Windows 8.1 dotnet 3.5 Install

Ever had to install dotnet 3.5 or below on a windows 8 machine or server 2012 machine? Kind of difficult sometimes if your organization uses WSUS and doesn't have the proper files/updates approved. The install will just kick out and say it can't download the required files. You then have to start googling for ways around this which will bring you to this command

DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /LimitAccess /Source:d:\sources\sxs

Where you can substitute the source for your cdrom drive and your windows 8 disk are located. Unless of course you have either of these two windows updates (KB2966826 or KB2966828) installed which will only result in the command erring out saying it can't find the source files.

Uninstalled those updates and reboot and you can run the above command again from an administrative command prompt. I ended up copying the sources\sxs folder from my disk to a usb drive because it went about 20 times faster than the cdrom.

I'm not sure why I had a security update for dotnet 3.5 installed before I actually had 3.5 installed but MS threw it in there for some reason.

Thanks to Stephen Tomback in this thread for figuring this out.

MDT, Java and Adobe Reader OH MY!

Java and Adobe reader require at least quarterly updates for security and bug fixes. This makes it challenging to keep your PC images up to date so you don't have to manually apply all these updates on each PC. Googling for MDT and Java or Adobe reader takes you down many deep rabbit holes from which your mind not escape intact.

If you simply want a silent install of each of these beasts that will still get online updates as if you ran the typical web installer follow these instructions.

Java
Visit this page to get the manual(offline) installer for the latest release of Java
Import the file into MDT as you would any other setup. Silent install command is jre-7u67-windows-i586.exe /s

Adobe Reader
Visit this page to download the offline installer for the latest release of Reader. Import the file into MDT as you would any other setup. Silent install command is AdbeRdr11008_en_US.exe /sPB

So many of the posts out there were for old versions that didn't offer this functionality and had me installing orca or other MSI modifying programs that just were not needed anymore or had me building my own custom MSI file that then disabled the ability of these programs to auto update from the internet. My organization doesn't have SCCM or any other tools to manage updating these programs outside of the auto update that is built into them so it cost me a lot of time to go around and fix this on every computer.

Hope this saves someone some sanity and hours of their life.

HP Pro Desk 600 G1 SFF Video issue

Recently changed jobs and now have much broader job duties. Part of that was purchasing and deploying new desktop PC's. Our agency needed dual monitors for all users and we ended up choosing the HP Pro Desk 600 G1 SFF. It has on board VGA and 2 Display ports as well. We planned on using a DP-VGA adapter to be able to use our existing VGA monitors without having to replace all the cords with DVI or get a DVI adapter to couple with the DP-VGA adapter. We discovered though when we'd reboot with both the VGA port and one of the display ports in use that both monitors would just go black, still had the blue light on the monitor like the monitor was awake but it had no video signal. Powering off the computer and unplugging the Display Port monitor would allow the VGA monitor to work but having them both plugged in did not work.

We had the newest drivers for the system from the HP website as part of our build as of the date of this post and all windows updates for Win 7 x64.

We had disabled secure boot on this HP and enabled Legacy BIOS mode to be able to boot from a USB drive for our MDT deployment of Windows 7 x64

The fix:
Enter the BIOS using F10 while booting. Goto the Advanced menu, Option ROM Launch Policy and set Video Option ROMs to UEFI Only. F10 to accept change. Save Changes and Exit BIOS.

The first time the computer rebooted into Windows 7 X64 it blue screened and rebooted automatically. Subsequent reboots were fine and having both monitors plugged in worked fine thereafter.

The computer I'm looking at and trying this on right now has a BIOS version and Date of L01 V02.18 9/9/13.

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Update

After mixed results as I tried to image more of these desktops I ended up contacting HP support. They had me update the BIOS to L01 V2.23  which in most cases resolved the issue. Some instances I had to clear the CMOS by holding the button down for 5 seconds on the mother board.

Nimble Storage :)

My post from 2010 below detailed some of my storage challenges and considerations of another vendor. Due to budget/management issues we didn't end up doing anything but expanding our HP/Lefthand storage for several more years to my displeasure. Continued difficulty with technical and customer support were common so we took the approach of only upgrading or changing OS levels if absolutely needed. Every time we upgraded it created new problems or new bugs were introduced. We eventually got to the point that a good portion of the NSM's we had were no longer supported on the newer OS but were in the same Management group as newer units.

We had a large project request from an agency we serve and they had budget for SAN storage so my hopes rose that we'd be able to get something new. Fast forward a year and we are the proud owners of a Nimble CS 220. Looking back I'm very glad we didn't get an Equilogic. When considering tiers of storage I consider the Equilogic on the same tier as HP/Lefthand. We were considering Compellent until we came across the Nimble and I think we made the right decision. We'll be installing a CS240 in our primary Data Center soon and moving the 220 offsite for DR. If you haven't seen Nimble go check it out http://www.nimblestorage.com/