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Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:06 PM

How long are your SMS 2003 patch scans taking?

Summary: patch scanning is normally a quiet behind-the-scenes activity that computer managers don't have to worry about. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't proactively look for worst-case scenarios...
Posted by pthomsen | with no comments
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Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:53 PM

Saving client health (or other) data to a SQL Server

Summary: most computer management specialists write and run SQL queries, but not many save data for later use. Yet saved data can allow you to do historic comparisons, trending, complex dataset queries...
Posted by pthomsen | 5 comment(s)
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Monday, August 06, 2007 11:10 PM

Quick advertisement status

Summary: a few simple queries can give you a quick update on your latest advertisement. You can then react as needed or get on to more important tasks. I love looking over the shoulder of fellow techies...
Posted by pthomsen | 1 comment(s)
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Monday, August 06, 2007 1:12 AM

Client Activity History - the original queries

Summary: starting at the basics, we need to know how much activity we're seeing from our computer management clients, and thus how much we're likely to see from them in the near future. These queries...
Posted by pthomsen | 7 comment(s)
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Monday, May 07, 2007 11:48 PM

The joys of computer management data analysis

Summary: why do we enjoy computer management? One of my biggest answers is the joy of data analysis. Computer management involves a ton of diverse data, so the opportunities for data analysis are practically...
Posted by pthomsen | with no comments
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007 4:09 PM

How Microsoft IT Does Patch Management

Summary: one of the joys of working at Microsoft IT is that we get to talk to customers frequently about what we do (and yes, I am serious when I say it's a joy). That happens in various forums, on...
Posted by pthomsen | 1 comment(s)
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Tuesday, May 01, 2007 2:39 PM

Paul's TechSexy 2: how much time are your collections taking to evaluate?

Summary: computer management is bound to be complex, as I often say, and so SMS is a very busy system. Many subsystems, at multiple levels, process a lot of data to make it all happen. Most of that processing...
Posted by pthomsen | with no comments
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Monday, April 30, 2007 6:33 PM

Paul's TechSexy 1: great client deployment monitoring, thanks to v_ClientDeploymentState

Summary: client deployments (new installs or upgrades) are a critical part of the life of any SMS administrator. Whether you're rolling out your first infrastructure or upgrading a well established...
Posted by pthomsen | 1 comment(s)
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Monday, April 09, 2007 10:58 PM

Favorite SQL tricks: the distribution of recent activity

Summary: most questions that I get that can be answered with SQL queries are 'now' questions - how many Vista clients do we have at this point in time? How many SCCM v4 Beta 2? How many are online...
Posted by pthomsen | 1 comment(s)
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007 10:36 PM

Favorite SQL tricks: Analyzing SQL Server messages with vbScript

Summary: combining SQL Server query results and vbscript is a powerful tool, and well documented. But what if you want SQL Server error messages returned to your vbscript? For example, if you want to automate...
Posted by pthomsen | 1 comment(s)
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:27 PM

Counting clients - the SQL details

Summary: there are plenty of ways to count SMS clients - which is the best way? I actually use SQL Server Management Studio more than I use the SMS Administrator console. Partially that's because I'm...
Posted by pthomsen | 5 comment(s)
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