Observations and stuff I find interesting – mostly about System Center
2012-06-10 Leave a comment
In a previous post I told you about an exciting new feature of MDT 2012 – the ability to integrate Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit. In this post, for those of you who haven’t used this feature before, I’ll show you how to enable it. Read more of this post
2012-06-09 Leave a comment
One of the coolest new features in MDT 2012 is the ability to integrate Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) 7 into the Lite Touch boot images generated on your MDT Deployment share. If you haven’t seen DaRT, it is part of the The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), a suite of technologies available as a subscription for Software Assurance customers. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/mdop/default.aspx.
2011-06-28 Leave a comment
I posted this a few months about, but just a reminder that Microsoft offers you the opportunity to try Configuration Manager 2012 Beta 2 free for 180 days. You don’t have to set up your own test environment, just download the virtual machine, import it into Hyper-V, and have fun getting to know Configuration Manager 2012 with a fully functional server. Download the vhd at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=21054.
2011-01-08 4 Comments
The Microsoft Solution Accelerators team has a great product – the “Microsoft Security Compliance Manager”. One of the problems many of us face is evaluating which systems do, and which do not comply with our corporate expectations. For instance, which systems have invalid firewall configurations, which systems do not have a valid antivirus product installed, or which systems have administrator accounts with non-expiring passwords. Performing compliance audits of workstations or servers has been a bit challenging and Security Compliance Manager (SCM) can help.
2010-08-26 Leave a comment
Configuration Manager provides remarkable troubleshooting log files. Both Configuration Manager servers and Configuration Manager clients log pretty much everything they do, and these log files are a wealth of troubleshooting information. Microsoft maintains a complete List of Log File in Configuration Manager at their technet site. I’ll be posting more about log files soon.
2010-08-23 Leave a comment
Microsoft is providing a fully configured virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 R2 and SCCM v.Next. Just follow the link to download the test VM.
2010-08-23 Leave a comment
Was reading a great how-to article today on Steve Rachui’s Manageability blog. It’s a sample proof of concept only, you would have to tweak it to work the way you want it to, but it has some great potential. Why would you want to drive imaging from the command line? One compelling reason – you don’t want the team responsible for delivering image to have access to the SCCM Console. Users could visit a web page to have an OSD image delivered. Very cool!
You’ll find the whole article at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/steverac/archive/2010/08/23/os-imaging-via-web-page.aspx.
2010-04-22 Leave a comment
As announced, Office 2010 is available today through Technet and MSDN for download. Microsoft Software Assurance clients will be able to access it April 27, according to their official release, folowed by retail availability in early May. Check out http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2010/04/15/office-2010-reaches-rtm.aspx for their announcement.
2010-04-18 Leave a comment
Troubleshooting Configuration Manager task sequences can be challenging. Here are some of the things I have found helpful when things go wrong with Operating System Deployment in Configuration Manager. Read more of this post
2010-04-18 Leave a comment
While troubleshooting an OSD task sequence for a client a few days ago, I stumbled across an excellent PXE workflow document on technet. Check it out at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb693705.aspx
Configuration Manager Team Blog
Yet Another System Center Blog 