CCMEXEC.COM – System Center blog

I did a new installation of SCCM 2007 recently and thought I would share the combined hotfixes I install when doing this new installation. The installation was made on Windows 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 and Configuration Manager 2007 R3 was the version I installed. There are a lot of hotfixes which needs to be applied, the following hotfixes are the ones I install and I strongly recommend everyone who are installing SCCM to install:

Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 & R3:

• The Active Directory system discovery process cannot detect a client if the DNS suffix of the client differs from its DNS domain name in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2345551
• You cannot import a driver package into a System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 site if one or more driver files in the package are already imported into the site
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2213600
• Asset Inteligence update, which corrects a number of reports and increases the number of Custom Labels that can be used.
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2263826
• The Distribution Manager that is in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 does not honor the “Number of retries” and “Delay before retrying (minutes)” retry settings
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978021/
• You cannot import a driver into an OSD image if the driver is signed for only the Windows 7 operating system in SCCM 2007 SP2
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978754
• Search paths are not discovered when the Active Directory System Discovery process or the Active Directory User Discovery process runs on a System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 site server
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978757
• The “Backup ConfigMgr Site Server” task fails on a ConfigMgr 2007 site server
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981640
• The handle count and memory usage of Smsexec.exe keeps increasing in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981797
• A System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 site server randomly stops processing status messages
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982399
• The computer associations are not created by the import computer information wizard in SCCM 2007 Service pack 2
  http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=980270
• The “Date modified” attribute for each file is changed after you deploy the files to a client computer by advertising a task sequence from a System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 site server
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2276865
• This article describes the prerequisite hotfix for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977384

Windows 2008 R2:

• The “Win32_Service” WMI class leaks memory in Windows Server 2008 R2 and in Windows 7
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981314

• A memory leak issue occurs in the Windows Management Instrumentation service on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977357

SQL 2008 R2:

• Cumulative Update package 4 for SQL Server 2008 R2. Solves the System Status message error “SMS SRS web service is not running on SRS Reporting server” when everything actually is running fine, but the error message is still being reported.
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2345451

I hope this can be to some help!

Last week I had the great pleasure to deliver the updated 6451B – Planning, Deploying and Managing Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 at Cornerstone in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is a really great course and it was a really great week, thank you everyone who attended!

The new updated “B” version is updated to cover all the new features added in Service Pack 1, Service Pack 2, R2 and R3! All the modules in the course have been updated to cover R2, R3 features and two new modules are added although they are considered optional because there is a lot of information to cover in a week:

• Deploying Virtual Applications Using Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Native Mode and Internet-Based Client Management

Other interesting topics that are covered is:

• Reporting Services
• Unknown computer support
• Software Updates
• Asset Intelligence
• Planning site hierarchies
• And much, much more…

All modules are updated to cover the latest technology for instance the module : “Deploying Operating Systems Using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007″ covers Windows 7 deployment with use of USMT 4 and hard-links.
For more information about the training see:

Cornerstone web-page with a short video of me presenting the training(in Swedish)

http://cornerstone.se/Web/Templates/CoursePage.aspx?id=2524&course=COUR2007121811534708917735&epslanguage=SV

Microsoft Learning

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Course.aspx?ID=6451B#tab1

Some of the challenges I often face when installing/upgrading an application are for instance:

• LAN and WAN links must not be overloaded
• Exclusions must be handled
• A phased roll-out must be used to minimize the risks/performance impact on the WAN

To be able to do a phased installation/upgrade for instance the computer name can be used, for instance collections could be created based on the last number in the computer name, UUID or MAC address as long as it’s spread between sites/departments. Of course many other criteria’s could be used but the computer name is perhaps the most appropriate because it is possible to inform the users that computers with a name ending with 1 and 2 will be upgraded on a specific day. I have created these collection as subcollections to a collection called Rollout, keeping them for themselves makes it easy to reuse them.

Query example:
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.NetbiosName like “%2″ or SMS_R_System.NetbiosName like “%3″

For the roll-out itself I create the following collections:

Upgrade list – computers that should be upgraded are added to this collection, for instance all computer in one of the collections based on computer names, or a specific computer that needs to be upgraded at a specific time because the user is for instance only in the office on Tuesdays. Empty queries which are limited to the Computer Names collections can be used to add computers in each of them, or by direct membership or specific AD-group.

Exclusion List – Computers that shouldn’t have the application upgraded can be placed here. This makes it much easier to add all other computers and have a simple overview of which computers are excluded.

Upgrade – the Collection that the actual upgrade is targeted to with a query that should do the following:

• Include only computers added to the Upgrade list
• Exclude the computers in the Exclusion list
• Hold the query used to select the computers that for instance have Office 2007 installed, if applicable.

The query I use in this example is limited to the “Microsoft Office 2010 Upgrade list” and contains the following query which excludes the computers in the “Microsoft Office 2010 Exclusion List”, “0010007B” should be replaced with the collection ID for the Exclusion list collection.

Query:

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.Active = 1 and SMS_R_System.ResourceId not in (select ResourceID from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_0010007B)

Adding and additional condition to only include computers with Office 2007 Enterprise Edition installed the following query could be added to the query above. It would look as follows in the Query designer, the query can be downloaded here Office_query

I hope this post can inspire you to create a suitable upgrade scenario for your organisation.

For all you not attending TechED 2010 in Berlin, recorded sessions are now available for everyone at http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe

There are many great System Center Session I strongly recommend checking out the following sessions on Configuration Manager 2012:

System Center Configuration Manager V.Next Overview:
http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/MGT203

System Center Configuration Manager V.Next Technical demonstration, Where pre-beta 2 code was used during the demo!!
http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/MGT202-LNC

System Center Configuration Manager v.Next: Application Management:
http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/MGT302

At TechED 2010 in Berlin that the official name for the System Center Configuration Manager V.Next version will be Configuration Manager 2012! The 2012 name will also be shared with other System Center products like, System Center Operations Manager 2012, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012.
I am so excited about these products that I have to share the “Client Management and Security Roadmap” presented at TechED. Next year will be a fantastic year for us System Center Enthusiasts. I am really looking forward to MMS 2011 in Las Vegas, with all these products coming it sure has great potential.

The Configuration Manager 2012 Beta2 TAP program is now open as well for nominations for more information see the blog post from Jeff Wettlaufer
http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2010/11/09/announcing-configuration-manager-v-next-official-name.aspx

Brad Andersson was the keynote speaker on this year’s TechED. Brad started with parallels to the industrial revolution and comparing it to the “technical revolution” we will see today with the introduction of Cloud services. The presentation followed a story of the end user experience.

-Windows Phone, focusing on the new end-user experience of the Windows Phone, enabling users to access their information or services with the use of Windows Phone.

-Windows 7 & Windows 2008 R2 sp1, introducing RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory to lower the cost and enable a much richer end-user experience supporting new Windows 7 features like Aero even when running as a VDI. Great!!  Citrix are also adopting the RemoteFX solution in their products.

-Office 365 beta, online Office and collaboration in the cloud, looks to be a great cloud service.

-Windows Intune, System management in the cloud, available from everywhere for the administrator and makes it possible to manage a client everywhere.

-Forefront End Point Protection RC

-Announcing Hyper-V as a service!

-Virtual Machine Manager 2012CTP, including Server App-V! Server App-V will make it possible to virtualize server applications, making deployment, scaling, managing and resource sharing much easier. I am really looking forward to see some live business cases because the impact would be significant.
The end user self-service portal in Virtual Machine Manager 2012 will be the key component in managing the private cloud.

-Windows Azure, It almost requires its own post, new features launched for Azure include the following: Full IIS Support, VM Role, Server 2008 R2, Virtual Network and more. Fantastic additions to the Azure platform Virtual Network will allow a company to extend their network and service, like for instance Active Directory over the virtual network, enabling single-sign on much more!

-Monitoring Windows Azure, System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 will be extended to handle monitoring of Windows Azure services and applications running in Windows Azure. It will also be possible through the new Management Pack to execute tasks targeting services in Windows Azure.

Conclusion: The cloud is here to stay and will defiantly change the IT services and IT professionals in the future, so start preparing for this change today. Windows Azure will evolve in en accelerated pace, introducing more and more functionality.

Check out the whole keynote online at the following link, a recoding will be available soon: http://europe.msteched.com/

By the way, before the keynote started there was a live demo of the new XBOX 360 Kinetic, it looked great, I will defiantly buy one.!

In some scenarios like demo, test and proof-of-concept environment it is sometimes necessary to install the SCCM DashBoards Solution Accelerator on the SCCM Primary site server itself, which is not recommended in a production environment. The first time I ran this setup I noticed that Windows SharePoint services stops the default website, which SCCM depends on, and installs a default SharePoint site on port 80 instead, which makes the SCCM Site inoperable. As I am no Sharepoint guy it took me a while to get everything up and running, that’s why I thought i would share this guide and hope it save a couple of hours for you.
The default SharePoint site isn’t needed when installing the SCCM Dashboards Solution Accelerator as it creates a new site using port 12345 by default. This step-by-step guide will describe all steps necessary to get this configuration up and running.

To start with I have a completely installed SCCM 2007 SP2/R2 server with SQL 2008 running on Windows Server 2008 R2. Download the correct version of Windows SharePoint services for your platform together with the SCCM Dashboards solution accelerator.

1. Start the installation of Windows SharePoint services 3.02
2. Accept the license agreement.
3. Select Basic installation
4. When the installation is finished, choose the “Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now” option.
   
5. Run the Configuration wizard and accept that the IIS will be restarted.
6. When the configuration wizard is complete, start the “SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration”
7. Select the “Application management” tab, in the menu select “Delete Web Application”
   
8. Select the default web application (in this case HTTP://sccm01)
9. Select yes on both of the options in the delete dialog.
   
10. Confirm the deletion in the next dialog.
11. Then launch IIS Manager and start the default website again, which was stopped by the SharePoint installation. Now the SCCM Site is up and running again and the installation of SCCM Dashboards Solution Accelerator can be started.

Good Hunting!

When upgrading an application one challenge can be that the previous version needs to be uninstalled before the new version is installed. Sometimes there could be more than one previous version that must be uninstalled during the upgrade. In this example we have the following requirements for the upgrade:

1. If present Java 6.20 update 20 must be uninstalled before installing the new version.
2. If present Java 6.20 update 21 must be uninstalled before installing the new version.
3. If Java 6.20 update 21 is installed a reboot is required after the uninstallation.

As the example I posted before on how to use a task sequence to install applications with dependencies, a task sequence is the most efficient way to handle this. This assumes that the packages are created already in SCCM and bot install and uninstall programs exist.

1. Create a custom task sequence
2. Edit the task sequence and add “Install software” steps for all three applications, selecting the uninstall program for the Update 20 and Update 21 applications and the Install program for Update 22.
3. On the Java 6 Update 20 step, select the options tab and add the following conditions:
   1. An If statement, “None”
   2. Select the If statement and add an “Installed Software” condition and browse and open the MSI file for Java 6 Update 20.
   
4. Create a group called Java 6 Update 21, and repeat the condition steps above for that group aswell.
5. In the Newly created group add a “Restart Computer” Task. Note! When adding a “restart task sequence step” the task sequence editor by default selects the option “The boot image assigned to this task sequence” this must be changed to “The currently installed default operating system” otherwise the task sequence will fail.
6. The task sequence should now look like this and you are ready to advertise it and test it out.