Check out the Press Release, or skip straight to the Corporate Install download page if you know why you want it

Support for corporate deployment of DisplayLink software
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It is now possible to obtain a DisplayLink software installation solution that supports automated and remote installation scenarios. This kind of installation requires specific installation steps, detailed in the User Guide that is part of the Corporate Installer.

Yup, it’s true: we’re releasing an MSI installer very soon.

I’m excited about this news on two fronts. Firstly, this is the first time that I’ve contributed directly to a software release; I wrote the Deployment User Guide, gave advice on what IT Administrators want from a corporate installer, and helped steer testing scenarios. Secondly, this feature will allow IT Administrators to deploy DisplayLink’s software onto thousands of PCs simply and easily, further strengthening our ease-of-use message. And I don’t need to tell you how awesome GPSI+MSI is for us IT admins!

The “Corporate Install” package is different to the standard software release and will require you to register with DisplayLink in order to obtain the MSI files and sign the EULA. Once obtained, you can then deploy DisplayLink software to all the computers in your network via Group Policy Software Installation. Of course, you can perform silent/unattended installs manually via msiexec if you wish as well.

It’s worth mentioning again that the MSI installer has not been released yet, but it is coming. 

Stay tuned for more info!

DisplayLink DL-160

There are several technologies available today that can send a video signal through a computer’s USB port to a monitor or projector, but DisplayLink is by far the most impressive. The combination of software (to redirect video through the USB port), and hardware (in the form of a chip in the display device or external video adapter) lets you connect, and expand your desktop to cover, up to six monitors by way of a single USB port on your PC. With the DL-160 chip, DisplayLink adds support for monitors with up to 1,600-by-1,200 resolution, and it works with Windows XP, Vista, Vista 64-bit, and Vista Aero. There’s even a beta version of the software for Mac OS X.

Press Release

I thought I’d document what actions I took, in case it helps out anyone in the future. I’d also be interested to hear how you handled the situation, particularly if you did something I missed, or if you think I could have done things better!

History repeating…

Although I remember the impact of Sasser and MyDoom, I’ve never been in the trenches when such a critical update has been launched for Windows.

No-one likes working late at night, but I didn’t fancy the chances that a 0-day exploit may be released and in the wild before we can patch our mission critical servers; so as soon as I found out, I started working on a plan.

The Plan

The plan was relatively simple: Get the update to as many PCs as possible, as soon as possible; with an emphasis on any Servers that provide business-critical services.

Simple enough, but what next?

WSUS

About a month back we setup an internal WSUS server to centralise Windows Updates – quite handy for this type of scenario! The main thing here is to ensure that WSUS has the updates downloaded and approved, ready for deployment. Fortunately it had, as it performs a sync every evening, and automatically approves Critical Updates.

Group Policy

To ensure PCs get the update as fast as possible, we needed to open up GPMC and re-configure all existing Group Policy Objects (GPOs) that address Windows Update configuration.

The Windows Updates settings are under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.

Note that, if you don’t have WSUS, you can still make the changes outlined below in order to minimise Time-to-Patch. If you haven’t set “Specify intranet Microsoft update service location”, PCs will automatically ask Microsoft’s update servers on the internet.

What we’re looking to do is:

- Set all PCs to download and schedule updates. This is abnormal for us as we allow our Engineers to dictate when to install updates as it can interfere with Software development and testing.

- Make sure each PC checks for updates with our WSUS server every hour, as opposed to every 22 hours.

- Set PCs to install the updates at 11am. This gives time for people to turn on their PCs, for the PCs to update their Group Policy settings and pick up the new settings, and then to check in with the WSUS server for the new update.

- If the PC missed the 11am deadline (e.g. it wasn’t on) it’ll check whether or not it has updates, and then install the updates after 30 minutes.

Informing End-users

A notification email was crafted to all employees, informing them of the severity of the update, what was being done, and what actions they should take. I’ll include a copy of the email I sent out at the end of the post

Protecting the business

Last night, we couldn’t wait for WSUS to “offer” the update to our servers so I grabbed the Update and manually installed it on each business-critical server, rebooting them promptly.

This morning

That was last night out of the way. This morning and this afternoon I’ve been checking WSUS’s reports to see which PCs have the update installed. As of 1pm, at least 90% of PCs had installed and rebooted. I’ll be chasing the rest later

The notification

As promised, here’s the Email notification sent out to employees:

 
Hi all,

Microsoft has just released a very serious critical security update for Windows operating systems.

To see how this affects you, please see below.

Cambridge Employees

Tomorrow we will be rolling out an essential security update to all Domain-connected Windows PCs. This update is mandatory. If you press Control+Alt+Delete to log in, you are on the domain. If you do not press Ctrl+Alt+Del to log in you should follow the advice for Non-Cambridge employees below.

Although we will be trying our best to force this update out. It’s advisable that if you see the “Yellow shield” in your Task Bar, you should click it and install all updates reboot as soon as possible.

Not doing so poses a serious risk to DisplayLink’s networks.

Non-Cambridge Employees 

If you are not based in Cambridge, you should visit Windows Update as soon as possible and install all updates, specifically this one.

DisplayLink Servers

Servers in the UK will have the update installed and be rebooted as soon as possible to ensure we’re protected.

Further information

Further information on this Critical update can be found on Microsoft’s KB article.

Thanks go to Dave Hill for spotting this one on The Register!

Cheers,
Phil Wiffen
IT Engineer

 

How did you handle it?

As I said earlier, I’d also be interested to hear how you handled the situation, particularly if you did something I missed, or if you think I could have done things better! Let me know in the comments

If you’re one of those people, check out this informative PDF Fact Sheet

There’s also a handy Wikipedia entry.

PDF White Paper

Press Coverage:

cNet

Everything USB

GoodCleanTech

Desinformado

Just one example of a Monitor with DisplayLink technology embedded is the Samsung SM226UX UbiSync 22

Happy Birthday DisplayLink!

*OK so, technically, DisplayLink was known as Newnham Research back in 2003, before we changed our name to DisplayLink in November 2006

The vision of some of the people in this company is phenomenal, and I’m proud to be along for the ride.

The leaning tower of polystyrene. Courtesy of Dell’s monitor boxes

PS. Insanely busy lately. Will have something of worth to post soon!

Read: Forget DVI, USB Displays coming.

So, a lot of people at DisplayLink should be doing 4 or 5 times the amount of work

Due to our office expansion, we’ve had to move our radio-key entry system from the inner door to the outer door of the office. I’ve just noticed that, as I pass through the outer door towards the inner door, I still automatically pull my security key out of my pocket and move towards where the key reader used to be – only to remember seconds later that it’s no longer there

Yesterday, we released a beta version of the Mac driver for DisplayLink-enabled products. The guys working on this have done a fantastic job in a very, very short time and should be commended for their efforts. Sadly, due to the closed nature of OS X we’ve been unable to get the performance as we’d like it.

As the Beta page says:

DisplayLink is committed to making a Mac release that is just as good – if not better – than our Windows Vista release, including full support for OpenGL 3D acceleration. Unfortunately the Mac OS X operating system is a closed system, and unlike Windows XP and Windows Vista, it is difficult to make significant improvements without the direct support of Apple. If you would like to see improved support for DisplayLink USB devices from Apple, please let them know through the Apple Feedback form for Mac OS X.

Hopefully Apple will be able to help us out with some of the issues we’ve been having

January 2008

Streamlining PC deployments

Working on centralising Microsoft Office control by leveraging Group Policy.
Deploying things like setting Free/Busy times, and Workgroup templates is easier than importing .reg files through AutoIT scripts! I bought a book – Group Policy: Management, Troubleshooting, and Security – to help me understand Group Policy. Even just casual browsing has turned up some useful pieces of info, and I’m looking forward to delving deeper into GP, and the book, as I get time

Investigating Windows Desktop Deployment (formerly BDD 2007).
Again, the aim is to further streamline new PC deployments. It seems pretty complex on first look, but I’ve checked out a few videos – discussing BDD 2007 – by IT Idiots which have aided my understanding – I’ve even done a Lite touch deployment using WinPE. Kudos to them for providing such useful content!

Moving the company to a Microsoft Volume Licence infrastructure.
We’re running at around 100 PCs now and up until January, had been operating on an OEM Licence infrastructure. I’d heard about the advantages of Volume Licensing, so began investigating how we can go about doing it. Understanding the myriad rules and options associated with Volume Licensing is a bit of a black art, but the process has been rewarding, and I’ve already started rolling out VLK Office and Windows deployments

Unattended, Service Pack Slipstreamed, Windows and Office installers
Using AutoIT and creating Unattended Install CDs for XP and Vista using nLite and vLite. I’ve also created an unattended, slipstreamed, install for Office 2003 using the Office 2003 Resource Kit. Next on my agenda is Office 2007!

In combination with everything above, this should massively streamline PC deployments. Expect some posts on these strategies in the future, to see how you can speed up your own deployments.

IT Infrastructure planning and upgrades

Working with my colleague, Dave, to plan and upgrade our IT infrastructure, so that it can grow with the company. This includes general stuff like Network Attached Storage and deploying VMware ESX Server to better utilise hardware, rack space and power. Natural Business considerations were things like: How do we back it up? and How do we ensure the solutions are resilient enough to cope with failure and keep the business running?

We took delivery of some new kit towards the end of the month – after much planning and research!

HP DL320s NAS – 6TB raw storage to, hopefully, meet our storage needs for the next year or so. Naturally, to comply with our objectives above, it runs RAID-6 and has redundant PSUs.

HP DL360 – with 4 x 10K 72GB SAS drives and 2 x quad core Xeons, for running VMware Infrastructure 3 /ESX 3.5. The DL360s come barebones so you have to install the extra processor/drives/redundant PSU/RAM yourself, but it was all easy as pie. The thing runs stupidly fast.

VMware Infrastructure 3 Foundation – we’ll be running this as a test platform to start with but I imagine (from my previous experience with Server and Workstation) that it’ll hit production with a month or so. The main purpose of this exercise is to consolidate older hardware and reduce both physical and energy footprints.

Rackmount Tape Chassis plus drive – 1U rackmount Tape Drive chassis, with 1 x LTO-3 drive installed and space for another. LTO-4 is still pretty expensive, so we went for a happy medium

If you want to know more about DisplayLink’s roots, and the technologies and ideas that drove its inception, you might want to check out Quentin’s GOVIS 2007 talk. He is, after all, the man that started it all