Endpoint Management Community Blog

R Gines | 16 Nov 2009 | 3 comments

For those who are staring at the incoming tsunami called Windows 7, here are some resources that might help get you going.

There will be more to come, but this is a good start...

Here is a link to the general philosophy around how to pull off a Windows 7 migration or namely, the 7 Steps to Windows 7.

and here is a link to a technical whitepaper on using DS 6.9 SP3 for a Windows 7 migration.

Be sure to check out general Symantec Windows 7 support site at Symantec.com.

Enjoy!

Ghost 2003 problem

Mark Downing | 16 Nov 2009 | 3 comments

I recently installed Windows XP SP 3 oin my new laptop (Dell Studio 1555) and necxt installed Ghost 2003 after all device drivers for the OS were installed. I normally create a Ghost image DVD affter a new O/S is installed so I can always get back to a working system in short order.
This time when I went inbot Ghost it's normal menu in PC DOS came up but it is stuck in a loop and won't clone, go inot ghost or go back to Windows.
Instead, it seems to freeze up when I hit either option. It says in option 2 to go back to windows but it says returning to windowws and just never get's there.

How do I get out of this loop and get back inbto windows? I have read everything I can find and I have a hunch there is a problem with the Ghost instalation or perhaps it hangs from a device driver in DOS mode? I'm guessing because I've used Ghost a number of years and never seen anything like this before.

Any ideas? I need to get this fixed ASAP as...

CMDB Rules to populate missing or incorrect Asset Management data

G Ross | 30 Oct 2009 | 0 comments

When working with Asset management there are occassions where there is incorrect or missing data within some of the asset summary fields such as the system manufacturer or model. This becomes especially problematic depending on the reports your asset management team uses to keep track of hardware in your environment.

It may be that your manufacturer is missing from some of your assets. In this case you can use the built in Dell hardware collections or create your own Dell collection to update the manufacturer to Dell for all your Dell workstations. Using the bsaic inventory you should be able to create collections for IBM, Lenovo, HP, etc to update the manufacturer information for all of your systems. In order to do this from the 6.5 console go to View > Configuration >...

Easy Win7 Bootable USB Stick for Netbooks

KSchroeder | 28 Oct 2009 | 0 comments

I came across a handy link to a tool from Microsoft for creating bootable USB sticks from your Windows 7 (or Vista or Linux) bootable DVD ISO file. IanAtkin posted another method here, but this is an official MS tool. I haven't done much testing with it myself (I only have a 2GB USB stick handy currently) but it seems you can use it to "burn" a bootable DVD ISO of any sort to USB quickly and easily...and it will apparently burn DVD ISOs as well to a DVD burner. From my brief testing, it only seems to work with DVD ISOs, but not CD ISOs.

You can download it from the Microsoft Store.

Advanced Windows PE scripting in Ghost Console tasks using Windows PE PreOS to resolve network latency.

Randall Newnham | 26 Oct 2009 | 0 comments

There have been network latency issues observed on slower networks with Ghost. These issues can be resolved when booting to a Windows PE boot disk by exiting Ghost, and performing the Release and Renew commands for IPCONFIG, or by editing the START.BAT file at the end of the Ghost Boot Wizard by adding these commands. In the Ghost Console, it is not very clear how to do this. These steps will clarify that:

When Ghost executes a task that requires booting to Windows PE, it executes a file called START.BAT. This file automates the launch of the Ghost client executable, ngctw32.exe. Though not recommended, it is possible to add custom commands to this batch file. Please note that this batch file affects all tasks that run in a specific build of Windows PE. By default, Ghost has two builds of Windows PE, winpe and winpe-512. It is recommended that you make a copy on the Windows PE build and that you edit the START.BAT associated with only your copy....

Unable to map a network drive with a Windows PE boot disk

Randall Newnham | 26 Oct 2009 | 4 comments

This is either due to a lack of network drivers, or due to the drive mapping command, net use, executing too early in the boot sequence.

First, you must verify that you have networking capabilities in the boot environment. To do this, boot with your existing Windows PE boot disk , then choose Quit to exit Ghost. At the command prompt, type the following, then click Enter:

ipconfig/all

If an IP address is present, and is not 169.xxx.xxx.xxx, then you have networking capabilities. If this is not the case, you will need to add the appropriate network driver according to these instructions:

How to add drivers to DeployAnywhere or WinPE.

http://service1.symantec.com/support/on-technology.nsf/docid/2008050916132860

If you have networking capabilities but still cannot map a drive, it is likely that the net...

Deploying Ghost Console and Imaging Server

Steven Grove | 29 Dec 2009 | 2 comments

I have just started a new job in a new place with new people. We have a 16 blade HP server to migrate all services to in the neat future. As of now, multiple services are running on the same servers with no (nada, zip, zero) redundancy. They know it, and they have been trying to get it up but DIACAP has taken all their time. I will chronicle my trials and tribulations on my journey to migrate the Console services and images to a new blade.

Quick Steps When Cannot Open Deployment Sever

neil_rogers | 17 Sep 2009 | 0 comments

I had a call from a customer yesterday. They had a vulnerability that had to be fix by end of day, and it was 3 pm when I got the call.

He was not the deployment server admin, and had minimal access into DS, but the admin was not available. Passwords were getting locked out due to the issue.

Opening up the console just pulled up the sql connection option. So here are the few steps to check:

1. Check what services are running, Altiris services need to be running, Altiris Deployment services (2-3 of them), and Altiris Express service, Restarting will show if the account is locked.
2. Check the ODBC connections, Administrative tools, Data Sources (odbc) -> System -> (express service) -> test the connection
3. Check SQL services to make sure they are running.

We went on to build a new job to deploy the patch, that is for another post.

Installing DS 6.9 with CMS 7 (including DS 7.0)

Tenacious Geo | 14 Sep 2009 | 7 comments

Hello all,

I wasn't 100% sure about the procedure for having DS 6.9 and CMS 7 (including DS 7.0) on the same server. It looked OK on my test server, but I wanted to verify that there wouldn't be any conflicts or issues. I called support and verified that there would be no problems with installing CMS 7, then installing DS 6.9 after that. We are going to have the SQL database for both CMS and DS off-box, so support said there should not be any performance issues.

Just passing on this info so that somebody else in the same boat will have some extra info available.

Have a great day!
George

Changing Asset Type

Mustafa Abdel-Aziz | 11 Aug 2009 | 0 comments

In the last few days I faced a problem with Helpdesk and Connector Solutions. I have imported some assets from external source using Connector solution and wanted to use these assets in my Helpdesk solution.

The problem I faced was that the new assets were imported with Asset Type (Asset). Hence, the Helpdesk system was not able to view it since the Resource Types list in the Admin menu does not include the (Asset) as an entry.

To solve this problem, I decided to change the asset type of my assets into a type that is supported by Helpdesk, like (Computer). But, I don't have Asset Management Solution to use it to change the asset type.

So, I had to run the below script on the SQL database to change the asset type. After I run that, all assets types are changed to (Computer) and I can see them in the Helpdesk Solution.

Here We Go

------------------------------------

1) First, get the required ResourceType ID:

...

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