Articles

Wiki Page: Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #5 MDT 2012

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:41:00 GMT

Here's a quick guide to installing MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta 1. There isn't much to the installation itself, and is intuitive enough not to need a guide but due to the two-step installation approach I thought I'd cover it, and the guide should apply to the final release.

Grab MDT 2012 Update 1 Beta 1 here

Installing MDT 2012

Select Next

Click I accept the terms in the License Agreement and Select Next

Change the Path if needed then Select Next

Non-corporate labs I always let this this happen, if you're on a corporate network policy will dictate whether you can do this for lab or production systems. Select Next

Select Install

Select Finish to complete the installation, really easy.

MDT 2012 will now show the Start Menu now

Integrating MDT 2012 into the ConfigMgr 2012 Site server

Before you can begin using MDT 2012 you'll need to integrate it with the ConfigMgr Site server.

To do this simply launch the Configure ConfigMgr Intergration wizard:

Enter your Site server name and Site code then Select Next

Select Finish to complete the integration, that easy!

If you want to automate the integration the only way I've found is to reproduce the steps the wizard goes through.

To get the files needed just install MDT 2012 and integrate it once, the MDT 2012 wizards confirmation page shows what it did and using the creation date of the files you can track down what was deployed.

Add the files needed to the ConfigMgr Console folder

Add the following to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\bin

Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll

Microsoft.BDD.CM12Wizards.dll

Microsoft.BDD.ConfigManager.dll

Microsoft.BDD.Core.dll

Microsoft.BDD.PSSnapIn.dll

Microsoft.BDD.Workbench.dll

Add the following to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\XmlStorage\Extensions\Actions

b0b9625f-7afe-409e-9b65-5cb973a82a2c (folder)

Microsoft.BDD.SCCM_CreateBootImage

f428b123-4f99-49eb-babd-40fd3eb6ac4f (folder)

Microsoft.BDD.SCCM_ImportTaskSequence

Add the following to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\XmlStorage\Extensions\Forms

Microsoft.BDD.SCCM_CreateBootImage

Microsoft.BDD.SCCM_ImportTaskSequence

Generate the MOF File

Call the MOF file Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.mof, replace SITECODE with your site servers site code and SERVERNAME with your site servers FQDN:

#pragma namespace("\\\\SERVERNAME\\root\\sms\\site_SITECODE")

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run:%1 cscript.exe Scripts\\ZTISCCM.wsf"),

ActionCategory("MDT,1,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionBDDPackage", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionBDDPackage"},

VariablePrefix("BDD")

]

class BDD_UsePackage : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

[TaskSequencePackage, CommandLineArg(1)]

string PackageID;

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run:%1 cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIGather.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,2,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionGather", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionGather"}

]

class BDD_Gather : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

boolean GatherLocalOnly = false;

string RulesFile;

[TaskSequencePackage, CommandLineArg(1)]

string PackageID;

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIValidate.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,3,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionValidate", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionValidate"}

]

class BDD_Validate : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

uint32 ImageMemory = 512;

uint32 ImageProcessorSpeed = 800;

uint32 ImageSize;

string VerifyOS = "CLIENT";

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIOSRole.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,4,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionInstallRoles", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionInstallRoles"}

]

class BDD_InstallRoles : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

uint32 OSRoleIndex;

string OSRoles[];

string OSRoleServices[];

string OSFeatures[];

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIOSRole.wsf\" /uninstall"),

ActionCategory("MDT,5,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionInstallRoles", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionUninstallRoles"}

]

class BDD_UninstallRoles : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

uint32 OSRoleIndex;

boolean CompletelyRemove = false;

string UninstallOSRoles[];

string UninstallOSRoleServices[];

string UninstallOSFeatures[];

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIConfigureADDS.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,6,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionConfigureADDS", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionConfigureADDS"}

]

class BDD_ConfigureADDS : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

string ReplicaOrNewDomain = "Domain";

string NewDomain = "Forest";

string NewDomainDNSName = "";

string ParentDomainDNSName = "";

string ReplicaDomainDNSName = "";

string ChildName = "";

string DomainNetBiosName = "";

string ForestLevel = "2";

string DomainLevel = "2";

string AutoConfigDNS = "No";

string ConfirmGC = "Yes";

string CriticalReplicationOnly = "No";

string ADDSUserName = "";

string ADDSUserDomain = "";

string ADDSPassword = "";

string ReplicationSourceDC = "";

string DatabasePath = "%systemroot%\\NTDS";

string ADDSLogPath = "%systemroot%\\NTDS";

string SysVolPath = "%systemroot%\\SYSVOL";

string SafeModeAdminPassword = "";

string SiteName = "";

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

class BDD_DNSZones

{

string Name;

string Type;

string MasterIP;

string DirectoryPartition;

string FileName;

boolean Scavenge;

sint32 Update;

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIConfigureDNS.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,7,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionConfigureDNS", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionConfigureDNS"}

]

class BDD_ConfigureDNS : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

boolean DNSServerOptionDisableRecursion = "false";

boolean DNSServerOptionBINDSecondaries = "false";

boolean DNSServerOptionFailOnLoad = "false";

boolean DNSServerOptionEnableRoundRobin = "true";

boolean DNSServerOptionEnableNetmaskOrdering = "true";

boolean DNSServerOptionEnableSecureCache = "true";

sint32 DNSServerOptionNameCheckFlag = 3;

BDD_DNSZones DNSZones[];

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

class BDD_DHCPScopes

{

string SubnetMask;

string IP;

string Name;

string Description;

string StartIP;

string EndIP;

string ExcludeStartIP;

string ExcludeEndIP;

string OptionRouter;

string OptionDNSServer;

string OptionWINSServer;

string OptionDNSDomainName;

string OptionNBTNodeType;

string OptionLease;

string OptionPXEClient;

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIConfigureDHCP.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,8,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionConfigureDHCP", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionConfigureDHCP"}

]

class BDD_ConfigureDHCP : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

string DHCPServerOptionRouter;

string DHCPServerOptionDNSServer;

string DHCPServerOptionWINSServer;

string DHCPServerOptionDNSDomainName;

string DHCPServerOptionNBTNodeType;

string DHCPServerOptionPXEClient;

BDD_DHCPScopes DHCPScopes[];

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run:%1 cscript.exe %DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIPatches.wsf"),

ActionCategory("MDT,9,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionInstallUpdatesOffline", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionInstallUpdatesOffline"}

]

class BDD_InstallUpdatesOffline : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

[TaskSequencePackage, CommandLineArg(1)]

string PackageID;

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run:%1 cscript.exe %DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIPatches.wsf"),

ActionCategory("MDT,10,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionInstallLanguagePacks", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionInstallLanguagePacksOffline"}

]

class BDD_InstallLanguagePacksOffline : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

[TaskSequencePackage, CommandLineArg(1)]

string PackageID;

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPE";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run:%1 cscript.exe %DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTILangPacksOnline.wsf"),

ActionCategory("MDT,11,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionInstallLanguagePacks", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionInstallLanguagePacksOnline"}

]

class BDD_InstallLanguagePacksOnline : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

[TaskSequencePackage, CommandLineArg(1)]

string PackageID;

string SupportedEnvironment = "FullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run:%1 cscript.exe %DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIPowerShell.wsf"),

ActionCategory("MDT,12,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionRunPowerShell", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionRunPowerShell"}

]

class BDD_RunPowerShellAction : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

string ScriptName;

string Parameters;

[TaskSequencePackage, CommandLineArg(1)]

string PackageID;

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

[ CommandLine("smsswd.exe /run: cscript.exe \"%DeployRoot%\\Scripts\\ZTIExecuteRunbook.wsf\""),

ActionCategory("MDT,13,7"),

ActionUI{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions", "ActionExecuteRunbook", "ActionOptions"},

ActionName{"Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.dll", "Microsoft.BDD.Actions.Resources", "ActionExecuteRunbook"}

]

class BDD_ExecuteRunbook : SMS_TaskSequence_Action

{

string OrchestratorServer;

string RunbookID;

string RunbookName;

string RunbookParameterMode;

BDD_RunbookParameters RunbookParameters[];

string RunbookServer;

boolean WaitUntilComplete = "true";

string SupportedEnvironment = "WinPEandFullOS";

};

class BDD_RunbookParameters

{

string ParameterID;

string ParameterName;

string ParameterValue;

};

Compile the integration MOF file

Open a CMD prompt, navigate to the MOF fie and run the following command:

MOFCOMP Microsoft.BDD.CM12Actions.mof

That'll get MDT installed and integrated into your Site server.

To confirm that the manual steps have been performed correctly, rerun the wizard and you'll see that it recognises that MDT 2012 is registered and offers you the option to remove it.

Wiki Page: Rob Marshall - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Lab Guides

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:00 GMT

Welcome to my System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Lab Guides

I'm Rob Marshall, a Configuration Manager MVP and I really dig this product. It has to be the best System Management product out there, and being one of the core pillars of the System Center product range from Microsoft, it is just plain awesome how much ground it can cover in a company on its own or in partnership with the other products in the System Center suite.

I plan to complete three series for ConfigMgr 2012, and as I create each article for the series I'll add it to the series guide below.

I create these guides to help both those seeking to evaluate the ConfigMgr 2012 product, and those that would like to develop their knowledge and refine their break\fix skills with the product.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, point out things I've done wrong or to praise my awesome screenshotting skills.

ConfigMgr 2012 Building and Preparing the Lab

Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #1 The Lab

Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - CAS - #2 Do I need one

Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager– #3 Setting up the CAS

Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #4 Setting up the Primary

Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #5 MDT 2012

Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #6 CMTrace

ConfigMgr 2012 Features

Not there yet!

ConfigMgr 2012 Deep Geek

Not there yet!

ConfigMgr 2012 Break\Fix Warrior

Not there yet!

Wiki Page: Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #1 The Lab

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:00 GMT

This guide kicks off my tour of System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, and we begin with the foundation of your testing platform, the lab hardware.

Now the SC12CM product, along with the OS, IIS and SQL requirements, is hugely memory and CPU hungry. The more hardware you can throw at these puppies, the better they will perform. Yep I know, the relationship between software performance and hardware has always been there, but today, we have a far more scalable product that really does take advantage of the hardware it is sitting on; The more memory, CPU and fast disk you can throw at it, the larger the scale of your Client base can be, although there are recommended limits from Microsoft, the more hardcore your server hardware, the better.

Memory

Put a large chunk of your cash into memory, for not just obvious reasons such as being able to give your VM’s more memory, but so that you can have more in-memory, and add in more VM’s when needed without having to shuffle things around by turning others off or just lowering existing VM’s memory allocations.

CPU

If you buy something like an reasonably high end Intel i7, and a decent motherboard, your CPU shouldn’t be the bottle neck in your lab

Disks

I have two Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB drives which I have placed in a couple of configurations, starting with the Windows Server 8 Storage Pool feature, and then using Hardware RAID.

These are not the best for performance, but they are cheap in the UK at the moment, and suited for the lab. They should have an extended life-time from switching off when not in use. Eventually I might replace them, but to be honest if I'm looking for bang for bucks I'll be heading to the SAS drives.

Windows 8 Storage Pools

If you've followed the development of NT you'll recall the ability to create Software RAID for quite some time, and when Windows 8 arrived with a feature that sounded very much the same. I was put off from using it initially, but after reading that this time the implementation is different and it is suppose to perform well I thought I'd take it out for a drive so set my system up as below:

Which gives me 3.64GB of fast and cheap disk to store my VMs on

I didn't keep this setup. I switched to Hardware RAID as it just wasn't delivering good enough performance - Technically it should, it is as I said a new implementation of Software RAID, to be fair I'm using it in a Beta so it may perform well on release.

Hardware RAID

My motherboard supports SATA2 Disks in Hardware RAID so I switched to using that now. I was put off doing so as I'd read about the specific board I have receving a lot of compliants on disk compatibility and robustness\reliability, but for the performance it delivers I've set it up, roll the dice ...

File System

I’ve got a bunch of OCZ Agility SSD’s, I’m not really using them much. I find they are not big enough for hosting VM’s or for my ISO library so I’ve been dropping Camtasia temp files there instead. Make sure you have a large disk for your ISO library and a good fast drive for your VM’s. I’ve gone for Storage Pools to see how it stands up to 9 VM’s accessing the allocated drive.

Make sure you’ve downloaded and stored your ISO’s in a convenient location. You’re going to need the OS and the required products such as SQL, Windows 2008 R2 and SC12CM. I’ve been collecting ISO’s for a while now, shot below shows you a sample of the kind of kits you end up with.

Virtualisation

Unless you’ve got 6 or more highly spec’d physical machines laying around, you’re going to have to use a Virtual Server. This is our weapon of choice, it gives us snapshotting and rollback, and frees you up to test things out without costing you any more time than it takes to apply a previous snapshot. My Virtual Server is Hyper-V, the Host OS is Windows Server 2008 Beta Datacenter.

Now how you use Hyper-V depends on if you have Virtual Machine Manager on hand, if you do then you can use VMM to create VM templates and turn out a lab rather quickly. I build lab infrastructure consisting of ConfigMgr, Orchestrator and Virtual Machine Manager that come together to build a disposable lab on-the-fly. Using VM Templates and unattended files can pretty much reduce the time involved massively.

Virtual Machines

Now put together a bunch of VM’s, set aside one for the CAS, a Primary, a Client and for any other roles you’re interested in. I’ve under spec’d the memory on a few of these, the CAS and two primaries will get 4GB each once they are built. 9 VM’s which forms a mini Hierarchy, with remote roles and two Clients.

Each VM OS is Windows 2008 R2 with the latest Service Pack. I hold off on patching them until CM12 is built so I can sync it with Microsoft Updates and setup Software Updates to handle further updates and for EP protection.

A different way to build your VM', but which comes pro's and con's, is to use Hyper-V 3.0 Differencing disks. Prepare a GOLD image for each type of Operating System you want to deploy and use that as the Parent disk for your new VM's. Build time reduced to minutes as a result and the image is ready for use. It's pretty easy to build a GOLD VM with the type of OS you are after, making some customisations such as turning off the firewall (gulp! it's a lab!), turning off UAC and IE Security then running SYSPREP (lots of guides on the web) to prepare it. Everything that was turned off can be turned back on using Group Policy, and ideally since this lab has it's own domain controller you should utilise GPO to enforce security where it is needed.

Setting a few things up

It took nearly two hours for all of these VM’s to complete their build when using a Windows 8 Storage Pool, but less than 10 minutes after using differencing disks and Hardware RAID.

Once built I renamed the OS, provided an IP, rebooted and created the first snapshot for each VM. This is the farthest back I’m likely to go, and If I roll any or all of my VM’s back to this snapshot I have a fresh lab. Keep this approach in mind as you add roles, features and install products. I do this all the way through the build process for each VM, it eats up disk space, but I have more than enough.

I DCPromo the VM destined to be the domain controller, create a forest and a domain called LABXSMSLAB and join all my VM’s to the new Active Directory Domain. They all get another snapshot once this is done and I have a “domain ready” rollback point *.

* There are some drawbacks to this, but the effort to get the VM’s talking on the domain after a long term rollback isn’t a big deal.

Next guide – CAS – Do I need one

That setups us up nicely for the next guide, which will go over the reasons for having a CAS, and walk through whether you need one for your environment. Not everyone does. To accomodate the series wide scope, we'll be building and using a CAS.

Check out the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Documentation Library for further reading on the product.

Wiki Page: Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - CAS - #2 Do I need one

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:00 GMT

Following on from my previous article on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager where I talked about setting up a good test last, we can now move on to whether we need a CAS for the company Configuration Manager is being installed into.

Let’s start with what CAS means:

Central Administration Site

This is not the same as the Central Site in previous versions of the products. This is literally a Central site where administration and operations for everything can be performed, for everything, everywhere. It is no more significant as that. The old model of partitioning administration using Primary Sites has gone. Folks implementing this product should pay careful attention to the new features, since they require a new way of doing things, such as RBA making administration partition using Primary Sites redundant, and the capabilities of the Secondary with it’s Database, and the Distribution Point with its Sender like behaviour all contributing and influencing the design.

The Configuration Manager Documentation team have laid out the basic reasoning for implementing a CAS in the online document, check out Planning for Sites and Hierarchies in Configuration Manager and under About Site Types in Configuration Manager is the Determine Whether to Install a Central Administration Site section you’ll find a bunch of bullets to guide you into making the decision.

Brian Mason Configuration Manager MVP * wrote a bunch of pros and cons on having a CAS which I think alongside the MS information, pretty much gives you the key points for taking the plunge, or not.

* Brian’s article can be found here on the Minnesota System Center User group website

I think it all just boils down to two questions, so I flowcharted them to make it even easier to decide when and when not to use a CAS:

Starting out with a Central gives you centralised management and reporting, but means a whole lot of complexity. Weigh the advantages and disadvantages wisely. Choosing a CAS and finding out you didn’t need it isn’t that painful or restrictive at the end of the day.

Before we wrap up, there is another important design decision to be made, which edition of SQL to use.

It’s not that important to understand how SQL Partitioning works, but its impact should be understood. It is important to gauge now whether you’ll ever go over 50,000 Clients for the life cycle of the entire hierarchy. If you think you’ll come close to 50,000 Clients and choose the wrong edition, you won’t see a 50,001th Client without a rebuild (2012.05).

And thus, another simplistic flowchart follows:

Next guide – Setting up the CAS

That covers the reasoning for a CAS well enough, in the next guide I’ll begin installing the CAS for the lab. I’ve elected to implement a CAS so that we can cover as much of the feature stack as possible for the guides.

Check out the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Documentation Library for further reading on the product.

Wiki Page: Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager– #3 Setting up the CAS

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:00 GMT

Following on from my previous article on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager where I talked about the pro’s and con’s of having a Central Administration Site, we will implement the CAS to get the full spread of functionality from ConfigMgr during the walk-through.

Some basic rules:

Download all the kits mentioned below before you begin. If you use the kits mentioned and keep things in their vanilla state, and follow the guide exactly, you should have a fruitful evaluation!
Since we’re installing into a lab there are a huge set of assumptions made based on being in a virtual environment. We won't be following configuration or security best-practices aside from keeping the firewall up, this guide is not entirely fit for production usage. The Online documentation Library (and the offline documentation) lays everything out in amazing detail, pretty much all the answers are there.
When installing anything in this guide, if I don't specifically start talking about the installation process, it is because the defaults just need to be selected. Keep this in mind, and don't fiddle around choosing random "that looks interesting" tick boxes and some such, head straight for a solid and usable first build, then later on refine your own installation process. This way you'll get through to the end of the guide without being interrupted by any lengthy remediation that needs to take place
A pristine default configured Active Directory is a good first start, and will lead to less problems occurring during your evaluation. If you've done a lot of Group Policy and other finessing then this could lead to installation or operational failure. This is a very complicated product, don't be fooled by what appears to be a simple installation. That is what is so rewarding about specialising in it, there is always something new to learn
Perform VM snapshots after major milestones, OS, SQL, WSUS, ConfigMgr, as rollback points. Be aware, don't roll a CAS back without rolling everything attached to it back as well, or you may\will lose information or even sites.
Make sure you are logged in using the domain administrator account all the way through this guide to keep the experience smooth

Download kits and Virtual Machine Requirements

We are going to be installing the following installation kits, you will need to download and extract them first

Media	Download
Windows 2008 R2 with SP1	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137.aspx
WSUS 3.0 SP2 X64	If your Windows 2008 R2 server does not have internet access you will need to download WSUS 3.0 SP2 X64 edition manually http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5216
.NET 4.0	http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=17718
SQL 2008 R2 RTM	I'll leave it up to you to get RTM
SQL 2008 R2 SP1	http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26727
SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU6	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2679367
ConfigMgr 2012 RTM	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh667640.aspx?wt.mc_id=TEC_105_1_5
ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Prerequisites	Check out my guide on downloading these here

For my lab I have a single forest and a single domain running on Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise at R2 functional level, as a Virtual Machine, with 512MB of memory allocated.

The following Virtual Machines will need to be assigned and built:

Purpose

OS for the LAB

Usage and configuration recommendations for this LAB guide only

Domain Controller

Windows 2008 R2 SP1

Assign 1024MB of memory

Post-build you can reduce this to 512MB if you want but it'll thrash the disk a bit if it becomes too active.

Configure a static IP address, do not use DHCP address for these Lab servers.

DC Promo the server to become a Domain Controller for a new forest\domain called SMSLAB.COM, or whatever you want to call your lab

This quick guide on how to DCPromo a server from Ilija Brajkovic should help you get this done if it’s the first time.

CAS

Windows 2008 R2 SP1

Assign 4GB of Memory

Microsoft recommends 32GB for the CAS, and 8GB of that should be set aside for SQL. Since we're in a lab and unlikely to service many Clients, we'll be fine with 4GB for the CAS and SQL restricted to using 2GB.

Configure a static IP address, do not use DHCP address for these Lab servers.

Join this server to your new Domain

Before we move on, let's cover hard drives. It is important to make it clear that we are not deploying to production, we wouldn't put a CAS in a VM if we were. So, since we're in a lab we can be a bit liberal when it comes to honouring best practices. Thus, all VM's for my Lab have a single disk, and for my lab server I use a Windows Server 8 Storage Pool containing x2 SATA3 disks to manage the Disk I/O. I would not implement any of this in production without honouring the hardware requirements of the product.

OK, once the Domain Controller has been built, you'll need to do the following to get the Active Directory forest and domain ready for ConfigMgr:

Task

Description

Create Domain User and Groups

Setup the following Domain Accounts and Domain Groups on the new Domain Controller

User

ConfigMgrAdmin

This will be our ConfigMgr administrator

Group

ConfigMgrAdmins

We'll add our ConfigMgr administrator to this group, and give the group full administrative access to the Site server once it has been installed

Group

ConfigMgrServers

We'll add our ConfigMgr Site servers to this group and permission it against the System Management container so that the Site servers can publish to Active Directory.

Extend the AD Schema

You can run ConfigMgr without extending your AD schema, but life doesn't have to be that hard in the lab.

Extending the Schema

This is the same procedure as you'd apply for SMS2003 and ConfigMgr 2007. This guide for ConfigMgr 2007 will help you along if you haven't done this before.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712264.aspx#BKMK_PrepAD

This is the same procedure since SMS2003, you either extend using the ExtADSch.exe utility, or you use the LDF file.

Both approaches yield the same result, but the option is there to choose which method you feel comfortable using.

It is pretty important to know what will happen when you extend the AD Schema, so take a look at the LDF file, and you'll see several classes defined and various attributes being created.

SMSSETUP\BIN\i386\ConfigMgr_ad_schema.ldf

Create the System Management Container

Create the System Management container and configure its permissions.

Creating the System Management container

This is the very same container used by SMS2003 and ConfigMgr 2007.

You cannot go wrong following the existing documentation on how to create this container

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712264.aspx#BKMK_CreateSMContainer

Setting permissions on the new System Management container

You can either permission each individual Site servers computer account for access to the container, or setup a group, add the

Site server computer accounts to the group, and permission the container with the group

Another guide from ConfigMgr 2007 which will help you along

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg712264.aspx#BKMK_SetSMContainer

For this lab we've created a group called ConfigMgrServers and we'll be using this as the group mentioned above.

Once all the above is ready, you can begin preparing the CAS.

Preparing Windows 2008 R2 SP1

Not all of the requirements for ConfigMgr 2012 can be installed using Windows 2008 R2 Server Manager, but those that we can install using this method are .NET Framework 3.51, BITS, Remote Differential Compression, WMI Management for IIS and Windows Deployment Services.

Use the PowerShell Server-Manager module to install these ConfigMgr product requirements

Open a PowerShell prompt and type
Import-Module servermanager
To install the features run this command line in the PowerShell window:

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,BITS,RDC,Web-WMI,WDS

Once done if you open Server Manager you'll see the following:

Install .NET Framework 4.0

Pretty simple installer, takes a while, install this next.

Configure the Windows Firewall

A CAS will have Child sites, and thus, SQL replication will need to take place across ports 1433 and 4022.

We will need to open these ports, one way is to use NETSH:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="SQLServer" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=1433

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="SQL Service Broker" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=4022

The rules should both be accepted with an OK message:

You can check out the Windows Firewall console to see the rules have been created:

Get a copy of CMTrace for log viewing

You can find the CMTrace tool on the ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Media in the Tools directory. Copy CMTrace.exe somewhere like C:\TEMP. If you've never used CMTrace before, and not sure what it does, read here and come back to continue.

Install SQL

ConfigMgr 2012 RTM supports SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU 6, which is great, as SQL 2008 R2 comes with a really nice edition of the Management Studio (SSMS). ConfigMgr has very strict SQL collation requirements, essentially only SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.

Something handy to know ahead of the installs is that you can use CMTrace to view the resulting log files from the RTM, SP1 and CU6 installations. Each execution creates a new folder on the following path called detail.txt:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Log

You can read a bit more about SQL 2008 R2 logging over on MSDN.

Begin by installing RTM, SP1 then finally CU6.

SQL 2008 R2 RTM - version 10.50.1600.1

To kick off the silent installation, open a CMD prompt, navigate to the SQL 2008 R2 media directory, then paste the following command line into the prompt:

setup.exe /q /ACTION=Install /ERRORREPORTING="False" /FEATURES=SQLENGINE,RS,AS,IS,SSMS,TOOLS,BIDS,ADV_SSMS,CONN /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /INSTANCEDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server" /SQLSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /SQLSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /AGTSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" /AGTSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /RSSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /RSSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /ASSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ASSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /ISSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ISSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASCOLLATION="Latin1_General_CI_AS" /SQLCOLLATION="SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" /TCPENABLED="1" /NPENABLED="1" /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms

Install SQL 2008 R2 SP1 - version 10.50.2500.0

Next up, the Service Pack, as before paste the following command line into the prompt

SETUP.EXE /Q /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /ACTION=PATCH /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER

Install SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU 6 - version 10.50.2811

Finally, Cumulative Update 6 needs to go on, and as before simply paste the following command line into the prompt

SQLSERVER2008R2-KB2679367-X64.EXE /Q /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /ACTION=PATCH /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER

Configure SQL 2008 servers Maximum server memory

Once SQL 2008 R2 is installed, we need to change the maximum allowed memory setting for the SQL engine, there are two ways to do this

Method 1

Open the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and set maximum allowed memory to something other than the default

Method 2

Use OSQL to make the change to the maximum allowed memory

Open a CMD prompt and type OSQL -E

Paste the following

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1

RECONFIGURE

sp_configure 'max server memory', 1024

RECONFIGURE

WSUS

We install WSUS so late in the process due to it requiring a SQL database, it can go on.

There are two ways to install WSUS on Windows 2008 R2:

The server has access to the internet and is activated

To do this the server itself has to have access to the internet because it uses Update Services to download the WSUS binary. To see the download activity for WSUS using Update Servers check out the Update Services log here %WINDIR%\WINDOWSUPDATE.LOG

Launch Windows 2008 R2 Server Manager
Click Add a new Role
Choose Windows Server Update Services

No internet access but you have the installation binary

Firstly install all the WSUS prerequisites needed for WSUS, these are:

Short Form name

Friendly Name

Web-Metabase

IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility

Web-Windows-Auth

Windows Authentication

Web-Asp-Net

ASP.NET

Web-Dyn-Compression

Dynamic Compression

Web-Static-Content

Static Compression

You can translate the short form names into friendly names here

I found a really cool one-liner PowerShell command to perform the installs (from the One Bored Admin website)

Get-WindowsFeature OOB-WSUS | select -exp DependsOn | Add-WindowsFeature

Now run the standalone WSUS 3.0 SP2 X64 installer and begin the installation.

Either way, when the WSUS wizard appears, go through making the selections shown below and accepting all the others:

Database Options	Use an existing database server on this computer
Web Site Selection	Create a Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 Web site

Using a custom website will force WSUS to use ports 8530 and 8531

Once the WSUS wizard has completed it'll load the Configuration wizard, cancel this.Why?

Well, if you make changes in the WSUS console you invalidate support with Microsoft as well as introducing unexpected behavior in ConfigMgr. There is a rare circumstance where you would go into the WSUS console, but, I mean rare, as in, rocking horse doo-doo rare for most of us.

Install the ConfigMgr 2012 Central Administration Site

Now it is time to install the ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Central Administration Site.

Fire up the ConfigMgr 2012 Splash by running D:\splash.HTA

Select Assess server readiness

The prerequisite checker can be run independently of the splash screen using command line parameters, but, for now we'll stick with the clicky method.

One of these Warnings will always show, verify permissions, the SQL server warning is because I haven't allocated 8GB of memory to SQL server. Since we're a lab, we'll move on.

Note: If you have other warnings here, you haven't done something right, the kits and this guide all line up and as long as the same versions are used it'll work. Take a look back and see if there is anything you've missed.

Select Next

Before we move on, let's look at what the wizard is offering us

Install a Configuration Manager Primary Site

We can either go for typical installation options, or perform a custom installation and specify some installation options

Install a Configuration Manager central administration site

This is how you would install your CAS

For more information on Sites and Hierarchies, especially the CAS, follow this link

Upgrade an existing Configuration Manager 2012 installation

It's there, but for now we don't need it. This will be used to upgrade an existing site when a service pack comes out

Recover a site

We can perform Site Disaster Recovery using this option

Perform site maintenance or reset this site

This is how we perform a site reset, move the provider etc

Uninstall a Configuration Manager site

If we want to remove the product, we'd do it from here

Select Install a Configuration Manager Central Administration Site

Select Next

Enter your product key if you have one, or go for the 180 day evaluation (This is a lab build and we wouldn't expect it to have much of a life time for an evaluation, so 180 days is ample)

Select Next

Accept the agreement and Select Next

Accept more agreements and Select Next

You should already have these prerequisites available, so select "Use previously downloaded files", navigate to and select the folder containing the files, and Select Next

Tea time!

There has been a major change in how language support for both the Console, Client, web-based Application Catalogue and SQL Reporting Services reports is implemented. Check out the following under Sites and Hierarchies \ Language Pack Support

Select Next

Enter your site code, your site name (display name) and the installation folder.

We'll use AAA as the Site code, and as usual accept all defaults

Keep Install the Configuration Manager console ticked and Select Next

Accept the defaults but note the following:

The server name uses the FQDN and not just a hostname!
Instance name, if we had created our own instance on SQL server, we would specify it here
The database name is formed exactly the same way as it was in previous versions of the product
SQL Server Service Broker port number, keep it at the default of 4022

As in previous versions of the product, we need to install the SMS provider, and in this case we'll be installing it locally so accept the default here.

We should always opt-in and give the Product Group some telemetry on the products use if at all possible. Its all anonymised and really helps the Product Group.

Select Next

Review what we're about to do and then Select Next

Select Begin Install and the installer will begin working through the list of tasks it needs to perform to complete the installation.

It's worth noting that a configuration file will have been written to %TEMP% called ConfigMgrAutoSave.ini, so you can automate a similar Site server build next time.

Keep an eye on the ConfigMgrSetup and ConfigMgrSetupWizard log files in the root of the System Drive, and the Setup screen itself for installation completion.

Yep, you read that right, we have a new setup log, ConfigMgrSetupWizard.

The great thing about this new log is that we can see the sites progression through the installation in a summarised form, while the classical ConfigMgrSetup log gives us the actual detail.

I also think the ConfigMgrSetupWizard log was designed to control the output from the installation such that you shouldn't see any warning or error text unless something has gone wrong. The ConfigMgrSetup log is an example of very verbose output, you will see a lot of red scrolling past, It doesn't mean failure unless the installation stops prematurely as a result.

The installation time I'd say is pretty much dependent on your hard drive performance. I say that because the bulk of the installation time is spent dealing with WAIK and creating the new boot images for X86 and X64 architectures generates lots of disk I/O.

When I installed ConfigMgr 2012 RC1 into the lab it took 23 minutes and 17 seconds to complete the installation. It took 28 minutes and 35 seconds this time around for RTM, I put that down to having changed the Hyper-V hosts disk configuration by implementing a Storage Pool instead of allowing the VM to write directly to one physical disk.

That's it, the CAS is installed.

Open the Console and it'll connect to the new Site:

You can do a health check by passing over the Site Status, Component Status and running a Status Message Query to see what the last few hours worth of status messages are, but it should be good for supporting further guides in the series.

Next guide – Configuring the CAS

That covers the setting up of the CAS in the lab, we still have some way to go before looking fabulous with the CAS, enough that I thought I'd make it a separate guide.

Check out the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Documentation Library for further reading on the product.

Useful resources

SQL versions (SQLTeam.com)

Wiki Page: Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #4 Setting up the Primary

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:00 GMT

Following on from my previous article on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager where I talked about installing the Central Administration Site, we will implement the Primary now and get the full spread of functionality from having a Hierarchy.

Some basic rules:

Download all the kits mentioned below before you begin. If you use the kits mentioned and keep things in their vanilla state, and follow the guide exactly, you should have a fruitful evaluation!

Since we’re installing into a lab there are a huge set of assumptions made based on being in a virtual environment. We won't be following configuration or security best-practices aside from keeping the firewall up, this guide is not entirely fit for production usage. The Online documentation Library (and the offline documentation) lays everything out in amazing detail, pretty much all the answers are there.

When installing anything in this guide, if I don't specifically start talking about the installation process, it is because the defaults just need to be selected. Keep this in mind, and don't fiddle around choosing random "that looks interesting" tick boxes and some such, head straight for a solid and usable first build, then later on refine your own installation process. This way you'll get through to the end of the guide without being interrupted by any lengthy remediation that needs to take place

An already configured Active Directory (see other guide) is a requirement before moving on, and will lead to less problems occurring during your evaluation.

Perform VM snapshots after major milestones, OS, SQL, WSUS, ConfigMgr, as rollback points. Be aware, don't roll a Primary back without rolling everything attached to it back as well, or you may\will lose information or even sites.

Make sure you are logged in using the domain administrator account all the way through this guide to keep the experience smooth

Download kits and Virtual Machine Requirements

We are going to be installing the following installation kits, you will need to download and extract them first

Media	Download
Windows 2008 R2 with SP1	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137.aspx
WSUS 3.0 SP2 X64	If your Windows 2008 R2 server does not have internet access you will need to download WSUS 3.0 SP2 X64 edition manually http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5216
.NET 4.0	http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=17718
SQL 2008 R2 RTM	I'll leave it up to you to get RTM
SQL 2008 R2 SP1	http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26727
SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU6	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2679367
ConfigMgr 2012 RTM	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh667640.aspx?wt.mc_id=TEC_105_1_5
ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Prerequisites	Check out my guide on downloading these here

The following Virtual Machines will need to be assigned and built:

Purpose

OS for the LAB

Usage and configuration recommendations for this LAB guide only

Primary

Windows 2008 R2 SP1

Assign 2GB of Memory

Join this server to your new Domain

Pretty much all VM's in this series will have a single disk unless the situation requires additional drives. I've stopped using Windows 8 server Beta Storage Pools, the Disk I/O was lousy, now I use Hardware SATA2 RAID controller using x2 SATA disks to reduce the Disk bottlenecking that happens when multiple VM's start hammering the disk. I would not implement any of this in production without separating out things across multiple and distinct drives.

Once all the above is ready, you can begin preparing the Primary.

Preparing Windows 2008 R2 SP1

Use the PowerShell Server-Manager module to install these ConfigMgr product requirements

Open a PowerShell prompt and type

Import-Module servermanager

To install the features run this command line in the PowerShell window:

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,BITS,RDC,Web-WMI,WDS

Once done if you open Server Manager you'll see the following:

Install .NET Framework 4.0

Pretty simple installer, takes a while, install this next.

Configure the Windows Firewall

A Primary will have a Parent Site server, the CAS, and thus, SQL replication will need to take place across ports 1433 and 4022.

We will need to open these ports, one way is to use NETSH:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="SQLServer" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=1433

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="SQL Service Broker" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=4022

The rules should both be accepted with an OK message:

You can check out the Windows Firewall console to see the rules have been created:

Get a copy of CMTrace for log viewing

Install SQL

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Log

You can read a bit more about SQL 2008 R2 logging over on MSDN.

Begin by installing RTM, SP1 then finally CU6.

SQL 2008 R2 RTM - version 10.50.1600.1

To kick off the silent installation, open a CMD prompt, navigate to the SQL 2008 R2 media directory, then paste the following command line into the prompt:

setup.exe /q /ACTION=Install /ERRORREPORTING="False" /FEATURES=SQLENGINE,RS,AS,IS,SSMS,TOOLS,BIDS,ADV_SSMS,CONN /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /INSTANCEDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server" /SQLSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /SQLSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /AGTSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" /AGTSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /RSSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /RSSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /ASSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ASSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /ISSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ISSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASCOLLATION="Latin1_General_CI_AS" /SQLCOLLATION="SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" /TCPENABLED="1" /NPENABLED="1" /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms

Install SQL 2008 R2 SP1 - version 10.50.2500.0

Next up, the Service Pack, as before paste the following command line into the prompt

SETUP.EXE /Q /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /ACTION=PATCH /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER

Install SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU 6 - version 10.50.2811

Finally, Cumulative Update 6 needs to go on, and as before simply paste the following command line into the prompt

SQLSERVER2008R2-KB2679367-X64.EXE /Q /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /ACTION=PATCH /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER

Configure SQL 2008 servers Maximum server memory

Once SQL 2008 R2 is installed, we need to change the maximum allowed memory setting for the SQL engine, there are two ways to do this

Method 1

Open the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and set maximum allowed memory to something other than the default

Method 2

Use OSQL to make the change to the maximum allowed memory

Open a CMD prompt and type OSQL -E

Paste the following

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1

RECONFIGURE

sp_configure 'max server memory', 1024

RECONFIGURE

WSUS

We install WSUS so late in the process due to it requiring a SQL database, it can go on.

There are two ways to install WSUS on Windows 2008 R2:

The server has access to the internet and is activated

To do this the server itself has to have access to the internet because it uses Update Services to download the WSUS binary. To see the download activity for WSUS using Update Servers check out the Update Services log here %WINDIR%\WINDOWSUPDATE.LOG

Launch Windows 2008 R2 Server Manager

Click Add a new Role

Choose Windows Server Update Services

No internet access but you have the installation binary

Firstly install all the WSUS prerequisites needed for WSUS, these are:

Short Form name	Friendly Name
Web-Metabase	IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
Web-Windows-Auth	Windows Authentication
Web-Asp-Net	ASP.NET
Web-Dyn-Compression	Dynamic Compression
Web-Static-Content	Static Compression

You can translate the short form names into friendly names here

I found a really cool one-liner PowerShell command to perform the installs (from the One Bored Admin website)

Get-WindowsFeature OOB-WSUS | select -exp DependsOn | Add-WindowsFeature

Now run the standalone WSUS 3.0 SP2 X64 installer and begin the installation.

Either way, when the WSUS wizard appears, go through making the selections shown below and accepting all the others:

Database Options	Use an existing database server on this computer
Web Site Selection	Create a Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 Web site

Using a custom website will force WSUS to use ports 8530 and 8531.

Once the WSUS wizard has completed it'll load the Configuration wizard, cancel this.Why?

Install the ConfigMgr 2012 Primary Site server

Now it is time to install the ConfigMgr 2012 Primary Site server.

Start the ConfigMgr 2012 Splash by running D:\splash.HTA

Select Next

Before we move on, let's look at what the wizard is offering us

Install a Configuration Manager Primary Site

We can either go for typical installation options, or perform a custom installation and specify some installation options

Install a Configuration Manager central administration site

This is how you would install your CAS

For more information on Sites and Hierarchies, especially the CAS, follow this link

Upgrade an existing Configuration Manager 2012 installation

It's there, but for now we don't need it. This will be used to upgrade an existing site when a service pack comes out

Recover a site

We can perform Site Disaster Recovery using this option

Perform site maintenance or reset this site

This is how we perform a site reset, move the provider etc

Uninstall a Configuration Manager site

If we want to remove the product, we'd do it from here

Select Install a Configuration Manager primary site

Select Next

Enter your product key if you have one, or go for the 180 day evaluation (This is a lab build and we wouldn't expect it to have much of a life time for an evaluation, so 180 days is ample)

Select Next

Accept the agreement and Select Next

Accept more agreements and Select Next

You should already have these prerequisites available, so select "Use previously downloaded files", navigate to and select the folder containing the files, and Select Next

Doesn't take long to churn through the folder containing the prerequisite files

Select Next

Enter your site code, your site name (display name) and the installation folder.

We'll use BBB as the Site code, and as usual accept all defaults

Keep Install the Configuration Manager console ticked and Select Next

After this point the account running the wizard will need to have enough permissions to join this Primary to the CAS. Make sure you are using the domain administrator account to run the wizard as required for this series. There is no need to setup any local group memberships or even create an address, the wizard now does all this work for you.

Enter the FQDN of the CAS

Select Next

Accept the defaults but note the following:

The server name uses the FQDN and not just a hostname!

Instance name, if we had created our own instance on SQL server, we would specify it here

The database name is formed exactly the same way as it was in previous versions of the product

SQL Server Service Broker port number, keep it at the default of 4022

Select Next

As in previous versions of the product, we need to install the SMS provider, and in this case we'll be installing it locally so accept the default here.

Select Next

We should always opt-in and give the Product Group some telemetry on the products use if at all possible. Its all anonymised and really helps the Product Group.

Select Next

Now you can install a Management Point and a Distribution Point to service your Clients.

TIP: If you were installing into production, you would put the NO_SMS_ON_DRIVE.SMS flag file onto the root of the drives you don't want the product to use. This should stop the Distribution Manager component from setting up shop on any of your large drives. For the lab we don't need to consider this.

Select Next

We should always opt-in and give the Product Group some telemetry on the products use if at all possible. Its all anonymised and really helps the Product Group.

Review what we're about to do and then Select Next

Select Begin Install and the installer will begin working through the list of tasks it needs to perform to complete the installation.

It's worth noting that a configuration file will have been written to %TEMP% called ConfigMgrAutoSave.ini, so you can automate a similar Site server build next time.

Keep an eye on the ConfigMgrSetup and ConfigMgrSetupWizard log files in the root of the System Drive, and the Setup screen itself for installation completion.

When I installed ConfigMgr 2012 RC1 into the lab it took 23 minutes and 17 seconds to complete the installation. It took 28 minutes and 35 seconds for the CAS, and 22 minutes for the Primary. It looks like the installer time levels out at around 20-22 minutes even on very fast hardware. If you get faster installs let me know in the comments!

That's it, the Primary is installed.

Launching the Console immediately and until replication completes successfully you'll get this message

Select OK to proceed to the console

If you go to the Monitoring space on the navigation pane you'll see Database Replication, select and you'll see the state of the link between the CAS and the Primary

Give it a little while, I think about 10 minutes for my system and the link should become active

That pretty much wraps up the installation of the Primary. The next guide will be about configuring this new Hierarchy and turning on the ConfigMgr 2012 Features one by one.

Wiki Page: Lab - System Center 2012 Configuration Manager - #6 CMTrace

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:00 GMT

I thought I’d write some stuff about CMTrace, the Configuration Manager free log tracing tool. I still find folks who don’t know how useful this tool is, not just for Configuration Manager logs, but during your daily admin tasks.

We’ve seen a few versions of this tool appear over the last decade, SMSTace, Trace32 and now we have CMTrace. This is a 64-bit only version of the tool, which means it’ll be useful for checking out logs while in WinPE X64, but won’t be very useful on an X86 only OS. I can live with that.

CMTrace What does it do

CMTrace reads log files in real time. It was designed to look at Configuration Manager log files, which happens to have quite a few log files available to cast a beady eye over. Not that exciting, unless you’re life consists of opening log files and re-opening them after something has made a change, then you get to appreciate the luxury of having this tool around. I also call it Trace.

It also gets a nice new logo!

CMTrace Where to get it

CMTrace is included on the Configuration Manager installation ISO in the <ISO>:\SMSSETUP\TOOLS folder. I suggest you copy it out to a local HDD

CMTrace wants you to sign away your logs

No seriously, when you first run CMTrace, it’ll try to register itself to handle all .LOG files that are opened. This is per user profile, not system.

Configuration Managers log files are in a new format, so you’re going to need CMTrace to view them. Older versions of the tool won’t do it. I need to find out what the new format is all about, if I do I’ll write it up here and try to write some stuff about the encoding format being used

CMTrace version

This first release gives us the following version number: 5.0.7711.0000 (64-bit)

CMTrace logs

We’re going to use the Windows Update Agent and Component Based Servicing log files so we can take a quick run through of the CMTrace features.

No errors here, but we do have a warning, UpdateNow is complaining and the line has been highlighted automatically. If anything said error we’d see a red highlight. The point of the highlighting is it draws your eye to problem areas quickly.

The tool has a few pretty nifty features that make it a good fit for looking at logs in general, automatic line highlighting, typical search capabilities which I’ll skip over, additional highlighting, a filtering feature, error lookup, and finally the ability to view several log files in one CMTrace window in real-time.

Let’s begin by using the highlighter,

CMTrace automatic highlighting

CMTrace will automatically highlight in Yellow or Red depending on whether the words warning or error respectively are present on the line being displayed.

CMTrace Highlighter

Open the Tools menu and select Highlight… and lets highlight anything written about SQM

The tool lights up the lines containing SQM

CMTrace Filtering

As you move around the log files, sometimes it’s easy to filter out noise\chatter by only displaying lines that meet certain criteria. We will use the most commonly used option which is Filter when the Entry Text, and then choose to be very specific by using is\is not equal to or contains\does not contain option. We choose contains and type in SQM:

Now we get a filtered view of the log, only lines containing SQM are rendered:

We still have the highlighter on, looking for SQM, so let’s modify it and look for the word failed

Now we see lines for SQM and any contained the word failed are highlighted:

We can also filter on Component, Thread and Time which may be useful depending on how you want to carve the view up.

CMTrace error lookup

CMTrace has built-in error lookup tool, just open it via the Tools menu or press Ctrl-L and punch in an error you’ve seen in a log, most times you’ll get something useful back:

CMTrace multiple log files

CMTrace can handle multiple windows being opened at the same time, they can be cascaded, tiled vertically, or the most useful, tiled horizontally (edit: doh I wrote them back to front).

We can also open multiple log files into just one window, pretty cool when we apply a Filter for a specific string that’ll get matches across all the documents:

These two won’t merge, one is not in a compatible format, but you can open multiple Configuration Manager log files.

You can also tell it to ignore existing lines, which means it’ll begin monitoring only new content to the logs which speeds up their load time if you’re not looking for historical data. Some of these log files are 5-10MB each and processing them into the view can take a few moments.

CMTrace preferences

There’s not much in here, two interesting options are Update Interval and Refresh Interval, the first can be used to reduce how frequently CMTrace checks the log file for updates, and the the second can be used to update the windows actual content after a certain amount of lines, the default is 0 so it is switched off.

That's pretty much it, we’ve covered its features now. CMTrace is only 655KB in size, and can really help speed up log file analysis, I recommend it and use it daily.

Wiki: Articles Pages

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:06:00 GMT

Wiki Page: Articles Pages

Anonymous — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:07:00 GMT

Wiki Page: IE Accelerators from WMUG

Rob Marshall - MVP — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:34:00 GMT

We created a few accelerators, turned out to be good enough to put on here. First is a KB ID lookup accelerator, only handles numerals, don't highlight KB along with the number or include leading or trailing spaces, and a WMUG search accelerator.

Visit http://wmug.co.uk/regacc.htm to install the accelerators,

You should find the KB ID accelerator does just that, speeds up looking for kb id's, which before you'd of managed manually.

Wiki Page: ConfigMgr Console

Rob Marshall - MVP — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:41:00 GMT

I originally had this in a blog entry, but want to reshape and grow it a bit and the best place for that is here as an article.

Rob

I thought I’d check out the ConfigMgr 2007 Console MMC; see how it goes on, where its settings reside and whether I can bring anything new to the current knowledge base.

There seems to be two locations for the console, the registry and the file system

The Registry

Note: FX: is used to denote 3.0 Snap-ins, distinguishing them from 2.0 Snap-in

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT]\{CLSID} <--- Cannot locate the CLSID for ConfigMgr console in this location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MMC\Snapins]

I’ve exported the entries from the registry for the Snap-in, for quick reference:

ConfigMgr Console Snap-in CLSID: FX:{6de537a5-7a1c-4fa4-ac3a-1b6fc1036560}

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{6de537a5-7a1c-4fa4-ac3a-1b6fc1036560}]

"Type"="Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.AdminConsole.Console.SmsAdminUISnapIn, AdminUI.Console, Version=4.0.6000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"

"ApplicationBase"="E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin"

"ConfigurationFile"="AdminUI.Console.dll.config"

"ModuleName"="AdminUI.Console.dll"

"AssemblyName"="AdminUI.Console"

"RuntimeVersion"="v2.0.50727"

"FxVersion"="3.0.0.0"

"About"="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"

"NameStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-102"

"DescriptionStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-101"

"ProviderStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-107"

"VersionStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-108"

"IconIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-103"

"LargeFolderBitmapIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-104"

"SmallFolderBitmapIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-105"

"SmallSelectedFolderBitmapIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\SmsSnapInResources.dll,-106"

"HelpTopic"="%SYSTEMROOT%\\Help\\SMSV4.CHM"

"LinkedHelpTopics"="%SYSTEMROOT%\\Help\\SMSV4.CHM"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{6de537a5-7a1c-4fa4-ac3a-1b6fc1036560}\NodeTypes]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{6de537a5-7a1c-4fa4-ac3a-1b6fc1036560}\Standalone]

ConfigMgr Resource Explorer Snap-in CLSID: FX:{a77b774c-ce32-4ab0-982a-6bb3c078e5c1}

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{a77b774c-ce32-4ab0-982a-6bb3c078e5c1}]

"Type"="Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.AdminConsole.ResourceExplorerConsole.SmsResourceExplorerSnapIn, AdminUI.ResourceExplorerConsole, Version=4.0.6000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"

"ApplicationBase"="E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin"

"ConfigurationFile"="AdminUI.ResourceExplorerConsole.dll.config"

"ModuleName"="AdminUI.ResourceExplorerConsole.dll"

"AssemblyName"="AdminUI.ResourceExplorerConsole"

"RuntimeVersion"="v2.0.50727"

"FxVersion"="3.0.0.0"

"About"="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"

"NameStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-102"

"DescriptionStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-101"

"ProviderStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-107"

"VersionStringIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-108"

"IconIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-103"

"LargeFolderBitmapIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-103"

"SmallFolderBitmapIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-103"

"SmallSelectedFolderBitmapIndirect"="@E:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Configuration Manager\\AdminUI\\bin\\ResourceExplorerSnapInResources.dll,-106"

"HelpTopic"="%SYSTEMROOT%\\Help\\SMSV4.CHM"

"LinkedHelpTopics"="%SYSTEMROOT%\\Help\\SMSV4.CHM"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{a77b774c-ce32-4ab0-982a-6bb3c078e5c1}\NodeTypes]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{a77b774c-ce32-4ab0-982a-6bb3c078e5c1}\Standalone]

File system

Location of Console files

<DRIVELETTER>:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI

MMC 3.0 Console Snap-in location

<DRIVELETTER>:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\adminconsole.msc

MMC 3.0 ConfigMgr Console Cache

<DRIVELETTER>:\Document and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\Microsoft\MMC\adminconsole

This file retains custom settings for the console, as well as connections to site databases. It has been known to fix things if deleted. It gets recreated by the Snap-in.

ConfigMgr RTM Installation dialog (filtered for Console references only)

Copying Microsoft.ManagementConsole.dll and MMCFxCommon.dll to AdminUI directory.

Calling InstallUtil on necessary files.

Registering E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.FrameworkInitializer.dll

Registering E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ResourceExplorerConsole.dll

Registering E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.WqlQueryEngine.dll

Registering E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Console.dll

Copying Microsoft.ManagementConsole.dll and MMCFxCommon.dll to AdminUI directory.

Calling RegAsm on necesary files.

Registering E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\bin\i386\wsyncact.dll

Registering E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\bin\i386\WSUSMSP.dll

Copying Microsoft.ManagementConsole.dll and MMCFxCommon.dll to AdminUI directory.

Calling NGEN on necesary files.

Initiating compilation of NGEN QUEUE

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.AccessAccount.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ActiveDirectory.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Addresses.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.AdvertisedProgramAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Advertisement.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.BootImage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Certificate.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ClientInstallationMethods.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ClientPushInstallation.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.CollectionMenuActions.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.CollectionProperty.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Common.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ComponentSHV.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ComponentSoftwareDistribution.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ComputerClientAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ConnectionAccount.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ConsoleBuilder.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ConsoleRootActions.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ConsoleStartPage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ConsoleView.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Dashboard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DatabaseConnectionWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DcmClientAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DebugView.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DeleteCollectionWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DeleteSecondarySite.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DeploymentTemplate.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DeviceManagement.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DistributeSoftwareUpdateWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DistributeSoftwareWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.FrameworkInitializer.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.HardwareInventory.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Heartbeat.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.MachineAssociation.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ManagementPoint.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.NetworkDiscovery.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.NewSecondarySite.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.NewTaskSequenceWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.OsdCommon.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.OsdStartPageView.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.OSImage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.OSInstallPackage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Package.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.PackageStatusNode.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DiscoveryMethodsNode.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.PersonalFolders.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Program.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Queries.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.RemoteToolAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Report.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ResourceExplorer.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ResourceExplorerNodes.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ResourceExplorerConsole.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.UIResources.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SearchFolders.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SecurityCompliance.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SecurityComplianceClientAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SecurityComplianceStartPage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SecurityComplianceWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SecurityRights.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SiteBoundaries.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SiteHierarchy.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SiteHierarchyProperty.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SiteMaintenance.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SiteSystems.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SmsObjectView.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SmsTraceListener.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareDistributionHomePage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareInventory.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareMeteringAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareMeteringRule.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdateClientAgent.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdateDeploymentProperties.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdateDeploymentTemplateWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdateManagementPoint.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdatePackageProperties.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdatePackagingWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdateProperties.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SoftwareUpdateStartPage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SqmOptionsDialog.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.StandardSender.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.StatusFilterRules.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.StatusFilterRulesNode.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.StatusReporting.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.StatusSummarizer.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.SystemStatus.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.TaskSequenceEditor.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.TaskSequenceMediaWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.TaskSequences.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.TransferSiteSettingsWizard.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.UpgradeSecondarySite.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.VSWizardFramework.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.WizardFramework.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.WqlQueryEngine.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.StartPageView.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ManagementProvider.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Console.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\msac.exe

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\Replstcfg.exe

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ComponentConfigurationNode.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DCMStartPage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DcmObjectModel.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DcmObjectWrapper.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DcmCommonDialogs.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DcmCIWizards.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DcmBaselineWizards.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DcmProperties.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.CAB.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.Common.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.CPF.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.CSP.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.Datastore.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.INF.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DeviceSettings.Util.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DeviceConfiguration.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.Driver.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.DriverPackage.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\DundasWinChart.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\Interop.CAPICOM.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.ConfigurationBaseLineView.dll

Precompiling (NGEN) E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\AdminUI.AuthorizedUpdates.dll

Initiating compilation of NGEN QUEUE

Adding an icon for E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\ADMINCONSOLE.MSC

AddItem(E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\ADMINCONSOLE.MSC, ConfigMgr Console)

Shortcut string is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft System Center\Configuration Manager 2007\ConfigMgr Console.lnk

It looks like the ConfigMgr Console installation is still tightly woven in to the fabric of setup. I cannot find a way to invoke this independently so that the ConfigMgr console can be re-installed without referencing SETUP.EXE. This was possible in SMS2003 using an INI file to drive SETUP.EXE but I cannot eek out anything related to this for ConfigMgr.

Example SMS2003 Console installation code:

[Identification]
Action=InstallAdminUI

[Options]
FullName=
OrgName=
ProductID=xxxx
SMSInstallDir=xxxx
SDServer=
OptionalUnits=

I’d like a way to reinstall the console, as console issues that users are experiencing might be resolved by doing this. If I do find a way I’ll update this entry, or blog anew about it. I did get the option to install the console to come up in the setup wizard, but i had to really chop and hack away at the registry aided by regmon and had left it in a mess. Will get back with an easy way to force the console to re-install soon stay tuned.

I did take a look in WMI to see if there was anything Console related there, but cannot find. Not sure if it does make configuration items resident in WMI, I can see via ADMINUI log that it picks out information from WMI (obviously via the SMS Provider) but this all seems to be related to the consoles operations on the site rather than anything specific to the console.

How to switch on Verbose logging for the console

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb633406.aspx

To enable verbose logging for the Configuration Manager console

1. Navigate to the <InstallationPath>\AdminUI\bin folder.
2. Using a text editor, open adminui.console.dll.config
3. Change the line <source name="SmsAdminUISnapIn" switchValue="Error" > to <source
name="SmsAdminUISnapIn" switchValue="Verbose" >
4. Restart the Configuration Manager 2007 console.
5. Examine the <InstallationPath>\AdminUI\SMSAdminUI.log file for additional
information.
6. After verbose logging is no longer needed, reset the SwitchValue to Error again
to remove the processing overhead.

Another area in the registry that contains Configuration Manager Console specific settings

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\ConfigMgr

Wiki Page: Collection Population in ConfigMgr 2007

Martyn Coupland — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:28:00 GMT

My first WMUG article, hoping to keep it simple and not get to indepth. This first article of mine is looking at the population of collections within ConfigMgr 2007. We will look at the difference between direct collection membership and adding via Active Directory security groups.

So first of all we need to look at the process thats involved when you add a machine to a collection by each of these methods, first up is populating Active Directory Security groups.

Computer account is added to group in Active Directory
Active Directory replicates your changes across your domain controllers (15 minutes)
System Group Discovery runs (60 minutes)
Collection membership is updated via the collection evaluator schedule (60 minutes)
ConfigMgr client agent updates and new policy is downloaded (60 minutes).

So... this totals up to in a worse case scenario possibly 3 hours 15 minutes. Lets look at our next contender Direct Collection membership.

Administrator adds computer to collection
ConfigMgr client agent updates and new policy is downloaded (60 minutes).

Right there you have it, a total of 60 minutes. While you may have benefits of populating Active Directory groups which are members of collections for permissions reasons, for example, letting your Service Desk, Desktop Support or other teams perform software deployment via collections it may be worth you giving them permission to add direct membership to collections. Ouch I hear you say additional permissions, well it would let you concentrate on creating apps with the SDK or other ConfigMgr administrative tasks and let other support teams do this simple task.

So short and sweet, if you don't fancy letting others do this then think to yourself, why bother waiting at least 3 hours 15 minutes for an application when you could install it in 20 mins, in the same way you could argue the same for the whole suite as you know it does things in it's own time.

Special thanks to John Quirk for the theory on this.

Wiki Page: SQL Log Shipping Guide Part II

David Allen MVP — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:02:00 GMT

What to do if yo need to make your secondary DB live.

SQL Log Shipping Guide Part II - PDF

Wiki Page: SQL Log Shipping Guide Part I

David Allen MVP — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

A guide on how to set-up and configure Log Shipping for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 between two SQL servers in the same Management Group.

SQL Log Shipping Part I - PDF

Wiki Page: Sealing a Management Pack

David Allen MVP — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:02:00 GMT

By default when you create a new management it is created as unsealed so it has a .xml extension and allows for the management pack to be edited. Within the support tools of Operations Manager there is a tool called mpseal.exe which can be used to seal the management pack so it can not be edited but still allow for customization of the applied settings with the use of overrides in seperate management packs. This can be very useful if distributing out to third parties.

To seal a management pack is relatevely straight forward and Microsoft have a "How to Seal a Management Pack" guide here, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb309498(TechNet.10).aspx which outlines the basic steps and options. The problem with Microsoft's guide is that the pre-requisistes state that it is possible to create a private certificate using Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Certificate Services. This is not the case and I will show you how you can create the file required and seal your MP. I have also contacted MS about there misleading prerequisites and they should be sorting it out soon :-).

Before sealing a management, or even generating the key required, there are a couple of prerequisites.

For key generation you will require .NET Framework 2.0 and any one of these:

.NET Framework SDK

Micorosft Viual Studio 2005

Business Intelligence Development Studio (from SQL 2005 Client Components)

For management pack sealing you will require:

System Center Operations Manager 2007 Support Tools (available on install media)

Once the prereq's have been met you can now create your key and seal up your management pack. For my example I have copied the contents of the Support Tools folder to C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007.

1. Create the key file by running this command: sn -k c:\pairkey.snk

2. Extract the public key to file: sn -p c:\pairkey.snk c:\pubkey

3. Extract public key and public key token from file: sn -tp c:\pubkey

4. With the key created, run mpseal.exe from the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Support Tools to seal a management pack:

C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007>mpseal.exe "c:\test_mp.xml" /I "c:\program files\system center operations manager 2007" /Keyfile "c:\pairkey.snk" /Company "My Company" /Outdir "c:\newmps"

5. The new sealed management pack is successfully created !

For full deatils on the options available when running mpseal.exe, check out the MS guide here, How to seal a management pack.

You can then verify the MP by running MPVerify.exe located at C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007:
MPverify /I "c:\newmps\test_mp.mp"

Wiki Page: SMS2003: Change a SMS Sites Site Description

Rob Marshall - MVP — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:20:00 GMT

Several people have asked me how to change an SMS Sites Description without reinstalling the Site. Say for example they mistype the description, or after a period of time the Site Description may need to be changed due to a division being renamed, taken over due to acquisition or the site server being geographically relocated.Microsoft currently does not support the change of a Sites Description without a reinstallation taking place. But, there is a very simple way that does not involve hacking registries or database contents in multiple locations. Instead SMS will do the job for you, by processing it's Site Control File and performing the change in a controlled fashion and updating all relevent locations with the change. Be aware this is a not something you should perform in a production environment as Microsoft does not support the method, even though it is a harmless and effective approach to solving the problem.All of the operations below are carried out on the Site server that you want the Site Description changed on unless stated otherwise

Open the SMS Services Manager tool and if the target site server is a secondary connect to it
Locate the SMS_SITE_CONTROL_MANAGER component and stop it
Open in Notepad the %SMSDRIVE%\SMS\INBOXES\SITECTRL\sitectrl.ct0 file
Locate the Site Definition section,

BEGIN_SITE_DEFINITION

<Numerical Value>
<Site Code>
<Site Description>

Edit the text within <Site Description>

Note: Do not add or change the syntax of the sections in this file or you will cause serious damage to your Site server. Do not remove the < or > symbols or edit anything outside of them

Save the updated sitectrl.ct0 file
From the SMS Services Manager tool restart the SMS_SITE_CONTROL_MANAGER component
The hman.log will inform you that it is processing the Site Control File. A Status Message will be generated, and described in the message is the new Site Description.

You can also see this information in the Status Messages for the Site under Message ID 3306.
Go to the SMS Console and refresh the Site to see the new Site Description.

The reason this works is that SMS will write back to the database the Site Control Definitions held on the Site Server in the Site Control File whenever the SMS Executive service or Site Control Manager component is started, and as a consequence the Site Description is updated in the database.

Wiki Page: SMS2003 Service Pack 3

Rob Marshall - MVP — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:17:00 GMT

Thought i’d throw together an overview of SP3. It’s what i’ve found since playing with it, and certainly isn’t meant to detail every aspect of the Service Pack or go in to detail on how to use the new reports that comprise Asset Intelligence.

I hear that Wally Mead is lining up to make a blogcast covering SP3 (I think Rod Trent at MyITForum mentioned it), cannot wait as his blogcasts are always high quality and very detailed, i’m sure he’ll dig right in to Asset Intelligence. I’ll blog about his blogcast once it’s released.

If you haven’t looked, here is the SMS2003 SP3 Evaluation page on the Microsoft Website:

What's new?

Asset Intelligence (another unique selling point oh yeah!)
Windows Vista support
64-bit processor support
Support for (Inventory) files larger than 2GB (erm don’t panic!)
28 Hotfixes applied

What's changed?

Full Windows Vista and 64–bit platform support, and Asset Intelligence, aside from that not much else short of the line up of hotfixes.

Impact?

Need to deploy a new SMS Client to the client estate, and larger Inventory data will be returned from clients due to Asset Intelligence, resulting in a larger Database.

Versioning

SMS2003 SP3 Version: 2.5 Build Number 4253

SMS2003 SP2 Version: 2.50 Build Number 4160.2000

Evaluation

SMS2003 SP2 was 80MB, SMS2003 SP3 is 147MB so will take a little longer to distribute over slow WAN links\circuits to Site servers.

Remember to start at the top of the hierarchy and upgrade downwards.

The installation process is a typical straight forward affair, with the usual wizard choice – "Upgrade an existing SMS installation"

Backup and test the DB before beginning the upgrade process.

I cannot repeat this enough, BACKUP your SMS Site Server. Check the backup log and MAKE SURE there are no issues. Get a copy of the backup and place it on a network share or anywhere else that is off-system. Always make sure you have a good backup and that the logs are clean before you commence any critical work. I wrote a good batch script that lets you keep several "generations" of backups so you can roll back beyond more than one backup without having to resort to TAPE\DLT loading to get access to the backups. Get it here, read the batch file for how to configure.

Take a copy of the your targetted production site servers DB, and put it on a SQL instance in your test lab that is running the same version\service pack and collation as the production site servers SQL server.

If you have Database Replication switched on in the lab, then turn it off. You’ll also need to do this in the production environment then switch it back on when upgraded (refer to KB Article http://support.microsoft.com/?id=835860).

Test your Site Database for issues that you may encounter during the production upgrade. If you have any issues you need to resolve these.

First backup your SMS Site
Take the <DriveLetter>:\smsbackup\<SITECODE>\sitedbserver\SMSbkSQLDBSite.DAT file and place it on your test lab SQL server
Create a new database on the lab server, and call it SMS_TEST or use the original name(SMS_<SITECODE>) and point at the copy you made of the DAT file on the lab server
Now run SETUP.EXE with the TestDBUpgrade flag and provide the name of the SQL Instance. Check the SMSSETUP.LOG for "SMS Setup completed successfully"

Once you’ve confirmed that your Site DB is ok, you can commence with the upgrade on the production server. Be aware that even though it is a laborious affair, it is always best to perform the TestDBUpgrade on all Primary Site servers DB just in case one is “different” from the rest. Don’t assume that the single database you tested reflects the state of all other Primary Site servers. If the DB upgrade failed then you need to research this, and resolve before commencing.

During the production upgrade, you’ll notice that the Installation wizard prompts with a new dialog for the Asset Intelligence options:

There are 3 options to choose from, all pretty self explanatory:

Do not install
Install only Data collection
Install Data collection and Reports

Other option on this wizard page is to change the Source Folder for the Knowledge Base tables that are used to build the Asset Intelligence library. This is defaulted to a folder within the SP3 installation kit.

Hey ho, off you go click Finish and SETUP will begin the upgrade process. Go get a coffee.

Next thing is to deploy the SP3 SMS Advanced Client, which I won’t cover here as it’s a standard package deployment to all existing SMS Clients.

Noticed that the clients now have an additional log called assetadvisor.log.

The new WMI Classes have been documented by Christopher Stauffer, and hopefully he won’t mind if I link but also reproduce here (kudos Chris :-):

SMS_InstalledSoftware – This class tracks information about installed software.
SMS_InstalledSoftwareMS – This class tracks information specifically about installed Microsoft software.
SMS_SystemConsoleUsage – This class polls the System Security Event Log for information about all console usage.
SMS_SystemConsoleUser - This class polls the System Security Event Log for information about specific console users.
SMS_AutoStartSoftware - This class tracks information about software that starts automatically with the operating system.
SMS_BrowserHelperObject - This class tracks browser helper objects. While some browser helper objects are beneficial, most software considered "malware" is in the form of browser helper objects.
Win32_USBDevice - This class tracks devices connected to USB ports.
SMS_Processor - This is an existing SMS class to which new properties have been added to provide more complete data about processors.
SMS_InstalledExecutable - This class is not currently used to support existing Asset Intelligence reports. However, it can be enabled to support custom reports.
SMS_SoftwareShortcut - This class is not currently used to support existing Asset Intelligence reports. However, it can be enabled to support custom reports.
SoftwareLicensingService - This class is specific to Windows Vista. For more information, see the Microsoft TechNet article Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0 Technical Attributes
SoftwareLicensingProduct - This class is specific to Windows Vista. For more information, see the Microsoft TechNet article Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0 Technical Attributes

The new Asset Intelligence reports are:

Hardware 1A - Summary of Computers in a Specific Collection
Hardware 2A - Estimated Computer Age by Ranges within a Collection
Hardware 2B - Computers within an age range within a Collection
Hardware 3A - Primary Computer Users
Hardware 3B - Computers for a Specific Primary Console User
Hardware 4A - Shared (multi-user) Computers
Hardware 5A - Console Users on a Specific Computer
Hardware 6A - Computers for which Console Users Could not be Determined
Hardware 7A - USB Devices by Manufacturer
Hardware 7B - USB Devices by Manufacturer and Description
Hardware 7C - Computers with a Specific USB Device
Hardware 7D - USB Devices on a Specific Computer
Hardware 8A - Hardware that is Not Ready for a Software Upgrade
Hardware 9A - Search for Computers
License 1A - Microsoft License Ledger for Microsoft License Statements
License 1B - Microsoft License Ledger Item by Sales Channel
License 1C - Computers with a Specific Microsoft License Ledger Item and Sales Channel
License 1D - Microsoft License Ledger Products on a Specific Computer
License 2A - Count of Licenses Nearing Expiration by Time Ranges
License 2B - Computers with Licenses Nearing Expiration
License 2C - License Information on a Specific Computer
License 3A - Count of Licenses by License Status
License 3B - Computers with a Specific License Status
License 4A - Count of Products Managed by Software Licensing
License 4B - Computers with a Specific Product Managed by Software Licensing Service
License 5A - Computers Acting as a Key Management Service
Software 1A - Summary of Installed Software in a Specific Collection
Software 2A - Software Families
Software 2B - Software Categories with a Family
Software 2C - Software by Category and Family
Software 2D - Computers with a Specific Software Product
Software 2E - Installed Software on a Specific Computer
Software 3A - Uncategorized Software
Software 4A - Auto-Start Software
Software 4B - Computers with a Specific Auto-Start Software
Software 4C - Auto-Start Software on a Specific Computer
Software 5A - Browser Helper Objects
Software 5B - Computers with a Specific Browser Helper Object
Software 5C - Browser Helper Objects on a Specific Computer
Software 6A - Search for Installed Software

Also, check out Resource Explorer, pointed at one of the upgraded SMS Clients, it now shows the following new categories:

Autostart Software
System Console Usage
System Console User
Add/Remove Programs (x64)

With regards to Vista, when you buid Queries and want to identify the Vista platforms, check the OperatingSystemNameandVersion attribute for "Workstation 6.0"

That’s about it. This should give you an idea of what is what, and lead you on to testing SP3 in the lab environment.

Note that over the coming days a LOT of information will surface about SP3 so keep Googling for it!

Wiki Page: SMS2003: Problem with Installing SMS2003 AdvCli from SMS2003 Secondary Site server

Rob Marshall - MVP — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:15:00 GMT

This problem is probably documented somewhere, I stumbled in to it recently in a production environment and thought i'd write about it!

We have a custom executable that clients run at logon, that pretty much emulates CAPINST.EXE. It determines from the SLP which Site the client should assign too based on it's current IP Subnet, and generates a CCR which it deposits on to the selected Site server. This is great, its what you want, as an AdvCli installation from a Secondary means that the Client does not need to reach out across to a distant subnet to obtain the installation files.

It's an ok tool, however it does not care if the client is Advanced or Legacy and blindly generates CCR's on the SMS Site that manages the Subnet the client is on. No problem I hear you say, well if the Secondary doesn't have IIS and an (P)MP installed then things go a bit pear shaped quickly as shown below:

$$<SMS_CLIENT_CONFIG_MANAGER><Wed Jun 05 11:32:39.635 2007 GMT Daylight Time><thread=1868 (0x74C)>
---> Client type to be installed on Server7: Advanced client $$<SMS_CLIENT_CONFIG_MANAGER><Wed Jun 05 11:32:39.635 2007 GMT Daylight Time><thread=1868 (0x74C)>
---> No MP shares. Will not push the mobile client to Server7 $$<SMS_CLIENT_CONFIG_MANAGER><Wed Jun 05 11:32:39.635 2007 GMT Daylight Time><thread=1868 (0x74C)>
---> Failed to install CCM Client Bootstrap component on client (2)

However there are some things you should consider when installing an AdvCli from a Secondary Site server:

IIS MUST be installed on to the Secondary Site server
The Management Point role MUST be assigned to the Secondary Site server
Without the Management Point role being assigned, the SMSCLIENT share will NOT be created.

If IIS\MP not installed then a CCR will fail before it even touches the target machine with the CCM.LOG reporting "No MP Share.". The CCR will be retried until it is deleted resulting in no installation. Only way to work around this is to move the CCR's to Secondary Site servers Parent Primary site (which really should have IIS and an MP!)

Also you cannot just create the SMSCLIENT share and walk away, as there is a check performed to see if the MP is present.

No IIS\MP on a Secondary results in failure to deploy the AdvCli, but does not impact the installation of the Legacy Client. For AdvCli means that the client will report back to it's Assigned Management Point for EVERY communication it makes, skipping over the Secondary and talking directly to it's Parent. If you don't put IIS\MP on to a Secondary then your clients will communicate with their Assigned MP for everything, effectively making the Secondary a DP only.

So if you design an environment with Secondary Site servers that do not have IIS or an MP think again, and enable these components to benefit from local client installations and take some load off the network using the Proxy Management Point.

Wiki Page: SMS2003: Managing SMS Status Filter Rules

Rob Marshall - MVP — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:12:00 GMT

Today I had to deal with Status Filter Rules on multiple SMS2003 Primary site servers that where being wiped and replaced by an OS Patch.

The OS patch is being rolled out across the corporation, it shouldn't touch SMS but it does, every company has it's quirks ;-) And, as a result, I am starting to see sites not returning any status messages due to the OS patch tweaking the Status Filter Rules.

I wasn't looking forward to removing them by hand then putting in the correct ones, so I had a look around on the internet. Found just what I wanted, curtesy of Dave Fuller who has a good VBScript to Import\Export via WMI the Status Filter Rules. Result, and it works for SMS2.0 and SMS2003!

Here's the link to his article detailing the scripts, with a script download link and some advice on how to use them. Open the VBScript files and check out the comments section for detailed usage covering Primary or Secondary Import\Export.

First, I exported the Status Filter Rules from a known good SMS2003 Primary Site server. Then, I wrote a wrapper CMD script that takes two inputs, the ServerName and the Sitecode for the Server which then invokes the Import script:

Here's the CMD wrapper:

@ECHO OFF

ECHO Site Name: %1

ECHO Site Code: %2

IMPSFR.vbs /C=%1:%2 /D=%1:%2 /F=E:\StatusFilterRules\SMS2003-RTM-Primary-StatusFilterRules.INI

Nothing special there, just how I managed to shave off a handful of seconds from typing out the Export scripts command line ;-)

Thanks Dave, even though this was written over 4 years ago it's still usable and helped ease the pain from my task!

Wiki Page: SMS2003: Elegent but Brutal solution to a rogue SMS Site server!

Rob Marshall - MVP — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:11:00 GMT

Here's a scenario, which most of you will hopefully NEVER encounter!

You're SMS environment is both centrally and locally managed.
You have SMS Administrators at the top tier watering the hierarchy, making sure it's all green-lighted and healthy.
You have admins at some of the down-level sites maintaining their sites health

Now say that the Centralised support model is rejected by the local site, but they won't disconnect from you're hierarchy, and you do not have the rights or permission to disconnect their site.

You want them out of the hierarchy!

You could purge them from the DB with a preinst /DELSITE, but eventually they will pop back up in the database after they replicate to their Parent site.

Here's a cool way to drop them like a bad habit! It's so simple it's laughable!

Remove the offenders Address from the Sender, then change the SMS_SITE share to either block their computer account (Advanced Security) or the Service Account (Standard Security) they are using. That simple!

Then purge them from you're DB with a PREINST /DELJOB and a /DELSITE and forget about them. At least, until they call regarding the Site Status\Component Status\SMS_LAN_SENDER component, complaining about Access Denied status messages appearing hehe!

Any other novel ways you've come across for blocking down-level child sites from communicating???

I know, best practice is to disconnect them, but as in the above example, sometimes reality doesn't meet with theory :-<

Had some good feedback on this, thanks guys. And Ed, I wrote in the removal of the address, an obvious step but this wouldn't be complete without it!