Today I was playing with automatic installation of VMware Tools by using Active Directory Group Policy and Security Groups on my Windows 2008 test environment.

What did I do to realize the automated installation:

- Create a Security Group in AD called: “SW_VMware Tools 64-Bit”

- Create in Group Policy Management a new GPO called “SW_VMware Tools 64-Bit”

- Computer Configuration > Software Settings > Software Installation> New > package

- Select from shared location (in my case: \\VMPROS-DC01\Software Deployment\ ) “VMware Tools64.msi”

- In the security tab: VMware Tools 64-Bit need read rights

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Today I started with upgrading my production Windows 2008 PDC’s to the R2 release. After mounting the Windows 2008 R2 DVD I received two warnings:

- You must have 15 GB of free space (it’s VMware.. so what’s the problem?)

- Prepare a Windows Server 2003 Forest Schema for a Domain Controller that runs Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2

To do step 2 you need to do a few things:

- Mount Windows Server 2008 R2 cd-rom

- Start CMD with Administrator rights (run as Administrator)

- Type: D:\Support\adprep\adprep /forestprep [Enter]

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