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Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 “NoDo” update is due later this month but here’s a quick look at its key features. Microsoft has promised improved application resume times and better marketplace search alongside a new copy and paste feature. The company has delivered on all three with “Nodo”. First up is copy and paste. Microsoft’s copy and paste implementation does the job but is difficult and fiddly to use. I had troubles getting the copy dialog box to surface on multiple occasions and it seems to respond randomly to various means of tapping on the screen. Copying isn’t always copying either, pictures do not copy despite being selectable. I tested copy and paste in native Windows Phone applications to ensure this wasn’t an experience broken by a third party. All-in-all copy and paste feels rushed and like an afterthought from Microsoft, it could be a lot better. Second is Microsoft’s performance improvements for resuming applications. I found that several games resumed a lot quicker than before, despite the differences in devices. This is a welcome improvement for Windows Phone as the company strives towards “Mango” where it will offer full multitasking across its operating system. The last and final key improvement in “NoDo” is the Marketplace search improvements. Searching for generic sounding applications or even ones named “Twitter” or “Frogger” would often displace search results on the device. Relevant applications would end up at the bottom of lists following music and artist information. Microsoft has changed this search behaviour in “NoDo” and it’s greatly improved. It’s now much easier to find applications within the Marketplace. Overall, Microsoft’s “NoDo” update brings little to be excited about as a Windows Phone 7 owner. The improvements are minor and ones that could have arguably been part of the original RTM build. Microsoft has officially confirmed that “NoDo” will be distributed in “the latter half of March”. The company is widely expected to make the update available in the week of March 21 with several carriers suggesting March 24 as a launch date. via > http://www.winrumors.com/first-impressions-windows-phone-7-nodo-update-video/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WinRumors+%28WinRumors%29&utm_content=Twitter

Microsoft is among the many U.S. companies whose operations were impacted by the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Here’s a status report from the company, issued yesterday afternoon and still current as of this morning. We’ll post further updates as they’re available. Microsoft has activated its Disaster Response protocol and is currently accounting for all of its employees and assessing all of its facilities for any impact. The company is reaching out to its customers and partners to conduct impact assessments. We do know at this time that there is no disruption to Microsoft’s cloud based and hosted services. Microsoft is starting to reach out to provide free incident support to help our customers and partners impacted by the earthquake to get their operations back up and running. The company provides free temporary software licenses to all impacted customers and partners as well as lead, governments, non-profit partners and institutions involved in disaster response efforts. Exchange Online will be made available at no cost for 90 days to business customers in Japan whose communications and collaboration infrastructure may be affected. Microsoft hopes this will help them resume operations more quickly while their existing systems return to normal. Microsoft is also contacting customers, local government, inter-government and non-government agencies to support relief efforts. Microsoft has a disaster response cloud based communications portal based on Windows Azure available that governments/NGOs can use to communicate with citizens or intra-agency for information, situational awareness and communication purposes. Bing Maps currently provides imagery of the area and are working on securing before and after imagery for a disaster response mapping application. On Microsoft’s disaster response site, the company has listed ways for people to help, including links to several non-profit organizations that are offering support to help victims of the Japanese quake. via > http://www.geekwire.com/2011/status-report-microsoft-japan

Windows 7 SP1 hasn’t been out too long, but Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard have already said they are going to start shipping it pre-loaded on their machines. Laptops and desktops from Lenovo will be shipped with Windows 7 service pack 1 starting in early April. Hewlett-Packard have said they are planning shipments of business PCs preloaded with Windows 7 SP1 soon afer. HP won’t be shipping consumer PCs with the service pack until around mid-June however, as they are going to wait until their back-to-school-product launch. Windows 7 SP1 was made available at the end of February to the public, while Technet and MSDN subscribers got their hands on it about a week before. At the moment most users should probably have it installed if they have their Windows Update center configured to automatically download and install new updates. SP1 didn’t contain any major fixes, but it does patch up and fix a few little bugs that Microsoft have discovered since Windows 7 was released by in October 2009. Dell have declined to say when they are going to start shipping their machines with the service pack installed, but their CEO Michael Dell said in the past that PC’s with Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors and Windows 7 Service Pack 1 could boost the client PC refresh cycle. Microsoft haven’t yet released any Windows 7 installation media with SP1 to PC Makers, and we’re still not sure when they will. Currently PC Makers have to manually install SP1, a process which can take hours. More than likely, the sooner Microsoft release Windows 7 SP1 media, the sooner it will start shipping on machines. via > http://www.windows7news.com/2011/03/12/windows-7-sp1-coming-loaded-pcs-early-april/

If you’re a Windows Phone 7 user, you’re likely frustrated at the lack of Windows Phone 7 (WP7) updates since launch. Now, before you yell “They aren’t slow!” you should take a look at this post by Paul Thurrott. The fact is that if you purchased a WP7 at launch, it’s been a long wait for a wide range of performance and bug fixes, and for the implementation of copy and paste. This is the update that's been causing a lot of 'anxiety'. Luckily Microsoft is paying attention. Eric Hautala, whose job it is to get these updates out to WP7 users worldwide, has just shed some light on the update process for WP7. In short, Eric acknowledges that they have been slow and that the slowness is causing many of us to be “understandably anxious”. He explains that with 9 handsets on 60 carriers (in 30 countries), the process can be complex. After Microsoft and the OEMs complete their parts of the update, all of the carriers have to test the update on their networks to ensure that it doesn’t cause any problems for them or their customers. The various carriers have different testing times and requirements, which can hold up rollouts of updates, and Eric emphasizes that this is normal practice for rolling out software updates on any phone – he however doesn’t mention that Apple bypasses carriers completely when rolling out updates. The potential for carriers to block updates has been a big concern for a number of WP7 users, and Eric doesn’t actually discount the theory that carriers can block updates. Instead, he explains that Microsoft works hard with carriers to get updates out on time and that WP7 users “should ultimately receive all the updates” that Microsoft sends out. Note the usage of the word “should”. So what’s the good news in all this? Well, Microsoft is listening. It’s likely that they’ll learn from their mistakes and the publicity those mistakes have had, and they’ll be working to improve future update rollouts. Eric also says that the delayed launch of NoDo “should in no way impact the timing of future updates, including the one announced recently at Mobile World Congress featuring multitasking, a Twitter feature, and a new HTML 5-friendly version of Internet Explorer Mobile.” via > http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-details-the-complicated-wp7-update-process

It seems that Microsoft has signed off the RTM build of Internet Explorer 9 just a few days before the final version is released to the web on Monday. According to a number of Russian sites, the RTM build is 9.00.8112.16421.110308-0330 and was compiled on March 8. Earlier in the week, Microsoft officially confirmed that Internet Explorer 9 will be launching at 9 PM PST on March 14 as was previously predicted by Neowin back in February. The launch will take place as part of their "Beauty of the Web" event, which will be hosted by the Internet Explorer 9 team in Austin City Limits Live. The event will begin at 9 PM on Monday, March 14, 2011 at the Moody Theater. The event will also mark a year to the day that Microsoft launched the first Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9 to developers and the public. Microsoft also confirmed that the public would be able to download the final version of the popular browser at 9 PM PST. Users who have already downloaded the release candidate version of the browser will automatically be updated to the final version, most likely via Windows Update. via > http://www.neowin.net/news/internet-explorer-9-hits-rtm-build

Earlier this week, Microsoft’s French public relations site acknowledged that Microsoft had decided to delay the first major Windows Phone 7 update. On March 10, the WP7 team confirmed that “NoDo” delay, and elaborated on the reasons. In a post to the Windows Phone Blog, Eric Hautala, General Manager, Customer Experience Engineering, confirmed what the French PR site said on March 9 — that NoDo, the first major update to the Windows Phone OS 7 operating system, which will include copy-and-paste and CDMA support — would commence in the latter half of March.Until this week, Microsoft officials had said NoDo would hit in the first half of this month. Hautala said the problems with the first “minor” WP7 update in February had led Microsoft to push back the NoDo due date. From Hautala’s post: Hautala also emphasized that the NoDo push-back doesn’t mean “Mango,” an update slated for later this year, is going to be late. He blogged: (I also take his wording to mean that the IE 9 Mobile browser isn’t going to hit before the rest of Mango, as I’ve seen some bloggers speculating. Microsoft officials have declined to say, when I’ve asked, whether the company is planning to deliver any WP7 updates between NoDo and Mango.) I’ve heard that Microsoft is still planning to get Mango to its partners in the September/October 2011 timeframe so they can deliver it to customers and preloaded on new WP7 devices in time for holiday 2011. That’s what I’m still hearing, for what it’s worth. Kudos for the WP7 team being transparent here. Minus points for the delay in being transparent, which has led to a lot of angst among the loyal Microsoft user and enthusiast base upon which Microsoft depends…. via > http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-confirms-windows-phone-7-nodo-delay-says-mango-not-affected/8904?tag=mantle_skin;content

hi Jason, to start off with, if you retain the same domain does everything migrate as expected for the user (leave out the /MD switch) ? cheers niall

first of all i'd recommend that you do not capture a domain joined image, this can cause issues with gpo's being applied to it amongst other registry specific changes, far better to capture a workgroup computer which can be domain joined in the deploy task sequence later, as regards the name, do you have a Set Computer Name step anywhere in the deploy task sequence and what does it contain

what delay did you set ? if you check any of the users states that are stored there, have they successfully migrated or not ? if there was a problem with the State Restore phase then the Release State Store step may not have run, if that step has not run then the timer (for state deletion) will not start which in turn will mean that the data will remain on the SMP

I met Garth Jones (ConfigMgr MVP) at the Global MVP Summit in Seattle and I heard about Ehansoft and one of the cool things they are doing is giving away reports every month, Garth is a very nice guy so return the favor and see what's on offer over there, want a cool report ? check it out - and vote - http://support.enhansoft.com/Forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=29

in Software distribution, select the Package in question, locate the Program, right click on the program choose properties and on the General Screen you can see the Category option at the bottom of the window, simply select a category or type a new one to set it.

I would recommend still using the Build and Capture approach but change the way you are currently doing it, instead of build and capturing a FAT image, slim it down to only the bare essential FAT apps, such as Office 2010, Symantec Antivirus etc, do NOT include any drivers in this image and do not do any customisations to it, DO apply Windows updates to it and create this image on your favorite Virtual Platform (hyperV is good as it requires no drivers and you don't want any drivers in your master image), you will use this captured WIM image for the next stage, a Deploy Task Sequence. The Deploy task sequence will be used to deploy your thin captured image and should contain groups (which are based on WMI detection) of install drivers steps to install drivers for whatever models you intend to install on, this task sequence should also contain your Dynamic layers, where you install applications that change often like Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader (small apps generally). Any Windows customisations should take place in the Deploy Task Sequence, this way you can adapt/react to what your users need/want quickly without the need to recapture the image. well I hope that gives you some ideas cheers niall

you can have multiple pxe service points as long as they are not on the same subnet, are they ?

also check your client version matches the configmgr version, you mentioned sccm 2007 sp2 but in the screenshot it looks like the version of your client isSCCM 2007 sp1

no those screenshots were taken on a virtual machine as far as i remember, just press PrintScreen

Ever since the successful development and launch of Windows 7, Microsoft has become ever tighter-lipped about Windows development. Sure, it dropped the bomb about releasing Windows 8 for ARM, but that's it. Nothing on features or timetables (other than 'three years after Windows 7'). Well, the usually well-connected (inside Microsoft, that is) Mary-Jo Foley now claims to have a legit development roadmap - and it seems everything is on track for a Windows 8 beta in September 2011. The development timeline was passed on to Foley earlier this year by one of her sources, and it shows a tantalising development path for the next big Windows release. As rumours had already stated, milestone 2 was supposedly finalised yesterday or today, with development on the third milestone starting a week from today. This opens the door for a beta release in September of this year, right around Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. "Milestone 2, according to the roadmap, took the Windows client team five months. If M3 takes another five months - which it might if it has to go through all the same coding/integration/fixing/lockdown steps as M2 did - that would put its completion date around the end of July," Foley theorises, "Factor in a month or so for any kind of private Community Technology Preview testing, and a beta around the time of this year's Professional Developers Conference - which I'm still hearing is slated for September 2011 - looks downright doable." That would put the final release of Windows 8 at around mid-2012, which isn't too bad. However, it also means that Microsoft's tablet offering will be a long time coming. While I personally think tablets are way overhyped, fact of the matter is that you need a tablet offering to be cool these days. Microsoft better have something to show for itself quickly, or else it'll find itself in the same position with tablets as they are in with smartphones now. via > http://www.osnews.com/story/24454/Windows_8_Beta_Could_Launch_September_2011

here's how to do it http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680919.aspx How to Enable or Disable Wake On LAN for a Site Applies To: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Enabling Wake On LAN in Configuration Manager 2007 allows the primary site server to send wake-up packets for the following Configuration Manager activities: * Software update deployments * Software distribution advertisements * Task sequence advertisements Before you can enable these activities for Wake On LAN, you must enable the site for Wake On LAN. To prevent the site server sending wake-up packets, disable the site for Wake On LAN. To enable or disable the site the Wake On LAN, follow this procedure. To enable or disable Wake on LAN for a site: 1. In the Configuration Manager console, navigate to System CenterConfiguration Manager / Site Database / Site Management. 2. Right-click <site code> -<site name> and then click Properties. 3. On the Wake On LAN tab in the site properties dialog box, select the option Enable Wake On LAN for this site. 4. Click OK. noteNote For information about the options in the Wake On LAN tab, see Site Properties: Wake On LAN Tab.

excellent post Marcus thanks for sharing

When using the Use Toolkit Package task in a Configuration Manager 2007 task sequence, the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1 files package specified in the Use Toolkit Package task may not download correctly when the Distribution Point is on a Windows Server 2008 or newer server. The behavior will be different depending on the download method chosen under the Distribution Points tab in the properties of the advertisement: Download content locally when needed by running task sequence When the Task Sequence reaches the Use Toolkit Package task, the files for the package specified in the Use Toolkit Package will start to download and the progress bar will reach about 27%. The download will then all of a sudden stop, restart from the beginning, only to reach 27% again, and then restart again. On the third attempt it will the progress bar will get past 27% and finish downloading successfully. Reviewing the SMSTS.log on the client PC will show the following error: Downloaded file from http://<DP_Server>:80/SMS_DP_SMSPKG<Drive_Letter>%24/<Package_ID>/Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe to D:\_SMSTaskSequence\Packages\<Package_ID>\Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe InstallSoftware dwStatusCode>=200 && dwStatusCode<=299, HRESULT=80004005 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\framework\tscore\downloadcontent.cpp,1090) InstallSoftware WinHttpQueryHeaders() returns status code 404 (Not Found) InstallSoftware Download() failed with 0x80004005 InstallSoftware DownloadFile(sSourceFile, sDestinationFile, ulTotalSizeRequired, ulDownLoaded), HRESULT=80004005 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\framework\tscore\downloadcontent.cpp,1175) InstallSoftware Error downloading file from http://<DP_Server>:80/SMS_DP_SMSPKG<Drive_Letter>%24/<Package_ID>/Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe.config to D:\_SMSTaskSequence\Packages\<Package_ID>\Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe.config InstallSoftware DownloadFiles(sSource, setDirs, setFiles, sDestination), HRESULT=80004005 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\framework\tscore\resolvesource.cpp,2434) InstallSoftware Retrying download... InstallSoftware The above error will be displayed a second time, followed by the following line after the second failure: Tried all the available http based locations. SMB based locations will be attempted now. InstallSoftware After the second error and the above message, the download will be tried a third time and will then succeed. Examining the IIS logs on the distribution point server will reveal the following error: <GMT_Date> <GMT_Time> <DP_Server_IP> GET /SMS_DP_SMSPKG<Drive_Letter>$/<Package_ID_Of_Pacakage_In_Use_Toolkit_Package>/Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe.config - 80 - <Client_IP> SMS+TS 404 7 64 15 Download all contents locally before starting task sequence When the advertisement is initiated either manually via the Run Advertised Programs control panel or automatically via a mandatory assignment, the download for the packages of the Task Sequence begins but never completes. Because the download for the Task Sequence packages never completes, the Task Sequence never begins or launches and the SMSTS.log is never created on the client PC. Reviewing client logs associated with downloading packages and executing the Task Sequence (execmgr.log, CAS.log, DataTransferService.log, ContentTransferManager.log) will not contain any errors. The client logs indicate that the downloads for the packages have begun, but the downloads never complete. Some of the client logs may have messages indicating that the downloads are in a pending or waiting state such as: DataTransferService.log Execute called for DTS job '{GUID}'. Current state: 'PendingDownload'. execmgr.log Execution Request for package <Task_Sequence_ID> program * state change from WaitingDependency to WaitingContent execmgr Persisting task sequence request for program * package <Task_Sequence_ID> in state WaitingContent execmgr If the advertisement for the Task Sequence was initiated manually via the Run Advertised Programs control panel, the Program Download Status window will show a progress bar that initially shows progress, but eventually stops and does not complete. The percentage complete will fail at a randomly different point each time the download is attempted. Examining the IIS logs on the distribution point server will reveal the following error: <GMT_Date> <GMT_Time> <DP_Server_IP> HEAD /SMS_DP_SMSPKG<Drive_Letter>$/<Package_ID_Of_Pacakage_In_Use_Toolkit_Package>/Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe.config - 80 - <Client_IP> Microsoft+BITS/7.5 404 7 0 218 Running Bitsadmin.exe on the client PC with the following command line: bitsadmin.exe /list /allusers /verbose while the download is in the hung state will reveal the following error: ERROR FILE: http://<DP_Server>:80/SMS_DP_SMSPKG<Drive_Letter>$/<Pacakge_ID>/Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe.config -> C:\Windows\system32\CCM\Cache\<Pacakage_ID>.<Source_Version>.<GUID>\Tools/OSDResults/OSDResults.exe.config ERROR CODE: 0x80190194 - HTTP status 404: The requested URL does not exist on the server.ERROR CONTEXT: 0x00000005 - The error occurred while the remote file was being processed. Access content directly from a distribution point when needed by the running task sequence No download issues are experienced when the advertisement for the Task Sequence is set to run from the distribution point (DP). Cause This issue is caused by the default configuration of IIS in Windows Server 2008 blocking the ability to download files that end in the extension .config. The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1 files package created by the Create Microsoft Deployment Task Sequence wizard and used in the Use Toolkit Package contains a file that ends in .config. The file is called OSDResults.exe.config and is located in the Tools\OSDResults directory of the package source files. When the option "Download content locally when needed by running task sequence" or "Download all contents locally before starting task sequence" is set on the advertisement for the Task Sequence, this will cause the file OSDResults.exe.config to be attempted to be downloaded via HTTP/HTTPS/BITS. However IIS will block this attempt since files ending in .config are blocked. When using the option "Download content locally when needed by running task sequence", it will attempt the download two times using HTTP/HTTPS/BITS before failing over to SMB. Since SMB does not use IIS, the third download attempt will then succeed. When using the option "Download all contents locally before starting task sequence", the BITS job gets hung on the error of not being able to download OSDResults.exe.config and does not fail over to SMB. This causes the whole download job to get in a hung state. Since the download for the packages of the Task Sequence never complete due to the hung state, the Task Sequence never launches. When the option "Access content directly from a distribution point when needed by the running task sequence" is used, HTTP/HTTPS/BITS is not used and all data transfers use SMB instead. Because SMB does not utilize IIS, the data transfers will succeed. Resolution To resolve the problem, follow the section "Configure the requestFiltering section on distribution points" in the following article: How to Configure Windows Server 2008 for Site Systems http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc431377.aspx Specifically, on the Distribution Point server, configure IIS to allow files that contain the .config extension to be downloaded. This is done by changing the following line in the <requestFiltering> section of the applicationHost.config file from: <add fileExtension=".config" allowed="false" /> to <add fileExtension=".config" allowed="true" /> ===== The information above was published today in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article written by Frank Rojas: via > http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2011/02/23/configmgr-2007-quick-fix-a-package-specified-in-the-use-toolkit-package-mdt-task-does-not-download-correctly.aspx

i include it because my hta has scripts that depend on some of the other scripts within the scripts sub directory of the toolkit package, and because it's an easy way of doing it

does %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ = x: ? or c:\ have you checked ? by attaching the hta to the toolkit package i know that my hta plus the scripts it has will always be available when i have the mdt scripts available (which is what the use toolkit package step does), it downloads the content (the files/scripts) and sets some variables (path etc) I will do a webcast on this soon to clarify the steps involved

good stuff i look forward to our next session

have you copied the hta file itself into that path ? via the extrafiles method ? otherwise how can mshta.exe find the file ? sounds to me like mshta.exe is indeed running, but displaying nothing as it doesnt know where the hta file is you see, i refer to my hta file by adding it in the Use Toolkit package step