MasteringWindows® 7 Deployment

MasteringWindows® 7 Deployment

Aidan Finn

Darril Gibson

Kenneth van Surksum

Acquisitions Editor: Agatha Kim

Development Editor: Candace English

Technical Editors: Johan Arwidmark and Mikael Nyström

Production Editor: Christine O’Connor

Copy Editor: Elizabeth Welch

Editorial Manager: Pete Gaughan

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Vice President and Publisher: Neil Edde

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Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Mastering Windows 7 Deployment. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, we’re still committed to producing consis-tently exceptional books. With each of our titles, we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on, to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how we’re doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at nedde@wiley.com. If you think you’ve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

Best regards,

Neil Edde Vice President and Publisher Sybex, an Imprint of Wiley

To my friends and family who have supported me over the years.

—Aidan Finn

To my wife Nimfa. Thanks for sharing your life with me and continuing to enrich my life in so many ways.

—Darril Gibson

AcknowledgmentsThanks to Agatha Kim for inviting me on this project. I truly enjoy working on the Mastering series books with Agatha and her team. The editors are top-notch and provide consistently help-ful advice. I also appreciated all of the excellent suggestions provided by the technical editor, Johan Arwidmark, even if we didn’t have room for all of them.

—Darril Gibson

I would like to thank my wife, Miranda, and kids, Colin and Caitlin, for their support while I was working on the chapters for this book. I would also like to thank Rhonda Layfield for providing me with this opportunity, and a special thanks to Johan Arwidmark and Mikael Nyström for doing the technical review. I would also like to thank Candace English, Agatha Kim, Christine O’Connor, and other people involved for helping me make some great chapters about deployment.

—Kenneth van Surksum

About the AuthorsAidan Finn (B.Sc., MCSE, MVP) has been working in IT since 1996. He has worked as a consul-tant, contractor, and system administrator for various companies in Ireland and with clients around Europe. In recent years, Aidan has worked with VMware ESX, Hyper-V, and Microsoft System Center. Currently, Aidan is a senior infrastructure consultant in Dublin, Ireland.

Aidan is the leader of the Windows User Group in Ireland. He regularly speaks at user group events and conferences about Windows Server, desktop management, virtualization, and System Center. Aidan was also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) on System Center Configuration Manager in 2008. He was awarded MVP status with virtual machine expertise in 2009. He is a member of the Microsoft Springboard STEP program and is one of the Microsoft System Center Influencers. Aidan has worked closely with Microsoft, including online interviews, launch events, and road shows, and has worked as a technical reviewer for the Microsoft Official Curriculum course on Windows Server 2008 R2 virtualization.

Darril Gibson is the CEO of Security Consulting and Training, LLC. He has written, co-authored, and contributed to more than a dozen books, and regularly consults and teaches on a wide variety of IT topics. Most of the books he’s been involved with are available on Amazon by searching for “Darril Gibson.” He has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) since 1999 and holds a multitude of certifications, including MCSE (NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003), MCITP (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server), Security+, CISSP, and ITIL Foundations. Darril lives in Virginia Beach with his wife of over 18 years and two dogs. Whenever possible, they escape to a cabin in the country with over 20 acres of land where his dogs wear themselves out chasing rabbits and deer, and he enjoys long, peaceful walks.

Kenneth van Surksum is a consultant from the Netherlands, focused on Microsoft System Center products. He currently designs and implements several System Center products at com-panies in the Netherlands, working for INOVATIV. Kenneth has more than 10 years of experi-ence in IT and in particular with deployment, starting with building unattended installation infrastructures for deploying Windows NT for a large bank in the Netherlands, evolving over time to newer operating systems and new methods of deployment. Kenneth is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and teaches classes in the Netherlands. He is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with the Expertise Setup & Deployment.

About the Contributing AuthorMikael Nyström is a Microsoft MVP and Senior Executive Consultant at TrueSec, with an extremely broad field of competence. He has worked with all kind of infrastructure tasks in all kind of environments, enterprise to small business. He is working deep within products such as SCOM, ConfigMgr, SCVMM, SCDPM, Hyper-V, MDT, SharePoint, Exchange, SharePoint, and Active Directory. Mikael is a very popular instructor and is often used by Microsoft for partner trainings as well as to speak at major conferences such as TechEd, MMS, etc. Lately Mikael has been deeply engaged in the development of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as a mem-ber of the TAP team.

Contents at a Glance

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xix

Chapter 1  •  Does Your Hardware Measure Up? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2  •  Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter 3  •  Installing Windows 7: Meet the Panther . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 4  •  Cloning the Panther: Automating Windows 7 Installation. . . . . . . . . . . 101

Chapter 5  •  Migrating the Existing User Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Chapter 6  •  Windows Deployment Services: The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Chapter 7  •  WDS from the Client’s View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Chapter 8  •  Tweaking Your WDS Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Chapter 9  •  Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Chapter 10  •  MDT’s Client Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Chapter 11  •  Fine-Tuning MDT Deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Chapter 12  •  Zero Touch Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Chapter 13  •  Taking Advantage of Volume Licensing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Appendix  •  The Bottom Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xix

Chapter 1  •  Does Your Hardware Measure Up? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Meet Windows 7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Windows 7 Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Using the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Planning and Installing MAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Performing a Windows 7 Readiness Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Produce MAP Reports and Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Chapter 2  •  Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility . . . . . . . . .33Application Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33The Application Compatibility Toolkit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Choosing an ACT Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Installing ACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Using the Application Compatibility Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Resolving Application Compatibility Issues with Shims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Deploying XP Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Installing Virtual PC for Windows 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Installing XP Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Advanced Deployment of XP Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Chapter 3  •  Installing Windows 7: Meet the Panther . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79Choosing the Right Edition of Windows 7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Windows 7 Professional. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Windows 7 Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Windows 7 Ultimate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81The N, E, K, and KN Editions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Speaking the Language: Four Ways to Use Windows Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Deploying New Bare-Metal Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Upgrading Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Refreshing Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85Replacing Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Windows Setup in Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Preinstallation Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Online Configuration Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Windows Welcome Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

xIv | Contents

Performing the Windows 7 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Performing a Clean Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91Performing an In-Place Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

The Last Step: Licensing and Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Understanding Windows Activation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Activating a New Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Discovering the Four Types of Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Chapter 4  •  Cloning the Panther: Automating Windows 7 Installation . . . . . 101Getting Familiar with Microsoft Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Image Types: VHD and WIM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102Creating a Bootable VHD Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102Creating a Bootable WinPE Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Creating Operating System Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Creating Your First Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Using the Windows Automated Installation Kit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Creating Bootable WinPE Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110Preparing a System with Sysprep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Capturing an Image Using ImageX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Applying an Image Using ImageX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117Customizing Images Using Deployment Image Servicing and Management . . . . . . . 118

Viewing Information about an Image with DISM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Mounting an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121Servicing Drivers in an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Servicing the Operating System in an Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Committing an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Using Windows System Image Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Exploring the Panes: An Overview of WSIM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128Understanding Catalog Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Exploring the Components of an Answer File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Creating an Unattended Answer File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Chapter 5  •  Migrating the Existing User Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143Exploring User Data and Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

User Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Application Settings Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Migrating User Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Working with Windows Easy Transfer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146Capturing Data with Windows Easy Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Restoring Data with Windows Easy Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Working with the User State Migration Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152Using the USMT in Four Deployment Scenarios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Setting Up the Source Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157Gathering Data by Running ScanState . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158Applying the Data and Settings Using LoadState. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

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Getting Extra Mileage Out of the USMT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Chapter 6  •  Windows Deployment Services: The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173Understanding WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

The History of WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173How Does WDS Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Deploying WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Designing a WDS Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178WDS Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180Installing WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180Configure the WDS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Image Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186Managing Boot Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186Managing Installation Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198Exploring the WDS Image Store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Modifying PXE Client Response Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Chapter 7  •  WDS from the Client’s view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205Employing the PXE Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Booting a PXE Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206Configuring PXE Response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207Selecting a Boot Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213Customizing the PXE Boot Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Creating a Customized Installation Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215Prepare a Reference Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215Create an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Using Unattended Answer Files with WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218Preparing WSIM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Automating the Boot Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219Automating Image Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Monitoring, Logging, and Troubleshooting WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Monitoring WDS Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223WDS Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225Troubleshooting WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Chapter 8  •  Tweaking Your WDS Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229Using WDS to Name Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Developing a Naming Standard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229Naming a Computer Using WDS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Manage Domain Membership Using WDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235Advanced Domain Controller Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Using WDS for Multicast Deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238Why Multicast Deployments Are Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238How WDS Multicast Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

xvI | Contents

Creating a Multicast Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241Troubleshooting a Multicast Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Chapter 9  •  Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247Setting Up Your Deployment Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248Software Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Supported Operating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Installing MDT 2010 Update 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250Meeting the Deployment Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251Exploring the Active Parts of the Deployment Workbench. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Creating and Populating a Deployment Share . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253Creating a Deployment Share. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253Populating the Deployment Share . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260Creating a Task Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Updating the Deployment Share . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Deploying Your First Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Chapter 10  •  MDT’s Client Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Customizing the Deployment Share. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Operating System Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299Application Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302Driver Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306Package Properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307Task Sequence Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

General Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309Task Sequence Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310The OS Info Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Automating the MDT Deployment Wizard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Chapter 11  •  Fine-Tuning MDT Deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .323Discovering Selection Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323Creating a Linked Deployment Share . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Understanding Linked Deployment Shares. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325Maintaining Linked Deployment Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326Securing Linked Deployment Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Deploying from DVD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331Working with the MDT Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Creating the MDT Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333Using the MDT Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334Filling the MDT Database Using PowerShell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343Extending the MDT Database with Custom Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Contents | xvII

Chapter 12  •  Zero Touch Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349Understanding Configuration Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Introducing Configuration Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350Why Use Configuration Manager for OSD?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353Understanding the ZTI Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Installing Configuration Manager 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355Prepare for a ConfigMgr Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356Install the Site Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362Configure the Site Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Preparing and Configuring Boot Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371Creating Boot Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372Adding Drivers to a Boot Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Creating and Capturing a Reference Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379Install Packages on the Distribution Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387Create a Collection and a Computer Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389Advertise the Reference Image Task Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392Run the Reference Image Task Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Identifying and Targeting Machines for Rebuilding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395A Deployment Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396Creating a Collection for Windows 7 Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397New Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Deploying Windows 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400Create a New Deployment Task Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400Edit the Deployment Task Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403Advertise for Bare-Metal Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406Performing the Zero Touch Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Monitoring Deployment Progress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Chapter 13  •  Taking Advantage of volume Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413Choosing the Right Volume License Key for Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413Tracking Your Licenses with the Key Management Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Learning the KMS Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416Choosing Your KMS Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417Selecting the KMS Host Manually. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418Installing and Initializing KMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418Configuring DNS to Let KMS Clients Find the KMS Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419Uninstalling KMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421Troubleshooting the KMS and the KMS Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421Configuring KMS for Activation of Office 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422Monitoring the KMS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423Using Asset Intelligence Reports in SCCM 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

KMS and the Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423Using a KMS Client Key and MAK During OS Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424Changing the Client License Type After Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425Postponing Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

xvIII | Contents

Recovering from a Nongenuine State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427Understanding the Windows Software Licensing Management Tool . . . . . . . . . . 428Configuring Windows Firewall Settings When Using SLMGR Remotely . . . . . . . 429Allowing Standard Users to Perform Activation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430Controlling Activation Notifications and Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430Using Group Policy to Control Activation Behavior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Tracking Your Licenses: The Volume Activation Management Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432Understanding the VAMT Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432Exploring What the VAMT Can Do for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Appendix  •  The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .437Chapter 1: Does Your Hardware Measure Up?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437Chapter 2: Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438Chapter 3: Installing Windows 7: Meet the Panther. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439Chapter 4: Cloning the Panther: Automating Windows 7 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440Chapter 5: Migrating the Existing User Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442Chapter 6: Windows Deployment Services: The Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443Chapter 7: WDS from the Client’s View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444Chapter 8: Tweaking Your WDS Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445Chapter 9: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446Chapter 10: MDT’s Client Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447Chapter 11: Fine-Tuning MDT Deployments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448Chapter 12: Zero Touch Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449Chapter 13: Maintenance and Monitoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Introduction

Deploying Microsoft operating systems can be quite complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. The setup program is completely different from what you have known in the past with OSs like Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. There are now configuration passes to perform during the installation and new tools to help you get the job done. In this book we start at the begin-ning of a deployment project and work our way through deploying OSs, applications, drivers, and packages. And more importantly, we don’t stop there. Re-imaging machines today is a valid and useful troubleshooting step. We’ll show you how to maintain your images to keep them current even months down the road.

While most of the tools covered in this book are free—the time spent learning them could be costly. After all, time is money, right? In this book, we strive to make learning these tools as easy as possible by giving you our crib notes. We’ll share all the tips and tricks we have learned as well as the pitfalls and most commonly made mistakes so you won’t waste valuable time mak-ing the same mistakes.

Who Should Read This BookThis book is for people who want to learn how to use Microsoft’s deployment tools—all the tools! From installation through advanced configuration and troubleshooting, you’ll find it here. For those of you reading this book, you’ll probably fall into one of three basic groups of readers:

IT pros who have been in the industry for a short time who understand basic networking •u

infrastructure concepts like Active Directory Domains, Domain Naming Services (DNS), and the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and who want to further their knowledge in the deployment of Microsoft operating systems

More experienced IT pros who have been involved in deploying Microsoft operating sys-•u

tems using tools like Ghost and Altiris who want the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of Microsoft’s tools

IT pros who have been around a while and used some of the Microsoft deployment tools but •u

want to learn how to integrate the tools together to get the most robust deployment solution

How to Use This BookThere is more than one way to use this book. You could start with Chapter 1 and read the entire book to become a true Microsoft deployment expert. The chapters are organized as a real-world deployment project and take you through determining which of your existing machines are

xx | IntroduCtIon

ready for Windows 7 to deploying an image complete with an OS, all your applications, drivers, and packages. There are many ways to deploy an image; each tool has its positive and negative aspects and you need to be aware of them before you choose the tool that is right for your envi-ronment. Or you can read only the chapters that interest you—but a word of caution here: If you decide to only read the MDT 2010 U1, WDS, or SCCM, chapters please be sure to read Chapters 3 and 4. These chapters explain in great detail the tools that all the other tools are built on. To trou-bleshoot MDT, WDS, or SCCM, you need to know the underlying tools. Another way to use this book is searching for resolutions to issues you have encountered. There is nothing wrong with using the book in this manner, but you’ll get a more-well rounded understanding of the tools if you know all the pieces and how they fit together.

What You NeedYou don’t need to create a test environment (be it virtual or physical) to follow along with each chapter’s step-by-step instructions, but it would certainly help you gain a much more in-depth understanding of the tools.

What Is Covered in This Book

Chapter 1: Does Your Hardware Measure Up? walks you through the process of implement-ing the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, and using it to assess the infrastructure for a Windows 7 deployment project. This chapter also shows you how you can produce reports from the MAP database.

Chapter 2: Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility looks at each step in the process of ensuring that your line-of-business (LOB) applications execute in a reliable man-ner when we you deploy Windows 7 to your desktop environment.

Chapter 3: Installing Windows 7: Meet the Panther peeks into the three different phases of the installation process: the preinstallation phase, the online configuration phase, and the Windows Welcome phase. The chapter also includes steps you can use to perform a clean installation and an upgrade and explores basics on licensing and activation, including the use of retail keys and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) keys.

Chapter 4: Cloning the Panther: Automating Windows 7 Installation shows you how to use the WinPE to create bootable media, add additional tools such as ImageX, and then cap-ture an image.

Chapter 5: Migrating the Existing User Data helps you maintain your users’ data, settings like Internet Explorer favorites and desktop settings, and application settings to make your users’ environment look and feel as close as possible to their old environment (Vista or XP).

Chapter 6: Windows Deployment Services: The Basics will show you how to install and configure Windows Deployment Services (WDS) with images that are complete with drivers and applications.

Chapter 7: WDS from the Client’s View walks you through the WDS client experience where you will start working with client machines to access the services that WDS provides.

Chapter 8: Tweaking Your WDS Server focuses on the advanced WDS features.

IntroduCtIon | xxI

Chapter 9: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 shows you how to install MDT along with the required software and hardware. You’ll learn how to put an image together and deploy it.

Chapter 10: MDT’s Client Wizard teaches you how to customize the MDT’s client wizard, showing you how to silence pages in the wizard and add rules and logic to the deployment.

Chapter 11: Fine-Tuning MDT Deployments dives into the advanced features of MDT, including selection profiles and linked deployment shares.

Chapter 12: Zero Touch Installations shows you how to create template images and deploy them from a central console to targeted PCs on an ad hoc and on a scheduled basis.

Chapter 13: Taking Advantage of Volume Licensing helps you choose which volume license key type to use and shows you how to track your licenses with the Key Management Service.

How to Contact the AuthorsThe authors welcome feedback from you about this book or about books you’d like to see from them in the future.

You can reach Aidan by writing to aidanfinn@hotmail.com. For more information about his work, please visit his website at www.aidanfinn.com and follow him on Twitter @joe_elway.

Darril loves hearing from readers, and you can reach him at darril@mcitpsuccess.com. To contact Kenneth, write to kenneth@vansurksum.com or visit his LinkedIn profile at

www.linkedin.com/in/kennethvansurksum. For more information about his work, please visit his website at http://www.techlog.org.

Sybex strives to keep you supplied with the latest tools and information you need for your work. Please check their website at www.sybex.com, where we’ll post additional content and updates that supplement this book if the need arises. Enter Windows 7 in the Search box (or type the book’s ISBN—9780470600313), and click Go to get to the book’s update page.

Chapter 1

Does Your Hardware Measure Up?

Your boss or customer will start the conversation with one question when you propose to upgrade the desktop infrastructure to Windows 7: How much will it cost? Licensing might come into the equation and it may not. That’s usually a pretty simple calculation. What is more difficult is calculat-ing the number of hardware upgrades or replacements that will have to be performed to bring the computers up to the required specifications for Windows 7 and the relevant desktop applications.

This chapter introduces you to Windows 7, its editions, and the hardware requirements of the operating system. Armed with this information, you’ll be ready to perform an assessment of the network to identify the machines that are suitable for Windows 7, those that might require an upgrade, and those that should be replaced.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is a free suite that you can use to assess the existing IT infrastructure for a number of Microsoft product deployments, including Windows 7 and Office 2010. This chapter walks you through the process of planning the imple-menting MAP and using it to assess the infrastructure for a Windows 7 deployment project.

We finish the chapter by showing how you can produce reports from the MAP database. These reports can be presented to your boss or customer or they can be used by you to plan any hardware changes that must be implemented before you proceed with a Windows 7 deployment.

In this chapter, you will learn to:

Identify the Windows 7 requirements•u

Plan for and use the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit•u

Produce reports and proposals from the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit•u

Meet Windows 7Windows 7 is the newest Microsoft desktop operating system and is the successor to Windows Vista. As with Windows Vista, and Windows XP before that, there are a number of editions of Windows 7:

Windows 7 Starter•u

Windows 7 Home Basic•u

Windows 7 Home Premium•u

Windows 7 Professional•u

2 | Chapter 1 does Your Hardware Measure up?

Windows 7 Ultimate•u

Windows 7 Enterprise•u

We won’t go into detail on the first three; the Starter edition is available via original equip-ment manufacturers (OEMs) only and is used mainly for netbook systems, and Home Basic and Home Premium editions are focused on the end consumer market. This leaves us with the Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions.

The Professional edition is the normal business edition of Windows 7 that will be sold with OEM computers. It has the usual features you would expect from a business edition, including the ability to join a domain and be managed using Group Policy.

The Ultimate and Enterprise editions inherit features from the same editions of Windows Vista and also introduce the new Better Together features, which are designed to work with Windows Server 2008 R2. The Better Together features are as follows:

BitLocker and BitLocker To Go BitLocker is a disk-encryption solution that is intended to protect against accidental loss or theft of computers. The entire contents of the hard disk are encrypted and are unusable for unauthorized users. BitLocker can be centrally managed using Active Directory.

Many organizations have protected their laptops against loss or theft using disk encryption but have still managed to make the wrong sort of headlines when removable media (such as flash drives) disappeared with private, sensitive, or customer data on them. The liabilities of transporting such data on removable media are huge. BitLocker To Go provides a way to encrypt removable media on Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate editions. The contained data can be accessed using a preshared password. The encrypted data can be accessed on other versions of Windows such as Windows XP with that password. Administrators can manage BitLocker To Go using Group Policy and can even force its usage for all removable media.

DirectAccess One of the most difficult things an administrator has to do is train end users how to use a virtual private networking (VPN) client and then field help desk questions related to its usage. These calls are typically very repetitive. For example, an administrator might call to complain that he cannot connect to an internal SharePoint site. The cause might be that they are not connecting their VPN client first. A user might call to complain that they find the VPN client cumbersome to log into or use. Many organizations use third-party VPN clients and identity-verification devices that complicate the login process.

DirectAccess gives you VPN-like access to internal network resources without a visible VPN cli-ent. The DirectAccess client identifies requests to internal resources and creates a secure tunnel to the network for the connection and associated network traffic. This is often a highly desirable feature—one that the mobile workforce (including the executives) will desire greatly. The mobile worker can simply access that private SharePoint site while working on the Internet. There are no clients to start or additional passwords to remember.

BranchCache It has been the ambition of many large organizations to simplify the infra-structure and reduce the costs (financial and administrative effort) of managing the branch office network. The key to this is to remove servers from the branch offices. The difficulty is that end users will still want to be able to access SharePoint sites and file servers, which will now be located in a remote central site at the other end of a high-latency WAN connection.

wIndows 7 Hardware requIreMents | 3

Transferring a small file over that connection will take much longer than it would have with a local file server.

BranchCache provides a way to cache centrally located web or file server content in the branch office, either using desktops (in a peer-to-peer network) or a Windows Server 2008 R2 server. Client machines will retrieve files from the cache rather than from the remote share if they are unchanged. The process will respect file locks and access permissions on the central share. This will drastically improve the download (not the upload) experience for branch office users.

BranchCache is a valuable solution and even improves how management solutions such as System Center Configuration Manager will operate in a branch office network.

Federated Search IT systems exist so that information workers in the business can have access to and share information. This allows workers to make informed decisions. Where is this information stored? Ideally the local PC hard drive has no information stored on it. But information will be scattered throughout file shares and SharePoint sites across many serv-ers, and possibly in many geographic locations. Federated Search makes it possible to find this information from a single search mechanism on a Windows 7 computer.

AppLocker Businesses need solutions to control what software is running on the network. AppLocker provides a white list solution that is controlled by administrators using Active Directory Group Policy. This prevents software such as unlicensed products, malware, and resource-wasteful products from being allowed to start up.

Unlike software restriction policies, AppLocker is based on the application’s publisher-generated digital signature. This allows more flexible rules that do not require as much administrative effort. For example, you can allow all versions or higher of a specific product. This would allow for product upgrades by Windows Update, System Center Configuration Manager, or third-party solutions, without disabling the product.

AppLocker allows a business to tightly control what products can be used on the network and brings control back to the IT department and the business.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Optimizations Windows 7 has been optimized to provide a better end-user experience when used in a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). This is a solution where the desktop operating system is installed in virtual machines that are run-ning on virtualization solutions such as Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, VMware ESX, or Citrix XenServer.

Multilingual User Interface The Multilingual User Interface (MUI) is a language shell that can sit on top of an installation of Windows 7. Users can choose to change the language of the interface to suit their needs. This is a solution that is typically used in multinational organi-zations. A single standard image can be created for all sites and users, and the MUI packages can be bundled into it.

Windows 7 Hardware RequirementsMost organizations that are deploying Windows 7 will probably be using Windows XP as their current desktop operating system. They also likely will have desktop and laptop computer

4 | Chapter 1 does Your Hardware Measure up?

hardware. Windows 7 has much higher hardware requirements than Windows XP. You will have to know the requirements of Windows 7 so that you can identify the desktops and laptops that must be either upgraded or replaced.

Those organizations that bought PCs recently would have been purchasing machines that were designed for Windows Vista but were downgraded to Windows XP. We have some very good news for you; these machines will be probably fine for Windows 7. The hardware require-ments are pretty much identical.

Knowing the minimum requirements for Windows 7 is useful for a couple of reasons. First, exams tend to feature questions about minimum requirements. Being able to recall these facts will score you a few easy points on your next certification exam. Second, the usual experience for a consultant, engineer, or administrator in this situation is that they are offered antique comput-ers that are collecting dust in a storage room. You can use the minimum requirements to identify which machines will be useful and which should be sent to a recycle facility. However, remember that these are the minimum requirements. That means that these are the most basic specifications that you will need to get Windows 7 running. These specifications will not suffice for a typical office machine. They also won’t meet the requirements of higher-end applications.

Windows 7 requirements reference

The official Windows 7 requirements statement can be found here:

www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/system-requirements.aspx

The core minimum requirements for Windows 7 are as follows:

Processor The processor should be 1 GHz or faster. You can use either a 32-bit (x86) or a 64-bit (x64) processor thanks to Windows 7 having 32-bit and 64-bit builds. Many organiza-tions are choosing to deploy the 64-bit builds of Windows 7 to future-proof their desktop network and to maximize the security.

Windows 7 will support up to 32 logical processors or cores in a single processor with a 32-bit build. It can support a massive 256 cores with a 64-bit edition.

A few power users may require multiple processors (sockets rather than logical processors). The Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions will support up to two physi-cal processors (with multiple cores each). The other editions will support only one processor (with multiple cores).

Memory The minimum requirements for memory are 1 GB of RAM for a 32-bit installation and 2 GB of RAM for a 64-bit installation.

However, this amount of memory would not be sufficient in practice. The typical Windows XP office computer could run with 512 MB of RAM but was usually configured with 2 GB of RAM. Realistically, you will want to add more than the minimum to suit the applications that are installed on the computer. For example, a kiosk machine will probably be fine with the minimum amount of RAM so that it can run a web browser. However, a Windows 7 com-puter that is being used by a graphics artist will require much more RAM.

wIndows 7 Hardware requIreMents | 5

Table 1.1 shows the maximum amount of memory that is supported by each Windows 7 edition.

table 1.1: Maximum memory supported by Windows 7

edition 32-bit limit 64-bit limit

Enterprise 4 GB 192 GB

Ultimate 4 GB 192 GB

Professional 4 GB 192 GB

Home Premium 4 GB 16 GB

Home Basic 4 GB 8 GB

Starter 2 GB 2 GB

The information in Table 1.1 makes it pretty clear that power users will want to use 64-bit installations of Windows 7 because of the support for much larger amounts of memory.

Hard Disk Space A 32-bit installation requires 16 GB of disk space and a 64-bit installation requires 20 GB of disk space. This does not account for the applications that will be installed on the computer and the various service packs and patches that will be deployed to it. You should also allow for additional space if your organization uses Offline Files or allows users to store files on their computer.

Graphics Card A DirectX 9 graphics processor with Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.0 or higher is required.

Some features of Windows 7 have additional hardware requirements:

Internet Access Internet access is required to access online features such as the Web and direct online activation with Microsoft, and to download Windows Updates directly from Microsoft.

Games Games typically have publisher-specified graphics card and memory requirements that are higher than that of Windows 7.

Video Playback You will require a better graphics device and more memory to display high-quality video.

DVD Drive You need a DVD drive to install Windows 7 using the Microsoft-supplied media. This book shows you several methods for installing Windows 7 without using a DVD drive.

BitLocker A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 chip is required to use BitLocker.

Windows XP Mode Microsoft supplies a virtual machine with a free copy of Windows XP Professional to users of the Enterprise, Ultimate, and Professional editions of Windows 7. This requires an additional 1 GB of RAM on the Windows 7 computer.

6 | Chapter 1 does Your Hardware Measure up?

You now know the requirements of Windows 7. The challenge is to use this information to identify what you need to do with your existing computers so that you can deploy the new desktop operating system. This is where you may start to use the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit.

Using the Microsoft Assessment and Planning ToolkitThe Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is a free tool that you can use to assess an existing IT infrastructure to deploy one of several Microsoft products, including Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010. The tool will remotely connect to machines that it discovers on the network using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), retrieve information from them, and store the information in a SQL Server database. You can view information in the MAP console and you can produce reports. These reports can be presented to management for business planning or can be used by you to plan hardware upgrades or replacements. We will be focusing on how MAP can be used in a Windows 7 deployment.

MAP is updated pretty regularly by Microsoft to include assessment features for new products. The newest version of MAP as of this writing was 5.0. You can find the latest version here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators/dd537566.aspx

Planning and Installing MAPLet’s look at the machine requirements for MAP and how to prepare the network for it before we show you how to install MAP to perform an assessment for a Windows 7 deployment project.

MAP SySteM RequiReMentS

The hardware requirements for MAP are as follows:

1.6 GHz processor•u

1.5 GB of RAM•u

1 GB of available disk space•u

Network adapter card•u

Graphics adapter that supports 1024•u ¥768 or higher resolution

A dual-core 1.5 GHz or faster processor is recommended for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2. For Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2, 2.0 GB of memory is recommended.

The performance of MAP queries and report generation is a direct result of the storage, memory, and processor resources that are available to it. MAP will perform better if you provide it with more resources and faster disks.

MAP can be installed on either the 32-bit or 64-bit edition of the following operating systems:

Windows Server 2008 R2•u

Windows 7•u