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Month: April 2016

Using PowerShell to Help Clear a ConfigMgr Inbox Backlog

Using PowerShell to Help Clear a ConfigMgr Inbox Backlog

(Originally posted 11/10/2015. Reposting for reference)   While working with a client recently, I noticed that the ConfigMgr console was not showing up-to-date information for things like Endpoint Protection status and several other timely sets of data.  Having been through the fun that is Inbox backlogs before, I went ahead and checked to see if there were any file backlogs. I certainly wasn’t about to browse through all of the inbox folders to look for large numbers of files…not when…

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Cleaning Out Previous Windows ICD Projects

Cleaning Out Previous Windows ICD Projects

(Originally posted 7/29/2015. Reposting for reference)   With the public release of Windows 10 today came the release of the updated Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit for Windows 10.  With all the bugs in the preview releases of the Win10ADK, I was anxious to get the new one downloaded and installed.  After uninstalling the previous version and installing the new one, I launched the Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD) tool…and was presented with all of the previous projects I…

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ConfigMgr 2012 – Retrieving Objects in a Folder with PowerShell

ConfigMgr 2012 – Retrieving Objects in a Folder with PowerShell

(Originall posted 3/21/2014. Reposting for reference)   The introduction of folders in the ConfigMgr 2012 console made for a great way to organize content within the ConfigMgr site.  To see what objects might be under any given folder in the console is simple…but what if you want to do it programmatically with PowerShell? Folders in ConfigMgr can be accessed through the WMI namespace for the site (Root\SMS\Site_XXX) in two classes: SMS_ObjectContainerNode – Contains the list of all folder objects in…

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ConfigMgr 2012 R2 – Notification Server Install Errors

ConfigMgr 2012 R2 – Notification Server Install Errors

(Originally posted 3/12/2014. Reposting for reference)   Issue: Upon installing a new ConfigMgr 2012 R2 site, the component status for the SMS_NOTIFICATION_SERVER component shows the following error: Site Component Manager failed to install this component, because the Microsoft Installer File for this component (bgbisapi.msi) could not install. Refer to the BgbSetup.log, the bgbisapimsi.log, as well as the ConfigMgr Documentation and the Microsoft Knowledge Base for further information. Upon examining the BgbSetup.log file, the following errors are seen:  CTool::RegisterComPlusService: Failed to…

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ConfigMgr 2012 – Image Revisioning (Deploying and Archiving)

ConfigMgr 2012 – Image Revisioning (Deploying and Archiving)

(Originally posted 11/6/2014. Reposting for reference)   This series of articles will provide a method of tracking end-to-end OSD revisioning using a few simple Task Sequence tasks and an optional PowerShell script.  In this first article, looked at why the out-of-box forensic information is useful but insufficient, and we implement a method for version control in the core image.  Now that we have a method of tagging our core image, how do we capture changes around the deployment of that…

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ConfigMgr 2012 – Image Revisioning (Getting Started)

ConfigMgr 2012 – Image Revisioning (Getting Started)

(Originally posted 11/6/2014. Reposting for reference) This topic has come up several times on the myITforum email lists, so this seems like a good opportunity to provide an example of how to do image version control in ConfigMgr.  There are numerous different ways this can be done, so this is just an outline that should be modified or improved upon to fit the particular implementation.  Ultimately, do what works best for your situation. This two-part series of articles will provide…

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ConfigMgr and Windows To Go – Lessons Learned

ConfigMgr and Windows To Go – Lessons Learned

(Originally posted 3/4/2014. Reposted for reference)   For Microsoft customers with Enterprise Agreements, the Windows To Go option is becoming an increasingly useful approach to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) paradigm.  All you need is a certified USB stick and a host machine that meets the Win7/8 specs and you can take your workspace virtually anywhere. It’s reasonable to assume that most IT organizations will want at least some measure of control over and customization of the Windows 8.x…

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ConfigMgr 2012 – SCEP and Random Folders

ConfigMgr 2012 – SCEP and Random Folders

(Originally posted 12/19/2013. Reposting for reference) Several weeks back some strange directories began showing up on the root of an external hard drive attached to a workstation.  The directory names were a random string of hex characters (ex – f70c1dfbdd743f2730354f01951da804) and they seemed to increase by a few each day. Attempting to navigate to (or delete) one of the folders prompts for admin approval, and the only content is an amd64 folder which is empty.  These are exactly the types of folders created…

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ConfigMgr 2012 – Query for Notification Settings

ConfigMgr 2012 – Query for Notification Settings

(Originally posted 12/16/2013. Reposting for reference) A situation developed recently where a client help desk was being hammered with calls during a rollout from users who were seeing the system tray popup notifications telling them that a new application was available from ConfigMgr.  As this behavior was not expected (end user notifications being considered very disruptive), the question became which applications were generating this prompt.  Against calls to disable ALL notifications for new software in the Client Settings policy, we instead…

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ConfigMgr 2012 – Cache Management Surprise

ConfigMgr 2012 – Cache Management Surprise

(Originally posted 11/27/2013. Reposting for reference) With disk space being relatively inexpensive these days, limiting the local ConfigMgr cache to 5GB by default seems almost stingy. However, since very few circumstances require one to set content to persist in the local cache, the assumption is that ConfigMgr will do its usual good work in purging out older content to make room for new should the cache bump up against that limit.  As it turns out though, the client behavior can…

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