Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 RC released!
As posted by Cliff Hobbs on wmug.co.uk.
It’s official, the RC of SP2 is now available for download from Connect.
IMPORTANT: Remember that that Microsoft only supports TAP Customers running this in Production. If you’re not a TAP customer then make sure you only run it in your lab.
More details:
The System Center Configuration Manager team would like to announce that the following has been released and available for download:
Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 Release Candidate
This is the official Release Candidate build for Configuration Manager 2007 SP2.
New features:
- Refer to the SP2 Overview article posted on the primary Configuration Manager MSConnect site for all the new features and new supported configurations
- Hotfixes included in SP2 article can be found on the primary Configuration Manager MSConnect page.
- Deployment guides for BranchCache and the new AMT features are available in the download section.
- The new OpsMgr07 R2 ConfigMgr07 Management Pack can also be downloaded, this supports 64bit OpsMgr client agents.
- Please review the Release Notes before performing any installation and upgrade.
Feedback and Support:
- All registered Sp2 Open Beta users can submit bugs, design change requests (DCR’s), and other feedback. See the help link on the ConfigMgr MSConnect homepage for more instructions.
- Newsgroups are a great way to post questions and receive general support question answers.
If you experience any issues with the download or the MSConnect site please contact, sccmtap@microsoft.com
Regards,
The Configuration Manager Customer Team
Application Virtualization Comparison Chart
The guys at virtualfuture.info have released a new version of their Application Virtualization Comparison Chart. This document compares all of the major products in the application virtualization market.
| Symantec | Software Virtualization Solution 6.1 Workspace Streaming 6.1 |
| Microsoft | Application Virtualization 4.5 CU1 |
| Citrix | XenApp 5.0 & Streaming Profiler 1.3.1 |
| InstallFree | Bridge 1.9.2.6 |
| VMware | ThinApp 4.0.3 (Build 3313) |
| XenoCode | Virtual Application Studio 2009 SP1 |
In this document not only the performance counts but also the feature lists are compared and put together in an easy to read overview. I have to say: Great job guys!
Want to read this document yourself ? Click here to go to virtualfuture.info
Xenocode: A damn good alternative to VMware Thinapp!
As Mark pointed out in his earlier post: The VMware Thinapp team really needs to wake up… it’s not acceptable (from my point of view) to still not have Windows 7 support for you application virtualization product!!
Mark pointed me to an alternative called Xenocode: This is looks a LOT like Thinapp/Thinstall and works on Windows 7 as well 
Virtualizing Applications
To get started, first go to www.xenocode.com and download the Virtual Application Studio.
When you fire up the VAS you get a wizard which provides you with 3 ways of virtualizing your application:
The first option allows users to easily virtualize an application using a template. This template contains all the settings for virtualizing an application. It’s as easy as next next finish . This is really awesome for organizations where you want your application support team to virtualize the application, as they don’t have to know in-depth how application virtualization works .
The second option allows users to virtualize an application the way we know it from VMware Thinapp. It first takes a snapshot of the computer, then prompts the user to install the application /set configuration options etc and then takes another snapshot and does a diff on the snapshots to determine what files and registry settings should be in the virtual application.
The third option allows users to manually specify the files/folders and registry settings that are required for this application to run (really useful when virtualizing your in-house developed applications, seeing as the developers know exactly what file should go where, and you don’t get any clutter from background processes etc.)
After you captured your application, you can easily include common runtimes from the runtimes tab (such as the .NET frameworks, java, flash etc)
The toolbar on the left side of the screen gives us access to the various parts of the virtual application, such as File system, Registry etc.
I’ts also possible to generate a MSI package for the virtual application for easier deployment using SCCM/MDT/GPO/Whatever you use to deploy your software to your users.
For troubleshooting your virtual application Xenocode provides a checkbox to Generate diagnostic-mode executable. Basically what this does is create an executable that will output logging in 3 log files next to the application, so if something is not working in your application, you can easily troubleshoot
If you enabled it in your application settings (on by default) it’s also possible to pass command line switches to your application at startup time.
- /XEnv=Variable Name=Value Specifies additional environment variables. Multiple /XEnv arguments can be used to add additional environment variables.
- /XLayerPath=Layer Path Adds the given xlayer file into the virtual environment. Multiple /XLayerPath arguments can be used to add additional virtual layers.
- /XSandboxPath=Sandbox Path Specifies the path to be used for the application sandbox.
- /XShellEx=Command Specifies a shell execute command to be launched from within the virtual application environment. This option overrides any startup files specified in the virtual application configuration. Only one /XShellEx argument can be specified.
- /XShellExVerb=Command Verb Specifies the verb to be used in conjunction with the XShellEx command. The default verb is OPEN.
Middleware
When dealing with middleware, in Thnapp we could specify an applink and with App-V we can use dynamic suiting to allow for interbubble communications. In Xenocode you don’t make an application for your middleware, but make it a component, which you can import in your applications.
Deploying Virtual Applications
Deployment of the virtual applications is done through a tool called XReg. This allow the administrator to control how the application is published to the user.
This can be done from a startup/logon script. This area needs some more work in my perspective, there’s not a nice and nifty GUI management interface as with App-V.
Also the possibility to create MSI’s makes deployment a bit easier, just use your favorite deployment method for your virtual applications.
Pricing
Not the most fun part for us techies, but important for the ones who have to make the decisions about investments, and what application virtualization technology will be used.
The Xenocode Virtual Application Studio ISV Edition costs $1599
End-User licenses: $40 per seat.
Well that’s about it . As a final conclusion i think Xenocode is a real nice application virtualization product, it works easily and out of the box, users don’t have to know a lot about Windows and application when you just give them the right application templates . As with VMware Thinapp, the problem is how to distribute the applications to your clients, and how do you make sure that all users have the latest version of the virtualized application… well that’s something the Xenocode team needs to think about I guess.
App-v on a stick!
Last friday our colleague Peter Nap released the first version of his App-V USB Tool, The free App-v USB tool can be used to import and register sequenced applications into the App-V client fully automated, just put your applications on a USB device and insert the device in a PC that is running the App-V USB Tool. If you do this the App-V tool will ask you what to do.
After choosing option one or two the client will import and register the application(s) on the USB device and register associated file-types. And you're ready to use them!
You can also choose to import a folder just by right clicking it (this folder doesn't have to be on the USB device)
You can download The App-V USB tool for free from the tools section at loginconsultants.com.
Intel 945 and External Display native resolution
Just a quick post in between 
As promised I’m still working on my XenoCode post to followup on Mark’s VMware bash .
I noticed messing around/coding/working etc all the time on my work laptop was killing my back, so I decided to buy 2 20” tft screens (Dell S2009W) and a docking station for my laptop so I would have a decent workplace @ home. Pretty much fun, untill I discovered that the monitors native resolution (1600x900) wasn’t supported by my laptops graphic card (Intel 945 Express, Intel GMA 950 chip)… Hmm that was a real bummer…. after googling around I found this post talking about how to enable custom resolution on Intel graphics… But that looked mighty complicated at first and I didn’t want to bother…
After 2 days working on non-native resolution I decided I had to fix this, so I started again… this time I discovered the DTD Calculator
Basically what it comes down to:
- Get your monitor info using MonInfo (make sure you have your external monitor attached, otherwise MonInfo will only report back data from your internal display, also make sure you selected your external monitor in MonInfo, you can see that quick enough if you look at Standard Timings Supported)
- Paste your RAW DATA in the DTD Calculator tool on the Interpret EDID tab.
- NOTE: Make sure you're running DTD Calculator as an administrator on Windows Vista / Windows 7. Otherwise the tool won't be able to edit the registry!
- Press Interpret DTD
- Double click the DTD in the right side column.
- Go to Reverse calculation press reverse calculation
- Go to the Registry Hack tab
- Press the More button
- Press Get Calculated
- Press Create Modeline
- Press Write DTDs to Registry
- The program prompts you to reboot your computer, do this and presto! You can select your monitor’s native resolution after rebooting the machine
IMPORTANT: Sometimes it can happen that the DTD you get for your monitors native resolution just won’t work on your system, even with this hack…
If the DTD data is correct in the registry but the resolution is still not available, it's a pretty good bet it's forbidden in the BIOS. How do we get around this? We cheat! The BIOS contains the Mode Removal Table, and it has entries like "1600x900, 60Hz" and "1400x1000, 50Hz". But it doesn't say anything about 1599x900, or 1399x1000, so those are allowed. (Muahahahaha! Can you feel the evil power you wield as we bypass this silly restriction?) Ridiculous, really, and you'll lose 1 pixel on the side of your screen… who cares!
For more detailed information about calculating the DTDs and lowering a it by a pixel, please visit this page
For all you lazy people out there (like me ) here is the right DTD for the Dell S2009W monitor (1599x600@60Hz):
2F 26 3F A1 60 84 1A 30 30 20 35 00 BB F9 10 00 00 1A
VMware: Wake up!
Today a negative post from my side, VMware what are you doing, is everyone of the Thinapp team on a permanent vacation ? Why is there still no Windows 7 Support ? And even more important: Where is the official statement telling us when it will be available.
What is the alternative: XenoCode perhaps!
When comparing features XenoCode is very alike with Thinapp (Only they have win7 support ). When it comes to being userfriendly during the capture off applications XenoCode is far ahead, they have include a standard set of templates for common applications.
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A smart thing to create from the XenoCode team is the converter this is the Ability to import external application configurations, including VMware ThinApp configurations: Customers who have already packaged applications using other technologies, including VMware ThinApp/Thinstall, can now import these configurations into Studio with a single click, without the need for any recapture.
Want to try XenoCode quick and simple just try some applications online! you can just run them like a youtube video after installing a little plugin: click here to test.
While i was writing this post Henk got all exited about XenoCode and wanted to give it a try so he’s gonna write the follow up
Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced released
A few days ago Immidio released their new version of Flex Profiles. Flex Profiles can be used together with mandatory profiles to store pre-defined settings (eg: wallpaper, ie passwords, outlook signature ect) but keep the advantages of a full mandatory profile (speed, corruption, bloating) we like to call this a “hybrid profile”.
Lucky as i am i had a chance to test Flex Profiles Advanced and some of the new features that are in it. Below you will find a list of what i think are the most cool new features!
- Pricing -Flex Profiles Advanced fixes a very specific problem for a small price
- Cross platform desktop support
- Support for virtualized applications! (app-v, thinapp etc)
- Compression of the zipfiles that hold the user settings/files (This can save a lot of disk space but watch the performance!)
- Fully configurable via GPO, woohoo no more ini files on every machine
GUI & Automated INI file creation
One of the more time-consuming actions with Flex has always been the creating of the application INI files, the INI files are used to tell the FlexEngine what files / settings have to be saved. But instead of doing this completely by hand you can now use The Flex Profiles Assistant:
- Start the Flex Profiles Assistant
- Start Procmon monitoring (can be done from within de assistant)
- Change some settings that you want the FlexEngine to save
- Stop Procmon monitoring
- Save the Logfile in XML format
- Let the assistant process the logfile and zip it. (Hint: This has to be done on a reference machine, the assistant adds machine info like redirected folders etc to the log file)
- Import the .FLEX file in the Flex Profiles Management Console
- Select the application you want to Flex
- Very important! Check if what the Assistant put in the INI file makes sense! And clean up anything you do not want to be saved / you thing is not important to save.
An other great new feature are the predefined common settings, this is a list of actions you want the FlexEngine to perform without configuring an INI file. For instance you can now click “Internet Explorer – auto complete settings” and the engine is configured to save all settings necessary to remember IE passwords. You can imagine how much easier this is than figuring out an INI file.
As a conclusion: After testing this version of Immidio Flex Profiles i must say i am impressed by the processing speed of the engine and the enormous list of new features they implemented to make our lives easier: This product is worth the money guys!
Example INI FIle:
[IncludeRegistryTrees]
HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0[Information]
Title = Acrobat Reader 9
Description = To be able to read PDF Files[Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition]
This file was created using the Immidio Flex Profiles Management Console.
Only use with Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition.
A good reminder why patch management is important!
I just got home from a whole weekend of working (almost around the clock) at a customer fighting a very nasty virus called WIN32/IRCBOT.RC (it’s called other names as well). The virus had spread around 1100 client systems and approx. 150 server systems. First thing I wondered is how the hell did this virus get in… it’s a pretty old virus which should be picked up by the virus protection and it should not spread among systems via the network, seeing as Microsoft put out a security patch for it. So I started looking around the clients and servers… turned out that the customer didn’t install ANY Microsoft updates at all after deploying the machines.
I ended up writing a very complicated computer startup script that would remove the virus from the clients… on the servers the script was manually started…
The customer was using Norman Anti Virus, which did detect the virus, but didn’t succeed in cleaning/quarantining it. First thing tomorrow they will start uninstalling Norman and start installing Forefront Client Security on the clients (which does actually cure the virus)
So this was a great reminder why we do patch management:
This whole drama could’ve been avoided when the clients and servers would be up to date with the latest security hotfixes from Microsoft.
Office 2010 – Click to run installer – “modification”
As a tech guy you get invited for beta’s on a regular basis, this happened to me for office 2010 a while ago. When i logged on to Microsoft connect i found out Microsoft does not give away full blown iso’s anymore but something they like to call “Click to run Installer”. *hmm interesting.
A couple of minutes after installing it was clear to me the click to run installer is a modified version of Microsoft app-v (softgrid registry keys, the famous Q drive etc), only the softgrid processes are hidden and sfttray does not seem available.
Well so far so good, but then i remembered the app-v 4.6 beta also went public. so this is where it got interesting: What if i take the OSD files from the “Click to run installer” and feed them to a normal app-v client. i guessed there would be some sort of mechanism preventing me to load the applications, this suspicion was increased by the first application i started because it was asking for a certificate 
but no worries.. From all the osd files i managed to start a certificate manager
So here is a little howto:
- Get invited to the beta of office 2010 to get your hands on some OSD files
- Get the app-v 4.6 client (connect.microsoft.com)
- Extract the OSD files from the machine where you ran the “click to run installer” (C:\Users\Public\Documents\SoftGrid Client\OSD Cache)
- Import the OSD files on the app-v 4.6 client
- Load the application(s): for instance with “Sfttray.exe /loadall”
- Run the application via the GUID name: for instance “Sfttray.exe /launch {eef3cf80-26b2}”
I definitely see a future for this type of application delivery, where even home users use techniques that are common for enterprises these days: How great would it be if you could just stream a application and only pay when you are really using it ? – as a service!
MDT 2010 Release Candidate!
The Release Candidate for MDT 2010 just went public!
This release promises a lot of bug fixes and is tested with pre-RC build of Config Manager 2007 SP2.
Sign up for it here: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=14