Non-English ISO options

[jdhitsolutions]

Are there any options for non-English ISO images?

[iainbrighton]

Hi Jeff,

There are certainly other people using non-English ISOs and you can register additional evaluation ISOs as custom media today.

An alternative would be to include them in the standard definitions, but that will mean manually maintaining the download links for each additional language that's added.

What's your particular use case?

Thanks,
Iain

[jdhitsolutions]

I maintain this project https://github.com/pluralsight/PS-AutoLab-Env which is basically a wrapper around Lability. (It is a long story) I have a user looking to add a Spanish culture ISO. I can setup the custom media. But I don't even know where to begin looking for the ISO files.

[iainbrighton]

For which Operating Systems do you need the Spanish ISOs for? Ultimately, they come from the Microsoft Evaluation Center.

[jdhitsolutions]

I found that. Even found the Spanish editions. I guess what I am most curious about is how you find the uri values used in Get-LabMedia? I think if I can find the right link I can register custom media.

[iainbrighton]

I simply register for the evaluation(s), download the media (noting the Uri) and then calculate the checksum (very scientific 😛). There is a little bit of massaging of the Uri to turn them into http://download.microsoft.com/download/ links for consistency, but I don't actually think that's necessary. If you let me know of one that you need I can provide an example?

[jdhitsolutions]

I thought you had a sneaky back-door way to harvest the direct download links. 😉 I was hoping to avoid the registration process. I think I can figure that part out. What I've never tried is to apply English language DSC configs against a non-English target.

[iainbrighton]

It should work as DSC is certainly used on non-English systems, however, some resources might have a problem with the localisation but that will be resource-specific.

Remember to include the custom bootstrap for client OSes! e.g.

$Win10EntVL = @{
    Id = "WIN10_x64_Enterprise_EN_VL";
    Filename = "WIN10_x64_1511_ENT.iso"
    Description = "Windows 10 64bit Enterprise English Volume License 1511";
    Architecture = "x64";
    ImageName = "Windows 10 Enterprise";
    MediaType = "ISO";
    Uri = "\\10.100.50.1\ISOs\en_Windows_10_Enterprise_1511_x64.ISO";
    CustomData = @{
	WindowsOptionalFeature = "NetFx3";
        CustomBootstrap = @(
            "## Unattend.xml will set the Administrator password, but it won't enable the account on client OSes",
            "NET USER Administrator /active:yes;",
            "Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope LocalMachine -Force;",
            "## Kick-start PowerShell remoting on clients to permit applying DSC configurations",
            "Enable-PSRemoting -SkipNetworkProfileCheck -Force;"
        )
    }
}
Register-LabMedia @Win10EntVL;

[jdhitsolutions]

Thanks for the tip.

[mgonzcast]

Hi! I am the guy who asked about the Spanish configuration. My labs are 2012R2 based and will be in a near future 2016. I don´t mind using Lability instead of ps-autolab if that´s easier. In the long term I need to understand the process of creating VMs so I could use these tools not only for development and testing purposes but also for deploying production VMs. I originally thought of using DSC directly but I find it cumbersome for a newbie. Your tools are great because they create MOF DSC files that I could tweak in the future for deploying also in production (Maybe I am mistaken here with this approach)

What I need to do for creating a lab with a DC, Exchange and a CA with 2012R2 for starters?

[jdhitsolutions]

It is possible to tweak one of the configurations to download and use a Spanish ISO. But based on your use case, I don't think this module is really targeted for you. I agree you would be better off downloading the ISO file and building your own Hyper-V setup.

You can download the ISO images you need from https://www.microsoft.com/es-es/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2

I'd suggest manually building Hyper-V VMS manually with the Hyper-V manager. Once you understand how Hyper-V works, then you can start figuring out the cmdlets.

[mgonzcast]

My main use case is to build test labs for testing. That is what lability and ps-autolab are meant to be? I don´t intend to use DSC right now and I am more in a need for being able to test things NOW. That´s why I find your tools are useful.

So again, what I should do to be able to use a spanish iso? Is it possible to tweak lability or ps-autolab to point to a local resource instead of an URL? For instance another similar project is autolab and they use local ISOs. I don´t quite understand why these tools has to download the ISO everytime I try to install a VM. I copied in ps-autolab ISOs folder an en-US ISO and still the ISO was downloaded from the Microsoft website.

[jdhitsolutions]

The PSAutolab module was specifically designed for lab setups that are part of some Pluralsight courses. While you can use the configurations for other things, it sounds like what you want is the actual Lability module. Yes, you can create a custom configuration to use the Spanish ISO. The ISO only gets downloaded once. The ISOs are under C:\Autolab\ISOs. There is also supposed to be a checksum file for each ISO. I'm assuming if the checksum is missing or wrong, the download happens.

I think the Lability module alone is what you really need so that you can build exactly what you need.

[iainbrighton]

@mgonzcast I'll try and take each question one at a time.

I originally thought of using DSC directly but I find it cumbersome for a newbie. Your tools are great because they create MOF DSC files that I could tweak in the future for deploying also in production.

I don´t intend to use DSC right now and I am more in a need for being able to test things NOW

Lability is built on top of DSC and uses the DSC configuration document (.psd1) to provision the virtual machines. You still need to create the DSC configuration and MOF files yourself. If you don't want to use DSC then Lability is not the tool for you.

PSAutoLab provides DSC configurations for specific Pluralsight courses and abstracts some of the complexities of Lability in the process (please correct me if I'm wrong @jdhitsolutions). If you want to create your own lab setups and want to use PSAutoLab, you'll need to create your own DSC configurations and MOF files. If you don't want to use DSC then PSAutoLab is not the tool for you either.

If you do want to continue to write your own DSC configurations, then I can provide answers to the ISO questions?

Thanks,
Iain

[jdhitsolutions]

Yes. The PSAutolab module was written as a wrapper to make it easy for non-PowerShell users to quickly and easily build lab configurations for some Pluralsight courses.

[mgonzcast]

As I said, I want to test a lab with a Spanish ISO

The PSAutolab module was specifically designed for lab setups that are part of some Pluralsight courses. While you can use the configurations for other things, it sounds like what you want is the actual Lability module. Yes, you can create a custom configuration to use the Spanish ISO. The ISO only gets downloaded once. The ISOs are under C:\Autolab\ISOs. There is also supposed to be a checksum file for each ISO. I'm assuming if the checksum is missing or wrong, the download happens.

I think the Lability module alone is what you really need so that you can build exactly what you need.

So If I get you right, I need to create a checksum manually If I want to manually copy the ISO files instead of downloading them?