Monday, December 15, 2014

Setup Office to be installed in a task sequence

To customize Office Setup, use the command line setup.exe /admin to start the Office Customization Tool. In this example (using Configuration Manager 2007 to deploy the Office Professional Plus 2010), at a command prompt, run setup.exe /admin from the package source directory,

To ensure that Office Professional Plus 2010 is silently installed, modify and configure the settings as follows:

In the Licensing and user interface dialog box, set the Display Level to None, which will then enable the Suppress modal check box.

Verify that the Completion notice and No Cancel options are not selected.

Enter a valid 25-character volume license key in the Product Key box that is located under Licensing and user interface.

Select the “I accept the terms in the License Agreement check box”.

Save and name the newly created .msp file, and then put it in the \Updates folder for Office Professional Plus 2010 on the computer that contains the package source directory, which in this example is …Office14\Updates\CustomOffice2010SilentInstall.MSP.
Caution:


During the initial installation of Office Professional Plus 2010 if there are multiple .msp files that are located in the Updates folder (the Setup customization file that was created by using the OCT), you need to ensure that the Setup customization file is the update applied at the beginning of the installation. This is performed by ensuring the desired .msp file is alphabetically first. In this example, if there were more than one .msp file, you would rename the file CustomOffice2010SilentInstall.MSP to 1_CustomOffice2010SilentInstall.MSP. For additional information about how to deploy updates during an initial installation of Office Professional Plus 2010, see Distribute product updates for the 2007 Office system (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=146924).

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

How to fix UEFI PXE boot Error

as shown in the screenshot below

0xc0000359.png
 Solution
There are a few solutions to this problem, but basically all involve the same thing, make sure that the task sequence that ‘answers’ your UEFI hardware, contains a 64 bit boot image as shown below

64-bit-boot-wim.png


In general, the task sequence that answers is the last task sequence deployed to the collection that your computer you are booting is a member of.

You can either add the computer in question (computer+mac address) to a collection that has a task sequence deployed to it with a 64bit boot image or re-deploy a task sequence with a 64 bit boot image to the collection that this computer is a member of, or change the current task sequence to use a 64 bit boot wim instead of a x86 bit boot wim.

TiP: If you cannot make a change to any of the UEFI Network deployments then another idea is to use usb or ISO based Standalone or boot media containing the 64bit boot image.

Be aware that changing the architecture of your boot wim may cause some executables to fail to run in Windows PE  as the ‘subsystem’ in WinPE will have changed architecture from 32bit to 64bit.  This also means that you can only install a 64 bit operating system using this boot image.

“To install Windows to an EFI-based computer, you must enable EFI mode in the computer’s firmware and boot with 64-bit pre-installation media. ” – source, Technet.

Once you’ve made the changes above, UEFI network boot a client computer again, and you should see it’s using the boot.wim file (package ID) that you attached to the task sequence, in this case it’s using a 64bit boot wim (P0100002.wim)

UEFI-network-boot.png

as you can see here…

P0100002.png

The end result, is a working UEFI network boot !

UEFI-network-boot-working.png

Monday, November 3, 2014

Create a "Build and Capture" Task Sequence for Windows 8.1

Extract ISO
Download and extract MS provided Windows 8.1 Professional ISO to a network share
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Add and distribute Install.wim
The only file that we really need from the extracted source above is Install.wim under Sources folder. We will need to add that wim file to ConfigMgr Operating System Images
In the Configuration Manager console, click Software Library. In the Software Library workspace, expand Operating Systems, and then expand Operating System Images . For my convenience, I have created a folder structure as below and you can define your own. After selecting your target folder, click Add Operating System Image on the ribbon.
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Specify the network UNC path to the extracted install.wim file and click Next.
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On the General page, add optional version and/or comments and click next
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On the Summary page, click Next
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Make sure there is no error on the Completion Page and click Close.
Now distribute this OS image to the DP associated with your target VM. You do not need to distribute it to all your DPs.
With the image selected, click on Distribute content on the ribbon
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On the General page, click Next
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On the Content Destination page, click Add and then click Distribution Point. Check the target DP and click OK. Then click Next
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On the Summary page, click Next and then click Close on the Completion page.

Step 3: Create & Deploy Build and Capture Task Sequence
In the Configuration Manager console, click Software Library. In the Software Libraryworkspace, expand Task Sequence. For my convenience, I have created a folder structure as below and you can define your own. After selecting your target folder, click Create Task Sequence on the ribbon.
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On the Create New Task Sequence page, select Build and capture a reference operating system image and click next
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On the Task Sequence information page, specify a Task sequence name and select a boot image.
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On the Install Windows page, click browse and select the Microsoft provided image that we imported and distributed in the previous step. There is only one image to choose. I have specified KMS key as my product key. You can look at KMS client setup keys at:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867.aspx
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On the Configure Network page, we will choose to add this machine to a workgroup (remember this is just a capture TS and not the one that will go on all our user machines). Click Next
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On the Install Configuration Manager Client page, click Next
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On the Include Updates page, we will stick with the default option to not install any.
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On the Install Applications page, add your Tier 0 apps and click Next. If you added your applications as packages you will have to add them to the task sequence later
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On the System Preparation page click next.
On the Image Properties page add optional image properties
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On the Capture Image page, specify the network UNC path of the file where the capture image will be saved. Click Set to specify a domain account which has access to write to that share. Click next.
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On the Summary page click next and then close the completion page.
Task sequences are deployed to collections, I have created a collection to target this TS with an Include Collections membership rule.
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Our new VM will not be in CM database and hence will see the TS advertised. To deploy the TS, select the TS and click Deploy on the ribbon.
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On the General page browse and select your target collection and click Next
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On the Deployment Settings page, select Available as the purpose and we will make this TS available to Only media and PXE. Click Next
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On the Scheduling page, select the deployment availability time appropriately. Deployment expiration is optional. Click Next
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On the User Experience ,Alerts  Distribution Points and Summary pages click next.
When you see the completion page, make sure there are no errors and click Close.
This will create a basic build of Windows 8.1 and will capture it with your settings, You can edit the task and add programs or updates

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Deploy Adobe Reader XI with SCCM 2012 R2


To deploy Adobe Reader with SCCM 2012 you can download and extract the latest Adobe Reader .EXE to get to the system files ( .msi, .ini, .msp etc..) using the method below.
From the command prompt: AdbeRdr11004_en_US.exe -nos_ne
Extract Reader EXE to MSI
The following screen will appear.. Adobe Reader XI (11.0.04) – Setup
Extracting Adobe Files
In this case the Adobe Reader EXE (AdbeRdr11007_en_US.exe)  was extracted on a Windows 7 PC and the extracted files can be found in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Setup.
The sub-directory under Setup in my case was {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-AB0000000001} which is also the GUID or Product ID for this particular MSI.
Now that the Updated Adobe Reader Files are extracted, you can create a SCCM 2012 Adobe Reader Application or create a Package to deploy the Adobe Reader .MSP directly.
Sccm Adobe Reader
 The extracted directory name in this case will also be the uninstall GUID (shown below) when you create your Adobe Reader 11.0.07 application with Configuration Manager 2012.
uninstall GUID
The extracted Adobe Reader files are shown below.
Adobe Reader Extracted Files

Create a MST transform
1. Download Adobe Customization Wizard XI from here.
2. Install the application and launch it when done.
3. Click on File -> Copy Package.
4. Enter the information as in the picture below:
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5. In the left pane on the Personalization Options, check EULA Option: Suppress display of End User License Agreement (EULA).
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6.  On the Installation Options page, select Make Reader the default PDF ViewerSilently (no interface) and Suppress reboot.
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7. On the Shortcuts page, remove Adobe Reader XI under Desktop.
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8. On the Security page under Protected View, select All files. Under Enhanced Security Settings, select Enable & Lock for both Standalone and Browser. Under Privileged Locations, add the network shares your company stores common data. You can also add C:\ and other local drives. Check the box next to Prevent end user from adding trusted hosts. See the picture below for how I’d recommend to tighten the security in Adobe Reader. Remember though, these security settings may not apply in your environment. Perform thorough tests before deploying the application.
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9. On the Online Services and Features page, check the following boxes:
  • Disable product updates
  • In Adobe Reader, disable Help > Purchase Adobe Acrobat
  • Disable Product Improvement Program
  • Disable Viewing of PDF with Ads for Adobe PDF
  • Disable all Adobe online services based workflows and entry points
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10. Click File -> Save Package.
When creating your package just select the Setup.exe file which will take care of the rest, the only issue I had so far is that it wouldn't uninstall Adobe Reader X, but with the use of a batch file I was able to accomplish this.