ConfigMgr 2007

Remember this?: Software Distribution is currently paused on this computer with ConfigMgr 2007

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This is more of a remember this for my self then probably in general, as this is a problem that we don’t run into that much. Only for me it was the second time already, but I couldn’t directly remember anymore what the problem was. So this post will be more of a reminder for the eventually next time… 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 …

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Remember this?: Re-run Advertisement for one (or more) specific client(s) with ConfigMgr 2007

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I’m not sure if this is going to be a ‘remember this’ –series, but at least in this case it fits really good. We all know it, but sometimes we need a refreshment. 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 …

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Using USMT 4.0 and ConfigMgr 2007 while migrating from local profiles to partially redirected profiles

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This time I want to devote a post to a situation I haven’t been in that often. The customer was migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7, well.. nothing special here, but also migrating from local profiles to (partially) redirected profiles, well.. that’s a challenge. So to capture the userdata AND -settings we had to come up with something special. Of course we could do some things with scripting, but the biggest challenge was the fact that the new (partially redirected) profile location was only available after the first logon to Windows 7. With this information I started thinking about USMT 4.0 again. Most often you use this to migrate on a computer basis, but we made an exception on this. We came up with …

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Auto Deployment of FEP Definition Updates with ConfigMgr 2007

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This week Microsoft released Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 Update Rollup 1 (including some extra tools). The tools update included some extra policies and also a Definition Update Automation Tool. Together with this, there was also an article published about Definition Update Automation with Configuration Manager. Personally I don’t like the idea of creating a new Task with the Windows Task Scheduler, while we’ve got Status Filter Rules within ConfigMgr. With these rules we can make a “connection” between the scheduled synchronization of the Software Update Point (SUP) and the start of the Definition Update Automation Tool. Otherwise the tool might run while there hasn’t been a new synchronization of the SUP. To prevent this, I will show in this post how to create the …

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The best informational links about FEP 2010 (and its integration with ConfigMgr 2007)

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This time I want to devote a post to some of the best informational links about Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 (and its integration with ConfigMgr 2007). These links can make it a lot easier to plan, scale, install, manage and troubleshoot your ConfigMgr 2007 with FEP 2010 integrated -environment. FEP 2010 General Information  – This link provides some general information about FEP 2010. Link: http://www.microsoft.com/fep/ FEP 2010 Deployment Case Study @Microsoft – This link provides some information about the case study used by Microsoft IT for FEP 2010. Link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg543127.aspx FEP 2010 TechNet Library – This link provides all the information available in the Microsoft TechNet Library about FEP 2010. It includes planning, scaling, installing and managing a FEP 2010 –environment, with or without …

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Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Beta is available!

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For those who didn’t read it on Twitter, Facebook or mail yet, MDT 2012 B1 is available for download! Some of the best things that are mentioned in the release notes, are that it supports ConfigMgr 2012 B2 and also still supports ConfigMgr 2007 SP2! Besides that it also supports the deployment of ALL operating systems from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 until now. So it only delivers extra’s! For more information, read here the mail of Microsoft Connect: Thanks for your ongoing interest and participation in the MDT beta review program. We hope you’ll take the time to preview and provide feedback on MDT 2012 Beta 1. Download the beta materials on Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/site14/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=8689 Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Beta 1 rides the …

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Asset Intelligence Reports are not showing correct data since the upgrade to ConfigMgr 2007 SP2

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This blog post is going to be a short explanation about why the Asset Intelligence (AI) Reports are not showing the correct data after an upgrade to ConfigMgr 2007 SP2. The cause of not showing data was actually more logic then I first thought. One of the items on the checklist for an upgrade (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee344152.aspx) is the following: If you have customized the default SMS_def.mof hardware inventory reporting file, you must create a backup of this file before upgrading the site. When upgrading a site, customizations made to the existing SMS_def.mof file will be overwritten. Maybe this still doesn’t make sense, but it will after the following piece of history about enabling AI in ConfigMgr 2007. In the ConfigMgr 2007 RTM version AI had to …

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ConfigMgr 2007 and clearing a Computers’ Last PXE Advertisement by script

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In a previous post I showed a script to remove a computer from a collection. This post will be an add-on to that previous post. As we are removing the computer from the collection anyway, we can as well perform a Clear Last PXE Advertisement –action. By doing this, it’s not necessary to perform a manual action the next time the computer needs to be re-imaged. An easy way to do this is to run a script at the end of a Task Sequence that will clear the last PXE Advertisement. This makes sure that a computer can get re-imaged as soon it gets added to the correct collection. For this you can use the script from this post. The usage of this script is …

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ConfigMgr 2007 and Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010

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Let’s start this post with a simple question. What’s the reason why the new version of Microsoft’s Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 is so kewl? Well, it’s the same reason why I’m blogging about it, it’s because it fully integrates with ConfigMgr 2007! In this post I will go through the installation and the integration of FEP 2010 with ConfigMgr 2007 in three parts. (PART 1) Integration with ConfigMgr 2007 – How to install For the installation I will go through a Basic topology installation and its prerequisites (the installation has to be performed on a Central/ Primary Site server). (Optional) Install Windows Installer 3.1. (Optional) Install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. (Optional) Install ConfigMGr Hotfix KB2271736. Run the serversetup.exe of the DVD and the Microsoft …

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ConfigMgr 2007 and removing a Computer from a Collection by script

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I have to admit that it’s just really easy/ handy to create scripts to make life a bit easier. This also counts for this scenario… A customer wants to prevent, at all costs, that a computer can’t get re-imaged “by accident”. It already happened a few times that somebody by accident did a Clear Last PXE Advertisement on a Computer, or even on a Collection. An easy solution for this scenario is to run a script at the end of a Task Sequence that will remove the Computer directly from the Collection. This makes sure that a computer can’t get re-imaged, as it’s not a member of the collection anymore. For this you can use the script from this post. The usage of this script …

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