I'm Robert Marshall, director and senior consultant at SMSMarshall Ltd who's specialism is in the Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager product and all of its dependent products covering all aspects from Architecture, Implementation, Migration to Break-Fix.
I've been using computers for over 30 years, beginning as a programmer and now a senior consultant in an enterprise product. I only count my career as starting 17 years ago when I began my first serious role as a deployment engineer. I've seen 8 bit through to 64 bit, the rise and constant refinement of the GUI, the rise of the Internet from land-line based modem access to the powerful broadband connections we have today, mobile phones come into existence, and I've seen Microsoft evolve from a handful of employees to the company it is now while pretty much tinkering with every OS they have released; As well as seeing an industry that has evolved around those humble beginnings to become what we have today. You could call me an IT Dinosaur but I'm still as mentally able as I was back then, perhaps even more adept now since I've had broad exposure to so much and seen trends come and go. I'm a keen technical puzzle solver, which sets me apart as I love to solve gnarly problems around my area of specialism.
I like to share, i do so by blogging here, and helping out when I can as a moderator and answering questions when I have time on the TechNet Social forums for ConfigMgr 2012 and ConfigMgr 2007. I am a guest poster on TechNet UK Flash magazine and an MVP since 2009 (Most Valuable Professional) in the ECM (Enterprise Client Management) exclusively dedicated to ConfigMgr. the MVP status helps me to help others in more depth due to the closeness to the product group and access to other MVP's the program affords me.
The blogs pretty much about ConfigMgr, but on the odd occasion I also use it as a platform to express my random urges to post something I've stumbled across, be it technical or non-technical, and which I imagine would entertain you or what not as equally as it did me.
(2013)
Configuration Manager 2007 RTM\SP1 has a wee bit of an issue dealing with GMT dates that are offset by DST. Essentially if you are in a DST timezone then the DST offset is not factored correctly, resulting in Wake On Lan (WOL) packets arriving at the destination machines one hour earlier than intended\expected.
There is a work-around, but it simply involves shifting the start time for the advertisement forwards one hour ahead of when you plan to deploy. Not an elegent work around, as all you are doing is moving this one hour window forwards.
If you've been struggling with this one for a while, then you're going to have to wade on until after DST finishes for your timezone, unless of course Microsoft releases a hotfix before the next scheduled service pack release ;-)
Here's a handy link to countries that are currently in DST, and when they revert back to normal. Once DST is behind us, problem is gone.
Got a tip for you ... once DST has finished, SERIOUSLY consider performing a Hardware Inventory on those clients that reside within the timezone that has just come out of DST (keep in mind if you're spanning multiple countries ...). If you have a 1 week HINV schedule then these clients will still be considered to be within DST, at least until their HINV is processed and the clients timezone information is updated in the site servers database. You should be able to guess why this speeds things up. Essentially, you could leave things alone and put up with the DST\WOL issue for a short time longer (depends on your HINV schedule frequency), it's just if you want to make sure your clients wake up in time once they come out of DST.
Patched: support.microsoft.com/.../944542