After successful testing with the various test groups we have released Adobe Flash Player 15.0.0.189 to MD7 workstations in order to resolve critical flaws with previous versions and to provide new functionality.
The update is being distributed in a phased roll out so it will take a few days to be applied to MD7 workstations and will only install when the workstation is at the ctrl+alt+del screen.
After successful testing with the various test groups we have released Google Chrome 38.0.2125.104 to MD7 workstations in order to resolve critical flaws with previous versions and to provide new functionality.
The update is being distributed in a phased roll out so it will take a few days to be applied to MD7 workstations and will only install when the workstation is at the ctrl+alt+del screen.
After successful testing with the various test groups we have released Adobe Reader 11.0.9 to MD7 workstations in order to resolve critical flaws with previous versions and to provide new functionality.
The update is being distributed in a phased roll out so it will take a few days to be applied to MD7 workstations and will only install when the workstation is at the ctrl+alt+del screen.
In order to test the version of Adobe Reader that is installed on your workstation, within Adobe Reader check the Help, About information.
On July 29th 2014 the previous Staff Remote Desktop service that was accessed via SGD was replaced with a new service that is accessed via vWorkspace.
Below is a graph comparing the usage of the two services for the same weeks in 2013 and 2014, beginning in the first week in August. Usage is measured by the number of logins to the service each week.
Each year IS&T update the Managed Desktop by producing a new image for installation on new workstations and lab workstations that get re-imaged each summer. For existing workstations that will not be re-imaged, such as Office workstations, we apply a series of update patches that install the new and updated software and settings over a short period of time in order to bring the workstation up to the latest version of Managed Desktop. We do this so that Office machines that have staff personal settings and software installed are not re-imaged with the default image.
Applying these patches is done over a few weeks as we have to apply a series of updates to over 4000 workstations and the updates can be quite large and require the workstation to restart after installation. For this reason for the initial roll out we try to distribute the update to a collection of workstations over night by waking them up remotely and applying the updates. This is not always possible for a variety of reasons, such as the workstation having a user still logged in or being a laptop that requires a password or USB pen drive inserted in order for it to boot. Any machine that is not updated overnight will be updated via a different method.
There are six patches required to update MD2013 workstations to MD2014. These are numbered MD Patches 17 to 22 because for MD patches we keep the sequence from the initial roll out of MD7 in 2011. Each patch requires the workstation to restart in order for the update to complete successfully.
The process is scheduled to begin from Wednesday 17th September in a phased rollout, starting with SLS workstations.
Patch 1 (MD7 Workstation Patch-17)
Patch 2 (MD7 Workstation Patch-18)
Patch 3 (MD7 Workstation Patch-19)
Patch 4 (MD7 Workstation Patch-20)
Patch 5 (MD7 Workstation Patch-21)
Patch 6 (MD7 Workstation Patch-22)
In order to check which version of Managed Desktop you are using open the ‘MD Help’ application from the ‘Start Menu\All Programs’ menu. When this has opened, select the ‘Workstation Information’ tab along the top of the application and check the ‘Version’ and ‘Patch’ levels within the main window.
If the patch level is 17 or greater, but not yet 22 then your workstation will be in the process of being updated to MD2014.
Once the workstation is at Patch 22 and Version MD2014 all of the required updates will have run successfully.
Users will receive a message during the login process when their machine has been successfully updated to MD2014.
Attached is a schedule of when we apply each patch to groups of Office workstations.
Due to the large number of workstations that need doing and the time and resources required to deliver the updates, the updates will be kept to around 300 at a time as a maximum. In order to achieve this, workstations will be grouped according to their name, for instance all workstations called ‘ACES-DA’, ‘ACES-DB’, ‘ACES-DC’ and ‘ACES-DD’ will be in the same patching schedule.
Just because a workstation is scheduled to get a patch doesn’t mean this will have happened successfully. Factors that would prevent this include:
The current status can be see here:
\\hallam.shu.ac.uk\aipapps\MD7\PatchesWorkstation\MD2014UpdatePatchingSchedule.xlsx
The 2014/15 64-bit Windows 7 Managed Desktop has been released to the University. This can be installed from Altiris and SCCM.
If using Altiris ITS will need to create the necessary jobs within Altiris, and please update all Altiris jobs to use the 2014 image. As far as we are aware, there should be no need for the 2013 image to be used.
The new and updated software for 2014/15 that is included within the standard image includes:
Software removed from MD2014/15 and not replaced by a newer version
For a full list of the software within the Managed Desktop image see: https://confluence.hallam.shu.ac.uk/display/ITSEXTRA/Software+Installed+within+the+MD7+image Please Note, this is not a list of all the software available for Managed Desktop. For a list of this see the Software List.
The major updates for MD2014/15 are the inclusion of Internet Explorer 11 and Java 1.7.
Both updates have been extensively tested with corporate applications and a number of issues have been discovered. Many of these issues have been resolved by implementing various workarounds or by a planned update to the service, but not all of these updates have occurred yet.
The issues discovered during testing only affect Office workstations, so for this reason the patches to update MD2013 to MD2014 will not be released until the September.
Most Office workstations can have MD2014 installed, with the exception of users who use Raisers Edge. Please do not image a machine that uses Raisers Edge with 2014 until further notice.
If any issues are discovered with software or services that were not discovered during testing please let the N&I Directories and Desktop Team know as soon as possible for aresolution to be implemented.
If a workstation does have the 2014 image with IE11 that requires IE9 then as a last resort it is possible to uninstall IE11 via Control Panel, Programs, View installed updates then select Internet Explorer 11. This will need to be done by a user with local administrator rights.
Please see the attached PDF files for further information.
The image has the latest device drivers available for all devices we know about.
Some devices, especially for laptops cannot be installed during the sysprep mini-setup routine due to them being installed via MSI or executable setup files.
For the latest laptops that we have been passed to N&I to investigate we have setup AD groups and SCCM jobs to install these additional drivers. If laptops are not added to these groups then laptops will not have some critical devices installed, including Bluetooth and Intel USB 3.
The Intel USB 3 issue also affects desktops, so desktops will also need adding to the appropriate AD group to get the drivers.
Laptops and Desktops using an image released before December 2013 will not be able to install Intel USB drivers due to a conflict with a previous driver.
We are investigating possibly delivering such drivers as part of the SCCM re-imaging process, but this is not available yet and will only apply to machines being re-imaged, not post-imaging of course.
For information about the AD groups and device drivers please see:
https://confluence.hallam.shu.ac.uk/display/ITSEXTRA/Device+Drivers+installed+with+SCCM
After testing MD2014 Beta 1, we have now released MD2014 Beta 2.
Beta 1 did not highlight any major issues with MD2014.
The updates applied to MD2014 Beta 2 include:
The Beta 2 image is available for imaging workstations both within Altiris and now also SCCM. If you would like a physical workstation re-imaging please let me know.
As previously, this should only be a test workstation and the re-image will completely wipe all partitions and re-install the OS.
There are also some MD2014 Beta 2 virtual machines available within vWorkspace for testing.
If no issues are reported we plan to release the ‘MD2014 Release Candidate’ at the end of May and then the 2014 MD7 image on June 16th.
MD2014 Beta 1 is available for testing within the University.
This is the first release on the 2014/15 desktop for testing and we will require testing to have been completed and signed off before we can release the desktop.
This will be particularly important for Corporate Systems and other University-wide software due to the updates that have been included for 2014/15, which include Java 1.7 and IE11.
We have included Java 1.7 as Java 1.6 is now not supported by Oracle and is not receiving any security updates, but contains critical security flaws that are being actively exploited.
In addition to this, there are now teaching applications that require Java 1.7 to be installed.
We know there are some services that still require Java 1.6 as they don’t work with 1.7.
IE11 has been included due to the necessity to update from IE9 due to the issue of Google not supporting IE9 to access Google Apps which is affecting students accessing their gmail, and also because IE10 or IE11 will be required for teaching and learning for 2014/15.
The Beta has been made available in order to allow extensive testing to occur of both Java 1.7 and IE11.
Any issues with applications that require Java 1.6 or IE9 will need raising and possible solutions discussed and implemented.
ITS are aware of how to image a machine with the 2014 Beta 1 image so if you require a physical test workstation re-imaging please contact ITS or myself.
This should only be installed on test workstations as the jobs will wipe the disk completely, and new versions of the Beta will be released periodically until the final release version.
For HBP, we have two Beta 1 machines in the Desktop Test Area that are clearly labelled as Beta 1 test workstations.
There a some MD2014 Beta 1 VDI virtual machines available for testing within vWorkspace. Initially these are for IS&T staff to test.
Anyone wishing to test specific applications that need installing should use a physical test machine and request the software to be installed.
MD2014/15 includes the following updates:
After successful testing with the various test groups we have released MD2013 workstation Patch 13.
This update will be applied to the workstation whilst it is at the ctrl+alt+del screen.
Patch-13 includes the following:
Following successful wide scale testing, the settings to improve startup and login times as described in this article have now been distributed to all MD7 workstations, with one slight alteration in that user profiles on Lab workstations are now deleted after 8 days rather than 5.
This has been done so that users who use the same machine for a weekly lecture will retain their profile for each session, so get a faster login.
As also previously mentioned, another major alteration that we did lately was re-do the startup and loginscripts to remove a lot of unnecessary actions due to the move from SAMBA and Novell file store to just Windows File store.
The move of the file store to Windows is one of the major reasons why the improvements can now be made to both login scripts and settings as Windows 7 is built to use Windows file store. Homespace is now mapped by the AD during login to the Windows file store rather than using scripts to either Novell of SAMBA and so the desktop can be set to display quicker if a profile already exists.
Also, as part of the move to Windows file store all drive mappings have been simplified as before users mapped lots of different drives to various locations, and each one involved a check to see if the user was a member of an AD group or not. All these check have now been removed as users just use N: and Q: for shared data.