A highlight of every month is when a new Configuration Manager Technical Preview is out! Always extremely fun to see and test out new features that is coming, some can be directly from a Uservoice suggestions.
There are some amazing gems in MEMCM 2104 Technical Preview release! Cloud attach improvements, console improvements and last but not least CMTrace has picked up speed and is now Turbo-Charged! I have recorded some short videos of my favorite features.
News in Tenant Attach
Tenant attach got two new great features in this Technical Preview, BitLocker recovery keys and historical inventory data in resource explorer. Both features are simply great.
Historical inventory data in resource explorer:
Historical inventory data is built on one of the core feature in Configuration Manager where we can see what has changed on a computer from date to date. Now in Tenant attach as well!
BitLocker recovery keys:
Being able to access the BitLocker recovery keys in the Intune portal is a great addition and value add as Servicedesk staff has one less portal to go to. It will mark the key as used and the device will rotate the key on the next sync. Here is a little short video on how it looks.
Software Update actions from the monitoring node
This one is easy to look past as the Tenant attach features are great but this is one of those fairly “simple” change that will be extremely appreciated by all admins. When looking at deployment status of a Software Update we can now initiate an action to Evaluate Software updates deployments on the devices. A real timesaver!
CMTrace – Turbo charge
I did not record a video of CMTrace but the speed it has gained is great! much much faster (yes, I will grab CMTrace.exe from my TP and use it ASAP!) Again a really small but useful feature that will again save time and stress when waiting for the log file to load. A 15MB log file, maybe a bit extreme but still, the new CMTrace took 8 seconds the old 32 seconds.
Other features:
There are more improvements that I haven’t covered but check out the official docs from more information. You can also do as I do, Install Technical Preview try it out and provide feedback!
– Tenant attach: Offboarding
– Support layered keyboard driver during OS deployment
– Improvements to Support Center
For more information on the other new features check out the official docs. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/get-started/2021/technical-preview-2104
Summary, I would like to see Scope tags on Tenant attached devices as they will always show up in the Intune console even if I don’t have permissions to manage them.
My favorite Technical Preview feature is still Remote Control over CMG – Remote Control over CMG MEMCM TP 2009 – First look – CCMEXEC.COM – Enterprise Mobility Let’s hope we see it in Current branch soon!