How to Use RegKeyToMof

If you need to extend of the inventory of your SCCM in 2007/2102 I found this article and this tool very handy. I am able to capture registry keys into the SCCM hardware inventory with ease.

How to Use RegKeyToMof:

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How to detect Lenovo models and drivers with Task Sequences | Laurie Rhodes' Info

The below post seems to be quite a long winded way to do a simple WMI filter. This is the way I would do it.

How to detect Lenovo models and drivers with Task Sequences | Laurie Rhodes' Info: "d each driver injection is conditional to only run with known Machine Types."



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Why you shouldn't use the Powershell pipe when using ConfigMgr

Why you shouldn't use the Powershell pipe when using ConfigMgr:



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WSUS breaks after applying KB2720211

After applying this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2720211 our WSUS broke down.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/e918a191-ef6d-4c4b-b83a-7a4ae20a5217/wsus-30-sp2-will-not-run-after-installing-update-2720211?forum=winserverwsus

If you come across this issue the above link may assist with fixing the issue.

"D/L offline 2720211 installer
change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Update Services\Server\Setup\wYukonInstalled from 1 to 0 
install update again 
reboot 
change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Update Services\Server\Setup\wYukonInstalled from 0 to 1 
reboot 
install update AGAIN"

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Systems Centre Endpoint Protection Exclusion Gotchas

http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenterpfe/archive/2012/11/29/system-center-2012-configuration-manager-antivirus-exclusions.aspx

Just be aware that if you use the inbuilt templates to configure SCEP exclusions the XML's assume that you have installed the products in their default locations.. I in our case we install most products elsewhere apart from the default installation directories.

It's easy enough to create a copy of the XML and use powershell or notepad's find and replace to update the XML to point to the correct locations.

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Top Console User not reporting in SCCM

Recently came across an issue where Top Console User was not being uploaded to SCCM

Fix:
Be aware if you configure any Advanced Security Policies in GPO for clients this will stop any simple Security policies settings from applying  to clients. Use one or the other not both as they don't like to co-exist.

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HDD unbootable after softboot - Lenovo X230 Laptop

Problem:
If you find your HDD unbootable after softbooting ( windows reboot, task sequence reboot) on the Lenovo
X230 model laptop.

Workaround:
Cold boot the laptop (Power off/on)

Fix:
Make sure you are running the latest BIOS
http://support.lenovo.com/en_AU/research/hints-or-tips/detail.page?&DocID=HT073834


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How to restart the task sequence wizard in WINPE without having to reboot

If you make a mistake and cancel out the task sequence wizard in WinPE you can restart it without rebooting. Keep in mind this won't work everytime as it depends on where you failed your task sequence

TsBootShell.exe

To find it you might need to goto to the root of your WinPE drive and type

DIR TsBootShell.exe /s

It will normally be found in

X:\sms\bin\i386

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Source Version mismatches and WDS breaking ERROR 1067

If you WDS service starts failing with Error 1067. You probably have corrupt WIM in you distribution point. If removing the package doesn't fix the issue you may have a stuck distribution on the DP.

Check out how we fixed this issue;

http://joejoeinc.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/sms-despooler-failed-to-merge-delta-to.html


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Download Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Configuration Manager - Clients for Additional Operating Systems from Official Microsoft Download Center

SCCM 2012 now supports Mac and Unix Computers/Clients.

The following scenarios are supported through the Mac client in Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1: 

• Discovery – Discovers Mac OS X system in Active Directory and through network discovery
• Hardware Inventory – Provides hardware inventory and auditing of computers running Mac OS X, including a list of installed software similar to add/remove programs for Windows systems.
• Settings Management – Ensures computers running Mac OS X comply with company policies using scripts and preference list management.
• Application Deployment – Distributes required software via app model.
• Software Updates Management – Distributes patches utilizing Software Distribution and Settings management features.

The following scenarios are supported by the UNIX and Linux clients: 

• Hardware Inventory - Hardware inventory can be viewed through Resource Explorer and can be used to create collections of UNIX and Linux computers.
• Software Inventory - Through hardware inventory the list of natively installed software can be gathered from the UNIX and Linux computers - similar to add/remove programs for Windows systems.
• Software Distribution - Deploy new software, update existing software and apply OS patches to collections of UNIX/Linux computers (using a package and program). Run arbitrary maintenance scripts on a collection of UNIX/Linux servers.
• Secure and Authenticated Communications
• Consolidated Reports

Download Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Configuration Manager - Clients for Additional Operating Systems from Official Microsoft Download Center:

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Create SCCM Collection of SCCM Servers

Query is: 

Select * from  SMS_R_System where SMS_R_System.Name in (select distinct ServerName from SMS_SystemResourceList)

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SMS Despooler failed to merge delta to the compressed package: Error 1 Incorrect Fucntion

So I was happily adding some new drivers to a boot.wim and then tried to send the changes out to my distribution points. That's when the following error started occurring.

SMS Despooler failed to merge delta to the compressed package "C0100112". The operating system reported error 1: Incorrect function.
Possible cause: The destination drive is full.
Solution: Make more space available on that drive. SMS Despooler will attempt to merge the delta again during its next retry interval

I then see that the Source Version numbers on the package in the primary site is something like 13 and the rest are on version 7. Looks like a version mismatch to me.

First step.
- Turned off 'Enable binary differential replication'
- Deleted the WIM from all DP's

This didn't fix the issue.

I then looked in the distmgr.log file on the DP and found the following.

Package XXXXXXX requires a newer version (10) of source files and the new compressed files haven't arrived yet, current version is 7, skip X:\ConfigXXX\inboxes\distmgr.box\INCOMING\XXXXXXX.PKG

This tells me something has gone wrong or is stuck when SCCM tried to distribute the package. A call to PSS later and yes we found that the SCCM had stuffed up the Source Version for the packageID and to fix this we needed to modify the SCCM database directly.


http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/configmgrswdist/thread/a6bb710c-91d6-4d34-b132-9c948e7c9d2b

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrswdist/thread/312d86e3-e793-4147-97a7-7785295e4986/

Update for Feb 2013:

The way we determined  that we had a source version mismatch was looking at the 'Package Status' for the package the primary SCCM had a package version of #4 and the rest of the distribution points had a version of #3

You can also verify this by looking directly at the PKGSTATUS table in SCCM SQL DB. by executing the following select statement

select * from PkgStatus where pkgstatus.ID = 'PACKAGEID' 

Replace PACKAGEID with the PackageID of the package.

The way we actually fixed the version mismatch was to login to primary database for SCCM and set the source version for package back to '0' and the status to '2'. Doing this tells SCCM that this package is a brand new package that has not been sent to any DP.

The way to update the SourceVersion and Status for Package in SCCM is to open SQL management studio and connect to the primary SCCM SQL DB.

Then execute the following query/statement to backup the PKGSTATUS table into a new table called dbo.pkgstatus_BU;

select * into dbo.pkgstatus_BU from dbo.PkgStatus

Then do an update statement to reset the SourceVersion and Status.

UPDATE PkgStatus SET SourceVersion = 0, Status = 2 WHERE Id = 'PACKAGEID' and PkgServer = 'SCCMSERVERNAME'

Replace PACKAGEID with the PackageID of the package you want to reset.
Replace SCCMSERVERNAME with the comptuername of the SCCM Distibution point server you want row you want to update.

You will need to execute the statement for every DP that has the wrong SourceVersion as compared to the primary.

WARNING: If you don't know what you are doing in SQL call Microsoft PSS for guidance before updating SQL databases because if you break your SCCM SQL DB because of something you read on the internet it's probably not going to be covered by warranty.

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Failed to find CCM_SoftwareDistribution object for AdvertID="XXXXXX", PackageID="YYYYYYY", ProgramID="*"

I packaged a driver for an OSD deployment. When we went to test the OSD deployment the task sequence would fail with the error "Unable to find task sequence dependencies"

Looking at the SMSTS.log file I see this line

Failed to find CCM_SoftwareDistribution object for AdvertID="XXXXXX", PackageID="YYYYYYY", ProgramID="*"

This link identified the correct issue but failed to resolve the problem
http://managedux.com/2011/06/17/failed-to-resolve-selected-task-sequence-dependencies-code0x80040104-or-failed-to-find-ccm_softwaredistribution-object-for-an-osd-driver-package-that-is-on-a-distribution-point/

To solve the problem I deleted the driver package and recreate a new driver package. This then allowed the task sequence to work.

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Will a mandatory assignment re-run if I change the program command line?

Say you completed a mandatory deployment of an application to your environment. Now you want to change the command line it runs without causing it to re-run on all computers. Can this be done?

Yes.

When the configmgr program ran on the PC it put a flag in the execution history that the package ID was successfully run on that PC. This execution history is based on the Package ID and the 'program name' that it ran. It is not based on the actual 'command line' it executed.

Changing the program command line for an existing package will not cause the program  to re-run on clients that have already successfully completed mandatory program.

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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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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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Running multiple commands in SCCM ‘Run Command Line’ Task Sequence step from Danovich.com.au

Danovich shows you how you can run multiple commands from the one 'run command line' step in a task sequence.

Running multiple commands in SCCM ‘Run Command Line’ Task Sequence step

ConfigMgr 2007: How to inventory mapped drives - The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Thanks J.C for this write up.

ConfigMgr 2007: How to inventory mapped drives - The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs:

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Allow the user to postpone installation in SCCM - CCMEXEC.COM – System Center blog

A fellow SCCM guru "Jörgen Nilsson" posted as method that allows your users to postpone application deployments allowing your users to choose a better time to install software.

Allow the user to postpone installation in SCCM - CCMEXEC.COM – System Center blog:

I can see how this script is intended to work and i believe would work fairly well (haven't had a chance to test it).

The only issue I see is that when a user postpones the installation it will continue to run the postpone script in the background which is being run from a SCCM package. While the script is running in the background it will hold up some other SCCM Packages until the user accepts and finish's the current deployment packages. This is be design in SCCM so you don't end up trying to run two installations at once.

I'm all for giving users a better way to manage how they want to use workstations.

One thing to remember however long you set the script to postpone for you must also allow in the SCCM > Program settings more time for the program to run. otherwise your program will exit before the script had finished running.

I see the above issue as a very minor issue as the benefits of the script far out way the negatives impacts, so good work Jorgen. Keep it up.

Joining two or more collections into a new collection

Use the below code to create a new SCCM 'Collection' using the members of other one or more other collections.

- Create new collection
- Use a 'Query' to define the Membership Rules
- Use system resources
- Use the below SQL code to define the members.

Change the XXXXXXX to the Collection ID you want.

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 in (select ResourceId from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_XXXXXXX) or SMS_R_System.ResourceId in (select ResourceId from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_XXXXXXX)

Boom! your new collection is now populated with the members of other collections.