Zak's IT Blog

2 years ago we installed 2 MSM760 Mobility Controllers as a team across 2 locations. We have 1 SSID for employees, one for guests, and another for the IT staff. This was all installed as part of a major overhaul we did to two of our locations. This was a complete infrastructure overhaul, from the ports on the wall to the core switch. Initial Setup Controller 1 Internet Port - 192.168.10.2 SM - 255.255.255.248 Lan Port - 10.24.32.235 - 255.255.248.0 Controller 2 Internet Port - 192.168.10.3 - SM 255.255.255.248 Firewall Int 5 - 192.168.10.1 SM - 255.255.255.248 Core Switch VLAN 5 - Non routable/no IP address. Untagged for A7,A8 Which are the controller's internet port and int 5 of the firewall, respectively. It's also tagged on our interior network. vlan 1    name "DEFAULT_VLAN"    untagged A1-A6,A9-A22,B1-B8    ip address <CORE SWITCH IP>    no untagged A7-A8    ip igmp    exit vlan 5    name "GuestWireless"    untagged A7-A8    tagged

This is an issue I've had a few times and when you look around on the forums you see multiple answers. I found the right one on an obscure forum that I can't think of right now. The quick answer is this: Use the correct version of DISM to service the image . They must be in the same "generation". For Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 this version is : 6.3.9600.16384 For Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 and below this version is : 6.2.9200.16384 Background and Setup: I have a Windows Server 2012 box running System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2. We are in the process of switching our primary OS for new systems to Windows 8.1 Enterprise x64. As I build my images the old fashioned I tend to forget a few things from time to time. In this case I built the image without installing the .NET feature. The instructions to do that are here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn482069.aspx So I'm following the instructions to get a refresher on

During a "Build and Capture" task sequence you may run into this error. I ran into this error a few times before and I always had to refer back to my older task sequences to figure it out. It's a very simple fix, but I seem to overlook it every time. You will see this in your SMSTS.log: This means that the computer is a part of a domain. You can't capture a machine if it's part of a domain. My task sequence was like this: As you can see this is a very simple task sequence. It just captures my built machine and stores it on my distribution point. I don't like the "Build and Capture" style task sequence. This way offers me far more flexibility in my opinion. It's just far less automated. To fix the issue you need to simply add a 'Join Domain or Workgroup' step before everything else. So your task sequence will look like this: The next screenshot shows a successful join to the workgoup.       The next screenshot

Today I got a call from a friend that was setting up WSUS on Windows Server 2012. He got WSUS setup but the clients were not checking in. After talking on the phone with him for a bit he told me he had not set anything up on the client side yet.  Here are the steps to setup your clients via GPO taken from  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720539(v=ws.10).aspx In Group Policy Object Editor, expand  Computer Configuration , expand  Administrative Templates , expand  Windows Components , and then click  Windows Update . In the details pane, click  Specify Intranet Microsoft update service location . Click  Enabled  and type the HTTP(S) URL of the same WSUS server in the  Set the intranet update service for detecting updates  box and in the  Set the intranet statistics server  box. For example, type  http(s): //servername  in both boxes. Click  OK . This is great in most cases, but to my knowledge WSUS in Windows Server 2003 - 2008 R2 use port 80 as the defau

I received a support ticket today from one of our schools saying they had a strange error coming up. I asked the usual questions like did you reboot, what color is the screen, etc. She said it was the BSOD, but it looked different. After going to take a look at the machine I saw the error and I hard rebooted the machine. I came to see this error: At first thought I figured this was a memory error, but it was not. After I removed each stick of RAM one-by-one the error persisted. After a bit of Googling I ran across this article. http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/bz/en/bzdhs1/KCS/KcsArticles/ArticleView?c=bz&l=en&s=dhs&docid=604790 This says it's a NIC issue and you can fix it by uninstalling the old driver and reinstalling. This, however, was not the case. The NIC was failing at POST, far too soon for a driver to be the issue. I also updated the BIOS to A07. (Was on A01) This did nothing as well. I resolved the issue by adding a NIC into the machine an

In the past posts I have explained how to create a task sequence to update / refresh computers to Windows 7 from Windows XP.  Most of the time this all works fine and I can just sit back and watch as the computers refresh themselves. Sometimes, though, that is not always the case as I will explain. Sometimes my task sequences will fail at the 'Restore User Files and Settings' group. It usually happens on laptops. From what I have seen it's because the laptops have went into hibernation, powered down, or have lost network connectivity at this step. What this means is that the State Store has been saved to the State Migration Point, but the data is encrypted and you can't really do anything with it. You have a bare metal Windows 7 install with no user data. I've read a few ways to accomplish retrieving your data from the State Store, and I'll cover them here. Use MigRecover found  here . This method did not work for me at all . I tried both versions to no a