Deployment

Issue with Windows XP SP3 Volume License

~ Vitalie Ciobanu

A few days ago I had to make an image with Windows XP SP3 with all needed applications for lite touch installation.

Everything went well and I was happy until I entered the mini-setup phase on the first computer with that image applied on it. I received an error regarding the product key. I guess I tried a dozen of product keys but none of them worked. After reading the message again and more careful, I realized that the problem was with my Windows XP media – it was not a VL media. And I realized this because the message said to look for a product key on the Certificate of Authenticity (COA) sticker and not my License Agreement…

Resolution

Got another media with Windows XP SP3 VL and made a repair. During the repair phase, I provided the VL product key and it worked. Next time I entered the mini-setup, I filled in required info and that was it.

How Microsoft IT is using Configuration Manager 2007

~ Vitalie Ciobanu

Do you know how Microsoft IT manages thousands of servers worldwide in multiple countries for a large number of departments and customers using SCCM 2007?
If no, then you should listen to this 30 minutes podcast: Microsoft IT Business Case for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 in a Data Center.

And here is the full article about this business case. I found it very interesting…

April 2012 update: How Microsoft IT Deployed System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. Direct link to PDF file.

“The ConfigMgr Provider reported an error”

~ Vitalie Ciobanu

Today I came across an interesting problem in ConfigMgr while creating a Windows Vista image of reference computer. And again, ConfigMgr 2007 displays the error with not much intuitive help.

I’m using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 with ConfigMgr 2007 when I need to deploy an operating system. At the end of the imported Task Sequence, after the wizards creates the .wim image, it copies the image to a share specified by me. During this step I received the following error: “Error while importing Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Task Sequence. Details: The ConfigMgr Provider reported an error”.

Checking smsprov.log I have found the error code – 5. Yes, 5 :). From the log file: “Failed to make a copy of the source WIM file due to error 5”. Nice… what could I say? Shortly, error 5 is about permissions.

I started to play with share permission. Granted read permission to admin account I was using and to the ConfigMgr computer account but I had no success. Granted full control permissions to these accounts. Same error :(.

Well, the problem was because ConfigMgr is accessing local shares using NT AUTHORITYSYSTEM account and not computer account (the shared folder was on the same computer). I granted full control permissions to SYSTEM account and next time I run the task sequence to create an image of the reference computer, it was ok and the image was copied to my shared folder.