Posts made by Jarli

As the subject says; Is there anyway to write protect an image file so it can’t be overwritten or deleted?

You could push them using a GPO then (assuming you have a domain controller, and are familiar with GPO’s).

These are extremely difficult to remove, and require editing the registry just to get rid of them.

What is deleting the printers, the end users?

Additionally why not use something like NitroPDF or BullZip PDF.

CutePDF (in my experience contains maleware)

Are you using the printer manager within fog? Or are you using another print management client, and each time you image a machine [U]are you[/U] losing the PDF printers.

If it’s the latter, just install the software and update your image.

Jaymes likes my method of getting rid of those damned networked printer. It was the only way we could get rid of the GPO enforced printers. Even deleting the GPO won’t remove the printers (which is dumb).

So came the batch file to delete the registry files containing the networked printers.

And as a generic microsoft warning, edit the registry with caution, any damage you cause is on you.

Well we created a batch file to remove any networked printers as we were restructuring them, since the building and our area expanded.

[CODE]@ECHO off
title Printer System Cleanup

::Stopping the Print Spooler
net stop spooler
ECHO.
ECHO Cleaning up the registry a bit, Please Wait …
ECHO.

::Removing Network Printer Registry Keys
ECHO Y | reg delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections
ECHO.
ECHO Registry cleanup completed, starting print spooler.
ECHO.

::Starting the Print Spooler
net start spooler
ECHO.
ECHO Printers are on their way, this’ll take a minute or two.
ECHO.

::Forcing a GPUPDATE
ECHO N | gpupdate /force
ECHO.

::Opening up the devices and printers window, and loading the printers to confirm for the end user.

ECHO Printers are now added, please confirm by checking the recently opened window.
control /name Microsoft.DevicesAndPrinters 
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO Make sure to set your DEFAULT printer!!
ECHO.
ECHO Done!
ECHO.

[/CODE]

The above could easily be modified to delete “local” printers rather than networked printers.

That sounds like an issue with your computer.

I’ve been using fog for a while, and have always had it change my computer names, based on what I have in individual host. (which are my asset tags since we use laptops primarily)

If I ever get a hung system I just force restart it, and then investigate the problem.

Fog Server Hostname_Changer needs to be enabled.

That Jaymes is a wonderful idea.

Thank you for that

I have done the “Build an OOBE” image without an unattend.xml.

The system boots, asks for the product key and then just needs drivers installed.

What I am considering doing is just rebuilding my sysprep-generalize image with a folder that contains these drivers as my hardware doesn’t vary greatly(Lenovo brand products mostly). So if c:\drivers has all of the necessities then so be it, even if I have to install my drivers manually. I might just make a batch file that searches for drivers within that folder and installs them upon login and be done with it.

I’ve also do hardware specific images, and they work just as well.

My thought was something similar to a NAS, or SAN device.

Just for image storage.

Is that what a storage node is?

Just curious if it’s possible to have a remote image file server, that only hold images and nothing else.

Has anyone tried this?

Is it possible, on what hardware, what OS and how would you configure the storage location.

Now the million dollar question Junkhacker, is it worth setting up a GParted iso to boot into so that I can format drives automatically.

Or just keep a cd for it…

wait, never mind

Unformatted drives, completely forgot.

I have, and each time I try to image this new machine, using this image, the system simply reboots.

Hi Guys,

I don’t quite know what happened. This image worked perfectly yesterday as I deployed it to a set of new computer.

Today when I go to deploy it to the last of the group, the image record now says “Image Size ON CLIENT: No Size Available”

Any help to resolve this so I don’t have to rebuild this image would be great.

Thanks in advance

[url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Advanced_Boot_Menu_Configuration_options[/url]

The above pages outlines everything that needs to be done to customize the boot menu.

You’ll need to have an ISO of the “Microsoft Dart 7 disk” and put it on the fog server.

Deep Freeze is insanely expensive, when Fog can easily perform this same task. Albeit the local network bandwidth.

Which isn’t a concern during non-working hours.

OK So this is a bit of a stretch but hear me out. Or just tell me to piss off.

I currently don’t have the need, but could see it being useful for other Fog Admins out there who have a large intra-network group whose machines get Uploaded to their fog server on a regular interval. (For backup purposes)

Now just as a idea template here.

Remote Site
Techie end users
System failure or files are lost or a BSOD that causes some issues, but email is still working through OWA or some other service.
Unavailable Fog Admin

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The goal is to have a 1 time use script that can be generated by an offsite admin, and emailed to the end user that would schedule a system download to the client machine, and begin a “system restore”, including system restart.

---

Now obviously there are some “What if” things here.

Q. How is the Admin able to generate this script and get it to the end user?

A. Some times things happen that make us so busy we just don’t get to baby sit every process.

Q. Secondly why not just give the end user a logon to the server?

A. Additionally the end user would have to be an admin on the fog server… and well we all know end users.

Q. What if the end user causes more damage than before hand.

A. That is a risk the admin will have to take, this is the [I]“I can’t get on site now, but I trust that you know what you’re doing and you need to start from (timestamped image)”[/I] scenario.

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Edits:
Ideally without the end user having to do anything but boot to iPXE, and then wait.

Any one else see something like this as being needed?

In 1.1.1 it already has the Download / Upload descriptions… literally 1/4 inch to the right.

Is a mouse over really needed?

My follow up would be, you allow your end users to run the Fog imaging from their end (I presume you are) and hence get asked “Which one am I supposed to do to make my system like new?”

Which your reply should be “Read the descriptions!”

Rochester, NY

I think what x23piracy is asking for is a built in feature that list all images when you ipxe boot a machine to automatically perform a full registration inventory and then image the device with a single entry, without additional user intervention.

So that you don’t have to search for the available images that you can set and image with.

But x23piracy, I don’t think this is needed by any means, just perform a full registration and inventory, the system then prompts you if you’d like to image the machine. (and then you can view the available images with a “?”)

Well my thought to this has a few folds.

Firstly - If we don’t have a fog server that is functional I can deploy to new hardware from another machine.

Secondly - This backup fog server could be used to create regular “Server backups” so that I have a fail-safe to our existing DRP.

Third - It gives us a piece of mind that if we screw up our production environment that all we’d have to do is reimage our current server and be back up and working, and able to image any of our devices with minimal interruption.