Deployment 4 tightly integrates with Configuration Manager 2007, the successor of SMS 2003. This improves Microsoft’s systems management solution. It always was one of the drawbacks of SMS that it didn’t support OS deployment. The OS deployment feature pack for SMS 2003 was the first major step in this direction. Now, with the integration of Configuration Manager and Deployment 4, Microsoft finally offers a complete OS deployment solution.

There are some more new features. Please check out Richard Smith’s blog post for more details. I just had a quick look at it. The user interface looks pretty much like the old one.

• Windows Vista vs. Windows XP – Systems Management (4)
• FREE: Compatibility Administrator – Configure legacy apps for Vista (7)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• Microsoft Deployment is ready for download (0)
• System Center Configuration Manager – SCCM 2007 RTM (0)

• BDD 2007 successor, Deployment 4 Beta 3 ready for download (0)
• Quite a few Microsoft releases relevant for sys admins these days (2)
• Microsoft Management Summit 2007: System Center road map (0)
• SMS 2003 SP3 Beta available for download (0)
• Deploy Windows Vista with the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack (OSD Feature Pack) for Microsoft SMS 2003 SP2 (0)

Systems Management Server 2003 SP3 I’ve been waiting for SMS 2003 SP3 for quite sometime, now. Most important, certainly, is the full Vista support. The limited support SMS 2003 SP2 for Vista was one of the reasons why we postponed Vista deployment. There are also some new features related to asset intelligence. Please, check out the official SMS 2003 SP3 homepage for more information.

Windows Update Services 3.0 WSUS 3.0 has a couple of interesting new features. You can find a complete list at the WSUS team blog. Most important for me is the fact that WSUS finally gets a real user interface, i.e. an MMC-based one. I really don’t like these Spartanic and slow Web interfaces. Ah, I guess, I mentioned this many times before.

ISA Server 2004 SP3 If you use Microsoft ISA Server as firewall, then you probably know that ISA Server 2006 has been available for sometime. We use ISA Server 2006 as http proxy and didn’t encounter any problems so far. However, we didn’t update our ISA Server 2004 firewall since we feared that some of our scripts might not work properly anymore and also because the new features of ISA Server 2006 seemed irrelevant for us. Thus, we’ll probably install ISA Server 2004 SP3 mostly for security reasons very soon. New features of ISA Server 2004 SP3 include new troubleshooting tools, improved log viewer functionality, and support for publishing Exchange Server 2007. By the way, an excellent source for information about ISA Server is Tom Shinder’s blog. Some guys discussing the SP3 in a blog post there.

Forefront Client Security So Microsoft finally entered the market for enterprise malware protection. We have been using Sophos Antivirus for a long time now and are not satisfied with it, anymore. With every new release, we encounter new problems. As an educational institution we get Microsoft software for a reasonable price. That’s why I am quite interested in Forefront Client Security. However, I reported some time ago that Microsoft can’t still compete with major anti-virus software vendors. Anyway, I am curious enough to want to take a look at it soon.

System Center Essentials 2007 System Center Essentials is the light version of Configuration Manager (formerly SMS) and Operations Manager (formerly MOM). This product is targeted for small-to-medium sized networks. We’ll probably use the “complete versions” of these products. However, I am curious about the new Configuration Manager.

Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DART) I just stumbled upon this one in Kurt Shintaku’s blog where you can find more information about DART. There are several tools included which could be quite useful for Windows admins.

Gosh! When will I find the time to check all these new releases? Originally, I planned to check out the Windows Server Longhorn Beta3 after my vacation. But now I don’t know where to start…

• SCOM 2012 review – Part 8: Dashboards (0)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 7: Linux and JEE monitoring (4)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 6: Application Performance Monitoring (APM) (1)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 5: Network Monitoring (0)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 4: Infrastructure improvements (0)

System Center Operations Manager 2007 will be released on April 1th, officially. I blogged about the Operation Manager two days ago. The RTM can be downloaded already now.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (formerly Systems Management Server v4) is to be released this summer. Intel client management technology vPro (the thin client killer) will be available as an add-on.

I expected the release of Systems Management Server 2003 SP3 to be announced at the MMS, but it will probably take two or three weeks more.

Beta2 of System Center Data Protection Manager v2 will be available in the next 30 days. I hoped Microsoft would release the final soon. But it seems, there still is long way to go.

System Center Virtual Manager Beta 2 is planned to be released within the next 45 days.

The first Beta of System Center Service Manager should be released in the next 30 days. I’m already quite curious about this one.

Well, it seems that the whole System Center product family is still a big “beta project”. I suppose that Microsoft originally planned to have it all ready for the MMS. I really wonder why the cover title of the latest Windows IT Pro issue is “System Center Launches”. There certainly will be a couple of further issues until System Center is done.

• SCOM 2012 review – Part 8: Dashboards (0)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 7: Linux and JEE monitoring (4)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 6: Application Performance Monitoring (APM) (1)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 5: Network Monitoring (0)
• SCOM 2012 review – Part 4: Infrastructure improvements (0)

Some writers are talking about “full support” thereby implying that SMS SP2 already offered limited supported for Vista. However, I tested the Vista support of SMS 2003 SP2. My conclusion was that “support” might not be the right word in this context.

I will probably check out SMS 2003 SP3 with respect to its Vista capabilities soon. I am curious to see how stable it is. It is really strange that Microsoft still doesn’t offer a tool for the enterprise to deploy Vista. How can you expect companies to adopt a new Windows version if even Microsoft doesn’t offer full support for it with its most prominent client management tool.

• BDD 2007 successor, Deployment 4 Beta 3 ready for download (0)
• System Center Configuration Manager – SCCM 2007 RTM (0)
• Quite a few Microsoft releases relevant for sys admins these days (2)
• Microsoft Management Summit 2007: System Center road map (0)
• Deploy Windows Vista with the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack (OSD Feature Pack) for Microsoft SMS 2003 SP2 (0)

First, I downloaded and installed the latest OSD Feature Pack. I didn’t encounter any problem during the installation, but afterwards, I wondered, if the new version is really installed. The old version of the OS Deployment Feature Pack was on this server before. The section for the Image Packages in the SMS Administrator Console didn’t change at all and the Add-or-Remove- Programs Panel didn’t give me any hint that I installed a new version. Even the manual is the same as before. If you search for “Vista” in it, you won’t get any hit. Somehow it seems to me that this Feature Pack is a quick-and-dirty version.

Next, I captured an image from my reference computer. For this, I created a new OS Image Capture CD. I was quite surprised that the Windows PE contained is still based on Windows XP and not Vista. Actually, it is still WinPE 2004, not even WinPE 2005. This is another hint that this Feature Pack is not ready.

This old Win PE was the reason why my first attempt failed. The network device drivers for my half year old PC were not included. WinPE 2.0, which is based on Vista, contains them already. So I had to add drivers manually and create a new Capture CD.

My second attempt worked then. The image was copied to the specified network share. The import of the WIM image in the SMS server ran thru without any problems. After configuring the Operating System Program for the deployment and updating the SMS Distribution Point I created an OS Image Installation CD with the same network card device drivers as the Capture CD.

Unfortunately, I was not able to deploy the Vista image to the PC, where I created it. The deployment wizard complained that it couldn’t find the image. I rechecked everything, and my configuration seemed to be OK. I’ve no idea why it didn’t work.

I, then, copied my WIM image to my second SMS 2003 test server which runs in a virtual environment on VMWare Workstation. I wanted to deploy this image to a virtual PC because I knew that the WinPE 1.0 works fine with VMware’s network card.

I created a virtual machine for a Windows Vista installation, but WinPE 1.0 had problems with the virtual SCSI hard disk. So I exchanged it with an IDE hard disk, et voilà, this time I was able to deploy the image. Remember, I originally created this image on a physical PC, and then deployed it to a virtual PC, which is pretty cool in my view.

Although I succeeded somehow in the end, I have doubts that this OSD Feature Pack for SMS 2003 SP2 is really ready for Windows Vista. SMS 2003 SP2 support for Vista is only half-baked and this also seems to apply to the OS Deployment Feature Pack.

The problem with these half-ready tools is that you never know if it is a bug or configuration issue when something doesn’t work. That’s why we will postpone the deployment of Windows Vista until SMS 2003 SP3 is available.

• Windows Vista vs. Windows XP – Systems Management (4)
• FREE: Compatibility Administrator – Configure legacy apps for Vista (7)
• Poll results: When will your organization deploy Vista? (0)
• Microsoft Deployment is ready for download (0)
• BDD 2007 successor, Deployment 4 Beta 3 ready for download (0)

The first major problem, I encountered, is that Client Push Installation of the Advanced SMS client isn’t possible. The probable reason is the failure of CCR (Client Configuration Request).

However, it is possible to install the SMS client manually, by starting the setup on the share (SMSclient) on an SMS server. In my test, this worked perfectly fine. However, managing Vista with SMS 2003 SP2 only worked partly.

Software distribution, worked without major problems. I was able to distribute an MSI package containing Firefox (just for the fun of it) as an attended installation, and as an unattended installation.

I, then, tried several remote management tools; some worked, some didn’t. These tools had no problems with Vista: Resource Explorer, Windows Diagnostics, Performance Monitor, and Remote Desktop. These tools didn’t work: Event Viewer and Remote Assistance. Some of these Windows tools started by the SMS are incompatible with Vista. The Event Viewer of Vista is quite different to the that of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

Shitanshu wrote that SP2 doesn’t support Hardware Inventory for Vista, so I didn’t try it. He has further information regarding the compatibility of SMS 2003 SP2 with Vista and Longhorn Server.

I, also, didn’t test the distribution of Software Updates since we used WSUS for that. I wouldn’t risk that with SMS 2003 SP2, anyway. My overall impression is that it is better to wait for SP3 before using SMS 2003 with Vista in a productive environment.

The only exception could be the OS deployment feature pack. We are currently using it to deploy Windows XP and are quite satisfied with it. Technically, there shouldn’t be a big difference with Vista since they both use WIM images. I am planning to test this soon and will probably report about it here.

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• FREE: Compatibility Administrator – Configure legacy apps for Vista (7)

Windows Installer is an application installation and configuration tool which was first introduced with Windows 2000. You can find msiexec.exe under C:\windows\system32. The latest version for Windows XP is Windows Installer 3.1 v2. Windows Vista will be delivered with Windows Installer 4.0. Windows Installer uses MSI packages, which are databases containing all information that is necessary to install an application.

Nowadays, many software vendors deliver their applications as MSI packages. Usually, you can recognize them by the MSI extension. Sometimes, the setup program is an EXE file which contains the compressed MSI file. Most software deployment solutions support MSI meanwhile.

Some still have their own packing format as an additional option, though. Even Microsoft’s Systems Management Server 2003 was originally delivered with its own packaging format. There is a free MSI packager for SMS 2003 now, which is a limited edition of FLExnet Adminstudio.

The list here contains all MSI packagers, I found, so far. Please let me know if you know of another tool. I’ll add it then.

• EMCO: MSI Package Builder
• Macrovision: FLEXnet Adminstudio (formerly Installshield)
• Altiris: Wise Package Studio
• Attachmate: WinINSTALL MSI Packager Professional (formerly Ondemand WinINSTALL)
• Caphyon: Advanced Installer (freeware and professional version)
• Capasystems: CapaInstaller ezMSI
• New Boundary: Prism Pack
• MAKEMSI (freeware)
• MSIBuilder (freware)
• AInstaller (freware)
• ScriptLogic: Desktop Authority MSI Studio

Update: I just found this site which lists many more MSI packagers with a short description for each.

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