NZ Tekonverse

Use DBAN (www.dban.org) The old version 1.0.x doesn’t always work but there is a newer version 2.2.6 beta available which works well (tried on Toshiba S200 so far). If installing Server 2008 on a box that needs RAID drivers the process is vastly improved from 2003 which could only access a FDD. 2008/R2/Vista/7 can load…

Using Group Policy Preferences to deploy printers and getting “Access denied”: ensure the printer’s security permissions include Full control for the System user. Using Group Policy Preferences to deploy printers to Windows 7 / Vista computers and getting event ID 4098 with message “The RPC server is unavailable”: on the properties of each printer item…

What should this blog be about? I’ve decided it will just present technical info / tips / notes in abbreviated format – quicker to write – NO POLITICS OR COMMENTARY ANY MORE – can’t be bothered. Who needs Facebook etc or iPhones or iPads. Why do we need all this technological development. Where is it…

Following our prototype deployment of Windows 7, we now have five laptops in regular use with this OS, along with Office 2010, with few if any significant problems showing up. This includes switching one existing laptop running Vista to Windows 7. Office 2010 has a lot of improvements, especially in Outlook which has adopted the…

This has been a big project for us, starting from scratch to get a Windows 7 image built for our particular uses. At times it has been kind of overwhelming. I wrote before that monolithic is out and componentised is in. However the simple fact is that no single solution will suit all requirements. After…

Today we moved along to our first major deployment project using Windows 7 and MDT. We have several new laptops and have decided that they should be upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7. In practice this means a clean installation of Windows 7 plus applications. Right here it is best to have a look…

This is a subject I have written about various times before. We didn’t get the capability to install printers automatically to client computers via a GUI until Windows Server 2003 R2 was released, which was happening about 2 years after I started working with the school where I am now employed. Along came the Print…

Once you have got started with MDT 2010, you will want to start playing with its more advanced features and functions. I may have mentioned that one of the scenarios for MDT is to deploy a base OS and install its applications automatically, instead of capturing a reference PC. This approach is ultimately the one…

Having completed my reference computer setup I decided to jump in boots and all to the task of getting this computer imaged. Starting at Part 11 of the series at WindowsNetworking.com I began with executing the script LiteTouch.vbs. In practice I have to use RunAs /user:<username> in order to log on to the deployment share…

Almost two years ago I wrote that I was planning to roll out Vista to student desktops. For a variety of reasons that didn’t happen. Some of the reasons were alluded to in that article – there were so many headaches with the new security model for a start. Last year I made a concerted…