• System Center 2012 empowers you with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for your business. System Center 2012 is available in English.
  Download System Center 2012: http://bit.ly/Jzfak9
• System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Component Add-ons and Extensions
  • Package Conversion Manager (PCM). The Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Package Conversion Manager allows for converting packages and programs into applications and deployment types in System Center Configuration Manager 2012. There is a migration feature which will be released with the Configuration Manager 2012 that allows packages to be migrated from 2007 to 2012. Once you have migrated your package objects and installed PCM then it is just a matter analyzing your packages in order to determine which readiness state each are in, and then converting those packages that are in the appropriate readiness state. This release comes in 4 languages.
  • Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration Toolkit. The System Center 2012 Configuration Manager P2V Migration Toolkit facilitates the re-utilization of existing x64 server hardware using virtualization technologies, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V. The P2V Migration Toolkit was specifically designed to assist in situations where there are remote Configuration Manager 2007 SP 2 site servers that need to be retained during side-by-side migration process to System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. The P2V Migration Toolkit is geared to supporting P2V migrations at remote, branch offices that do not have existing onsite Virtual Machine Manager infrastructure.
  • System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Toolkit. The Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Toolkit contains nine downloadable tools to help you manage and troubleshoot Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. The toolkit contains the following tools: Client Spy, Policy Spy, Security Configuration Wizard, Send Schedule Tool, Power Viewer Tool, Deployment Monitoring Tool, Run Metering Summarization Tool, Role-based Administration Modeling and Auditing Tool and the License Tracking PowerShell Cmdlets.

  Download Configuration Manager Component Add-ons and Extensions: http://bit.ly/Hi5ARZ

• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 is the newest version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, a Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment. MDT 2012 supports deployment of Windows 7, Office 2010 and 365, and Windows Server 2008 R2 in addition to deployment of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP.
  Download MDT 2012: http://bit.ly/HRYyce
• (Actually not released this week but it does contain some really cool ConfigMgr related tools, like USMT 5.0!) Windows® Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) is a collection of tools and documentation that you can use to customize, assess, and deploy Windows operating systems to new computers. You can install the Windows ADK directly from the internet, or you can download the tools and copy them to a computer that does not have internet access.
  Download Windows ADK: http://bit.ly/y9gQRl

Well, that’s a nice list of some very cool releases. While I’m busy sharing links now anyway I think it’s also cool to mention that Maik Koster released a new version of his MDT Web Frontend (with support for ConfigMgr 2012).
Download MDT Web Frontend: http://bit.ly/I63EBv

<component type="Documents" context="System"> 
<displayName>Component to migrate all files in a specific folder including subfolders</displayName> 
   <role role="Data"> 
      <rules> 
         <include> 
            <objectSet> 
               <pattern type="File">C:\SpecificFolder\* [*]</pattern> 
            </objectSet> 
         </include> 
      </rules>
   </role>
</component>

Well, that’s a nice component but what does it all mean? Let’s go through it line-by-line

<component type="Documents" context="System"> </component>

The <component> element is a required element in a custom .xml and describes the basic construct. After that the component type specifies the kind of files that will be captured. In this case it’s the documents, which actually includes almost all files. At last the component context specifies the scope of the capture. The scope can also be set in the <rules> element, but largest scope is defined in the <component> element. In this case the context is the whole operating system.

<displayName>Component to migrate all file in a specific folder including subfolders</displayName>

The <displayName> element is a required element within a <component> element. This name will show up in a config.xml as a component that can be enabled during migration.

<role role="Data">

The <role> element is a required element in a custom .xml and is used to concrete the component. The parameters used in this element do NOT change the migration behavior and are only used for categorizing the migration settings.

<rules><include><objectSet><pattern type="File">C:\SpecificFolder\* [*]</pattern></objectSet></include></rules>

The <rules> element is a required element in a custom .xml and contains all the rules that will be run during a migration.

The <include> element is a required element within a <rules> element and determines what will be migrated. 

The <objectSet> element is a required element within a <include> element and contains the list of the specific objects that need to be migrated. This can be anything from registry keys until specific files. In this example it contains all the documents and files within C:\SpecificFolder\. By specifying the * it migrates all the subfolders and by specifying [*] also migrates all the files. To find only a specific file in the specific folder and subfolders change the * between the brackets for the name of the specific file.

Well, that hopefully already explains a lot, but what if we also want to exclude some files? To exclude a specific file or folder add an <exclude> element to the <rules> element, to specify which file and/ or folder should be excluded from the migration. To exclude SpecificFile.txt from somewhere in the SpecificFolder, the .xml file would go look like this.

<component type="Documents" context="System">
<displayName>Component to migrate all Documents in a specific folder including subfolders</displayName>
   <role role="Data">
      <rules>
         <include>
            <objectSet>
               <pattern type="File">C:\SpecificFolder\* [*]</pattern> 
            </objectSet>
         </include>
         <exclude>
            <objectSet>
               <pattern type="File">C:\SpecificFolder\* [SpecificFile.txt]</pattern> 
            </objectSet> 
         </exclude>
      </rules>
   </role>
</component>

Well, that hopefully already gives some more possibilities, but what if we also want to migrate these specific files and folders to a different location on the destination machine? To migrate to a different location add a <locationModify> element to the <rules> element. This element only gets evaluated during the loadstate. By using the RelativeMode script and specifying the specific files and/ or folders in the <objectSet> element, it can move files and folders from the location on the source machine the a new location on the destination machine. To move the C:\SpecificFolder contents to C:\Temp the .xml would go look like this.

<component type="Documents" context="System">
<displayName>Component to migrate all Documents in a specific folder including subfolders</displayName>
   <role role="Data">
      <rules>
         <include>
            <objectSet>
               <pattern type="File">C:\SpecificFolder\* [*]</pattern> 
            </objectSet> 
         </include>
         <locationModify script="MigXmlHelper.RelativeMove(C:\SpecificFolder\’, ‘C:\Temp\’)">
            <objectSet>
               <pattern type="File”>C:\SpecificFolder\* [*]</pattern>
            </objectSet>
         </locationModify>
      </rules>
   </role>
</component>

See for the whole XML Elements Library: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd560769(v=ws.10).aspx

• Scenario 1 – Overlapping boundaries for automatic site assignment: NOT supported! The site to which the client will assign is still unpredictable when there are multiple boundary groups that includes the current network location of the client (and of course, the boundary groups are assigned to different sites).
• Scenario 2 – Overlapping boundaries for content locations: Supported! It will enable the client to get a list of all the content locations that are connected with a boundary group that includes the current network location of the client. So it creates a sort of fallback scenario.
• Scenario 3 – Overlapping boundaries across a ConfigMgr 2012 and a ConfigMgr 2007 hierarchy (specific for automatic site assignment):
  • Supported for ConfigMgr 2012 –clients. ConfigMgr 2012 –clients are able to check the version of the CofigMgr –site and they can’t assign to a ConfigMgr 2007 –site.
  • Not supported for ConfigMgr 2007 –clients. ConfigMgr 2007 –clients are not able to check the version of the CofigMgr –site and they can incorrectly assign to a ConfigMgr 2012 –site.

So how can we prevent to get into one of these situations? Well, that actually easier then we might think. For ConfigMgr 2012 –sites it is possible to add a boundary to multiple boundary groups.  Also it’s possible to use a boundary group only for site assignment (red square in the picture), or only for content locations (green square in the picture). So this makes it possible to use a set of boundary groups for automatic site assignment and a different set of boundary groups for content locations. This can help to avoid the overlapping boundaries for automatic site assignment.

Besides that it’s almost not possible to avoid the overlapping boundaries between the different hierarchies… The only thing that can done to stop the problems, is to stop automatic site assignment for ConfigMgr 2007 –clients. This avoids the ConfigMgr 2007 –clients from automatic assigning to the wrong site and the ConfigMgr 2012 –clients will keep on assigning to their own site.

See for more information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712679.aspx

Dear :
Thank you for downloading one or more System Center 2012 pre-release components. System Center 2012 Release Candidate is now available as part of the Microsoft private cloud evaluation:

» Download Microsoft private cloud evaluation software

Enjoy!
Your TechNet Team

By starting the download I was pleasantly surprised to see that a part of this download is ConfigMgr 2012 RC2 (see picture).

Also this will be a short post as it will just describe the problem we ran into with my current customer and what the solution was. The problem we ran into was that after we deployed a new machine we could advertise software to it, but the installation would never start. Looking into the execmgr.log we could see the following message: “This program cannot run because a reboot is in progress or software distribution is paused.”.

Well, the solution for this was actually quit simple, just the searching for it took a while… Looking into the registry we could see that the Software Distribution-State-Paused-key was set to 1 and changing this back to 0 resolved the problem. This key can be found in the following location:

• x86 – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State\
• x64 – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\State\ (see picture)

We’re still not quite sure what caused this problem, but it seems to be something with ending a Task Sequence with a restart. After resolving the issue we found some other people with the same issue here and they are also guessing and linking it to the last step of the Task Sequence.

We all know those scenario’s where we send an Advertisement to a Collection of clients and for some reason we may want to rerun the Advertisement for only one (or more) specific client(s). In this case we can use the general rerun options of an Advertisement (like always rerun), but they will affect all clients in the collection and won’t work for user-targeted Advertisements. So what’s left in this case? Well the option I like the most is that there is a registry change that we can make to trick the Advertisement to run again. When we look at a client’s registry, we will see the following the following registry key (depending on the architecture). 

• x86 – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\Execution History\System\
• x64 – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client\Software Distribution\Execution History\System\ (see picture)

As this key is located in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, it can also be found by opening regedit and then make a connection with a remote client. Under System we will find the PackageID of each Package that has previously run. When we now delete the PackageID, for the Program that we want to rerun, it will trigger the Program to run again (during the next evaluation) even though it already completed successfully.

To find the PackageID that we need we can open the Configuration Manager Console and select the Packages –node (under Site Database > Computer Management > Software Distribution). In the overview there will be a list of all the packages with the corresponding PackageID.

This post will be about the new Endpoint Protection point in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. During the beta’s it was already clear that Microsoft was going to change something about the integration of ConfigMgr 2012 and FEP 2012, and they did! They removed the Endpoint Protection from the Forefront –family and fully integrated it with ConfigMgr 2012!

I also mentioned before that I’m not really the “step-by-step guide maker”, but in some cases there are exceptions and this is another one of these cases. In this post I will show how to install the Endpoint Protection point and at the end some of the nicest/ biggest changes, so enjoy!

Go to Administration > Site Configuration > Sites and select Add Site System Roles in the ribon.
On the General page Browse to the specific Site Server, select the Site Code and click Next.
On the System Role Selection page select Endpoint Protection point and click Next.
On the Endpoint Protection page select I accept the Endpoint Protection license terms and click Next.
On the Microsoft Active Protection Service page select whether or not you want to join the Microsoft Active Protection Service and click Next.
On the Summary page click Next.
On the Progress page just wait…
On the Completion page click Close.

The nice part about the integration is that the installation files are now part of the ConfigrMgr client package (source). On the <InstallationDirectory>\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Client –location there are now two extra files: scepinstall.exe – This is the installer of the “new” SCEP client. ep_defaultpolicy.xml – This is the default policy for the “new” SCEP client.
Another nice thing is that the installation of the SCEP client can now be forced via the ConfigMgr client –settings.
And here is the “new” SCEP client! Besides that it now says System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, the look-and-feel of the client is luckily still the same.

Congratulations! We’re pleased to inform you that your contributions to Microsoft online technical communities have been recognized with the Microsoft Community Contributor Award.

The Microsoft Community Contributor Award is reserved for participants who have made notable contributions in Microsoft online community forums such as TechNet, MSDN and Answers. The value of these resources is greatly enhanced by participants like you, who voluntarily contribute your time and energy to improve the online community experience for others.

Thank you Microsoft!

We are extremely excited to announce the availability of the release candidates for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection (formerly known as Forefront Endpoint Protection 2012) today. Both releases are available through a single download package on the Microsoft Download Center.  You can learn more about this release at our Server and Cloud Platform blog.

Thank you for your on-going program participation and product feedback as it was instrumental in achieving this important milestone! 

Our next CEP session will focus on the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Release Candidate. Adwait Joshi, Technical Product Manager for Configuration Manager, will discuss improvements and what’s new in RC.  We hope you will join this session and hear first-hand about the features now available!

Configuration Manager CEP Online Meeting
System Center 2012 Configuration Manager RC
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
9:00 – 10:30 AM PST
Online Meeting Information

Thank you,
The Configuration Manager Community Evaluation Program Team
cmcep@microsoft.com  |  https://connect.microsoft.com/ConfigurationManagervnext

Luckily the ConfigMgr 2007 SDK has some pretty straight forward examples of creating and deleting maintenance windows (see also the links at the end of this post). Deleting a maintenance window was almost just copy-paste from the SDK, the tricky part was creating a maintenance window and then especially the non-recurring schedule. At the end, this is (the short version of) what we ended up with:

‘====================================================
‘ MAIN – Set connection, schedule and call
‘====================================================
Set Connection = ConnectToSMSProvider("SiteServerName")
Schedule = NonRecurringScheduleString(connection, 3, “StartTimeInWMIFormat”, FALSE)
CreateMaintenanceWindow(connection, "CollectionID", "Name of Maintenance Window", "", Schedule, TRUE, 1)

‘====================================================
‘ Sub to add a Maintenance Window to a Collection
‘====================================================
Sub CreateMaintenanceWindow(connection, targetCollectionID, newMaintenanceWindowName, newMaintenanceWindowDescription, newMaintenanceWindowServiceWindowSchedules, _
                            newMaintenanceWindowIsEnabled, newMaintenanceWindowServiceWindowType)
    Set allCollectionSettings = connection.ExecQuery("Select * From SMS_CollectionSettings Where CollectionID = ‘" & targetCollectionID & "’")
    If allCollectionSettings.Count = 0 Then
        Set collectionSettingsInstance = connection.Get("SMS_CollectionSettings").SpawnInstance_
        collectionSettingsInstance.CollectionID = targetCollectionID
        collectionSettingsInstance.Put_
    End If 
    Set collectionSettingsInstance = connection.Get("SMS_CollectionSettings.CollectionID=’" & targetCollectionID &"’" )
    Set tempServiceWindowObject = connection.Get("SMS_ServiceWindow").SpawnInstance_
    tempServiceWindowObject.Name = newMaintenanceWindowName
    tempServiceWindowObject.Description = newMaintenanceWindowDescription
    tempServiceWindowObject.ServiceWindowSchedules = newMaintenanceWindowServiceWindowSchedules
    tempServiceWindowObject.IsEnabled = newMaintenanceWindowIsEnabled
    tempServiceWindowObject.ServiceWindowType = newMaintenanceWindowServiceWindowType
    tempServiceWindowArray = collectionSettingsInstance.ServiceWindows
    ReDim Preserve tempServiceWindowArray (Ubound(tempServiceWindowArray) + 1)
    Set tempServiceWindowArray(Ubound(tempServiceWindowArray)) = tempServiceWindowObject
    collectionSettingsInstance.ServiceWindows = tempServiceWindowArray
    collectionSettingsInstance.Put_
End Sub

‘====================================================
‘ Function to RETURN a Non Recurring Schedule
‘====================================================
Function NonRecurringScheduleString(connection, hourDuration, startTime, isGmt)
    Set recurInterval = connection.Get("SMS_ST_NonRecurring").SpawnInstance_()
    recurInterval.StartTime = startTime
    recurInterval.DayDuration = 0
    recurInterval.HourDuration = hourDuration
    recurInterval.MinuteDuration = 0
    recurInterval.IsGMT = isGmt
    Set clsScheduleMethod = connection.Get("SMS_ScheduleMethods")
    clsScheduleMethod.WriteToString Array(recurInterval), scheduleString
    NonRecurringScheduleString = scheduleString
End Function

‘====================================================
‘ Function to RETURN a Date/Time in WMI Format
‘====================================================
Function ConvertToWMIDate(strDate)
    strYear = year(strDate):strMonth = month(strDate)
    strDay = day(strDate):strHour = hour(strDate)
    strMinute = minute(strDate)
    If len(strmonth) = 1 Then strMonth = "0" & strMonth
    If len(strDay) = 1 Then strDay = "0" & strDay
    If len(strHour) = 1 Then strHour = "0" & strHour
    If len(strMinute) = 1 Then strMinute = "0" & strMinute
    ConvertToWMIDate = strYear & strMonth & strDay & strHour & strMinute & "00.000000+***"
End Function

‘====================================================
‘ Function to RETURN a Connection to the SMS Provider
‘====================================================
Function ConnectToSMSProvider(ServerName)
   Set objSWbemLocator = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")
   Set objSWbemServices = objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer(ServerName, "root\sms")
   Set ProviderLocation = objSWbemServices.InstancesOf("SMS_ProviderLocation")
   For Each Location In ProviderLocation
      If Location.ProviderForLocalSite = True Then
         Set objSWbemServices = objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer(Location.Machine, "root\sms\site_" + Location.SiteCode)
         Set ConnectToSMSProvider = objSWbemServices
      End If
   Next
End Function

More information about creating a maintenance window: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc146686.aspx
More information about deleting a maintenance window: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc143140.aspx