation. These are significantly different outcomes. It really makes me think that it was a mistake not having Windows setup create a 300MB system partition and locate the Windows Recovery Environment there from the beginning. Or, maybe Windows setup shouldn’t even bother pre-creating the 100MB system partition. What is funny is that all SKU’s of Windows 7 create it, yet only Enterprise and Ultimate contain BitLocker. BitLocker is the one product feature that really requires two partitions. I could see if the Windows Recovery Environment was located in the 100MB partition by default, but it isn’t. Having the 300MB active/system partition at the beginning or end of the drive could really be personal preference. If you ever wanted to have a recovery image stored locally on the machine, much like the OEM’s do, then having the 300MB at the beginning makes some sense. This allows you to then have a third partition at the end of the drive large enough to hold your image. I’m going to go with a 300MB system partition at the beginning, and then the BitLocker Wizard doesn’t have to shrink an existing partition later.
  18. Windows 7 has greatly improved and simplified the process of setting up BitLocker and the Windows Recovery Environment. In fact both the separate partition structure required for BitLocker, and the automatic failover to the Windows Recovery Environment are setup by default in Windows 7. With Windows Vista neither of these were setup up by default. With Windows Vista the guidance from Microsoft was to create a 1.5GB system partition for BitLocker, and this is exactly what the BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool did. 1.5GB was plenty big to hold the system files plus a Windows Recovery Environment. But, it oddly still fell short of being able to hold a recovery image of any kind since the base install.wim for Vista Enterprise 32-bit is over 2GB in size. Now with Windows 7, the automatically created “System Reserved” partition is just 100MB. This is an interestingly small size, because the Windows Recovery Environment is too big to fit on this partition. The included Windows Recovery Environment, Winre.wim, in Windows 7 is 138MB. The Winre.wim is located on the boot partition in a Recovery folder, and is set as the default recovery sequence in the Boot Configuration Database for the boot partition. This all works great, but things start to get interesting when you enable BitLocker. Enabling BitLocker on Windows 7 causes the Windows Recovery Environment to be removed. The Winre.wim and boot.sdi are removed from the Recovery folder and the BCD entries are deleted. This actually causes errors with integrated features of Windows 7. If you go to Recovery in the Control Panel, and click on “Advanced recovery methods”, you will receive the following error. One interesting aspect of automatic failover with the Windows Recovery Environment is that once you enable BitLocker it will no longer be a seamless process. Meaning that when the system went into failover mode and booted to the Windows Recovery Environment it would prompt for the BitLocker recovery password to first unlock the drive, instead of automatically running the recovery agent. This makes automatic failover not as useful once BitLocker is turned on. Maybe this is one of the reasons that led to the removal of the Windows Recovery Environment when you enable BitLocker. Having the Windows Recovery Environment located in the boot partition has some drawbacks, because you have to read the Winre.wim file from the Windows partition that might need fixing. Thus, if the MBR or partition table becomes corrupt, you can’t boot to the environment that could fix those issues. In the Windows PE User's Guide for Windows 7, it suggests having the Windows Recovery Environment on the first partition on the disk, which would be the active/system partition, but makes it 300MB. So, the roughly 30MB of system files along with the Windows Recovery Environment fits no problem. This seems to make a lot of sense, and I don’t see why Windows 7 wasn’t setup this way by default. I also don’t see why the Windows Recovery Environment is automatically removed when you enable BitLocker.
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