There are several tools available to aide in the deployment and management of Lenovo's ThinkVantage Technologies. Select the application for which you would like to view the Administrative tools:
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Toolkits have been created to assist in the deployment and management of Rescue and Recovery and Client Security Solution. These toolsets include:
- Point and click wizard to make the creation of Antidote scripts easy.
- RRUtil.exe is an administrator tool which can be used to customize parts of the Rescue and Recovery PreDesktop Area
- Convdate utility is used to determine the HEX values of date and time and to convert date and time values into HEX values. It can be used to set a custom data and time in a backup field of TVT.TXT
- PowerQuest file for installation of the Rescue and Recovery Environment in a Type 12 partition
- Rescue and Recovery and Client Security Solution Active Directory Administrator Templates
ThinkVantage Technologies Deployment Guide
These guides are intended for IT administrators, or those who are responsible for deploying ThinkVantage Technologies to computers throughout their organizations. The major components are:
- Rescue and Recovery
- Client Security Solution
- Fingerprint Software
This guide is intended to provide the information required for installing the ThinkVantage Technologies on one or many computers, and to describe and instruct the many aspects of the tools which can be customized to support IT or corporate policies. The guide provides best practices for installation and deployment as well as a variety of command line tools available.
The fingerprint reader management console will enable command-prompt script-driven customization of fingerprint software settings.
To customize the Productivity Center for deployment, download the Customization Guide and relevant tools.
Access Connections is able to import and export location profiles for the wireless adapter. This feature does not export the wireless security configuration and all profile settings. However, you can download and install the optional profile-deployment feature, which enables Access Connections to export wireless security configurations (including static WEP, password, and so on) and all profile settings. Download the Access Connections Deployment Guide or view the Access Connections location profile-deployment feature to learn more.
System Update 3.14 including all supported languages
New for this release
- System Update supports new animated billboard for America, Australia and other world-wide countries.
New features include Active Directory-based customization and policy support, improved ease of use, command line interface, and custom repository support. These new features are complemented with two administrative tools, Package Builder and Update Retriever.
- Package Builder is used to modify and create custom install update packages compatible with System Update.
- Update Retriever is used to create and manage a customer's local repository. It is also used to import packages created using Package Builder and to retrieve Lenovo packages from the Lenovo support site.
System Update 3.14 Deployment Guide
This guide is intended for IT administrators, or those who are responsible for deploying the System Update program on computers in their organizations. This guide provides the information required for installing System Update on one or many computers, provided that licenses for the software are available for each target computer. The System Update application provides application help, which administrators and users can consult for information about using the application. This guide also includes information about using Package Builder and Update Retriever.
System Update Administrator Tools
The Administrative (ADM) template file defines policy settings used by applications on the client computers. Policies are specific settings that govern the application behavior. Policy settings also define whether the user will be allowed to set specific settings through the application. Settings defined by an administrator on the server are defined as policies. Settings defined by a user on the client computer for an application are defined as preferences. As defined by Microsoft, policy settings take precedence over preferences.
Version control for System Update
You can control the version of System Update that is available to your users by configuring your network repository to store specific versions of System Update locally using the SSClientCommon.zip tool. Storing versions of System Update locally enables the System Update application to search for upgrades within your network. For additional information, see the Deployment Guide.
The Package Builder program is meant to standardize the packaging format and content for software updates. Moving to a common packaging standard provides consistency for software distribution applications to develop around and improves the overall customer experience when installing software updates originating from different sources.
The benefits derived from this packaging specification include:
- Updates are self-extracting and self-installing, which means if a customer must manually download an update without the use of a software distribution tool, the installation can occur by simply launching the update (no further user intervention required). This is a current requirement from the Support Center.
- General update information, such as name and version, are available in the update properties (accessed by right clicking on the update).
- Command line switches needed for an unattended installation are common for all updates.
- Each update has an XML descriptor file that contains the update meta-data to describe the conditions that must exist on the target system for the update to be applicable to the target system.
- Text README files follow a common format and describe the update.
New for this release
- 5 new methods are added to reduce dependecies for external routines.
- Saves comments in XML Descriptor.
- Replaced "Redirect" tag to simple logic to detect version of the packages installed. .
The primary objective of Update Retriever is to allow you to download relevant updates (updates targeted for systems that you, as an IT administrator, support within your enterprise) to a local repository. Doing this allows end-users supported by you to install only selected (approved) updates from within their Intranet using System Update 3.14.
The main features of Update Retriever are:
- Ability to schedule or manually retrieve system updates directly from Lenovo's support site.
- Ability to select only the desired packages to download.
- Ability to select specific model or models to download Updated packages from Lenovo's support site.
- Ability to create and manage your local System Update 3.14 repository.
- Ability to maintain version control via archiving.
- Ability to create new local repositories for System Update 3.14.
New for this release
- Supports auto-archive when downloading packages with scheduler.
- Allows to maximize downloaded updates window.
The ThinkVantage Base Software Administrator (BSA) program is a versatile software utility that you can use to customize the recovery process for the Lenovo Preload. With BSA, you can customize the recovery process for computers and you can create personalization files used to automate the setup for Windows based on the Lenovo Preload. Customizing the recovery process is controlled with manifest files.
- Now supports Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)
The ThinkVantage Base Software Administrator program can create, modify and deploy custom manifest files. Manifest files have the extension .cfi, and contain information about the components within the service partition where it resides. Manifest files also control the selections available to the user during a custom recovery. The information contained in a manifest file includes component categorization such as required, optional, and restricted. In addition, manifest files contain meta-data, such as descriptions and comments.
You can save time and effort by using the Base Software Administrator program to customize personalization files to be used on all computers during initial deployment. For example, you can create a personalization file set to join a specific Windows Domain and then use that personalization file on all Lenovo computers; therefore, IT will not have to manually join the Windows Domain and would have automated the Windows setup process.
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