Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit - Extract Report (3/4)

As mentioned in the first post, this KB series is about Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit. There are 4 main steps :

1. Install MAP Toolkit and its basic configuration
2. Collect inventory Data 
3. Extract Report
4. Extract Advanced Report

Once inventory data collected, we can generate reports. From the inventory data collected earlier, we can use options in the toolkit to generate the report.

For this example, we re going to discover Windows 10 Readiness

This KB is about how to generate report from collected inventory data.

1. At Overview page, select the targeted scenario category. In this example, it is Desktop.
   
   
   
2. At this page, select specific scenario that we after. In this example, it is Windows 10 Readiness.
   
    
3.  It is possible to customize assessment properties. The properties will set the threshold of the assessment, such as, threshold for minimum CPU speed, acceptable free disk, as well as minimum assigned RAM. To do so, select Customize assessment properties option.
   
   
   
4. You can use default settings by Microsoft, or use custom settings. Once done, select Run Assessment
   
   
    
5.  Assessing….
   
   
   
6.  Assessment completed, select Close.
   
   
   
7.  Next, select Generate Windows 10 Readiness Report option
   
   
   
8.  Report generated. Select Close
   
   
   
9. The report (by default) saved in Documents\MAP\MAPToolkitDB folder. You can navigate there, or go to View | Saved Reports
   Note : if you launch MAP Toolkit by impersonating other account with Local Administrator Right, the report saved in that account’s Document’s folder.
    
   
   
10. Open the report
    
    
    
    

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Group Policy Preference ( GPP ) : GPP Is Not Working, There Are Red and Green Dots / circle At The Settings

Group Policy Processing has been introduced since Server 2008, and Microsoft recommends to use GPP instead of normal GPO. To me, I prefer to use GPP as well, as it is more convenience to configure and troubleshoot. 

However, in some cases, the configuration may not get reflected, no matter how many times you perform gpupdate (gpupdate /force as well), or even reboot the machines. Your settings are all good, linked enabled to appropriate OU, Block Inheritance already enabled (to ensure policies assigned to parent OU not conflicting with your policies, just in case), there were no similar setting in Site and Domain policies, policies already being enforced (oh wait, do you really need to enforce?). 

What else could it be then? Oh wait, just before you planned to kill someone, you realized there were red dots / circles at the configurations, and those configurations (with red dots / circles ) were the one who drove you crazy! Configurations with green straight lines / circles were working as expected! 

So yes, it is how GPP works, actually. To simplify things, Microsoft (by default) disabled some configurations, so Administrators won't accidentally make changes. They need to enable those changes first, before the changes working as expected. In order to enable / disable those changes, one need to press :

• F5 - Enable all configurations
• F6 - Enable that specific configuration 
• F7 - Disable that specific configuration 
• F8 - Disable all configurations

To demonstrate some examples :

This is default configurations, some are enabled, some are not.

You pressed F5 (all enabled with green straight lines)

You pressed F8 (all enabled with red dots)

You clicked at some setting, and pressed F6 or F7 (pressing F6 will enable it, F7 will disable it)

Now we go to Advanced setting, to see on green / red circles.

We pressed F8.

We pressed F6 on some settings.

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Unable to Join Computer To Domain : The domain controller does not meet the version requirement for this operation

Few weeks ago, I had to un-join and rejoin one of my VM to our domain. Unjoin from the domain, checked. Rejoin to the domain, failed?? I know some of you may feel like "heh? is it that hard?" So no, it is not hard at all, but this was my first time I got below error (no screenshot, I forgot to capture one!)

Issues :

ERROR : The domain controller does not meet the version requirement for this operation.

But before the error prompted, I needed to key in my Domain Admin credential, which (1) I am pretty sure it was correct, and (2) it means my VM was connected to the network, and able to talk to Domain Controller.

Troubleshooting :

 I tried to join to domain using command line as below :

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