Unattended installation of SCCM Admin Console

As we work with System Management of course we must deploy the SCCM Admin Console to our administrative computers automatically by using SCCM, installing it manually is no sport 😉 Many of us use SCCM 2007 R2 and as you all know it must be installed in addition to the SCCM admin console to enable the features included in R2, for instance Reporting Services reports and unknown computer support. Therefore I used a Task Sequence to install both SCCM 2007 SP2 admin console and R2, if you use other snap-ins they can of course be added to the task sequence after R2 is installed.

To do an unattended installation of the SCCM admin console an unattended answer file is needed; the following lines are needed, modify the “Parentsiteserver” and “SDKServer” to fit your environment.

[Identification]

Action=InstallAdminUI

[Options]

SMSInstallDir=c:\program files\Configuration Manager 2007

ParentSiteServer=SCCM1

SDKServer=SCCM1

I also use a vbscript to install the admin console, the script will use the path to the script and add it to the path to the unattend.ini file, it can be downloaded using the link in the description below.

This step-by-step guide will help you to start deploying the SCCM admin console using SCCM:

1. Copy the SMSSetup folder from the SCCM 2007 SP2 CD and create a new folder in your package source directory share which can be used as Source Directory.
2. Add the two files from the zip-file to the newly created folder containing the content from the SMSSetup folder. One wrapper script used for the installation and the unattend.ini file displayed above, after copying them edit the unattend.ini with your server name. The files can be downloaded https://ccmexec.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/install.zip
   It will look like this in the source file folder:
   
3. Create a package of the SCCM 2007 SP2 setup and a program with the command-line “install.vbs”.
4. On the Advanced tab for the program make sure to tick the “Allow this program to be installed from the Install Software task sequence without being advertised” option.
   
5. Copy the entire SCCM 2007 R2 CD content a new folder in you package source directory.
6. Create a package and program for the SCCM 2007 R2 CD, you can use the import function and import the “CONFIGMGR2007R2.MSI” otherwise use the following command-line: “Msiexec /i CONFIGMGR2007R2.MSI /qn”
7. On the Advanced tab for the program make sure to tick the “Allow this program to be installed from the Install Software task sequence without being advertised” option.
   
8. Now you should have two package in you SCCM Console.
   
9. Create a new Custom task sequence and name for instance “SCCM 2007 sp2 Console” or according to your naming convention.
10. Open the newly created Task Sequence and add two “Install Software” Steps one for each program created.

Create a collection, advertise the task sequence, install and enjoy

Note: This will work on Windows Vista, windows 7, windows 2008x but if you are using Windows XP make sure that all the pre-requirements are in place before installing the admin console.