Roger Zander at myITforum.com

Cleanup expired updates in a SCCM Deployment Management

2010-03-17T16:40:00Z

You have some expired patches (gray icon) in a SCCM Deployment Management and you want to clean them up ?

You don’t have to pick the expired updates one by one… you can just add an additional column by opening the menu “View” in the header of the console and select “Add/Remove columns…”, select the column “expired” and you will get an additional, sort able column with the expired flags…. sort it,select all expired patches and delete it…

Status MIF may prevent program from retrying

2010-01-11T20:17:00Z

A great article from Armin Denzler about the behavior of Status MIF Files and SMS/SCCM retry exit codes:

<http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/archive/2009/12/07/rerun-of-failed-advertisements-does-not-work-as-expected-when-you-use-status-mif-files-generated-by-windows-installer.aspx>

I didn’t realized that before…

SCCM Client Center V2.0.2 released

2009-11-30T11:49:12Z

The SCCM Client Center Public Version 2.0.2 is published on: http://sourceforge.net/projects/smsclictr/

Changes:
- AppV Plugin updated
- CustomCMD is now part of Plugin.Default.dll
- Kill running process feature added
- Fixed: Execution History Issue (Remote Registry)
- Additional "adhoc" inventory can now be configured in smsclictrv2.exe.config
- MSInfo32 feature implemented (Request: 2800161)
- Override Service Window feature added (per Advertisement)
- New Form to create and define Maintenance Windows start-time and duration added
- … and some more …

Some Client Center links:
- minor updates and System Center Update Publisher (SCUP) 4.5 catalog: http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/update/
- click once setup: http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/
- smsclictr.automation library documentation: http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/smsclictr.automation/

MonitorDetails WMI Provider updated

2009-11-27T19:38:00Z

An updated Version of the WMI Provider "Monitor Details" is available for download (contains some bug fixes).

This WMI Provider does create a WMI Class (root\cimv2:Win32_MonitoDetails) to list the Model, MonitorID, PnPID and Serial Number of all attached monitors.

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is required.

Creating Data Discovery Records (DDR) from .NET

2009-11-16T10:50:00Z

Version 1.1.1.11 of the SMSCliCtr.automation library does include new functions to create a Data Discovery Record (DDR) File from .NET (no access to SMSRsGen.dll required).

Example (C#):

DDRFile oDDRFile = new DDRFile("System", "CustomDiscovery", "C00");
oDDRFile.DDRAddString("Name", "MyComputer", 64,
DDRFile.DDRPropertyFlagsEnum.ADDPROP_KEY |
DDRFile.DDRPropertyFlagsEnum.ADDPROP_NAME);
oDDRFile.DDRWrite("c:\file.ddr");

The complete source-code (GPL License) can be found in the SVN Repository of the SCCM Client Center Project.

Querying Model Name on Lenovo Computers

2009-10-10T08:14:00Z

(The following content was provided by Richard Braitsch)

If you try to determine the Lenovo computer model in SCCM2007 you will see that Lenovo publishes its 7 digit model number in the "model" attribute instead of the clear text model name you would expect. Eg. instead of "ThinkCentre M58p" you will see "6234A1G". This is not incorrect, but quite cryptic for common daily needs and would require a translation table to associate this number with the corresponding model name.

But there is a simple way of querying the clear text model name in WMI.

Lenovo has tucked it away in the "version" property. Here you see the instance of Win32_ComputerSystemProduct as shown in WBEMTEST:

The following vb-script will deliver the information you are looking for:

' Query Lenovo computer model string

Option Explicit

Dim strComputer, strVendor, strModel ' As String Dim objWMIService, colItems, objItem ' As Object Dim Counter ' As Integer

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2") Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM

Win32_ComputerSystemProduct")

Counter = 0

For Each objItem in colItems

If Counter = 0 Then

strVendor = objItem.Vendor

strModel = objItem.Version

End If

Counter = Counter + 1

Wscript.Echo(strVendor & " " & strModel)

Set objWMIService = NOTHING

Set colItems = NOTHING

Apply XP MassStorage Drivers from SCCM OSD Task-Sequence

2009-08-07T14:29:00Z

A nice feature of SCCM is the ability to inject MassStorage drivers on Windows XP installations.

The Problem is that the Storage Drivers will not be detected automatically with Plug&Play, so you have the specify which driver has to be loaded...

But there is an option to simulate Plug&Play... by defining WMI conditions based on the Plug&Play ID:

The Target machine will go through each action and applies only StorageDrivers for existing hardware devices...

Attached an example of such a Task-Sequence section for some Intel drivers:

MassStorageDrivers.zip

Thanks to Richard Braitsch for enumerating all the Device ID's ...

DDRPropertyFlagsEnum missing Flag in SCCM SDK

2009-05-15T20:58:00Z

Within the SCCM SDK, the enumeration DDRPropertyFlagsEnum is documented, but the list is not complete.

enum DDRPropertyFlagsEnum
{
    ADDPROP_NONE = 0x0,
    ADDPROP_REPLACE = 0x1,
    ADDPROP_GUID = 0x00000002,
    ADDPROP_GROUPING = 0x00000004,
    ADDPROP_KEY = 0x00000008,
    ADDPROP_ARRAY = 0x00000010, 
    ADDPROP_AGENT = 0x00000020,
    ADDPROP_NAME = 0x00000044,
    ADDPROP_NAME2 = 0x00000084
};

There is an additional value (I named it ADDPROP_REPLACE) with a value = 0x1 
that defines that any existing values in the DB will be replaced with the 
new value(s).

This is an important Flag if you want to cleanup or update array values...

"SCCM Client Center" and "Collection Commander" updated

2009-04-25T15:01:00Z

"SCCM Client Center" Version 2.0.1 can be downloaded from :http://sourceforge.net/projects/smsclictr
or as update from: http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/update/

"SMS Collection Commander" Version 1.3.2 can be downloaded from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/smscollctr/
or as update from: http://smscollctr.sourceforge.net/update/

A SCUP (System Center Update Publisher) Catalog is available at: http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/update/WinWorkers.cab

RemoteAssistance Plugin for SCCM Client Center

2009-04-10T07:35:00Z

A special thanks to Mattias Benninge who has created a Plugin to offer RemoteAssistance from SCCM Client Center.

The Plugin can be downloaded from : http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/Plugin_OfferAssistance.dll and must be copied to "%commonprogramfiles%\SMSCliCtr\Tools\".

WMI Provider to list the Monitors Serial-Nr. and Model-Name

2009-03-30T19:43:00Z

My latest OpenSource Project (https://sourceforge.net/projects/wmimonitor/) is a simple WMI Provider written in C# (.NET 3.5 SP1 is required) to list the Serial Number and Model name of the attached Monitor(s).

It creates a new WMI Class "Win32_MonitorDetail" in the WMI Namespace root\cimv2:

wmic:root\cli>path win32_MonitorDetails
Model MonitorID PnPID SerialNumber
DELL 2405FPW DELA010 5&13b1d479&0&10000084&01&00 M67545xxxxxx

You can extend the SMS/SCCM Hardware Inventory to include this class in the inventory.

Check out the source code (150 Lines) at : http://wmimonitor.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/wmimonitor/DisplayInfoWMIProvider/WMIProvider/WMIProvider.cs?view=markup

Program Exit-Codes

2009-02-25T22:52:00Z

Al list of all predefined SMS/SCCM Exit-Code:

Success:
0

Reboot:
1604
1641
3010
3011

Retry*:
4
5
8
13
14
39
51
53
54
55
59
64
65
67
70
71
85
86
87
112
128
170
267
999
1003
1203
1219
1220
1222
1231
1232
1238
1265
1311
1323
1326
1330
1618
1622
2250

*) A retry exit code will force SMS/SCCM to rerun the advertisement after a timeout of 10 minutes.

PreInst.exe /DelSite Issue...

2009-02-20T15:18:00Z

It seems that PreInst.exe does have an issue with SMS Permissions assigned to security groups....

PreInst.exe /DelSite does generate the following error message, if your account does get the permission on the class "Site" over a security group:

"<SiteCode> is not a known Site"

Grant your account at leaset "read" permission to the class "Site"... wait a while... and run PreInst.exe /Delsite again.... surprise, the site could be deleted....

I've seen this Issue on:
- SCCM2007 RTM
- SCCM2007 SP1

SCCM Client Center V2.0.0.0 published

2009-01-23T16:31:00Z

The Windows Installer Setup of SCCM Client Center V2.0.0.0 is available on the sourceforge project page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/smsclictr/

On the Wiki Page (http://smsclictr.wiki.sourceforge.net/Product+Types) there is also a comparison of the different setup types...

The Source Code for the Tool is also public: http://smsclictr.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/smsclictr/SMSCliCtrV2/
and for the used smsclictr.automation library: http://smsclictr.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/smsclictr/automation/. The Class Diagram: http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/smsclictr.automation/ClassDiagram1.png and the Help (for the library): http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/smsclictr.automation/Documentation.chm

Increase the max. Nr. of Despooler threads

2009-01-22T10:09:00Z

Out of the Box the Despooler does use three concurrent threads. There may be some situations where the despooler will get overloaded and the backlog of files in the despooler directory is growing...

To increase the concurrent threads, stop the SMS_DESPOOLER component by using the "ConfigMgr Service Manager".

Change the Reg Key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SMS\Components\SMS_DESPOOLER\Despooling Thread Limit = 6 (to increase the concurrent threads to 6).

Start the SMS_DESPOOLER component and monitor the despool.log.