Send-MailMessage  -Subject "Test email"
                  -To "recipient@contoso.com"
                  -From "me@contoso.com"
                  -SmtpServer mail.contoso.com
                  -BodyAsHtml (Get-Content "d:\templates\invite-template.htm" | Out-String)

Although I’d previously deployed Vista and Windows 7 using MDT 2010, I’d never seen this problem. The issue occurred with a captured HP ProBook x86 Windows 7 Professional build.

I had to edit the unattend.xml for the task sequence in question, and delete the Display section from oobeSystem –> x86_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral. Once this was done, the strange default of 1024 x 768 (where did that come from?) was no longer applied, and Windows Setup detected and set the maximum resolution.

Doing so comes up with an error:

Performing operation "generate" on Target "Catalog".
The operation failed to complete.
System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: String reference not set to an instance of a String.
Parameter name: source
   at System.Globalization.CompareInfo.IsPrefix(String source, String prefix, CompareOptions options)
   at ?A0xfe36268f.ConvertToNtPath(String path)
   at Microsoft.ComponentStudio.ComponentPlatformInterface.CbsSessionAdaptor..ctor(String bootDrive, String imageWinDir, String servicingPath)
   at Microsoft.ComponentStudio.ComponentPlatformInterface.OfflineImageImpl.InitializePackages()
   at Microsoft.ComponentStudio.ComponentPlatformInterface.OfflineImageImpl..ctor(OfflineImageInfo imageInfo)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.RuntimeMethodHandle._InvokeConstructor(Object[] args, SignatureStruct& signature, IntPtr declaringType)
   at System.Reflection.RuntimeConstructorInfo.Invoke(BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture)
   at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)
   at Microsoft.ComponentStudio.ComponentPlatformInterface.Cpi.PlatformImplementation.CreateOfflineImageInstance(OfflineImageInfo imageInfo)

The captured image I was trying to work with was of a 32-bit machine, and the WAIK tools I have installed on my desktop are the 64-bit ones.

The solution, as I learned here after a bit of searching, is to re-run the catalog operation on an x86 machine.

As you can’t install the 32-bit tools on a 64-bit machine, I installed the 32-bit tools on my laptop, fired up WSIM, opened the WIM image, re-ran the catalog operation, and it succeeded without errors.

You’d think that they could catch the exception and give you a useful message about running the catalog again on a compatible machine, but no…

$printers = Get-WmiObject Win32_Printer

if ($printers.Count -eq 0) {
    Write-Host -ForegroundColor red "No Printers Found"
    exit
}

foreach ($printer in $printers) {

    if ($printer.Local -and $printer.Shared)
    {
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Cancelling all jobs on: $($printer.Name)"
        $printer.CancelAllJobs()

    }
}

It will only clear print jobs on local printers that are shared out. There’s some more info about the Win32_Printer class and the CancelAllJobs method on MSDN.

Note that I haven’t included any error-checking in this script at all, so run it manually first to see if it will work. As always, run at your own risk.

To schedule it, simply create a new scheduled task:

1. Run with highest privileges
2. Run whether user is logged on or not
3. Do not store password
4. Action: Start a program: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
5. Arguments: -File “C:\path-to-script-file\name-of-script-file.ps1″

7-Zip provides a handy way to do this. All you need to do is right-mouse-drag the Zip file to the destination folder, release the right-mouse button, and go to 7-Zip –> Extract … from within the context menu.

I’d been using 7-Zip for years before I figured this one out.

It’s possible to upgrade, for example, a Server 2008 R2 Standard server to Enterprise without rebuilding Windows. This is all covered in detail on the MS TechNet blogs.

The command to do so is:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:<edition ID> /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

To view what “editions” are available to upgrade to, do this:

DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions

I had issues using a valid VLSC key in this process. A comment by Brendan P of Microsoft explains why this is the case:

MAK keys map to multiple editions, so the underlying infrastructure doesn’t accept them. If you use the generic KMS client key, as Matthew suggests, that will allow you to proceed with the upgrade, and then you can either replace the key with a valid MAK post-upgrade or just use the KMS client key to activate against your internal KMS server.

The full list of KMS client keys can be found here on TechNet: technet.microsoft.com/…/ff793406.aspx

The command I ended up running to upgrade Server 2008 /w SP1 Standard (VL) to Enterprise was:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerEnterprise /ProductKey:489J6-VHDMP-X63PK-3K798-CPX3Y

The successful run looks like this:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management toolVersion: 6.1.7600.16385
Image Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Starting to update components...Starting to install product key...Finished installing product key.
Removing package Microsoft-Windows-ServerStandardEdition~blah
[==========================100.0%==========================]
Finished updating components.
Starting to apply edition-specific settings...Restart Windows to complete this operation.Do you want to restart the computer now (Y/N)?

dfsutil /pktinfo

To quote the inbuilt usage information:

Dfsutil /PktInfo is a special problem diagnosis command that should only be executed on the client.

The PKT Cache keeps information about referrals for previously accessed DFS paths. It also notes DFS targets that are active for each of those paths. By observing the contents of this cache, an expert user may deduct the servers serving DFS paths that are accessed.

Here’s a snippet of the output when run from my PC at work. We have a common DFS share that’s replicated Australia-wide:

Entry: \company\commondataShortEntry: \company\commondata
Expires in 143 seconds
UseCount: 2 Type:0x81 ( REFERRAL_SVC DFS )  
0:[\sydney01\CommonData] AccessStatus: 0 ( ACTIVE TARGETSET )  
1:[\sydney02\CommonData]  
2:[\perth01\CommonData] ( TARGETSET )  
3:[\brisbane01\CommonData]  
4:[\melbourne01\CommonData]  
5:[\adelaide01\CommonData]

The client software is easily deployed via Active Directory and Group Policy, but there’s a problem where the Outlook integration installer requires elevation, even though the only changes that are being made are restricted to the user’s profile. This is obviously ridiculous in a corporate environment, as new user setups require the user to be made a local administrator for their first login just to install Shoretel’s Outlook integration.

I lived with this as an inconvenience over the last few years, but the time has now come to plan for a replacement of our Melbourne office’s out-dated Ericsson PABX system. This issue, then, will be a show-stopper as we’re not going to make 80+ users local administrators – even temporarily.

Last week, I sat down to think about the problem and remembered something I’d read about “shimming” applications in Vista & Windows 7. This then led me to wonder if I could create a shim that stops UAC from being triggered by the Shoretel Outlook integration installer – %programfiles%\Shoreline Communications\ShoreWare Client\UninstWrpr.exe

The above process will obviously break any functionality within UninstWrpr.exe that does actually require elevated privileges, but that’s not a concern to me. I went ahead and created a new Security Database using Microsoft’s Application Compatibility Toolkit, and set up the shim as per one of the technet documents. I installed the resulting sdb file on a test machine using the inbuilt sdbinst.exe command, and voila! The Outlook integration installed without a single UAC prompt, and worked properly to boot.

The only part of the process left, is to figure out how to deploy the shim to the client machines. For the sake of brevity, I’ll detail the entire process in a new post shortly.