awesome. Thank you Josh.
With most SharePoint development being done in VMs, it is useful to have a set of sysprepped base VMs that can be cloned at any time to create a new environment, whether it be for a new project, to test some tool or software, or whatever. Sysprep is a great tool for virtual domains because it will generate a new security ID (SID) for every server created from the sysprepped image to prevent conflicts between servers on the same domain.
Most of the software needed for development can be installed prior to running sysprep on the virtual machine,but SQL Server and SharePoint (at least the configuration of SharePoint) are generally exceptions. These apps typically must be installed post-sysprep in order for them to operate correctly, and this is an involved and tedious process. Fortunately with SQL Server 2008 R2, we now have SQL Server Sysprep, which will allow SQL Server to be installed and imaged, but not configured until a new VM is created from the base image. Woohoo!
So, the general steps are as follows:
- Install a virtual machine with Windows Server 2008 R2, PowerShell 2.0 and all other desired client software (Visual Studio, Office, SharePoint Designer, etc…)
- Install SQL Server 2008 R2 as a Prepared Image
- Install SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485(office.14).aspx) either manually or using the Prerequisites Installer tool
- Install SharePoint 2010 bits, but DO NOT run configuration wizard
- Run Sysprep.exe to prepare server
- Clone server
- Boot clone and execute PowerShell script to perform the following actions:
- Complete configuration of sysprepped SQL Server 2008 R2 database server
- Configure SharePoint 2010 farm
Creating a cloneable SharePoint 2010 Development Environment with PowerShell, Windows Sysprep, and SQL Server 2008 R2 Sysprep – Overview
Have you ever been looking at a management pack and wishing it was collecting just a little more information for you? You’re not the only one, there are quite a few people who write MPs from scratch to support applications they are running, but there are more who are still a little leery of going down the path of MP Authoring. In the next series of posts I’m going to walk through extending the base Hyper-V management pack so that it provides more information around how healthy the servers really are.
Writing Management Packs for SCOM: A more robust Hyper-V MP – Xplat Xperts
This is the introductory release of the SystemCentered Reporting Management Pack (version 1.0). The purpose of these reports are to provide SCOM users and administrators easy access to performance information in the datawarehouse.
When making a report, I have a few key rules to ensure an effective report:
- Try to keep all vital information on a single page
- Simple and intuitive report parameters
- Run time should be minimized by utilizing efficient SQL (namely, properly using indexes)
- Reports should look the same on screen as it does printed
For feedback, requests, or other information, you can contact me at chad@chad.cc or see my blog at chad.cc where I provide more detailed information on the creation of these reports and other SCOM information.
SystemCentered Reporting Management Pack – SCOM 2007 R2 Performance Reports
Most of the times we can rely on the more general reporting features delivered with SCOM 2007 R2 for reporting purposes. But when you want to design a really nice looking report which is much easier to generate and target you need to dive into report designer or even the even more flexible Visual Studio which
Creating a Custom Report for SCOM 2007 R2 with SQL 2008 reporting in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
This article is almost two years old. I am linking it because at this point it is the only AEM reports I have been able to find. After importing the AEM management pack, I do not see any reports by default.
As part of OpsMgr 2007 R2 and Desktop Error Monitoring 3.5 (DEM) we will be releasing four new AEM reports later this month.
The 4 new reports are:
- Top Blue Screen Computers
- Top Blue Screen Computers by User
- Top Crashing Applications by User
- Top Crashing Applications by Computer
System Center Operations Manager : New Beta AEM\DEM Reports
We’ve had what appears to be an increase in roaming profile problems over the last several months. Reading this article, it may be tied to the version of the citrix client running on the Windows XP machines.
When running ICA Client version 10.200 and later on Windows XP, any service pack, a user logon does not load the cached profile but creates a new one instead.
The result is that Windows ends up caching several profiles for the same user.
CTX118226 – User Client Computer Profile is not Loaded Properly when Single Sign-on is Enabled – Citrix Knowledge Center
I need to check this out
After weeks of pilot testing, the xSNMP Suite version 1.1.0 is ready for public beta release. In addition to some bug fixes and feature enhancements, this release includes four completely new management packs:
- xSNMP Juniper-NetScreen MP: Implements comprehensive monitoring of NetScreen firewall devices
- xSNMP NetApp MP: Implements comprehensive monitoring of NetApp storage devices
- xSNMP Sun Hardware MP: Implements monitoring of Sun Server hardware, through the SunFire Management Agent, Sun ILOM out-of-band management interface, or the Fujitsu XSCF out-of-band management interface
- xSNMP Dell PowerEdge MP: Implements monitoring of hardware for Dell PowerEdge devices via the Dell OpenManage agent or DRAC out-of-band management interface
These management packs are in addition to the other 11 management packs previously included in the suite
xSNMP Management Pack Suite Version 1.1.0 (Beta) « Operating-Quadrant
Whether you are having problems yourself getting something to work correctly on your computer and are working with tech support, or you’re trying to solve such problems for your customers, friends, or your Mom, you have probably spent hours describing or explaining events over and over again in an effort to deal with the lack of clarity that exists when one party can’t see what is going on. Now there’s a solution. Screenrecorder is a very easy-to-use screen-to-video capture program, developed on top of Windows Media Encoder, that lets you easily capture what is going on to a small video file, which you can then send via e-mail to the appropriate person. That person can then watch the video just as if he is sitting next to you and you are showing him what’s is happening on the screen.
Utility Spotlight: Screenrecorder
In previous versions of SharePoint it was impossible to add corners to a Web Part with just CSS (unless you were building sites for only the latest browsers). The best way was to style a container DIV on the Page Layout and put a Web Part Zone inside. Then, a Web Part in that zone would appear to have round corners. This method greatly reduces the flexibility of SharePoint because there can only be one Web part in each Zone for the effect to work.
Styling Web Parts in SharePoint 2010 has become much easier than in MOSS 2007. There are several reasons for this and I will highlight a few.
The addition of a style class on a cell that contains the entire Web Part gives a big advantage to adding styles. In MOSS this did not exist. This is helpful because now you can simply add a border, background image or color to the container cell with the class “s4-wpcell-plain” and it will be applied around and behind the body and header of the Web Part.
PointBridge Blogs – Office 2010 Wave
The backgrounds in SharePoint 2010 were designed to allow end users to change gradients by simply picking solid colors on the settings page. For example if you choose an orange background color the result is a fade from orange to lighter orange. The change can be very subtle but is an effective way to create an attractive site. This is a significant upgrade from older versions of SharePoint where, in order to change the branding, you would have had to undertake the time-consuming task of editing all of the gradient images one by one.
PointBridge Blogs – Office 2010 Wave
