Recently in Apple Macintosh Category

I've recently completed a couple of complicated Mac setups that were somewhat painful.

A faculty member had ordered an iMac 21 as their GFA upgrade, with Parallels Desktop and Windows 7 64-bit. The initial setup seemed to go fine and I had them login to their Windows 7 virtual machine. Everything seemed fine at the time I deployed the machine. A day or so later, when I went back to answer some follow-up questions, they could not login to Windows 7, but I could. I deleted what I thought was their Windows 7 profile, but in consultation with Richard, found I hadn't quite deleted all of the necessary registry pieces. This morning, when Richard and I went to their office to take a closer look, we found that the virtual machine had been corrupted and would not boot. As I need to work on other setups, Richard agreed to rebuild the virtual machine.

The other difficult situation actually resulted from an upgrade to Apple's hardware (a newer i5 processor) for the MacBook Pro. At the same time, we're starting to deploy Office 2011 on all newer Macs. All of this required a new DeployStudio image. I figured, since I had already updated things for this machine, that I would go ahead and create a new image. As I have a couple more MacBook Pros waiting to be deployed, this would expedite things so I could begin work on these setups sooner. As it turns out, something went wrong when I created the image, and it wasn't actually created. I had left the machine as it was writing the image in order to work on other tasks. I didn't discover that the image wasn't actually created until I tried to deploy that image for the next MacBook Pro.

I need to put things back in balance by working on some PC setups the next few days!

This is a draft listing of the steps I complete in the setup of a Mac for faculty and staff. As I work on more machines, this list will be refined.

1) Restore latest image using DeployStudio.
2) Software Update -- patch OS with latest updates.
3) Update Microsoft applications. Install updates from any Microsoft application.
4) Rename machine.
5) Directory Utility, Advanced; User Experience tab: uncheck "Use UNC path from...".
6) Directory Utility, Advanced; Administrative tab: check "Allow Administration by" and add "studenttechs" to list.
7) Bind machine to MASH.
8) Move machine to proper location in Active Directory.
9) Update Sophos.
10) Disk Utility; repair disk permissions on "Macintosh HD".
11) Keychain Access: login; delete keychain "login"; delete references & files.

I have observed that no two Mac setups are exactly the same. I believe that, if I had two identical new Macs and two identical old Macs, there would be at least some minor difference somewhere in the setup and data migration process.

Generally, I've had the best luck running Migration Assistant using the network rather than using a firewire cable to boot the old machine in target mode. Use of the network involves patching the old machine and upgrading it to OS X 10.5.8 (just shy of Snow Leopard). With the old machine updated, Migration Assistant can properly detect the user profiles, including data files, and migrate everything as intended. Some time ago, I learned the hard way not to use Migration Assistant to move applications. When Migration Assistant works (which is most of the time), it works well.

I've recently completed two setups where I've been unable to run Migration Assistant and have had to move the user data manually. For one of these setups, Migration Assistant simply could not calculate the disk space used by the data on the old machine. With the other, the old machine (an iMac) could not read CD media to upgrade the OS. I had no luck with the internal media drive as well as an external drive.

The new iMacs have a firewire 800 port; older Macs have firewire 400. We've ordered several sets of cables for the tech area and myself. For my next Mac upgrade, I'll run Migration Assistant using the firewire cable to boot the old machine into target mode.

I've never been a Mac user. Even though my experience has taught me that Windows isn't perfect, I've never felt compelled to switch to the Mac platform. I worked with the Mac several years ago on a project for the Library and learned that the management of the Mac OS in a networked environment can be somewhat tedious and labor-intensive.

In my new position, I've setup and delivered a few new Macs of various types. Management of Apple hardware in a networked environment is still more tedious than with Windows, but it is a little easier these days.

The biggest thing I've learned recently is that, when we purchase new hardware, we really need to create a new DeployStudio image for that hardware. This knowledge comes through trial-and-error trying to fix a "broken" software setup.

In working with Richard, I've installed all software needed for a DeployStudio image, and this has allowed us to improve our documentation.

Also, another neat tool within the newer Mac OS X is the Migration Tool. This is specifically designed to move user data and applications from their old old Mac to their new one.