Steve Pruitt at myITforum.com

I've been testing the new Desired Configuration Management feature, and I see it has fantastic possibilities for helping to manage a company's infrastructure. However, I also quickly found one problem. If you use the standard Baseline Configuration Packs that can be downloaded from Microsoft, you'll find that some of the file version tests are obsolete. I ran into this for Windows 2003 DNS and Basic SQL 2005. Fortunately, we can update these definitions to reflect the service pack and update levels we want. The process is documented at TechNet, of course, but I had trouble following it at first. You can't directly edit the configuration data you download and import into DCM. If it's not created at your site it's read-only. The solution is to create duplicate versions of the components you want to edit, edit those, then substitute them in a duplicated baseline. Note: sometimes you will be downloading configuration items and creating your own baseline. In those cases, you don't need to duplicate the baseline, only the desired configuration item. Here's my step-by-step process that worked:

The first step is deciding which tests you want to change. You can use the following steps to examine each rule and research them, but I prefer the simpler way... run the selected configuration tests against a selection of typical machines, then analyze the errors that are reported. Some will really be things you want to correct, others will reflect obsolete tests that need to be updated.

Here's the steps to edit the baseline and validation rules:

• Expand the list of configuration baselines
• Right click on the baseline you want to edit and choose Duplicate
  
  
  
• Enter a new name for the local copy of the baseline and click OK to complete creating a duplicate copy
• Expand the Configuration Items section and select the rule you want to edit in the right hand pane
• Right click on the rule and select Duplicate
  
  
  
• Enter a new name for the local copy of the rule and click OK to complete creating a duplicate copy
• Select the new copy of the rule, right click on it, and choose Properties
• Select the Objects tab
  
  
• Double click the object you want to edit, then select the Validation tab
  
  
  
• Select the desired test (there's usually just one) and click Edit
  
  
  
• Revise the test as desired. In my example, I changed it from 'Equals' to 'Greater than or equal to'
• Click OK to close window
• Repeat as needed for other objects in this rule
• Click OK to close remaining windows
• Select Configuration Baselines in the SCCM Console tree
• Right click on the desired baseline (local copy if you made a duplicate earlier) and choose Properties
• Select the Rules tab
  
  
  
• Click the appropriate underlined configuration item category, such as "applications and general" as shown above to display a list of all available rules of that type
• Select the newly edited rule to add
  
  
  
• Click OK
• In the Rules window, select original version of rule, click Delete
  
  
  
• click OK to close the window
• If you duplicated the downloaded baseline, now you want to make sure you don't run it any more. You can do this in several ways:
• Remove the association with a collection:
• Open the properties of the old baseline
• Select the Assignments tab
• Select the collection(s) and click Delete
• Disable the baseline by right clicking on it and choosing Disable
• Delete the baseline by right clicking on it and choosing Delete
• If you replaced the original baseline, remember to assign the new baseline to the desired collection(s).