Trying to give something back to the Community...
Following on from previous post there are also actual "in person" events in the following locations in May:
Manchester - 8th May
Reading - 10th May
London - 17th May
The agenda is as follows:
TIME AGENDA 08.30-09.30 REGISTRATION 09.30-10.00 Microsoft’s Private Cloud: Built For The Future, Ready Now 10.00-10.30 What’s New in System Center 2012 10.30-11.00 BREAK 11.00-12.00 Infrastructure & Fabric Management 12.00-13.00 LUNCH 13.00-14.00 Service Delivery & Automation 14.00-15.00 Application Management 15.00-15.30 BREAK 15.30-16.30 Desktop & Device Management 16.30-17.00 NETWORKING & CLOSE
TIME
AGENDA
08.30-09.30
REGISTRATION
09.30-10.00
Microsoft’s Private Cloud: Built For The Future, Ready Now
10.00-10.30
What’s New in System Center 2012
10.30-11.00
BREAK
11.00-12.00
Infrastructure & Fabric Management
12.00-13.00
LUNCH
13.00-14.00
Service Delivery & Automation
14.00-15.00
Application Management
15.00-15.30
15.30-16.30
Desktop & Device Management
16.30-17.00
NETWORKING & CLOSE
In case you missed it, Microsoft are hosting the UK Virtual Launch of System Center 2012 on Thursday.
Here's an extract of the info from the signup:
We have a very exciting wave of new product launches and announcements for the Microsoft Private Cloud in 2012 – starting with the release of System Center 2012, which allows you to manage your virtual, physical, and cloud environments from a single console, using common and consistent management experiences that provide full control across your existing datacentre investments. We have also introduced a new edition line-up and simplified licensing for System Center 2012 to address both your server and client management needs – including Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager, Service Manager, Orchestrator, Endpoint Protection, and App Controller. System Center 2012 – UK Virtual Launch – These ½ day events will provide you with the best possible opportunity to learn about what’s new in System Center 2012 and our next step forward in the Microsoft Private Cloud vision, strategy and roadmap – with deep dive sessions on infrastructure management, service delivery & automation, and application management – which is an opportunity you won’t want to miss!
We have a very exciting wave of new product launches and announcements for the Microsoft Private Cloud in 2012 – starting with the release of System Center 2012, which allows you to manage your virtual, physical, and cloud environments from a single console, using common and consistent management experiences that provide full control across your existing datacentre investments.
Agenda 10:00-10:30 What’s New in System Center 2012 - Cliff Evans, Management Lead, Microsoft UK 10:30-11:15 Infrastructure & Fabric Management - Greg Wood & Ed Cook, Datacenter Technology Specialists, Microsoft UK 11:15-11:30 BREAK 11:30-12:15 Service Delivery & Automation - Greg Wood & Ed Cook, Datacenter Technology Specialists, Microsoft UK 12:15-13:00 Application Management - Greg Wood & Ed Cook, Datacenter Technology Specialists, Microsoft UK
To register goto:
https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032505132&Culture=en-GB "See" you there..!!
I'm in esteemed company this week with my fellow MVPs at the Microsoft Campus at the MVP Summit. Here's a group photo we did earlier.
Well my 2012 got off to a fantastic start with the email from Microsoft telling me I've been re-awrded my ConfigMgr MVP for the 9th consecutive year for which I feel very honoured and humbled at the same time. I like to try to do "my bit" for the community and the product and it's so nice to be recognised for my efforts.
I'm already busy working on stuff for this year and hope that a couple of my long term planned dreams finally come to fruition but more on this when the time is right.
In the mean time I wish you and your loved one's a very Happy, Peaceful and Prosperous 2012 and many thanks once again for all of your help and efforts in helping me retain my MVP status - there's no point being a MVP unless you have a community to serve.
"Dear Cliff Hobbs,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in System Center Configuration Manager technical communities during the past year."
Just a quick post to say I've now uploaded Wally's two slidedecks he used at our event on the 4th November.
Received this in my Inbox and thought I'd pass it on:
"The Configuration Manager Team is pleased to announce the release of the International version of Configuration Manger 2012 RC1! It is now available on Connect:
https://connect.microsoft.com/ConfigurationManagervnext/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=39749
If you are interested in testing Simplified Chinese or German please install the International build of Configuration Manger 2012 RC1. Be sure to install the same languages on your CAS and all primary sites.
We look forward to your feedback for RC1! Please submit your feedback regularly using the TAP Feedback Form (https://connect.microsoft.com/ConfigurationManagervnext/feedback/CreateFeedbackForm.aspx?FeedbackFormConfigurationID=4213&FeedbackType=1).
Thank you,
Configuration Manager TAP Team"
I've just updated this list various updates including those from Jim Aspinwall:
List of WMIC CSProduct Get Name Results for various Makes and Models of machines
Remember - if there are machines missing from the list and you have the details feel free to end them over and I'll get them added.
On behalf of WMUG I just wanted to thank everyone for attending our event last Friday which was our biggest by far - over 140 of you took the time to attend.
I also want to thank everyone from Microsoft UK for making this possible and for hosting us for the day and of course the biggest thanks of all goes to our good friend Mr. Wally Mead.
We did record the event and will be publishing the video from the day when it's ready so keep your eyes open for this and Wally has also given me copies of his slide decks which I'll also get posted.
As I said in my introduction on the day, please register if you are interested in hearing about future events and please feel free to contact Rob, either of the David's or myself if you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to see covered at future events.
I'm trying to install a video driver as part of my Task Sequence as a Software Distribution Package. However, it seems to be stuck on this particular Package.If I look in the the smsts.log I keep seeing this line repeatedly:Waiting for job status notification...I've got my Package to install silently with "setup -S" so I don't understand why this isn't working.ANSWERIn this case the Command Line for the Program was set to "setup –S" changing it to "setup –s" (lowercase "s") resolved the issue.
Well I can finally reveal publicly that the Release Candidate of Configuration Manager 2012 is now available. Full details in the following post from the Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2011/10/25/system-center-2012-configuration-manager-release-candidate-is-here.aspx
Get downloading and enjoy and don't forget you'll get a wealth of information from Wally himself at our event next Friday - only 8 sleeps to go...!!!
When I try to run a Task Sequence I'm seeing the following error:
Failed to Run Task Sequence
An error occurred while retrieving policy for this computer (0x80072EE7). For more information, please contact your system administrator or helpdesk operator.
ANSWER:
Make sure the machine has an IP address/ is connected to the network (Press "F8" to start a Command Prompt and run "ipconfig"). In this case the network cable wasn't fully inserted into the machine and as a result it didn't have an IP address.
I thought some of you might be interested in the following webcast being run by Microsoft's User Group Support Services (UGSS):
Full details at:
https://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22D82FPBRDH
There are moments that occur in all our lives that we never forget and today will be one of mine for when I heard the news that Steve Jobs had sadly passed away it really shook me up and it seems I'm not alone with colleagues entering the office as I type this asking if I've "heard the news". They don't need to say anymore, that's how big an impact he made.
We all have regrets in life and one of mine is that I didn't make the switch from PC to Mac earlier. One of Steve’s greatest attributes was his visionary skill at coming up with products and then convincing us we needed them and I thank him for this.
Take the iPhone. All my colleagues and friends had then but I didn’t see the point and soldiered on with my Sony Ericcson. It wasn’t until I actually held an iPhone and started to use it that I started to “get it”.
Same with my MacBook. Sure I’ve known Apple products since the 80s when I worked for an Apple dealer for a bit (and one of my first questions I asked is how do I turn this thing on/ off and I also LOVED the Mac Classic sat on my desk as it was so different). But it was only after talking to other folks who had MacBooks and were using them for their day job that I decided to do more digging and now I’ll never go back to a PC (sure the journey with Mac OS hasn’t been smooth, but let’s face it when I look back on my journey with Windows since Windows runtime for Pagemaker Windows isn’t perfect).
Then the very device I was watching when I heard the news – the iPad. We’ve all seen tablets come and go and I’ve tried a few in the past and mostly hated them. But the iPad is different and it took someone with vision and drive (and sure a lot of money as the sceptics didn’t see how something that been tried and failed before could work again). The only reason I bought one was to use as a portable external monitor. Now I’ve got one I hardy get to use it as Lucas is either watching content on it or we’re looking at photos or browsing the web on it as it’s just right for this kind of thing, something we’d only ever done (not easily looking back) through a PC.
We’ve all got gadgets, gizmos and labour saving devices that we’ve all gone out and bought after being seduced by the sales pitch and most of them end up sitting in a cupboard (how many of you have got a bread machine sitting in the cupboard or one of those gravity fed car wash gizmos where you can supposedly wash your car with a single bucket of water – never could get mine to work).
But how many Apple devices have I got sat collecting dust? None.
So sorry I was late to the party Steve but now I do “get it”. You really were a visionary and inspiration to me and the world is a worse place for you not being here but hey what a legacy you’ve left behind, something very few get to achieve in a life – changing the world.
God bless you and your family and if I ever do make it to the Pearly gates I hope to see St. Peter using an iPad.
I’m trying to install a Video driver although when I look in “execmgr.log” I’m seeing that the following lines:
Successfully prepared command line "\\<path>\SMSPKGz$\SMSPKG\<pkg_ID> \Setup.exe " -s
Command line = "\\<path>\SMSPKGz$\SMSPKG\<pkg_ID> \Setup.exe " –s, Working Directory = \\<path>\\SMSPKGz$\SMSPKG\<pkg_ID> \
Created Process for the passed command line
Program exit code 7
Looking for MIF file to get program status
Script for Package:<pkg_ID>, Program: <program_name> failed with exit code 7
ANSWER
Try running the command line manually from the directory on the DP. In this case running “setup.exe” but without the “-s” (so it didn’t run silently), revealed that at the time the Package was running to install the video driver a more up-to-date driver had already been installed by Auto Apply Drivers.
Checking the Dell website revealed an even more up-to-date version was available which was downloaded and included in the Package which now runs fine as the version is the Package is now later than that already installed by Auto Apply Drivers (this customer’s preference is to install as many drivers through Software Distribution Packages as possible rather than through Auto Apply Drivers).
I’m trying to build a Windows XP machine under ConfigMgr 2007. I boot off my boot USB stick and it runs the Task Sequence Wizard. I choose the Task Sequence I want to run but almost immediately I get the following error screen:
“Failed to Run Task Sequence
An error occurred while starting the task sequence (0x80070032). For more information, please contact your system administrator or helpdesk operator”
The issue in this case was that the Task Sequence was unable to stage WinPE on the machine as the C: drive had an unsupported file system (in this case the machine had previously been built and the C: drive encrypted using SafeBoot making it “unsupported” and therefore unavailable to WinPE).
To resolve this:
1. Navigate to the “X:\WINDOWS\TEMP\SMSTSLog” directory.
2. Copy smsts.log to the USB key.
3. Open smsts.log in SMS Trace on another machine.
4. Scroll to the end of the file where you’ll see lines similar to the following:
The active system partition on a MBR system must be NTFS
Failed to prepare the system partition for staging. The request is not supported. (Error: 80070032; Source: Windows)
Failed to stage WinPE. Code(0x80070032)
ThreadToResolveAndExecuteTaskSequence failed. Code(0x80070032)
5. If you now do a search up the file for “C:\” it will then show the following line:
Volume C:\ has unsupported file system
6. Press F8 on the machine that failed to build to open a Command Prompt.
7. Type diskpart
8. Type select disk 0
9. Type clean
10. Type exit to close the Command Prompt
11. Click Finish on the Task Sequence Wizard screen to reboot the machine and build it as normal.