Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500

So we bought a cheap wireless mouse for use on the laptops at home. I bought the 'Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500'

Pro's:

  • Good feedback
  • Nano receiver 
  • Works well
  • Small and light
Con's:

  • Very poor battery life (2 weeks in testing). 
Would I recommend this mouse?  I would have to say 'no' at this stage simply because this mouse will cost you a fortune in batteries. 



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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

SCCM - Joining Collection and Excluding Collections


Say you have a collection of computers in SCCM. Then you have a second collection of computers you wish to exclude.

Easy. Create a third collection based on members of the first collection but exclude members from the second collection.

Using the following query you can accomplish this. Just remember to replace XXXX and YYYY with the correct collections.

select
SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client
from
SMS_R_System
where
SMS_R_System.ResourceId not in (select ResourceID from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_CXXXXXXX)
and SMS_R_System.ResourceId in (select ResourceID from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_CYYYYYYY)

You could also accomplish this with 2 collections.

Create a collection of computers you want to target and also excluding those in a specific collection


SELECT
SMS_R_System.ResourceID,
SMS_R_System.ResourceType,
SMS_R_System.Name,
SMS_R_System.SMSUniqueIdentifier,
SMS_R_System.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,
SMS_R_System.Client
FROM
SMS_R_System
WHERE
Client = 1
and ClientType = 1
and ResourceId not in (select ResourceID from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_XXXXXXXX)



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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Copying files to several USB drives verse copying one drive at a time

I was given the task to prepare X amount of USB drives to hand out to clients. I was thinking about a good  way to approach the preparation of these USB drives.

1. Format the drive
2. Copy the data
3. Verify the data is written to the drive correctly.

I started by copying one drive at a time, this worked but. It works, but takes a long time. In this configuration you are better of using division of labour to get the job done (i.e 3-4 people copying single USB drives at once).

I noticed that copying files to a single USB drive it never consumed the total available bandwidth on the USB bus. This is probably because the memory in the USB drive (about 4 MB /Sec) is slower than the actual USB bus on the computer (USB is 480 Mbits /Sec or about 60 MB/Sec).

So I re-programmed copy2USB application that I created to do 'one to many' at once. This proved to be even more effective. I then was then preparing 4 USB drives at once or in management speak I just quadrupled my productivity.

If you do the math you could probably hook up to about 15 USB drives before you would hit the max transfer limit. I would recommend using SSD as the source drive.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

I like this quote

I found the following quote funny.

"With enough force, any peg will fit in any hole."
Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2012/05/10/10303506.aspx

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Monday, May 14, 2012

Creating a list of Machines capable of power management for SCCM 2007 R3

Over on Technet there is an article stating that to create collection of machines capable of power management you should use the following query
select SMS_R_System.Name, SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion
from  SMS_R_System
inner join SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES
on SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
where (SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.RtcWake = "PowerSystemHibernate"
or SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.RtcWake = "PowerSystemSleeping3"
or SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.RtcWake = "PowerSystemShutdown")
and SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.SystemS3 = 1
and SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.PreferredPMProfile != 2
order by SMS_R_System.Name DESC
I believe there might be a problem in that query..
 SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.PreferredPMProfile != 2
I think refers to the 'preferred power management profile' that is set by the OEM when creating the machine. See here for more info. By using the above query you are actually excluding all mobile type devices (laptops)

The proper query should be

select SMS_R_System.Name, SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion
from  SMS_R_System
inner join SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES
on SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId
where (SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.RtcWake = "PowerSystemHibernate"
or SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.RtcWake = "PowerSystemSleeping3"
or SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.RtcWake = "PowerSystemShutdown")
and SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.SystemS3 = 1
order by SMS_R_System.Name DESC
Bonus query for today.. All computer not capable of power management
select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES on SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId   where SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion like "Microsoft Windows NT Workstation %" and SMS_G_System_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CAPABILITIES. SystemS3 <> 1 
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Wednesday, May 09, 2012

SCCM Distribution error "SMS distribution manager failed to process package" Message ID 2302

I was trying to update a package on a DP (Distribution Point) but the package kept failing with "SMS distribution manager failed to process package" Message ID 2302.  This error was only occurring one distribution point the rest were fine.

Taking a look into the distmgr.log on your SCCM sever showed me where the error was.

This particular package was failing to package up a Thumbs.db file (which it shouldn't be doing anyway) so I went to the source  files and deleted the file Thumbs.db and tried sending out the package again. This time it worked.

More Information:

List of Log Files in Configuration Manager 2007

What is Thumbs.db (windows thumbnail cache)

Other Users have also come across this issue:
MyItForum

I'm thinking about disabling the thumbs.db on the SCCM servers to prevent this from occurring again
Tweaks.com or Social Technet discussion 

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