Lab Geek

ConfigMgr 2012 – Retrieving Objects in a Folder with PowerShell

April 9, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 R2 – Notification Server Install Errors

April 9, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 – Image Revisioning (Deploying and Archiving)

April 9, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 1 comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 – Image Revisioning (Getting Started)

April 9, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 1 comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr and Windows To Go – Lessons Learned

April 9, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 – SCEP and Random Folders

April 8, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 – Query for Notification Settings

April 8, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 – Cache Management Surprise

April 8, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(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…

Read More Read More

ConfigMgr 2012 Migration – Missing Shared Distribution Points

April 8, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(Originally posted 10/1/2013. Reposting for reference) Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager includes built-in migration tools, and one of the key features of the migration tools is the ability to use Shared Distribution Points. This allows for a smoother transition between environments by allowing the new ConfigMgr 2012 site to use existing Distribution Points in the old site (ConfigMgr 2012 or SCCM 2007) as content locations while clients in the old site continue to function normally. Moreover, once the clients…

Read More Read More

Restoring the SMSDP Variable in ConfigMgr 2012

April 8, 2016 Phil Schwan Comments 0 Comment

(Originally posted 10/15/2013. Reposted for reference) A recent ConfigMgr migration project turned up an environment variable that has been around since the SMS days but has recently fallen out of favor. That variable is SMSDP, which is intended to provide reference to the Distribution Point providing content for a Task Sequence execution. Following the aforementioned migration, the functions that had been leveraging this variable in the Task Sequence (in this case, it was being used to determine which CustomSettings.ini file…

Read More Read More