Category Archives: ConfigMgr

How to delete multiple Packages using PowerShell with ConfigMgr 2012 SP1

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How many times have you had the need to delete multiple packages in a ConfigMgr test site?  In order to do this, you right-click on the package and select Delete.  You get presented a welcome screen, then you are asked if you want to see more information.  If you select no, then you are presented a summary screen, progress and then a completion screen (in which you need to click close).  That is something like six clicks just to delete a package.  In addition, you cannot multi-select a bunch of packages and delete them.  So, if you have 100 packages that you want to delete, you are looking at about 600+ clicks.  I am not sure about you, but that does not sounds like fun.

After launching PowerShell (this can be done from the ConfigMgr Admin Console), you can avoid all of these clicks with just a few commands.

If you just simply want to remove a package without using the console and have to click through all dialogs, simply use the following command:

Remove-CMPackage -Name "Test Package" –Force

The Name parameter does take wildcards, so if you have multiple packages with a common name (i.e. Test Package 1, Test Package 2, etc.), then you can simply add the asterisk:

Remove-CMPackage -Name "Test Package*" –Force

Using –Force means that it will not prompt you for confirmation to delete the package.

Now, say you want to delete all packages that don’t have an empty Manufacturer field, 1E packages or Microsoft packages.  Use the following command to get all of the package names:

$pkgs = Get-CMPackage | Where-Object {$_.Manufacturer -ne "" -and $_.Manufacturer -ne "1E" -and $_.Manufacturer -notlike "Microsoft*"} | Select Name

You can then just type $pkgs at the command prompt to see all of the packages that meet the criteria.

If you want to check to see what will happen before deleting all of the packages (in other words, there is no undo Embarrassed smile), run the following command:

$pkgs | % {Remove-CMPackage -name $_.Name -WhatIf}

This will display what kind of damage will be done before anything happens.

When the results are what you expect, run the following command:

$pkgs | % {Remove-CMPackage -name $_.Name -Force}

If you want to confirm each package deletion, simply leave the –Force off and it will have you confirm each one.  Remember, there is no Recycle Bin so use this with extreme care.

Why choose 1E for your OS Migrations?

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Here at 1E we understand that there are still those under the heavy pressure of migrating from Windows XP and are experiencing all the headaches that come along with it. We've helped many organizations, including those which are extremely complex and large, migrate to Windows 7. So how can we help? Why choose 1E? We've made a short video with Brian Mason, Microsoft ConfigMgr MVP, and Dave Kawula, Lead System Center Architect, discussing why they chose 1E.

Take a look…

Dave Kawula and Brian Mason discuss why choose 1E for OS Migration

http://youtu.be/cBLULiXYJsA

Henry Truong, Technical Audience Executive at 1E

Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and 1E NightWatchman® Enterprise

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We are pleased to announce that NightWatchman Enterprise 6.1 is fully compliant with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr). NightWatchman was also tested with Windows Server 2012 and SQL 2012, no issues were found.

NightWatchman Enterprise will be fully compliant with Windows 8 in version 7, scheduled for mid-April.

We will officially support ConfigMgr SP1, Windows Server 2012 and SQL 2012 and Windows 8 in version 7.

Together System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and 1E NightWatchman provide best-of-breed server and PC power management for enterprises

This highly comprehensive solution benefits the whole organization, not just administrators, users or senior management. It works for PCs and Servers, which together comprise 60% of total IT power consumption. Together, NightWatchman from 1E with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager form the industry-leading power management and patching solution. With advanced features such as enterprise wake-on-LAN, document save and safe reboot, you can be sure that PCs and laptops will receive updates with the highest degree of success possible.

NightWatchman® Enterprise accurately reports on savings and emissions so that you not only save power you can prove it as well.

Read the technical brief here

To speak to an energy efficiency expert or request a trial please complete the form on our website.

Technical brief document

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Hazelton | Product Manager, 1E

1E Blogs

1E OSD Technical Deep Dive – Questions and Answers from the webinar

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Our OSD technical deep dive session was a hit and we’d like to thank again all those who attended. We got quite a few questions during the session and we’d like to address them all so here we go:

Session 1

I understand there are new TS Actions available with Nomad 2012. How do I get all of those new actions in my CM07 TS Editor? ­

The task sequence integration is also available for ConfigMgr 07. You need to make sure you install the Admin UI extensions.

Are Nomad 2012 and ConfigMgr 2007 compatible?

Yes Nomad 2012 supports CM07

All of the configurations you’ve shown have been in the SCCM console. Are there other consoles?

No all of the operations for Nomad take place in the ConfigMgr console, we don’t require separate consoles, databases or infrastructures which would compete with the existing ConfigMgr infrastructure and potentially cause failure points (or single points of failure).

I'm wondering how you would use peer backup assistant to back-up a site with, say 100 systems, and you're trying to rebuild them all at the same time.  Do you need a dedicated system to handle the backups? ­

With Peer Backup Assistant (PBA) you need to have a strategy around how to implement it. If you wanted to backup to peers and then rebuild them all simultaneously this couldn't be done just from a physical disk perspective. What our consultants have done is employ a strategy of having a specific subset of systems to be eligible at different times to serve as the PBA hosts. Systems can have this functionality turned on or off via registry settings very easily.­

So [is PBA] like a leap-frog strategy.  Build 50 and let them backup to the other 50, then build the other 50?

­­Additionally PBA can send data to a CIFS/NFS share; it doesn't only need to be a peer system. Therefore if you wanted to completely remove the data from 100% of the systems you could always have them backup to a NAS device or, for example, a DFS share. We would suggest you did that as part of your migration strategy. We do also plan on automating this more for our customers in the future.

How do you get the WIM and other packages to be in the peer cache in a remote branch office ahead of time so it is ready for a build?­

We have a process which integrates into the task sequence engine. Just by setting a simple variable, you can pre-cache any content via Nomad automatically using the same targeting methods you would use today within SCCM. If you’re interested we could schedule a follow-up session with a Solutions Engineer to demonstrate this and other Nomad functionality.

Session 2

Are the Nomad reports available as SCCM 2007 web reports also? We have hundreds of existing packages. Do you have a process for automating the update of these packages to enable them for use with Nomad?

Yes these reports exist for SCCM 2007. For Package conversion to use Nomad we have a simple utility that can automatically switch over your existing Packages to use Nomad as well as automatically set any newly created Packages to use Nomad, we just didn’t demo that in this session.

Are you able to restart the machine using the remote tools and have it boot from PXE anywhere? ­

­Yes – you could remote in, resolve the issue and then restart it so that the system could PXE boot off of a peer using PXE Everywhere and perform a successful migration­

I currently have that configured, however, after the initial boot, the remote “service" is not available after the OS is loaded.  Should I just add another command to start that as an action after every restart in the TS­?

That could be due to several things such as boot image configuration or even the RDP port being blocked on your network. Without knowing more details it's hard to give a concrete answer however the process needs to be running in order to connect to it and it is not persistent between reboots. This is something you would need to configure.  The exe is in %windir%\system32\RemoteRecovery.exe.  It can be launch manually (use the –nomessage to skip the pop up) or put in a Run Command Line step with the following command line (but don’t copy and paste due to special characters – like quotes and dashes):

Cmd /c “star %windir%\system32\RemoteRecovery.exe –nomessage”

Is there a list of features that is not available for ConfigMgr2007­? Does Nomad use BITS to copy data to the respective CACHE?

Nomad doesn’t use BITS to copy content to the cache, instead Nomad uses an advanced bandwidth algorithm called Reverse QoS and this is combined with its peer distribution methods for reducing servers. We’ve written an article explaining how we work out bandwidth. In regards to how we do our content transfer, we can be set up to use SMB or HTTP. Nomad also has advanced multicast capabilities which you can leverage and it does this all without requiring any system level kernel drivers which could potentially bring down your network. The great thing about the Nomad bandwidth throttling algorithm is that because we aren’t using drivers to create packets which look at router table properties, we then do not have any network hardware requirements and can actually look at the full end to end bandwidth rather than just a piece of the network.

[From a cool SMS Guy]:

Very helpful thank for inviting me

You’re welcome :)

We hope you’ve all taken away some valuable information and we’ll be holding more webinars soon. Watch this space.

 

Henry Truong, Technical Audience Executive at 1E
 

“I saved ARUP £500,000 on software licenses with 1E AppClarity”

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We’ve been working hard on AppClarity here at 1E HQ. Since the launch of AppClarity, we’ve been taking feedback from our user community and have been incorporating them into our product in order to make it bigger and better… For example, we now have Enterprise Management Groups to deal with the complexity of large, complex organizations, more compelling reports such as the Adobe Suite Optimization report and Microsoft Office Optimization report and not forgetting the cool, new white theme Smile .

AppClarity in black or white consoleThere are two notable people I’d like to give a shout out to and they are Dan Richings and Richard Barnes of Arup. We’ve helped Richard and Dan save Arup lots of money (over a million dollars so far) and we’re pretty proud of that.

Dan has even written a review of AppClarity on Microsoft Pinpoint and has authored a blog article advising how to use the custom command line feature in AppClarity on his personal blog, ConfigMgr and back again, where he posts experiences and tips he comes across whilst working with ConfigMgr.

This is what Richard had to say about AppClarity:

“AppClarity looks to be another exciting product from 1E, a key feature of which gives a clear view of application compliance by detailing license count against install amount. This gives a much needed transparency so that additional unnecessary expenditure doesn`t occur, and which allows us to reallocate unused licenses around the global business,”

“Another feature that stands out is the detection of installed but unused software. This is an administrative nightmare with software worth thousands sitting dormant on computers – an imbalance that is often hard to identify, let alone tackle. AppClarity will be tightly integrated into Microsoft® Configuration Manager, enabling us to maximize our existing investment in the platform and reveal the information we need to improve our software efficiency levels,”

Richard Barnes, Associate, Global Automation Team Leader, Arup.

It’s not an easy life driving efficiency initiatives so as well giving them a tool that saves them time, money and effort in AppClarity, we’ve decided to send them each an AppClarity jacket to save them from the British summer:

AppClarity Jacket

Dan has a particular love of vendor t-shirts, so I sent him a proper one to spread the word of his heroism internally:

I saved money using app clarityWhat a hero. OK… Who’s next?

By the way… AppClarity 3.1 is just around the corner, so watch the blog over the next few weeks for more information on some of the awesome stuff we’ve put into it (OK – I’ll give you a clue… It’s all about application virtualization).

Geoff Collins

Director of Product Management, 1E

1E Blogs

Modifying ConfigMgr 2012 Package Properties

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There are times when it is necessary to access settings in Configuration Manager via WMI in order to automate the alteration of settings using something like VBScript or PowerShell. One of those times is when we add our 1E Nomad software to an existing ConfigMgr implementation and we want to go back and update existing packages to make use of Nomad.

In the past we have written scripts that make such modifications for ConfigMgr 2007 which work perfectly. I recently tested such a script against ConfigMgr 2012 and was promptly faced with an error for every package the script tried to process.

Manually looking through the packages on the server I found that if I tried to modify the "Configuration Manager Client Package" package (which is created on installation) the majority of settings were unavailable The comment for the package indicated that it had been automatically created.

Every time I ran my script I received a -2147217407 error for the first package it processed (the order is determined by the Package ID number, which was for the "Configuration Manager Client Package") and I also received it for every package that was subsequently processed.

I searched the Internet and wasn't able to find any applicable information concerning why my script would have resulted in this error, so I cracked open the trusty WMICodeCreator program and started looking through WMI to see what might be causing my issue.

On ConfigMgr 2012 I noticed a property in the SMS_Package class called IsPredefinedPackage. The property does not exist for ConfigMgr 2007. When I executed the WMICodeCreator code against this property (on ConfigMgr 2012) I found that the "Configuration Manager Client Package" IsPredefinedPackage property was set to True. For other packages that I had created the property was set to False.

I added code to my script to check the IsPredefinedPackage property for each package before trying to make any alterations and used the result to skip any packages where the value was True. After running the updated script the "Configuration Manager Client Package" was skipped and the other packages which were not predefined were altered successfully, returning an error code of 0.

For some reason, when I encountered the -2147217407 error when processing the first package in the list I ended up with the same error for every package after that, but when I evaluated the IsPredefinedPackage property I was able to successfully process every package that was not predefined. In order to properly script modifications to ConfigMgr 2012 packages you will have to account for the IsPredefinedPackage property.

This is something to keep in mind when working with ConfigMgr 2012 packages through WMI scripts.

-2147217407 error sccm 2012 wmi

Where Did The Apps Go In ConfigMgr 2012?

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Where Did The Apps Go In ConfigMgr 2012?

Finding out where your Apps may have disappeared to in ConfigMgr 2012.


(Content provided by my co-worker Mike Terrill via the Microsoft team blog)

There is a lot of confusion on where end users will see Deployments (aka Advertisements in ConfigMgr 2007) – the Application Catalog or Software Center.  It depends on three different things – the object type (Application or Package), the collection resource that is targeted (users/groups or computers), and the type of deployment (required or available).  The following chart from the System Center Configuration Manager Team blog – Introducing the Application Catalog and Software Center in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager summarizes this quite nicely:

Object type

Collection resources

Deployment

Application Catalog

Software Center

Application

Users or groups

Available deployment,
does not require approval

Yes

After installation is initiated successfully from the Application Catalog

Users or groups

Available deployment,
requires approval

Yes

After the application is approved

Users or groups

Required deployment

No

Yes

Computers

Available or required deployment

No

Yes

Package and program

Users or groups

Available deployment

Yes

After installation is initiated successfully from the Application Catalog

Users or groups

Required deployment

No

Yes

Computers

Available or required deployment

No

Yes

Getting Started with System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 for Configuration Manager

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NOTE: In-place upgrade is not supported with this release, only a full install is supported. Also, this is not supported in production environments. See the Release Notes for more information.

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 was announced at TechEd North and CTP2 was made publicly available on Friday of that week. There are number of features that have been added to this release, mostly importantly support for the upcoming Windows 8. There are a few prerequisites that are required and you can download them from the following links:

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 CTP2

Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows ® 8 Release Preview

Once you have downloaded the Service Pack, you will also need to download the prerequisite files. This can be done when installing the service pack if your system is Internet connected. However, if you are working in an isolated lab environment you can download the prerequisite files ahead of time using the setupdl.exe (found in SMSSETUP\BIN\X64) from an Internet connected machine. Only 16 files (roughly 248 MB) are downloaded, as opposed to 406 files (roughly 395 MB) for RTM.

If you try installing the Service Pack before installing the Windows ADK, it will give you a Failed Status for the User State Migration Tool, Windows Deployment Tools and Windows Preinstallation Environment as seen below.

clip_image002

So the first thing to do is to install the necessary Windows ADK features. Kick off the ADK Setup (adksetup.exe) from the download link above and select the following features to install:

clip_image004

Once this is finished, then you are ready to begin the Service Pack 1 CTP Setup. The install is pretty straight forward, starting with the splash.hta welcome screen, click Install.

clip_image006

Review the Before You Begin screen and click Next.

clip_image008

On the Getting Started screen, choose Upgrade an existing Configuration Manager 2012 installation (which is the default) and click Next.

clip_image010

On the Product Key screen enter your license key (unless you are using evaluation software).

clip_image012

On the Microsoft Software License Terms screen, accept the license terms and click next.

clip_image014

On the Prerequisite Licenses screen, accept the license terms and click Next.

clip_image016

On the Prerequisite Downloads screen, either enter a path to download the prereqs or select a folder that contains the previously downloaded files.

clip_image018

On the Settings Summary screen, verify the setup type and click Next.

clip_image020

On the Prerequisite Check screen, once all of the prereq checks have passed, click Begin Install.

clip_image022

Once the core setup is complete, the following screen will be displayed.

clip_image024

Check the ConfigMgr setup log (C:\ConfigMgrSetup.log) for line that says “Configuration Manager Setup – Primary site upgrade completed”. You can also verify in the console by looking at the site properties, the build number for SP1 CTP2 is 5.00.7743.0000.

TechEd’s Announcment of SCCM 2012 SP1 – A step in the right direction?

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TechEd’s Announcment of SCCM 2012 SP1

Thoughts about the announcement of SCCM 2012 SP1 from TechEd 2012 in Orlando

There’s a lot of noise at this year’s TechEd (TechEd 2012) over Azure, the private and public cloud infrastructures with Server 2012 and the amazing improvements in Hyper-V 2012 (Hyper-V 3.0) but one area that should have IT professional’s attention is the announcement of SCCM 2012 SP1.
 
While there are several great additional features to be included in SP1 a few notable features include:
 
Support for OS platforms:
- Windows 8 (and windows 8 tablet (Intel SoC) support)
- Mac OS X
- Linux and Unix

This is great news for those who manage multiple OSes and especially those who have already invested in SCCM. No longer will we require separate system management software products to manage our estate, especially if the “other” OSes range in the small percentage to the “not enough to warrant a management solution” group. We can now manage it all under the management umbrella that is SCCM. It also means deploying our 1E products such as the 1E Agent for Macs OSX and Nightwatchman Server Edition Agent for Linux/Unix servers is now that much easier.
 
Another function they’ve added in is Windows To Go support for OSD.
 
If you don’t know much about Windows To Go on Windows 8 yet, think of it as a live CD (or better suited, live USB!) where you have your entire OS on a removable media.
 
They’ve also improved the method of Application Delivery:
- Win 8 apps
- Network Cost support (management for content on 3G/4G or dial up/paid connections)
 
The support for Windows 8 apps is nothing we didn’t all expect and the Network Cost support is a great addition to manage clients that regularly move in and out of paid (3G/4G) and internal “free” connections. This helps with roaming clients as we become more of a consumer type workforce, a workforce on the go, and it allows many admin’s to not get hit by that surprisingly large telephone bill at the end of the month.
 
- Flexible Hierarchy Management
 
This is the biggest change in my opinion. No longer are we going to be locked into an either/or situation when deploying new ConfigMgr deployments and with the SP1 update we should be able to set up a new CAS (Central Administration Site) installation and pull our existing primary installation into that CAS. There is one caveat to this however…
If two primary sites are set up, you cannot join the second primary site to an existing hierarchy (CAS and primaries) but we can easily get around this issue by doing a primary migration to “join” the existing hierarchy.
 
The flexible hierarchy management of SCCM 2012 is a much welcome feature. Many have wondered why you couldn’t do this in the first place with SCCM 2012, although I suspect that many who may have set up an existing primary site installation without a CAS have not yet had the requirement for a CAS, at least in the short period that SCCM 2012 has been released.
 
The addition of these changes gives SCCM an even stronger foothold in the systems management space by making administrating machines even easier. As an IT professional, you’ve got to love having things made easy for you.

If you want to watch the full presentation, you can check out Channel9's site which has a lot of the technet presentations ready for viewing. You can see the SCCM presentation by Wally Mead and Mark Florida here.

Join us for The Best of TechEd: Tech Days – Configuration Manager with Wally Mead, Microsoft

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It's a well known fact that it's not over until it's over! So, if you are not getting a chance to get over to TechEd in either Orlando or Amsterdam this year, read on.  Similarly, if you are attending but haven't had your fill of the wonderful things that the conferences have to offer when they come to a close, the good news is that there is a way to get another fix.

On Monday 2nd July from 9.15-6.30pm at the Novotel in Reading (in meeting rooms 6 & 7), 1E, Microsoft and FAQShop  invite you to join Wally Mead, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft who will be re-delivering his sessions from Tech Ed.  Wally is one of Microsoft’s most knowledgeable and recognised speakers.
 

This is your chance to learn hands on, ask questions and share your stories with one of Microsoft System Center’s leading faces as we go through

the latest developments in System Center and Configuration Manager 2012. The session will feature:

 

-          Deployment and Infrastructure Technical Overview

-          Plan, Deploy, and Migrate from Configuration Manager 2007 to 2012

-          Patch and Settings Management

-          Deep Application Management

Following the workshop there will be time for you to catch up and discuss any virtualisation questions you have with Wally, the Microsoft team and the 1E team at our drinks reception. The agenda for the sessions is below.

We're also going to be doing a prize draw for your chance to win an XBox 360 and Kinect on the day!

Please RSVP early to avoid disappointment – places are limited to 100 guests.

RSVP by phone: 0870 166 6670 ref – 5665
RSVP online: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032515665&Culture=en-GB
 

Event ID: 1032515665

Novotel Reading

Meeting rooms 6&7
25B Friar Street
Reading RG1 1DP
United Kingdom
 
The Best of TechEd 2012 - Reading, Mon 2nd July
   
 








Agenda
08.45   Registration
09.15   Welcome
09.30   Introduction to 1E
10.15   Microsoft System Center ConfigMgr 2012: Deployment & Infrastructure Technical Overview
11.15   Break
11.45   Microsoft System Center ConfigMgr 2012: Plan, Deploy & Migrate from ConfigMgr 2007 to 2012
13.00   Lunch
13.45   Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Patch & Settings Management
15.00   Break
15.30   Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Deep Application Management
16.45   Q&A
17.15   Networking Reception
18.30   Close