Last week, experts and MVPs Mike Terrill and Kent Agerlund defined success with Configuration Manager in 2017. They took us through the highlights from 2016 and showed us what to look for when planning for this year.
If you are working with a blank slate and haven’t upgraded to Configuration Manager 1610, you’ll have to download version 1606 because version 1610 has no “Baseline Build”. You might think this is annoying or tedious. While that may be true, you’ll be happy that you did. Why? Well, if you ever have to do a re-install, you will have the files you need to do so. They’re stored in a folder on your local drive called CD.LATEST. You need this copy if you ever have to re-install. Let’s hope you don’t have to, though.
With all these builds, it’s hard to decipher what you need to do to stay supported moving forward.
Configuration Manager Current Branch has a Support Lifecycle that needs upgrading at least once per year to stay supported. (Of course, each release has updates and fixes, but try to update each year.) Take a look at this graph. If you haven’t upgraded since version 1511, you’re out of support. (That’s bad.)
You may not believe it, but moving from one version to the next is actually easier than applying a service pack. You won’t be making monumental changes all at once if you stay current from version to version. This makes the long, tedious upgrade much more palatable. As of December, over 10,000 unique customers are running version 1610. Aren’t you ready to join the ranks?
For more information about upgrading your Configuration Manager, you can find the full webinar here.
