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Skype for Business: “Prerequisite installation failed: MSSpeech_TTS_pt-BR_Heloisa”

jimmy Leave a comment

While doing a Skype for Business deployment, I encountered this strange error that was preventing the S4B server components from installing: “Prerequisite installation failed: MSSpeech_TTS_pt-BR_Heloisa”.

The log file showed the following:

languageErrors

After doing some Googling, the consensus was to find the MSI file and replace it.

The file was located here: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Skype for Business Server\Deployment\cache\6.0.9319.0\setup\speech\pt-BR\

However, the question was where to get the speech files. I tried getting them from the ISO, but it appeared the files on the ISO were corrupted, so I had to get the files here:

Microsoft Speech Platform – Server Runtime Languages (Version 10.1)

I ended downloading what I needed, but subsequent MSI files were also having problems, so I ended up just replacing MSIs in the the directories “pt-BR” through “zh-TW” just to be safe.

The installation then continued successfully as expected.

Hope this helps someone.

Update (06/07/16): Had this problem again (forgot to replace ISO), and I found out that if you keep the S4B ISO mounted or DVD in the system, then S4B will re-download the bad packages from the ISO/DVD. Dismount or eject the media, then copy the MSI files.

Update 2 (09/20/16): You can also just re-download the ISO. Problem solved. 😀

Virtualbox VLANs in Ubuntu

jimmy Leave a comment

Wanted to add quick note about VLANs, VirtualBox, and Ubuntu.

Virtualbox does VLANs a little differently on Ubuntu than other hypervisors. In order to get a VLANs working for a Virtualbox VM, you have to create a subinterface that is for a specific VLAN (of course, assuming your NIC supports 802.1q tagging). To create a subinterface in Ubuntu, follow the instructions here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/vlan

Then in Virtualbox, you set the network interface to ‘bridged mode’, then select the subinterface. Assuming your new subinterface is permanent, the VM will use that subinterface and be within that VLAN.

I’m not entirely sure how to accomplish this for Virtualbox on Windows. It would seem like you would need a separate physical interface, especially for Windows 10 and probably others.

Unrelated note: Virtualbox on Windows 10 is horrible, and so is the native Hyper-V, but that’s for another post, maybe.

Edit (20180705): A few years later, and I can honestly say VirtualBox on Windows 10 is stable now, and has been for awhile. Felt the need to update this. :-p

Setting Up a Separate WSUS to Work with SCCM Environment

jimmy 7 Comments

Sometimes I feel thick-headed.

This is especially true, sometimes, with SCCM — but c’mon, it’s SCCM, so it comes with the territory.

The issue I was having was that I didn’t quite understand what the role a separate WSUS server would play in an SCCM environment. I thought it would be configured something like this:

sccmWsus1

I didn’t quite understand how the WSUS server worked with the SCCM environment. I knew SCCM managed WSUS, but it didn’t make sense to me how. Why wouldn’t I just configure WSUS and SCCM on the same box if I had to have the WSUS role already on the same system? This setup would cause the WSUS role on the SCCM primary site to be managed, but it tried to get updates from a WSUS that wasn’t doing anything, and I would have to manage updates from it, PLUS manage the updates in SCCM for deployment.

This seemed ridiculous to me, and super-redundant. Well, that’s because it is ridiculous and super-redundant.

In reality, it should be something like this:

sccmWsus2

Basically:

  • WSUS console is installed on SCCM Primary Site
  • WSUS server has the WSUS role installed, but nothing else
  • No group policy configured for the WSUS server to point to an internal box
  • In SCCM, configure the WSUS server as a ‘Site System’ with the Software Update Point role configured.
  • Your software updates for WSUS then get their updates from Microsoft, unless you have another WSUS upstream server.
  • Then all updates come from the WSUS server.
  • Note: if you’re running a single SCCM server, the WSUS can be installed on it as well, you just need to make sure you have beefy server.

I kind of feel like a bonehead for this, but hey, I get it now!

More info on the process here (although my setup is a little different):

Installing a remote Software Update Point in SCCM 2012 R2

(Update 20190702 – Made a note to clarify that the role can also be installed on single servers if desired).

How to Find the Microsoft Store GPO in Server 2012 and 2012 R2

jimmy 2 Comments

Edit (02/15/16): I learned recently that a better approach is to just copy the Administrative Templates from group policy on a workstation and copy it into your AD administrative templates. Not as ridiculous, but still annoying.

This is probably one of the most ridiculous things I’ve encountered.

If you’re a system administrator, you sure as hell don’t want to deal with the Microsoft Store for your image deployments. It’s a superfluous piece of software that’s imposed on us, and Microsoft doesn’t give any tools during the deployment to get rid of it.

They make it even more difficult in a very asinine way to get the GPO you need to manage the Store.

In order to get the Store GPO, you have to install the ‘Desktop Experience’ feature.

Why Microsoft decided to do this is beyond me. Why would do I have to install a piece of bloat on my servers in order to get the GPO to manage the Microsoft Store?

Then you can go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Store.