Dan Thomson at myITforum.com

Be Careful What You Share: SMS & ConfigMgr Encrypted Data

When seeking help with issues relating to SMS or Configuration Manager, be sure not to share information that has been encrypted as it may contain sensitive data such as user credentials.  Files such as the site control file and RIPINFO.INI (from OSD) contain entries named Reserved1, Reserved2, and Reserved3 which are encrypted data.  If you share a file that contains information such as your domain name, server names, IP addresses, and these encrypted entries, it is possible that someone can use this information to your detriment.  Just because the information is encrypted doesn't make it safe.  There are methods freely available on the Internet that will allow someone to easily decrypt that information. 

Just a thought.

Dan

Posted Wednesday, October 01, 2008 7:28 PM by dthomson | with no comments

MDT: Installing OS roles, role services, and features

There is a little bit of information that is not documented in MDT 2008 Update 1 that impacts the resulting deployment when using MDT to install and configure operating system roles, role services, and features for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. 

Michael Niehaus sent the following information to the myITforum SMS email list.  I thought I'd post it here in case someone missed it.

Windows Server 2008 RTM, full version

All roles, role services, and features included in Windows Server 2008 RTM, full version, can be installed using the "Install Roles & Features" action. 

Windows Server 2008 RTM Server Core

The following roles can be installed: 

DirectoryServices-ADAM-ServerCore (when selecting ADLDS)
BitLocker
ClientForNFS-Base (when selecting FS-NFS-Services)
DHCPServerCore (when selecting DHCP)
DNS-Server-Core-Role (when selecting DNS)
FailoverCluster-Core (when selecting Failover-Clustering)
IIS-WebServerRole (when selecting Web-Server)
MultipathIo (when selecting Multipath-IO)
NetworkLoadBalancingHeadlessServer (when selecting NLB)
Printing-ServerCore-Role (when selecting Print-Services)
QWAVE
SNMP-SC (when selecting SNMP-Services)
TelnetClient (when selecting Telnet-Client)
WAS-WindowsActivationService (when selecting WAS)
WindowsServerBackup (when selecting Backup-Features or Backup)
WINS-SC (when selecting WINS-Server)
ADDS

Windows Server 2003

The following roles can be installed: 

IIS (when selecting Web-Server)
Terminal Services (when selecting Terminal-Services)
Windows Deployment Services (when selecting WDS)
DNS
DHCP Server (when selecting DHCP)

WINS (when selecting WINS-Server)

Posted Friday, September 12, 2008 1:53 PM by dthomson | with no comments

MDT 2008 Update 1 Released

An update to the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 has been released.  Get it here -> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3bd8561f-77ac-4400-a0c1-fe871c461a89

Posted Thursday, July 31, 2008 9:59 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Windows SteadyState 2.5 Is Now Available!

This was recently posted to the TechNet SteadyState forum.

We are pleased to announce the release of Windows SteadyState 2.5, available in 9 languages from the Microsoft Shared Access Site: http://www.microsoft.com/sharedaccess

Providing solutions to help manage shared computers has been a consistent request from partners, end users around the world.  Microsoft has a very compelling solution with SteadyState enabling our shared access partners to protect shared access computers by cleaning the system with every restart, making them easier to manage and protect. It also restricts users from accessing system settings and data, preventing inadvertent or malicious damage, and thus, improving the up time of these PCs.

Besides offering excellent desktop security, SteadyState is user-friendly and reliable, it reduces downtime, is easy to maintain, and is free of charge to genuine Windows XP and Windows Vista customers.

SteadyState is a great solution for schools, libraries, families, internet cafés, telecenters, rural kiosks, and community centers, providing better computer access to underserved markets where non-technical managers are often responsible for shared computers.

New features in SteadyState version 2.5 include the following:

•       Full support for Windows Vista
•       Full support for Internet Explorer 7 and tabbed browsing
•       Overall improved performance
•       Faster booting
•       Faster system caching
•       Remote management of Windows Disk Protection through scripting
•       Improved importing & exporting  of user information 

To learn more, or download SteadyState 2.5 go to: http://www.microsoft.com/sharedaccess

Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:19 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Unpacking SMS NAL paths via script

It can sometimes get clumbsy working with SMS NAL paths and having to figure out a routine to parse the data.  Fortunately, there already exists a WMI method to do this for us -UnPackNALPath. Below is a simple vbscript that demonstrates how to use the method and how the data is returned.

  objNALMethods.UnPackNALPath strNALPath, arrDisplayQuals, _
                              strNALType, strNOSPath, arrNOSQuals
  Wscript.Echo "NALPath = " & strNALPath & vbCrLf & _
         "  Display = " & arrDisplayQuals(0) & vbCrLf & _
         "  Type = " & strNALType & vbCrLf & _
         "  NOSPath = " & strNOSPath & vbCrLf & _
         "  NOSQual = " & arrNOSQuals(0)
Next

When run, this script will have output similar to the following:

NALPath = ["Display=\\APPALACHIAN\"]MSWNET:["SMS_SITE=MH2"]\\APPALACHIAN\
  Display = Display=\\APPALACHIAN\
  Type = MSWNET
  NOSPath = \\APPALACHIAN
  NOSQual = SMS_SITE=MH2

Posted Monday, March 24, 2008 8:26 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 release

The long awaited release of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 has finally arrived.  Read about it on the Microsoft Deployment Team blog at http://blogs.technet.com/msdeployment/default.aspx.  It can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3bd8561f-77ac-4400-a0c1-fe871c461a89&displaylang=en&tm.

Posted Thursday, March 20, 2008 5:44 PM by dthomson | with no comments

SMS Admin Position in Washington D.C.

The Department of State Network Operations Center is seeking an SMS 2003 engineer to fill a vacant senior SMS position.  We are seeking someone who is a fair fit with the following requirements:

• Currently holds a Top Secret security clearance.  A Secret clearance is ok, but the candidate must be able to obtain a Top Secret clearance.
• In-depth knowledge of internal SMS 2003 site processes and reporting.
• In-depth knowledge of SMS 2003 client processes and reporting.
• In-depth knowledge of server hardware technologies including: RAID configuration, external storage, server installation, etc.
• Has extensive experience troubleshooting SMS 2003 servers and clients in a large and disperse environment.
• Should be capable of understanding and working with complex systems to include new technologies, legacy systems, and leading multiple initiatives effectively.

The position responsibilities are:

• As a member of the SMS infrastructure team, the candidate will share responsibility for 15 core SMS 2003 servers and 400 secondary site servers serving 90,000 workstations and servers.  Responsible for troubleshooting SMS 2003 server issues and SMS 2003 operational issues, including disaster recovery, server performance, SMS site health, and software deployments.
• Will serve as one of 4 senior resources for the SMS 2003 client operations team and will help create processes for remediation of client and software deployment problems.
• Will help create technical guidelines for client operations team.
• Supply guidance for SMS 2003 site operations team.
• Help create processes for site migrations, site monitoring and site health.
• Help create site technical guidelines for the SMS team and our partner organizations.
• Responsible for documenting SMS 2003 and SQL 2000/2005 technical processes and configuration.
• Apply in-depth knowledge of scripting and Windows automation to create scripts and utilities for use by the SMS team.
• Apply in-depth Microsoft SQL Server knowledge to support SMS operations and reporting.
• Identify and test potential tools to supplement SMS 2003.
• Participate in planning, development, and implementation of future management technologies such as System Center Configuration Manager.

Send me an email if you're interested.

Dan

Posted Monday, February 11, 2008 6:58 PM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

Senior SMS Admin Position in Washington D.C.

• Currently holds a Top Secret security clearance.  A Secret clearance is ok, but the candidate must be able to obtain a Top Secret clearance.
• In-depth knowledge of internal SMS 2003 site processes and reporting.
• In-depth knowledge of SMS 2003 client processes and reporting.
• In-depth knowledge of server hardware technologies including: RAID configuration, external storage, server installation, server card slots.
• Has extensive experience troubleshooting SMS 2003 servers and clients in a large and disperse environment.
• Familiarity with current and future HP server line is a plus.
• Must be capable of understanding and working with complex systems to include new technologies, legacy systems, and leading multiple initiatives effectively.
• A broad understanding of network and systems engineering activities, methodologies, and technical experience with large scale enterprise architecture. 

• As a member of the SMS team this person will share responsibility for 15 core SMS 2003 servers and 400 secondary site servers serving 90,000 workstations and servers.  Responsible for troubleshooting SMS 2003 server issues and SMS 2003 operational issues, including disaster recovery, server performance, SMS site health, and software deployments.
• Will serve as senior resource for the SMS 2003 client operations team and will help create processes for remediation of client and software deployment problems.
• Will help create technical guidelines for client operations team.
• Supply guidance for SMS 2003 site operations team.
• Help create processes for site migrations, site monitoring and site health.
• Help create site technical guidelines for the SMS team and our partner organizations.
• Responsible for documenting SMS 2003 and SQL 2000/2005 technical processes and configuration.
• Apply in-depth knowledge of scripting and Windows automation to create scripts and utilities for use by the SMS team.
• Apply in-depth Microsoft SQL Server knowledge to support SMS operations and reporting.
• Identify and test potential tools to supplement SMS 2003.
• Participate in planning, development, and implementation of future management technologies such as System Center Configuration Manager.

Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2007 5:19 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Searching in files using Windows XP Search

Something I noticed the other day... You cannot use the built-in Windows XP Search feature to search for text inside a .wsf script file. It just won't do it.

I wonder what other file types it won't search.

Posted Wednesday, November 07, 2007 7:53 AM by dthomson | with no comments

Scripting List solutions: IE History - Is this possible?

Question:

Lets say you work for a company that does not currently use any IE History reporting software like ISA or whatever else is out there. And your boss came to you and said "We need to pull the internet history of 100 machines"...

Could you script that?

Solution:

The attached zip file contains two files that were pulled from the Tek-Tips Want to know what websites people go to? forum posting.

Paraphrasing the author:

Try the html file if you ever wonder if it's possible to find out what websites individuals visit when logged onto the server/PC? Besides checking the Proxy server, or the firewall. Also, try the vbs script if you ever want to remove the entries.

Bloggers note: There are other samples floating around too.  I'll post them here as well when I find them.  BTW: I've not tested these, so use at your own risk!

Posted Monday, September 17, 2007 8:22 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Scripting List solutions: Add machine names to a collection

Question:

 Is it possible to add machine names to a collection from a text file via vbscript?

Solution:

There are several programs to do this.. Below are some of my favs
 
Collection Membership Wizard from Steve Ognibene: http://www.myitforum.com/articles/8/view.asp?id=7981
 
Collection Injection from SMS Expert: http://www.myitforum.com/articles/8/view.asp?id=8568

Notes:  The sample HTA found in Greg Ramsey's article titled Right-Click, add Machines to a Collection! can be a good illustration of how to get it going in VB Script

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2007 9:39 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Scripting List solutions: "Please wait" in a VB Script

Question:

I'd like to display a window that pops up and says "Please wait ..." while the script is running and then disappears when the script finishes.  I'm looking for something that does not require user interaction. 

Solution:

I've used the code posted on this forum in the past for putting up a progress bar while the rest of the code in the script is running.  It uses an IE window as a popup type message box.

Progress / Activity Bar as a Class

There's also an HTA version.

 

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2007 9:31 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Scripting List solutions: Using a custom progress bar in SMS Installer

Question:

Has anyone ever written a script with SMS Installer that displays a progress bar while the script is running?  In Installation Properties, under the Screen tab, I set the Progress Bar Based On: item to Position in EXE, but when I run the script, I don’t see a progress bar displayed.  Am I missing something?  I tried setting it to Position in Installation Script, as well, but it didn’t make a difference.  I’d appreciate any input anyone has to offer.

Solution:

Refer to Rod's article titled Using a Custom Progress DLL for details on how to configure SMS Installer to use a progress bar.

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2007 9:24 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Scripting List solutions: Disabling the system beep

Question:

Is there an easy script I can run that will disable the system beep? This is listed under device manager (showing hidden devices) –Non Plug-Play Hardware- … Beep.

This is the same “beep” you get from the internal system speaker during post. We no longer want this to happen. It is occurring during a pop up which causes the users to complain.

Solution 1:

sc \\remoteMachine stop beep && sc \\remoteMachine config beep start= disabled

Or, this command can be pushed via bat file through SMS:

sc stop beep && sc config beep start= disabled

Notes:

• SC.exe is included with Windows XP and Server 2003 and is available in the resource kit for Windows 2000.
• The command after the && will only execute if the previous command was successful. See Command shell overview and The Windows NT Command Shell for more info.

Solution 2:

Net Stop Beep && Reg Add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Beep /v Start /d 4 /t REG_DWORD /f

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2007 8:56 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Scripting List Solutions: VBScript to upload file to website

This was  posted to the myITforum Scripting email list a while back by  Scott Klassen.  He says it took him a little bit to get going and wanted to share it in case it can help somebody else.

srcFolder = "\\server\share\"
strUserID = "MyID"
strPassword = "APasswordGoesHere"
strURL = "https://www.theuploadwebsite.com/puthere/"

Set HTTP = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set folder = fso.getfolder(srcFolder) 
 

For Each File in Folder.Files
  If fso.GetExtensionName(File)="TXT" Then
    Set objStream = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
    objStream.Type = 1
    objStream.Open
    objStream.LoadFromFile(srcFolder & fso.GetFileName(File))

    HTTP.open "PUT", strURL & fso.GetFileName(File), False, strUserID, strPassword
    WScript.Echo "Now uploading file " & fso.GetFileName(File)

    HTTP.send objStream.Read

    WScript.Echo "Uploading complete for file " & fso.GetFileName(File)
    fso.DeleteFile(File)
  End If
Next
WScript.Echo "All files uploaded."

Set HTTP = Nothing

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2007 7:22 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Home Construction Tip #5: Slope your garage floor outward

Heavy things and liquids go downhill.

To maintain safety in the garage, it is neccessary to slope the garage floor 1/4" per foot so things like gas fumes (which are heavier than air), fuel, water, etc. can exit the garage safetly without building up and possibly causing a hazard.

If you are having a new floor added to your garage, be sure that it is sloped toward the garage door(s).  After the floor has been poured, skimmed, and aloowed to set for a bit, a quick test is to run a garden hose over the floor making sure that water does not pool anywhere and that it runs efficiently out via the garage door entrance.

Another side note here:  Be sure the garage door gaskeet does not fully seal at the ends.  This will keep the water and fumes from getting out properly.  New garage doors usually have 3 inches cut off the ends of the rubber seal that seals the bottom of the door to the floor.

Yea, I checked this and found that the concrete guys goofed and my new garage floor sloped inward allowing an inch or more of water to pool in various spots throughout the garage (a real ice and fire hazard).  I was extremely generous though and allowed the builder to not bust the floor up and repour, but instead to add another few inches on top of the previous pour.  This will most likely come back to get me because it is around 2" thick at the thinnest part and could crack up.  My goof....

Posted Monday, September 10, 2007 10:08 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Home Construction Tip #4: Use Proper Fasteners

It is best to use the most appropriate fastener for your construction project.  For instance, when building or assembling things for outdoor use (such as a deck), be sure to use properly treated nails or screws that have been rated for outdoor use.  Failing to do so may result in the fasteners rusting and possibly failing.  Yes, I will at some point be disassembling and rebuilding an 8' x 8' 2nd story deck that was constructed using improperly rated fasteners and 'green' wood.

Posted Monday, September 10, 2007 6:52 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Home Construction Tip #3: Prepping for Tile

As homes age and weather the seasons, things begin to sag and flex a bit, especially during seasonal change.

I have noticed something with the floor tile in one of my bathrooms that didn't hit me when the construction guys laid down the plywood sub-flooring in preparation for tiling.  I do know though, if there is any movement in tile flooring, the grouting will slowly crack over time.  Properly securing the base flooring will ensure that there will be little to no movement in the floor.

I now know this lesson first hand that it is extremely important to secure the layers of plywood flooring not only to each other, but also to the floor joists.  To fasten the flooring to the floor joists, be sure to use construction adhesive and 3" screws.  I have heard it is also wise to use construction adhesive between the two layers of plywood and to add additional rows of screws between the floor joists if the floor joists are at a fair spacing. 

I have movement in my sub-flooring and my tile grout began to crack in no time.  If I was still in good terms with my builder, I would have him come out to fix things up properly.  However, it looks like I'll be ripping out my bathroom floor sometime in the coming year so I can get everything installed properly.

Posted Monday, September 10, 2007 6:10 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Sapphire X1950 Pro

I've been living with poor video ever since I had a video card succumb to the heat over a year ago.  I had reverted back to an ATI Fire GL2 card as a temporary replacement, but it was fairly underpowered and had issues attempting to drive my Dell 2405FPW wide format flat panel monitor.

About a month ago, I purchased a Sapphire X1950 Pro card so I can get back to really using my screen and so I could watch videos (which are a key part of any IT training regiment and are needed for certain aspects of the side work I do).  The card has plenty of RAM (512MB) and has dual DVI outputs so I can someday run an additional monitor (see Paul Thomsen's multi monitor setup).

I had to buy an AGP based card since I'm still running an older Dell Precision 530 workstation and there were some initial issues with getting the card working, but it is now working great after having to do a BIOS upgrade and making some adjustments to a couple BIOS settings.

If you're interested in a new video card and are still stuck with an AGP based system, then you might want to check this one out.

Posted Friday, September 07, 2007 2:38 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Adding favorites to Regedit

Going back to a recent post by a post from Joseph Hinkle that brought out the customizations that Richard Smith is making during build creation and image deployment, here is something else to possibly add.

Are you tired of having to manually navigate the registry to some usual locations?  Did you know you can add Favorites to Regedit?

Importing this registry file will add a number of items into the current users Regedit Favorites so you can instantly jump to one of the specified locations.  This would be great to add to a Group Policy so it is done automatically whenever you logon to a new system.

Posted Monday, September 03, 2007 5:37 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Don't you just hate data loss?

I do.  I was doing too much multitasking within too short a time period over the weekend and between cooking shish kebabs on the grill, digging a hole for a new mailbox post, working on testing a new video card, talking to my wife, and then having my daughter sitting on my lap while I worked on my computer was just too much.  I ended up not fully paying attention to the prompts in my RAID array configuration on my home workstation and made a 3 second mistake that ended up wiping the config on my data drive array.

I do have a recent backup, but it wasn't all inclusive and there is some stuff I want back.

I have found a company who says this is a pretty straight forward retrieval since everything is in working order, just minus the config details.  They say they might be able to do it for a bit more than $1000.  I'm wondering though, can some of the community members chime in and make recommendations on who you would trust to do a recovery ... and for a fair price.  Another company said they would start at $6000 to get my data saved to a new drive.  That's way too rich for me.

Oh...Rod, that project I'm working on....I know I said I'd have something mid July, but......

Posted Saturday, July 07, 2007 4:55 PM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

User Password Reset: Local and Domain Administrator

A few months ago, I rebuilt my home test network with Windows Server 2003 R2 and SMS 2003 SP2 with R2 components.  While doing this, I didn't create additional backup domain administrator accounts and the default administrator account was setup to adhere to password complexity criteria.  It's been a while since I used the network and had forgotten my domain administrator password.

What to do...

I found an article (Forgot the Administrator's Password? - Reset Domain Admin Password in Windows Server 2003 AD) that outlines a process for resetting the password for my domain administrator, but the process required me to know the password for my local administrator account on the server...I had forgotten this as well.  So I found another method (How can I gain access to a Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 computer if I forgot the administrator's password?) for resetting the password for my local administrator so I could then follow the suggested process for resetting the password for my domain administrator.  To reset the local administrator password, I used the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor method (please note though, I didn't see it mentioned in the article or help file, but you need to clear the file attributes from the SAM before the reset process will work or you'll get a read only file system error).

The process worked great.  It's good that these accounts didn't use EFS or else that encrypted data would be gone.

I hope this helps you if you find yourself in a similar situation.

Posted Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:04 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Are you finding bad links in articles, blogs, and forum posts at myITforum.com?

Why does this happen?

1. Sometimes it is due to the ever changing nature of the site that the link references.  For instance, I once published an article with a bunch of links in it.  Not two days later, one of the linked sites was redone a bit and those links broke.
2. Since myITforum was once owned by Altiris, then TechTarget, and now is on its own, there have been a few URL path changes.  This caused a few domain name changes over the years.  If you review the link and it is something like http://myitforum.techtarget.com/articles/1/view.asp?id=2113, just remove the .techtarget part so that it looks like this http://myitforum.com/articles/1/view.asp?id=2113 and things should work fine.

Posted Tuesday, April 17, 2007 12:47 PM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

Hello FireFox

Posted Monday, April 16, 2007 12:42 AM by dthomson | 4 comment(s)

Initial thoughts on CCMWindow

As previously shared by Cliff Hobbs, Rodney Jackson shared some nice tools during his SY20 SMS 2003/SCCM 2007 911 Case Studies session at MMS 2007.  Of particular interest to me is the CCMWindow tool.  This tool is pretty nice, but it stores the service window settings locally on each client.  This adds an extra level of client management requirements to a sometimes already difficult situation.

Also, after my initial install, I can see some feature additions that may be useful

1. Alter the tool so that it can apply service window settings based on program category settings.
   
2. Alter the tool so that the user can specify an alternate path to search for the xml file (all the service window settings are stored in an xml file).
3. Alter the tool so that it can reference custom group policies.

I have put in a query to see if I can get the source.  If so, I might try to make the changes mentioned above and sent it back to Rodney for their approval.

If you are wondering where you can get the tool, it is included with Rodney's session downloads at the MMS site.  I also understand that you might be able to acquire it through your TAM.

I am curious if there is anything you'd like to see modified.

Posted Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:52 PM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

Oh Outlook and IE, how I love and hate you

I used to really enjoy Outlook.  However, since moving to Office 2007, I am ready to find an alternate mail reader or revert back to Outlook 2003.  I find that Outlook routinely spikes in memory usage, brings my system to a halt while performing a Send and Receive, takes forever when I attempt to organize my mail folders, ...  I am not along as others have reported similar problems with Outlook 2007.  We all have tried to hone our usage of the product (keep the pst size to a minimum by moving all achievable items to separate psts, make efficient use of Rules, ...), but those steps are only a loosely fashioned band aid and only have a minimal impact on the overall product performance.  I believe that Microsoft is aware of the issues, but I have yet to see anything from them on how they are going to fix the problems.

I was very excited to get the added functionality from IE 7 (mainly tabbed browsing), but became very remiss once I realized what impact it has on system resources.  If more than a few tabs are open, and God forbid you have multiple instances of IE open as well, then it starts to consume a fair amount of memory and becomes sluggish.

It's been a while since I have done a refresh on my workstation, so I will soon embark on a small project to restructure my hard disk configuration and install everything again from a clean slate.  This new configuration will be something like: C: Just the operating system (SCSI, no RAID), D: Just Program Files (SCSI, no RAID), E: Pagefile (SCSI, no RAID), F: User data (SCSI, hardware RAID w/Parity).

I am hoping this will clear things up a bit, but if not, I'll revert back to Outlook 2003 (or another email client) and might switch to another browser that is not just an overlay on top of IE.

Posted Saturday, April 07, 2007 9:42 PM by dthomson | with no comments

'SMSWish' is now 'SMS 2003/Configuration Manager Product Feedback' at Connect

As brought out in myITforum FAQ #229 and most recently during the Ask The Experts MMS session when someone commented about the old smswish@microsoft.com email alias, we should now be using the Microsoft Connect web-site to submit product feedback regarding SMS 2003 & SCCM 2007.  I do not recall exactly when the transition took place (the details page lists 1/1/2006 as the program start date), but Microsoft terminated the smswish alias in favor of using the Connect site.  From what I've heard, doing this allows feedback to be tracked, rated and prioritized.

If you are not already partcipating via this new mechanism...

• Navigate to http://connect.microsoft.com and sign in using your Microsoft Windows Live account.
• Select Available Connections from the upper left navigation area.
• Scroll way down on the page until you find SMS 2003/Configuration Manager Product Feedback
• To the right, select Apply
• Things may take a while, but the next page you should see will most likely be the SCCM page.

To provide feedback after you've signed up...

• Log into Connect
• Select My Participation
• Select SMS v4 (Configuration Manager 2007)    *I imagine this title will change sometime soon
• Select Feedback from the upper left navigation area

I hope this helps.

Posted Wednesday, April 04, 2007 1:38 AM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

Possible MAWMUG PowerShell presentation in May

For those in the Washington D.C. area, would you be interested in MAWMUG hosting a PowerShell presentation to be given by June Blender (Senior Programming Writer, Windows PowerShell)?

I shared a breakfist table with June at MMS and asked her if she would be available to give a presentation when she is going to be in the area sometime in May.

This is very tentative, but I want to see what interest there is in the community before starting to make arrangements with June.  I believe we are open to a presentation later in the week during the day, in the evening, or possibly over the weekend on a Saturday.

Send me an email and let me know if you are interested or not and what your preferred timeslot would be.

It's been a long time since we have had any activity with MAWMUG and this might be a good way to get things moving.

Posted Tuesday, April 03, 2007 9:25 PM by dthomson | with no comments

Reworking my MMS presentation as a series of blogcasts

I hated how I performed during my presentation at this years MMS.  I am a nervous speaker and found that the stage lights really threw me off.  I ended up spending too much time trying to read my notes and not engaging the audience.  I also missed sharing a number of key items.  It's my fault because I should have gone into the room earlier and done an assessment.

Anyway, I'm going to redo the presentation as a series of blogcasts that delve into all aspects of patch management from project creation to client troubleshooting.  It will continue to have primary focus on using SMS 2003 to patch Microsoft operating systems and software, so there will only be a slight touch on WSUS and GPO.

I won't be able to get moving on it for a couple weeks, so please let me know if there is anything that you'd like to see covered.

Here's my initial agenda:

1. The need for patch management
2. Things to consider when creating a patch management project plan
3. Available tools
4. Package creation, testing, deployment, and maintenance
5. Known problem areas (infrastructure and patch targets)
6. Custom and third party tools (Yes, I'll name the various vendors and products this time)
7. Verifying installation
8. Looking to the future
9. Resources: Web-sites, e-mail lists, documentation, virtual labs, ...
10. Wrap up

Dan

Posted Monday, April 02, 2007 1:34 AM by dthomson | 1 comment(s)

The Big Red Button

There was some chat today at the Ask The Experts session about the need to have a Big Red Button available to halt certain SMS processes that were inadvertantly put in motion due to mis-configuration of advertisements and collection memberships.

I was chatting with Josh and I think that, at the server level, it might be fairly easy to address the concern that was possed because the bits to the solution are already available.  They just need to be brought together.  So, be looking for a Big Red Button article/post and code in the near future.

Posted Friday, March 30, 2007 12:44 AM by dthomson | 2 comment(s)