Blog about Configuration Manager VNext and win!

Microsoft is offering prizes for blogging about ConfigMgr Vnext.

"Each month, you will have a chance to win an exclusive System Center branded high-def Flip-Mino 2nd Generation camcorder, which will enable you to easily create and post videos to any website. In addition, each monthly winner will be entered into a drawing at the end of the competition for a pass to the Microsoft Management Summit for 2011."


http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/configuration-manager/cm-contest.aspx

Configmgr VHD R2 refresh

The VHD for ConfigMgr R2 has been refreshed (7/22/10)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0fadab7-0620-481d-a8b6-070001727c56&displaylang=en

It will expire November 26, 2011.

Windows Intune

For those that are familiar with the Cloud Computing innovative, Microsoft is placing the ability to manage a computer into the cloud. Much like Configuration Manager but in the cloud. Now Microsoft can handle your hardware and you can work on the managment side. This is nice for the company that has 50 people and they are in 3 different cities. No longer do you need to setup a System Center Essentials server or use another program that requires servers and licenses you might need. With Intune you can manage the machines from anywhere. This is great for the small companies or consultants that need to manage several small companies

http://www.microsoft.com/online/windows-intune.mspx

The open Beta #2 was released last week. When the first beta was annouced it filled up in less than a day if I recall correctly. Here is your chance to test drive this nice application. You will need to manage at least 5 machine but you cannot manage more than 25 via this beta.

MMS 2011 call for sessions

Based on the previous years I would hope to see the call for sessions soon. Because the event will be one month earlier I would expect the call for sessions to be as well. Generally they are open around thanks giving and closed mid December. Then early January you would hear about the results. With MMS in March I would expect that we will hear between the middle of October to the first week in November. I will update this post and my blog as soon as the call goes out. If you have presented before you should receive a private invitation and code that will allow you to re-register. This code is for you and not the general public. Much like the alum registration code, it is strictly for that person and selected group.

I would expect to see many seasons on V.Next and I hope to many familiar faces presenting again. I liked the presentations presented by the Microsoft Product team. It puts a real face with a "group" or "product." Microsoft personnel, while, very busy, are people and approachable. I think the Configuration Manager product group feels like open family. I can't say much about the other product groups because I don't attend other kinds of conferences nor do I interface with them.

Keep up the good work!

ConfigMgr site from Eval to Production

This question comes up in the forums frequently. Most people ask. I have setup a ConfigMgr server and I like it, how can I move this to production. If you have search the forums and docs then you see many people have done it. Here is the supporting Microsoft Docs
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb693584.aspx

By simply doing an in place upgrade on the site it will pull in your Key and other info and change the site to a production version. It isn't a quick install. Depending on how complex you have setup on the server it might take an hour or more.

I recently ran into this when another IT Admin called me and ask me to look at his site. The server patched at 3AM and when he checked it the next morning there were some errors and the Site wouldn't attach to the database. Well I have seen several errors like this so I headed on over. I looked at the log and found the one error you don't really expect to see in the Event log. "You 180 Evaluation of Configuration Manager has come to an end" It just so happened to have done this just after the patches were installed. So 5 mins to find the problem. About 1 hour or more waiting for the upgrade to occur. The person who had setup the site had left and the current admin didn't know that the site was an Eval. We put in the licensed CD for ConfigMgr and told it to upgrade the site. After a while of watching progress bars the site wanted a restart and then we check and it was all happy. The admin was grateful for my assistance and I admit that this was the first time I personally had ever performed an Eval to production move. I think if I wasn't there he might have formatted and started over. He is just now getting into ConfigMgr and is not an expert, nor is that is only job area. If you don't spend you life in ConfigMgr like I do then you are greatfull to the ones that do.

When the problem looks like the world is coming to an end, ask another IT person, forum, phone, directly. No one can learn unless you ask, and failing is the only way to truly learn. I know I have failed and stumbled many times. It is a part of life and no one should be too proud to say, "I don't know how to do that.". Especially in IT. I had no idea how to do a Pivot table until someone asked me to show them how. I told them I didn't know but I would look it up and figure it out and we can both work on it.

Have a good evening.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 is now supported on Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 and SP2 and Configuration Manager 2007 R2

In case you missed the June annoucements from Microsoft regarding Configuration Manager 2007, SQL 2008 R2 is now supported for your enviroment.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2010/06/30/configuration-manager-support-announcements-for-june-2010.aspx

User migration for Windows 7

Recently I tested the Viewfinity user migration tool. There are many ways to do user migration. USMT integrated with ConfigMgr is just one of them and can be performed at the time of imaging. What if you need to do it in a different time span. Back up the files on Thursday and then Deploy the new machine on Monday but no one knows exactly who is getting which computer. The Viewfinity migration tool uses USMT a bit differently, it allows you to set a time frame for the capture and then places that migration in the hands of the users, not the admins. The admins do control what content can be captured and where it it is stored.

I was very impressed with the product. It definitely made profile migration a breeze! It was a big time saver. The Viewfinity User Migration application is great tool with potential to create a seamless and effortless migration of user files and settings between Windows XP and Windows 7. The advantage over other products is the lack of application installation required on the host or target machines as well as the ability to put the time frame for migration of data into the hands of the users.

If you get the chance go over to the website and look at the demo and download a trial version.
http://www.viewfinity.com/Products/UserMigration/Default.aspx

You may see my full review here:
http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/MVPReviews/MVPMigrationReviewerSummary.pdf

My review was performed as and independent admin/MVP and not as my employeer/company.

Adobe Updates on x64

I will go back and modify my script on this blog and my http://www.sccm-tools.com/ website later today but I wanted to post because people have asked me about my script and x64 machines.
I have several posts http://sms-hints-tricks.blogspot.com/2009/05/deploy-adobe-acrobat-updates.html on how to deploy the adobe updates in a single VBscript file that makes life easy. Again this for those that don't have an Administrative install point or some other method for patching Adobe.

So you need to check the registry to determine what version of Adobe Reader/Pro is install so you know which patch to install. The problem is the 64bit machines will store this in the Wow64 section since it isn't a 64bit app. Here is the trick for your machine.

By looking in WMI we can determine if the machine is a 32bit machine or 64bit machine. This data is in several places in WMI. Here is just one example.

Adobe 9 Professional
---------------------------------------
Dim objShell, RegLocate
Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
On error resume next


'determine if this is a 64bit machine

Set Wmi = GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\CIMV2")
Set Col = Wmi.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_Processor")
For Each Obj in Col
MachineType= Obj.AddressWidth
next

if MachineType=32 then
Dim sngVersion
'''' Adobe 9.0.0
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.0.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcroPro-std9.1.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if


'''' Adobe 9.1.0
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p Adobe_9.1.2_pro.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if


'''' Adobe 9.1.1
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.1" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p Adobe_9.1.2_pro.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.1.3
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.2" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd913_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.3" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd920_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.2.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd930_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.3.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.3.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd932_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.3.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.3.1" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd932_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.3.3
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.3.2" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd933_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if


else ' MachineType=64


'''' Adobe 9.0.0
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.0.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcroPro-std9.1.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if


'''' Adobe 9.1.0
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p Adobe_9.1.2_pro.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if


'''' Adobe 9.1.1
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.1" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p Adobe_9.1.2_pro.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.1.3
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.2" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd913_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.1.3" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd920_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.2.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd930_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.3.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.3.0" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd932_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.3.2
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.3.1" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd932_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if

'''' Adobe 9.3.3
sngVersion = objShell.RegRead ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-000000000004}\DisplayVersion")
if sngVersion="9.3.2" then
objShell.run "msiexec /p AcrobatUpd933_all_incr.msp /qb /norestart", 0, True
end if
end if
WScript.Quit
------------------------------------------

The nice trick about this is you don't need to create a seperate program or package for the 64bit machines. You simply modify the vbscript/batch/cmd file you use to deploy your application. I admit there are good reasons for seperating this. We have some advertisments that have a program for 64bit and some for 32 but in this instance it is easy to send it all machines and allow the program to determine the best course.

MMS 2011

It occured to me that we should be hearing about MMS 2011 and such.

Well if you attended last year you hear that is going to Mandalay bay. Well every week since June 1st, I started doing DNS lookups to see if Microsoft has the site up. They do!!!


Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas
March 21 - 25 2011

http://www.mms-2011.com/

Start making plans and if you want to present stay tuned for the public call for sessions.