Intel vPro/AMT enabled systems allow you to remotely reboot a system from a redirected CD-ROM aka as IDE-R.  So if one of your users devices doesn’t boot its OS properly anymore, you can remotely boot that system with a diagnostics CD that you have stored on your local disk drive.

As long as that recovery CD has a text based interface such as the SystemRescueCD the system can be remotely managed through the remote VT100 terminal, but unfortunately that doesn’t work for graphical interfaces such as WinPE. So we need an alternative method to remotely manage that device. Since Microsoft’s own remote desktop (RDP) does not work under Windows PE, we are going to use VNC which is small and FREE.

Assuming that some of you might be interested to try this out themselves, here’s what you need:

• Intel  Manageability Developer Tool Kit
• Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7
• UltraVNC

You will need two clients, where one serves as your administration console and the other as the client which you are going to remotely manage. Make sure that at least the second client (the one that your remotely manage) have vPro/AMT enabled. Here’s a video that explains how to configure your client in SMB mode, which is good enough to test this scenario.

First install the Intel Manageability toolkit on the Administration Console client, which contains the Manageability Commander Tool and allows us to connect to the AMT enabled device, configure IDE-R and power on and off the machine remotely.  Register the client within the console through File, Add, Add Intel AMT Computer.

Once the client is registered click on the “Connect” button.

When the connection is established, select the Remote Control Tab and click on the “Take Control” button.

Now let’s move to the VNC Installation and configuration. Install UltraVNC Server and Viewer on the Administrator Console client.  When installed, start the VNC Server and configure it.  There are a lot of configuration settings available, configure at least the following ones: Authentication – set a password for full and view only access. Misc – To avoid graphics related issues, i proactively disabled Aero and Wallpapers. Query on incoming connection – Default Action set to Accept.

Now copy the following files located under C:\Program Files\UltraVNC\ into a new separate folder like C:\PE_VNC. These are the files that we will integrate into WinPE.

authadmin.dll
authSSP.dll
ldapauth.dll
logging.dll
logmessages.dll
SCHook.dll
vnchooks.dll
workgrpdomnt4.dll
MSLogonACL.exe
uvnc_settings.exe
vncviewer.exe
winvnc.exe
ultravnc.ini

The last thing we need to prepare now is the bootable ISO which includes WinPE. I assume you are familiar with creating a WinPE boot image, if not have a look at the Walkthrough: Create a Custom Windows PE image documentation on TechNet. Once you are at “Step 5 of the above referenced Walkthrough (Add Additional Customizations) you can add the VNC Server sources that you copied into C:\PE_VNC.

To avoid that you get the “Press any key to boot from CD” message when remotely booting the client from the redirected CD-ROM, you must remote the bootfix.bin file from the boot folder within your mounted image.

if you are familiar with WinPE, I also recommend that you look at the Walkthrough: Create an Optimized Windows PE Image. Optimizing your WinPE image can help you to reduce the size of your WinPE image, which helps reducing network traffic and boot time. By optimizing my WinPE image I managed to reduce its size from 152 MB down to 98 MB.

Now that we have our WinPE ISO file, let’s go back to the Intel Manageability Commander Tool. Select Disk Redirect menu, Change Target CD-ROM, Redirect to Image File and point to the previously created ISO file. Then select the Disk Redirect menu again and select Redirect Active.
Finally we can now boot the remote client from the redirected CD-ROM. Select Remote Command, Remote Reboot to Redirect CD.

Because now the whole ISO file content is being transferred over the wire, you will have to be patient, booting from a redirected CD-ROM can easily take a few minutes.  Remember that we removed the bootfix.bin file form WinPE, so if all goes well, the client will immediately boot into WinPE.

There is one thing which i have not yet figured out, and that is a convenient way how to find out the assigned IP address of the remote client, but maybe that is just an issue related to my test environment. So for the my own convenience I added some code to the startnet.cmd batch file, which displays the assigned IP Address.

Below you find the most important part of the startnet.cmd

: enable networking
wpeinit
: disable firewall
wpeutil disablefirewall

:: +——————————————————————–+
:: Start a minimized command prompt for troubleshooting
:: +——————————————————————–+
echo  * Starting a fallback console for troubleshooting…
start /min cmd.exe /k trouble.cmd

:: +——————————————————————–+
:: Launching VNC
:: +——————————————————————–+
echo  * Starting VNC…
x:
cd x:\vnc
start winvnc.exe

Echo  * Gathering IP Address
IPCONFIG |FIND "IP" > %temp%\TEMPIP.txt
FOR /F "tokens=2 delims=:" %%a in (%temp%\TEMPIP.txt) do set IP=%%a
del %temp%\TEMPIP.txt
set IP=%IP:~1%
echo %IP% >%temp%\ip.txt
echo The current IP address is "%IP%"

So let’s assume you know the IP address (the user was kind enough to read it for you) you can now initiate a remote desktop session through the VNC Viewer. I personally had an issue where the VNC viewer crashed right after establishing the connection with the remote client. I managed to get rid of that by setting the Connection Options to only use 256 Colors instead of Full Colors.

If all went well you should now be able to remote control your client.

I hope this was useful. As always, feedback and comments are more than welcome.

Alex

Today’s ToolTip is about HWiNFO32 which is a hardware information and diagnostic tool. I have seen many tools that can collect hardware information but this one gives me an impression of being a well organized utility and most important it’s FREE.

I recommend that you download the portable ZIP file as that doesn’t require an install.

Beside collecting detailed hardware information, HWiNFO32 also includes a Benchmark feature that compares the current system components against other components. The below screenshot shows the ranking of one of our home notebooks.

All collected information can be exported in various formats like XML, HTML, CSV, MHTML, Text log file or as short report. HWiNFO32 can be downloaded from here

Windows Virtual PC requires that your hardware supports hardware-assisted virtualization. There are a number of third party utilities around already, but now Microsoft released one as well. It’s called the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool and can be downloaded from here

If you launch the tool manually it will tell you if your system meets the requirements for running Windows Virtual PC or not, quite similar as the Securable utility I wrote about in the Detect XP Mode Support article.

But since I usually work in enterprise environments, I’m more interested in command line automation than in visual user interfaces, so let’s see what we have here.

When downloading the tool you get the havdetectiontool.exe, which is a self extracting executable. So the next step is to extract the content which we do by running the havdetectiontool.exe /x command which will prompt you for a location where to store the content. Once extracted you will see a havtoollauncher.exe and a subdirectory called Sources that contains the havtool executables for both 32 and 64 bit clients.

I was not able to find any command line options for the havtoollauncher.exe itself, so i moved on the to the 32 bit version of the havtool.exe. And yes, indeed the tool does provide command line options, Hura!

Executing the following command will parse the output into a log file:

havtool /log havresult.txt /q

Content of havresult.txt

System CPU doesn’t support Hardware Assisted Virtualization.
BIOS Vendor : Hewlett-Packard
BIOS Version : F.22    
System Manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
Final returnValue = 1

Executing the following commands will set the result into the Errorlevel variable and then create a new System Variable called HAV and sets its value with the Return code.

havtool /q
SETX /M HAV %ERRORLEVEL%

Setting a system variable is just one example, you could also write a custom registry key or log file. Once you have marked your system with the result, you can use your system management software such as SCCM 2007 to collect the data and create your custom reporting.

When setting up a Virtual Machine in Windows Virtual PC, You will see the following progress window when the VM is started. This indicates that the VM is running in Enhanced Mode which is the default. To better understand the different modes of Windows Virtual PC I recommend reading the “Three Modes of Windows XP Mode” article.

The progress windows is being displayed until the OS running in the VM has started up, so you have no chance to interrupt the boot process to access the BIOS. To get access to the VM BIOS, you  must run the VM in Basic Mode. Running a VM in Basic Mode means that you must disable the integration features.

The Integration Features can be disabled within the Virtual Machine settings. In a running VM, select the Tools Menu, then Settings, or if you haven’t started the VM yet, select the VM in the Virtual Machine Explorer and select Settings at the right mouse click context menu.

Select the Integration Features option and unselect “Enable at Startup”.

The next time you start the VM, you will see the boot window instead of the progress window.

Now press the “DELETE” key during the VM boot process to get access to the VM’s BIOS settings.

Related Content:

Windows Virtual PC Team Blog

Virtual PC Guy’s WebLog

SpeedFan is a program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. Michael Pietroforte author of the 4SysOps blog wrote a review of the SpeedFan utility. Read the entire article here

Here’s another great article from Stephen Rose, explaining XP Mode vs. MED-V. Read the entire article here

I write most of my blog posts at home in the evenings. Usually when I find a new tool I install these first within a virtual machine, this to not mess our family PC or my laptop I use for work. All Virtual Machines run on a HP dc7800 desktop which has Intel vPro support. This PC is installed down in the cellar. To avoid having to go down there to power on  the PC I have created two batch files that allow me to power up and power down the machine remotely using the Intel AMT power management feature.

I have configured AMT in SMB mode as described in the “vPro Setup and Configuration for the dc7800p Business PC with Intel vPro Processor Technology” whitepaper.

The utility I use is called RemoteControl.exe that is included within the Intel AMT Software Development Kit. The RemoteControl.exe and StatusStrings.dll can be found in the .\Intel(R) AMT 5.1 SDK Gold\Windows\Intel_AMT\Bin\ folder.

The command used in the PowerUp.cmd file is as following:

remotecontrol -r -user remoteu -pass P@ssword123 http://192.168.1.73:16992/RemoteControlService < powerup.txt

The command used in the PowerDown.cmd is as following:

remotecontrol -r -user remoteu -pass P@ssword123 http://192.168.1.73:16992/RemoteControlService < powerdown.txt

Note that at the end of the command I pipe the input RemoteControl.exe requires with a text file. The powerup.txt has the following content:

17
343
-1
-1
-1
-1

The powerdown.txt has the following content:

18
343
-1
-1
-1
-1

The first number actually defines what power function is being executed. the following functions are available:

16 (Reset)
17 (PowerUp)
18 (PowerDown)
19 (PowerCycleReset)
33 (SetBootOptions)

Finally, if you do not want to use batch files, you can also access the system remote power management features through the remote management web site. http://<system IP address>:16992

Does your hardware support the Windows7 XP Mode feature ? Here’s a small and free utility that helps you to find out if your system provides hardware virtualization support.

Download here

With the launch of Windows Virtual PC for Windows7, there is a lot of talk about the Virtualization Technology again. I found this introduction video from Intel that provides an overview on VT.

Okay, I must admit, I don’t believe in all Gartner is publishing, but while I was looking for some additional information around “DASH” I found the following interesting “Revisiting vPro for Corporate Purchases” article from Gartner, worth a read.

Before Windows Vista Boot Configuration Information was stored within the boot.inifile. With the introduction of Windows Vista Microsoft has completely reengineered the boot environment and Windows startup process. . Since then Boot Configuration information is not stored within the boot.ini anymore but within the BCD store. BCD = Boot Configuration Data.

To learn more about BCD read the following articles:

• Boot Configuration Data in Windows Vista
• BCDEdit Commands for Boot Environment

To modify the content of the BCD Store, Microsoft has included bcdedit.exe as part of the Operating System,a command line tool to modify the BCD store. Using BCDEDIT can be quite a challenge and incorrect changes can result in a non-booting system. So if you plan to play around with BCDEDIT I strongly recommend that you first create a backup of your  BCD by typing the following command:

BCDEDIT /EXPORT C:\BACKUP\BCDORG.BCD

Now for those of you who prefer using a GUI to edit the BCD store I recommend using EasyBCDprovided by Neosmart Technologies. EasyBCD provides a nice GUI to modify, backup and restore your Boot Configuration Data and IT’S FREE !!

For those of you who do have vPro capable machines in their environment, but never had the chance to take a closer look at the AMT features, this blog post might be of interest.

For most people I assume the biggest hurdle to start using the AMT technology is that you need a System Management Infrastructure setup that provides AMT support like Microsoft SCCM, Altiris Client Management Suite, Intel Landesk or the HP System Configuration Management Suite. If you really plan to use the AMT technology , this of course is a prerequisite, but if you just want to explore the basic functionality of AMT there is an easier path.

From the Intel website you can download the Manageability Developer Tool Kitthat is provided by Intel for 3rd party software developers that want to integrate Intel vPro support into their products.

Part of the Manageability Developer Tool Kit is the Manageability Commander Tool. It is exactly this tool that can give you that first real world experience you are after to see AMT in action.

• Gather PC hardware inventory data
• Remote BIOS administration
• Remote Reboot to a redirected DVD
• Remotely power up and power down a machine

To start with the first AMT experience you need the following:

1. Both clients must be connected to the network
2. The client you want to manage must be vPro enabled
3. Configure the vPro machine to run in SMB mode, for more details on how to configure the AMT options, refer to your hardware vendor provided configuration manual. On HP business desktops, you would boot the client and then press Alt+P to load the vPro configuration menu..
4. On the second PC that runs Windows XP or Vista you install the Intel Manageability Developer Tool Kit.
5. Launch the Manageability Commander Tool and add your vPro client to the console as shown in the picture below.

    

6. Connect to the device by clicking on the Connect button.
7. Once connected you can start using some AMT functionality that is provided through the console.

     

8. Go to the “Remote Control” tab and select take control. The Manageability Terminal tool window will open as shown in the picture below

    

9. Then click for example on Remote Reboot to BIOS setup, then after a while you should see the system BIOS configuration screen appearing.

    

For the rest I suggest, just navigate through the tool and try out the other features yourself, For more demos do a search on Youtube, there are plenty of feature demo videos around vPro and AMT there such as the video below.

Hope you enjoy IT

Ever wondered what actually happens when you turn on your PC before it loads the operating system ? Watch this video with Jamie Schwartz, Development Lead, Windows Kernel Dev team, and Andrew Ritz, Development Manager, Windows Kernel Dev team.

Windows Vista PreOS Environment: What happens before the OS loads

When remotely accessing the system BIOS of a HP Compaq dc7800 desktop machine using vPro, the BIOS appears in black and white as shown in the picture below:

to get the native BIOS colors you must configure the terminal emulator mode to ANSI

then, the BIOS will appear with colors as if you were sitting in front of the physical machine.

Thanks to Claude Henchoz for the hint.