If you didn’t like System Center 2010, you won’t like System Center 2012 – simple as that. It doesn’t look any different, it is still over-complicated and quirky, and still requires more time to configure than it saves (unless you are managing a really huge data center / hundreds and hundreds of clients).

There are better, cheaper, easier to use options out there that integrate about as well. And it’s really too bad.

Yesterday I began the process of evaluation System Center 2012 RC and gave up. Today I decided I was going to try anyway.
As I mentioned before, you need a grand total of 8 machines. I created 8 nearly identical domain joined VMs (in Vmware ESXi of course) – each with 2 CPUs and 4 gigs of ram (thank goodness for Vmware’s memory sharing) and a minimum of 40gigs of disk.
Note: if you attempt to install any of this on an existing server, or an OS instance with stuff on it already it will most certainly fail.

Server Preparation – All Servers

Each server is Windows Server 2008 R2 with all the latest updates, IE9; I installed .NET Framework 3.5.1, and .NET Framework 4.0. I generally disable IPv6.
Even though it is not the most secure thing in the world, you might as well just disable the firewall on all of them as well. The documentation is missing the required firewall settings for the target servers (not disabling said firewalls will cause the Unified Installer to be unable to connect)

Here are the eight lovely virtual machines all running at once. You will need some serious hardware for this to approach usable – our VM server has two quad core 3ghz Xeons and 32-gigs of ram – so it manages…

Since I didn’t want to have to deal with the group policy editor 8 times, I added all the computer accounts to a group in AD and created a domain group policy containing the settings from this page: How to Edit the Local Group Policy on the Target Computer
The Group policy should be linked to the OU containing the machines (in my case, the domain level) and the security filtering should contain only the computer group containing our servers.
Here is the group policy settings report, for reference:

After setting up the policy, RDP into each machine, open an elevated command prompt and run the following:

gpupdate
winrm qc -q
winrm set winrm/config/service/auth @{CredSSP=”True”}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{AllowRemoteShellAccess=”True”}
winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxMemoryPerShellMB=”2048″}

If you haven’t already disabled the firewall, now would be a good time to do so.

That should be all you need to do on the target machines – the rest of the work happens on the installer PC.

Installer Preparation

What a mess… The steps required just to get ready to run the installer are nightmarish at best. I am using the first server – SystemCenter1 – as both the installer and the Orchestrator server. As far as I know, these are the only permitted “shared” components.

First, get the OS config out of the way. Follow the steps here to configure the local group policy settings specific to the installer:
How to Edit the Local Group Policy on the Installer Computer

Next, open an elevated command prompt and run the WinRM commands from here: How to Run WinRM Commands on the Installer Computer

winrm set winrm/config/client/auth @{CredSSP=”True”}
winrm set winrm/config/client @{TrustedHosts=”*”}

(Note: theoretically you do not need to do both the Group Policy and the WinRM commands, but I don’t trust these docs, so I did both)

If you don’t want to disable the firewall, you can add the firewall rules here: How to Configure the Firewall for the Installer Computer
Make sure the installation machine has the IIS Role. I’m not sure which functionality is required – I just selected most things.

The Unified Installer is an independent application that uses the media (which are all downloaded as separate files) for all the other products to push them to your specified servers. It also pushes the necessary prerequisites and server roles to the target machines, but many of these need to be downloaded separate.

A. Create Folders

Here is the folder structure I used. You will need to create all these folders yourself:

• c:\SC2012Install
  • AppController
  • ConfigMgr
  • DataProtectionMgr
  • OpsMgr
  • Orchestrator
  • ServiceMgr
  • VmMg
  • UnifiedInstaller
  • Prereq
    • AnalysisMgtObj
    • DotNet
    • ReportViewer
    • SQLCommandLine
    • SqlCU4
    • SQLNativeClient
    • SqlServer
    • SqlSp1
    • WAIK20

B. Extract Components

After the folders are created, each of the components needs to be extracted to the appropriate folder. App Controller must be extracted using a command line, and Data Protection Manager is a zip file. The rest are self-extracting archives (including the Unified Installer itself)

1. Execute command line AppController.Beta.exe /x:C:\SC2012Install\AppController
2. Run ConfigMgr_2012_RC2_ENU_7703.exe and specify C:\SC2012Install\ConfigMgr
3. Unzip DPM_EVAL_RC.zip to C:\SC2012Install\DataProtectionMgr
4. Run SCOM2012RC.exe and specify C:\SC2012Install\OpsMgr
5. Run System_Center_2012_Orchestrator_RC.EXE and specify C:\SC2012Install\Orchestrator
6. Run SCSM2012RC.exe and specify C:\SC2012Install\ServiceMgr
7. Run VMM.EVAL.RC.exe and specify C:\SC2012Install\VmMgr
8. Run SC2012_UnifiedInstaller_RC.exe and specify C:\SC2012Install\UnifiedInstaller

C. Acquire and Extract Prerequisites

You can find the list here: System Requirements for System Center 2012 – Unified Installer
Go to that page and download everything on the list. You will need to move everything (literally) into separate folders, and extract as much as possible. Most of the prereqs just need to be copied into the appropriate folder created in step A, with a couple exceptions:

• SQL Server CU4 is a hotfix that must be requested, and you will receive a link in an email. I believe you only need the “SQLServer2008R2_SP1_CU4_2633146_10_50_2796_x64” part, but I went ahead and downloaded all 4 pieces. Each piece is in a self-extracting archive file – extract these files into the SqlCU4 prereq folder.
• The SQL Server trial is self extracting – extract to C:\SC2012Install\Prereq\SqlServer
• WAIK20 is an iso that will need to be extracted (i.e. using 7-zip or winrar), or mounted (using Virtual CloneDrive or by mounting in your VM) and copied to C:\SC2012Install\Prereq\WAIK20

D. (optional) Take a snapshot of all servers

The System Center installers have a history of failing after running for an hour or so, in a way that is practically unrecoverable. Being able to quickly wipe the slate clean can be a life saver.

That’s it for the prep – it is really just a bunch of downloading, extracting and file jockeying.
Note: If you do not intend to install all of the components, you can probably skip some of the above – the Prerequisite document mentions which pieces are needed by which components.

Running the Unified Installer

If you followed the steps above, all of the folders created should contain a file, or the contents of an extracted file. If you have any empty folders, you missed something.

You should probably perform this step with a Domain Admin account – whatever account you are logged in as is the account that must be used for running services and managing other computers.

Luckily, the hard part is over. Run the installer located at C:\SC2012Install\UnifiedInstaller\Microsoft System Center 2012 Unified Installer\setup.exe
After running it, you may not see anything for a minute – be patient…

Click “Install System Center”

Select which components you would like to install – for this example I selected all of them.

On the Component Media Locations screen, enter the following paths:

When you press next, it checks each folder in some way. If you forgot to extract something, or extracted it a folder too deep, you will need to take care of it before the installer will allow you to continue.

(Note: figuring out the appropriate paths took a bit of trial and error…)

Work your way through the terms and conditions.

On the Prerequisite Media Locations screen, enter the following:

In the installation paths, do not change the defaults – the release notes mention several issues with non-default paths.

Now, specify the servers! I just went in numerical order.

When you click next, it will verify connectivity to all the servers. If you get a message to check a server, it is probably because the firewall is still on.

The next screen – Service Accounts – you must use the account you are currently logged in as (per release notes). No exceptions.

Confirm some things, then… Click Install.

Note: The deployment progress bar times out after two hours. Some installations may exceed the default time-out period. In these cases, your installation might still be running in the background. You can confirm that by checking the local system installation logs.

After the initial deployment of Orchestrator, it performs the other installs in parallel. It’s actually kind of impressive.

Those logs paths can be found here: Log Files in System Center 2012 – Unified Installer

And in my case, the installer completed without error the first time. I just about fell out of my chair. (I did not monitor to see how long the install took)

Next Steps

Unfortunately the next steps document is completely useless – all the links are broken: Microsoft System Center 2012 – Unified Installer Next Steps

But you can pretty much figure out where to go in the System Center 2012 documentation tree for each Component to get started.

I would recommend checking the release notes for each component, as they have been getting updated periodically since the RC was released:

Release Notes for System Center 2012 – Unified Installer

Good luck!

The internets are in a tizzy – Google recently announced major changes to their privacy policy that allows for the sharing of data between Google owned services. People are claiming this paves the way for the privacy apocalypse. Pretty soon it will start raining targeted ads, as humanity drowns in a giant lake of fire…

Don’t believe me? Here’s some headlines:

Google announces privacy changes across products; users can’t opt out

Google Privacy Policy Update Challenged by Lawmakers

Google privacy policy unleashes criticism from regulators

How to close your Google Account

Not to mention the fear inducing coverage by major media outlets – Fox News and NPR alike.

There are a couple problems with this hype.

1. Google has gone to great lengths to be sure people are aware of the changes, and to make them understandable.

   Every couple months, Apple surreptitiously updates their terms of service and privacy policies – requires you to agree to the changes, and expect you to sift through pages of legalese to see what changed . Quite often these changes are indeed far reaching, like banning access to competing technologies so Apple can take a totally unneeded 30% cut, or Apple essentially owning your iBooks content. But where is the outrage? It’s Apple. Evil is in their nature.

   Instead Google does it right – I personally read about the changes from Google before hearing about it on the news. They have a notice on the search page, a popup in Gmail, in Youtube…
   Some examples:
   
    
   And the page itself is written for human consumption, not lawyers:
   

2. If Google wasn’t sharing your data between services, they were the only ones.
   
   The other day, I was searching for some IT Helpdesk software. One of the products I looked at was HEAT. Ever since then, I have been seeing ads for Heat HelpDesk almost everywhere I go on the web. The other day I was looking for deals at Disney World, and wouldn’t you know it, I start seeing ads to that effect… everywhere I go. Yeah it’s creepy. What’s even creepier is that I don’t know who has this information or where they got it, and I sure don’t know anything about their privacy policy. Which leads to 3
3. Google Dashboard lets you take control of the data stored about you

   Google dashboard is a single destination to review your information from all Google services. The Web History is a big one – perhaps the biggest. Surprise surprise, Google keeps a record of everything you search for while logged in, and sometimes even site visits. If you searched for something you would rather there be no record of (that rash on your leg, for example), you can delete individual entries, or you can clean it out altogether. You can also turn it off.

4. Integration requires data sharing

   In order for Google to improve the integration between services – such as enabling unified messaging between Google Voice and Gmail – they must freely share data between the two services. Obviously a major motivation for such sharing would be targeting advertisements, but as I mentioned in #2 that has become the standard everywhere else.

Google has been doing things lately that I would argue border on evil (contrary to the “Don’t be evil” motto) – closing services that aren’t a huge success but that people still rely on, not releasing Android source code as promised, muscling out competing social networks in search results…

This policy change is not evil, it nothing to be “outraged” about, and they are doing it right. The sky is not falling; the world is not coming to an end.

Windows Live Writer is an oft-overlooked component of the Windows Live Essentials application bundle (also including such gems as Live Photo Gallery, Live Movie Maker, and Live Mesh). If you have a blog (in my case running on WordPress), I highly recommend it for one really important reason: it makes adding images to posts 100% easier.

Think of it like a trimmed down version of Microsoft Word (more like Wordpad really) that can be used to compose blog posts. You can format text according to styles, add hyperlinks effortlessly, perform spell checking – but most importantly – paste images right into your post. Like this one:

You can the resize, crop, etc.

The contents of the Insert tab alone are worth your time:

I could be the only person left who primarily posted using the HTML editor, but if there are any other curmudgeons out there who have been skipping the visual aids because of all the extra steps… well give Windows Live Writer a try!

I have evaluated several versions of System Center Essentials over the years, and after getting past the initial “ooh, shiny MMCs” reaction (the the terrible installation experience), I generally have found them to be lackluster.

System Center 2012 comes around and even makes the news: Microsoft is of course “all-in” to the cloud, so SC2012 is hyped to help create and manage your “Private Cloud”. Additionally, Microsoft has streamlined the licensing process so that instead of Several different products (Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Data Protection Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Service Manager) there is just one product (well… two, but they only differ in virtualization instance counts) including all the technologies, and the price is fairly reasonable. The product now contains the following components:

1. App Controller – (new) “Cloud”-style application management (App-V, server configuration templates), application performance monitoring (J2EE & .NET – Visual Studio Integration)
2. Configuration Manager – Software deployment, update management, configuration compliance / enforcement, administration
3. Data Protection Manager – Backup (server, workstation, bare metal)
4. Endpoint Protection – Anti-Malware, firewall configuration
5. Operations Manager – Performance / availability monitoring
6. Orchestrator – (formerly Opalis) Data Center workflow management (?)
7. Service Manager – Helpdesk, trouble tickets, process compliance
8. Virtual Machine Manager – Self explanatory

I realize I’m probably demonstrating my naïveté here, but there does seem to be some overlap – Configuration Manager, Orchestrator and Service Manager all list process / configuration automation in the feature list. Considering these used to be separate SKUs I understand why this might be, but it makes for a very unpolished appearing product. If I want to deploy an application to users machines, do I use the “App Controller”? Or Configuration Manager”? Or do I  “Orchestrate” it?

Sounds like the answer is “sure.”

Getting Started

The download for System Center 2012 is available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx?ocidotc-f-corp-jtc-DPR&wt.mc_id;TEC_103_1_33

Out the gate, things are not looking good. Despite touting the new “System Center 2012 Unified Installer,” the download includes 8 files of various names and extensions, none of which are instructions.

Also of note: the creepy total size: 6.66 GB…

There should be some documentation hidden here: Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resources

So I have my VM ready to go, but no idea how to proceed. Checking the Unified Installer user guide – which is really poorly written – I discover than you need a separate server for each component, except for Service Manager, which requires two. So I hope you have a powerful virtualization server… or a bunch of extra workstations lying around, because that is a whopping 8 servers to perform a complete install.

That’s right – System Center 2012 requires it’s own private cloud just to run. (Our data center only has about 8 servers to be managed!) That is 8 windows licenses. That might even be enough to cause a TechNet static activation key to stop working. One could virtualize, but the Standard license only allows you to manage two virtual machines… this thing isn’t even licensed to manage itself.

Conclusion

At this point, even after spending the time setting up VMs for it, I am tempted to scrap the whole thing. Too many servers, too many manual steps, poor documentation, and a high likelihood of fatal-non-resumable-installer-errors-after-hours-of-non-reversible-changes (see SCE 2010) all sums up to a poor allocation of resources.

I can do 90% of what System Center 2012 does with Group Policy (free with Windows Server), WSUS (free), Microsoft Security Essentials (Free) and Zabbix or Quest FogLight (free or free to a point).

Update – To Be Continued…

Three more virtual machines later, and I have all the necessary servers. I went through with the installation successfully and will post the steps soon.

Windows Server 2008 R2 comes with sysprep pre-installed – it is at c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe – best to run it from an elevated command line.

If you are looking to create a sysprepped image using the built in Windows Server Backup, you will be sorely disappointed – WSB does not run after running sysprep (if you choose the Exit option) – in fact very little will run.

The workaround is simple but non-intuitive (backup first; sysprep second):
1: Run the backup first.
2: Load the backup on a different machine (or virtual machine).
3: On first boot, ensure the network is disconnected!!
4. Run sysprep (be sure to select generalize) and have it reboot.
5. Repeat as needed.

TechNet Professional (formerly TechNet Plus) subscriptions are one of the best ideas to come from Redmond – allow IT Pros to pay a subscription, and evaluate pretty much all Microsoft software without time limits and expirations. Why is this such a good idea? Because Microsoft gets a significant portion of its revenue from business licensing, and making evaluation as easy as possible can only encourage adoption of new versions.

Last year, Microsoft silently dropped the number of licenses per application from 10 down to 5, arguing that for evaluation, there was no need for so many licenses. Perhaps, perhaps not. I create new VMs to evaluate software fairly regularly, and having 10 keys makes it much less likely to encounter activation issues.

But ok, we only get 5 – so we adjust.

Well, for some reason Microsoft has decided that they want to scale things back further – as seen on the subscription home page,

Beginning on January 26, 2012, individual subscribers to TechNet Professional Subscriptions may access a maximum allocation of 3 product keys for Microsoft Office and Windows Client products in connection with their subscription. The allotted keys may only be used for software evaluation purposes. Once the maximum keys have been activated no more keys will be made available. Additional product keys may be acquired through the purchase of an additional subscription.

Unfortunately, I just saw this today, so I’m doing like any reasonable person would and requesting all 5 keys for any Office or Windows related products before they drop it down again – until I hit the daily key request limit…

First of all, making software evaluation more difficult is only going to hurt Microsoft. But then again, Windows 8 doesn’t appear to be geared toward business AT ALL, so maybe it is indicative of a shift in strategy.
(It is odd that Windows 8 preview still isn’t on TechNet, nor is the System Center 2012 RC…)

If only TechNet members had the time to protest…

When using CodeDom to generate executables (using CodeCompileUnit.CompileAssemblyFromDom for example), you can easily embed your custom application manifest using the CompilerParameters.CompilerOptions string, like so:

            CompilerParameters cp = new CompilerParameters();
            cp.GenerateExecutable = true;
            cp.GenerateInMemory = false;
            cp.TreatWarningsAsErrors = false;
            cp.OutputAssembly = "RandomFileName.exe";
            cp.CompilerOptions = "/optimize+ /debug- /win32manifest:RandomFileName.exe.manifest";

The relevant option being /win32manifest. Make sure you create the manifest before attempting to compile, obviously.

And use the CompileParameters in CompileAssemblyFromDom();

FYI – There are other ways to do this, but they would involve finding and running some command line utilities. This is by far the easiest, and most elegant way I could find.

I have been trying to install DIRECTV2PC for a week or so (off and on of course) and I get the error “Activation Failed” with a reason of “activation key usage limit reached”

For some reason, nobody had a solution – on satelliteguys.us or dbstalk.com (or directv forums, or the internet as a whole).
I had already requested two keys, and I had only used them once – it seems ridiculous to me that I cannot use the key again if I, say, reinstall Windows (which I tend to a couple times a year)…

I found a workaround – use a different email address to request a new key. (Many email providers allow you to insert arbitrary periods in your email address…)

DIRECTV2PC is made by cyberlink for Directv. Nobody seems to know why it requires a product key – probably some accounting thing. Rumor has it that it may be going away soon anyway.

Good luck!

After my most recent reinstall of windows, for some reason Outlook 2010 stopped looking in my Contacts when I would hit Check Names. It was only looking in the Global Address Book. I would have to look up the person in my contacts, and Outlook would autocomplete until it was restarted.

Lame.

The solution is here: Outlook 2010: How to change your default Contacts Address Book

I changed mine to be custom so it would look in both the global address book (containing the employee list) AND my contacts. And it’s working.

Now to figure out why the autocomplete gets reset every time I close and reopen…