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Distributing Custom Modifications to 4000 Windows Boxen? 70

Posted by Cliff from the lots-of-manhours-used-up-watching-installshield dept.
kenp2002 asks: "I recently tried to disable my Sleep Key on a Dell GX150. I found several ways to do this manually, but now I have to find a way to script a solution to do this on over 4000 machines! I tried keyboard re-mapping both through tools (which didn't see any ACPI keys) and through Microsoft's documentation (the old HKLM\Keyboard Layout change). Does anyone know of a solution on how to either remap or disable the Sleep key through a script or a really good internet resource where I can find information on issues like this? Keyboard filter drivers are not an option unless it can auto-install itself."

"I am on several Linux mailing lists but have never found a good NT mailing list where I can ask such questions from other admins.

I am stumped and Appdeploy wasn't much help, either.

I must prevent users from putting the machine into suspend and amazingly Microsoft will prevent a user, through administrative policy, from turning the machine off, but not suspending it! Any suggestions would greatly reduce my stress level and earn my eternal gratitude. "
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Distributing Custom Modifications to 4000 Windows Boxen? More

Distributing Custom Modifications to 4000 Windows Boxen?

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  • Easy (Score:5, Funny)

    by stu_coates ( 156061 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:41AM (#3785890)

    Software to 4000+ boxes... easy, just install Outlook, a few choice lines of script.. well, it works for a load of viruses anyway! ;-)


  • The easy way (Score:4, Funny)

    by seinman ( 463076 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:46AM (#3785919) Homepage Journal
    Just pry off that key... worked well enough for me, at least.
  • It seems to me that using a product like Norton's Ghost http://enterprisesecurity.symantec.com/products/pr oducts.cfm?productID=3 is what you need. You set up one computer, and then via the network you can install that image, all the user has to do is reboot. It has worked very well for many LARGE entities.
    -kevin

    • Re:GHOST? (Score:3, Informative)

      by dodald ( 195775 )
      Ghost isn't as easy as you think, I was in charge of upgrading 800 machines to support Ghost. 1st You must (or atleast should) create an image for each type of machine. 2nd, in order to use ghost from the network, you must create a ghost partition, and install a ghost service. In order for this guy to install his keyboard fix, he would need to physically touch EVERY machine on his network. I, personally, would wait untill your next MAJOR upgrade to install Ghost. (Although he is probably already using it, just not the console server.)

      On a more positive note, if you have 4000 machines and you don't have ghost GET IT, you NEED IT! You'll save 1000's of hours building machices. I personally loaded 100 machince from no OS-to ready to put on the floor (each with a unique hostname and static-ip address) in about 1 hour.

      • No ghost, powerquest deploy suite. I need to send this as a package to existing workstations. I cannot alter the existing image. I recenty resolved the problem using a Keyboard filter driver (and manually modding the PNP ID in the INF to match) and M$ devcon (commandline device manager, ultra cool. I use it like mad now!) with a simple batch file. I'll probably send it as a Winzip self extracting archive.
        • Does this mean you have found your solution. I noticed some people suggesting the batch file in the start up script. (If you are running NT4.0) Does your patch need to be done as administrator or can it be done as a user.

          On a ghost note... Norton Enterprise Ghost 7.x has the ability to remotly install applications. If you have Ghost Enterprise, you can make a img that only contains the changes that need to be made to the system. Again, with this you need to have all the machices setup with the Console service. Ghost is a wonderful package.

          The other things you could use are the MS BackOffice suite, which is a bear to setup but, doesn't always require you to touch a machine to deploy settings. (By Your sig you pretty experienced in this area but)... I hope you didn't disable your administrative shares (I.E. C$, REG$ and the other ones), if you did, its going to take a lot more work then you want to upgrade your boxes. I have seen other programs that have the ability to apply registry settings, and modify files on the computers, some that need services some that don't. Which can all be done manually or while logged in as the domain administrator.

        • Could you explain more completely how to do this?
      • Personally, I would recommend against using Ghost. Use RIS instead, that in combination with WINInstall of Veritas to create MSI's from the software you use at the enterprise and you've got a network that works for 100 or 10000 machines. Just add RIS servers...

  • Slashdot pricelist (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How much is an "Ask Slashdot" that would better be an "Ask Microsoft Support"? I guess it must be cheaper than the support call but how much is it?

  • In a domain? (Score:5, Informative)

    by AnalogBoy ( 51094 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:49AM (#3785940) Journal
    What i would try:

    1: Use a pro duct called "Advanced Registry Tracer" [search for it, you'll find it] to see the registry change made when you modify it from the Power options > Advanced control panel applet (granted you're using 2000 or XP). On a side note, ART is a kickass tool. There are many handy little uses for it.

    2: If you are in a domain, simply assign a startup script. Execute a batchfile which updates the registry via a .reg file. Simply drop a token file out somewhere and run an if loop to prevent it from having to do it each and every time. If you're not in a domain, hire cheap help...

  • Dell OpenManage (Score:3, Informative)

    by MImeKillEr ( 445828 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:55AM (#3785971) Homepage Journal
    Dell has a utility called OpenManage that allows you to push BIOS updates, update certain drivers, etc. from a centralized computer on the domain. I've only used it in the testing labs (I'm at Dell) so I don't know the street price of this app.
    • Forgot to mention: If the systems are suspended and Wake On Lan is enabled, OpenManage will allow you to pull the machines out of suspend/hibernate and make the necessary changes.

  • More info would help (Score:4, Informative)

    by kawika ( 87069 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @08:56AM (#3785978)
    Are these boxes running NT with Dell "enhancements" or is this really 2000 or XP? NT didn't support power management so any that's in there is from Dell.

    If these are 2000/XP boxes, do you have WMI enabled? If so you could connect to each box through a script and change the appropriate registry setting. You can also use WMI if you have explicitly installed it on NT. If you have 4000 Windows boxes you should definitely already be using WMI.

    Do you have a common company-wide home page set for these users? Do they use IE4 or higher? If yes to both, you could put an ActiveX control on that home page and have it make the changes you need. Since your company home page is on the network behind the firewall it will be in the "local intranet" security zone and the user won't be queried when the ActiveX is installed.
  • Or put a script on a share and execute it as part of login policy.

    If you are running 4,000 pc's w/o a domain, quit.
    • What? You can write scripts that run on Windows? How does the script know where to move the mouse?
      • What? You can write scripts that run on Windows? How does the script know where to move the mouse?

        With AutoIt [hiddensoft.com] , of course.

        In all fairness, MS actually has pretty powerful scripting built in through Windows Script Host [microsoft.com]. You can pretty much do anything with WSH that you can do in front of the PC, and a few more that you can't do in front of the PC. It's just a huge gaping security hole, and not as easy as shell scripting (IMO). But any good Windows admin should know about it and how to use it.

  • 1. What OS are the machines running?
    2. What level of Access do the users have, admin, poor shumck user?
    3. Do you have SMS Installer available to you(its a programing environment for writing install scripts)?
    4. Do you have Winbatch available to you? (you will need either 3 or 4 not both)
    5. Do you have the Resource kit for whatever os they are running?

    You just need a script that removes the key written in one of the two installers above. To deploy it you need to know what level of access the users have...if they all generally have admin(unfortunately most companies are that stupid to give all the users this level of access to thier own machines) then you can deploy the script in the logon. Otherwise, Group policies could be used, or SMS. That failing grab a copy of Darkside its a utility for alllowing you as a n admin to removely excute things on someone elses machine. PSexec could also be used for this as well.
    • The problem is I didn't have anything to send. I can easily manager 4k machines, we have Tivoli and all that what I didn't have was a specific way to remove the Sleep key. It couldn't be remapped in any way. I found a solution (I went with the Filter Driver). I think the Sleep key (E0 5F, in mode 1) wasn't even hitting the key mapping "system". I think the driver was redirecting the code to the kernel before it ever hit the output "system" to be remapped. Problem is fixed but thank you for the help. I will check out Darkside, as a contractor I have more flexability in eval'ing new software to use and suggest to clients.

  • Good NT/2k/XP mailing list (Score:3, Informative)

    by extra88 ( 1003 ) on Friday June 28, 2002 @09:56AM (#3786279)
    WINNT-L: Windows NT/2000 Discussion List [lsoft.com] is a good place to ask questions and look for answers. Their archive is online but you have to be subscribed to search it. I think they host some other good mailing lists but I'm only subscribed to this one.
  • I know its evil but set up a rshd on all these and then you dont have these problems

    unix solved this a long time ago with nfs or rsh

    lost of people do rshd and I suspect that you could get a sshd for win32 as well

    oh and name your box's well (-;

    regards

    john jones

    • Re:rsh (Score:2, Informative)

      by earlytime ( 15364 )
      on the same vein as rsh, try using psexec from www.sysinternals.com. If you know a username:password ( you better as an admin! ), you can run commands using the netbios interface. Just use a bash like script:

      for i in `net view \\domain` ; { psexec.exe \\$i \\fileserver\share\regscript.reg ; }

      something like that
      -earl
      • The setup is uber complex. I have to hop through like 4 DMZ to get to the machine and even then I can only hit a proxy server of sorts and set up a push to the machine... ack. Problem is fixed but thank you for the suggestion. P.S Perhaps we should set up a /. based Linux, BSD, and MS problem resolution site... hmmm....
    • It shouldn't be necessary to say this, but rsh is an enormous security hole! It authenticates using IP addresses only. Use ssh instead, it has the same functionality.

  • Addendum (Score:2, Informative)

    by kenp2002 ( 545495 )
    I was actually more poking around from some good mailing lists to subscribe to versus answers. I am very greatful for the responses. The problem with scripting and what not is they are Kiosk systems made for us by Dell. I can only push to the machine via an FTP script (These machines are the most ultra-locked down systems I have seen in my 7+ years consulting!). I found a keyboard filter driver to use and a M$ tool called devcon to auto install it. I am still searching for a few good NT/2000/XP mailing lists to subscribe to. The problem has been soved thanks to the help of the slashdot community. Now I just need some leads on Uber mailing lists to join! Thanks again people, you've been a great help.
  • but here's the deal. first, you apparently paid for 4000+ copies of windows whatever. call. your. vendor. even if ms only made a buck off each copy, and you know they made more, that's still $4,000+. they can afford to answer a question for you.

    second, microsoft is extremly hostile to a large portion of the free software world - like the part that provides most of two gui's, the main compiler basic utilities across at least 4 free os's (one of which ms is extremely hostile to). so *WHY* in gods name do you think that people who make those systems their hobby or their livelihood shood actually spend time answering nt questions.

    my attitude is, if you have a problem with a microsoft product call them or call a consultant. if you get poor support, well then maybe you should bring up that lack of support with your boss?
    • I hear what you're saying, but I have to defend the question.

      Yes, he should get support from MS or Dell. I agree completely. But I'm willing to bet a good portion of slashdot users interact with MS products everyday. I'm even willing to bet that of those users who do interact with MS products, many are Sys Admins. Now you can flame me all you want, but I think the question is valid, and aimed at the Sys Admin crowd of slashdot, not the I hate MS/Linux Rules/All your Base Belong to Us crowd on slashdot. Shouldn't we help provide an answer, not stick our noses in the air? I find this hipocritical(sic). Afterall, when I posted previously about wanting tech support for products (opensource or otherwise), everyone screamed and flamed that I should rely on documentation and the "community" for help. Now someone needs help, and because he uses NT, you're too good to help him out. I think that sucks.

      Go ahead mod me down, but you know it's true.
      • He's just venting his POV, my question to him is why would I expect M$ to support this? The sleep key is working just fine, there is no "problem." Should a car manufacturer have to provide me a way to bypass the perfectly functioning parking break? I need to basically "BREAK" the sleep key in a sense. Let him rant about it, if it wasn't for MS he wouldn't have a PC to run Linux on, he'd still be waiting for mainframe access time to play Space Trader. In the real world of business Linux is not free, go to Gartner and do research on a concept called TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). It's still cheaper to go with MS for now under most circumstances (Server market Linux is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY cheaper) but do you honestly think that I can load Redhat on a user's machine and in 1 hour get them to 100% productivity using Star Office? I admire Linux for it's strength but until they get the GUI solidified and "Groomed" I'll patiently wait for Linux to be cheaper than MS products.
    • my attitude is, if you have a problem with a microsoft product call them or call a consultant.
      Best laugh I've had all week.
      Rude or not, his best chance of getting a useable answer is from a distinctly anti-Microsoft discussion site. Think about it. Gives a pretty good idea of what Microsoft's support is really worth.
  • If you have that many machines you should have some sort of asset management software in place already. (If you don't then maybe that's why the last few admins have left!)
    Unless, of course, you do have some but it's Microsoft's SMS (which is worse than nothing at all).
    But even if you don't have anything that fancy, hasn't anyone in your company ever heard of a login script?!?
    • See several of my updates for further explainations, but these aren't user workstations but Kiosk systems with little or no user interaction. They aren't domain machines (not even on the LAN most of the time) and are ran via touch screen systems. We have Tivoli for assest managment, software pushes etc. They also are non-networked except at scheduled intervals to a local server so I can only access the server and set up the push script for when they hook into the lan.

      • If they're non-networked, then you've answered your own question. You manually schlump around to each individiual machine, and you make the changes. Unless you're looking for somebody to design a Lego robot to do that....?

        Assuming that you've an install image that you use to create new machines, you can also throw the changes in there.

        But as soon as you say 'non networked' then you quite obviously need to sneakernet it.

  • I found several ways to do this manually, but now I have to find a way to script a solution to do this on over 4000 machines!

    You don't say what the manual ways are. I suspect that you are doing it with the Dell keyboard utility that Dell places on the desktop. This utility is more than likely making a registry change or has an ini file where it keeps the settings. You need to find out which and locate the change.

    Once you have located the change it is a simple matter to push it out to the other machines. First, there are management applications that you should look at. With 4000 machines to manage you should definitely be running a management application. Microsoft sells SMS which is somewhere between OK and weak. Novell sells ZenWorks for Desktops(yes it runs on NT/2000 too), which is outstanding for this kind of thing. Both of these products will allow you to easily scan the system to find the changes that the Dell utility is making. Both management systems will allow you to image these changes and then automatically push them out to the clients.

    If you are not already using some such managent system, it would take a fair amount of time to install and deploy them and I get the impression that you need instant gratification. To do this, you must manually locate the changes that the Dell utility is making, either in the registry or the ini file. Once you've found them you can run a small batch file/login scipt at login to automatically copy the configuration changes to your client machines. I do this all the time in small environments that do not have management systems.

    In any case, you really need to look at a management system when you are running 4000 machines. What's going to happen when Microsoft tells you that you must upgrade to the new M$ Office XP 2004? Under the licensing scheme that goes into effect 7-31-2002 they could do just that at any time. Are you going to manually install 4000 copies?

    • Correct on al counts but distribution is no problem I have access to Tivoli for managment. But I was seeking help on how to remap the sleep key (or a good mailing list) as I could not get it to work through the registry or most keyboard tools. I wasn't looking for how to distribute it. I should have made it clearer. You hve plenty of good ideas. Also these machines are Kisok machines, no workstation apps at all, just in house stuff.
      • FreeLinux said:
        ...
        >You don't say what the manual ways are. I suspect that you are doing it with the Dell keyboard utility that Dell places on the desktop. This utility is more than likely making a registry change or has an ini file where it keeps the settings. You need to find out which and locate the change.
        >Once you have located the change it is a simple matter to push it out to the other machines. First, there are management applications that you should look at. With 4000 machines to manage you should definitely be running a management application. Microsoft sells SMS which is somewhere between OK and weak. Novell sells ZenWorks for Desktops(yes it runs on NT/2000 too), which is outstanding for this kind of thing. Both of these products will allow you to easily scan the system to find the changes that the Dell utility is making. Both management systems will allow you to image these changes and then automatically push them out to the clients.
        ...
        and then kenp2002 said:
        > Correct on al counts but distribution is no problem I have access to Tivoli for managment. But I was seeking help on how to remap the sleep key (or a good mailing list) as I could not get it to work through the registry or most keyboard tools. I wasn't looking for how to distribute it. I should have made it clearer. You hve plenty of good ideas. Also these machines are Kisok machines, no workstation apps at all, just in house stuff.

        (both below 2 so I'm quoting to make them seen)

        I'll repeat FreeLinux's comment - do you have a manual way to remap it? I have personal experience with Novell's ZENWorks - it includes a utility called SnapShot that can, as FreeLinux said, find the changes made by another app quite easily. You can view the changes thus discovered and push them out through the management tool of your choice. I would hope that Tivoli has a tool like SnapShot. If it doesn't, then how are you packaging apps for distribution?

        And again as FreeLinux said - ZENWorks will run just fine on NT/2K without any Netware in sight. The latest version (4, now in beta) will even run without Client32.
      • Dell uses something called the Netropa Multi-Media Keyboard. It has four extra buttons 3 are programmable using a utility called Dell Touch and the forth is the sleep button.

        These buttons, certainly the sleep button, rely on a psuedo service called MMKEYBD.EXE. While MMKEYBD.EXE is running, pressing the sleep key will put NT/2000 into sleep mode. To prevent this from happening you simply disable the service.

        To disable the service open regedit and delete the following key value: HKey_Local_MAchine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run

        SZ Multimedia Keyboard

        The next time the PC is started, MMKEYBD.EXE will not run and the sleep key will be dead. NOw, if you also need the other programmable keys to work, you still have a problem as I believe that they will also be dead when this service is stopped.

        As for good mailing lists...... I've never seen one.

    • Basically this guy saved me some typing.

      Take an MCSE class and they'll tell you how to do this...
  • you could put regedit.exe /s name-of-key-map-file.reg in your nt login script.
  • Easy way to disable sleep key: knife under, lift up. A hammer might be too damaging to other keys.

  • Windows 2000 and XP have a way to remap keys through the registry. While it's not exactly easy, you can run it through a script. Microsoft describes how to do it here [microsoft.com]
  • why not enable wake on lan, then if they did goto to sleep (or even switched off) they'll still service any networking request, which is why i think u want them on?
    If that wasn't the reason u wanted them on, then just enable wake on lan any way, and ping them every 5 min =)
  • Dell uses something called the Netropa Multi-Media Keyboard. It has four extra buttons 3 are programmable using a utility called Dell Touch and the forth is the sleep button.

    These buttons, certainly the sleep button, rely on a psuedo service called MMKEYBD.EXE. While MMKEYBD.EXE is running, pressing the sleep key will put NT/2000 into sleep mode. To prevent this from happening you simply disable the service.

    To disable the service open regedit and delete the following key value: HKey_Local_MAchine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run

    SZ Multimedia Keyboard

    The next time the PC is started, MMKEYBD.EXE will not run and the sleep key will be dead. NOw, if you also need the other programmable keys to work, you still have a problem as I believe that they will also be dead when this service is stopped.

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