Rod Trent at myITforum.com

[mssms] Central Texas Systems Management User Group Meeting - July 15th 2009

rodtrent — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:05:00 GMT

From: admin@lists.myITforum.com [mailto:admin@lists.myITforum.com] On Behalf Of Greg_Ramsey@Dell.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:25 AM
To: mssms@lists.myitforum.com
Subject: [mssms] Central Texas Systems Management User Group Meeting - July 15th 2009

Register for our next CTSMUG meeting, July 15 2009. Microsoft will present on the Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). We will also recap MMS 2009, and discuss Windows 7.

Agenda:

9:30 – 10:00 Welcome and Coffee

10:00 – 12:00 Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack Overview and Demo

12:00 – 1:00 Lunch (Provided By Microsoft)

1:00 - 2:00 MMS 2009 Recap

2:00 – 2:15 Break

2:15 - 3:15 Windows 7 Demo and Open Discussion

3:15 - Post-Meeting Social at Dave and Busters

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/ctsmug/archive/2009/07/08/central-texas-systems-management-user-group-july-15-2009.aspx

Greg Ramsey

Microsoft MVP - ConfigMgr

Global Systems Management Engineering

Toll Free: 1-800-WWW-DELL x7240526

Mobile: 512-750-5205

Email: greg_ramsey@dell.com

==============
Missed an email? Check out the list archive:
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/smslist/

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Microsoft Extends Support for SMS 2003

rodtrent — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:04:16 GMT

Support for Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 and Systems Management Server 2003 R2 will transition from Mainstream Support to Extended Support on January 12, 2010. This update follows the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy for Business and Developer products. The Microsoft policy provides a minimum of five years of Mainstream Support or two years of Mainstream Support after the successor product ships, whichever is longer.

SMS 2003 and SMS 2003 R2 were originally scheduled to transition to Extended Support on April 14, 2009. However, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 was recently released as the successor product for SMS 2003. Therefore, Mainstream Support for SMS 2003 and SMS 2003 R2 has been updated to end on January 12, 2010. Extended Support will end on January 13, 2015.

Organizations that are currently running Systems Management Server 2003 should note the dates when Mainstream Support and Extended Support end. Customers who are interested in migrating to System Center Configuration Server 2007 can contact a Sales Account Manager or a Technical Account Manager.

The goal of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle is to provide predictable and consistent product support timelines for all Microsoft products and customers, worldwide. For information about the Microsoft Support Lifecycle, visit the following Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle

Download details: DPM 2007 Hotfix Package now available

rodtrent — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:27:02 GMT

The Hotfix Package for DPM 2007 (KB970867) addresses the issues as summarized in KB970867 - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;970867.

This Data Protection Manager Update Package consists of three separate updates. Note: Depending on your configuration, some updates may not apply. Please see “Installation Instructions” for details.

Download details: DPM 2007 Hotfix Package

Sunbelt Vipre users struck by false positives, downing computers...

rodtrent — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:25:00 GMT

If you're running Sunbelt's Vipre product, you'll want to monitor the support forums for more information. Information from several sources are indicating today as Black Monday, having to run system repair for get Vista and XP machines working again. The majority of the issues are affecting Lenovo computers, due to the way Lenovo installs additional utilities that aren't necessarily needed to function correctly. Vipre is recognizing utility executables as virus-infected files or malware and deleting them from the file system.

Support forum: http://supportforums.sunbeltsoftware.com/categories.aspx?catid=23&entercat=y

Changing Passwords with Operations Manager

rodtrent — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:28:00 GMT

Feed: www.contoso.se
Posted on: Friday, July 03, 2009 10:25 AM
Author: Anders Bengtsson
Subject: Changing Passwords with Operations Manager

Yesterday when I was going to do some tests in one of my labs I could not remember the password. Fortunately the Operations Manager R2 RMS machine was unlocked so I could use it. I then created a rule that ran a modification of the following script on each machine, and swish! I could logon again

Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")
strComputer = WshNetwork.ComputerName
strComputer = "."
Set objUser = GetObject("WinNT://" & strComputer & "/Administrator,user")
objUser.SetPassword "NewPasswordHere"
objUser.SetInfo

With that in mind it is funny how some organization look at security and accounts. It is not unusual that a consultant or co-worker get Administrator permissions or Author permissions in Operations Manager, but they would never get full exchange administrator or domain administrator permissions in the environment.

Some interesting link regarding the subject, Ops Mgr security guide and Ops Mgr Security Hardening Guide.

View article...

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Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New Feature #14: Database improvements

rodtrent — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:57:28 GMT

View article...

On its way! System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed

rodtrent — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:37:50 GMT

Kerrie Meyler tells us that the book (all 1,224 pages) has gone to the printer and the book should be available for shipping in August 2009.

Read Kerrie’s note:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/43203

Jump out an grab a copy so that it ships straight away after it’s available:

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed
By Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, Greg Ramsey

Managing and maintaining desktop computing infrastructure is more challenging than ever before. Microsoft's new System Center Configuration Manager 2007, the major upgrade to Microsoft's long-time SMS product, promises IT organizations unprecedented security, convenience, and completeness when it comes to managing their PCs. However, reviewers have noted, SCCM 2007 adopters need extensive up-front knowledge to take full advantage of this product. This is the first book to offer comprehensive, independent, real-world coverage of SCCM 2007 through its entire lifecycle: from planning and deployment to day-to-day administration and troubleshooting. The authors introduce a powerful methodology designed to help implementers carefully define the solutions they need to solve, and optimize their SCCM 2007 deployments to successfully solve those problems. The authors don't just cover SCCM 2007's features: they present crucial information on the other products and technologies its features and components rely upon. This book's coverage ranges from network and architecture design to Active Directory integration and software packaging; testing and stabilization to software and OS distribution; reporting to security.

http://astore.amazon.com/buzzmanagement/detail/0672330237

IBM Releases Deployment and System Packs for System Center Configuration Manager 2007

rodtrent — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:04:22 GMT

The IBM Deployment Pack for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 is used to configure IBM hardware components, prior to deploying Windows using Microsoft SCCM. This kit extends Configuration Manager 2007, providing a convenient integrated user interface that will be familiar to SCCM administrators. The Deployment Pack completes the end-to-end deployment scenario in environments where IBM-specific configuration steps are required, including RAID, RSA2, BMC, and BIOS.

IBM System Packs for SCCM provides firmware and driver updates for Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manger.

http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/docdisplay?lndocid=SYST-MANAGE&brandind=5000016#msccm

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New Features #12 and #13

rodtrent — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:44:33 GMT

MDT 2010 New Feature #12: USMT 4.0 hardlink support

MDT 2010 New Feature #13: New task sequence templates

Links for Dell and HP Deployment Packs for ConfigMgr

rodtrent — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:43:13 GMT

Dell:

http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/Dell+Deployment+Pack+for+Configmgr+(Server+Deployment)

HP:

http://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPICE-SC

SCCM Console Extensions 1.6 released

rodtrent — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:58:16 GMT

SCCM Console Extensions 1.6

Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog : Configuration Manager OEM Deployment Packs

rodtrent — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:11:11 GMT

I wanted to get a note out to you about our recent efforts at integrating OEM specific deployment customizations into the powerful OS Deployment features in ConfigMgr. The OEM Deployment Packs provide the ability to extend the capabilities within the OS Deployment feature, namely the Task Sequencer, to support specific hardware elements of some industry leading server manufacturers. Built on the ConfigMgr SDK, these are extremely powerful extensions for your server builds to incorporate. Below is a summary of each of the currently released versions, with a link to their downloads.

Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog : Configuration Manager OEM Deployment Packs

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New Features #10 and #11

rodtrent — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:10:32 GMT

MDT 2010 New Feature #10: Detection of signed drivers

MDT 2010 New Feature #11: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support

Tools to migrate Exchange to Microsoft Online Services

rodtrent — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:04:35 GMT

Use the Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools to forward copies of your Exchange Server mail to your Exchange Online mailboxes. You can also use the Migration Tools to copy content from your Exchange Server, POP3, or IMAP4 e-mail server mailboxes to your Exchange Online mailboxes. This product intended for use with Microsoft Online Services only.

Migration Tools (32 bit)

Migration Tools (64 bit)

System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise Transition to System Management Suite Datacenter

rodtrent — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:55:08 GMT

Full details on the transition and migration path for existing customers on SMSE and new customers moving to SMSD

System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise is versionless and product use rights are determined by the status of System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise Software Assurance coverage. If coverage lapses, access rights under perpetual licenses are determined based on the product use rights in effect prior to the lapse in coverage.

System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise Transition to System Management Suite Datacenter - Windows Live

Looky what I just received – MMS 2009 DVDs are shipping!

rodtrent — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:12:55 GMT

Dear MMS 2009 Attendee,

This e-mail serves as confirmation that your MMS 2009 DVD set has been shipped and you should be receiving it within 1-2 weeks (International locations may take longer). The DVD set has been sent via the U.S. Postal Service to the address included with your registration information.

If you do not receive your DVD set within the specified time, please e-mail MMS2009DVD@paragongroup.com for further assistance.

For more information about the MMS 2009 DVD set, including how you can order additional copies, please access the MMS News page at http://mms-2009.com

Thanks again for your participation in MMS 2009!

MMS 2009 Team

Firefox 3.5 changes the silent installation option…

rodtrent — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:40:16 GMT

Mozilla changed the Silent install for FireFox 3.5.

The /s switch no longer works.

Instead use: -ms

Windows Live for Windows Mobile updated

rodtrent — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:28:40 GMT

Windows Live for Windows Mobile (Pro) – for phones with a touch screen

Windows Live for Windows Mobile (Std) – for phones with NO touch screen

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New features #8 and #9

rodtrent — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:15:05 GMT

MDT 2010 New Feature #8: No more visible command windows when booting Lite Touch Windows PE

MDT 2010 New Feature #9: Copy and paste support in the Deployment Workbench task sequence editor

The hard to find update for Microsoft’s LifeCam for Windows 7

rodtrent — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:10:33 GMT

If you have a Microsoft LifeCam webcam, Windows 7 blocks its use to incompatibility issues. But, there’s an update for Windows 7 so that the LifeCam functions.

Here’s the direct link:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=143543&clcid=0x409

Enhansoft Blog | ConfigMgr Documentation script v1.18

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:36:02 GMT

The ConfigMgr Documentation script has been updated again.

Enhansoft Blog | ConfigMgr Documentation script v1.18

MDT 2010 New Features – Michael Niehaus

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:22:57 GMT

Michael has started a series of Blog posts about the new features you can expect to find in the upcoming Microsoft Deployment 2010.

MDT 2010 New Feature #1: Logging directly to the network

MDT 2010 New Feature #2: Gathering virtualization details

MDT 2010 New Feature #3: Suspend and resume a Lite Touch task sequence

MDT 2010 New Feature #4: Folders everywhere

MDT 2010 New Feature #5: Support for multiple deployment shares

MDT 2010 New Feature #6: Drag and drop

MDT 2010 New Feature #7: Boot image creation optimized

Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings : MDT 2010 New Feature #7: Boot image creation optimized

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:19:36 GMT

With MDT 2008, there were two actions in Deployment Workbench: “Update” and “Update (files only)”. With MDT 2010, there is now only one called “Update Deployment Share”. This action’s purpose is to generate the Windows PE boot images and ISOs needed to perform a deployment. It will figure out what actions need to be performed to get the images updated and will only perform those actions. So generally the first time you run “Update Deployment Share” it will take a while to generate the boot image; the next time it will see that nothing needs to be done and quickly finish.

Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings : MDT 2010 New Feature #7: Boot image creation optimized

Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : Getting lots of Script Failed To Run alerts? WMI Probe Failed Execution? Backward Compatibility Script Error?

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:11:38 GMT

In OpsMgr 2007, it is likely that your most common alert is not really a MP based alert from a technology management pack…. it could be a built-in alert that a script failed, or WMI could not be accessed. This is because when WMI is broken on a machine, almost EVERYTHING fails to execute properly on that agent.

Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : Getting lots of Script Failed To Run alerts? WMI Probe Failed Execution? Backward Compatibility Script Error?

Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : Errors alerts from the DNS MP – script failures, WMI Probe?

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:10:29 GMT

Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : Errors alerts from the DNS MP – script failures, WMI Probe?

Fix coming: SUP Stops Synchronizing when WSUS on existing ConfigMgr Site Server

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:03:49 GMT

We were finally able to configure an environment where we could debug the issue as it occurred. This allowed us to confirm the root cause of the issue. Here is a summary of the issue and the status of the fix:

SYMPTOM:

The Software Update Point (SUP) stops synchronizing unexpectedly when Windows Server Update Services server (WSUS) is installed onto the same machine as the System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM) site server.

Upon further investigation, WSUS is found to no longer be fully installed such that the WSUS virtual directories are missing within IIS and the Update Services service is missing from the Services console.

The SCCM WSUSCTRL.log (drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Logs) may report errors similar to the following once the site server is in-state (i.e. WSUS is already uninstalled):

"The installed WSUS build (0.0.0.0) does not have the valid and supported WSUS Administration DLL assembly version. Please install WSUS 3.0 (minimum 3.0.6000.367) or above"

Status Message ID’s 7003 and 7004 are also generated at least once an hour until WSUS is reinstalled.

CAUSE:

This behavior has a two part cause:

The first part is the root cause of the issue and is due to a race condition in our Microsoft .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) Fusion initialization code. This .NET CLR Fusion race condition issue becomes exposed by two of our System Center Configuration Manager components, WSUSCTRL and WCM, when these two components' threads simultaneously execute a health check on WSUS during startup. As a result of this issue, WSUS appears to be missing some of its binaries so a Windows Installer repair is invoked which exposes a WSUS installation bug where WSUS becomes partially uninstalled which is the second part of the cause.

The sequence of events is as follows:
1 - The wsusctrl thread and the WCM thread enter the Fusion code simultaneously.
2 - One of these threads begins Fusion initialization in mscorwks.dll
3 - Due to the race condition, the other thread proceeds with creating the assembly cache while the other thread is still initializing Fusion
4 - Because Fusion is not initialized properly, the thread that proceeded will utilize GAC paths that are not properly initialized (i.e. C:\Assembly)
5 - Due to the improper initialization, WSUS assemblies will not be found
6 - CLR calls WSUS installer to repair the installation
7 - Due to a known problem with the WSUS installer's repair functionality that has been addressed in WSUS 3.0 SP2, WSUS repair fails and WSUS is left uninstalled.

TENTATIVE WORKAROUND:

The current workarounds to mitigate the issue until the patch is released include:

1. Monitor the server for an occurrence and simply remove WSUS while choosing to keep the current database and content and reinstall WSUS using the existing database and files.

2. Remove WSUS from the SCCM site server and install WSUS onto a separate machine.

RESOLUTION:

We have a fix that has been scheduled to be included in SCCM 2007 Service Pack 2. Our tentative release date for SP2 is October 2009.

Since we have no further actions to complete with you at this time, I will close the support case while we await the release of the fix within Service Pack 2 of SCCM 2007. If you have any questions or concerns in the interim, you may contact me directly regarding this support issue.

[mssms] Install WSUS on existing ConfigMgr Site Server [h8sdas] - SMS-ConfigMgr Email Discussion List Archive

windows-noob.com/forums –> The SCCM 2007 Install Guides

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:54:44 GMT

Lots of great screen-shot docs here:

windows-noob.com/forums -> Setup SCCM 2007

The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog : Disabling Task Sequence Notification Balloons in ConfigMgr 2007

rodtrent — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:52:05 GMT

Notification balloons seem to be a frequent topic of feedback from customers. There may pop up too often, or only certain users should get them, or the timing isn’t configurable enough.

Lately we’ve had multiple customers asking for a very specific feature. The AdminUI for SCCM provides the ability to disable notification balloons for normal Software Distribution packages, but not for Task Sequences.

While there are currently no plans to modify the AdminUI to add this ability, all of the necessary logic is already present in the client code; you just have to go out of your way to enable it. If the ability to disable notification balloons for Task Sequences is something that would be beneficial in your environment then you can use the script below to automate the process.

The example below needs to be run on a site server by a user who has sufficient permissions in SCCM to modify the Task Sequences in question. Running the example with no command line arguments will provide usage instructions.

The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog : Disabling Task Sequence Notification Balloons in ConfigMgr 2007

From the OpsMgr 2007 email list: SQL query to find Gray agents and agents that are down...

rodtrent — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:51:07 GMT

From: admin@lists.myITforum.com [mailto:admin@lists.myITforum.com] On Behalf Of Kevin Holman
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:26 PM
To: msmom@lists.myitforum.com
Subject: RE: [msmom] RE: Grey agents

Gray agents:

select bme.DisplayName

from basemanagedentity bme

join availability a on a.basemanagedentityid=bme.basemanagedentityid

where a.isavailable=0

Computers that are down:

SELECT bme.DisplayName,s.LastModified as LastModifiedUTC, dateadd(hh,-5,s.LastModified) as 'LastModifiedCST (GMT-5)'

FROM state AS s, BaseManagedEntity AS bme

WHERE s.basemanagedentityid = bme.basemanagedentityid

AND s.monitorid

IN (SELECT MonitorId FROM Monitor WHERE MonitorName = 'Microsoft.SystemCenter.HealthService.ComputerDown')

AND s.Healthstate = '3' AND bme.IsDeleted = '0'

ORDER BY s.Lastmodified DESC

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System Center Configuration Manager Team Blog : Announcement: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for June 2009

rodtrent — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:34:25 GMT

The Configuration Manager documentation library (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680651.aspx) has been updated on the Web and the following information lists the topics that are new or contain significant changes since the April 2009 update. The latest content that has been updated on the Web has Updated: June 1, 2009 at the top of the topic.

System Center Configuration Manager Team Blog : Announcement: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for June 2009

Rod Trent at myITforum.com

[mssms] Central Texas Systems Management User Group Meeting - July 15th 2009

Microsoft Extends Support for SMS 2003

Download details: DPM 2007 Hotfix Package now available

Sunbelt Vipre users struck by false positives, downing computers...

Changing Passwords with Operations Manager

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New Feature #14: Database improvements

On its way! System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed By Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, Greg Ramsey

IBM Releases Deployment and System Packs for System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New Features #12 and #13

Links for Dell and HP Deployment Packs for ConfigMgr

SCCM Console Extensions 1.6 released

Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog : Configuration Manager OEM Deployment Packs

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New Features #10 and #11

Tools to migrate Exchange to Microsoft Online Services

System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise Transition to System Management Suite Datacenter

Full details on the transition and migration path for existing customers on SMSE and new customers moving to SMSD

Looky what I just received – MMS 2009 DVDs are shipping!

Firefox 3.5 changes the silent installation option…

Windows Live for Windows Mobile updated

Michael Niehaus’ MDT 2010 New features #8 and #9

The hard to find update for Microsoft’s LifeCam for Windows 7

Enhansoft Blog | ConfigMgr Documentation script v1.18

MDT 2010 New Features – Michael Niehaus

Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings : MDT 2010 New Feature #7: Boot image creation optimized

Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : Getting lots of Script Failed To Run alerts? WMI Probe Failed Execution? Backward Compatibility Script Error?

Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : Errors alerts from the DNS MP – script failures, WMI Probe?

Fix coming: SUP Stops Synchronizing when WSUS on existing ConfigMgr Site Server

windows-noob.com/forums –> The SCCM 2007 Install Guides

The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog : Disabling Task Sequence Notification Balloons in ConfigMgr 2007

From the OpsMgr 2007 email list: SQL query to find Gray agents and agents that are down...

System Center Configuration Manager Team Blog : Announcement: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for June 2009

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed
By Kerrie Meyler, Byron Holt, Greg Ramsey