New features in Configuration Manager Technical Preview 1803

Close after Configuration Manager 1802 CB we got a new technical preview, 1803!! Some really great stuff in this one some is a result of the Hackathon we did at the MVP Summit in March. What is new then?

PXE boot without the need for WDS and IPV6 support.

This has been around for a while in TP but it was one of the challenges. We no longer need WDS anymore and client OS:s can also be PXE points.

• When I tried it out I had WDS installed already, I had to manually remove the WDS feature and then restart the server to get it to work. I also had to disable and reenable PXE without WDS again to make it work.
• I also selected to not require a password, but I am still prompted for a password on the client when PXE-booting. If you are going to test this out I hope it will save you some time.

Software Center improvements

The possibility to include a web-page in Software center, one of the topics from the hackathon at the MVP Summit. Software Center has gotten a lot of new features lately which is great and this is a great addition.

And the result!

Software center will also show upcoming Maintenance Windows for the client as well. Will be loved by Power Users and IT-staff troubleshooting.

3^rd Party software updates improvements

This one made it to 1802 CB as well. It is a new client setting that lets you enable 3^rd Party updates.

What it does is that it pulls the Codesigning certificate used in SCUP/WSUS for 3^rd party updates and add it to the Trusted Publisher certificate store on the clients that are targeted by the client setting. It also configures the following setting on the clients “Allow signed updates for an intranet Microsoft update service location”.

For the WsyncMgr that is responsible for pulling the certificate from WSUS to be successful the WSUS server must be running HTTPS. After enabling that it worked just fine.

Management Insight

There is a new Management Insight as well for MacOS and Unix clients in the environment.

More features that are new from the article which I haven’t tested: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2018/03/27/update-1803-for-configuration-manager-technical-preview-branch-available-now/

• Pull distribution points support cloud distribution points as source – Now you can set a cloud distribution point as a source for a pull distribution point.
• Partial download support in client peer cache to reduce WAN utilization – Client peer cache sources can now divide content into parts. These parts minimize the network transfer to reduce WAN utilization.
• Enable copy/paste of asset details from monitoring views – You can now enable copy/paste functionality in the asset details pane in deployment and distribution status monitoring views.
• Remote Control – When you are using remote control on a client with multiple monitors at different DPI scaling, the mouse cursor now correctly maps between the monitors.

I urge you all to install the Technical Preview in a lab, it is great fun to test all the new features!