ConfigMgr 2007

Configuration Manager 2007 R3 is on the calendar

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I would like to make a short note of the following announcement: Today, the System Center team is excited to share with you their plan to release System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3.  This new release of the ConfigMgr is packed with some extremely cool features, which over the coming months they plan to share with you in different ways. See for the complete article: http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2009/09/08/announcing-system-center-configuration-manager-2007-r3.aspx

After upgrading to ConfigMgr 2007 R2 SP2 (RC) all OS Deployment Task Sequences are failing

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After the upgrade of my test lab (which is running in Native Mode) to ConfigMgr 2007 R2 SP2 (RC) all my Task Sequences suddenly fail with the error: An error occurred while retrieving policy for this computer (0x80004005). Taking a look at my SMSTS.LOG it showed me the error: No cert available for policy decoding. This made me wonder what happened to my PXE Certificate that I applied to my PXE Service Point. So I took a look at my certificates (System Center Configuration Manager > Site Database > Site Management > <MySiteName> > Site Settings > Certificates > PXE). Here I noticed that my PXE Certificate was just suddenly missing… So after re-adding my PXE Certificate to my PXE Service Point it all worked …

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Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 RC has been released

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Today a little newsflash from the System Center Configuration Manager team. The System Center Configuration Manager team would like to announce that the following has been released and available for download: Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 Release Candidate. This is the official Release Candidate build for Configuration Manager 2007 SP2. New features: Refer to the SP2 Overview article posted on the primary Configuration Manager MSConnect site for all the new features and new supported configurations. Hotfixes included in SP2 article can be found on the primary Configuration Manager MSConnect page. Deployment guides for BranchCache and the new AMT features are available in the download section. The new OpsMgr07 R2 ConfigMgr07 Management Pack can also be downloaded, this supports 64bit OpsMgr client agents. Please review …

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How to control the bandwidth of the package movements in ConfigMgr 2007

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In this post I will give some information about how to control the package movement of ConfigMgr 2007. The table in this post shows the Bandwidth Control options with the different Package Movements in ConfigMgr 2007. Besides the Bandwidth Control it also show if it uses Binary Differential Replication (BDR). BDR is used by ConfigMgr 2007 to update package source files with a minimum of additional network traffic. It sends the parts of the package that have changed since the last time the package was sent. This minimizes the network traffic between sites. A file is considered to be changed if it has been renamed, moved, or its contents have changed. Package Movement Bandwidth Control BDR From package source directory to site server None No …

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Installing Software Updates via a Task Sequence in ConfigMgr 2007

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I noticed that when your Site is running in Native Mode you can run into problems with installing Software Updates via a Task Sequence. The first time that your are installing your computer with your Task Sequence there are no problems, but every time after that the Task Sequence will finish successful but doesn’t install any Software Updates. It looks like that it will use existing scan results of the client from the previous scan. So when there are already scan results of your client it will not rescan during your Task Sequence. To work around this I use the following scripts (that I run before the step Install Software Updates in the Task Sequence): Initiate Software Updates Scan: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144313.aspx actionNameToRun = “Software Updates Assignments …

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How to install the App-V Client with ConfigMgr 2007

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In some of my previous posts I mentioned that you still need the App-V Client to run the Virtual Applications. In this post I will tell the easiest way to install the App-V Client with ConfigMgr 2007. A prerequisite for this is that ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 R2 is installed and that the source files of the App-V Client (version 4.5 (CU1)) are available on a network share. For installing the App-V Client with ConfigMgr there is a Package Definition file added by the R2 installation. I would recommend to use this file for installing the App-V Client with ConfigMgr. To do this follow the next steps: Open the Configuration Manager Console and browse to System Center Configuration Manager > Site Database > Computer Management > …

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How to make a Virtual Application stream from a Distribution Point in ConfigMgr 2007

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As a follow up on my previous post I will put another short version of a new "guide" that I created for Windowsnoob. This time it is about the settings that are needed to make a Virtual Application stream from a Distribution Point.  A prerequisite for being able to make these settings is that ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 R2 is installed. Keep in mind that even when you are streaming a Virtual Application with ConfigMgr you will still need the App-V Client to run the applications. To stream a Virtual Application from a Distribution Point with ConfigMgr follow the next steps: Open the Configuration Manager Console and browse to System Center Configuration Manager > Site Database > Computer Management > Software Distribution > Advertisements Select an …

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How to make ConfigMgr 2007 ready to advertise and stream Virtual Applications

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In this post I will put a short version of the “guide” that I made for Windows-Noob about the settings that are needed to be able to advertise and stream Virtual Applications. A prerequisite for being able to make these settings is that ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 R2 is installed. Keep in mind that even when you have ConfigMgr configured for Virtual Applications you will still need the App-V Client to run the applications. To be able advertise Virtual Applications the Advertised Programs Client Agent has to be enabled for running virtual application packages. To do this, follow the next steps: Open the Configuration Manager console and navigate to System Center Configuration Manager > Site Database > Site Management > <your_sitename> > Site Settings > Client Agents.  …

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ConfigMgr 2007, USMT 4.0 and moving collected files to :\Data

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This weekend I’ve been playing with USMT 4.0 in combination with ConfigMgr R2 SP2 Beta. I have to say that it is a very powerful combination and I feel a bit stupid that I didn’t do much with it before. I always install it, with every installation that I do, but I never really did something with it. When I was diving in to it I found a special part of MigUser.xml. <!– Uncomment the following if you want all the files collected from the above rules to move to <systemDrive>:\data –><!–                <locationModify script=”MigXmlHelper.Move(‘%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Data’)”>                    <objectSet>                    <objectSet>                        <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns (“* [*.qdf]”, “Fixed”)</script>                        <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns (“* [*.qsd]”, “Fixed”)</script>                        […]                        <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns (“* [*.mdb]”, “Fixed”)</script>                        <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns (“* [*.pub]”, “Fixed”)</script>                    </objectSet>                </locationModify>–> This part is about moving the collected files to <systemDrive>:\Data when you uncomment it. Of course I had …

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Prepare ConfigMgr Client for Capture doesn’t remove the AllowedRootCAHashCode value

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In the most situations it doesn’t matter that the AllowedRootCAHashCode value doesn’t get removed during a Capture of the client, but there is one situation where it does matter. This one situation is when there has to be one image for multiple domains and every domain has its own issuing CA’s. This situation is a problem because the client stores a copy of the Root Certificate in the AllowedRootCAHashCode key. Because it contains the wrong value for the Root Certificate the client isn’t able to get a new Site Signing Certificate (which is also stored in the registry), so the client isn’t able to check the policies. As workaround for this I created a Task Sequence step (in the install Task Sequence) to delete the …

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