Restarting a computer couldn’t be easier!

This week I’m still staying in the new features of Configuration Manager, version 1710. This time it’s all about how easy it became to restart a client device. Restarting a client device became a right-click action! It simply couldn’t be easier! This opens up a whole new world for managing client devices with a pending restart. In this blog post, I’ll start with a short introduction about restarting a client device, followed by the simple actions to trigger a restart for a client device. I’ll end this post by following the activity through the log files. Introduction Starting with Configuration Manager, version 1710, it’s possible to use the Configuration Manager console to identify client devices that require a restart, and then use a client notification …

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Getting the Client Upgrade Settings of ConfigMgr 2012 with PowerShell

This week, my blog post will be a very short one. It will be a post about my tweet about the client upgrade settings, of a week ago. A big part of this information is also available via the Hierarchy Settings in the console. Script In WMI there is the class SMS_ImportedObject, which contains the method Get-ClientUpgradeSettings. This method can be used to get the client upgrade settings and doesn’t need any input parameters. It will give all the information, about the name, version and IDs and can be used via to the following code snippet: function Get-ClientUpgradeSettings { param ( [string]$SiteCode, [string]$SiteServer ) Invoke-WmiMethod -Namespace root/SMS/site_$($SiteCode) -Class SMS_ImportedObject -Name GetClientUpgradeSettings -ComputerName $SiteServer } Result The code snippet will give a result like under here. …

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Deployment of Configuration Baseline failed with error ‘Script is not signed’ in ConfigMgr 2012

This week my post will still be a small one, as my time is still limited during the move to our new home. In between I was still doing some work and trying to find a subject for a presentation/ demo. During that I was working with the Configuration Baseline of UE-V. That baseline is completely based on one Configuration Item, which consists of eight script setting types and those scripts are all written in PowerShell. The deployment of the baseline resulted in error 0x87D00327, which translates to ‘Script is not signed’ (see picture). Solution In most cases it’s not possible, or allowed, to change the execution policy for PowerShell on the system. So just let the ConfigMgr client “manage it” and then the solution …

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Preventing initiation of available deployments on specific systems with ConfigMgr 2012

This week I want to devote a small post to a question that I read on windows-noob.com. The question came to the point whether, or not, it is possible to deploy applications via a task sequence, but only allow administrators to actually run it. This question triggered me to look a bit better into the different Client Settings and then specifically the setting of Install permissions. This setting gives us the possibility to prevent the initiation of available deployments via the Software Center and the Application Catalog on specific systems. So in this post I will show that setting by only allowing administrators to initiate available deployments. Configuration Now lets start with the configuration, which is actually very easy, but like always it’s all about …

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An overview of my posts about ConfigMgr 2012 SP1

Let’s start my first post, of this new year, with an overview of my latest post about ConfigMgr 2012 Service Pack (SP) 1. Normally I’m not really the kind of person that looks back, but in this case it’s with a reason, as most of my posts where with pre-release versions of SP1. I also tried to sort all my posts per subject, even though sometimes there is some overlap. The following posts are all tested, this week, with the RTM version of SP1 and I can confirm that they are still working: System Center Orchestrator Tweeting the deployment status of a system via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012 Using a Status Filter Rule to delete a collection membership via Orchestrator and ConfigMgr 2012 New and …

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Allowing access to Cloud Distribution Points for specific systems with ConfigMgr 2012

To end this year in the cloud, I would like to devote this weeks post to allowing systems access to cloud distribution points. A bit more then two months ago I already did a post about creating a cloud distribution point, but until now I’ve never posted anything about the client configuration. By default, a system is not allowed access to cloud distribution points. Prerequisites Before it’s even useful to allow a system access to a cloud distribution point, the system needs to be able to resolve the name of the cloud distribution point. There are two ways to achieve this: The proper way – Create a public CNAME –record to map the service name, provided with the certificate for the cloud service, to the …

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Preventing user-targeted applications and policies on specific systems with ConfigMgr 2012

This week I want to devote a small post to something very nice and, in some situations, very easy. Think about a situation where, in general, applications are user-targeted and only a few exceptions are system-targeted. Usually these targeted systems are then used specifically for that application. So these systems shouldn’t get all the applications (and settings) of every user that logs on, as it might screw-up the specific application. The nice thing is that ConfigMgr 2012, and especially SP1, has a solution for this! The solution is the new setting Enable user policy on clients. Configuration Now lets start with the configuration, which is actually very easy. Like always it’s all about knowing that the possibility exists. This is another new Client Setting in …

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