Real-time application installation for devices

This week a new blog post again! During my vacation, I’ve been looking at some statistics of my blog and I noticed that my posts about app deployment related subjects are getting a lot of traction lately. That was a trigger for to make this post about a really nice application deployment feature that’s introduced in Configuration Manager, version 1906. That feature is to install applications for a device. The really nice part of this is that it uses the client notification channel to create a real-time application installation experience. In this post I’ll quickly go through the prerequisites, followed by the application deployment configuration. I’ll end this post by looking at the application installation trigger and the corresponding application requests. Optional feature Let’s start …

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Another new discovery method: Meet the Azure Active Directory Group Discovery!

This week is back to the world of Configuration Manager. With the release of Configuration Manager, version 1906, a lot of new features are introduced. Even a few very nice pre-release features. One of these pre-release features is the subject of this post, the Azure Active Directory Group Discovery. The Azure Active Directory Group Discovery can be used to discover user groups and members of those groups from Azure AD. In case there are users found in Azure AD user groups that haven’t been previously discovered, those users will be added as user resources in Configuration Manager. A user group resource record is created when the group is a security group. In this post I’ll briefly show the prerequisites, followed by the configuration steps. I’ll …

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Quick tip: Configure primary device via Software Center

This week a relatively short blog post about a recently introduced feature in Configuration Manager, version 1902. That feature is the option for the user to select a device as a primary device, by using Software Center. Previously the Application Catalog was still required to provide users with that specific option. That was also practically the only reason to still use the Application Catalog. From that perspective, this also provides a clear path for further simplifying the Configuration Manager hierarchy. In this post I’ll show how to enable the option for the user to configure a primary device via Software Center, followed by the end-user experience. Configuration Now let’s have a look at the configuration that enables the option for the user to configure a …

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Always apply baseline to co-managed devices

Like the last couple of weeks, this week is also about co-management. This week is all about another nice detail that can be really useful, in specific use cases. That detail is the ability to always apply a configuration baseline to co-managed devices. Even when the Device configuration workload is switched from Configuration Manager to Microsoft Intune. That can be useful for configurations that are not available yet via Microsoft Intune, or for compliance checks that need to be performed and consolidated in one location. In this post I’ll provide a short introduction about the different configuration options, followed by the steps to configure a configuration baseline to co-managed devices when the workload is switched to Microsoft Intune. I’ll end this post with the end-results. …

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Switching the Office Click-to-Run apps workload

This week is all about the Office Click-to-Run apps workload. More specifically, this week is all about what’s happening, from a Configuration Manager perspective, when switching the Office Click-to-Run apps workload to Microsoft Intune. Switching the Office Click-to-Run apps workload to Microsoft Intune will make sure that the Office Click-to-Run app will be installed via Microsoft Intune and no longer via Configuration Manager. In this post I’ll show how to switch the Office Click-to-Run apps workload to Microsoft Intune, followed by what is actually making sure that Configuration Manager will no longer install Office Click-to-Run apps. I’ll end this post with a summary. Configuration Let’s start with the easy part, in this case, the configuration. Assuming that co-management is already configured, the following 3 steps …

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Move the content library to a remote location

This week is all about moving the content library to a remote location in Configuration Manager, version 1806. Moving the content library to a remote location is an important step in making a Configuration Manager hierarchy high available. Configuration Manager, version 1806, introduced site server high availability for a standalone primary site server role by installing an additional site server in passive mode. To complete that high available configuration it’s also smart to move the content library to a remote location. That will make sure that the content library is still available when the active site server went down. This post will provide the prerequisites for moving the content library, the steps to move the content library and the flow when moving the content library. …

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Software Center is getting close to awesome!

It’s almost been too long ago since I’ve done my latest post about Software Center. Luckily there are enough reasons introduced with Configuration Manager, version 1806,  to devote another blog post to Software Center, as Software Center is getting close to awesome. Yes, I deliberately say close to awesome, as we always need to leave options open for improvement. In this post I’ll focus on three great new additions to Software Center: 1) infrastructure improvements, 2) a custom tab and 3) maintenance windows. No more application catalog website point and web service point required Let’s start with the first and, in my opinion, best improvement related to Software Center. Starting with Configuration Manager, version 1806, available user-targeted apps can be made available in Software Center …

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Rename a device via Windows 10 MDM

This blog post uses the Accounts configuration service provider (CSP), to create a local user account on Windows 10 devices. This area was added in Windows 10, version 1803. This weeks blog post is a follow up on last weeks post about creating a local user account via Windows 10 MDM. This week is also about the Accounts CSP, but this this time I’ll use the Accounts CSP for renaming a Windows 10 device. This can be useful with maintaining a specific naming convention. I’ll show the available nodes, I’ll show how to configure them and I’ll end this post by showing the end-user experience. Also, I’m pretty sure this will be possible via Windows AutoPilot at some point in time, but, even then, this …

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Create a local user account via Windows 10 MDM

This blog post uses the Accounts configuration service provider (CSP), to create a local user account on Windows 10 devices. This area was added in Windows 10, version 1803, which is currently available as Insider Preview build. This week is all about creating local user accounts via Windows 10 MDM. That can for example make life a bit easier with troubleshooting an offline device. A fallback account. In this post I’ll show how this can be achieved by using the Accounts CSP. I’ll show the available nodes and I’ll show how to configure them. I’ll end this post by showing the end-user experience. Also, spoiler alert, it’s good to note that this is not a pretty administrator experience at this moment, but I’m pretty sure …

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Co-management and the ConfigMgr client

This blog post is a follow-up on this earlier post about deploying the ConfigMgr client via Microsoft Intune. In this post I want to look more at the behavior of the ConfigMgr client in a co-management scenario. I want to show the available configurations and, more importantly, I want to show the behavior of the ConfigMgr client. I want to show the corresponding configuration and the messages in the different log files. Co-management configuration Now let’s start by looking at the different configuration options of co-management and the configuration values. To look at the available configuration options, simply follow the next three steps (assuming the initial co-management configuration is already created). 1 Open the Configuration Manager administration console and navigate to Administration > Overview > …

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