Best Practices

With the recent release of Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3, Altiris administrators might be taking this opportunity to build a new base image for their environment. There are dozens of ways to build this base image and with more than a dozen documents circulating in the Altiris community related to creating Hardware Independent Images it can be frustrating to find all the information necessary in one document. The purpose of this document is to provide a step-by-step process that walks through every step necessary to build a Hardware Independent Image.

The Altiris Notification Server 6.x platform was coded using Microsoft's .NET platform and heavily relies upon ASP.NET for much of the functionality of the product. By tuning the default configuration of ASP.NET, a significant performance improvement can be gained on Altiris Notification Servers.

A cabinet is a single file, usually with a .cab extension, that stores compressed files in a file library. The cabinet format is an efficient way to package multiple files because compression is performed across file boundaries, which significantly improves the compression ratio.

Read on to learn more about cabinets and why they're a good thing.

We've been challenged to automate the shutdown of multiple labs of computers. My first thought was to use the Power Control in DS with a reoccurring job. The only problem here is that if the computer is already off, the DS job will turn on the computer to then shut it off, which for me does not make much sense. My second thought was to use Windows initiate the shutdown command through remote script execution of a batch file. One of the important keys to know is the switches for the shutdown command:

Here are some more tips and tricks for those who use Deployment Solution for Dell Servers 3+ to manage their Dell Server hardware. This article builds on its predecessor, providing more shortcuts and clues on how to make your job easier as an IT manager over Dell systems.

An Installation Flow and Options document explains any user input required while running the installation of a legacy setup and testing of the prepackaged setup.

Scenario: If D drive is present then the application should install in D drive instead of the primary active drive.

Solution: This can be done using the system search function in Wise Package Studio.

So the debate went through our office about what is the best pre-image environment... WinPE, BartPE, Linux or DOS. Consequently, we tried to do a complete analysis of many of the factors and determine what is really the fastest route to take. In the end, it all comes down to how quick we can get our imaging done and move on to other projects.

Definition: A user profile is a group of settings and files that defines the environment that the system loads when a user logs on.

It includes all the user-specific configuration settings, such as program items, screen colors, network connections, printer connections, mouse settings, and window size and position.