A UK college recently e-mailed me asking for help deploying Visual Basic Express 2008.  Here are the basic steps to extracting an MSI from the 2008 Express ISO.

1. Download the Visual Studio 2008 Express ISO to your local system and mount it using something like MagicDisk.
2. Locate the “VBExpress” directory and copy it somewhere locally.
3. Run ixpvb.exe, this will extract the setup files to your local drive. Mine got extracted to:
   C:\057f3ad5975a04eeddb339635a50

   Copy the files to somewhere, and then discard the notification that you must run setup.exe to install the software. The temporary directory will be automatically removed when you dismiss the dialog.

   At this point, it’s now safe to remove the “VBExpress” directory you copied earlier.

4. Make sure the dependencies are installed. These are: Windows Installer 3.1, .Net Framework 1.1 + SP1, .Net Framework 2.0 + SP1, .Net Framework 3.0. Reboot after they’ve been installed.
5. Then run the command that makes it all happen.

   msiexec /i vs_setup.msi VSEXTUI=1 ADDLOCAL=ALL REBOOT=ReallySuppress /qn

   Assuming that works, you know you’re good to go.

   You should be able to then create a simple transform to set the VSEXTUI, ADDLOCAL and REBOOT properties and then deploy via Group Policy Software Installation. Be sure to make sure all your target systems have the dependencies installed.

If anyone runs into a problem leave a comment and I’ll see if we can work out where things are going wrong.

In early September I was contacted by PACKT Publishing. They provided me with a review copy of their new book, Zenoss Core Network and System Monitoring (ISBN 978-847194-28-2) by Michael Badger.

The books eleven chapters cover everything from basic installation to extending Zenoss:

1. Introduction
2. System Architecture
3. Installation and Set up
4. The Zenoss User Interface
5. Device Management
6. Status and Performance Monitors
7. Event Management
8. System Reports
9. Settings and Administration
10. Extend Zenoss
11. Technical Support

Having read through the book, I would recommend it to the following groups of people:

• Zenoss implementers, people who are looking to implement Zenoss for a SMB.
• Zenoss users, people who use Zenoss as part of their role. The book makes a superb handbook

The book is well presented, with well written introductions and summaries for each chapter. Many of the technical books I read seem to struggle with the balance between text and screen shots, this is not the case here. The balance is perfect.

Michael Badger (the author) creates a sample company known as Mill Race and guides the reader through setting up their monitoring solution. Because of this, it’s easy to transpose the information to your environment.

The value in the book for me was getting a firm understanding on the terminology used in Zenoss (Class, Template, Group, Modeling etc) and that I am now able to produce more meaningful reports.

So, to conclude. Zenoss Core, Network and System Monitoring is an essential read if you use (or plan to use) Zenoss and want a good understanding of all aspects of Zenoss.

In 2006 the company I work for migrated some of its managed hosting infrastructure from Newnet (in Fareham) to Dedipower (in Reading). We’ve just moved out due to two acquisitions which have created a desire to consolidate our hosting offerings to our own datacenter (in Bristol). Now that we’ve left Dedipower, I feel that I can write a review without it affecting our service with them.

Dedipower’s technical competence is very high and the technicians are very friendly (not that we’ve needed their hands on assistance for anything other than remote reboots).

The datacenter is tidy and well thought out. It features under floor power, overhead cables with hot/cold isles. UPS systems to cover them until their dual redundant diesel generators kick in. 

We’ve had absolutely no problems whilst we’ve been there, though they do limit you to 16A per cab (they didn’t when we first signed up, so it’s something to watch out for). Power these days seems to be the main problem for datacenters so the 16A limit is nothing too scary. Bandwidth is superb with three Tier 1 providers and talk of dark fibre going in.

Unfortunately, we did run into a problem when removing all our equipment. Dedipower refused to allow us to remove our equipment until the final invoice had been paid. Amusingly, I’d already loaded up my car with all the servers and network hardware by the time they remembered so they held hostage some cat5, IEC cables, rack rails and a switch. 4 hours later I was allowed on my way once we’d made a bank transfer. Ohh well, these things happen.