Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 Beta is available!

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 …

Read more

Forefront Endpoint Protection 2012 B for ConfigMgr 2012 B2

There was still something missing with ConfigMgr 2012 B2 and that was the Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) integration. Well, that’s been taking care of now. It’s now available already for a week (see: Forefront Endpoint Security Blog), so it’s about time to take a first look at it. The installation hasn’t changed much since FEP 2010 with ConfigMgr 2007 (see also: ConfigMgr 2007 and Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010), except that it’s now ConfigMgr 2012 B2 aware. The first thing that I noticed was that the FEP 2012 B client is not really the FEP 2012 client yet, but the still FEP 2010 client (evaluation version). Both have version number 2.0.657.0. The next thing that I noticed was that there actually didn’t change that much… Of …

Read more

How to Capture User Files and Settings Offline (WinPE) or Online (FullOS) using hard-links with ConfigMgr 2012 B2

This post will be another one about capturing user files and settings, but this time with ConfigMgr 2012 B2. I hope everyone still remembers my post about capturing user files and settings in ConfigMgr 2007 (and especially how much work it was). Usually I’m not really into writing ‘step-by-step guides’, but this time I will make an exception. The reason why I’m making this exception is that I want to show how easy it’s done now. It’s becoming really close to just next-next-finish. There are only four packages needed for/ by this step-by-step: Boot image package ConfigMgr client package USMT 4.0 package Image package When these packages are present, right-click the Task Sequence node and select Create Task Sequence. After that follow the step-by-step below. …

Read more

A collection of changes to the Collections in ConfigMgr 2012 B2

In this post I will try to give an overview of the changes made to the Collections in ConfigMgr 2012. The first notable changes in the Assets and Compliance workspace are: The Collections are now divided in User Collections and Device Collections. It’s now not possible anymore to have users and computers in one Collection. It will always be an User Collection OR a Device Collection. The standard Collections are now limited till, All User Groups, All Users, All Users and User Groups, All Desktop and Server Clients, All Mobile Devices, All Systems and All Unknown Computers. Both, the All Users and User Groups –and  the All Systems –Collections, are not editable. These Collections are used as the base for all of the other Collections. …

Read more

The NEW Distribution Point in ConfigMgr 2012 B2

I already tweeted last week that I really, really like the new Distribution Points in ConfigMgr 2012. Around that time they started writing some really good posts at the ConfigMgr OSD Blog about the new Distribution/PXE Point and Content Management. Even though these posts give really good information I still feel like I have to write down what I really, really like about it. So in this post I will sum up some of the cool new features/ properties of the new Distribution Point in ConfigMgr 2012.  Distribution Point Role: The Distribution Point Role is now merged into one single type that can be used on workstations and server. Also there is now the ability to choose (and prioritize) two drives for the use of …

Read more

ConfigMgr 2012 BETA 2 is available!

For those who didn’t read it on Twitter, Facebook or mail yet, ConfigMgr 2012 BETA 2 is available for download! For more information, read here the mail of Microsoft Connect: The Configuration Manager Team is pleased to announce the release of Configuration Manger 2012 Beta 2!  It is now available on Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/ConfigurationManagervnext/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=34794 Please reference the Supported Configuration Document and Release Notes which can be found on: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/4/5/54508737-EB00-4B65-8DB3-F0D810FA3A9F/Configuration Manager 2012 Beta 2 Supported Configuration.pdf http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg703318.aspx A few notes before you get started: Please use only SQL Server 2008 SP1 and CU 10 or 11 (SQL 2008 SP2 or SQL 2008 R2 is not supported) Ensure site server computer has internet access to download pre-requisites or run setupdl.exe from an internet connected computer Ensure Windows Firewall …

Read more

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

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 …

Read more

Migrated my blog from BlogEngine.NET to WordPress

It took a lot more effort then I hoped/ expected, but as you all can see my blog has changed. The most important part is that it went from BlogEngine.NET to WordPress. This means that the lay-out has changed and everything is just a little bit different, but as always you will get used to it! The downside of this move is that WordPress sets the links to the posts on a different way then BlogEngine.NET did. This means that if you had a direct link to an article it probably won’t work anymore… There are two possibilities to still go to the correct post: Remove the .aspx from the end of the link to the post Go to Archive as all the posts can …

Read more

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

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 …

Read more

ConfigMgr 2007 and Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010

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 …

Read more