Thursday, May 26, 2011

USMT 4.0 Error on SCCM 2007 KB977203

After running into the problem of User Migration as described in KB977203, we ran into another problem when trying to apply the Hotfix downloaded from Microsoft.  It seems that when going to download the Hotfix Microsoft checks your computer for locale and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit) and only displays what Microsoft believes is the appropriate patch.

Apparently when I went to download the Hotfix from our 2008 64-bit Server, it found only 1 patch that matched my architecture 64-bit and language/ locale.  I downloaded what I believed was the one and only patch and attempted to apply it getting an error saying the patch was not applicable to SCCM builds above 6005 (SP1).  My SCCM 2007 build was at 6487.

We called in a free Microsoft Update service call and I only found the mistake because I attempted to download the patch from my Linux workstation which didn't match any Microsoft architecture.  Once I saw that there was more than one patch to choose from, it was pretty easy to download the correct 429644_ENU_i386_zip.exe patch although there was still no strong indication on which of the two sp2 patches to apply.

I'm including the screenshot from my Linux machine to show the patches I saw.  I should also point out that Microsoft does allow you to view all possible downloads.  I wonder if the 429644 is mislabeled for x86 instead of x64.



Monday, May 23, 2011

Helpful Incite for Business

Apocalypse Now: Why Believers Will Grow Stronger If the World Doesn’t End – TIME Healthland: "Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, which predicts that the more we have given and invested in a particular point of view, the less likely we will be to abandon it in the face of contrary evidence"

This theory looks helpful when describing why projects don't fail in a small whiff but in an enormous explosion. People don't want to admit defeat and choose a different tack even when there is insurmountable evidence.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Bitcoin Links

After listening to Security Now's episode about Bitcoin where they basically talked about the cryptography used behind the scenes.

I would love to see some more articles from Economists.

Bitcoin, Ven and the End of Currency

Friday, May 13, 2011

Arduino and Android

Make: Online | Why Google Choosing Arduino Matters and is This the End of “Made for iPod” (TM)?

I wonder what can be done with the Android Accessory Kit? I think the first thing to do is list all of the possible input devices that can be used. And then list all of the output devices.

Something that I would personally like to see is a way to send long form text from the Android screen to the Kindle e-ink display.