Blog by PQR

When installing Windows Server 2008 (R2) or Windows Vista / 7 in your network you must think about volume activation. With volume activation there are two (2) different models for completing this. These are Key Management Service (KMS) and Multiple Activation Key (MAK). Both are working and has there own benefits.


Last week I used an existing Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 installation on a Windows Server 2008 server. This for creating a new Windows 7 SP1 image and deploying it also. Most of times I install MDT for ConfigMgr integration only. Now for me the change to see MDT features and functionality. In this blog we have a look at the setup and choices made during configuration.


Yesterday I installed Windows Deployment Services (WDS) on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server. A good possibility to see the new features available in this release. Most of times I install WDS needed for ConfigMgr installations. Then there's no need to configure WDS; this will be left unconfigured then. In this blog we have a look at the new features in this release.


In ConfigMgr 2007 with R2 it was possible to import App-V packages and stream them to the end user. There was also the possibility to choose between streaming or local delivery for that. Have a look at this blog for more information about ConfigMgr 2007 with App-V integration: http://henkhoogendoorn.blogspot.com/2010/12/configmgr-2007-with-app-v-integration.html


In ConfigMgr 2007 it is difficult to have a true High Availability (HA) solution. This because it isn't supported yet in ConfigMgr 2007; we must wait for ConfigMgr 2012 for that. There are possibilities however with dividing roles on multiple servers, or install it on a Virtual Machine. Then there will be possibilities with VMware ESX (VMotion) or Microsoft Hyper-V (Live Migration) to create a HA environment. ConfigMgr 2007 is not HA then, but the platform on which it's running is.


In my post on sizing up the storage for block size usage, I wrote a script to get the data into a manageable form. This script runs fine from the command line but you probably want to have some sort of trend to analyze.