Friday, June 21, 2013

Description of Cumulative Update 2 for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2854009

Microsoft has publicly announced the availably of CU2 for ConfigMgr 2012 Sp1.

I will let you read the information for yourself but it fixes several issues for us.

CU1: Alternate port download for Windows update
CU2: Imaging over Alternate ports and BGB issue when using Custom Websites.

Like Cu1 you will need to have an update to the client pushed as well as an update to the Task Sequence for the client.

One thing I will need to test with this release is the need to repush the Boot.wim.  This would be necessary for the companies running over alternate ports.  It is also a good practice to create new boot media for your machines.

I hope to have this fully tested soon but none of what I have suggested is destructive to your enviroment. 
 

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Console Extension Commands

In previous posts I have detailed different ways to create console extensions.  We have seen in 2003, 2007 and now in 2012, how to pass the parameters.  Here I have listed the commands per the different panels.  While some can be used in others, I have decided to break it down to make it easier to understand where each came from.  In a future post I will tell you how use can use the GUID Extension finder (first made famous by Greg Ramsey) as a way to export the data for each GUID you see here.

AssetManagementNode
##SUB:Name##
##SUB:ResourceType##
##SUB:ResourceID##
##SUB:ThreatName##
##SUB:IsBuiltIn##
##SUB:CollectionID##
##SUB:FeatureType##
##SUB:CategoryName##
##SUB:Description##
##SUB:CommonName##
##SUB:Product##
##SUB:ProductName##
##SUB:LocalizedDescription##
##SUB:IsBroken##
##SUB:IsEnabled##
##SUB:SoftwareName##
##SUB:CollectionName##
##SUB:CI_ID##
##SUB:SettingsID##
##SUB:LocalizedDisplayName##

ConnectedConsole
##SUB:ADSiteName##
##SUB:ForestID##
##SUB:ADSubnetName##
##SUB:CategoryName##
##SUB:Description##
##SUB:CommonName##
##SUB:Name##
##SUB:PackageID##
##SUB:NALType##
##SUB:NALPath##
##SUB:NVD:ConnectedSiteCode##
##SUB:RoleName##
##SUB:FeatureType##
##SUB:AssignmentID##
##SUB:PolicyModelID##
##SUB:StatusType##
##SUB:DTCI##
##SUB:EnforcementState##
##SUB:AppStatusType##
##SUB:ErrorCode##
##SUB:DTResultID##
##SUB:RuleID##
##SUB:RequirementName##
##SUB:CollectionID##
##SUB:Category##
##SUB:Value##
##SUB:GroupID##
##SUB:BoundaryID##
##SUB:USR:ChClientsCondition##
##SUB:ResourceType##
##SUB:ResourceID##
##SUB:DeploymentID##
##SUB:MessageID##
##SUB:IsBuiltIn##
##SUB:SoftwareName##
##SUB:MessageCategory##
##SUB:SummaryType##
##SUB:AssetID##
##SUB:AssetType##
##SUB:ObjectID##
##SUB:ObjectType##
##SUB:CI_ID##
##SUB:ErrorType##
##SUB:Rule_ID##
##SUB:RuleSubState##
##SUB:SiteCode##
##SUB:Type##
##SUB:ComponentName##
##SUB:LocalizedDisplayName##
##SUB:LocalizedDescription##
##SUB:HasContent##
##SUB:IsExpired##
##SUB:ModelName##
##SUB:Technology##
##SUB:CollectionName##
##SUB:ProgramName##
##SUB:ServerName##
##SUB:Drive##
##SUB:Bucket##
##SUB:USR:ClassNameVar##
##SUB:USR:CollectionIDVar##
##SUB:USR:ConditionVar##
##SUB:ThreatName##
##SUB:ID##
##SUB:TypeInstanceID##
##SUB:MemberClassName##
##SUB:IsDirect##
##SUB:CI_UniqueID##
##SUB:IsBroken##
##SUB:IsEnabled##
##SUB:EulaExists##
##SUB:AssignmentName##
##SUB:AssignmentDescription##
##SUB:NV:MonitoringCollectionName##
##SUB:USR:MonitoringStickyQuery##
##SUB:NV:ConnectedSiteCode##
##SUB:USR:NodeName##
##SUB:USR:NodeDesc##
##SUB:NV:AlertSeverityName##
##SUB:USR:Severity##
##SUB:SMSID##
##SUB:Expression##
##SUB:__CLASS##
##SUB:_RoleDescription##
##SUB:USR:SiteCodesCondition##
##SUB:StatusEnforcementState##
##SUB:StatusErrorCode##
##SUB:DeviceID##
##SUB:ThreatID##
##SUB:NVD:ShowSearchTab/False##

ManagementClassDescriptions
##SUB:SiteCode##
##SUB:SiteName##

MonitoringNode
##SUB:Name##
##SUB:ID##
##SUB:Comments##
##SUB:Description##
##SUB:Role##
##SUB:NV:ConnectedSiteCode##
##SUB:ComponentName##
##SUB:NVD:ComponentStatusTallyInterval/0001128000100008##
##SUB:SoftwareName##
##SUB:CollectionName##
##SUB:FeatureType##
##SUB:PrimaryActionType##
##SUB:State##
##SUB:SiteType1##
##SUB:SiteType2##
##SUB:site1##
##SUB:site2##
##SUB:NALPath##
##SUB:WSUSServerName##
##SUB:ThreatName##
##SUB:CollectionID##
##SUB:ThreatID##

SiteConfigurationNode
##SUB:Name##
##SUB:Description##
##SUB:NVD:ConnectedSiteCode##
##SUB:ComponentName##
##SUB:Value##
##SUB:SiteType1##
##SUB:SiteType2##
##SUB:SiteName##
##SUB:NV:ConnectedSiteCode##
##SUB:AddressType##
##SUB:ForestFQDN##
##SUB:ForestID##
##SUB:ServiceCName##
##SUB:Type##
##SUB:NALType##
##SUB:RoleName##
##SUB:_RoleDescription##
##SUB:NALPath##
##SUB:SettingsID##
##SUB:LogonName##
##SUB:IsCovered##
##SUB:IsBuiltIn##
##SUB:CategoryName##
##SUB:UserName##
##SUB:_ItemDescription##
##SUB:IssuedTo##
##SUB:Drive##
##SUB:SourceSiteFQDN##
##SUB:SourceSiteCode##
##SUB:JobName##
##SUB:JobID##

SoftwareLibraryNode
##SUB:LocalizedDisplayName##
##SUB:LocalizedDescription##
##SUB:HasContent##
##SUB:IsExpired##
##SUB:CI_UniqueID##
##SUB:Technology##
##SUB:ModelName##
##SUB:Name##
##SUB:Description##
##SUB:ProgramName##
##SUB:PackageId##
##SUB:FeatureType##
##SUB:Application##
##SUB:Comments##
##SUB:IsReadOnly##
##SUB:InUse##
##SUB:EulaExists##
##SUB:AssignmentName##
##SUB:AssignmentDescription##
##SUB:CI_ID##
##SUB:Version##

Saturday, June 15, 2013

VHD creation for ConfigMgr 2012 R2

Recently Microsoft has been unveiling the enhancements that will be seen in System Center 2012 Configuration Manger.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/system-center-2012-r2-configuration-manager.aspx

The goal of the VHD creation for R2 is to help you with VMM, having a unified approach to image creation.  Now you can update your VHD by simply changing a task sequence.  That's nice but what about the undocumented benifit.

Windows 8 has a hyper-V functionality.  So what?  Well generally you create your Corporate Image and then start pushing to hardware, some might even push it to a hyper-V server to load and allow people to look at.  Well now you can cut testing time by creating a VHD, shoot it over to the VM farm for testing or maybe even just allow Win8 users to pull down the VHD, install it on their machine and run all the testing on their own virtual environment.  While this is happening the Imaging team can also then work on the Hardware drivers and other items necessary for deployment.  Then the real Hardware testing can be done while other are still testing the data portion in a VHD.  Then you have a real world deployment and testing. 

This could, in affect, quicken the testing and deployment of an image utilizing the Win8 and R2 system.  Test Win 8.1 in this manor before sending it out.  This way you don't even need to install it to your machine, you have the corporate image VHD created and apply 8.1 and test your applications.

Thank you Microsoft for allowing the IT professionals an easier way to test and deploy IT standards!!!!

Later we will show this in a Task Sequence.