Weekend, or continuation of Week 3.

My apologies as I think this will be a long post whilst I wrestle with my thoughts.

Well, I have just awoken with a major headache after putting in a few hours over the weekend. This need to go the extra mile happens every year at this time. I know I could just let it go and get to it all in my “normal” hours, but those that know me would understand that I am passionate about our students’ learning and our teachers’ ability to facilitate that. That’s simply who I am, and I think a part of the reason I was nicknamed “Teacher Friendly Tech.” I also understand that Teachers often put in long hours in preparation for what you do, so I’m not looking for any special recognition. There are a few points that I want to bring up for discussion that didn’t help the situation though.

We have been using the same Vendor for our Laptops for over 10 years, and I think this causes my disappointment in recent events more that anything. I’m not going to mention names, and I will be discussing these points with them next week. I simply wanted to point out the frustrations from my side of the fence. My reasoning for these discussions is not to point out blame either, as this clearly sits on both our sides.

December 2008 we received an M750 Tablet PC and an A10 Laptop to build our “image” on. Both came with Windows XP SP3 and we’re called “Master_M750″ and “Master_A10″ respectively. Using our “Build List” I installed software and configured the settings to suit our College environment. Once I was happy with the results these machines were Sysprep’d (prepared for taking an image using Norton Ghost, and then Multicasting it out to several machines. Sysprep removes any identifiers from the install so that you can use the one image on lots of machines and don’t have any issues or conflicts). Now, here is mistake 1 on my part. As we were running short on time and I had already come in on the first day of my Holidays to finish this and get the machines sent back, I uploaded both images to our Ghost Server then tested the M750 image to make sure all was OK. It worked fine, so both machines were boxed up and sent back to our Vendor.

Sometime in Jan 2009 I received a call from our vendor that the VLK (Volume Licence Key) I had used in Sysprep wasn’t correct and would need to be looked at. My first thought was that I had used the Tablet PC Key (different key for Tablet edition of Windows) or I had typed it incorrectly. Either way,I could manually type it in during the setup process, get the Laptop working, then sysprep it again and upload the repaired image. I would then need to re-image the A10 and M10 laptops and run the setup process. Not too much work and achievable. Had I tested this image as well I would have discovered this prior to sending the machine back.

Tuesday of Week 3 2009 and the laptops arrived at our College. We run a single Composite Laptop class for Stage 4 ( Years 7+8 ) so all in all we’re not talking huge numbers, but along the lines of 15 M750’s, 2 M10’s, and 4 A10’s. As we had a busy week with Professional Development and other Staff Meetings, I looked at these late on Wednesday afternoon and discovered that the “base XP image” that was on the Laptop when I received it was an OEM version, and not the required VLK that was needed. Thought I’d need to spend a bit of time on this, and as we were at a staff conference on Thursday, then Friday would be the day to start (or not as it turned out).

Saturday I finally got to the A10 and M10. Tried all sorts of ways to get a VLK version on and without going into the gruesome details, it couldn’t be done easily. Luckily I had taken a snapshot of the base image when the Laptop first arrived. I reinstalled that then tried to use our VLK disk to perform an upgrade to the correct version. Stumbling block as we have XP SP2 disk and the base was XP SP3 so I couldn’t do an upgrade but would need to start from scratch. I researched and then built a Win XP SP3 instal disk and was then able to upgrade to the VLK version. This upgrade was important as it kept all of the drivers and vendors utilities so that I didn’t have to reinstall all of them from scratch. An hour to create an SP3 disk saved several hours of frustration.

Sunday I completed the loading of software as per our previous build list. This of course did take several hours, but is now complete. I have sysprep’d again as required and left in the wee hours this morning uploading the image to our Server. Tomorrow morning I will go in and test the image, and if all is well, re-image the other 5 Laptops as required. If it isn’t quite right I only have 1 student getting this laptop so will get theirs ready for delivery tomorrow as per schedule. No matter what, this student won’t miss out on getting their Laptop at the same time as the others.

I also completed the following this weekend, so it wasn’t only the Laptop issues that I was dealing with:

• Re-Imaged JS Computer Lab and Classroom PC’s
• Re-Imaged SS Labs (IT-B, IT-C, SS-1, TAS-2)
• Re-Imaged Library PC’s
• Repaired issues in Library Admin PC’s
• Moved outgoing Servers back into Server Room ready for Cut-over to new units

The Issues in all of this as I see it, and in no particular order, are:

• OEM Windows on Base Image of A10. Not sure how to check prior to building up software in future
• Changes to timeframe of getting these machines, were received later this year
• Failure to test both Images prior to sending machines back
• A Technician that left our College not being replaced, putting more pressure on other staff

Some of these issues could have been easily prevented, and many lessons have been learned from all of this. Gladly we are again on track for the start of Term in 2 days time, and all PC’s will be ready to go.