Activating vpc images for MOC

Oh, man! One of those well kept secrets! If nobody tells you how it is not as easy as one might seem. I would have expected Microsoft to send out a bunch of keys in my welcome pack, but that sadly enough was not the case. So how do we get those vpc images running before the class starts?
The trick is knowing whom to ask. You would have expected to have this as part of the MCT FAQ but no, no info there. There used to be a link on the MCT homepage, but no luck there either.
After spending ages going through the MCT homepage I gave up looking for the link. It is gone.

This is how you do it:
Send an Email to "mslpkd" at microsoft with your request for product keys and your MCT ID (also known as MCP ID). They will then send you back a nice email with instructions and some time later another email with the keys you requested. You can request keys for Windows 2003, XP, SBS, and Vista. Then follow the instructions to change the product key of the vpc images during the activation process and activate the vpc by phone.
Remember to commit changes to the VPC after doing that and reusing that activated image for your class. You really don't want to go through the hassle of activating each and every image for a class of eight people every other week! At some point in stage you will have maxed out the amount of activatons you can do with those keys and simply send another email to the same address aksing for some more.
It really isn't that hard, when somebody tells you how to do it!

5119 Supporting Vista Lab 4 using VPC

If any of you have been prepping 5119 you might have tried and tried and tried to get lab 4 running just like me. But no matter what you do, the GPO settings are not pushed out to the computer. Even removing the PC fromt he domain and rejoining it had no effect.

This seems to be a problem with Virtual PC. Out of some annoying reason, VPC insists on controlling the clock of your vpcs. Thus, the vista machine is not properly synchronised with the domain controller and refuses to apply the group policy object as it is unsure about the computers compliance to the GPO rules.

I presume using Virtual Server, as advised by the course authors would solve the problem.

How to fix it:
In my case it was as simple as making sure that both domain controller and vista machine were using the same time zone and both ignored daylight savings. Then both machines showed the same time.
For good measure I also included Domain Computers in the GPO Filter rule. To make sure that the rule does not apply only to users, but coputers too.

First reboot did not do it, but after the second reboot the startup took, as expected, forever and once the logon screen appeared I could log on and gradually could see the newly installed apps.


If that does not do the trick, here is a little cheat:
Remember: computer configuration is applied at boot time, while user configuration is applied at log in time.

first, put adrian into the Martketing OU, then when editing the GPO:

instead of using Computer Configuration >> Software Settings >> Software Installation, use
User Confiuguration >> Software Settings >> Software Installation instead.

That will make the icons appear on the start menu as soon as Adrian logs into the target machine. This way the programs are not installed, but get installed on first use.

Ok, the install will complain that it is not configured for a per user install, but it at least demonstrates the point.

Usage Analysis and VPCs

Ever wondered why you are having troubles showing usage reports during any of your sessions? No? Well It nearly drove me mad. Whatever I did, no reports would show. Then I RTFM and remembered that the usage is analysed only once a day.
But when will that be?
If you need to know, look into the SharePoint_Config Database and open up TimerRunningJobs. There you will find two jobs of interest Office SharePoint Usage Analytics Processing and Usage Analysis. The one relates to MOSS and the other to WSS analysis processing.
So then I wanted to kick-start the process. Instead of dabbling with the last start date & time I decided to change the time on my vpc server. hahaha. that was funny. Next time I look, all times and dates have shifted by the exact amount of hours that I shifted the clock. Duh.
Now turning the machine off and the next day on again will not do it either. The Timer job will simply wait another cycle before attempting the processing. There is only one reliable answer. leave the VPC running over night. That will do the trick.
You can try to change the date & time of the last start time and recylce the timer service, but I didn't dare do such an incision to my now perfectly configured system.