Minnesota System Center User Group

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PowerShell User Group!

Friday, 27 August 2010 15:46 Brian Mason
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Tim Benjamin just asked me to post this:

Tim,

During the System Center User group meeting the other night, I mentioned there was going to be a PowerShell user group starting up in October. Nick Weber of Tenant has been working with me to get a PowerShell user group started here in the twin cities. First meeting is scheduled for October 12. Let your customers know. It will be here in the Microsoft office, and you are invited as well. Go to http://powershellgroup.org/twin-cities to register.


tgc

Last Updated on Friday, 27 August 2010 15:49
 

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!

Sign up to be eligible for swag: http://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=150152

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

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 August 2010 21:28
 

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.

 
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MS CM Support Team

The Configuration Manager Support Team Blog
  • How to add a Known/Unknown Computer to a specified collection during OS Deployment in ConfigMgr 2007

    InfoButtonJust a quick heads up that our very own System Center Configuration Manager Support Engineer Vinay Pamnani recently published a great post about how to add a known/unknown computer to a specified collection during OS Deployment.  If you haven't seen you'll probably want to check it out:

    Have you ever wondered why a ConfigMgr client takes a long time to run the advertised programs after you deploy this client using ConfigMgr OSD? Well, this is because as soon as the machine is imaged, it gets added to the ‘All Systems’ collection and gets the advertisements/policies that are targeted to the All Systems collection. But what if your advertisements are not targeted to the default All Systems collection, and instead are targeted to a custom query based collection? In that case, the newly imaged machine doesn’t get added to the custom collection until it sends the inventory AND the collection updates based on its schedule and finds the machines that fulfill the query condition to add the machine(s) to the collection, and in turn triggering the creation of policies for these clients. Until this happens, there are no Advertisements for this newly imaged client to run(unless of course, they were targeted to the All Systems collection). This is why you may notice a delay of up to 24 hours or more until you see the newly imaged clients processing all the Advertisements that you expect them to execute.

    To read more and see the solution visit the following:

    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vinpa/archive/2010/09/01/how-to-add-a-known-unknown-computer-to-a-specified-collection-during-os-deployment.aspx

    J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

    The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
    The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/
    The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/
    The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
    The OpsMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/
    The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/
    The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/
    The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
    The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/
    The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis

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  • Solution: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 backups fail with Win32 Error = 145

    KBMicrosoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 backups may fail if other VSS-aware backup software is scheduled to run concurrently.  In this scenario, the Smsbkup.log will show entries similar to the following:

    Deleting E:\SMSbackup\SiteServer\SMSServer\inboxes\auth\statesys.box\incoming, FAILED, Win32 Error = 145
    Deleting E:\SMSBackup\SiteServer\SMSServer\inboxes\auth\ddm.box, FAILED, Win32 Error = 145
    Deleting E:\SCCMBackup\Backup, FAILED, Win32 Error = 145
    Failed to delete the contents of the backup folder. Error Code = 0x0 SMS_SITE_BACKUP
    Error: Deleting the existing files in the backup location failed... SMS_SITE_BACKUP
    SMS site backup failed. Please see previous errors. SMS_SITE_BACKUP
    SMS site backup service is stopping. SMS_SITE_BACKUP

    These errors can occur if the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provider is in use by another process.  Configuration Manager Backup expects to have exclusive access to these resources when performing a backup.

    To prevent these errors, configure Configuration Manager Backup to start at a time outside the window for other backup jobs on the server.  The schedule for this can be found in the Configuration Manager Console under Site Management -> Site Code -> Site Settings -> Site Maintenance -> Tasks -> Backup ConfigMgr Site Server.

    For all the details and the latest version of this document please see the following new Knowledge Base article:

    KB2387913 - System Center Configuration Manager 2007 backups fail with Win32 Error = 145

    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: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for August 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: August 1, 2010 at the top of the topic.

    This month, we've been focusing on the Configuration Manager 2007 R3 content and the only updates to the existing documentation set is to clarify a support statement around branch distribution points.  In May, we were contacted by a customer who noticed the following support statement in the status message ID 10035:  "...branch distribution points do not support advertisements that are configured to run directly from a distribution point" and found the same statement in the software distribution troubleshooting documentation but not in any of the planning documentation, or the topic About Standard and Branch Distribution Points. We updated the documentation accordingly for the May update, and included this revision in the blog monthly announcement.

    A sharp-eyed customer on the Documentation forum commented that he had never seen this configuration causing any problems and asked us to verify it.  The result of the investigation was that the product group decided to overturn their original decision and support the option Run program from distribution point for branch distribution points, but failed to update the status message.

    It's unlikely that the status message text will be changed at this point, but we could update the documentation.  So this month we removed the additional text we added in May (topics About Standard and Branch Distribution Points and Choose Between a Standard and Branch Distribution Point) and removed the troubleshooting entry in Troubleshooting Software Distribution Issues.

    We've also been republishing topics that contain links that don't work and "Note" or "Important" icons that don't display correctly.  Republishing the topic allows us to correct this publishing problem and does not warrant the Updated date (no technical change).  Unfortunately, the problem seems to be very intermittent, which makes it difficult for us to find all the topics that have this problem.  If you come across topics like this, please let us know - and thank you to customers who have helped us to identify these topics so far.

    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. 

     

    -- The Configuration Manager Writing Team

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

     

  • 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.