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ConfigMgr Maintenance Windows Explained

In ConfigMgr there is a new feature that hasn't gotten much attention called Maintenance Windows. This is a feature that I have heard numerous requests for and it gets a bit closer to the infamous 'Big Red Button'. So what is a maintenance window? A maintenance window is a rule applied to a collection of ConfigMgr clients that prevents those clients from: Executing a program, including a standard program such as setup.exe Running Software Updates And launching any Operating System Deployments...  ... Read the full post or  be the first to comment. Filed under: Packaging, Patching, Documentation, ConfigMgr

Why Patch Tuesday Turns Into Patch Thursday or Friday or Monday

I used to hate the second Tuesday of every month. I honestly liked it better when patches were released as they were ready. What happens with the scheduled updates is that everyone knows that it is coming and that means that everyone expects their SMS Engineers to have the patches deployed that night, no matter how late, no matter how many people, no matter what! And on Wednesday morning, usually around nine, everyone wants to know the status of the deployments. For me I had some advantages, one...  ... Read the full post or  the 3 comments. Filed under: SMS 2003, et. all, Security, KB Articles, Rants, Packaging, Patching, Reports, SCCM 2007, Funny, SUP, ConfigMgr, Configuration Manager, SCCM

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Podcasts

On the System Center Configuration Manager site there is currently a list of five audiocast or podcasts that you can listen to. They are all fairly short and cover a specific area of ConfigMgr. Wally kicks it off with the best practices for upgrading and setup, and also discusses a few new features and prerequisites. I am sure they will add more to this over time so if you are reading this months after it has been posted use the bottom link to get to the page and see the whole list. NOTE: The links...  ... Read the full post or  the 2 comments. Filed under: Packaging, Patching, System Center, TechNet, Microsoft, SCCM 2007, OSD, SUP, BDD, ConfigMgr, Configuration Manager, SCCM, Podcast

Multicasting in Server 2008

Kevin is right, this has already been talked about , but he does a nice job of explaining the two types of multicasting. Two drawbacks to this however...First you cannot multicast across subnets, well you can but if your network supports this you are wide open to a SQL Slammer type of attack where one laptop brings your network to its knees. Second, you have to have Server 2008 to make this work. A simple, less costly solution, that you can utilize now is to use the 1E OSD Plus Pack , or SMSNomad...  ... Read the full post or  the first comment. Filed under: Active Directory, Group Policy, Packaging, Patching, Beta, Longhorn, News, Microsoft, SCCM 2007, OSD, SMSNomad Branch, OSD Plus Pack, ConfigMgr, Server 2008