scandals of an ITian

Last week we completed our migration from our aging IBM workstations and laptops to newer hardware that could support Windows 7.

Due to various restrictions I could not replace the old hardware and have them replaced with the newer one straight off. Instead the newer machines had to be built from the bottom up using MDT 2010. You can do the user state migration via MDT 2010 and can be really useful and time saving but my deployment scenarios.

Instead I relied on another piece of software from Microsoft called Windows Easy Transfer for Windows 7.

So, let’s take a look at the scenario that I ended up with.

Saturday- Getting all the new workstations from the supplier, had them all powered up, keyboard, mouse, monitor and networked. Started off with batches of 5 machines getting Windows 7 deployed out to them.

Sunday- Continued with the Windows 7 deployments.

Each machine that finished the deployment had the following:-

1. Operating System
2. Office 2007
3. Visio 2007
4. Flash Player
5. AV Client Installed
6. Domain Connected
7. GPO deployed (few application installs, printers, network drives)

On the other hand I had the older machines still running in the domain. We couldn’t use the same computer names for the newer machines, but this was ok as these machines aren’t going to be decommissioned yet but retained to be used as Remote Web Workspace machines for all the laptop users at work who don’t have desktops to login into while they are remote.

Monday morning- Got the users to log onto both the machines, since they are not local admins on both the machines, had to run the software both on XP and Windows 7 machines with administrator accounts.

On the XP side:-

Download the software for x86 XP machines from here .

Install the software and it will be available under Start>All Programs

Here you have 3 options to go with. Most scenarios the options will be 2 and 3.

Option 3 is quite simple and helps transfer all your settings onto an external storage, another partition, file storage etc.

Lets take a closer look at Option2. This avoids for any error after the migration where you may have a user complain that something is missing.

Since we are migrating from XP to Windows 7, this is the only option that is presented to us. Later when we come across the same steps on Windows 7, there will be an option to choose whether the system is the old computer or the new one.

Take a note of the migration key as we would need to enter this again on the Windows 7 machine.

At this stage the XP machine will be searching for the Windows 7 machine with the same key to start the exchange process.

Now lets head over to the Windows 7 machine:-

You could either open it by searching for it

or browsing to system tools folder

Windows Easy Transfer starts off with the same screen

Depending on the options chosen from your original computer, choose the same selection here as well. I am going with the network option,

Since this is the computer to which we are migrating all the settings into, the option that needs to be selected is that its a new system. Incase of transfer from Windows 7 machine to another variant or another edition of Windows 7 we choose the old computer option or vice versa.

Get the key that was given to us at this screen on the Windows 7 machine and enter it here

At this stage the system is scanning the XP machine for all the user settings that are stored on that computer.

Once the scan is complete you have the option to choose which of those user settings you would like migrated.

Choosing what needs to be restored can be tricky but its quite straightforward and can be easily browsed as shown.

And then the transfer can be strarted.

Towards the end you should be able to see a finished transfer report including a comparision between the programs that are installed on both the machines.

This took on an average between 5 to 10 minutes per user and ultimately was quite easy and time saving in the sense of settings up outlook,printers,desktops, wallpapers etc.

Quite useful even for doing a Windows 7 RC to RTM edition.

Woke up this morning, coffee in hand and twitter slowly getting buzzed about the arrival of the Beta downloads for Office 2010 suite.

Click click click TechNet click click and then it was all down to waiting for the beauties to be downloaded to the lappie. Sharepoint 2010 beta was also out but that’s for another blog post.

Before installing the beta, uninstall the Technical Preview version or any previous versions of Office

Starting the installation of the Beta software

And we have a speedbump

Oops forgot to take Visio 2010 Technical Preview out and another uninstall and reboot later

Bit of tweaking

And we are away

And we are done

Licensing

Start any of the application, in my instance I started with Outlook (dhaaa!)

Click to change product key

Activation

And we are done

Stay tuned for my first deep dive into Outlook 2010 Beta.

Btw this post is my first one from Word 2010 Beta. Upgrade had even the blog settings all ready for me.

The following are the steps that I went through to upgrade the Release Candidate Version of Exchange 2010 to RTM edition of Exchange 2010.

I got my copy from TechNet and the same is available under MSDN as well.

There is also a 120 day evaluation copy available here in couple of different formats:-

1. Virtual Experience that gives you an chance to try Exchange 2010 and OCS 2007 R2
2. Free 120 Day Software Trial
3. Pre-configured VHD
4. Exchange Online

Steps involved:-

1. Backup your server. I use Shadow Protect to backup the VM’s but also equally recommended is DPM 2007 or if you can get your hands on 2010. You can read on Shadow Protect from here
2. Get to your Exchange 2010 RTM Setup folder and double click on setup.exe
3. Choose your language pack

   

4. Click on Install Microsoft Exchange Server Upgrade Option and Setup will start shortly

   

5. Setup will start with the basics

   

6. Followed by a readiness check

   

7. You may get the following message

   

   Which can be resolved by downloading the required file from here and installing it

   

8. With that the Readiness Check should complete successfully
9. The next step the upgrade starts to kick in and will proceed to complete
10. Once the upgrade has been completed open up Exchange Management Console and Click on Server Configuration. In the Actions Window click on Enter Product Key

    Enter the RTM Product key for the edition that has been licensed to your organization

    

11. Restart Exchange Information Store

    

And that’s it, your RC Exchange 2010 is now a fully functional RTM Exchange 2010.