Minnesota System Center User Group

helping each other figure it all out

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See You In August

Monday, 07 June 2010 18:58 Brian Mason
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Meeting postponed until August!

Note that we still plan to go with the previous plan for our next meeting:

Where are you at with System Center?

  • What are you working on?
  • What are Pain Points your organization has?
  • How is your team structured?
  • How have you set things up?

Share your ideas and walk away with new ideas from your peers!

Update: we have 6 MMS DVD's to be given away at the next meeting.  Thanks to Wally Mead!

Last Updated on Wednesday, 21 July 2010 09:09
 

From the CM Team at MS

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 13:30 Brian Mason
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These articles are in the top 20 viewed articles for SCCM for the month of April.

A new blog went out today on the support site:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2010/06/16/documentation-topics-every-configuration-manager-admin-should-know.aspx

 

Scoping the Software Update Role

Sunday, 25 April 2010 14:35 Brian Mason
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Before I blow my demo box away, I figured it'd be a good time to make a video to show how I carved out permissions in CM so that I didn't need to bring up another site for the server team for security reasons. This method lets everyone share the same central site. Of course, all this is made easier in the next version via RBAC, but for now, this is what we have.

For that inheritance script I mention, you can download it here.

By the way, I'm hoping to show the pre-beta built of v.Next in our next user group meeting!

Last Updated on Sunday, 25 April 2010 15:20 Read more...
 

Too Good To Be True?

Tuesday, 25 May 2010 10:08 Brian Mason
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Just got this in my inbox. I'd say the Price Is Right!

Windows 7 Migration One-day Overview

We are excited to bring you a one-day Windows 7 Migration overview that dives deep into the migration and deployment planning strategies for Windows 7. The day will consist of a series of in-depth presentations and exercise demonstrations, which will highlight the new tools and technologies designed to enable successful Windows 7 migrations and deployments.
Learn more

Time: 8:30am-4:30pm
Location:Benchmark Learning, Edina OR Online
Cost: $0
Choose a date to register:
Dates: June 1 | June 11 | June 24

Agenda:

  • USMT 4.0
  • Windows 7 Deployment with MDT 2010
  • Introduction to deploying Windows 7 using the Windows Automated Installation Kit
  • Image Engineering with Windows Automated Installation Kit
  • Advanced Windows 7 Deployment with MDT 2010
  • Troubleshooting and support Guides
  • Q & A

Why attend?

Migration to Windows 7 is a future reality for most organizations. With XP approaching its end of life, and many organizations choosing to skip Vista as an interim step, the new Windows 7 release holds the promise of new features and benefits that include added security, improved manageability and enhanced ease-of-use. Regardless of the starting point, a migration to Windows 7 is a path that holds as many questions and challenges as it does potential rewards.

Who Should Attend?

The overview is designed for anyone tasked with the installation, configuration and operational management of Windows 7 in corporate, government or academic environments. Administrators and engineers of corporate networks, project managers for Windows implementations, business systems administrators, and IT project managers, as well as systems professionals and consultants, will benefit from this training.

 

May 2010 Meeting Notes

Wednesday, 19 May 2010 22:50 Brian Mason
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Here is that white paper about the Citrix Connector for CM.

 

March Meeting Notes

Friday, 19 March 2010 11:23 Brian Mason
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Thanks Jim & Mike for the presentation on vPro. Nice to see the technology is always improving.

Here is a copy of the PowerPoint for those who'd like a copy (13 MB)

Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:33
 

January Meeting Notes

Friday, 22 January 2010 11:29 Brian Mason
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Good turnout. And thanks again to Benchmark Learning for the pizza\beer\pop! Lisa from Benchmark told us that they have an offer going right now where if you bring in any old New Horizon's swag, you'll get a discount; the more swag, the higher the discount.

We went over some basic queries and best practices last month. Jarvis showed the basic idea of a subselect and #2 reminded folks to always use the NetBIOS name over name for speed and ease of load to the server.

We'll get Jarvis to post a basic subselect here on this site for reference.

Thanks to Tim Benjamin for filling time while Jarvis & Tim worked on getting a connection out of the building.

Update: Jarvis has posted instructions and a video about subselect queries on his site.

Last Updated on Sunday, 31 January 2010 19:14
 

September Meeting Notes

Sunday, 27 September 2009 14:47 Brian Mason
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Big thanks again to John Vintzel from Microsoft for coming to tell us all about R3 for SCCM! The world is still waiting to hear about all the cool things coming in R3, but our user group got to hear it now.

In the September meeting, we elected officers for a one year term. Neither Joey nor Manoj wanted to run again. Thanks to both for a great year with plenty of speakers, guests, and swag. And thanks to both for staying late to clean up after every meeting.


Jarvis Davis was elected president for the year and Tim Zabilla was elected VP. If you can help them in any way, let them know. I still plan to maintain the web site and we can assume #2 will stay on as sergeant at arms.

 

Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server

Wednesday, 13 May 2009 09:08 Brian Mason
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As a follow up to last month's session on fixing the offset for boxes with SQL, this is a nice read with real world examples of the benefits

Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server

Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 July 2010 16:34
 
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MS CM Support Team

The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog
  • Opalis Integration Server Log Purge times out or returns an exception

    KBSymptoms

    When using the Opalis Integration Server "Log Purge" functionality either scheduled or directly from the Opalis Integration Server Client via the "Purge Now..." button, the purge operation either times out and does not complete or returns an exception.

    Cause

    The Log Purge functionality has a hard coded timeout value to complete the execution of the SQL queries that are being called.  If this timeout period expires, then the log purging operation does not complete successfully.

    Resolution

    Log Purge functionality has three options:

    1. Keep last x number of records
    2. Keep last y number of days.
    3. If records are older than y number of days, keep last x number of records.

    These three options dictate how the stored procedure “sp_CustomLogCleanup” is called.  To call the stored procedure in a manner that mimics the Log Purge functionality (but without the hardcoded timeout) you can execute one of the following three scripts in SQL Management Studio where @XEntries is the number of entries to keep and @YDays is the number of days to either keep entries or the number of days to determine when entries should be processed:

    Option #1

    DECLARE @Completed bit
    SET @Completed = 0
    WHILE @Completed = 0 EXEC sp_CustomLogCleanup @Completed OUTPUT, @FilterType=1,@XEntries=1000

    Option #2

    DECLARE @Completed bit
    SET @Completed = 0
    WHILE @Completed = 0 EXEC sp_CustomLogCleanup @Completed OUTPUT, @FilterType=2,@YDays=7

    Option #3

    DECLARE @Completed bit
    SET @Completed = 0
    WHILE @Completed = 0 EXEC sp_CustomLogCleanup @Completed OUTPUT, @FilterType=3,@XEntries=1000,@YDays=7

    For more information and all the details of this issue see the following new Knowledge Base article:

    KB2290555 - Opalis Integration Server Log Purge times out or returns an exception

    J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

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  • Microsoft User Research Needs IT Professionals with SMS 2003 or ConfigMgr 2007 Experience

    image This one isn't necessarily support related but if any of you are in the Seattle area here's a really cool opportunity for you. 

    Microsoft User Research is in need of Seattle area IT Professionals of larger organizations of at least 500 PC’s and 16 servers for a research study.

    This study will run Thursday, July 22 through Tuesday, July 27, and will be two hours long on the Microsoft campus in Redmond. For those who participate, we can offer you a choice of Microsoft technical hardware or software in appreciation for your time.

    If interested, please respond to uccoord@microsoft.com with the subject of “SMS/SCCM” and the following information:

    1.) Name/Phone Number

    2.) Job Title/Company

    3.) How many PC’s are in your company?

    4.) How many servers are in your company?

    5.) Do you use SMS 2003 or System Center Configuration Manager 2007 at least weekly?

    If you’d like to sign up for future Microsoft User Research studies (especially if outside the Puget Sound area) please visit http://www.microsoft.com/usability/itpro.htm

    J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

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MS CM Team Blog

System Center Configuration Manager Team Blog
The official blog of the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Product Group
  • Announcement: Updates to “How to Configure ISA SSL Bridging for System Center Configuration Manager Internet-Based Client Management”

    [Today's post is contributed by Carol Bailey]

    The ISA documentation How to Configure ISA SSL Bridging for System Center Configuration Manager Internet-Based Client Management has been updated with the following information:

    • The certificate requirements for clients that are members of the forest can use a certificate with a DNS SAN value, for example: DNS=computer1@contoso.com.  This means that you can deploy these certificates by using the standard Workstation Authentication certificate template and autoenrollment, which greatly simplifies client certificate deployment.  Previously, only a UPN SAN value was supported, which could not be deployed by using autoenrollment. Note that workstations that are not joined to the forest still require manual deployment and the UPN SAN value in their certificate.
    • Security references are added that explain the differences between SAN attributes and SAN extensions, and security best practices for a production environment: How to Request a Certificate With a Custom Subject Alternative Name.
    • Instructions are added for configuring ISA Server for the Internet-based software update point.  Separate instructions are required because WSUS does not support client certificates.
    • Instructions are added for configuring the HTTP methods allowed for the Internet-based management point and distribution point, to help increase security. 

    Note:  HTTP methods for the Internet-based software update point are not included because the HTTP verbs used by WSUS are not documented for the latest WSUS versions.  However, previous versions document these as GET, HEAD, and POST and our preliminary testing confirms that these verbs are still used.  If you want to increase security for the Internet-based software update point by restricting the HTTP verbs that are allowed, test this configuration yourself by using the instructions "To Modify the Web Publishing Rule to Enable the required HTTP Methods" and for the HTTP methods, substitute the following HTTP verbs: GET, HEAD and POST.

    If you need to manually request certificates with a version of a Certification Authority (CA) that does not support Web enrollment for the computer store, see How to Request a Certificate With a Custom Subject Alternative Name for alternative certificate request methods.

    This updated documentation has been published with the Community Content footer, so that you can share additional information about this scenario configuration with other customers. 

    Our thanks to Jim Harrison (Program Manager for Forefront TMG), Jason Jones (Forefront MVP), and Rachel Aldam (Technical Writer, Identify and Security Division) for their help in updating this documentation for our customers.

     

    - Carol Bailey

    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

     

  • Announcement: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for July 2010

    [Today's post is from the Configuration Manager Writing Team] 

    The Configuration Manager documentation library (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680651.aspx) has been updated on the Web and the latest content on the Web has Updated: July 1, 2010 at the top of the topic.

    This month's revisions incorporate customer feedback to include instructions that are specific to Windows Server 2008 R2 in How to Configure Windows Server 2008 for Site Systems and How to Configure Network Load Balancing for Configuration Manager Site Systems.

    We've also updated several of the supported configurations topics to include the following:

    • Added SQL Server 2008 R2 support for Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 and Configuration Manager 2007 SP2.
    • Added Application Virtualization 4.5 Service Pack 2 support for Configuration Manager 2007 R2 when you use Configuration Manager 2007 SP2.
    • Added Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 as a supported virtualization environment.
    • Added Windows Embedded Standard 7 as a supported client operating system with Configuration Manager 2007 SP2.
    • Clarified that Fast User Switching is not supported in Configuration Manager.
    • Added software update points and their supported server operating system platforms to the supported configuration documents for Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 and Configuration Manager 2007 SP2.

    Additionally, the Application Compatibility Toolkit Connector in Configuration Manager is updated to reflect the changes implemented to support operating systems other than Vista.  These changes were made to Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 and require Application Compatibility Toolkit Connector 2.  The toolkit now supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

    With the help of our publishing partners, we've been able to correct a publishing problem that some customers reported to us about links not working in some topics and the "Note" icons not displaying correctly.  If you find other instances like this, let us know so that we can republish the topic and correct the problem.   

    Although we can't promise to make the docs perfect for everybody, we are committed to continual improvement.  So, keep that feedback coming, and feel free to contact us about anything related to the documentation by using our usual address of SMSDocs@Microsoft.com. 

      

    What's New in the Configuration Manager Documentation Library for July 2010

    The following information lists the topics that contain significant changes since the June 2010 update.

    Configuration Manager 2007 General Supported Configurations  
    Configuration Manager 2007 Supported Configurations
    Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 Supported Configurations 
    Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 Supported Configurations
    Configuration Manager 2007 R2 Supported Configurations   

    - Updated with the latest support statements and clarifications.

     How to Configure Windows Server 2008 for Site Systems

    - Updated to include information specific to Windows Server 2008 R2 and reformatted for easier reading.

    How to Configure Network Load Balancing for Configuration Manager Site Systems

    - Updated to include information specific to Windows Server 2008 R2 and reformatted for easier reading.

    Decide If You Should Extend the Active Directory Schema

    - Updated with the clarification that you do not need to extend the schema again for Configuration Manager if you upgrade the operating system on domain controllers or raise the functional level of the domain or forest.

    Known Limitations in Configuration Manager Support for Windows Embedded

    - Updated to clarify that operating system deployment for Windows Embedded is supported for stand-alone media only and that task sequences are supported for actions other than operating system deployment.

    Setup Windows and ConfigMgr

    - This task sequence image step documentation is updated to correct the explanation about when the alternate graphical identification and authentication (GINA) library is applied during the setup of deployed operating systems for computers running Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

     

    -- The Configuration Manager Writing Team

    This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.