Leveraging SVS to Prepare Training Course with Less Time and Effort
In this contribution I'll describe what I did for a local student association involved in educating the student community about Open Source software.
Learn how SVS became a key enabler to my preparation and presentation.
This association asked me to hold a training course where I would teach the students about some Open Source programs, like Open Office and others.
I found the student proposal really interesting, and for my point of view (to use open source programs everywhere) I was quick to agree to preparing and teaching the course.
Requirements:
The association asked me to run all programs in Windows XP (Home Edition) because the idea was to recreate the same system that is used by the students at home.
For this course, a training lab was prepared with seven computers with a basic Windows XP installation. No other applications were installed and all software environments needed to be prepared or installed.
Initial idea:
For my initial preparation idea, I thought I would:
- Prepare an Open Source software list.
- Burn a CD or prepare a USB memory key with all the installation programs.
- Run a setup program on each computer to install the applications.
- Apply the same settings to each computer.
- Test the programs, for in my experience I know that all computers prepared in the same normally obtain some different result... OK, the Windows is the same, environment is the same, and also preparation but maybe stars in the sky says for sure that the result will be different!
A Better Solution:
Thinking how to reduce time and potentially problems during installation, I thought to use Altiris Software Virtualization Solution.
This solution gave me the opportunity to change installation and software configuration for my training course computers.
Using the software list prepared in advance (OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Foxit Reader and other tools), I created create the SVS layer packages and simply deployed them by copying to the lab these computers (of course installing Altiris SVS beforehand).
Benefits:
- Use the same configuration in each computer, no software issue or different settings.
- Reduce time for preparation.
- After training course, no wasted software remained in the lab environment.
- Opportunity to create again the same course with the same environment.
Conclusions:
This course gave me the opportunity to export virtualization concepts outside the enterprise world and teach the students about software virtualization.
Many people know that virtualizazion can simplify and help their own computer perform better. I was able to teach how SVS can be used to keep the operating system more clean and clear.
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Did you prepare all
Did you prepare all computers with process imaging ?
Computer installation
All computers in the classroom were already running with MS XP., so in this case I've only installed SVS in each computer and deployed all packages prepared in advance.
Regards
PM
Noticed strange behaviour?
Riva,
Did you noticed the behaviour when running SVS on pc's with XP were multiple users work on?
Try this:
Start Word 2003 or 2007 as virtualized apps, and create a document.
Save the document, and logoff the pc.
Logon as a different user.
Again start Word.
Then push file, and in the list of last opened documents you will notice that the document you created is listed over there, and in a worse case even reachable for the other user.
Regards
Erik
www.svs4u.nl
Regards
Erik
www.DinamiQs.com
Dinamiqs is the home of VirtualStorm (www.virtualstorm.org)
Hi Eriw,
Hi Eriw,
In this case there was only one user profile for this training, so I didn't see this behaviour .
But tomorow I'll do a test on my virtual pc's to reproduce annd understand if it happens.
regards,
PM
Which it will...
... Erik was just setting up another pitch for DeltaISIS' solution for SVS on multi-user machines. :)
Eric,
Eric,
In my VM with WinXp I don't see this behaviour. Tried using different users but no evidence about "shared" docs.
regards
PM
Easier Way
You know you could put all your layers and the install for SVS on a USB memory stick then write a command file that installs SVS, causes a reboot to complete the SVS install, and another that imports and auto-activates all the layers.
It's pretty easy to do and would take your setup time down to ALMOST nothing at all! It is all really easy command line scripts. All you need is the USB stick, the VSAs and the SVS msi.
Easy and FAST.....let me know if you need the command line!
Good Luck
Tom Fronza
State of Ohio
Dept. of Taxation
Tom, thanks for your post,
Tom, thanks for your post, I'm interested in your solution, of course is well accepted all things that can improve my knowledge and realize in a faster way variuos periodic tasks.
Kind regards,
PM
Command Line for something like that!
Hi Riva11,
First you would have to install SVS - Granted I am assuming you will enter your own product key and you can "Guess" the drive letter....
msiexec.exe /qb? /i "e:\Software_Virtualization_Agent.msi" REBOOT=ReallySuppress PRODUCT_KEY=11111-11111-11111-11111 INSTALL_ADMIN=1
Second you will have to have to reboot your Pc either by yourself or we have found a great probgam to have on your client pcs is Shutdown.exe then you can do a shutdown -r, or now that i tink about it you can undo my ReallySuppress and you pc will reboot as part of the SVS install...
Third you will have to have all your layers on the USB memory stick! and maybe another command line
First Import
svscmd I -P "g:\vsa\AppName.vsa" -F
Second Activate and Auto-Activate
SVSCMD.exe "AppName" a
SVSCMD.exe "AppName" auto -y
You can call the application by its given name once it is imported....Makes things MUCH easier!
Well I hope this helps GOOD LUCK!
Tom Fronza
State of Ohio
Dept. of Taxation
Tom, thanks for your info.
Tom, thanks for your info. Well described and interesting.
Kind regards.
PM
Do all your applications work for you.?
This is a concept we are trying in our training labs as well, with limited success at this stage so far.
We are using SVS 2.1 to create VSA files and DS 6.8 to deploy and activate. We create iusing the global choice to custimise settings in the apps and test the SVS on a VM system and then export.
The apps we are having trouble with are:
SPSS v15 - licensing issues
ICE and OpenOffice 2.3 - registry error 1040 and profile issues of settings not being taken with the image in OpenOffice.
Are there problems with customising a VSA on a PC and then running on other systems with different users?
Any suggestions?
Cheers
andycomp
Difficult apps
Abdycomp,
I also did SPSS 1.5. The license issues are probably related because you have the license registry key in the VSA.
Take it out, and create a script that users will have this key in they're registry localy. That did the job for me on a local workstation.
Ice will not work. It has a driver that will stop you.
OpenOffice 2.3 can be used together with DVS and DVS4SBc two SVS addons. In normal SVS i did not get it to work.
Maybe a good tip.
Alway's check the registry settings in a VSA. If settings are not taken well, export them and try importing them separate from the VSA.
Regards
Erik
www.svs4u.nl
Regards
Erik
www.DinamiQs.com
Dinamiqs is the home of VirtualStorm (www.virtualstorm.org)
Thanks for the direction it
Thanks for the direction it is great to see a response so quickly.
On SPSS 15, strange I did not register it in the VSA - only the serial number was entered and I used a batch file to run the registration after the VSA was imported by DS.
I am still unable to make SPSS15 work, so any tricks welcome.
I am not sure yet what registry areas to look at, so any direction in that area would be appreciated.
Shame I don't read German as the SVS4U site looks interesting.
No sure what DVS and DVS4SBc are but will look into it.
We broke the ICE and OpenOffice into 2 VSA's and they mostly worked, we just copied a few folders manually and that got most of the setup. We considered using PC Transplant to copy the profile setup. We even used the same user logon in the VM session and the live classroom. It is hoped to come up with some solution to do this long term as it takes considerable time to setup training labs for this course and do updates of O/O.
Regards
Andrew
Cheers
andycomp
SVS4U website
The SVS4U website is not in German ( shame on you) but in Dutch. A lot of content is also published in English.
SPSS should be builded in Wise Packaging studio.
Build a own MSI of the install.
Extract the registry settings.
Seek the settings for the license key. They are encrypted, so don't seek for the key itself.
Export the key.
Now open the export, and change the path from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to HKEY_USERS\.Default.
That did the job for me.
You can also email SPSS.VSA to me, and i will take a look at it.
If you mail it, change the extension from vsa to vs_
DVS and DVS4SBC are own creations. They will be launched next wednesday, and then i send you the URL to it.
Both programs are add-ons for SVS, where DVS4SBC is especially for terminal server and/or Citrix.
Regards
Erik.
Regards
Erik
www.svs4u.nl
Regards
Erik
www.DinamiQs.com
Dinamiqs is the home of VirtualStorm (www.virtualstorm.org)
All Dutch to Me
Hi Eric
Sorry for the German/Dutch confusion.
We are wanting to achieve this in SVS rather than an MSI if possible and we only have Wise Editor not Studio, so if it can be done using the Admin Console it would be preferred.
Strange thing is that we got it working by using a Ghost AutoInstall (AI) we are currently using on host systems to create the layer and exported this to the PC's and registered them with a batch file. Why this is different to creating the layer with the CD install I am not sure.
Others are having the same problem and the data layer sounds like a possible solution for SVS2.1: http://forums.altiris.com and search for SPSS.
Not sure about sending the vsa as it is 200MB and the test is registering with our code.
Cheers
Andrew
Cheers
andycomp
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