Minnesota System Center User Group

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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
  • 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.