Anyone who’s dealt with ConfigMgr knows that the log files are invaluable for troubleshooting issues and day-to-day monitoring. One of ConfigMgr’s strengths (IMO) is that nearly everything, in detail, is in a log file – somewhere. The “problem” that often crops up is knowing which log file to look in; although the main purpose of each log file is documented...
Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment
So COM is a huge topic that I can’t even imagine scratching the surface of in a single post; MSDN and CodeProject are two great places to learn about COM though. Note also that in many ways, COM has been replaced by .Net so you won’t even see many people using it anymore, but it still exists and won’t be...
ConfigMgr OSD Quirk
I just hit an interesting snag when deploying XP using source files and a capture and create task sequence. In the process of customizing the task sequence, I forgot to change the User Name and Organization name for the Apply Windows Settings task. Not a big deal except that the username defaults to the currently logged on user; in this...
Software Updates Management and Group Policy for ConfigMgr cont.
This post is a continuation of my previous post. So how do the rest of the settings in the Windows Updates Group Policy section affect Software Updates in ConfigMgr? The short answer is that they don’t. These settings effectively control how the Windows Update Agent automatically handles updates. With ConfigMgr, the Windows Update Agent (WUA) is still used as I...
ConfigMgr and Failed Program Retry
Inspired by a recent forum thread (and John Marcum), I put together a little test to verify if ConfigMgr does indeed automatically retry advertised programs that failed. I created a simple one line batch file and advertised it on my test client: exit 999 This one line simply exits the batch file and returns the error code 999 which in...
Software Update Management and Group Policy for ConfigMgr (what else?)
There is definitely a lot of confusion about how Group Policies interact with, control, and affect Software Update Management (SUM) on ConfigMgr clients. At the outset of this post (or series of posts), I don’t even know exactly what’s going to happen with some of the different settings and combinations that I’m going to try and then document. The Windows...
OSD and SAN Disks
Working with a customer recently, they had an issue using SAN attached disks during Operating System Deployment. They could successfully create and format the SAN attached disk as the D drive during the WinPE portion of the task sequence, but the disk would go offline during the Windows 2008 mini-setup. This was causing a major issue because they were...
Operating System Deployment and 2003 R2
Just thought I’d document the steps taken at a recent customer engagement for deploying Windows Server 2003 with the R2 bits in the image. 1. Copy the entire R2 CD to your package source repository. 2. Create a standard software distribution package for the R2 source directory. 3. Create a program with the following command-line: CMPNENTS\R2\setup2.exe /q /a /sr The...
ConfigMgr and Version 3 Certificate Templates
Why doesn’t ConfigMgr 2012 use version 3 certificate templates? First, ConfigMgr doesn’t use templates, it uses certificates. The templates are just an easy way to create the certificates. ConfigMgr 2007 Cert Requirements: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680733.aspx ConfigMgr 2012 Cert Requirements: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg699362.aspx However, to directly address why not to use V3 templates, the answer is simple: V3 templates create certs with advanced features that...
Current Downloads: OSD App Tree, OSD++, ConfigMgr Startup Script
In the process of my blogs moving over from the “old and busted” myITForum blogging platform to the shiny new WordPress based platform, some old blogs posts referring to outdated “things” have surfaced. Among those are old apps like OSDAppChooser (replaced by OSD App Tree) and old versions of OSD++ and the ConfigMgr Startup script. So, here’s a list of...
OSD Application Chooser
At the last three Configuration Manager Deployments that I’ve done, the customers have each asked the same question about OSD: is there a way to interactively choose applications to install at deployment time. Tired of saying no, I built the following small, yet hopefully flexible application appropriately titled the “OSD Application Chooser”. What is it: A small application that...
OSD “OS Install Packages” vs. “OS Images”
What’s the difference? Why two types? When should I use each? These are frequent queries I get from customers and are also often echoed in the forums. OS Install Packages are packages built using the actual source files from the OS media. For Windows XP/2003, this includes all of the individual files (in a compressed form) installed to a system...
Dwayne Allen: I ran into the same issue with $Form.TopMost = $True not applying when...
roncrumbaker: Great link! Lots of information out there...and yes, there are many v...
Geoff Buckingham: Been trying to get some work done on mine for a long time ... without ...
Clint Huffman: Page file sizing depends on the crash dump setting of the system as we...
TGH: We try our best over at www.techygeekshome.co.uk ! mostly out of our o...